Feynman Lectures Released Free Online 70
Anna Merikin writes In 1964, Richard Feynman delivered a series of seven hour-long lectures at Cornell University which were recorded by the BBC, and in 2009 (with a little help from Bill Gates), were released to the public. The three-volume set may be the most popular collection of physics books ever written, and now the complete online edition has been made available in HTML 5 through a collaboration between Caltech (where Feyman first delivered these talks, in the early 1960s) and The Feynman Lectures Website. The online edition is "high quality up-to-date copy of Feynman's legendary lectures," and, thanks to the implementation of scalable vector graphics, "has been designed for ease of reading on devices of any size or shape; text, figures and equations can all be zoomed without degradation." Volume I deals mainly with mechanics, radiation and heat; Volume II with electromagnetism and matter; and Volume III with quantum mechanics. Last year we told you when Volume I was made available. It's great to see the rest added.
Ahhh (Score:4, Insightful)
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As will all of us be - sooner or later
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-I think you mean "he died."
-No, first he died. Now he dead.
Re:Feynman was overrated (Score:5, Funny)
and physics is living in the past, rather than innovating.
That's right. To be really innovative, you need to create a new physics. Or math.
Go right ahead.
Re:Feynman was overrated (Score:5, Informative)
That's right. To be really innovative, you need to create a new physics. Or math.
With QED and Feynman Diagrams, that is pretty much what Richard Feynman did.
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Re:Feynman was overrated (Score:5, Interesting)
Notwithstanding the numerous theoretical physicists that devote their time to it. And the fact that America's most prominent theoretical physicist [briangreene.org] is a string theorist. What a mess.
There's no question that theoretical physics has certainly declined in terms of its practical output since World War II, but that's understandable -- the death of 100K Japanese and the nihilistic horror of a thermonuclear war is a hard act to follow up :) On the other hand, there's definitely some force to the argument that theoretical physics has kinda lost its way because the Philosophy of Science hasn't managed to keep pace. Something that really comes through with Feynman's lectures is that he has a really solid metaphysical, experiential grounding for what he's explaining, like Einstein did. He's thought through everything he's explaining from the basic foundations and takes little for granted, and he's explicit about the things he does take for granted and he understands the limits of his arguments.
Feynman was famous for saying that, if you couldn't explain something to a freshman lecture, it wasn't understood and you probably didn't understand it yourself. If you go up on Hulu and watch Brian Greene's NOVA three-parter on String Theory, it's atrocious -- it's like hearing a Catholic priest explain the nature of Holy Spirit. He doesn't get it -- he exemplifies the unfortunate trend in modern theoretical physics, that if you don't have the answer you want, you haven't done enough Lagrangians.
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Tom Lehrer, is that you?
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Re:Skeptic (Score:5, Funny)
He wasn't sure he was a physicist?
Re:Skeptic (Score:4, Insightful)
Feynman was a Skeptic.
I'm not sure what your point it, but as far as I know ALL scientists are skeptics; that's why they keep probing the edges of their chosen discipline all the time, in order to improve their theories.
What real scientists are not is closed-minded deniers of any and all facts they don't like, like in 'climate-skeptic' or 'evolution-skeptic', and I suspect you are trying to imply that Feynman is a 'skeptic' like that. Knowing his work, I doubt it.
Surely You're Joking online (Score:5, Funny)
Silverlight (Score:4, Interesting)
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arguments are SOOOOO 1950 that you just wanna gag.
So are fixed pitch fonts.
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You didn't have the sense god gave a pissant to find those for yourself, so good luck in understanding them.
misleading (Score:5, Informative)
The videos of Feynman speaking at Cornell that Gates acquired and released are NOT the more popularly known "Feynman Lectures on Physics". It was part of the Messanger Lectures series where Feynman was a guest at his alma mater. Entitled "The Character of Physical Law", they are lesser known, but more accessible to someone who isn't intent upon a complete college lecture course.
Re:misleading (Score:5, Informative)
I found a simple but terrific site, richard-feynman.net, which has compiled links to Richard Feynman videos [richard-feynman.net]. This includes the series "The Character of Physical Law."
Re:misleading (Score:4, Informative)
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I stand corrected. I remembered most vividly reading that Paul Dirac was somewhat of a mentor figure for the young Feynman at Cornell. But I'd somehow forgotten he was no longer a student at that point.
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I'll have whichever one doesn't have you.
The problem is that sanctimonious twits are going to be found everywhere. Best way forward is to be reincarnated as a flatworm.
From the preface (Score:5, Interesting)
I was reading about the project to put these lectures online. It's amazing how well these lectures have held up over time.
This excerpt from History of Errata [caltech.edu] is quite enjoyable:
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Don't know of such a writing, but perhaps he came up with a clever way to teach classical electrodynamics in a way that mirrors his electron-to-electron time-symmetric approach to QED (i.e., Wheeler/Feynman absorber theory). I mean in a way that is clever enough to think you might actually understand it w/o actually understanding it (which is sadly often a problem with Feynman lectures)... Path integrals and Feynman diagrams for classical electrodynamics? I shutter at the thought of that in sophomore-lev
So cool... (Score:1)
Cornell Lectures were not "Lectures in Physics" (Score:4, Informative)
The Cornell lectures, which were made available by Bill Gates using Silverlight, are the basis for Feynman's book "The Character of Physical Law".
