Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol. 1 Released in HTML Format

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Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol. 1 Released in HTML Format

Posted by Soulskill on Friday September 13, 2013 @03:10AM from the surely-you're-joking dept.

Dr. Richard Feynman's lectures on physics have been iconic standards of physics education for the past five decades. Videos of the series were put online at Microsoft Research a few years ago, but now the entirety of Volume 1 is available over simple HTML (mirror). In a letter to members of the Feynman Lectures Forum, editor Mike Gottlieb said, "It was an idea conceived many years ago, when through FL website correspondence I became aware of the many eager young minds who could benefit from reading FLP, who want to read it, but for economic or other reasons have no access to it, while at the same time I was becoming aware of the growing popularity of horrid scanned copies of old editions of FLP circulating on file-sharing and torrent websites. A free high-quality online edition was my proposed solution to both problems. All concerned agreed on the potential pedagogical benefits, but also had to be convinced that book sales would not be harmed. The conversion from LaTeX to HTML was expensive: we raised considerable funds, but ran out before finishing Volumes II and III, so we are only posting Volume I initially. (I am working on finishing Volumes II and III myself, as time permits, and will start posting chapters in the not-too-distant future, if all goes as planned.)"

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What? by gstoddart · 2013-09-13 03:13 · Score: 0

And nobody is making a copyright claim?

--
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
1. Re:What? by Trepidity · 2013-09-13 03:46 · Score: 5, Informative
  They have the agreement of the print publisher to produce this free online version. I'm actually somewhat surprised they got it; as the summary notes, they had to convince the publisher that having a free version available online wouldn't hurt print sales, which is often hard to convince publishers of.
  The thank-you section of the page lists:
  Thomas Kelleher and Basic Books, for their open-mindedness in allowing this edition to be published free of charge
  --
  10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
2. Re:What? by fnj · 2013-09-13 04:23 · Score: 1
  
  But isn't the copyright the property of Feynman's heirs? If not, why not? I am probably naive.
3. Re:What? by tlhIngan · 2013-09-13 04:25 · Score: 1
  
  They have the agreement of the print publisher to produce this free online version. I'm actually somewhat surprised they got it; as the summary notes, they had to convince the publisher that having a free version available online wouldn't hurt print sales, which is often hard to convince publishers of.
  The thank-you section of the page lists:
  Thomas Kelleher and Basic Books, for their open-mindedness in allowing this edition to be published free of charge
  I guess it also helps that it isn't a book that's been published recently - being an older title, sales are probably thin to begin with. An online copy can easily be a good marketing mechanism in that case.
4. Re:What? by EvanED · 2013-09-13 04:29 · Score: 1
  
  This page says Caltech holds the copyright. Presumably they require(d) that faculty transfer copyright of works they did in the course of their employment to the university. My guess is that's probably standard provision for faculty, though I'm not positive.
5. Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  I don't know what the policy was when Feynman made that, but Caltech's copyright policy was (and still looks like) that copyright of books, papers, written work, and stuff related to classes remain with the author unless specifically funded by Caltech (above and beyond simply being an employee there). And when they do get the copyright, you get a portion of the royalties, or can chose to donate a portion of your share to research in a field you specify, and Caltech will match your contribution from their portion of the royalties.
6. Re:What? by tloh · 2013-09-13 06:29 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I'll get to the copyright in a minute. But there is actually a huge bit of inaccuracy in the post. The videos at Microsoft research in *NOT* the Feynman lectures on physics. Those are actually a part of the Messenger Lectures recorded at Cornell in 1964 called "The Character of Physical Law" and preceded the Cal Tech undergraduate physics lectures which we now know as the Feynman Lectures on Physics.
  Bill Gates has long been a fan of the lesser known Messenger Lectures. As part of the drive to popularize Silverlight, he actually acquired the rights to "The Character of Physical Law" in order to be able to present them to the public using the Silverlight platform at Project Tuva. Not a bad move for like minded Feynman fans like me.
  
  --
  Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
7. Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 09:39 · Score: 0
  
  Well.... where can we get the LaTeX copies? Why not just release those...if it's too expensive to do html.
Conversion? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 03:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

If they wanted to replace the "horrid scanned copies", and it was already in LaTeX, why not upload good PDFs?
What a waste of money.
1. Re:Conversion? by EvanED · 2013-09-13 03:19 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yeah, I had the same question.
  My guess is that it's the "book sales would not be harmed" qualifier, with the assumption that just posting good PDFs would harm sales and an HTML version wouldn't.
  I'm not sure how they got to that conclusion, but that's my guess anyway.
2. Re:Conversion? by stewsters · 2013-09-13 03:20 · Score: 2
  
  Or use this:
  htlatex feynman1.tex
3. Re:Conversion? by Bert64 · 2013-09-13 03:24 · Score: 2
  
  And how can it be expensive? latex2html seems to work just fine...
  
