Feynman, Richard

A RARE PRESENTATION COPY OF A RUSSIAN EDITION OF FEYNMAN'S WORK SIGNED AND INSCRIBED TO HIM BY PHYSICIST KIP THORNE

Kip Thorne is an American theoretical physicist known for his contributions to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the first direct detection of gravitational waves, for which he won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Rainer Weiss and Barry C. Barish. In a 2001 LA Times article, "The Cult of Richard Feynman," Thorne commented on Feynman’s rich legacy, lauding the 20th century physicist’s ability to marry heart and soul with reason and intellect: “The people I know admired his breadth of interest, his curiosity and his love of life. Most of us tend to have much narrower lives than he, and many of us regret at times that we don’t have the breadth of experiences and relationships as he did.”

Later English editions of this work, consisting of seven lectures delivered by Feynman on the laws of physics at Cornell University in 1964 and recorded for television by the BBC, as part of the Messenger Lectures Series. From 1983-1986, Feynman did a series of "Idiosyncratic Thinking" workshops at the legendary Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. In 1984, Feynman delivered an updated version of his famous lecture "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom", which can be viewed on YouTube under the title "Richard Feynman "Tiny Machines" Nanotechnology Lecture. 

Feynman never wrote a book in the conventional sense. The hugely influential scientific monographs published under his name were in fact transcriptions of his lectures made by students or other physicists in attendance: Quantum Electrodynamics (1961), Theory of Fundamental Processes (1961), The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1963), The Character of Physical Law (1965), Photon-Hadron Interactions (1972), and Statistical Mechanics (1972). Even his two highly successful volumes of popular memoir—Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)(See Lot 34) and What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988)—were transcribed from taped conversations made by Ralph Leighton, a fellow bongo player.

This Russian copy of Feynman's book, gifted to him by a fellow physicist, speaks both to his breadth of friendships and his lasting legacy worldwide.

LITERATURE:

Kennedy, J. Michael. "The Cult of Richard Feynman." LA Times, 2 Dec. 2001.