Book Review: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman

14 Nov, 2025

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Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman¹ is a collection of autobiographical stories told by Richard Feynman compiled by someone else. Richard Feynman was an American theoretical physicist who lived from 1918 to 1988, notable for many papers and discoveries better explained by Wikipedia. The ones I found the most interesting were his work on the Manhattan Project and winning the Nobel Prize.²

The tl;dr of my review is if you find it at a library I would give it a go, but probably don't go spending money on it unless you're a real Feynman-fiend. The book is easy to read, fun, interesting, a little insightful, and quite pompous.³

The book is divided into a few loosely chronological sections.

1. How smart Feynman was as a child
2. How brilliant Feynman was as a university student
3. How resourceful Feynman was while developing the bomb
4. How sought after Feynman was after becoming a well known scientist
5. How hard Feynman's life was after winning the Nobel Prize and becoming a very well known scientist

You may be noticing the pattern now.

Richard Feynman's favorite thing to talk about is Richard Feynman. Some chapters are a lot better than others, but the overall tone is meant to convey just how epic and cool and swag Feynman's life was. If you can read though all of the monotonous drivel about how he figured something out by thinking about it really hard 300x there are a few interesting tidbits and stories to be found. Below are a few of the ones I particularly enjoyed and made note of.

University Days

• As an MIT undergrad, Feynman loved the school and wanted to continue as an MIT grad student. His professor told him, "No, you should find out how the rest of the world is first." He went to Princeton instead and found the culture there to be much more to his liking, noting the importance of experiencing variety before deciding whatever you happen to be looking at must be the best option.
• Feynman went through a few hypnosis experiments as skeptical as any young scientist would be. The experiments were successful, though, and he was genuinely unable to stop on his own. Stating, "I could do that, but I won't," which was just another way to say "I can't."
• At the university lunch room Feynman would spend a week or two at the different tables for each department (Psychologists, biologists, etc). This culminated with Feynman spending a summer working in a biology lab completely out of his element. He gave a seminar in the Harvard biology department based on the work they found in his lab, something only possibly by him 'exploring' outside of his comfort zone and experiencing other cliques.
• You can take a test tube's cap off with one hand using your index and middle fingers, leaving your other hand open for other things. This also works with toothpaste caps.⁴

Los Alamos

• There are a lot of interesting anecdotes about different ways the team studying the bomb worked quickly and efficiently. Using parallel computing on the slow card machines, using calculators when the machines were down, things like that.
• Feynman's colleagues stumbled into an interesting nerd sniping trap after the first big computers were setup. They wasted time trying to create perfect programs to calculate things like arc-tangents when they already had lookup tables for arc-tangent values that worked perfectly fine. This is a really funny parallel to the modern day nerd.

Pos(t) Alamos

• Feynman discovered negging in a bar in New Mexico. Some dude tells him he needs to be hard to read so women don't take advantage of him for free drinks. He acts like an ass then somehow the woman comes back a few hours later ready to sleep with him.
• Feynman sat on the California State Curriculum Commission who oversaw which books were adopted for schools across the state. This chapter's insights into a process that most people generally don't know about is fairly unique. It also helps that this is one of the few chapters where Feynman's personality as a teller stands out in an endearing way instead of as a self righteous prick.
• Feynman was a fan of out-of-body experiences and had quite a few of them in a sensory deprivation chamber. Like anybody trying to explain their trip or enlightenment it doesn't really make sense, but it is fun to read.
• While ranting about pseudoscience in the final chapter Feynman draws parallels to the treatment of criminals and how we believe we are doing something scientific and known, but the data of rehabilitation and crime rates proves we are not. Society follows a false sense of being scientifically grounded⁵. Interestingly, this issue is just as potent today as when Feynman thought about it. Treating criminals like non-humans not being statistically useful to reduce crime is an extremely leftist idea in contemporary politics which is most likely pretty far from how Feynman would have politically identified elsewhere.⁶
• Later in the same chapter Feynman discusses the different ways scientists get mixed up while following their gut more than pure fact. "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself-and you are the easiest person to fool."

Overall, I didn't hate the book. It was a gift from someone so I felt a bit obliged to keep going when the first few chapters were overwhelmingly ugh in tone. It's a literary conversation with someone who likes hearing themselves talk more than anything else⁷. However, he did lead a adventurous life and did accomplish loads in his scientific career. Pomposity aside, it is fun to look through the glass of the zoo. Once I made it over the hurdle of Feynman's personality I found a number of things I liked. He had a very scientific view of the world, he traveled a lot, he would do things 'right'⁸ even if that meant swimming upstream, and a few of his jokes did get some chuckles. Not many, but not zero.

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