The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
"Richard Feynman was one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century - from his work on the atomic bomb to his solution to the puzzle of the Challenger disaster. Feynman helped to shape the world as we know it. Nobel laureate, iconoclastic icon, caring family man, amateur artist, and professional musician (in a Rio de Janeiro samba band), Feynman was a man of many dimensions.". "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is a treasury of the best of Feynman's short works - from interviews and speeches to lectures and printed articles."--BOOK JACKET.
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- The Pleasure of Finding Things Out by Richard Feynman
It’s a collection of his essays but the one quote that stuck out to me is:
I don’t see that it makes any point that someone in the Swedish Academy decides that this work is noble enough to receive a prize-I’ve already got the prize. The prize is the pleasure of finding things out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it - those are the real things, the honors are unreal to me.
It really got me to get over external validation and doing things for the sake of discovery and learning.
- Not fiction but I love this part in Feynman’s The Pleasure of Finding Things Out:
“When he was very small we used to rock him to bed … and tell him stories, and I’d make up a story about little people … they lived in the ventilator; and they’d go through these woods which had great big long tall blue things like trees, but without leaves and only one stalk, and they had to walk between them and so on; and he’d gradually catch on [that] that was the rug, the nap of the rug, the blue rug …”
- Indeed - the pleasure of finding things out.
A fantastic book and also a great way of life. Be curious and be successful!
- "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" and "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out", also by Richard Feynman.
He worked on the Manhattan Project among other things, writes in a very engaging way and shares a huge number of funny anecdotes. Yet he is also thought-provoking, for example introducing the idea of nanotechnology, explains why he is against pompous titles and posing, and how he struggled with staying creative.
Besides funny stories and grand ideas, there's also a heartbreaking personal struggle. One of those books years after reading I find myself randomly thinking about sometimes.
- Another video which touches more on the same point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkv0KCR3Yiw
(Highly recommend the whole Feynman series, which is excerpted from an interview video called The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, which is also spectacular)
- The pleasure of finding things out- Richard Feynman
