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Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character)?
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I am reading his book "Surely You're Joking.." am loving it, until out of nowhere there is a chapter will him calling girls 'bitches' just because they milk guys for drinks. WTF! Kinda pointless chapter and arrogant.
I stumbled across Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and he's been one of my heros ever since.
- It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.-Richard P. Feynman
Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman!
Richard Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, thrived on outrageous adventures. Here he recounts in his inimitable voice his experience trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and Bohr and ideas on gambling with Nick the Greek; cracking the uncrackable safes guarding the most deeply held nuclear secrets; accompanying a ballet on his bongo drums; painting a naked female toreador. In short, here is Feynman's life in all its eccentric―a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, and raging chutzpah.
Just started Surely You're Joking Mr.Feynman. Feynman has been an inspiration.
Feynman wrote about his lucid dreaming experience, and he starts the same as lucidity76. You can read it in the book Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!.
I also had some lucid dreams, but all of them involved first dreaming, then realizing that I was dreaming and taking advantage of it. Unfortunately, they were very short. I didn't have many, and I haven't practiced, but I was really impressed with the fact that I can control parts of it. The body buzz was amazing! I should start practicing again!
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character - Richard P. Feynman
No book has made me want to get more out of life and to experience as much as possible.
I'm not sure what you mean something "a programmer would enjoy," but reading <em>Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman</em> was very entertaining. It's a quasi-autobiography of skirt-chasin', safe-crackin', Nobel-Prize-winnin' Richard Feynman.
One that has physics in it, but really made me love the author is Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman”
In the book Surely You're Joking he explains how to pick up Las Vegas show girls.
Well, I'm not super well-versed in physics tbh but I use to really want to be a physcisits so I know a little stuff here and there.
I've read:
https://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Character/dp/0393316041
Also, Feynman is related to philosophy because quantum physics makes many epistemological and metaphysical claims and Feyman made many advances in the quantum physics field. Look up some interviews online, his thought process is really cooled and really makes you wonder about the natural world and how its works/structured
Well if you haven't read the Feynman memoirs (book 1, book 2), they are a hoot. I thought Uncle Tungsten was good (though Oliver Sacks always is). If you are interested in flight, Langewiesche is fantastic, for example this one.
I recommend his book, it's a great read:
http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Character/dp/0393316041
So nobody else has read Surely You're Joking, My Feynman?
I weep for the future.
This might be a weird one, but it was the one that started me on the journey.
You should read Richard Feynman's Book, he has whole chapter devoted to experimenting with ants. http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Character/dp/0393316041
Yup. Check out his book, you won't regret it.
I've always wanted to try one of those tanks, ever since I read about Richard Feynman's hallucination experiments in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" Great book, by the way—Highly recommend reading it.
>favorite physicist is tough.
Sorry, but I'm a fan. NDT and brian greene are always cracking good reads for us amateurs as well.
Not exactly what you're looking for but I promise it's a good read as well. http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Character/dp/0393316041
Discusses Feyman's experiences working on the Manhattan Project.
To add a bit of non-fiction to the list:
he did a lot of crazy shit. He's awesome! I just finished his book, it's a great read: http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Character/dp/0393316041
I believe it's a reference to the book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" (amazon), as he called a woman “worse than a whore” for not exchanging sex for sandwiches.
> “OK,” he says. “The whole principle is this: The guy wants to be a gentleman. He doesn’t want to be thought of as impolite, crude, or especially a cheapskate. As long as the girl knows the guy’s motives so well, it’s easy to steer him in the direction she wants him to go. > > “Therefore,” he continued, “under no circumstances be a gentleman! You must disrespect the girls. Furthermore, the very first rule is, don’t buy a girl anything -- not even a package of cigarettes — until you’ve asked her if she’ll sleep with you, and you’re convinced that she will, and that she’s not lying.” > > “Uh… you mean… you don’t… uh… you just ask them?” > > “OK,” he says, “I know this is your first lesson, and it may be hard for you to be so blunt. So you might buy her one thing — just one little something — before you ask. But on the other hand, it will only make it more difficult.”
