Genius Jerk

   If you watch The Big Bang Theory on CBS you have heard Dr. Richard Feynman's name mentioned a few times. In fact if you watch closely you can see a little Feynman in Dr. Sheldon Cooper's personality. Over the holidays I finally sat down and  read Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman. It is a book that compiles some of Feynman's interviews and speeches. I was promised a "fun" book. Oh, geez.
   Feynman explains his youthful curiosity so we do get a glimpse of how intelligent he was as a child. This intellect wasn't taught or instilled in him, he simply was born to learn. Feynman's need to control things and use people as social experiments made me  uncomfortable, even angry. At one point I  was so aghast at his stalking skills that I declared to my cousin, whom knew I was reading this book, that Feynman was a sociopath. If Dr. Feynman had not entered into the University and been protected by his professors and peers is there any way he could have stayed out of jail? Even he admits that he spent many nights wandering the streets talking to himself. He made outlandish contracts with people and while working in Los Alamos on the bomb he became obsessed with safecracking.
    Yes, he was a genius but there was something in Feynman that wanted the ultimate human experience but he still came across as detached. He studied things but never submerged himself in them because he wanted the knowledge, but I, as a reader,  didn't see the passion. His whole life was made up of, "Tell me.", "Show me". I respect that. My problem with Feynman comes from his not actually seeming to have an emotional attachment to what he was doing.
    The real example came on page 74 when Dr. Feynman is working with Hildegarde Lamfrom on RNA protein production and she needs ribosomes. He gives her ribosomes from E. coli to use. He basically ruined her experiment and set the work back, by how many months or years I don't know. Dr. Lamfrom was working in the same lab as Watson and Crick and I believe it was Watson that went on to mention her in his Nobel Prize speech. This was a woman on the cusp of something huge, and then comes Feynman. In the end he makes this comment, "That's the trouble with not being in your own field: You don't take it seriously."  Throughout the whole experience of reading I just kept throwing the book down screaming, "Surely you're a jerk Mr. Feynman!!"
    The book talks a little about physics, but most of the book is just Feynman talking about ants, bars, women,  Los Alamos, and Carnival. I loved the name dropping that he does. He mentions Oppenheimer. He names names in Los Alamos. It's like eavesdropping on a pivotal time in history. Feynman had his hands in some of the most bizarre and crazy events in American history. He also makes great revelations about the human condition   ...I just can't get past the jerk part. I will continue to read Dr. Feynman's work. I am just too curious. I will have my aspirin handy and only throw the books at inanimate objects. Feynman will always be a key player, maybe even the star, of American science and I will never be bored.