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Richard Feynman: A Life in Science
by John Gribbin and Mary Gribbin

Yet another book on the life of Richard Feynman, you ask? Yes, this is another biography of Feynman (a Nobel Prize winning physicist) that, like James Gleik's biography, Genius, looks at Feynman's life, with the aim of giving the reader an idea of what makes Feynman different from other physicists and why he was loved by so many people outside his family.

Starting with his childhood, this book shows the early influences on his life; his father (who taught him to look at things with a critical eye and not to accept 'authoritative' answers) and his mother (who showed him how live life through laughter).

The book the goes through Feynman's education, his career as a physicist and his contributions to science. In between, the authors give an overview of what physics was like before, during and after Feynman. Most of the scientific explanations are understandable if you have some knowledge of physics. Of course, the best way to understand it is to go to the sources themselves as given in the book (which includes Feynman's QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, one of the most lucid explanations I've ever read on any theory in physics).

The book points out that Feynman is an unusual physicist. Most usually do their best work by their early thirties yet Feynman was able to make contributions until he was middle-aged in areas like QED, superconductivity and gravitation.

Of course, the book covers the more 'out of the ordinary' aspects of Feynman like his bongo playing, his travels to various parts of the world like Brazil, his marriages, his Nobel Prize and, of course, his role in the investigation of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

The impression I get from this book, apart from the stating of facts from Feynman's works or from personal memories of people who have met him, is of a man who enjoyed his work, who enjoyed life and who loved to make people around him as happy as possible. Yet, he was also a man of high integrity, not willing to accept mistakes by other people, yet willing to reveal his own mistakes so that others can learn and avoid making them in the future.

That is probably the message that this book is trying to say about Feynman: not the fact that he was a genius (he was, of the highest calibre) but that Feynman never let his genius 'get to his head'. He was willing to share his knowledge and insights either personally or via his books (like the famous Feynman Lectures on Physics so that generations of people can be educated and learn from him.

If you're interested in a general overview of Fenyman's life with some explanation of physics, this is a good book to read. It covers similar ground to Gleik's book but that shouldn't stop from reading this one as you may get new insight into Feynman's life from two different books.

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Richard Feynman: A Life in Science by John Gribbin and Mary Gribbin

Richard Feynman: A Life in Science
by John Gribbin and Mary Gribbin