  --
  http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
4. Re:Conversion? by xombo · 2013-09-13 03:27 · Score: 1
  
  SEO most likely.
5. Re:Conversion? by rs1n · 2013-09-13 04:08 · Score: 1
  
  Because the good PDFs would harm the sales of the printed volumes. The HTML forms are better than bad scans, but not good enough to be printed out (like a high quality PDF) by folks who wish to capitalize in copyright infringement.
6. Re:Conversion? by fnj · 2013-09-13 04:45 · Score: 2
  
  It may have something to do with stuff that can't be rendered properly in HTML. The web presentation is full of equations rendered like this:
  
  \begin{equation} \label{Eq:I:39:2} dW = F(-dx) = -PA\,dx = -P\,dV. \end{equation}
  I assume that is rendered as a proper equation in the hardcopy!
  The good news is that the web presentation is searchable ASCII text, which a bit-mapped scan would not be.
7. Re:Conversion? by RDW · 2013-09-13 04:52 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Browser issue? You should see the equations properly rendered by MathJax in the online version (maybe with a very brief delay before the sort of text you quote is replaced by an equation).
8. Re:Conversion? by fnj · 2013-09-13 04:55 · Score: 1
  
  OK, I now found a cached version of the web page that actually works properly, and the equations are indeed rendered correctly.
  So why can't you just print the pages out to PDF? Would the result be considered "not good quality" PDF?
9. Re:Conversion? by EvanED · 2013-09-13 05:05 · Score: 1
  
  So why can't you just print the pages out to PDF? Would the result be considered "not good quality" PDF?
  Nah... a printed web page will only print even remotely close to the quality of a real typeset book if a lot of effort was expended on creating CSS specifically for printing, and even then you probably can't get even all that good. (Could you even get a table of contents with page numbers? I dunno.) And that basically means that it wouldn't happen.
10. Re:Conversion? by VortexCortex · 2013-09-13 05:30 · Score: 1
  
  You would deprive a fellow latex user of his easy exploitation of the ignorant who refuse to learn computing, whilst they also convince the publisher high quality online versions will not hurt sales?
  Personally, I hope they extract every last dime they can by running a terminal command and farting about the web for the other 8 hours of the day. However, I'm sure it has more to do with web formatting and hosting, links and other such things than getting paid to do nothing.
  Protip: In capitalist societies, getting paid more to do less is considered a mark of success...
11. Re:Conversion? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2013-09-13 05:38 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Just use PrinceXML.
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
12. Re:Conversion? by lister+king+of+smeg · 2013-09-13 05:47 · Score: 1
  
  If they wanted to replace the "horrid scanned copies", and it was already in LaTeX, why not upload good PDFs?
  What a waste of money.
  or the LaTeX .DVI's
  
  --
  ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
13. Re:Conversion? by harlows_monkeys · 2013-09-13 06:39 · Score: 1
  
  HTML works better in this case. PDF is better when you need the formatting to be the same on all the devices, but that is not the case here.
  With HTML, the user can adjust the size and have the text reflow, and can separately scale all the math (see the MathJax context menu on any equation to access the math scaling settings).
  For instance, the HTML edition is quite usable on even my iPhone, with my poor 50+ year old eyes. For a PDF to be usable on such a device, they would have had to format it in such a way that it would look ridiculous on a desktop system.
14. Re:Conversion? by nmr_andrew · 2013-09-13 06:44 · Score: 1
  
  FWIW, I clicked a chapter at (semi)random and saw what you did briefly, then apparently the embedded script parsed it because the page redrew with normal looking equations.
15. Re:Conversion? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 07:00 · Score: 0
  
  So the iPhone users should have footed the conversion bill!
16. Re:Conversion? by harlows_monkeys · 2013-09-13 07:37 · Score: 2
  
  The person who did much of the conversion work has commented in the Hacker News discussion of this, and explains why tools like latex2html were not good enough.
17. Re:Conversion? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 08:14 · Score: 0
  
  That is true if images are not enough. As I built a publication system out of it 13 years ago the output was still the standard HTML 3 or 4 and GIF. I did have to make some bug fixes and change the default page structure to get a W3C-valid output. That was perhaps 20 lines plus the custom template and other code.
18. Re:Conversion? by rnturn · 2013-09-13 09:43 · Score: 1
  
  ``So why can't you just print the pages out to PDF?''
  
  I'm guessing that the results wouldn't be very good.
  One could cut-n-paste the text from the web page into a LaTeX skeleton document and process the file as you would any other LaTeX document. (After editing to put in proper LaTeX chapter/section/subsection/figure/includegraphics/etc. markup tags, that is.) It would be a fair amount of work but doable for the motivated but cash-strapped (and ethically challenged) student.
  
  --
  CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
19. Re:Conversion? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-14 07:40 · Score: 0
  
  Would an "e-book" be out of the question??? Hey, I have no idea what you guys are talking about, but why so much drama over the printed format and does it have to be such a big production? If it's such an important statement, do it as a tabloid on newsprint, etc. to get it out to the masses. Just think, next year someone will come up with a new theory and he'll be "old hat" -- newsprint would be so much easier to throw away -- it's biodegradable!!! Just sayin' . . .
20. Re:Conversion? by EvanED · 2013-09-14 17:16 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not the publisher, so you'd have to ask them. My intuition is that a downloadable e-book (like e-pub format) would be a bigger cannibalization of the sale market than a good PDF that was formatted for normal-sized paper (or the larger-than-letter size that, IIRC, the Feynman lectures are printed on). I doubt they'd be willing to do a DRM-free version, as awesome as that would be.
  Though it does bring up the idea that they might be missing a possibility of putting a Kindle edition (or another DRM'd version) out based on the HTML conversion.
21. Re:Conversion? by ananthap · 2013-09-15 00:33 · Score: 1
  
  PDFs are static in the sense that you can't change the page dimensions once you create the PDF. Imagine, if the PDFs were created in book format (2-up) and you had scroll up and down to read the the text. The problem would be worse for people on the move who have to use tablets. OTOH HTML .. The drawback with pure HTML (just HTML) is that it's not possible to bookmark a page. In the balance, I would prefer HTML. OK
22. Re:Conversion? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-15 19:53 · Score: 0
  
  How about this, you convert volume 1 back to latex, and then back to Html. Was there any difference?
Google Cache Version by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 03:18 · Score: 0

Google Cache Version
1. Re:Google Cache Version by Trepidity · 2013-09-13 03:47 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Better, the Caltech mirror version is up, and is on a solid pipe/server, so will probably stay up.
  
