Skip to main content

Richard Feynman: A Life in Science - John and Mary Gribbin ****

Feynman is a personal hero of mine and I have made it something of a mission in life to consume all the books, audiobooks, videos, podcasts and whatever other media available that has something to do with Feynman. To me, he is endlessly fascinating. With that said, it is easy to be disappointed by many books that have been written about him. There is a tendency to focus on his wild tales without adding any context to them, while certainly not telling them better than the man does himself. There are also many texts that try to capture the man and bypass, to a large extent, his enormous scientific output and why it was important. Some of this is due to Feynman himself who spread so many amusing tales about his adventures, but it is a disservice to those who are particularly interested in physics, and in science in general. This is because Feynman had incredibly important things to say about the nature of science and its limitations, and why it is a beautiful and wondrous thing because of its nature and its limitations. He also demonstrated through his work and, more importantly, how he approached his work, how science should be conducted and what it is to really know something. 

The two books that I have read that have been the best at trying to capture as much of the man as possible, both his irreverent personal side and his scientific achievements, are James Gleick’s excellent biography Genius and Lawrence Krauss’s Quantum Man. The former capturing Feynman’s interesting life and the latter exposing his gigantic contributions to physics and science at large. 

This book written by the Gribbins, however, is the best at combining both elements of the personal and the scientific. John Gribbin is one of the best science writers around and demonstrates, yet again, his splendid grasp of the importance of the science and ability to describe it for the lay reader. The book flows spectacularly well, alternating by chapter between Feynman’s personal life and more in-depth analysis of his scientific exploits. It is stated, and obvious, that Gribbin is an admirer of Feynman, but he treats his subject with as much objectivity as one can expect. Gribbin convincingly argues that had Feynman been faster to publish several of his projects it is conceivable that he could have won at least one more Nobel Prize and possibly more than that for his contributions to modern physics. 

Beyond winning the prize for quantum electrodynamics (QED), Feynman made enormous contributions to the understanding of superfluidity, weak interaction, quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and a quantum theory of gravity. Interestingly, though the book was published in 1998, the chapter on Feynman’s long attempt to develop a quantum theory of gravity chimes well with the recent discoveries by the LIGO project. Had Feynman been in better health and lived longer, it is conceivable that he would have made a major breakthrough in this area as well. 

Another aspect of the book that is excellent is the inclusion of quotes from Feynman’s many televised appearances and recordings to illustrate or make a point. The book feels distinctly modern in that it relies on a wide array of source material to provide a more complete picture of the man and his science.

Though it is out of print, it is relatively easy to find good used copies through online booksellers. I would urge anyone who has a deep, or even passive, interest in Feynman to read this book, as it really is a great biography of one of the most interesting and important figures in science of the last century.
Paperback:  

Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Ian Bald
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Six Maths Essentials - Terence Tao *****

This is a book in the 'compact collection of science/maths essays' category beloved of publishers because they can charge hardback prices for fewer than 80 pages of text - but don't let that put you off, because it's excellent. Terence Tao introduces six areas of mathematics: numbers, algebra, geometry, probability, analysis and dynamics. Each of these is descriptive rather than practical (there are only a couple of school-level equations in sight), done in a way that gets to the heart of 'what's the point of this subject' with precision and a good level of storytelling. It's a shame in a way that analysis and dynamics form the final third of the book (apart from a short epilogue), because they don't work as well as the other sections. For the first four, practically everyone will have a vague idea of what they are and what they do - but Tao is then able to open our eyes to their wonders and power. Because Tao has to stay away from any detail of what...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Canticle for Leibowitz (SF) - Walter Miller ****

There are a few SF titles that have cut through to be regarded modernish classics in the more general literature sense. One example would be Flowers for Algernon (which I read in English class at school). Another, surely, is the 1959  A Canticle for Leibowicz . There are parallels with Pavane , in presenting a 'modern day' setting with medieval living standards where the Catholic Church remains a major power, yet technology is gradually breaking through. But this is not an alternative history: it's a post-apocalyptic future where civilisation was destroyed by nuclear war, with tiny embers of knowledge kept alive by a monastery dedicated to a twentieth century electrical engineer turned priest called Leibowitz. Divided into three sections, each taking place six centuries apart, we first get a totally medieval view of the discovery of circuitry on a blueprint and more from pre-apocalyptic times. Then we see the gradual re-emergence of electrical technology in the abbey. And ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Clearing the Air - Hannah Ritchie *****

As deputy editor of Our World in Data and senior researcher in the Programme for Global Development at the University of Oxford, Hannah Ritchie is ideally placed to get a balanced view of the state of the climate, what we're doing to and how we can try to fix it. And, perhaps surprisingly after reading the doom-laden The Fate of the World by Bill McGuire, it's a reasonably positive read. Ritchie does not set out to sugar coat things, and is no kind of climate change denier. But in answering 50 key questions about our climate and its future she is often able to provide a nuanced response. She assures us that it really isn't too late to take action and that all contributions are helpful (even if, admittedly, we need the big players to do more). So, for instance, in answering 'My country only emits 1% of the world's emissions; surely it's too small to make a difference', she points out that 36% of emissions come from countries whose emissions are 'too smal...
Post a Comment
Read more