Surely You‘re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Book Review) Dia Edien Al-Sayyed | English for Academic Purposes (C1) | Book Review

1. Surely You‘re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Book Review)
Dia Edien Al-Sayyed | English for Academic Purposes (C1) | Book Review

2. Dezentrales Logo
optional
Overview
• Author
• Introduction
• Feynman as a Child
• Feynman as a Student
• Feynman‘s Seriousness
• Uncle Sam Doesn‘t Need You!
• Feynman as the Youngest Professor
• Personal Opinion
Surely You‘re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Book Review) | D. Al-Sayyed | English for Academic Purposes (C1)
Seite 2

3. Dezentrales Logo
optional
Surely You‘re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Book Review) | D. Al-Sayyed | English for Academic Purposes (C1)
Seite 3
Author
Richard Philipps Feynman, who was born 1918 in Queens and died 1988 in Los Angeles, was a
famous physicist of the generation of geniuses, such as Einstein, and won the Noble Prize in year
1965. His most popular books were:
– Surely You‘re Joking, Mr. Feynman!
– What Do You Care What Other People Think?
– The Meaning of It All
– The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

4. Dezentrales Logo
optional
Introduction
The introduction of the book was written by one of the best friends of Dr. Feynman, Albert R. Hibbs,
who was also an American mathematician and physicist.
He started his introduction describing that Dr. Feynman had a very special character, which can‘t be
compared with the character of any other scientist, if in his time or even after that.
His introduction shows how he truly enjoyed the autobiography of Dr. Feynman, which was his motive
to prove that this autobiography deserves to be written and read.
Surely You‘re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Book Review) | D. Al-Sayyed | English for Academic Purposes (C1)
Seite 4

5. Dezentrales Logo
optional
Feynman as a Child
Dr. Feynman starts his first chapter with talking about his childhood. What you, as a reader, can take
from this chapter, is that Dr. Feynman was like any other child on the World, who tries doing new
things and discovering new experiences.
Like a lot of other children, he wanted to have his own inventions. That is why he started missing with
each device he had around him.
He talks then about how he became a radio expert who was able to fix radios with thinking! He had this
reputation in his town and started making money with it, even if few.
Surely You‘re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Book Review) | D. Al-Sayyed | English for Academic Purposes (C1)
Seite 5

6. Dezentrales Logo
optional
Feynman as a Student
Dr. Feynman wrote about the phase as he was a student in the rest of the first chapter and the second
chapter.
In the first chapter he wrote about his life a student at the MIT College, then in the second chapter
about his Princeton years.
He showed us how the life of the student who wanted to be a scientist was fun and not miserable at all.
He wrote also about the technique of not knowing anything about a specific topic, but to be the genius
he knows about everything in front of other people.
As a physicist, he kept challenging mathematicians, considering physics to be the real science and not
Maths.
He also showed that biologists do not have to spend a lot of time studying in the college, because
everybody at the end would be able to get the same information from the nearest library.
Surely You‘re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Book Review) | D. Al-Sayyed | English for Academic Purposes (C1)
Seite 6

7. Dezentrales Logo
optional
Feynman‘s Seriousness
Maybe Dr. Feynman didn‘t say this about himself, but he was surely the joker of the group. Which
group? Literally each group he was in.
You get the feeling while reading his autobiography that he was a careless non-serious person, who
would be an ordinary person in the future.
You will be surprised that with the time he will be compared with Einstein and other popular scientists.
He even missed with generals and professors, so he deserves the nickname I gave him, Feynman the
Joker.
Surely You‘re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Book Review) | D. Al-Sayyed | English for Academic Purposes (C1)
Seite 7

8. Dezentrales Logo
optional
Uncle Sam Doesn‘t Need You!
Dr. Feynman describes his life in the military in the third chapter.
He was not a soldier, but a scientist who served in the military of Uncle Sam during the World War.
He didn‘t consider himself at first as scientist who could be so useful to the army of his own country,
but he landed finally on working on a very important bomb with some other scientists and
mechanical engineers.
He tried to volunteer as an actual soldier in the military, so he did a couple of health exams which
finished with the result that he had mental problems, which was the reason why Uncle Sam
decided that he does not need him.
Surely You‘re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Book Review) | D. Al-Sayyed | English for Academic Purposes (C1)
Seite 8

9. Dezentrales Logo
optional
Feynman as the Youngest Professor
Dr. Feynman had the problem of being the youngest professor in the university, especially with the
girls.
Nobody believed at parties that he was a professor. Some thought that he was an undergraduate who
started college old, so they considered him to be shy of his current case.
This young professor wanted also to enjoy his thing, so he decided to ‚play‘ with quantum
electrodynamics.
This kind of playing allowed him to get the Noble Prize in Year 1965.
Surely You‘re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Book Review) | D. Al-Sayyed | English for Academic Purposes (C1)
Seite 9

10. Dezentrales Logo
optional
Personal Opinion
• Very interesting and enjoyable book
• Easy to understand even with a small scientific background
• A book full of feelings
• My only critique: very short chapters
Surely You‘re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Book Review) | D. Al-Sayyed | English for Academic Purposes (C1)
Seite 10

11. Dezentrales Logo
optional
Surely You‘re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Book Review) | D. Al-Sayyed | English for Academic Purposes (C1)
Seite 11
Any Questions?