  --
  10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
LaTeX to HTML conversion by Hatta · 2013-09-13 03:22 · Score: 2

I assume this was expensive because TeX4ht wasn't up to the task. Was TeX4ht used as a starting point for the conversion tool? Is someone now maintaining an updated TeX4ht? Is the converter available in CTAN?
Surely you didn't spend all this money having people manually convert one structural markup language to another, instead of investing in tools to do it automatically, right?

--
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
1. Re:LaTeX to HTML conversion by fnj · 2013-09-13 04:58 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  The TeX source for the equations is just embedded in the text of the page. The use Javascript to render them. I'm not sure why that was expensive.
2. Re:LaTeX to HTML conversion by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 05:36 · Score: 0
  
  Automated tools often do not do a great job for things of this size. The publishers probably don't want a low-quality job associated with this.
3. Re:LaTeX to HTML conversion by DerekLyons · 2013-09-13 06:09 · Score: 1
  
  Editing is more than just conversion or reformatting - it's also ensuring that the conversion/reformatting operated correctly and did not induce any errors snd that the process produced reasonable and useful output in the target format. (I.E. leave it Slashdot to concentrate on the 1% of the task that can be automated.) Editing is one of those thankless tasks, because done right it's invisible.
4. Re:LaTeX to HTML conversion by petermgreen · 2013-09-16 00:43 · Score: 1
  
  Afaict the problem is a practical latex document is likely to use a mixture of structural constants, "just put this where I damn well tell you to" constructs and constructs that while nominally strutural are being tweaked to make things look good on the printed page (for example moving a figure up or down in the text so it ends up on the page you want it on).
  An automated conversion is likely to produce something that is just about readable but a high quality conversion is likely to require human judgement.
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Fantastic choice of markup by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 03:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

MathML for equations and SVG for diagrams. This is a quality transcription from the book to online.
1. Re:Fantastic choice of markup by Trepidity · 2013-09-13 04:22 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  The equations aren't actually in MathML; they're in TeX. They're converted to a version renderable in your browser on the fly via MathJax (a big pile of Javascript). In some browsers that will result in presentation MathML output (but not semantic MathML).
  
  --
  10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
slashdot effect by xombo · 2013-09-13 03:26 · Score: 1

aaand it's down
1. Re:slashdot effect by jones_supa · 2013-09-13 04:10 · Score: 1
  
  Quite abnormal, actually. Servers and connections are so beefy these days that the Slashdot effect is met only rarely.
Overrated? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 03:30 · Score: -1

R.F. the most overrated physicist ever?
1. Re:Overrated? by avandesande · 2013-09-13 03:41 · Score: 1
  
  No.
  
  --
  love is just extroverted narcissism
2. Re:Overrated? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 03:41 · Score: 1
  
  Nah, that's Einstein. He got lucky once and stole Olinto De Pretto's formula, but after that? Feynman was working all the time.
3. Re:Overrated? by Big+Hairy+Ian · 2013-09-13 03:53 · Score: 2
  
  And this gets modded down? I thought we were geeks in here
  
  --
  Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
4. Re:Overrated? by MacTO · 2013-09-13 03:57 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Feynman was known for his contributions to physics, for communicating concepts clearly and in an interesting manner, as exhibiting certain traits known as "being human".
  Now there are physicists who did far better in each of the three areas than he did, but very few (if any) did as well as he did in all three areas.
5. Re:Overrated? by ebno-10db · 2013-09-13 04:25 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Nah, that's Einstein. He got lucky once and stole Olinto De Pretto's formula, but after that? Feynman was working all the time.
  De Pretto figured out (or perhaps made a lucky guess) based on his understanding of the lumineferous aether. Einstein derived it from his special theory of relativity. Einstein presented E=mc^2 in a followup letter to his paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" (i.e. it's an interesting derivation, not an essential part of the theory). There was also the photoelectric effect and general relativity. Of the three, special relativity is arguably his least impressive work (Lorentz, et al, were also working towards it).
6. Re:Overrated? by EvanED · 2013-09-13 04:34 · Score: 2
  
  Of the three, special relativity is arguably his least impressive work
  Exactly. I mean, his Nobel prize wasn't even for relativity -- it was largely for his explanation of the photoelectric effect, which basically spawned quantum physics. He already had earned his Nobel before he even published E=mc^2.
  Calling Einstein a one-trick pony is using an awfully liberal definition of "once".
7. Re:Overrated? by justthinkit · 2013-09-13 04:36 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  What about Poincare?
  
  Einstein's first paper on relativity was published three months after Poincare's short paper, but before Poincare's longer version. Einstein relied on the principle of relativity to derive the Lorentz transformations and used a similar clock synchronisation procedure (Einstein synchronisation) to the one that Poincare (1900) had described, but Einstein's was remarkable in that it contained no references at all. Poincare never acknowledged Einstein's work on special relativity. Einstein acknowledged Poincare posthumously in the text of a lecture in 1921 called Geometrie und Erfahrung in connection with non-Euclidean geometry, but not in connection with special relativity. A few years before his death, Einstein commented on Poincare as being one of the pioneers of relativity, saying "Lorentz had already recognised that the transformation named after him is essential for the analysis of Maxwell's equations, and Poincare deepened this insight still further ...."
  
  --
  I come here for the love
8. Re:Overrated? by ZeRu · 2013-09-13 05:24 · Score: 1
  
  Dunno if an average geek would agree, but I think that place belongs to Carl Sagan. Science isn't supposed to be popular.
  
