Vol. 1, Number 3	Fall 1998 issue

 

Save $6.60 at Amazon.com! Read chapter 1

In 1963, Richard Feynman was a god on the Olympus of the physics world. At age 45, two years from a Nobel Prize, he was already a legend at MIT, Princeton and Caltech, an instinctive and resourceful theorist who was to lay much of the groundwork for modern particle physics.

That year, Feynman was invited to deliver three speeches at the University of Washington on the interaction between science and society. Before auditoriums packed with the converted and curious stood a physicist whose obsessions ranged far beyond quantum mechanics—to dancing, travel, bongos and bar-hopping.

These lectures were a chance for Feynman to speak his free-wheeling mind to a captive audience. In The Meaning of It All, for better or for worse, we get to hear every word.

The transcribed speeches burn with the fuel of Feynman's enthusiasm. His childlike exuberance about science is both refreshing and admirable. "In physiology you can think of pumping blood, the exciting movements of a girl jumping a jump rope," he gushes at one point, "What goes on inside?"

The lectures bring the contours of Feynman's philosophy into sharp relief. To understand the world, he tells us, wonderment must be accompanied with a sense of doubt. "All scientific knowledge is uncertain," he says. For him, the reason-based skepticism of western society provides the strong economic systems and military might he so passionately lauds. His doubts also underpin his commitment to atheism.

Unfortunately, trying to follow this ranting genius is so frustrating that it is almost not worth the effort. The talks careen like a runaway bus over bumps and tangents before scoring their solid intellectual points.

In the first lecture, Feynman babbles through a Mr. Wizard-style recitation on what is important about "Science" before moving to an insightful examination of science's inherent skepticism. His second talk, an attack on Soviet society, gets caught in overly fervent anti-Communist outbursts before he settles into intelligent praise of the doubt built into our government.

The last speech begins with classic Feynman bravura: "I dedicate this lecture to showing what ridiculous conclusions and rare statements such a man as myself can make." He proceeds to submit the crowd to far more, producing an obese, two-hour-long diatribe. Feynman rambles on about nuclear testing, lambastes English teachers, mind readers and psychoanalysts, advocates the abolition of spelling rules and proclaims the Encyclical of Pope John the XXIII a great step to the future. Needless to say, it's a little hard to follow. Gleaming here and there, there are some original gems. Feynman's take on politicians and advertisers is inspiring: "Don't let them insult your intelligence." His warnings of the growing powers of molecular biology are far-sighted, considering that the structure of DNA had been known for barely ten years.

But most of all, the lectures reflect Feynman's engagement with lay people. His career as a scientist was uniquely public. Though his field was theoretical physics, he did his best to serve society, notably through the Manhattan Project and the Challenger investigation. His popular books, which chronicled these worldly adventures as well as all the madness in between, established him as an American icon. As for this book, Feynman fans will eat up his usual intelligent irreverence, but first-timers should start somewhere else. Feynman is actually best known for his ability to bring complex, abstract physics concepts to the masses. Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman is the classic. With a discriminating editor on hand to organize his thoughts into chapters, it's a more accessible read.

The pugnacious Feynman, left with nothing but a microphone and an open program, makes this book ranging, witty and slightly incomprehensible. Too often it's a chore for us, his audience, to find any consistent meaning in the lectures as a whole.