Feynman

My head hurts, but in a good way, after reading this incredibly rich biography of physicist FEYNMAN by Ottovani and Myrick (First Second 2011). Richard Feynman was a Novel prize winning physicist who worked in Los Alamos and even was part of the commission that studied the challenger disaster. He was also a brilliant mind, of course, when it came to QED (quantum electrodynamics). He was also a larger than life personality who taught himself how to open just about any safe, who played drums in various bands, and who doubted the importance of his own contributions to science on more than one occasion. Ottavani and Myrick capture this huge spirit and personality somehow on a page without losing any of the details that made Feynman someone unforgettable. Their use of color is spare but still significant to the various threads that made up Feynman's life. High school and college classes in physics would do well to include this as a textbook for students. <475>

GNs rely on illustration for much of the story, of course, and this GN is no exception. Formulae and diagrams populate much of the space in the panels emphasizing to readers the complex nature of the calculations important to Feynman's work. Readers will also meet Bohr, Einstein, and other important scientists of the time.