My absolute hero is Richard Feynman. Required reading:
- "Surely You're Joking"
- "What Do You Care What Other People Think"
- http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm "Personal Observations on Reliability of Shuttle" (Challenger disaster report)
- Also, consider torrenting videos of his "Messenger Lectures". The youtube snippets do not nearly do them justice. They're some of the most intellectually interesting things you'll ever watch:
Richard_Feynman_Messenger_Lectures_at_Cornell_-_The.Character.of.Physical.Law_-_Part_1_The_Law_of_Gravitation
Part_2_The_Relation_of_Mathematics_to_Physics
Part_3_The_Great_Conservation_Principles
Part_4_Symmetry_in_Physical_Law
Part_5_The_Distinction_of_Past_and_Future
Part_6_Probability_and_Uncertainty
Part_7_Seeking_New_Laws
Re:My Heroes
by simonsarris on Thursday October 20, 2011 @10:43AM
(#3135041)
There's also a small series of Feynman that has been put on Youtube called "fun to imagine." They are short and most of them are very good:
There's also a lovely three part series:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRmbwczTC6E
Richard Feynman's Messenger Lectures can be viewed here (Silverlight required):
So true. We all stand on the shoulders of giants but it's not often that we look down to see who they really are (probably different for each of us).