written by Jim Ottaviani ; art by Leland Myrick ; coloring by Hilary Sycamore
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Jumping from the Manhattan Project laboratories of Los Alamos, N.Mex., to the
beaches of Rio, Ottaviani and Myrick's portrait of the Nobel Prize-winning
physicist and general polymath Richard Feynman eschews chronology in favor of
rhythm, and it's an approach that suits their subject perfectly. While Feynman's
role in the creation of the atomic bomb and his contributions to 20th-century
quantum electrodynamics are fascinating topics, they share equal time with his
vaguely libertine (for a physicist, anyway) approach to romance and his
tireless-and uneven-attempts to understand such nonscientific pursuits as art,
language, safecracking, samba music, and cooking. Though he was indisputably one
of the leading figures in the post-Einstein scientific landscape, Feynman's most
enduring pursuit was making physics accessible to the layman, and several
sections of the book illustrate how this impulse went beyond mere populism and
came to dominate his scientific life. When he wasn't relaxing on the beach, he
frequently chose teaching freshmen or lecturing to the general public over pure
research. Myrick's light, sketchy inks keep the proceedings from bogging down,
even in the lecture hall, and an extensive bibliography and sketchbook prove
that the most dogged intellectual pursuit can still be a good time.
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