As in the earlier book, this is "as told to" Ralph Leighton, a long-time friend of RF. And it too faithfully reproduces RF particularly verbal style, lively, vivid and completely unpretentious. But while the earlier book is packed with incidents, this one is narrower, more personal and more reflective. He seems to have understood it to be his last.

He begins with his childhood and his early attraction to science. His father, a businessman, told RF's mother before he was born, that "if its a boy he going to be a scientist." And when he was a small by, he would sit in is father's lap and his father would read to him from the Encyclopedia Britannica.

But he was not just given the facts, he was taught to think. If his father read to him about dinosaurs, he was encouraged to imagine whatone would look like, how bit it would be in relation to, say, the house, or the years. Or, if they went for a walk in the woods, and they found a deformed leaf, he was encouraged to imagine how it came to be that way, what were the possibilities that fit the facts? Such fortunate early experiences coupled with unusual native ability, encouraged in RF what became a restless curiosity and nimble imagination.

From the exuberance of RF reminiscences, one would not suspect that tragedy had ever touched his life.

And yet his first wife, Arlene died after only a few years of marriage

. She had contracted what was eventually diagnosed as tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands and she spent much of their last years in a series of hospitals.

When RF went to Los Alamos to work on the Manhattan Project (Atomic Bomb) he arranged for his wife to stay in a hospital in Albuquerque - 100 miles away. For his birthday one year, Arlene somehow managed from her hospital bed to have mailboxes all over the compound stuffed with newspapers declaring on the front page that the
"ENTIRE NATION CELEBRATES BIRTHDAY OF R.P. FEYNMAN."

As RF puts it,

"Arlene was playing her game with the world. A little earlier, when he was doing graduate work at Princeton, Arlene sent him a box of pencils inscribed with some words of endearment. Embarrassed to carry these around, RF cut off these words with a razor. Immediately, he received a letter from Arlene, reproaching him, and adding: "What do you care with other people think."

This was perfectly apt, because RF as a person and as a scientist, seem to have been remarkably unconventional.

But the most interesting part of the book is an account of RF's experience as a member of the Commission on the Challenger disaster. He was a very unorthodox member. RF is probably best remembered for his trick on camera, of placing solid rocket booster o-ring material in a glass of ice water, and demonstrating the effect of moderately low temperature on the resiliency of the rubber. But the original --- for this actually ----- from -- another commission member, who in turn told RF. It was a case of a double leak to a receptive RF, who was able to dramatize the importance of the information. As RF presents it, the commission proceeded very ploddingly, investigating NASA's very much on NASA's schedule and at NASA's pace. RF unorthodox investigative methods uncovered many details that surely would not otherwise have been made public. He followed his instincts and spoke with the engineers who had the essential information.

There was a general reluctance on the part of the Challenger program mangers to talk, which mirrored their unwillingness to heed warnings of problems by their subordinate engineers prior to the disaster, which was mirrored in turn by the reluctance of the Commission to push hard for information. RF does not criticize William Rogers, the head of the Commission, so much., in fact he praises him for the difficult job well done. It was, a RF sees it, a matter of institutional rigidity on both sides. RF's conclusions on the Challenger program are not happy. NASA had become complacent grossly underestimating risks, allowing past successes to obscure potential problems, There was, he notes, "an almost incredible lack of communication between the mangers and their working engineers."

Correctively, NASA must accept a more realistic schedule of flights, and achieve a more honest appraisal of hazards, even if this risks loss of congressional support. Ashe puts it, "Nature cannot be fooled." Whether these suggestion have become part of the currently Shuttle policy remains to be seen.

The book ends eloquently, and somewhat formally, with RF lecture on the Value of Science. For him its greatest value is as an antidote to intellectual rigidity:

"It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt it not to be feared but welcomed and discussed and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations."

It is a wise statement and fittingly summarizes its author.

RF is legendary among his colleagues fro his brilliance and his eccentricity ....it's hard not to smile all the way through. -- newsweek

a storyteller in the tradition of mark twain. He proves once again that it is possible to laugh out loud and scratch your head at the same time. -- the ny times book revu

books like this are temptations - to give up reading and devote life to re reading == the book is a litmus paper: anyone who can read it"-- LA times book review

buzzes with energy, anecdote, and life. It almost makes you want to become a physicist." -- science digest

a chain reaction is not a bad analogy for RF's life. From a critical mass of gray matter it goes off in all directions, producing both heat and light. -- time

hilarious, exhilarating ... a refreshing message, indeed. -- chicago sun-times