  --
  If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
9. Re:Overrated? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 05:30 · Score: 0
  
  Of the three, special relativity is arguably his least impressive work
  Exactly. I mean, his Nobel prize wasn't even for relativity -- it was largely for his explanation of the photoelectric effect, which basically spawned quantum physics. He already had earned his Nobel before he even published E=mc^2.
  Calling Einstein a one-trick pony is using an awfully liberal definition of "once".
  Relativity and General Relativity were outside of experimental verification though. And even with Sir Eddington's confirmation of one Einstein GR predictions it was still a result that had too big and error. So the Nobel committee did the only sensible thing. Instead of awarding the prize for theories that at the time were not sufficiently exprimentally verified went with the discovery and explanation of the photoelectric effect.
  And frankly calling Einstein a one trick pony shows how fucking little you know of the man's scientific achievements.
10. Re:Overrated? by catchblue22 · 2013-09-13 05:33 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  No. Not over-rated. He was capable of communicating ideas, deep and otherwise, clearly, which is very difficult. Consider how to convey the difference in magnitude between gravity and the electromagnetic force. The example he gives goes something like this:
  
  RF: What is your charge right now?
  Student: neutral.
  RF: Why?
  Student: Because we have the same amount of positive and negative charge.
  RF: OK. What would happen if you took some electrons from your neighbour?
  Student: I would become positive and he would be negative
  RF: Yes. Now I want you to imagine you steal some of the electrons from your neighbor. Let's not be greedy. Let's say you take 10% of them. Now you are negative and your friend is positive and you will feel an attractive force towards him. The question is: how strong is the force of attraction. Is it larger or smaller than the weight of the Empire State Building?
  Student: Hmmmm...dunno. I'm gonna guess larger.
  RF: Yes it is larger. But how much larger. Is the force of attraction between you and your neighbor larger or smaller than the weight of Mount Everest?
  Student: I'm gonna go with larger.
  RF: Yes, you are correct. In fact, the force of attaction between you and your neighbor WILL BE ABOUT THE SAME AS THE WEIGHT OF THE ENTIRE EARTH!
  The above paraphrased lesson emphasizes like nothing I've ever heard before how weak gravity is and how strong the electromagnetic force is. Simply brilliant.
  
  --
  This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
11. Re:Overrated? by Pino+Grigio · 2013-09-13 05:43 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  True. But for clarity I much preferred Lenoard Susskind's Stanford lectures, which are available on YouTube.
12. Re:Overrated? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 06:55 · Score: 0
  
  Mod into oblivion please. Einstein deserves the merit and the proof is that he got his nobel price for his other work. Apart from that, E = mc is far from everything he did, I just want to throw the words "general relativity" out.
  Maybe Einstein "stole" someone else's idea but reducing him to that and pretending "all is said" is plain wrong.
13. Re:Overrated? by EvanED · 2013-09-13 07:01 · Score: 1
  
  And frankly calling Einstein a one trick pony shows how fucking little you know of the man's scientific achievements.
  That... was kind of my point. I was addressing AC's down-voted comment that "He got lucky once and stole Olinto De Pretto's formula, but after that?" which is so blatantly BS that I called it out in... perhaps too much of an understated manner. :-)
14. Re:Overrated? by EvanED · 2013-09-13 07:04 · Score: 1
  
  (It occurred to me just after I hit submit that, just as I assumed that you misinterpreted me, I may have misinterpreted you and you didn't mean to say that I was, in fact, calling him a one-trick pony. If true, I apologize, and hopefully we can stop talking past one another. :-))
  Also AC's comment wasn't down-voted, I was thinking of his/her parent, the originator of this thread.
15. Re:Overrated? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 07:19 · Score: -1
  
  Feynman is outstandingly brilliant at explaining things. But that was his biggest failing (not getting into his ego arguments). He was so good, you end up believing you know what he's talking about, but then as soon as the lecture is over, you realize you remain none the wiser.
16. Re: Overrated? by Iholdsworth · 2013-09-13 09:28 · Score: 1
  
  Hence its geeky
17. Re:Overrated? by david_thornley · 2013-09-13 09:59 · Score: 1
  
  The thing that strikes me about special relativity is how he discarded the notions of space and time that had been fundamental for centuries. It may have been the least impressive from the point of view of mathematical development, but I'm very impressed by the willingness to change large parts of the foundations of physics.
  
  --
  "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
18. Re:Overrated? by lancelet · 2013-09-13 15:19 · Score: 2
  
  Yes! The Feynman lectures are interesting, but I think that Leonard Susskind's lectures are much more clear. Susskind also addresses General Relativity in a more conventional way, without predicating the whole exercise in electrodynamics. Susskind's approach places more emphasis on the underlying geometry, centred around the metric tensor, and is appropriate across multiple applications of continuum mechanics. I think that the Feynman approach is better for those who already have a decent grasp of GR.
19. Re:Overrated? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 17:03 · Score: 0
  
  Some people are born to teach. It is their unique way of seeing things which most book-oriented people fail to see differentiate them from the rest of the crowd. I have met a few such brilliant teachers - tough, demanding but enlightening your learning, but we do not publish or adore them more than some foot ball players or entertainers and that is the sad story in the USA. Being creative smart, academic smart and street smart are rare qualifities very few can achineve. They are blessed.
20. Re:Overrated? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-14 07:45 · Score: 0
  
  OMG. Someone gets paid to say things like this? For real? Gee, I'm gonna go steal some electrons from my neighbor. Will the attraction be greater will the force of attraction be compared to the gun in his hand??? LOL . . . my guess is the larger and the world will come crumbling down.
Surely you're Joking! by tippe · 2013-09-13 03:49 · Score: 5, Informative

In addition to being a great physicist, Richard Feynman was also quite funny and a pretty big troublemaker in his day. What a great guy. If you get a chance, the book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" is well worth the read.
1. Re:Surely you're Joking! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 03:54 · Score: 0
  
  Awesome read, especially the stories about scoring with chicks and safe cracking. Very entertaining. Posting as anon because I used mod points in the article.
2. Re:Surely you're Joking! by gander666 · 2013-09-13 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  I will agree with this. He was truly a great man, and an inspiration to a generation (and more) of geeks.
  
