This autobiography reflects Richard Feynman's personality, which was both profound and eccentric. This is a dense autobiography since Feynman's life spanned half a century of developments in physics, a subject on which he left a major mark. He took part in the Manhattan Project, working to produce the atomic bombs that destroyed Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and he played a key role in the development of particle physics. He is the author of an internationally renowned physics textbook.

Are You Joking, Mr. Feynman? is not a chronological autobiography, following its subject from childhood to old age as an honoured scientist. Instead, it casts a spotlight on various aspects of Feynman's scientific and personal life. Numerous anecdotes make the great man came alive — with his charisma, originality and powerful intellect. For example, he recounts how he managed to open the safety-deposit boxes containing some of America's best-guarded military secrets; in another humorous anecdote he reminisces about the time he accompanied a group of bongo dancers.

Richard Feynman (1918-1988) taught at the California Institute of Technology. He obtained the Nobel Prize for Physics, in 1965.