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The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
- The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
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Enjoyable - not as understandable as I had hoped
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Publisher's Summary
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is a magnificent treasury of the best short works of Richard P. Feynman, from interviews and speeches to lectures and printed articles. A sweeping, wide-ranging collection, it presents an intimate and fascinating view of a life in science - a life like no other. From his ruminations on science in our culture to his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, this book will delight anyone interested in the world of ideas.
"From the irregular trivia of ordinary life mixed with a bit of scientific doodling and failure to the intense dramatic concentration as one closes in on the truth and the final elation (plus, with gradually decreasing frequency, the sudden sharp pangs of doubt) - that is how science is done." (Richard P. Feynman to James D. Watson)
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Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Erlend
- 04-06-16
Interesting, but material is covered in better book.
This is basically "surely you'r joking mr feynman", but not so much stitched together. Buy the other one instead.
63 people found this helpful
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- Timothy Lin
- 02-07-20
Author leverages Feynmans name for profit
I’m a huge fan of Sure, You Must Be Joking Mr. Feynman so I was hoping I’d like this book too.
I found out this wasn’t really published by Feynman, and these short works just make Feynman look like an egotistical jerk.
There’s also not much enjoyable in here as these are mostly Feynman bragging as if it were a diary. I almost think his legacy would have been less tarnished if this was never published. Shame on Jeffrey Robbins for putting this out there.
30 people found this helpful
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- Ashton F.
- 06-06-15
Narrator even sounds like Feynman!
What a great and interesting man! This audiobook captures his essence and personality. It's filled with interesting stories and thought-provoking Passages.
20 people found this helpful
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- Mattias Tammet
- 11-17-15
You will have heard some of it already
There's a lot of overlap between the stories, so it feels unedited. Other than that, the usual fare for Feynman - funny and insightful. Lovely voice performance as well.
9 people found this helpful
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- UniquePerspective
- 03-08-16
surely you're joking
I think Surely you're joking Mr Feynman is a much better read. If you have read that book then this book will have some duplication in stories.
25 people found this helpful
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- Humble filmmaker
- 04-10-16
Perfect for introduction to Feynman or for long time fans
Not every section is equally interesting and relevant, but this is only because some are more interesting and relevant than anything written that long ago has any right to be.
The reader manages to sound much like Feynman himself, and really nails the cadence and emphasis.
5 people found this helpful
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- Dave
- 01-07-20
The pleasure of listening to this audiobook!
Sean Reynman even sounds like Feynman! What a great listen. Thank you.
For those that don't realize, this is a collection of Feynman's disjointed work with a separate title. If you think it's one giant book written by the man himself with the agenda of the title, you are mistaken. Go in with those expectations and you'll enjoy it.
4 people found this helpful
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- John Coppolella
- 10-17-19
Thought inspiring!
The more I learn from listening to great thinkers like Physicist Richard Feynman the greater my appreciation for how much I will never know in my lifetime.
4 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 07-20-18
Not as I anticipated
I expected to learn some physics and about the joy of finding things out. A part about how Feynman learned to enjoy finding things out was nice but some parts seemed irrelevant, like a big part talking about how to make technology more compact.
4 people found this helpful
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- Darwin8u
- 06-04-16
Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."
― Richard Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
It is hard to not love Feynman. You can love his as a scientist, as a man, as a genius, as a teacher, as an iconoclast. He is the real deal. 'The Pleasure of Finding Things Out' is a series of 13 speeches, articles, essays, interviews by or with Richard Feynman. These are guilty pleasure reads for people who adore those great physicists of the early 2oth centuries who were lucky AND brilliant enough to be physicists when physics jumped from classical to quantum. These guys were amazing. Feynman wasn't among the first wave of theoretical physicists to dance in the quantum space, but he was a huge member of the second wave.
The thing that makes Feynman so interesting is just his unpretentious quirkiness, his love of telling stories, his ability to quickly grasp the root of a problem (whether in physics, biology, or religion) and give you an honest answer.
The only drawback to this collection is it repeats several stories. Feynman retold many of his favorite stories (locks at Los Alamos) or ideas (cargo cult science). So if you've read Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character or Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman many of these stories have been heard before. Even inside of this book a couple stories get retold a bit. It is unavoidable, but still a bit of a draw back.
Anyway, this isn't a deep dive into science. It is a flirtation with the curiosity that drives scientists. It is the recollections of one of the most fascinating characters to come out of the Manhattan Project and the post-quantum revolution period of physics. So, if you haven't read much on Feynman I might recommend reading 'Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!' first, but I'd still not neglect to check this out as well.
25 people found this helpful
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- Fritz
- 01-07-17
All you want to hear is already in the first book.
Not worth listening if you have already gone through "Surely you're joking...". and if not listen that instead. A lot of repetition and new material is not anything special.
16 people found this helpful
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- Babis
- 07-21-15
How children should be raised
What made the experience of listening to The Pleasure of Finding Things Out the most enjoyable?
Inspiring and vivid stories, full of insights into life, human behaviour, raising children, and nature...
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Pleasure of Finding Things Out?
Melville Feynman's deep understanding of inertia, and the way he explained it to his son
What does Sean Runnette bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
Colour
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The story about Arlene.
Any additional comments?
There is some overlap with other books, such as 'What do you care what other people think?'
3 people found this helpful
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- Cristobal Mingo
- 03-26-18
Old. Out dated. With some sparks of insights
Don’t expect epiphanies. There is some interesting thoughts and stories about his father. Most the stories are written 40 years ago so it’s outdated, not only technically but also socially. Shockingly outdated are expressions about the “female mind”. Valuable are the opinion on education and scientific methods. This book might be interesting to someone that will be a father/mother, though she/he would have to skim out a bit of tech-memorabilia.