  --
  Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress ... but I repeat myself. - Mark T
3. Re:Surely you're Joking! by braindrainbahrain · 2013-09-13 04:36 · Score: 2
  
  In some situations I find myself asking "What would Richard Feynman do?" I don't always follow what the answer would be, but it invariably lightens up the moment!
4. Re:Surely you're Joking! by erikkemperman · 2013-09-13 04:51 · Score: 2
  
  I wanted to say pretty much this, his autobiography is a great read. What a character. There's also a really worthwhile BBC-produced dramatization of his involvement in the Challenger investigation. William Hurt does a really good job portraying the great man, IMHO.
  
  --
  Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
5. Re:Surely you're Joking! by erikkemperman · 2013-09-13 05:00 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  ... And I would of course be pretty disappointed if any single one of you turned out not to have seen The Pleasure Of Finding Thing Out... 50 minutes of gentle genius.
  
  --
  Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
6. Re:Surely you're Joking! by BlackSupra · 2013-09-13 05:29 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Available in PDF:
  http://www.chem.fsu.edu/chemlab/isc3523c/feyn_surely.pdf
7. Re:Surely you're Joking! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 07:11 · Score: 0
  
  He was not joking. And don't call him Shirley.
8. Re:Surely you're Joking! by CaptQuark · 2013-09-13 19:47 · Score: 1
  
  That is a terrible version of the program!!! Almost unwatchable. Try this one instead: Richard Feynman - The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out
texi2html by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 03:52 · Score: 0

now they'll just have to raise more funds to convert it to PDF
Fantastic ! But please do consider crowd sourcing by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 04:02 · Score: 0

Thank you for making these freely available. But have you considered that others who like the idea may be willing to return the favour with free labour of theirs to mitigate your costs. A public git repository of the LaTeX code with a TODO list and list of already taken up or assigned tasks may be a good idea.
At last by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 04:08 · Score: 0

I can bin my hard copy
Re:Fantastic ! But please do consider crowd sourci by EvanED · 2013-09-13 04:19 · Score: 1

rs1n and I both speculate that the reason they don't just release PDFs from the Latex source is that the publisher feels that would compromise physical book sales (and HTML doesn't).
Publish the Latex source and you're back to "publisher won't allow it" land (if our assumption holds).
Pissed off because... by advocate_one · 2013-09-13 04:21 · Score: 1

I studied physics at 'A' level in the early 70's and also at University in 1975, but absolutely NONE of this work was available to me at all... and it predated my courses by a decade :(...

--
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
1. Re:Pissed off because... by cellocgw · 2013-09-13 04:31 · Score: 1
  
  What are you talking about? The 3 Red Books were published in 1964. If you couldn't get them, blame your own ignorance.
  
  --
  https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
2. Re:Pissed off because... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 06:03 · Score: 0
  
  The world was a different place then, with things like an Iron Curtain and without the communication technology we civilians have now.
Ran out of funds? by vm146j2 · 2013-09-13 04:34 · Score: 2

If anything screams kickstarter, this is it.

--
"Lost time is not found again."
1. Re:Ran out of funds? by MacTO · 2013-09-13 04:47 · Score: 1
  
  I wonder how much the rights holders would want to release the Feynman Lectures into the public domain, or a CC license that will ensure free access to this text.
  After all, the Feynman Lectures cannot be that valuable to them. While it is widely recognised, it is definitely directed towards people specializing in physics and engineering. As far as I know it's rarely used as a course text either (age, lack of supporting curricular materials, etc.).
Qualia? by KIFulgore · 2013-09-13 04:37 · Score: 1

"In other words, there is nothing that living things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics."

Many philosophers would disagree with that.

--
- For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
1. Re:Qualia? by harvestsun · 2013-09-13 05:17 · Score: 1
  
  If you want to get technical, yes; he makes the logical assumption that there exists some objective reality, and that human perceptions are correlated to that reality. That's kind of the whole basis for the study of physics.
Just like the good old days by MikeTheGreat · 2013-09-13 04:41 · Score: 2

Man this takes me back - it's just like the good old days of /., when we'd all head over to some small, random site and /. it. A nice, well-meaning site that had no idea about the tsunami of visitors they were about to be inundated with. Yep, those were good times :)
1. Re:Just like the good old days by cusco · 2013-09-13 07:40 · Score: 2
  
  I remember one site replaced its home page with a static page that just said, "You assholes crashed my company's T-1". The good old days . . .
  
  --
  "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Errata? by RevWaldo · 2013-09-13 04:49 · Score: 1

Have there been any discoveries in physics in the nearly fifty years since its publication that make any of the lectures, well, less than correct? Or can the intrepid autodidact dive right in and take it all at face value?

.

--
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
1. Re:Errata? by fermion · 2013-09-13 05:29 · Score: -1, Offtopic
  
  Yes. In fact recent discoveries in physics has shown many of Newton's laws to be incorrect. We still teach them in high school and college, but that is probably just because physics people are particularly lazy. I am sure much of what
  To be serious, science is a process, not a collection of trivia. This is often the disconnect of science people and non science people. For example we once thought there was an æther that light traveled. It was then found that there was not. Those who don't understand science take this as an indictment of science and it's inferiority to other paths to knowledge. Scientist, however, see it as evidence of the resilience and ability of science to lead us to more effective models of nature.
  
