In “Safecracker meets Safecracker,” Feynman displays his characteristic jocularity: the fellow just genuinely loved to poke good-natured holes in widely-held but erroneous beliefs. He details his deep research into the technology and logic of everyday locks, revealing his tricks and methods along the way. He is doing what anyone could do, if determined and thorough enough. He also details the way people see locks, showing how we can become falsely secure (no pun intended) in our preconceived notions.

It took me a while to see that Feynman was not making fun of other people’s ignorance. At first I found him just so damned smug I could barely stand it. But slowly, as the stories progressed, I came to realize that I had judged him based on my own set of untested notions: I had literally judged his book by its cover blurb.

His drive is actually altruistic at the very bottom of it all: people are mistaken in their belief that their documents are secure, and he can prove it well before anything dire occurs. The fact that he reveals the weaknesses of the security system at Los Alamos in a humorous way is just Feynman’s method for making the lesson more palatable and memorable. What it all revealed for me was that as an educator, I can weave my small lessons into the living conversation I am having with my students. I can and must make these exercises come alive for them in ways that are relevant to them. That alone will reveal how approachable and possible learning and achievement actually are.