Feynman’s Rainbow by Leonard Mlodinow is spot on when it comes to the self-examinations that Caltech can dole out to a young scientist. In the book, Mlodinow – who is now a scriptwriter for Star Trek – documents his troubled first year as a postdoc at Caltech in 1981. He recounts how he wrestled with his own fears of being at Caltech merely by fluke and of how he thought he might never produce another bit of important physics again. Through several encounters with Richard Feynman, a lot of martinis, marijuana, and conversations with Ray the garbage man, Mlodinow eventually found his way to a sound and healthy life. I enjoyed this little book, which makes for a couple of good nights of bed-time reading.
Caltech is no ordinary institution with ordinary expectations and pressures. It is a place of research and discovery – and a hefty amount of peer envy. One need only look at the roster to sense something strange in the air: 275 professors, 562 postdocs, 1181 graduate students and 939 undergraduates. With 29 Nobel-prize-winning faculty and alumni – 13 in physics.
Most of the book, however, centres on Feynman’s pearls of wisdom, and includes several transcripts from taped conversations with the oracle. However, there is enough character development apart from Feynman to get a feel for the department as a whole; what Mlodinow writes is therefore of historical interest.
In the November issue of Physics World Christopher Fuchs reviews this book in full.