  --
  "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
2. Re:Errata? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 05:36 · Score: 0
  
  According to the Preface, the errata has been collected and corrections have been made to the lectures.
3. Re:Errata? by amaurea · 2013-09-13 05:37 · Score: 2
  
  I just read the chapter on symmetry, and that is a bit out of date in that while it correctly explains that parity symmetry is broken, it still incorrectly claims that parity-charge symmetry holds, which we now know is false.
  The lectures are very educational and engagingly written, so I recommend that you give it a go anyway. If you take it all on face value, you will end up with only a very few, minor misunderstandings.
4. Re:Errata? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 05:46 · Score: 0
  
  A History of Errata
  
  The Feynman Lectures on Physics was produced very quickly by Feynman and his co-authors, Robert B. Leighton and Matthew Sands, working from and expanding on tape recordings and blackboard photos of Feynman's course lectures1 (both of which are incorporated into the Enhanced Electronic Version of this New Millennium Edition). Given the high speed at which Feynman, Leighton and Sands worked, it was inevitable that many errors crept into the first edition. Feynman accumulated long lists of claimed errata over the subsequent years---errata found by students and faculty at Caltech and by readers around the world. In the 1960's and early 70's, Feynman made time in his intense life to check most but not all of the claimed errata for Volumes I and II, and insert corrections into subsequent printings. But Feynman's sense of duty never rose high enough above the excitement of discovering new things to make him deal with the errata in Volume III.2 After his untimely death in 1988, lists of errata for all three volumes were deposited in the Caltech Archives, and there they lay forgotten.
  
  In 2002 Ralph Leighton (son of the late Robert Leighton and compatriot of Feynman) informed me of the old errata and a new long list compiled by Ralph's friend Michael Gottlieb. Leighton proposed that Caltech produce a new edition of The Feynman Lectures with all errata corrected, and publish it alongside a new volume of auxiliary material, Feynman's Tips on Physics, which he and Gottlieb were preparing.
  
  Feynman was my hero and a close personal friend. When I saw the lists of errata and the content of the proposed new volume, I quickly agreed to oversee this project on behalf of Caltech (Feynman's long-time academic home, to which he, Leighton and Sands had entrusted all rights and responsibilities for The Feynman Lectures). After a year and a half of meticulous work by Gottlieb, and careful scrutiny by Dr. Michael Hartl (an outstanding Caltech postdoc who vetted all errata plus the new volume), the 2005 Definitive Edition of The Feynman Lectures on Physics was born, with about 200 errata corrected and accompanied by Feynman's Tips on Physics by Feynman, Gottlieb and Leighton.
  
  I thought that edition was going to be "Definitive''. What I did not anticipate was the enthusiastic response of readers around the world to an appeal from Gottlieb to identify further errata, and submit them via a website that Gottlieb created and continues to maintain, The Feynman Lectures Website, www.feynmanlectures.info. In the five years since then, 965 new errata have been submitted and survived the meticulous scrutiny of Gottlieb, Hartl, and Nate Bode (an outstanding Caltech physics graduate student, who succeeded Hartl as Caltech's vetter of errata). Of these, 965 vetted errata, 80 were corrected in the fourth printing of the Definitive Edition (August 2006) and the remaining 885 are corrected in the first printing of this New Millennium Edition (332 in volume I, 263 in volume II, and 200 in volume III). For details of the errata, see www.feynmanlectures.info.
  
  Clearly, making The Feynman Lectures on Physics error-free has become a world-wide community enterprise. On behalf of Caltech I thank the 50 readers who have contributed since 2005 and the many more who may contribute over the coming years. The names of all contributors are posted at www.feynmanlectures.info/flp_errata.html.
  
  Almost all the errata have been of three types: (i) typographical errors in prose; (ii) typographical and mathematical errors in equations, tables and figures---sign errors, incorrect numbers (e.g., a 5 that should be a 4), and missing subscripts, summation signs, parentheses and terms in equations; (iii) incorrect cross references to chapters, tables and figures. These kinds of errors, though not terribly serious to a mature physicist, can be frustrating and confusing to Feynman's primary audience: students.
  
  It is remarkable that among the 1165 errata corrected under my auspices, only several do I reg
5. Re:Errata? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 06:37 · Score: 0
  
  Errata are plural. The singular is erratum.
6. Re:Errata? by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2013-09-13 06:40 · Score: 2
  
  You manage to ignore your own statement that physics is a process.
  Newton's laws are not wrong. They're approximations. Now we have better approximations.
  
  --
  Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
7. Re:Errata? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 08:33 · Score: 0
  
  They aren't even approximations. They are aggregations.
8. Re:Errata? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 08:34 · Score: 0
  
  Fuck offs.
9. Re:Errata? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 09:03 · Score: 0
  
  Errata is plural. The singular is erratum.
  Fixed. You're referring to the single word "errata", not to the errata themselves. To turn it around, one wouldn't say "erratum and datum is singular".
10. Re:Errata? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 19:03 · Score: 0
  
  all physics is mathematics with dimensions. all empirical verification is in terms of dimensionalised quantities.
  these verifications are what make the difference between an beautiful but demonstrably false theory. the reason why newton is remembered is because his theory could be empirically verified.
  these empirical verifications are bounds. in this sense they are approximations, because all real dimensionalised quantities (that are not certain values by definition) are bounds.
  eg. by using a 1m stick you can show that a distance is between 1 and 2 sticks. then there is the issue of interdependent measurements, but even with sophisticated statistics we cannot reduce the difference between bounds to zero. all empirical knowledge is approximate.
11. Re:Errata? by OneAhead · 2013-09-14 11:25 · Score: 1
  
  They weren't conceived as approximations, but they do currently serve as approximations in a great many fields. And very good ones at that.
CSS by Mister+Liberty · 2013-09-13 04:55 · Score: 1

