The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)
feynmanlectures.caltech.eduIf you enjoy Feynman's lectures as much as I do (he taught freshman physics when I went to Caltech!) I highly recommend his armchair series, "Fun to Imagine":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYg6jzotiAc
He's sitting at home in Pasadena, talking about stuff that comes to mind.
• Jiggling atoms who like to make friends with each other.
• Where do trees come from? (It's not the dirt.)
• Why don't your arms sink through the armrests of your chair?
• How do trains stay on the tracks?
It's an hour of fun science, and especially accessible for anyone who is curious about physics but doesn't enjoy all the equations.
It's amazing to see something like this on film. Someone had to think long about doing this to ensure they had the equipment necessary, the money available to process/develop the film, edit the film, etc. Now, someone just whips out their phone and shoots someone without even thinking about it.
This is one of my favorite things on Youtube. With off-the-cuff words alone he paints more vivid visuals than most high production value videos. I particularly like the "Magnets" bit, even though it's more controversial.
Nah, magnets is just rude.
he makes a solid--but ok, some of you would quibble it--Newtonian physics error in that series.
anybody else here have a claim that they can correct Feynman?
There's the time a student was misled by an error in the Feynman Lectures and wrote to him about it. Here's the story and the recent HN thread about it.
https://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2020/feynmans-advice-to-wm-s...
The errata from the aforementionned Lectures is quite a list if I remember correctly, so probably a few people :)
Thanks for the link to the downloadable versions. I have the Feynman Lectures loaded on an old iPod and I find them to be an amazing sleep aid. This is not a criticism, they are engaging enough to take my mind off of whatever is keeping me up while also being baffling enough that I fall asleep during the extended sections of blackboard writing sounds. My current set of files is not as good as the recently re-edited Caltech set but I don't want an active Internet device by my bed. Unfortunately they occasionally lead to somewhat stressful dreams of being in college again. It's a risk I am generally willing to take.
I do this with astronomy youtube channels. SEA... mmmmmm
SEA is great, I would also recommend Cool Worlds [1] his videos are amazing and his voice is so soothing that I've reached a point where I can't sleep without having one of his videos playing.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGHZpIpAWJQ-Jy_CeCdXhMA
I do this too, but with long form video game analysis (Joseph Anderson, Action Button). I wonder how much of a crutch it's creating for me however.
Yes I follow him as well. Also Astrum.
I love learning math or physics when it's past 11pm and sleep doesn't come. Either I'd fall asleep like normal people, or become a genius. So far it's been the former.
I do the exact same thing. Listen to the lectures, they are fun and engaging and at some point I doze off.
Yeah I would stress dream regularly if I did this. Better to read a beach novel IMO
> The atoms [in water] are 1 or 2×10−8 cm in radius. Now 10−8 cm is called an angstrom (just as another name), so we say they are 1 or 2 angstroms (Å) in radius. Another way to remember their size is this: if an apple is magnified to the size of the earth, then the atoms in the apple are approximately the size of the original apple.
This is one of my favourite Feynman analogies, right at the beginning of these lectures. He had such a remarkable ability to transpose concepts into more understandable forms.
my chemistry teacher kept saying "a mole is just like a dozen of something. Except it's 6.023*10**23".
>However, we want to be clear that this edition is only free to read, look at and listen to online, and this posting does not transfer any right to download all or any portion of the book The Feynman Lectures on Physics, its photos or tape recordings, for any purpose.
What the heck, why not just make them available for download?
So stupid, this is some of the best information in the world and should be shared as widely as possible. An institution of higher learning shouldn't be concerned with tightly controlling how knowledge is disseminated outside of the institution. Especially old things from the 60's like this.
Browsers download the portions automatically just by visiting the page, so that's strangely murky.
Usually licenses for the purpose of preventing unlicensed publication would just issue the publication with a non-distribution clause.
Wow. This is a beautifully lightweight browser textbook. It has essentially everything I'd expect. Good math typesetting, customizable margin and font with simple javascript (I'm guessing I didn't check).
Envisioning a responsive open source browser textbook is pretty easy, I'm glad someone with cachet like Caltech is providing a role model. Hopefully every important textbook will eventually be as accessible as this one is.
I think I'd still prefer a pdf. Doesn't require an internet connection and I can highlight, sketch, and scribble in the margins.
I think I found a PDF version: https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/feynma...
My only dislike is the 100% width, but that's just a modern styling preference.
As someone who zooms in on 80% of websites, <100% width is infuriating.
"This paper reports my memories of being a beginning graduate student in physics at Caltech and working on the team producing The Feynman Lectures on Physics" : https://arxiv.org/pdf/2202.05210.pdf
Chapter 22: Algebra is a treasure. Clarified a bunch of relationships for me.
Audio Version:
- MP4/Vorbis/MP3 downloads. https://archive.org/details/feynman-lectures-on-physics-audi...
- Web Player and Original Source. https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/flptapes.html
Previous discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27322636
It’s on my bucket list to read through these lectures and grok them. Maybe it will be a retirement project? While we are talking about this, I feel like I need to brush up on my math. Does anyone know what level of math is required to work through these?
In theory high school algebra should be enough if you go through in order. Feynman introduces calculus in the chapter on motion (from first principles) and on it goes from there. The challenge is it's assumed that you're now familiar with these introduced concepts, and Feynman is very good at tricking you into thinking you understand what's going on.
