Lets explore into who’s who theme a bit to spot about Richard P. Feynman—the man who’s got the geek appeal in spades. He’s the person who was known for breaking safes while working on the Manhattan project. Later, he was a widely loved Professor of Quantum Physics and was the coolest Nobel laureate ever. He was also very enthusiastic about things beyond science; he was an avid drummer and dabbled in painting as well. Hell, he’s even got his own Think Different poster!


The book “Surely You must be Joking Mr. Feynman” is an epitome of the curious within of Feynman’s innovative and intelligent ways of solving things with a simple twist of brain. A few stories from the book give us an insight into the same:
**”FIXING RADIOS BY THINKING”—wherein young Richard goes to a guy’s house, looks at a broken radio, walks around for a few minutes(to the concern of the radio’s owner), then proceeds to fix it by twiddling with one little part. Fixing radios with no prior training was a quite noticeable in that curious character.

**Feynman visited the plant where uranium was being extracted for the Manhattan project. His purpose was to prevent the factory from exploding by ensuring they did not store volatile chemicals too close to each other for too long. It was his second trip and he was reviewing the plans for the factory with two other men, but didn’t really know how to read blueprints. They’d been going on for twenty minutes and he didn’t want to look like an idiot and ask “what’s this symbol mean?” Instead, he pointed at what he thought was a valve and asked “what if this one fails?” They first responded,”oh it will be OK”, but when he was asked later how he found it so quickly he said , “just ask which one is a valve”.
So, you definitely want to read the book of such a curious character, even if you’re not into quantum physics and the like. Advanced geekery isn’t required. It’s really a fun to read about such an inquisitive and multifaceted intellectual.
The book goes on to explore his days working in Los Alamos on the atomic bomb and how he learned to pick the locks (for fun) of safes that contained top-secret information.

The book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" does not have any traditional or methodical format of reading dictation. Instead, it is a collection of stories, anecdotes, and views that Dr. Feynman has held throughout the various periods of his life.

The book covers the major aspects of his life, beginning with his boyhood on Long Island, continuing on to his work at Los Alamos on the atomic bomb—the genius in him spoke out at a tender age itself, and culminated with his various adventures further in teaching. Dr. Feynman recalls his undergraduate years at MIT, his graduate studies at Princeton, his stint at Cornell, and how he ended up at Caltech, with a brief divergence in Brazil, so the curios genius never missed out any of great temple of knowledge centres. Interestingly enough, Feynman avoids talking about the two events that have made him the most famous: his Nobel Prize and his participation in the Challenger Disaster investigation. While reading this book, one is repeatedly made aware of Dr. Feynman's insatiable curiosity for world around him and the people that inhabit it. He was never afraid to experience the new and unknown things. That same insatiable curiosity also got him into several dangerous situations. On one occasion he almost set his bedroom on fire during one of his childhood home laboratory "experiments." His irreverence for and ignorance of social propriety shocked his fraternity brothers at MIT, and caused the wife of Princeton University dean to exclaim, "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!”, so here comes the origin of the title of the book.

Dr. Feynman continually exploited the laws and realms of science for the greatest possible enjoyment. His awe and joy for how the universe works is infectious, and readers will find themselves stopping to wonder why they never asked themselves the questions that he poses. "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" is a very enjoyable, can't-put-it-down read. Be you an English major, or a budding physicist, the human story behind an esteemed scientist is captivating and reveals that science, and the people behind it, are not as dry as your high school physics textbook may have lead you to believe…