Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman

I found “Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" - Autobiography about Richard Feynman very interesting

Gave my nephew the Hitchhiker's Guide and Surely You're Joking this past xmas.

_Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals_ and _Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!_. I always thought myself as a deeply ambitious person who wanted to do something significant. The mindset did help me grow, but it came at the cost of my mental health. Doubting every second if you're making good use of time isn't a great way to live. Both of those books helped me appreciate having a decent carefree life, where doing things matter without expecting (i.e, following your creative spirit).

An excellent gauge for how good a book is can be found in how many times you catch yourself thinking back on it even after some time has passed. Through this, my favorite this entire year is The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank's diary). Without a doubt one of the best books I have ever read, just through how supremely human it is. Other books are: -The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson -Sapiens by Yuval Yuval Noah Harari -21 Lessons for the 21st Century -Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feyn man!: Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard Feynman -Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson -Permanent Record by Edward Snowden

What initially turned me into a curious person were Surely You Are Joking Mr Feynman & Godel, Escher, Bach. Then Book of Proof & Forallx: an introduction to formal logic helped me develop an interest in mathematics. But what was really a kind of aesthetic crack was The UNIX Programming Environment and The TeXbook.

Congratulations on a well-worded ask. Xmas break (not weeks), life changing, recommended for everyone (here)... Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman! I first read it as a college student and have read it many times since. Feynman was a fascinating character. Reading about him taught me to appreciate the value of curiosity.

So many, and I wish I could write a long paragraph on each, but I'm unfortunately short on time. I'm posting any in case just one person who hasn't heard of those checks them out and gets value: -Godel, Escher, Bach (Douglas Hosfstadter) -The Mindbody Prescription (John E. Sarno, completely cured my long-term crippling RSI that kept me from using computers and was ruining my life) -Feeling Good (Dr. Burns, cognitive therapy mostly centered on depression, but I want to learn about this before I have depression so that I can avoid it and do 'maintenance' on myself) -The 5 Love Languages (Gary Chapman, made me understand a lot more about how people express and receive love, and the problems that arise from mismatched languages in relationships) -Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman (you guys probably already know this) -The Blank Slate (Steven Pinker) -The Snowball (Warren Buffett biography) -Influence (Robert B. Cialdini) -Your Money or Your Life (Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin) -When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace (Le Ly Hayslip) -The Halo Effect (Phil Rosenzweig) -The LessWrong.com sequences on rationality

Feynman: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - great inspiration for regaining playfulness. Particularly this quote applicable to many burnt out developers I believe: Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. ... So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything,...I'm going to play with physics whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.

Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer If you like reading adventurous books, i'd recommend it. This one is about the Mt. Everest expedition of a group of people and the disaster that fell upon them. You're Surely Joking Mr. Feynman - Richard Feynman This one is collection of events in the life of Feynman. He's mostly known for being a scientist, but he's equally talented in few other areas as well. An interesting and fun book. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking - Malcolm Gladwell Recommended if you are into psychology and knowing how our thoughts and actions are affected by our subconscious.

Another reference here. Go for it. It’s a brilliant book.

SURELY YOU'RE JOKING MR. FEYNMAN BY RICHARD FEYNMAN -I loved this book for its humor, everyday practicality, how relatable it felt even without having a background in physics or knowledge about the pranks and experiments he conducted. As well as the book being well-written in the sense that it reads as if you're sitting on the couch with him as he's telling you stories about his life, all with a child-like sense of wonder and enthusiasm about the world. THE $12 MILLION STUFFED SHARK BY DON THOMPSON -I'm interested in the high-finance and fine-art worlds and this book discussed how they both go together - money and art - in an informative, quick-paced way. THE BUY SIDE BY TURNEY DUFF -For its humor, honesty, and how well written it was in terms of it being a page turner while also providing you with an insightful account about the high-finance industry. MOLLY'S GAME BY MOLLY BLOOM -It was an entertaining, quick-paced read about the private, high-stakes poker industry with an assortment of participants. MONEYBALL, LIAR'S POKER & THE BIG SHORT BY MICHAEL LEWIS -I thought they were all entertaining reads, while also being insightful about their respective subjects.…

I really enjoy Jorge Luis Borges (hard to pick a favorite, just dive into the short stories and find out for yourself). Imagine an M.C. Escher drawing in story form. I also have a strong pull towards adventure so books like Wind, Sand and Stars by Exupery or Starlight and Storm by Rebuffat are constant companions. Growing up I loved books by Emilio Salgari, for a man who traveled so little outside of Italy he had an uncanny ability to imagine worlds and adventures beyond his doorstep. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilio_Salgari I second Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

Whenever anyone asks: Catch-22 East of Eden Remains of the Day Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman These threads where people suggest multiple books are good to run through. If you see one in a comment that someone else liked, probably try to read the others they listed.

