What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character - Softcover

Richard Feynman, one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century and a winner of the Nobel Prize, died in February 1988. This is his last anecdotal autobiography in which he tells the story of the two people who most influenced his early years - his father, who taught him to think, and his first wife Arlene who taught him to love, even as she lay dying at an Albuquerque hospital while Feynman worked nearby on the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. There are also lighter moments which tell of his travels in Geneva, Trinidad, Greece and Japan. In the second part, Feynman gives a behind-the-scenes account of the investigation that followed the space shuttle "Challenger"'s explosion in January 1986, showing the inner workings of the Rogers Commission, the official enquiry into the causes of the disaster, the confusion and misjudgement which plagued NASA and the moment when the cause of the "Challenger" disaster was revealed.

'There were, it was said, only two ways of solving difficult problems in physics. One was to use mathematics; the other was to ask Feynman'
JOHN NAUGHTON, 'Observer'

Richard P. Feynman, who died in 1988, was indeed a curious character – irreverently funny, sometimes humble, sometimes shamelessly immodest, often profound, but always brilliantly and brimming with an infectios enthusiasm for finding things out.

'What Do You care What Other People Think'
is an engaging collection of stories, memories and letters from the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, accomplished bongo-player and artist, and includes 'Mr Feynman goes to Washington', an account of the vital role he played in the investigation into the 1986 Challenger Space Shuttle disaster.

'For Feynman, life in general and physics in particular were a hugely exciting game, played with boundless energy and panache'
PAUL DAVIES, 'Guardian'

'There were, it was said, only two ways of solving difficult problems in physics. One was to use mathematics; the other was to ask Feynman'
JOHN NAUGHTON, 'Observer'