I’ve been meaning to publish these notes for over two years. They’re not as polished as I’d like, but I’d rather get them out than keep waiting.
If I could have dinner with anyone in the history of the world, it would be Feynman. I’ve never dived deep into his work or research, but I’ve read some short articles and followed what others say about him.
Notes
These are my audiobook notes, not direct quotes. A few transcriptions are unclear; I’ve kept those as written rather than guessed at their meaning. The complete original notes are also preserved, including repeated notes and empty timestamp markers.
Chapter 2
- 12:28: He fixes radios by thinking.
Chapter 4
02:52: A pact to teach each other in college when falling behind.
05:38: Look at the wires to figure out where downtown is.
08:47: He did not know how to pronounce Bernoulli’s equation.
14:46: People’s knowledge is fragile because they don’t learn by understanding.
Chapter 5
- 00:24: Original transcription (unclear):
people only reneged conclusion if you don't have evidence
Chapter 8
- 02:00: He said yes to both lemon and milk in his tea.
Chapter 10
00:15: The book Process and Reality.
00:37: Feynman was afraid to interrupt.
00:38: Feynman was afraid to interrupt and ask questions.
00:39: Feynman was afraid to interrupt and ask questions.
Chapter 11
- 06:35: His first technical seminar had von Neumann, Pauli, Einstein, and many more!
Chapter 15
- 03:33: He always watched different things.
Chapter 16
04:49: Feynman chose the Army over Bell Labs at one point.
07:10: Build a system using polar coordinates instead of Euclidean coordinates. What if the gunner and the station are in different locations?
Chapter 18
26:22: He played around with the censor in the mail office while exchanging coded messages with his wife.
31:59: Airplanes had bus stops back then.
53:06: He only cried several months after his wife died.
56:46: Walks with von Neumann: you don’t need to be responsible for the world we’re in. Be irresponsible.
57:14: Niels Bohr used the name Nicholas Baker.
Chapter 19
- 14:33: He got really good at opening everyone’s safes for fun.
Chapter 20
- 00:17: Half of the people didn’t bother to change the default safe code.
Chapter 21
00:27: He liked to teach because, when he didn’t have ideas, at least he was doing something productive.
00:28: He liked to pretend to be crazy—for fun and to fuck with people.
12:45: No one believed he was a professor, so he had to lie.
18:26: No ideas when burned out.
18:32: He liked physics because he played with it.
20:40: He worked on equations for a wobbling plate for fun.
Chapter 26
- 32:11: He noticed that students memorized things without understanding them.
Chapter 28
- 06:08: Original transcription (unclear):
jwouneows were oike dishinf - you talk tonpeople ans then somerjong intersting happena
Chapter 29
- 07:43: Original transcription (unclear):
caltrch is where he was surrounded by people telling him summer things
Chapter 30
00:05: He rejected a salary three times higher at a different university.
16:47: He asked a lot of stupid questions in the beginning because he needed to understand.
Chapter 34
- 01:12: A funny story about 13 signatures and not being willing to sign a single one more to cash a check when giving a talk.
Chapter 37
- 04:43: He hung up on the person who told him he had won the Nobel Prize.
Chapter 39
- 12:18: He studied the Mayan calendar, played drums, and always continued having fun.
Chapter 40
04:01: He used sensory deprivation tanks because he was afraid of taking drugs and messing up his ability to think.
04:39: He eventually took ketamine.
08:13: He learned to meditate and have hallucinations by moving his ego inside a sensory deprivation chamber.
09:41: Front and back of the head—he understood it all.
09:53: Earlier in the book, when he was having fun, he was burned out. He just didn’t use the proper terms.
36:05: Cargo cult science.
38:41: Feynman’s recommendation: be in a place where you can maintain scientific integrity, free from financial or title obligations, and do good work.