Our Mathematical Universe - Max Tegmark Being and Nothingness - Sartre Chaos - Gleik Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - Feynman

Non-Fiction: "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie, because it changed my understanding of people for the better. "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" by Richard Feynman, because it gave me a model for how to enjoy life. "Models" by Mark Manson, because it helped shape my understanding of heterosexual relationships. "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" by Gerald Weinberg, because it illuminates the general laws underlying all systems. Fiction: "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert A Heinlein, because it showed me a philosophy and "spirituality", for lack of a better word, that I could agree with. "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand, because they showed me how human systems break, and they provided human models for how to see and live in, through, and past those broken systems. "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" by Eliezer Yudkowsky, because it set the bar (high) for all future fiction, especially when it comes to the insightful portrayal of the struggle between good and evil.

Autobiography/Memoirs: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - Richard Feynman What Do You Care What Other People Think? - Richard Feynman Crime and Guilt: Stories - Ferdinand von Schirach Fiction: The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov Technical: Bulldog: A Compiler for VLIW Architectures - John Ellis

I loved this book. I read it on a plane and giggled

Minds, Brains and Machines by Geoffrey Brown [1] for introducing me to the complexities of the mind-body problem. It did not show the answers of course, but helped me think right about it. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse [2] for contributing to helping me come out of excessive questioning of everything (philosophy) to science that helps towards actually answering the questions answerable. Feynman Lectures in Physics [3] and Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman [4], with no need to explain "how". :-) The Ghost in the Atom [5] for explaining varied views on the nature of science, especially Quantum Mechanics, and what goes in the minds of the top-notch scientists working on these problems. Parsing Techniques by Dick Grune [6] for teaching me the fundamentals of computer science and helping me proceed with my deep interest in Artificial Intelligence. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Minds-Brains-Machines-Mind-Matters/dp... (https://www.amazon.com/Minds-Brains-Machines-Mind-Matters/dp/1853990132) [2] https://www.amazon.com/Siddhartha-Hermann-Hesse/dp/161382378... (https://www.amazon.com/Siddhartha-Hermann-Hesse/dp/1613823789/) [3] http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/…

Dune by Frank Herbert- I'm one of the few people on Earth who enjoys the David Lynch adaptation so I finally had to get around to reading the book. Kind of awkward stylistically and structurally but a lot of fun. Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen - It's seemed to me that there are political philosophies that focus on economic needs and those that focus on personal freedom. This is the best I've read at uniting those concepts. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - A blast to read and great insight into the thinking of a great mind. The LA Quartet by James Ellroy (The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, LA Confidential, White Jazz) - Really the pinnacle of dark gritty noir. If you like that I can't recommend highly enough. The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett - I like a lot of Hammett's other work but this seemed to have a lot of wheel spinning. City of Quartz by Mike Davis - As an Angeleno this gave me so much insight into the city I love. I have no idea if it would be of any interest to an outsider. Antifragile by Nassim Taleb - Nassim Taleb is great and I've definitely been influenced a lot by his ideas, but he's getting too in love with the smell of his own farts.…

I can vouch for the first two of these books: 1. "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!", fun bio, made me buy the Feynman lectures as well. Really glad I did. 2. "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future", Very inspiring indeed.

Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman

Here's my usual list of recommendations, the best books I've read in the past 5 years. Fiction: - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality If you know nothing about this book you might naturally hesitate to read "Harry Potter fanfiction" and assume that it's dumb/horrbile, but it's not. Just suspend your disbelief and read the first 5-10 chapters. Trust me, it's brilliant, hilarious, and life-changing. - Atlas Shrugged Controversial, I know, a lot of people here hate it for some reason, but it was incredibly influential on me, inspired my passion for entrepreneurship and science and philosophy. Still is one of the best books I am aware of. Nonfiction: - Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham Also a collection of his essays that you can find on github. He is one of the most clever writers I am aware of, but I assume you know that, since you're on HN. - "On Intelligence" by Jeff Hawkins This book explains in simple terms a very awesome and elegant theory on how mind works. Incredibly fascinating, I've learned a lot from it and it explains a lot of things, and will change the way you think about thinking process. - The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins…

A brilliant book indeed!

Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman! Not very technical, but there's some interesting stuff in there, for example about working on the atomic bomb in WWII.

Talent Is Overrated - Geoff Colvin ( Theory from Anders Ericsson ) The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Introvert Advantage - Marti Olsen Laney The Mindful Way Through Depression - Mark Williams et al. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

I found the book "The definitive book of body language: How to read others's thoughts by their gestures" by Allan and Barbara Pease to be a great read. The greatest show on Earth - Richard Dawkins was an excellent read. Surely you're joking Mr Feynman by Richard p.Feynman was terrific read by a very small bit can considerred offensive or at the least dated in its outlook but if you can get past that its great! I recently finished a book on ID called "Masters of doom" by David Kushner which I rather enjoyed as well. I also love reading about crackers from the (mostly) 80's and I can recommend. Cuckoo Egg by Cliff Stoll Masters of deception We are anonymous - Inside the hacker world of lulzsec, anonymous and the global cyber insurgency by Parmy Olson I loved "Underground Hacking Madness and the obsession on the electronic frontier" once I got past the first 2 or 3 chapters (also it was researched by Julian Assange before wikileak and has a chapter about his hacking) An Ebook copy can be found on the authors website http://www.underground-book.net/download.php3 Ghost in the wire Kevin Mitnick

I find good biographies can both entertain and educate. Try surely you are joking mr feynman.

The one I've enjoyed the most, was probably "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" but additionally read a couple that kept being mentioned on here: * A Random Walk Down Wall Street * Predictably Irrational * Black Swan * Blink and enjoyed those too. I've also read "How To Make Friends and Influence People" and started "Lords of Finance" but never finished.

If you do a search through HN, you'll find some really good recommendations. Read The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Fooled By Randomness is also good) if you want to peer into the mind of an investor. Read Hesse's Siddhartha if you're thinking along the lines of culture/religion/philosophy. Read a few Ayn Rand books if you like libertarianism and don't really care to relate to the characters. Read We by Yevgheny Zamyatin if you want an interesting allegory that metaphorically compares heaven to a dystopian dictatorship. Read Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins if you're very interested in the sciences. I remember Sebastian Marshall recommending Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa -- I'd recommend it too. It's pretty good, and I was especially interested since I've been doing marshal arts for over 10 years now. And read Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! no matter how you think. It's fantastic. EDIT: More Books! I read these when I was in elementary school, but they still hold their value: The Giver by Lois Lowry if you want more dystopias. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery if you're feeling especially playful.

+1 for "Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman". Read it cover to cover in one sitting! In addition to being one of the greatest minds of his generation, Feynman also had a rich life outside of science. Reading his stories was as close as I'll come to having him share anecdotes as a guest on my "fantasy dinner party" list.

My favorite book was probably "Surely Your Joking Mr. Feynman." I liked it, because it was fun to read, especially when he played a practical joke. A bit farther down the list would be the newest Wheel of Time books. Brandon Sanderson annoyed me at first, but once I got over that I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it had a very similar style to the original. I enjoyed it immensely. Somewhere after that are a few of the slightly more technical books I read. Maybe Coders At Work? It gave me a better sense of the history of the industry, but I don't think you should read it if your goal is to learn how to be a better hacker. Finally there is The Bible, which I would recommend to anyone.

Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman! is also a great listen via audiobook, especially on road trips!