It could do with a tad of CSS sprinkling.
Many think the moon landings a hoax by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 04:56 · Score: 0

And that the earth really is flat.
Or that there is an intelligent spaghetti-based being out there controlling us.
Qualia are the results of neurons firing re-creating previously recorded patterns. So quite why you put that in the title escapes me...
Lectures on Physics videos not available by velleity · 2013-09-13 05:00 · Score: 1

The original post refers to the videos being available. This seems to be a common error. The link points to the Messenger Lectures given at Cornell in 1965(?). As far as I know, the videos are not (legally) available online.
1. Re:Lectures on Physics videos not available by Nethemas+the+Great · 2013-09-13 05:18 · Score: 1
  
  I couldn't tell you where the link points as Microsoft appears to be playing toddler games with Google again. I'm getting a screen cap of the Silverlight with the message "Sorry, Silverlight for your browser is not officially supported." Of course I have Silverlight for Chrome installed. Click on the link provided and am told:
  
  The version of Silverlight installed is: Silverlight 5 (5.1.20513.0) You are ready to use Microsoft Silverlight
  
  --
  Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
2. Re:Lectures on Physics videos not available by velleity · 2013-09-13 05:42 · Score: 1
  
  I forgot to mention that Feynman's Messenger Lectures were the basis of the book "The Character of Physical Law."
3. Re:Lectures on Physics videos not available by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 06:06 · Score: 0
  
  YouTube them for the play anywhere versions.
/. it Jim by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 05:08 · Score: 0

/. it Jim
been a while.
Could I... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 05:10 · Score: 0

...give them my left hand for that?
FLP Sales by play_in_traffic · 2013-09-13 05:40 · Score: 1

. . .
I guess it also helps that it isn't a book that's been published recently - being an older title, sales are probably thin to begin with. An online copy can easily be a good marketing mechanism in that case.
Still is #55,812 rank in Amazon book sales and that is just for the 2011 3-book commemorative set! I'm sure that this clear and somewhat comprehensive physics treatise will sell well long after I'm gone!
LaTeX to HTML by extraqwert · 2013-09-13 06:00 · Score: 1

LaTeX to bystroTeX should be easy, although I do not yet have a working converter. BystroTeX produces HTML. The syntax of bystroTeX is Racket Scribble, it is very similar to LaTeX so writing a converter should be more or less straightforward.
A warning from a physics professor by goodmanj · 2013-09-13 06:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

Hi. I teach undergraduate physics. If you're a clever high school or early college student interested in physics, you may have heard of Feynman, and you may have heard physics people give rave reviews of the Feynman lectures. And hey, he intended these lectures as a first-year college physics course, so that's perfect for you, right?
Wrong. This is not the right place to start learning physics. Feynman has some beautiful insights about how introductory physics concepts connect to "real" modern physics, and a way of cutting through the red tape to elegantly explain concepts in ways that make experienced physicists drool. But that's not what you need. You need the red tape. You need to learn to apply concepts to real situations, you need to get buried in the algebra, trig and calculus and dig your way back out again. Feynman won't help you about that.
Feynman's Lectures on Physics represent how an experienced modern physicist would teach introductory physics to a roomful of other professional physicists. Feynman was a genius, but his lectures are designed to impress, not to teach. You should absolutely read it, and you will love it, later in your career. But start with a more traditional textbook.
1. Re:A warning from a physics professor by mgscheue · 2013-09-13 06:59 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Bruce Sherwood, who taught a course using the Feynman Lectures as a textbook, has some interesting comments, saying that it went quite well for him.
  http://matterandinteractions.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/the-feynman-lectures-as-textbook/
2. Re:A warning from a physics professor by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 08:56 · Score: 0
  
  I'm not quite old enough for Feynman, but my father had the set of books... my recollection was that there was originally a workbook with exercises that went along with them.
3. Re:A warning from a physics professor by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 09:18 · Score: 0
  
  Where would a bright self-study student start?
4. Re:A warning from a physics professor by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 09:48 · Score: 0
  
  "Feynman's Lectures on Physics represent how an experienced modern physicist would teach introductory physics to a roomful of other professional physicists" ... You do realize that the lectures were used to teach physics to undergraduate freshman at Caltech? (Disclaimer: I went to Caltech and I knew Feynman.)
5. Re:A warning from a physics professor by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 11:51 · Score: 0
  
  Whatever. Who are you to try to censor what people should read and in what order. Everybody learns differently, there is no one textbook or method to rule them all.
  Besides, even if you dont 'get' what Feynmann says first go, you can still pick up on the infectious enthusiasm he has for his subject.
6. Re:A warning from a physics professor by goodmanj · 2013-09-13 12:32 · Score: 1
  
  You do realize that the lectures were used to teach physics to undergraduate freshman at Caltech?
  Yes. Feynman himself admitted that that class did not go well, and those students were some of the brightest minds in the country (compliment intended).
7. Re:A warning from a physics professor by goodmanj · 2013-09-13 12:47 · Score: 1
  
  Who are you to try to censor what people should read and in what order. Everybody learns differently, there is no one textbook or method to rule them all.
  Not censorship, just some advice from someone who does this professionally. Maybe you're different, go ahead and give the Feynman lectures a shot. But don't say I didn't tell you so.
  
