Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman

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Pedro Blas Gonzalez

Perfectly Reasonable Deviations
from the Beaten Track - Richard Feynman

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Winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics, Richard Feynman (1918 -1988) is also regarded as a legendary man extraordinaire, a moniker that is rarely fitting for scientists. The bongo-playing physicist practiced a self-deprecating sense of humor that spoke volumes of the importance of humility in a field replete with arrogant robots.

As a recent graduate of Princeton, Richard Feynman took up work on the Manhattan Project. But he is best known for his work on particle theory, the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, and quantum electrodynamics.

Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track is a collection of his letters dating from 1939 to 1987. Feynman was a man of many interests. He is also one who was not troubled by embracing contradictions. Even though a winner of the Nobel Prize, he remained suspicious, if not altogether bored, by heavy handed conferences and some of the people who find that pursuit laudable. Being a rigorous scientist, he was, of his own admission, one who did not “speak writable English.” A free spirit in the truest and most sincere sense of the word, Feynman did not claim to know anything about politics. Yet he recognized that in order for science to take place there must first exist the liberty and political freedom to embrace such a task.

Also not one to tow the line, in 1964, prior to his being awarded the Nobel Prize, he refused to attend a conference sponsored by the Soviet Joint Institute for Nuclear Research because “I would feel uncomfortable at a scientific conference in a country whose government respects neither freedom of opinion of science, nor the value of objectivity, nor the desire of many of its scientist citizens to visit scientists in other countries.”

An objectivist by temperament, he understood that human reality has more to do with the nature of reality proper, the constants of nature, let us say, than with personal desire. On a similar vein, his attack of philosophy exposes his ignorance of the metaphysical foundation and building block of science.

To his critics and debunkers, Feynman was too eccentric, too much himself, a model individualist. An interesting man without a doubt, his letters showcase a profound zest for life. The letters range from those pertaining to love to serious scientific discussions to his patience in entertaining the whimsical notions of admiring fans.

Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track is replete with anecdotes that make it easier to tackle the scientific work of this colorful man. The book also contains many pictures that capture the essence of the man in his diverse poses. Ironically, these letters also prove the quintessential wisdom that man cannot live from science alone.

Posted on September 15th, 2007.

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