The cool thing about Richard Feynman is that he never wrote a single book, but there are a lot out there claiming to be by Richard Feynman. What happened is that people taped him and then wrote it up. This book is the write-up of a series of lectures that he gave about how physicists use Mathematics in their study of the world and what it means to talk about the Laws of the Universe. Feynman is brilliant at explaining things. I like the explanation of the dissipation of energy in terms of drying yourself with a wet towel. He's my favourite physicist: he worked hard and was clever but never let the authorities push him around.
Someone has put all of Chapter 5 on the Internet
http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/feynman/past_and_future.htmlIf you'd rather watch him give the lectures instead of reading the book, Bill Gates has paid to put them online: http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/#data=3%7C%7C%7C