  Besides, even if you dont 'get' what Feynmann says first go, you can still pick up on the infectious enthusiasm he has for his subject.
  Feynman would be horrified at the idea, but if that's your goal you can get it from other Feynman works. "Surely you're joking", for example. Or his short book of lectures on quantum electrodynamics, which is no more difficult than Lectures on Physics, but much more rewarding and better for impressing the ladies (or gentlemen, if you prefer.)
8. Re:A warning from a physics professor by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 13:52 · Score: 0
  
  Not censorship, just some advice from someone who does this professionally. Maybe you're different, go ahead and give the Feynman lectures a shot. But don't say I didn't tell you so.
  Yeah I teach physics to undergrads for a living so not only have I read the Feynman lectures but I also actually appreciate the diversity of students and that your blanket prescription is only of limited value.
  
  Feynman would be horrified at the idea, but if that's your goal you can get it from other Feynman works.
  
  And now you claim to know what Feynman would think!? Wow. I think people should get their enthusiasm for a subject from wherever they can, again from my experience it is ignorant to narrowly prescribe as you have done.
9. Re:A warning from a physics professor by lancelet · 2013-09-13 15:26 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not the OP, but Google for "Leonard Susskind: Theoretical Minimum" for a great set of courses (they're on YouTube, iTunesU, etc.). You can also find guides for the more advanced areas---General Relativity, for example---on sites like arXiv (although they're not connected in any way with Susskind's lectures, they make a great adjunct).
10. Re:A warning from a physics professor by lancelet · 2013-09-13 15:27 · Score: 1
  
  PS: I teach Finite Element Analysis and Continuum Mechanics. Some of it is physics, but with an Engineering bent... :-)
11. Re:A warning from a physics professor by lancelet · 2013-09-13 15:51 · Score: 1
  
  I didn't get the impression that the OP in this discussion was trying to censor anyone. I think he was emphasising the lack of mathematical rigour ("red tape") in Feynman's presentation; particularly his reliance upon intuition rather than derivation. If you've ever heard undergraduates trying to reason about things like general relativity using poor metaphors like the bowling-ball-on-a-trampoline model, you rapidly realise how important the mathematical framework is. You HAVE heard undergraduates do things like this, right? :-)
12. Re:A warning from a physics professor by bogjobber · 2013-09-13 17:25 · Score: 2
  
  You are correct that Feynman's books are insufficient to learn introductory physics, but the lectures were only one part of the curriculum. From Feynman's Preface:
  
  "The lectures form only part of the complete course. The whole group of 180 students gathered in a big lecture room twice a week to hear these lectures and then broke up into small groups of 15 to 20 students in recitation sections under the guidance of a teaching assistance. In addition, there was a laboratory section each week...
  
  The reason there are no lectures on how to solve problems is because there were recitation sections. Although I did put three lectures in the first year how to solve problems, they are not included here."
  
  There were also a few lectures that were left out for some reason, which form the basis of the book "Feynman: Tips on Physics."
  
  In the preface, he also writes that he considered the course a failure. Based on examination scores, only about two dozen out of his class of 180 really grasped the subject, but those who did gained "a first-rate background in physics."
  
  I'm currently taking intro physics and I've found Feynman's lectures to be invaluable. It's a much more thorough treatment than my current course, and I think it will hell set me up for more advanced courses. But you're right that by itself it is not sufficient.
13. Re:A warning from a physics professor by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-14 09:08 · Score: 0
  
  Victor Weisskopf also suggested that the Feynman Lectures are not good for an introduction to physics (too hard).
Thank you! by Morpeth · 2013-09-13 06:47 · Score: 1

That's all I have to say really, thank you :)

--

'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
Adding footnotes / margin comments by mrtn.mit · 2013-09-13 08:12 · Score: 1

Despite the accolades from some, Feynman's lectures are far from clear and perfect. What would be more exciting is a collaborative website for adding comments to this online version to work through the kinks.
1. Re:Adding footnotes / margin comments by lpq · 2013-09-14 16:51 · Score: 1
  
  This is conversion to HTML?
  The other coefficients are only a little more difficult. To find them we can use a trick discovered by Fourier. Suppose we multiply both sides of Eq. (50.2) by some harmonic functionâ"say by $\cos7\omega t$. We have then \begin{alignat}{2} f(t)\cdot\cos7\omega t &= a_0\cdot\cos7\omega t\notag\\ &\quad + a_1\cos\hphantom{1}\omega t\cdot\cos7\omega t &&+ b_1\sin\hphantom{1}\omega t\cdot\cos7\omega t\notag\\ &\quad + a_2\cos2\omega t\cdot\cos7\omega t &&+ b_2\sin2\omega t\cdot\cos7\omega t\notag\\ &\quad + \dotsb &&+ \dotsb\notag\\ &\quad + a_7\cos7\omega t\cdot\cos7\omega t &&+ b_7\sin7\omega t\cdot\cos7\omega t\notag\\ \label{Eq:I:50:4} &\quad + \dotsb &&+ \dotsb \end{alignat}
  ???
  Looks more like LateX than HTML...
Kickstarter? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 08:58 · Score: 0

Has he tried a kickstarter campaign to raise funds for Volumes II and III? I'm sure he'd hit the target goal within days.
Videos by alexo · 2013-09-13 09:04 · Score: 1

The MS research videos do not seem to load.
But don't call him Sheldon... by slew · 2013-09-13 10:05 · Score: 1

FWIW, just like the movie airplane, Mr. Feyman spent a significant amount of time often joking...
But in case anyone is interested, the title of this book apparently comes from this exchange...
Mrs. E: "Would you like cream or lemon in your tea, Mr. Feynman?"
RF: "I'll have both, thank you,"
Mrs. E:"Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh. Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman."
Apparently, Sheldon's lack of awareness of social graces is a bit reminicent of Mr. Feynman's account of his own persona...
But don't call him Sheldon... ;^)
Video by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-13 10:48 · Score: 0

Feynman was a great speaker so videos of his lectures would be great on line as well.
fyn by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-14 05:38 · Score: 0

fgbma