Review

This is a set of three lectures given by Richard Feynman in 1963 at the University of Washington as part of the then new Danz lectures. The themes of the lectures are: the nature of science, the relationship of science to society and religion, and the unscientific American culture of the day.

I’ve seen films of other Feynman lectures and found him to be really engaging, personable, and down to earth. These qualities come across in these lectures as well, but it turns out that folksiness doesn’t translate well to the written word. The second and third lectures seemed disjointed, rambling, not well thought out. The first one, on the crucial role of doubt, skepticism, and uncertainty in science was better, but not really very enlightening for anyone who has thought at all about scientific activity.

Metadata