Read "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman" by Richard Feynman. You will read it in two days, be throughly entertained, and have a different view of the world by the end of it.
Buy this and read it
I did a double major Electrical Engineering / Physics at the undergrad, and did advanced study in quantum mechanics. Look at the Nova series The Elegant Universe. The book is also very well written and highly recommended. Brian Greene is very good at explaining the flavor of advanced physics.
Honestly, I would learn this level of physics, and be satisfied. You can dive deeper and learn proofs and equations, but that won't really enrich your understanding. At a certain point, most of what you do are looking at is just equations that describe things that are true, because the numbers tell you are, but don't have any macro correlation.
Here is an example: it's neat to know what the impact of something "spinning" one way means in terms of what other elementary particles it can pair up with, but this doesn't help you understand quantum mechanics. Spin has no meaning at these sizes, yet they have angular momentum. Why? Because the numbers tell us it does.
If you do want to dive deeper in to physics, like people have recommended, the Feynman lectures are the go to standard for Physics texts. In fact, "surely you're joking, mr. feynman" is a great biography of an interesting man.
So TL;DR - you can get a good understanding of quantum mechanics at a high level, but diving deeper won't really teach you much more at a fundamental level.
What the hell is up with the insults? I understand what they're saying, I just have a problem with the way they say it. I doubt that anyone outside of Harvard or Yale has thoughts in wordy language, and I highly doubt that people who spend hours on reddit (like you and me) talk like that. Why should we pretty up our language, when we can easily say what we mean? I recommend this book if you want to hear how good a genius sounds without fluffy words. This debate is very subjective, so let's keep it light, and not come to conclusions about each other.
Can't believe this hasn't been said already but <em>Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!</em> is easily my favorite bio/autobio. Really puts a smile on your face.
Edit: more stuff
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'Surely Your Joking Mr. Feynman' has some great stuff on his time at Los Alamos, working on the bomb. All other chapters of the book and his life are also great to hear about.
http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Character/dp/0393316041
> You can't base an entire method of evaluating reality off the emotional attachment you have to idea.
This is a circular argument- you come into this presuming that emotions are 100% physical/computable, so of course you would claim this to be illogical.
> From what we can see, absymal nihilism is the way the world works.
I know that is how it looks. Right at the moment. I believe (yes... sigh) that the situation will look different in 100 years. I have all of history (and its consistently changing paradigm shifts) backing me up here, at least probabilistically :P
> Sure, you don't have to like that (I sure as hell don't like it), but that doesn't take away from its reality.
Yes, yes it can. First of all, until we have proven that in a closed system with 100% known state and a living thing inside, that we can predict with 100% accuracy its next actions (barring, eh, quantum randomness, but I'd rather not get into that here)- you only have a theory. I have been watching for accurate simulations of a single cell, for example, and I still don't think we're quite there. I will (probably with you also) watch these developments with fascination, though.
> (I sure as hell don't like it)
Your liking anything, or not liking anything, has absolutely zero relevance (or reality for that matter) in an abysmally nihilist system. :)
> Hell, we don't really know what dreams are really for!
If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's for the facing of things we don't want to face consciously. Fears, insecurities. (What is the point of "facing fears," if all fears and outcomes are computable?) But yes, that's a guess.
> you are being awfully presumptious for assuming that consciousness is paranormal.
I know, but... Oh, man. I hate that word, it's too loaded. Let's call it "future-normal". Let's just call paranormal "bullshit" for now, for convenience' sake. Actually, let's define "paranormal" as "a thing you believe which causes other people to think you are crazy whether it is true or not." As an example of something which started out "paranormal" and become normal-normal, I will cite meteors. People used to believe that if you claimed a rock fell out of the sky into your backyard, that you were one beer short of a 6-pack (of course, now I can't find the link, but you are are welcome to google this interesting tidbit of history). Then, science eventually caught up, and lo and behold, it turns out that this does in fact happen. Now, today, we have science, and the broad overarching theory behind all science (FOR NOW) is that everything is physical. This may (or may not) change, or it may need to be adjusted. Who knows. Best to keep a slightly open mind. :)
> I have always expoused the point of view that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon of the brain.
