What Do You Care What Other People Think

by FEYNMAN,RICHARD P.

• ISBN13: 9780393320923
• ISBN10: 0393320928
• Edition: 00
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2001-01-17
• Publisher: W W NORTON

Summary

One of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century, Richard Feynman possessed an unquenchable thirst for adventure and an unparalleled ability to tell the stories of his life. "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" is Feynman's last literary legacy, which he prepared as he struggled with cancer. Among its many tales'”some funny, others intensely moving'”we meet Feynman's first wife, Arlene, who taught him of love's irreducible mystery as she lay dying in a hospital bed while he worked nearby on the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. We are also given a fascinating narrative of the investigation of the space shuttle Challenger's explosion in 1986, and we relive the moment when Feynman revealed the disaster's cause by an elegant experiment: dropping a ring of rubber into a glass of cold water and pulling it out, misshapen. A New York Times bestseller. "Feynman's voice echoes raw and direct through these pages."'”James Gleick, New York Times Book Review

Table of Contents

Preface	7	(11)
Part 1 A CURIOUS CHARACTER	11	(102)
The Making of a Scientist	11	(9)
``What Do You Care What Other People Think?''	20	(34)
It's as Simple as One, Two, Three...	54	(6)
Getting Ahead	60	(3)
Hotel City	63	(6)
Who the Hell Is Herman?	69	(3)
Feynman Sexist Pig!	72	(4)
I Just Shook His Hand, Can You Believe It?	76	(7)
Letters	83	(20)
Photos and Drawings	103	(10)
Part 2 MR. FEYNMAN GOES TO WASHINGTON: INVESTIGATING THE SPACE SHUTTLE CHALLENGER DISASTER	113	(107)
Preliminaries	113	(3)
Committing Suicide	116	(3)
The Cold Facts	119	(35)
Check Six!	154	(5)
Gumshoes	159	(18)
Fantastic Figures	177	(12)
An Inflamed Appendix	189	(10)
The Tenth Recommendation	199	(7)
Meet the Press	206	(6)
Afterthoughts	212	(8)
Appendix F: Personal Observations on the Reliability of the Shuttle	220	(19)
EPILOGUE	239	(10)
Preface	239	(1)
The Value of Science	240	(9)
Index	249