Meet Richard Feynman: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

Knowing vs. knowing the name

His father taught him young: you can know a bird's name in every language and know nothing about the bird. Feynman built a career on the difference — if you can't explain a thing simply, you don't understand it yet. His freshman lectures humbled professors.

The O-ring

When the Challenger exploded, NASA's process produced euphemisms. Feynman produced a glass of ice water, dunked a piece of O-ring rubber on live television, and showed it losing resilience in the cold. One honest demonstration beat a thousand pages of managed conclusions.

Why they belong at your table

Seat him when learning has gone stale or you suspect you're fooling yourself. He restores the joy and removes the fooling, in that order.