Along with Gleick’s outstanding biography, Lawrence Krauss’ Quantum Man is now one of the essential Feynman books. While Gleick’s book is biography at its finest, Krauss’s is the best picture of Feynman’s position within the physics community, which is obviously something that could only be written by a serious physicist, like Krauss. Krauss, better than anyone else, has explained why Feynman was seen as a great scientist by physicists themselves, who are not the types to be swayed by the anecdotes that made Feynman popular with the public. Feynman was a great public communicator, and purposely developed a particular public persona, but his physics accomplishments were completely equal to his fame, as Krauss makes clear. I learned more about Feynman’s style of doing science (including its weaknesses of insularity) from this book than from any other.
So here’s how I would categorize the existing Feynman biographies:
– Gleick’s Genius is the only full-scale biography, extremely well written and researched, and the best representation in book form of Feynman as a person.
– Gribbin: primarily about Feynman’s scientific accomplishments, it’s the only biography that explains Feynman’s work at an accessible, popular level. It does not capture scientific style so much, or completely place Feynman within the physics community.
– Mehra, The Beat of a Different Drum: A mathematically detailed description of Feynman’s work, and also a very fine biography (on which Feynman himself cooperated before his death) with some original biographical material.
– Krauss, Quantum Man: The only book that authentically captures Feynman as a scientist. The description of Feynman’s work is not as mathematically detailed as Mehra’s, or as popularly addressed as Gribbins. This book is much more about the intellectual development of ideas in physics, and where Feynman fit in. It’s exactly the kind of book you would expect a scientist to write for a scientifically sophisticated (but not necessarily professional) audience. Plus Krauss probably captures what made Feynman tick as a scientist better than anyone.
And don’t forget Christopher Sykes excellent biographical collage, No Ordinary Genius.
The Finch and Pea 
2 thoughts on “I can’t decide whether Quantum Man is the best Feynman biography”