NONFICTION - Sept. 11, 1994

NO ORDINARY GENIUS: The Illustrated Richard Feynman by Christopher Sykes (264 pp.; $29.95). Two fine books have already been published on this feyn man: James Gleick’s cerebral portrait, “Genius,” and the farcical memoir, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman.” But as BBC producer Christopher Sykes shows in this lively biography, even now, six years after the physicist’s death, there is ample room for a third. Ever the oddball, Sykes’ Feynman seems saddest when showered with praise: “They expected me to be wonderful,” he laments at one point, “and I wasn’t wonderful.” He is happiest, in contrast, when walking in a park with a friend like Sykes, explaining what holds the clouds up or why the raindrop on the picnic table keeps its shape: “You see . . . the atoms attract each other--they like to be next to each other, they want as many partners as they can get! Now the guys that are on the surface have partners only on one side, and the air on the other, so they’re trying to get in to get closer . . . (they) are very unhappy and nervous, and they keep pounding in, trying to get in, and that makes it a tight round ball.”