These are *not* the Feynman Lectures in Physics, which were based on the freshman Physics class Feynman taught at Cal Tech in 1962-64.
It is the Cal Tech lectures that are available free on-line. There is also an iPad app that has multimedia for some of the lectures -- the 6 Easy Pieces part.
Finally (Score:2)
We'll learn what all this modern quantum stuff is all about.
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Cornell Lectures are not Cal Tech Lectures. (Score:3, Informative)
The Cornell lectures, which were made available by Bill Gates using Silverlight, are the basis for Feynman's book "The Character of Physical Law". They are referred to as the Messenger Lectures, and are intended for a general audience -- basically anyone at college level (or college level in 1964). I think that they should be required reading by everyone.
These lectures are currently available in various formats on YouTube, as wells the site sponsored by Bill Gates.
These are *not* the Feynman Lectures in Physics, which were based on the freshman Physics class Feynman taught at Cal Tech in 1962-64. This is the famous three volume work, which has usually been published in red covers.
It is the Cal Tech lectures that are available free on-line. There is also an iPad app that has multimedia for some of the lectures -- the 6 Easy Pieces part.
The Feynman Lectures in Physics was the result of CalTech's reform of the teaching of Physics. The books are taken from audio tapes (and photos) of Feynman teaching the two year course from 1962-1964. Other than the parts extracted as the "Six Easy Pieces", they are intended for physics majors (and engineers, mathematicians, etc.). Although some parts are dated, the main reason for reading these books after 50+ years is the quality of Feynman's explanations. They are models of clarity.
don't they understand the Internet? (Score:2)
The front-page warning says "However, we want to be clear that this edition is only free to read online, and this posting does not transfer any right to download all or any portion of The Feynman Lectures on Physics for any purpose. "
I wonder how they expect people to read it in their browsers without the text of the document being transferred down to the computer on which the browser is running...?
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The front-page warning says "However, we want to be clear that this edition is only free to read online, and this posting does not transfer any right to download all or any portion of The Feynman Lectures on Physics for any purpose. "
I wonder how they expect people to read it in their browsers without the text of the document being transferred down to the computer on which the browser is running...?
Not to mention the implied requirement that an always online connection is required to read these 'free' editions, rather than being able to read from a local copy offline.
Yes, yes, we all know that in the modern day everyone has an internet connection to the cloud all the time, so this is an old-fashioned sentiment. Or wait - maybe it isn't so old-fashioned. It's still quite common that in situations where there is enough idle time to read something like this (on a plane, train, boat or automobile; in a
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Perhaps your online time would be better spent by actually reading the stuff than bitching about it.
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Perhaps your online time would be better spent by actually reading the stuff than bitching about it.
Personally I feel that was uncalled for, but your nick suggests that perhaps you can't help it. Please learn to distinguish between 'bitching' and 'discussing critically'. The latter is intended to point out how things might be made better, while the former is more about complaining for the sake of complaining. They are very different things. It seems to me that these days anything outside of Pollyanna-ish optimism and praise is being lumped into the "bitching" or "complaining" or "being negative" categ
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Perhaps your online time would be better spent by actually reading the stuff than bitching about a nick.
Oh snap, you got me, you clever lad.
Perhaps your online time would be better spent actually reading the stuff than tossing out sophomoric zingers.
I mean, put a little work into it and bring in the source material. Feynman was a funny guy - work that into your act. Here are some quotes to get you started: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/... [wikiquote.org]
Better yet, show that you actually spent your time reading the stuff and work that into your schtick. THAT would be impressive.
Come on, show me what you got, funny guy.
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I should point out that my final comment about updating some of the figures only applies to some of them - the majority of the updated SVG versions are actually quite nice as they are, which I noticed as I looked through volumes 2 and 3.
I was thinking in particular of the monochrome photographic images such as Fig 52-1 from http://www.feynmanlectures.cal... [caltech.edu], which could probably be updated with a photo of the same models using a modern camera, or perhaps a nice 3-D rendering of the same molecules. Another
PDF? (Score:1)
For those of us that dont stay connected just to read..
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PDF, and the source that was used to generate the HTML (FLP LaTeX according to the thank you section)
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Yes LaTeX source would work instead.... Just not wget+html->pdf ....
Feynman Volume III (Score:2)
This is great (Score:2)
Fantastic that they made these available for free and in such an accessible format.
Had a quick look through and one of the major differences between the HTML5 version and the book is the layout, everything is completely linearly presented... i suppose that makes it easier to support mobile devices and various sized screens etc, but not quite as nice as the book.
Depending on the re-use rights perhaps it could be given some love with @media queries and some more caring typography.