I picked up the book Quantum Man: Richard Feynman’s Life in Science because I wanted to learn more about Richard Feynman and what he accomplished. Even though it is not a computer book, I decided to still review the book here because most scientists use computers.

The book is written in a clear format and all the technical stuff is explained in laymen terms. You don’t have to be a science superhero to understand the material in this book. Here is for example something that most people won’t understand

Richard Feynman was an interesting person, he wasn’t satisfied with just the answer from himself or other people, he wanted to do all the calculations himself to get to the answer. Sometimes he would instinctively know what the answer should be yet he would still do all the calculations to get to the answer. Another interesting fact was that he would seek inspiration in strip joints when he got stuck on a problem. I wonder if he did his research for gravity there 🙂

Richard Feynman was also one of the first scientists to conceive the possibility of quantum computers. He was very interested in computers and while participating in the Manhattan Project—the wartime U.S. Army project at Los Alamos developing the atomic bomb, he first started to use IBM computers. He helped assemble these computers, the IBM people sent to assemble these computers were amazed that Feynman & Co assembled these themselves

Richard Feynman is known for the following things

Feynman diagrams

Feynman point

Feynman–Kac formula

Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory

Feynman sprinkler

Feynman Long Division Puzzles

Hellmann–Feynman theorem

Feynman slash notation

Feynman parametrization

Sticky bead argument

One-electron universe

Quantum cellular automata

He received the following notable awards

Albert Einstein Award (1954)

E. O. Lawrence Award (1962)

Nobel Prize in Physics (1965)

Oersted Medal (1972)

National Medal of Science (1979)

You can check out the The Feynman Lectures on Physics site to learn more about Feynman’s work. It has stories about the influence of The Feynman Lectures on Physics on people’s lives and exercises and solutions to math/physics problems.

I highly recommend this book, I enjoyed it, you will enjoy it too!