The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

By: Richard P. Feynman

Narrated by: Sean Runnette

Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is a magnificent treasury of the best short works of Richard P. Feynman, from interviews and speeches to lectures and printed articles. A sweeping, wide-ranging collection, it presents an intimate and fascinating view of a life in science - a life like no other. From his ruminations on science in our culture to his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, this book will delight anyone interested in the world of ideas.

"From the irregular trivia of ordinary life mixed with a bit of scientific doodling and failure to the intense dramatic concentration as one closes in on the truth and the final elation (plus, with gradually decreasing frequency, the sudden sharp pangs of doubt) - that is how science is done." (Richard P. Feynman to James D. Watson)

©1999 Michelle Feynman and Carl Feynman (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"The most original mind of his generation." (Freeman Dyson, renowned theoretical physicist and mathematician)

"A sparkling collection." ( Wall Street Journal)

"Feynman’s distinctive voice rings out in this book…Feynman is both interesting and quotable." ( Scientific American)

Best guy ever!

Feynman is an incredibly inspiring person and listening to his own words gives you an idea of the kind of guy he was.

Great book

The voice is Magnificent and the book itself is pleasure put into words. I’m very happy I got to listen to this book.

A primer for tuning a thinking mind

This is a magnificent overview and introduction to Richard Feynman, for those who want comfort in thinking differently, and at the same time became nurtured by a stringent and marvelous thinker and a scientist.

very down to earth and understandable

It gets slow once or twice.. keep listening.
How to be a better father, better scientist, better teacher.

You will have heard some of it already

There's a lot of overlap between the stories, so it feels unedited. Other than that, the usual fare for Feynman - funny and insightful. Lovely voice performance as well.

Making you think and Apriciate living

Feels like I am having a convesation with a Man that lived life and had a verry big impact on everyone's life with out us knowing it.

Fantastic

Superb performance and wonderful book. I had read another one and thoroughly enjoyed this one as well.

Quite good but some thoughts are a bit lazy

Feynman has an uncanny ability to speak accurately and relatable about high minded concepts. Where some of these readings lose me a bit is in their rantiness - notably, his endless complaining about the pseudoscience in non-physics fields, a weird bit about the female brain (although he ultimately concludes it's as capable as a man's brain, although this still come comes off a bit dismissive), and a boring commentary on the compatibility of religion and science. My complaint isn't so much on the accuracy of these sections as much as it's about the laziness of them. The sections presaging MEMS and the insights into his work on the manhattan project are fascinating, but these other sections just feel like the late night ramblings of a college freshman. I suppose such is the way of a brilliant mind - it's perhaps necessary to take some mental shortcuts when dealing with these kinds of matters, but I don't think these thoughts were worthy of speeches and interviews.

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."
― Richard Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

It is hard to not love Feynman. You can love his as a scientist, as a man, as a genius, as a teacher, as an iconoclast. He is the real deal. 'The Pleasure of Finding Things Out' is a series of 13 speeches, articles, essays, interviews by or with Richard Feynman. These are guilty pleasure reads for people who adore those great physicists of the early 2oth centuries who were lucky AND brilliant enough to be physicists when physics jumped from classical to quantum. These guys were amazing. Feynman wasn't among the first wave of theoretical physicists to dance in the quantum space, but he was a huge member of the second wave.

The thing that makes Feynman so interesting is just his unpretentious quirkiness, his love of telling stories, his ability to quickly grasp the root of a problem (whether in physics, biology, or religion) and give you an honest answer.

The only drawback to this collection is it repeats several stories. Feynman retold many of his favorite stories (locks at Los Alamos) or ideas (cargo cult science). So if you've read Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character or Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman many of these stories have been heard before. Even inside of this book a couple stories get retold a bit. It is unavoidable, but still a bit of a draw back.

Anyway, this isn't a deep dive into science. It is a flirtation with the curiosity that drives scientists. It is the recollections of one of the most fascinating characters to come out of the Manhattan Project and the post-quantum revolution period of physics. So, if you haven't read much on Feynman I might recommend reading 'Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!' first, but I'd still not neglect to check this out as well.

Not as I anticipated

I expected to learn some physics and about the joy of finding things out. A part about how Feynman learned to enjoy finding things out was nice but some parts seemed irrelevant, like a big part talking about how to make technology more compact.