It's "espoused," but you've already proven you're smart so that's just a reminder haha. I have read about these theories. Rodney Brooks' robots, the guy from MIT, which learned how to walk on their own? SUPER interesting stuff.
You're basically citing Dennett, who is also of the emergent-property school of thought with regards to consciousness. I've watched a couple of Dennett's lectures and I'm not buying his assertions (at least out-of-hand). Just because he believes it to be so, does not make it so :) Remember Aether? Physics itself (yes... the same exact physics you hold up on a pedestal right now) believed that this existed. It's easy to laugh and go haha, that's just early naïve physics, MODERN physics is MUCH more suave and FAR less insecure... But I just don't know. :) (disclaimer: I do love physics- I read QED by Feynman for fun. Have you ever read Feynman's autobiography? It's fucking amazing.)
> Are you talking about a deterministic world view? ( I guess that's related if you look at consciousness as the result of cause and effect)
Yes. I'm going to group "random action" in with determinism here, although... that complicates things. I'm trying to say that I think there is an element of my choices which is not part of the set of (determinable effects plus purely random effects). I cannot prove this unfortunately. I look forward to trying :)
> people are still able to be held accountable. There can still be ethics with emergent consciousness. What. is. your. point?
I don't see how, honestly. If my choices are computable, they are not really my own. What is the point of inflicting pain/punishment on a being which is not ultimately "in control" of its actions? (fuck, circular reasoning again, i'm presuming control has a nonphysical element.) OK let me attack this from a different angle:
What is the point of inflicting imaginary pain/punishment on a biological automaton which has committed imaginary harms on other biological automatons all of whom are simply being simulated in some giant computable system for the point of... what again?
Do you understand yet? :) We're back to nihilism again, which I simply refuse to believe is the final explanation (yes, I know that's a choice). Abysmal nihilism assumes we are no different from waterfalls (increase in entropy, all energy traveling to zero over time) except far (FAR) more complex. What is the point of all this accidental complexity if the only purpose of the universe is for all things inside it to go from low entropy to high entropy? Actually, it's arguable that a living thing is an example of entropy going from high to low, is it not? :) An adult human is FAR more complex than a fertilized egg...)
> So... I can define this several different ways because spark is unclear. Is this mind-body dualism, as in a soul? Or is this the spark of the mind, in which case WE ARE IN AGREEMENT. Because the spark of the mind is consciousness, created through the interplay of the parts of the brain. The brain is akin to reactive chemicals; enough build up and you get a runaway combustion reaction. Just like consciousness and the complexity of the brain.
All those words are loaded :( I don't know. Commonly it would be called "the soul" I guess. I've talked to people who have watched someone die, the way they describe it is "the light left their eyes". The eyes, to me, are especially peculiar. I've been to a 20 year reunion, where many people gained a LOT of weight, and I was still able to recognize 100% of the people after looking into their eyes for a moment.
> I apologize for any spelling mistakes. My spell checker is stuck on Spanish.
ah crap. scratch that earlier reminder then.
Hey I have to run to a thing today, so I intend to answer the rest when I get a chance, but I just wanted to thank you at this time for the stimulating discussion so far. I know of hardly anyone in real life who enjoys discussing these topics on these levels, or is even adequately equipped to discuss them on these levels. A toast to you and to anyone else who takes these questions seriously. Even if my pleasure is completely imagined.
Surely You're Joking Mr.Feynman
Read it. It changed the way I think, the way I perceive the world, and how I live my life. It gave me comfort knowing it was okay to have quirks, and to be different. This book is a breathe of fresh air in a world where intelligence is slandered, and the smarter people are labeled "nerds" or "geeks." This book is a must read for everybody capable of seeing the importance of science.
You're perfectly free to repair your own laptop.
You have a right to repair your own laptop.
But you haven't got a right to get Apple to help you.
Richard Feynman told the story of the old electrician who was upset at these new microchip things. Because the guy couldn't understand how he was supposed to get in there with this soldering iron to fix a transistor.
You don't. You don't fix it. You can try, but the fact that you can't is your problem.
They're perfectly free to use technology that you cannot repair; that's the way it goes.
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