A sibling comment mentions linear algebra. Vectors are introduced early on, and the chapter on tensor introduces matrices (eg second rank tensors). Multi variable calculus? I can't find where partial derivatives enter, but there's a chapter on vector calculus (to get ready for Maxwell). Really, it's all in there with no prior knowledge needed.
It's certainly a lot easier if you've seen the material before and read FLP as a second perspective. Hence why so many of the attendees were grad students and faculty. What it lacks as a teaching aide is the mind numbing exercises that all physics students do in their first year to practice using the mathematics. There's a reason the "University physics" books are doorstops.
I'm wondering what the science experts on this forum think would make a high-quality preparation for homeschoolers and what curriculum they would endorse. Like, say, from elementary school age to high school graduation that would prepare them well for the material of FLP.
Would that include books like Griffiths' Introduction to Electrodynamics and Purcell & Morin's Electricity and Magnetism? Also interested in what people would use for Biology.
What’s FLP?
Feynman Lectures on Physics, I assume.
Looking at the slides, pretty sure I'd need a semester or two, part refresher, part growth.
Linear algebra and multivariable calculus
Is there any benefit to a layman working their way through this? Or is it only relevant to studying/passing an exam?
It's a classic and highly regarded physics course although these days there are many options to choose from. It's not for median laypeople, though - the original audience was CalTech undergrads so there's a fair bit of mathematical (and, realistically, physics) pre-req.
I read somewhere (probably another HN comment) that most of the undergrads dropped the course, but Feynman didn't know because they were replaced by grad students.
This can't be right. You couldn't drop the course. Two years of physics in the freshman and sophomore years, taught from the Feynman Lectures, was a requirement for all Caltech undergrads, including those in humanities majors like economics, history and even English -- there were a few.
The whole two year physics sequence - the lectures where your entire class attended together, always in the same room, three times a week for two years, the homework sets, the sections, the weekly take-home quizzes - were a shared rite of passage, a central part of the Caltech experience for every student. It was difficult for some of us, but we had to persevere - it wasn't optional. A classmate called it 'intellectual boot camp'.
Oh. I didn't know that. Thanks for clearing that up. The comment I read (or my memory) must have been wrong, then.
I heard that Feynman's lectures weren't written entirely by Feynman, but were actually a collaboration between a bunch of physicists. Is that true? Where can I read about the history of this aspect?
(It appears in the footnotes Feynman's Lectures on Computation, toward the end of the book. https://theswissbay.ch/pdf/Gentoomen%20Library/Extra/Richard...)
Reading through the lectures, you get the sense that it's superhuman to be able to write all of them. Once someone mentioned that it wasn't only Feynman doing the writing, it made a bit more sense.
Feynman wrote the notes and delivered the lectures, based on existing source like textbooks. Then it got cleaned up into a book format, and I assume the chalkboard drawings were re-created and expanded.
About the Authors page: https://feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_89.html
Standing on the shoulders of giants
I've always liked "if I haven't seen as far as some of my peers, it's because I stand in the footprints of giants"
The giants are so high by now that is hard just to reach the shoulders
Indeed. We need to build some sort of scalator, so more people get a shot at arriving there, instead of spending whole careers just to fall midway, nowhere near the shoulders.
What is the best way to make an offline copy?
If it's all static HTML you should be able to wget the entire batch. https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/downloading-entire-web-...
Or buy the paper version, as another said. They are available. They're not always cheap, though. I bought one or two volumes in the past as a general reference and now just learned they're here, gratis. C'est la vie.
Buying the paper version?
It has been on my wish list for a while now, but in any case I would still like something I can read on my laptop.
It's available as an ebook too, from at least Amazon and Kobo.
A big pile of previous discussions:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
It's great to see this all in one place. The text follows the audio reasonably well, and the UX is spartan and functional. Is there a version that includes videos of the lectures as well?
> Is there a version that includes the videos of the lectures as well?
No.
Feynman's early 1960's undergraduate lectures were tape-recorded and photographed only - they were never filmed or videotaped. But in 1964 Feynman delivered lectures at Cornell, called "Messenger Lectures," and these were filmed by the BBC.[1]
The linked page does indeed include the videos (if that’s what you’re asking). Scroll down a bit.
to those thinking about using these as your intro to physics, I would think again. Its common sentiment among the physics crowd that these are nice to go through after you understand the concepts, not as an introduction. Usually your junior year summer go through them for fun if you have the time
Interesting, Is there any requirement what I should understand, before taking on those lectures?
Is there a description anywhere of what's covered in each lecture?
Nice!
I bought the books decades ago and lost them, decades ago. :\
Same, I had my books from 1986 (when I was 16) bought from Caltech's bookstore while I was there at a summer program (YESS, Young Engineer Summer Scholars) that went on for months where I learned 2-3 semesters worth of undergrad physics/calculus. Such a wonderful summer nerd program for the day and age. Best summer camp ever! So many stories. Lost the books in a move in the late 1990's, still a bit sad about it. One of these days I'll add them back to my shelf.
Must have been awesome.
My dad was a physicist and we lived next door to a physicist from caltech so ... I met Feynman twice.
Where are these people now? Not solving the problems at the universe, making money at Meta I suspect