BOOK
"It is of great value to acknowledge ignorance," Richard Feynman once said in reaction to the rigid certainties of organized religions, but he applied the same principle to the whole of science. Indeed, the statement describes the forthright philosophy at the heart of The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, a compendium of the celebrated physicist's musings.
Feynman's open-mindedness made him an ideal choice for the commission charged with investigating the space shuttle Challenger explosion. But his unpretentious capacity for hard work gave the panel more than it bargained for as he toured the nation, interrogated dozens of defense-contract engineers, and ultimately uncovered a shocking story of complacent managers and unheeded safety warnings. On national TV, Feynman dunked an O-ring in a glass of ice water to demonstrate what NASA preferred not to admit: Low temperatures had disabled crucial rubber seals in the rocket boosters, causing the disaster.
More than a decade after his death, Feynman remains larger than life - as evidenced by three books by him, or about him, appearing this year. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, with a foreword by Freeman Dyson, presents Feynman in his own spontaneous words. Most of the text was transcribed verbatim from speeches, allowing us a renewed chance to hear his voice: modest, entertaining, and always penetratingly perceptive.
Feynman foresaw and described nanotechnology before it even had a name. But he also helped develop the atomic bomb. On this latter topic he turns his ruthless honesty on himself, admitting that he continued working on the project after Nazi Germany's defeat because he was so immersed in the project, he lost sight of the implications. "I simply didn't think, OK?" Feynman says.
He shared a Nobel Prize in 1965 for his brilliant work codeveloping quantum electrodynamics ("rebuilding physics," in Dyson's words, "from the bottom up"). But Feynman cared much more for honesty than for status, and resigned from the National Academy of Sciences. "The whole thing was rotten, because its purpose was mostly to decide who could have this honor," he said later of joining the academy. "I don't like honors."
Above all, Feynman valued truth. As a child, he learned from his father that if you asked the right questions, such as how trees grow so tall or why birds sing, you could uncover principles of the natural world merely by walking through the woods. As an adult, Feynman started answering questions - but he always emphasized that no one should ever feel confident of knowing all the answers. "Nothing," he said, "is proved beyond all doubt."
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard Feynman: $24. Perseus Books: (800) 386 5656, www.perseusbooks.com.
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