“surely You're Joking Mr.Feynman...”
By: Wendy • Essay • 1,208 Words • December 30, 2009 • 1,564 Views
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It is hard not to enjoy this author. Richard Feynman is an extremely curious character with a lot of time on his hands. He obviously loved to explore the science world as an art. He won the Nobel Prize in 1965 for physics and was one of the greatest physicists of all time. Within the few chapters and pages that I have read, Richard Feynman was definitely a man with a huge sense of adventure and a very high intelligence.
In the first chapter that I read (Testing Bloodhounds), I thought that it was very interesting. I never knew that we, as humans, could smell and observe things just like dogs. To my understanding we can tell just about anything from smelling and looking at something that has just been touched. I thought it was cool how Feynman was trying out all of the experiences with his wife who was in the hospital. That must have been fun! I actually tried the Coke bottle experiment with my roommate. It was very neat, however, I felt like a huge dork. My roommate has a different respect for me now, I am a freak! The book experiment was also interesting. I think that especially if the books were old, that you could definitely tell what book was opened because the smell of books when they are old, are just like mold growing on bread, it stinks. So obviously he could tell which book was opened. In the experiment where he was at Caltech and was showing his friends almost the same book experiment, the looks on their faces were probably the same as my roommate’s face was. I guess maybe they all were nerds back then though. It is funny how we as humans do not think of these kind of things when we are asking each other what can of Coke belongs to whom.
The second chapter that I read was Safecracker meets Safecracker. This chapter was my favorite because it basically told us how to pick a lock. It was cool because he explains everything about picking locks, but I think some thing he said would be a little bit different today because of all of the new kinds of locks that we have. I am not really certain though if I would ever try it. Maybe if I was locked out of my house and did not have anywhere else to go. Feynman had a good excuse for picking locks though. Going through filing cabinets may not have been legal, but Feynman did it. Today, if we were to pick a lock in a Dr.’s office, we would definitely get in trouble, it seemed like Feynman hardly ever got into trouble. He was probably so well respected that no one really cared if he broke into cabinets or houses for that matter.
The Third chapter that I read was, Certainly Mr. Big! It was a chapter of excitement to say the least! I think that Feynman was trying to figure out all of the games that people played with money and life. This chapter was not really my favorite. It had a lot of information and it was just weird. The way that he explained the situation with the high-roller from Texas was kind of confusing and boring. Oh well, I guess you cannot always enjoy every single chapter in every single book that you read. The one thing that I did find out in this chapter, is that Richard Feynman likes women. That along with learning not to be a gentleman is what I learned most. I thought it was different to hear that he did not want to be a gentleman, but then when he explained it further with the Texas high-roller I got what he was saying. It was definitely a packed chapter with lots of information in it.
The fourth chapter I read was, Is electricity Fire? I liked how he brought God into science in this chapter. It is often hard to relate God to anything in science, but he tried. I like when God is used to prove something rather than just saying that it was evolved from