Product Description

From the author of the national bestseller Chaos comes an outstanding biography of one of the most dazzling and flamboyant scientists of the 20th century that "not only paints a highly attractive portrait of Feynman but also . . . makes for a stimulating adventure in the annals of science" (The New York Times). 16 pages of photos.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #190974 in Books
• Published on: 1993-11-02
• Released on: 1993-11-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

Amazon.com Review
If you've read any of Richard Feynman's wonderful autobiographies you may think that a biography of Feynman would be a waste of your time. Wrong! Gleick's Genius is a masterpiece of scientific biography--and an inspiration to anyone in pursuit of their own fulfillment as a person of genius. Deservedly nominated for a National Book Award, underservedly passed over by the committee in the face of tough competition, and very deservedly a book that you must read.

From Publishers Weekly
It would be hard to tell personal stories about the late Nobelist Feynman (1918-1988) better than the subject himself did in What Do You Care What Other People Think? To his credit, Gleick does not try. Rather, he depicts Feynman's "curious character" in its real context: the science he helped develop during physics' most revolutionary era. Fans of Feynman's own bestseller, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! , " won't be disappointed by his colleagues' recollections of his reckless obsession with doing science (a grad-school dorm neighbor once opened Feynman's door to find him rolling on the floor as he worked on a problem); but the anecdotes punctuate an expanded account of Feynman the visceral working scientist, not Feynman the iconoclast. This biography wants to measure both the particle and the wave of 20th-century genius--Feynman's, Julian Schwinger's, Murray Gell-Mann's, and others'--in the quantum era. Gleick seems to have enjoyed the cooperation of Feynman's family plus that of a good many of his colleagues from the Manhattan Project and the Challenger inquiry (in which Feynman played a scene-stealing role), and he steadily levies just enough of the burden of Feynman's genius on the reader so that the physicist remains, in the end, a person and not an icon of science. A genius could not hope for better. Gleick is the author of Chaos: The Making of A New Science.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
When Nobel laureate Feynman died in 1988, the world lost one of the most creative, idiosyncratic, and important minds of the 20th century. From "Feynman Diagrams" to the Manhattan Project to the Challenger investigation, Feynman left his mark on everything and every life that he touched. Gleick, author of Chaos ( LJ 8/87), does a masterful job of capturing Feynman as both a scientist and as a mind at work: No better primer on Feynman's accomplishments will be written. Gleick is clear without condescension, accurate without being fussy, and thorough without being pedantic. As regards the personal minutiae of Feynman's life, this book is somewhat less comprehensive: Feynman's checkered history of personal relationships, for example, is not treated in the same exhaustive manner as his professional relationships. Feynman's personality, though, comes through in every word of this marvelous book. Although, astonishingly, Gleick never even met Feynman, he has written one of the most touching, affecting, and important works of scientific biography to have been produced in the last 30 years, a fine book that deserves a place in every collection. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/92; see also Feynman's personal narratives coauthored with Ralph Leighton, "Surely You're Jok ing, Mr. Feynman , " LJ 3/15/85, and " What Do You Care What Other People Think? , " LJ 11/15/88, as well as Leighton's Tuva or Bust! Richard Feynman's Last Journey , LJ 3/1/91.--Ed.
- Mark L. Shelton, Athens, Ohio
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

An original mind
Adopting a definition of the word 'genius' as a 'truly original thinker', Gleick shows throughtout this entertaining book - how Feynman meets this definition. From his work on the Manhattan project to his investigation of the Challenger disaster, Feynman continues to approach problems from 'scratch' so to say. Feynman did not believe in reading his peer's papers - he believed in looking at the abstract and trying to figure out the contents on his own! He believed in solving every KNOWN problem first - before dealing with unknown tough problems. There are several insights into his 'problem-solving' approach - which may have seemed madness to some - but Gleick goes on to show how there was method to his madness - and how his peers were more than aware of his brilliance.
There are several great anecdotes - from Feynman's time at Princeton, Caltech, Cornell and Los Alamos.

Memorable, extremely well written.
Genius by James Gleick is a worthwhile read even if you don't have a clue who Richard Feynman was. This is one of those wonderful biographies that leaves you feeling you actually know the man and not just the image concocted by historians and public relations spin doctors.
Gleick does a really great job of showing Feynman growing up in pre world war II America and the beginning has an almost Tom Sawyer-like feel. Neither geek nor wannabe, not overly impressed by himself or anyone else, Feynman moves though childhood to become not only a brilliant mathematician, but a scientist who liked to play the bongo drums and also helped invent the Atomic bomb.
The tale becomes tragically beautiful as the almost gothic love story of his first marriage unfolds and twists through his work at Los Alamos and the first atomic bomb. Week after week a young Feynman hitchhikes alone across the country to visit his wife in the sanitarium and week after week the bomb comes closer to becoming a reality.
The story continues winding through the brilliant maze of Feynman's career with detail and clarity. Gleick's story is more about the man than his work so don't expect to understand Feynman diagrams when you're finished reading it, but you will be entertained.

The cult of personality->Genius?
For what is Feynman most famous:
1) his diagrams
2) his quantum electrodynamics renormalization
3) his tacyons
4) his path integrals
The only reason I give this book 3 stars is that it is a well researched
biography that deals with his life, times and personality.
as far as telling about the physics or any of the equations involved,
this is inadequate. I couldn't even find a mention of tacyons.
In this I see a certain contempt for the American
in the author. Since he is a famous and important
scientific author that is truly a disappointment.
There are 500 pages of Feynman's life with more about
his three wives and his behavior in lectures than
about why he is really important to the physics of his time?
There may be still some of my resentment in his Red books
being over the head of those people taking
beginning physics in 1964 at UCLA.
They were closer to upper division physics texts
than lower division, but because he was the wunderkind
of California physics, we got them.
For me they weren't bad as, just very very wordy/long
and hard to read,
but for many they were the kiss of death to their
science hopes. So calling Richard Feynman a genius may be
O. K. with some, but for me he was just an overrated fellow
who couldn't express himself very well.
This book actually made me want to find out more about Julian Schwinger!