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Feynman Lectures Released Free Online
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.
Feynman....
Feynman was a Skeptic.
I thought about how much paperwork I usually had to get involved with when I deal with the government, so I laughed and said, "I'll be glad to give the talk. There's only one condition on the whole thing"--I pulled a number out of a hat and continued--"that I don't have to sign my name more than thirteen times, and that includes the check!" http://www.chem.fsu.edu/chemla...
As will all of us be - sooner or later
When these were first released they were silverlight only. I wanted to watch them but there was a zero percent chance I would use silverlight. It is wonderful that these are now available for all the sensible people who don't drink the microsoft koolaid.
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.
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
arguments are SOOOOO 1950 that you just wanna gag.
So are fixed pitch fonts.
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 is quite enjoyable:
and physics is living in the past, rather than innovating.
Stop with the down-mods. Try addressing parent's points. I for one am curious about the atom-vs-complex-of-atoms point. Is there a place I can read more about it? By the way, I.Am.Not.The.Parent, nor Keith Olbermann.
Does anyone know what Feynman was referring to in this interview which appears at the beginning of The Feynman Tips on Physics? Note that he is referring to something that did not appear in the Feynman lectures.
> I didn't like to do the second year, because I didn't think I had
> great ideas about how to present the second year. I felt that I
> didn't have a good idea on how to do lectures on electrodynamics.
> But, you see, in these challenges that had existed before about
> lectures, they had challenged me to explain relativity, challenged me
> to explain quantum mechanics, challenged me to explain the relation of
> mathematics to physics, the conservation of energy. I answered every
> challenge. But there was one challenge which nobody asked, which I
> had set myself, because I didn't know how to do it. I've never
> succeeded yet. Now I think I know how to do it. I haven't done it,
> but I'll do it someday. And that is this: How would you explain
> Maxwell's equations? How would you explain the laws of electricity
> and magnetism to a layman, almost a layman, a very intelligent person,
> in an hour lecture? How do you do it? I've never solved it. Okay,
> so give me two hours of lecture. But it should be done in an hour of
> lecture, somehow -- or two hours.
>
> **Anyhow I've now cooked up a much better way of presenting the electrodynamics, a much more original and much more powerful way than
> is in the book.** But at that time I had no new way, and I complained
> that I had nothing extra to contribute for myself. But they said, "Do
> it anyway," and they talked me into it, so I did.
Did this approach to teaching electrodynamics appear in any of his later writing?
I'll have whichever one doesn't have you.
Feynmans smarmy "physicalist" arguments are SOOOOO 1950 that you just wanna gag. NO! A single atom cannot do all the things a chaotic self-structuring complex of atoms can do. Not even close. Feynman had not the concept of "emergent" phenomena ... had evidently never read Prigogine or Godel. Too damn busy just calculating.
Of course science advances, and Feynman couldn't have known about the accelerated expansion of universe or nanocarbon materials etc... That doesn't minimize at all his physical hand-waving arguments. Good/Great physicists know how to use order of magnitude arguments. Feynman was one of them, another one was Fermi.
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.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
total gold. and for free. most excellent.
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.
We'll learn what all this modern quantum stuff is all about.
How do I do that? What does it even mean? First, and obviously, I need to download the information for my computer to display it on the screen; but assuming they're okay with that, do I need to clear out my browser cache after reading? And why do they have this obsession with preventing me from reading the lectures while in an area where I have no connectivity? At home you can read the lectures, fine; offline in a cave (or even at home during a power cut) - no Lectures for you!
Oh well. I guess I'll just have to stick with the set of big hardbacks in the bookcase in the corner....
Read Chaos, by Edward Lorentz; Perspectives of Non-linear Dynamics, by Jackson (if you're mathematically literate); Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter for a start. There's another good reference too, but I've forgotten it for the time being.
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.
It's so enemies of USA currently bombarded can not use the time well in the caves. :)
-I think you mean "he died."
-No, first he died. Now he dead.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and The Laws of Physics, Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness, The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe and Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe.
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...?
Thank you, both.
For those of us that dont stay connected just to read..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The quantum lectures in Volume III are still some of the best available. Protip: read them at the same time as Sakurai. You will be a Jedi master of quantum when you are complete.
You didn't have the sense god gave a pissant to find those for yourself, so good luck in understanding them.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I remember watching these caltech videos as a kid and not really understanding a whole lot of it but enjoying them nevertheless: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mechanical_Universe
but not as we know it
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
There's
but on
http://feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/img/FLP_I/f01-04/f01-04_tc_big.svg
I'm getting /img/FLP_I/f01-04/f01-04_tc_big.svg on this server.
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access
Apache/2.2.3 (Red Hat) Server at feynmanlectures.caltech.edu Port 80
Anyone else?
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.
And thank you, CaptainDork. Some suggested reading for you.
By the way, so far no one has addressed my original request. Firing off a list of books is useless...but at least I was polite in my response.
I've read Roger Penrose enough to realize this guy is miles off track. Tomb writer. Battleship sinking stuff. Heavy. Dead. As old and stagnant as physics gets.
I don't see how "Godel, Escher, Bach" relates to anything discussed in this sub-thread.
Recall I was looking for an elaboration of the "atom-vs-complex-of-atoms point" of the original poster.
Lorentz's "Chaos", an astrophysics book, relates to atoms vs a complex-of-atoms...how exactly?
So, reply fail, and point made. Physics is stale, and dead.
People who study physics are as close minded and blinkered as Boxer the horse. But quick with the downmods.
Yep. Bill Gates philantropically used them as a way to try and get geeks to install Silverlight.
As an ambassador for silverlight? They were awful. You could only see them in postage stamp size in the middle of a huge distracting web page.