Surely you're joking!

Lot 30
16.07.2020 06:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 10 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 370019
Lot 30 | Surely you're joking!
Estimate value
£ 10 000 – 15 000
Richard Phillips Feynman (1918-1988).

"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" Adventures of a Curious Character. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1985.

First edition signed by Feynman of his best-selling reminiscences. Surely You're Joking, which emerged from taped conversations with Feynman's friend and drum-partner Ralph Leighton, focuses – perhaps uniquely for a scientific memoir – more on Feynman's personality and outlook than strictly on his scientific achievements. Its subject matter accordingly varies widely, from Feynman's childhood in Queen's to his interests in safe-cracking and bongo-playing and his involvement in the Manhattan Project. The chapter 'Monster Minds' (p.77) describes Feynman's rather nervous first technical seminar presentation of his graduate work on the Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory in front of Albert Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, Henry Norris Russell, John von Neumann, and other major figures of the time. The book enjoyed great success, selling over half-a-million copies, leading to further editions and a sequel entitled What Do You Care What Other People Think?

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