# Read the first page of "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" by Richard P. Feynman Read the opening of "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" by Richard P. Feynman free, no signup. A Nobel physicist's adventures in curiosity, mischief, music, and discovery. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/surely-youre-joking-mr-feynman-richard-p-feynman - Genre: Science memoir - Year: 1984 - ISBN: 9781448181476 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781448181476&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781448181476 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781448181476 ## The opening @@CHAP@@ Introduction I REMEMBER the exact moment I fell for Richard Feynman. I was on vacation in Santa Barbara with a friend. Learning is one of my favorite ways to relax, so we’d gone to the local university library and checked out a bunch of film reels (this was the mid-1980s), including Feynman’s famous Cornell lectures. During the day, we’d go to the beach. At night, we’d turn on the projector and watch Feynman. I was mesmerized. I’ve always been a science geek, but he made physics fun and accessible in a way I’d never seen before. He explained complex subjects like the law of gravitation using simple language that everyone understands, and he kept his students engaged with compelling stories. His lectures made such an impression that I eventually worked with Microsoft to get them posted online so everyone could enjoy them for free. But Feynman was more than just an incredible scientist and amazing teacher. He was one of the most interesting characters of his era. It’s easy to see why when you watch Cornell’s provost introduce him at the beginning of his first lecture. The provost quickly dispenses with the usual biographical information and instead talks about what made Feynman special: his high regard among his colleagues, his skill at safe-cracking, and his talent on the bongo drums. When Feynman finally gets up to speak, he cracks a joke about how odd it is that whenever he’s invited to perform on the bongos, “the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics.” That comment is Feynman in a nutshell. His sense of humor and knack for generating myths about himself are huge reasons why “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” remains a classic more than three decades after it was first published. The stories in this book are so charming that you’ll want to share them with friends and family. My favorite is about his first visit to Oak Ridge National Laboratory while he was working on the Manhattan Project. A group of military guys asked him to identify weak spots from a blueprint of the lab, but Feynman didn’t know how to read blueprints. He pointed at a box with an X in it and asked what would happen if a valve gets stuck, hoping that someone would correct him and reveal what the symbol really meant. Feynman was as lucky as he was brilliant, because not only did that symbol represent a valve but it was also a problem area that needed fixing. His colleagues marveled at his genius and asked how he did it. His answer was, as always, honest and straight to the point: “You try to find out whether it’s a valve or not.” The nuclear physicist Hans Bethe once described Dr. Feynman as a “magician.” He’s right. It takes a certain amount of magic to make science as fun, compelling, and simple as Feynman did. Whether this is your first or fifth time reading “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Bill Gates @@CHAP@@ Vitals SOME FACTS about my timing: I was born in 1918 in a small town called Far Rockaway, right on the outskirts of New York, near the sea. I lived there until 1935, when I was seventeen. I went to MIT for four years, and then I went to Princeton, in about 1939. During the time I was at Princeton I started to work on the Manhattan Project, and I ultimately went to Los Alamos in April 1943, until something like October or November 1946, when I went to Cornell. I got married to Arlene in 1941, and she died of tuberculosis while I was at Los Alamos, in 1946. I was at Cornell until about 1951. I visited Brazil in the summer of 1949 and spent half a year there in 1951, and then went to Caltech, where I’ve been ever since. ## Books with a similar feel - [The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer & Anna Hymas](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-boy-who-harnessed-the-wind-william-kamkwamba-bryan-mealer-and-anna-hymas.md) - [Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel](https://uncovered.ink/read/prozac-nation-elizabeth-wurtzel.md) - [The Best American Travel Writing 2012 by Jason Wilson & William T. Vollmann](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-best-american-travel-writing-2012-jason-wilson-and-william-t-vollmann.md) - [Names for the Sea by Sarah Moss](https://uncovered.ink/read/names-for-the-sea-sarah-moss.md) - [The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-disappearing-spoon-sam-kean.md) - [All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson](https://uncovered.ink/read/all-boys-arent-blue-george-m-johnson.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.