From My Bookshelf

When I was working out this morning I was listening to a podcast of last week's Science Friday, which got me in a science-y mood. So this week's book selection is from one of the greatest - perhaps THE greatest - scientists of the 20th Century.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard P. Feynman as told to Ralph Leighton
   This book is a collection of stories Dr. Feynman told over the course of years to Ralph Leighton, and they're all great taless, ripping yarns as it were. Feynman was not only a nuclear physicist, he was a true polymath, with skills in many areas including safecracking, painting, biology, drawing, and bongo drums. Though he won a Nobel Prize in 1965, recently he is most remembered for his work on the investigation of the space shuttle Challenger disaster. He also spent the bulk of his career at CalTech, which is a few blocks from my house, so we're almost connected. Kind of.
   Quite a character and a great man. I want to be him when I grow up.

Quote:
"To be a practical man was, to me, always somehow a positive virtue, and to be "cultured" or "intellectual" was not. The first was right, of course, but the second was crazy."