Here's a few I've really liked that have a broader subject matter than only what you asked for. I figure that if you like to read you'd like these books. --- NON-FICTION --- Darkness Visible A Mathemematician's Apology Omnivore's Dilemma Fermat's Enigma The Code Book Born to Run Judgement of Paris Siddhartha Killing Pablo The Victorian Internet Lone Survivor I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman Papillon Into Thin Air Born on a Blue Day Touching the Void Got Fight The Conquest of Happiness --- FICTION --- Switch Bitch Lost Horizon The Cuckoo's Egg The Simlarillion The Time Traveler's Wife The Alchemist The Count of Monte Cristo A Canticle for Leibowitz Neverwhere My Uncle Oswald Stories of Your Life and Others Invisible Cities Life of Pi Atlas Shrugged --- WALL STREET / FINANCE --- When Genius Failed Liar's Poker Buffett (Lowenstein) Bull! Black-Scholes and Beyond (textbook) Fixed Income Securities (textbook) The Road to Serfdom The Smartest Guys in the Room Fortune's Formula The Fourth Turning Inside the House of Money --- ENTREPRENEURSHIP / COMPUTERS (non-textbook) --- Masters of Doom It's Not About the Bike Dot. Bomb Founders at Work The PayPal Wars…

Surely You're Joking is amazing. It's one of those books I can't get enough of, and I reread it several times. I wish I had such an interesting life.

Surely your joking Mr. Feynman. This should be required reading for people in this thing of ours. Also Enders Game (fiction)

I'm reading "Surely you are joking, Mr. Feynman". I'm about 100 pages into it, and it's a pretty cool read. Smart as he is but the way he wrote it doesn't make me feel intimidated at all. I was really impressed about the part when he talked about this his first presentation to Einstein and Pauli and other biggest minds of the 20th century. He made it so casual and I could pictured me in his shoes perfectly. It reminds me of my Chemistry classes in college.

Some recents: Surely You're Joking Mr Feynmann is a good read. As is Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle As is Hugh Laurie's The Gun Seller And I'm just getting into Orwell's Keep The Aspidistra Flying which is quite good too.

I think the Feynman book is great! He is a great storyteller and humble to boot.

Surely you are joking, Mr. Feynman. D. MacKay: Sustainable energy - without the hot air. N. Taleb: Fooled by randomness. M. Karinthy: A journey round my skull.

I very much wish I would have read the below books in (or pre) high school. I'm not sure if they have the same effect on everyone, but for me they were huge in redefining elements of my life that needed to be fixed/unlearned/enhanced. All related to having a passion for learning and life in general: "Art of Learning" by Josh Waitzkin "Mastery" by George Leonard "A Mathematician's Lament" by Paul Lockhart "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman" by Richard Feynman

Books about Richard Feynman, or essays, etc. by him. "Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman!" in particular. I guess, this is unfair, as eventually he did get into software/hardware, but....

Fiction: I am fan of The Fountainhead, though I still have fond memories of The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe from when I was younger. Nonfiction: So many good ones, but I think Surely your joking, Mr. Feynman! is probably the top.

Fiction: The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin, it made me realize that the things I wanted wouldn't just come to me if I waited around. Non-fiction: Surely, you're joking, Mr Feynman! It made me realize that even the most highly qualified people are still just people and can just as easily be wrong as anyone else, a fact Feynman appeared to use to his advantage constantly.

"Surely you are joking Mr. Feynman" [absolutely rockstar of a autobiography] "Every Second Counts" Lance Armstrong [poignant] "A beautiful mind" John Forbes Nash [moving, and heart wrenching] My personal favourite: "Icon" Steve Jobs

Richard Feynman: "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman". Not a conventional biography, but Richard wasn't a conventional man either.

These might not be biographies but they are good non fiction. It's not about the bike, my journey back to life. - Lance Armstrong Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman! - R. Feynman Into thin air - J. Krakauer

Another vote for "Surely You're Joking Mr.Feynman" by Feynman

- Brave New World - Night - Hitchhiker's Guide series - Dark Tower series (Mostly just the first 4, though) - Eats, Shoots & Leaves - Just about any George Carlin or Patrick F. McManus books - Wheel of Time Series - Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

- use of weapons (ian m banks) - surely you are joking mr feynman (rpf) - origin of order (stuart kauffman) - slaughter house five (kurt vonnegut) - goedel escher bach (douglas hofstadter) - theta-magical memas errr metamagical themas (dogulas hofsta)

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Richard Feynman) What do you care what other people think? (Richard Feynman)