"Science, No-Science, and Everything" by Richard Feynman

The book consists of three lectures. They are read exactly like this – with each sentence you feel the intonation of the lecturer, as if you were listening to him in the audience. This gives you the opportunity to grasp how the author himself thinks and sets you up to reflect on the problems and contradictions that he raises.

For example, about the inaccuracy of science – Richard Feynman writes about this in the first part of the book. The key idea here is that scientists must always and necessarily doubt: it is from doubt that new ideas are born, and in general, with the development of civilization, the right to doubt was literally fought for – as opposed to blindly following religious explanations. But the first chapter is interesting not only for this.

The author discusses the problem of relations between science and society and raises the question of responsibility:

“If you are developing nuclear energy, you must understand that it can be used for harm. So you would expect that when a scientist talks about problems of science, this would be the most important issue. But I will not talk about it any more. I think it is an exaggeration to consider such problems scientific. They are much more humanitarian. The facts are that we know how to create, but we do not know how to control what we have created, and this is not a scientific problem. Not one that scientists understand well.”

Such an interesting explanation of scientific boundaries.

In the second lecture, Richard Feynman discusses values. And here everything seems to have fallen into one pot: science, religion, the USA, Russia. It is in this part of the book that the author expresses himself rather frivolously, discussing the state and, as the title suggests, everything-everything-everything. On the one hand, he makes a good conclusion: “No government has the right to determine the truth of scientific principles or in any way dictate what questions shall be studied. Nor can it determine the aesthetic value of works of art or the forms in which art is expressed. It should not evaluate economic, historical, religious or philosophical doctrines. The duty of government to its citizens is to protect freedom, to enable those citizens to contribute to the further search, to the advancement of mankind.”

In the final lecture, the third in a row, the author shares the following:

“I have no clearly formulated theses left, but I have a lot of disturbing thoughts about our world, thoughts that I can't put into a clear and understandable form. And since I have already signed up for three lectures, all I can do is give a potpourri of these disturbing thoughts, without bothering to formulate them clearly.”

It's a bit like a bar conversation, but if the lecturer wasn't trying to do it any other way, then why not. The lecture is called “Our Unscientific Age,” but it's hardly possible to single out any main idea, any universal conclusion. It's more like food for thought for the reader. There are even fragments about flying saucers, astrology, and telepathy, in the context of discussions about people believing in it.

In this chapter, commentators and reporters also came under fire – the author attributed them to the group of almost the stupidest people, because they would have to explain some scientific discovery to them using their fingers – like to a neighbor. But here you can argue with Richard Feynman, because a reporter needs to convey to the audience material that will be understandable not only to physicists, but also to lyricists. And for scientists, if it comes down to it, there were and are their own publications – written in professional language. And in general, a good reporter is a professional amateur who, unlike an armchair scientist, cannot afford to deeply research one issue all his life: today the reporter writes about nuclear medicine, tomorrow about space flights, and the day after tomorrow about biology. However, such a conflict of views is a common thing. Scientists are often irritated by journalists.

In general, it's not boring reading, but if you haven't read Richard Feynman's other books, you won't be able to form an impression of him as an author and a scientist. And this time, you can just let him have this prank – lecture you on everything at once, even if you don't get answers to your questions.

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