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| This book is essentially a continuation of Surely You're Joking. It
was edited after Feynman died of cancer in 1988. The
first half consists of anecdotes from the latter part of
his life, and the second half is dedicated to his work
investigating the causes of the space shuttle Challenger
disaster. Feynman's first wife, Arlene, died of tuberculosis just a few years after they were married. They found out about the disease just before they were married, and the story of their short life together is quite poignant. Feynman doesn't deal well with incompetent or pretentious people. His work on the Challenger commission was very frustrating. While the rest of the team listened to hours of testimony from NASA managers, Feynman flew to Kennedy Space Center, Johnson Space Center, and the various contractors and talked to the engineers themselves. In the end much of his contribution was relegated to the back of the report, though it sounds like it contained much of the meat. The final chapter on the value of science is interesting though it denies the reality of God and hence misses the answers to some of the futile questions it proposes. |
"What Do You
Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a
Curious Character