1 person found this helpful
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- Petru Vaida
- 05-06-20
captivating
as is always the case with works by or about Richard P. Feynman. Highly recommended!
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- Anonymous User
- 12-31-19
One of the best book i read
the narrator was good and i really understood alot how we act as humans and how easy it is to cross the line between good and bad (Los Alamos)
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- Anonymous User
- 10-01-19
Repeat of Surely you must be joking Mr Feynman
After have read Surely you must be joking Mr Feynman this book is much of a repeat.
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- Chapter
- 01-28-19
Underwhelming compared with "Surely.." & "What.."
Severely lacking in content when compared with the other 2 books of assembled stories and interviews.
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- Kindle Customer
- 07-01-18
Classic short works by Feynman
The great physicist Richard Feynman tells many stories here including the legendary battle with the censors of Los Alamos, his research into safebreaking and many others.
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- Chris Burchill
- 06-30-18
very challenging but enjoyable
Loved the intelligence and narrative style. Makes characters come alive and yells the story of theoretical Physics. Hardest part is Feynemann's misogynistic outlook. Just shows that even the greatest intellects and storytellers are prone to accept values and beliefs that have no basis in fact. Don't let this spoil the book for you. It's worth every minute.
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- Kelvin
- 03-24-18
A fair insight into Feynman but a poor adaptation
This collection of talks, interviews and articles does a fair job of giving insight into the inner working of Feynman's mind.
It's obvious from these works that Feynman had a great talent for science, however it also shines a small light into the other parts of his personality, not always flattering and I wish this small light had a greater intensity. An undertone of jarring sexism pervades throughout, with numerous mentions of "great men", with an unexpected mention of how he thought women's mind incapable of analytical thought… shocker. The book only touches lightly on his ethics, whereby he acknowledged that the people (he'll say men, but they weren't just men) working on the Manhattan Project (developing the atomic bomb) could have stopped what they were doing once Hitler was defeated, but didn't because they didn't stop to think. He failed to really acknowledge any responsibility for that project in bringing about the nuclear world we now live in, or to really explore the topic, which would have been interesting.
Despite a lecture given on Galileo's birthday extolling the thought process Galileo had put in place, I found Feynman could not help but revel in the authorities of his age, these "great men", very aristotelian.
There is a little repetition within the book, but only because a few of the essays, lectures and interviews have a little crossover in their subject areas. I found this helped to remember some of the stories, personally, and so it didn't bother me, ok. (Tee hee – classic Feynman sentence ending right there.)
On the adaptation itself – I found it came up short. Some audiobook production companies seem to think adapting a book to audiobook is merely asking someone to read the book out loud, and if this were the case I would say Sean Runnette does a good job. However, having the same person reading an interview between two people fell flat. Some of it may have been the adaptation of the source material itself, but having someone repeat Feynman's word saying so-and-so "was so high", I knew Feynman would have been demonstrating just how high it was… a decent adaptation would have interjected with a description. As it was, it meant I had no idea what he was talking about in that moment.
It is popular in today's society to hold these scientists up on a pedestal to extoll their greatness, as if they had a hand in it themselves. From what I understand, Feynman did great science using the talents he was fortunate enough to be born with. In other aspects of his life he seems to me to be as flawed as the rest of us.
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- Shakes
- 01-02-17
Surprisingly Good
There are funny parts and inspirational parts. A very good listen. Highly recommended for those that like popular physics and a wonderful insight into one of the great minds of the 20th century.
1 person found this helpful
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- Benjamin
- 11-11-16
Marvellous
You can't go wrong with the words of this genius but I was very surprised to find that the narrator sounds so uncannily like Dr Feynman that I often found myself forgetting that it wasn't actually him speaking. Great listen. I recommend this to any lover of science and/or sophisticated thought.
1 person found this helpful
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- Martika
- 02-26-21
A great read
This book was such a good read. The way his mind works and how he sees the world is fascinating. He is also quite a funny guy which made the read really enjoyable. I highly recommend this book.
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- ameet
- 09-06-20
fascinating listening to a world of reason
Thoroughly enjoyed the book.Shame I hadn't read his book earlier. always heard that he was eccentric and skirted around him.Absolutely loved his thought process.learnt a lot for sure and will incorporate them.
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- C
- 08-06-20
Awesome follow on from “Surely you are joking, Mr Feynman”
Great book giving insight into the mind of one of the twentieth century’s greatest scientists.
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- Luke Thomson
- 06-11-19
Only some material I hadn't heard/read before
This is a good range of Feynman essays/lectures for someone who is new to Richard Feynman but be warned that whole chunks of this book are present elsewhere, including Los Alamos from Below and other chapters. Other than that the performance is great and there are some gems in here that were new to me.
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- Daniel Madden
- 09-28-17
Much recommended
I don't have a background in the sciences. What I know about the sciences I have accumulated over the years driven only by personal interest.
I mention this because, despite my limited background, this audio book is accessible for someone like me. Some parts, I found less than interesting and chose not persevere with. But, for the most part I was really taken in and absorbed.
And, it's not just content that's interesting. The mind of Feynman shines through and delights across all the pages. He had such a fresh and idiosyncratic way of expressing himself. The reader deserves much credit for this. I don't know how, but he speaks with the very cadences of the man himself. Thank you - great quality audio.
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