Previous book here.
This is the second and last book of anecdotes Ralph Leighton took down from the ramblings of Feynman before he died. The preface cautions the reader that the stories in this one "fit together more loosely" than the previous book, which after being arranged in chronological order, mistakenly made people think they were getting an autobiography. Also, most of these weren't done while drumming this time. Some other people's letters are included in here, as well as a particularly good speech he did There's also a compilation of Feynman's stories about his first wife Arline, which Leighton says took ten years to assemble out of pieces from six different stories because it was hard for Feynman to talk about. And the second half of the book, Feynman's "last big adventure," is about his serving on the commission to investigate the Challenger explosion.
The story of Arline is really pretty awesome. She was the most popular girl around and they were young sweethearts. However, while he was in grad school she came down with a mystery illness that was eventually diagnosed as Hodgkin's disease--but the doctor and all of his relatives wanted him to say it was glandular fever if she asked, which she did. But we're honest with each other, Feynman argued, but after his little sister started crying, he gave in. Arline smelled a rat and eventually confronted him about it. Eventually she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and they got married, even though his family was worried about him catching it. (They didn't kiss, he says, so I'm assuming they didn't do anything else....)
At one point she got him personalized pencils (and by personalized I mean they say, "RICHARD DARLING, I LOVE YOU! PUTSY") which he got embarrassed about when he'd leave them around other random professors. So he cut the writing off one and boy, did she get mad, chastising him with the title of this book, followed by poetry..."Each one was "Nuts to you!" in a different form. So I had to use the pencils with the names on them. What else could I do?"
While Feynman was working in Los Alamos, Arline was living in the hospital in Alburquerque, a hundred miles away (he'd visit on weekends). She had a lot of time to think of fun things, such as the aforementioned codes and shopping via mail and sending everyone at Los Alamos newspapers announcing her husband's birthday. Arline sounds pretty awesome.
Anyway, reading the first book, his brief recounting of her death and his reaction to it afterwards ("She's dead. And how's the program going?" he'd respond to people) was pretty jarring, though I admit grief does weird things to you. Mostly he just sounds surprisingly shellshocked here.
More wacky fun with Feynman: there's the time he got asked to be a pallbearer for someone and he had no idea who it was, so he said yes so he could find out...and still didn't recognize the dead guy! There's some cute stories about him amusing a small boy, and the small boy has a letter of his included in here.
And then there's the Challenger commission. When he's asked to join it, at first Feynman was trying to think of how to get out of it. (See Nobel Prize, getting pissed off about signatures, etc.) His wife talked him into it by pointing out that he'd be the only one running around actually investigating. Feynman decided he'd quit after six months, no matter what, and claimed "I'm gonna commit suicide for six months." Much to his surprise, he ends up enjoying the running around and talking to people and investigating (true enough, it sounds like he was the only one doing that), since he insisted on using his time to do stuff instead of sitting around waiting for the next meeting.
After figuring out the O-ring issue, he decided to do a little demonstration during the meeting-- if he can only get that ice water they promised him in time...
Later, he got mad when he writes up his explanation and then it might not even make it into the report, so he threatened to take his name off of it and get the important details published on his own. He handed off his writing to reporters and then ended up having to beg them not to use it. The report is included here, if it makes sense to you. "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled," he concluded.
Anyway, the story of Arline and the story of the Challenger were pretty darned compelling. I think I'm giving it three and a half stars again for wishing there was a bit more to it, but the meatier tales are pretty dang meaty.
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