In not totally unrelated news, I just finished reading Greg Egan's 'Orthogonal' trilogy (alien (as in really alien, alternate-universe cosmology and physics) multi-generational epic). The Feynman-type diagrams in the last book helped make sense of the weird physics.
Egan has copious documents on the physics of the Orthogonal universe at his website [ http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html ]
Does the Orthoganal trilogy work for you on that level? I'm looking for some good fiction to balance by non-fiction reading now that the nights are getting darker.
I think this is more due to the fact that humans like reading about characters they can easily relate to, and Egan really pushes this boundary!
Still worth a read, and I'll almost certainly re-read them in the future.
Incidentally I read Permutation City right after Surely You are Joking Mr Feynman! While the Feynman book was an obvious page turner the Egan book was slow going. The difference to me was quite jarring and must have contributed in part to my disliking of the book.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feynman_Lectures_on_Phys...
That said, hopefully it's all new to [some] other people!
Few scientists have a talent to present abstract things as well as Feynman. Daniel Kahneman and Sigmund Freud, whose lectures are also a pleasure to read, come to mind.
I couldn't read the Feynman lectures for my courses though (we followed the Berkeley physics series), but when ever I want to refresh my mind or find a nice way to explain things to students, these are a swell reference.
I still prefer the printed version though because of its nice layout with images and drawings in the margins.
