I thoroughly enjoyed Surely You’re Joking and What Do You Care, I think that is one where he wrote so lovingly about his wife. He was indeed one of a kind. Another book kind of by/about him is Tuva or Bust by his friend Ralph Leighton. This line from Wikipedia says a lot: ”In many ways, the attempt to travel to Tuva is an allegory for Feynman’s perpetual curiosity to discover new things, and how he inspired his friends, admirers, and protégés to do the same.”:

Anecdotes in all those books, about safecracking, drumming, and Tuva, as well as his work, are enouraging for the pursuit of off-the-wall interests and goals. And the way he talks about the Challenger investigation is, well, well-told.

It seems to me there is a collection of his lectures at CalTech, either a book or recordings?

There are many Feynman lectures, interviews, presentations and the like on youtube. Most are very understandable and entertaining to watch.

I didn't bring up the whole Tuva thing because I think without first learning his background and what brought him to that whole matter, it could seem odd and be misunderstood.

Here's a video of one of his friends talking about what he was like. Feynman had a distaste for academic snobbishness and also the use of words people may not understand. In this video, his friend offers a recollection of something Feynman once said (approx quote) "If you can't explain something using simple words, you don't understand it". From this video: "What Feynman hated worse than anything else was intellectual pretense. Phoniness. False sophistication. Jargon."

My recall of enjoying these books, triggered first by a comment I'd made in another thread, leads me to want to reread them. I last read Surely You're Joking over 10 years ago. I checked out an audio copy from the library and will be starting it later today.

A friend's recollections of Feynman:

Thank you for the recommendations, @Elmer J Fudd. I've been in a reading funk for a few weeks. None of the fiction on my to-be-read list seems appealing. A light non-fiction book might be just the ticket.

I recommend you read the autobiographies in order. Surely You're Joking is first.

Elmer -- love that you used the word "mirthful" as a good example of the wide variety of the richness of the English language! Thanks.

Now you have me interested in reading about this man. Will hie me to my library as soon as possible...!

In one of the books, he recalls reading a book about dinosaurs with his parent. When the book gave a dinosaur’s height, parent said something along the lines of ”let’s see, could it look through the bedroom window?” and work it out. That kind of early critical thinking is priceless. (I’m sure I’m somewhat inaccurate there, it’s been a long time since I read it, easily not long after it was published, but the idea is the same. I wonder what Feynman would think of that statement!)

Well thumbed copy from our shelves. DH is a physicist.

His books made me wish I were a physicist.

floral, I'm sure your husband is familiar with the name Freeman Dyson, a mathematician/physicist friend and contemporary of Feynman. He was English by origin but spent the majority of his adult life in the US. His work sometimes involved areas in which Feynman was also active, but as I understand, it was very well respected on its own. I crossed paths with his daughter Esther a few times.

Here's another interesting anecdote about Feynman. I don't remember what book it was from. I can't vouch for the specific accuracy of my comments, it's been a while since I read the books. But the substance is reasonable.

In the closing stages of the Manhattan Project, there was uncertainty about how much bomb fuel material (quantities of which were very limited) each of the two different bomb designs (one uranium, one plutonium) would need to create an explosion. As the theoretical analyses advanced, complicated formulaic calculations needed to be redone and redone to hone in on the answer. The calculations were bulky and each redo took some number of weeks. That was becoming a problem, it was taking time they didn't have to spend.

Feynman's technical peers had come to learn of and appreciate his problem solving approach. And knew that he was an "outside the box" thinker, often viewing and thinking about unknowns and technical problems in ways that differed from what others did. He was assigned to see if the calculation process could be accelerated.

As I recall, in just a few days, Feynman analyzed the problem, redid the mathematical approach, and streamlined the redo calculation by changing what actual work was done and how the necessary tasks were divided among those doing the work. I think he reduced the time required by something more than one-half. I know it was by a huge amount, one-half may not be the correct amount but I know it was no less than that.

At an event at Caltech some years ago, on the 100th anniversary of his birth, there were a number of presentations made. This one is by his daughter, sharing many recollections about what it was like to have such a fun and goofy father.

The squiggly lines on the screen as the video starts are Feynman Diagrams. This was shorthand notation he developed to analyze quantitate theory (whatever that is) that was viewed as quite a useful breakthrough. She mentions that he had the outside of the family van decorated with Feynman diagrams

Feynman's Rainbow was a fun book, it's still hanging around my bookshelves somewhere maybe I'll re-read soon .

And I might try to get through a page or two of this ;)

https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/index.html#Ch4-S1

That was uncalled for, kevin.