How fortune the author was to have had these interactions with him. Feynman was my greatest hero as an undergrad physics student (largely because of "Surely..."

How fortune the author was to have had these interactions with him. Feynman was my greatest hero as an undergrad physics student (largely because of "Surely...", and the Feynman Lectures) and I was heartbroken when he died before I could meet him. Among other things, he showed again and again how much economy and power was gained by attacking problems from different angles, and by building up and applying physical intuition, rather than relying solely on brute-force calculation. More importantly, he showed how much fun you could have solving hard problems, simply by playing -- lessons that I was able to apply well outside of physics.