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All of Richard Feynman’s physics lectures are now available free online (2014)

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Re: All of Richard Feynman’s physics lectures are now available free online (2014)

#31

Post by witty_username »

ue_ wrote: post #23
sasas wrote: post #18

From the site: 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. [1] Do the content creators understand the basic mechanics of how web browsers work? If someone was to watch the cached video on their drive are they then breaking the policy stated? [1] http://www.fey…

There's always been a disconnect between people who understand technology and people who write disclaimers and laws. Being smart doesn't protect you from doing something which is a violation of the law, even though there may be gray areas. Yes, watching the cached video might be a gray area - but the spirit of the disclaimer is obviously to prevent storing it in such a way that you can't access it unless they can pro…

But caching is such a mechanism.

Not sure if this is a flag I enabled, but Chrome allows you to view content from the cache.

Re: All of Richard Feynman’s physics lectures are now available free online (2014)

#32

Post by wallace_f »

abecedarius wrote: post #30
wallace_f wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did he praise that decision? That's the way I remember it, and that's what I thought was so surprising. I remember him saying something close to 'you have all these people's lives on the line and are able to make that decision,' and respecting that ability to make that decision

Hmmm, I remember a passage sort of like that: he'd been sent to consult on safety arrangements at Oak Ridge, and concluded that it just couldn't work unless workers there knew something of the nature of the dangerous radioactive materials they were processing. He escalated to a general or some other high military figure, who listened, thought for a couple minutes, and decided right there to do what Feynman recommende…

It was specifically about dropping the bombs. I wish I had the book and I could look it up. He said something like 'you had all these lives on the line' and how he respected it was a hard decision to make to drop them.

Re: All of Richard Feynman’s physics lectures are now available free online (2014)

#33

Post by abecedarius »

wallace_f wrote: post #32
abecedarius wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, I remember a passage sort of like that: he'd been sent to consult on safety arrangements at Oak Ridge, and concluded that it just couldn't work unless workers there knew something of the nature of the dangerous radioactive materials they were processing. He escalated to a general or some other high military figure, who listened, thought for a couple minutes, and decided right there to do what Feynman recommende…

It was specifically about dropping the bombs. I wish I had the book and I could look it up. He said something like 'you had all these lives on the line' and how he respected it was a hard decision to make to drop them.

OK, thanks -- I'll try to remember this if I dip into it again.

Re: All of Richard Feynman’s physics lectures are now available free online (2014)

#34

Post by moultano »

wallace_f wrote: post #32
abecedarius wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, I remember a passage sort of like that: he'd been sent to consult on safety arrangements at Oak Ridge, and concluded that it just couldn't work unless workers there knew something of the nature of the dangerous radioactive materials they were processing. He escalated to a general or some other high military figure, who listened, thought for a couple minutes, and decided right there to do what Feynman recommende…

It was specifically about dropping the bombs. I wish I had the book and I could look it up. He said something like 'you had all these lives on the line' and how he respected it was a hard decision to make to drop them.

This is the sort of situation Google books was made for. It's perfect for finding a citation from a bit of text you remember.

Re: All of Richard Feynman’s physics lectures are now available free online (2014)

#35

Post by sextus_prop »

arrmn wrote: post #11

On kind of a related note, I've recently read "Surely you're joking mr. Feynman" it's a funny and engaging book. It's really amazing what he was able to learn. Thanks for posting the lectures, I'll take a look.

Yes, a really cool book that I enjoyed with a good laugh. There is also a somewhat sequel that I'm hoping to read someday "What Do You Care What Other People Think?"

Re: All of Richard Feynman’s physics lectures are now available free online (2014)

#36

Post by digitalshankar »

sasas wrote: post #18

From the site: 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. [1] Do the content creators understand the basic mechanics of how web browsers work? If someone was to watch the cached video on their drive are they then breaking the policy stated? [1] http://www.fey…

Wait... firing up the wget now.

Re: All of Richard Feynman’s physics lectures are now available free online (2014)

#37

Post by nicky0 »

wallace_f wrote: post #32
abecedarius wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, I remember a passage sort of like that: he'd been sent to consult on safety arrangements at Oak Ridge, and concluded that it just couldn't work unless workers there knew something of the nature of the dangerous radioactive materials they were processing. He escalated to a general or some other high military figure, who listened, thought for a couple minutes, and decided right there to do what Feynman recommende…

It was specifically about dropping the bombs. I wish I had the book and I could look it up. He said something like 'you had all these lives on the line' and how he respected it was a hard decision to make to drop them.

I have the book here. The only part he talks about the dropping of the bomb itself are these passages (p155-156):

[After the first successful bomb test, all the scientists at Los Alamos were celebrating except one: Bob Wilson.]

> He said, "It's a terrible thing we made."

> I said, "But you started it. You got us into it."

> You see, what happened to me—what happened to the rest of us—is we started for a good reason, then you're working very hard to accomplish something and it's a pleasure, it's excitement. And you stop thinking, you know; you just stop. Bob Wilson was the only one who was thinking about it, at that moment.

> I returned to civilization shortly after that [...] and my first impression was a strange one. [...] I sat in a restaurant in New York, for example, and I looked out at the buildings and I began to think, you know, about how much the radius of the Hiroshima bomb damage was and so forth ... How far from here was 34th Street? ... All those buildings, all smashed—and so on. And I would go along and I would see people building a bridge, or they'd just be making a road, and I though they're crazy, they don't understand, they don't understand. Why are they making new things? It's so useless.

> But, fortunately, it's been useless for almost forty years now, hasn't it? So I've been wrong about it being useless making bridges and I'm glad those other people had the sense to go ahead.

The line "I'm glad those other people had the sense to go ahead" may be the one that seems to praise the decision to drop the bomb. But I think he's referring to the other people who went ahead and made bridges, when all seemed futile to him.

Re: All of Richard Feynman’s physics lectures are now available free online (2014)

#38

Post by bainsfather »

TY wrote: post #8
arlindohall wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got really excited because I've been reading these on the caltech website, and from the title, without looking at the date, I thought this was suggesting that videos of the lectures had been made available (!!) but, alas. The lectures are great though. Really engaging and creative, and they help you rethink some things you may have picked up in physics class.

There are lectures on Youtube, but I think Microsoft did a great job on cleaning them up and captioning them. You can find them here (link in the article does not point to the current location anymore): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/tuva-richar...

Those are not the 'Feynmann Lectures' that became the books, are they? (From the titles, they seem to be different, but the videos do not play on my browser).

Re: All of Richard Feynman’s physics lectures are now available free online (2014)

#39

Post by zhte415 »

Are there any universities that are taking advantage of the blooming of online content in their traditional programs and combining it with small-group / individual study sessions?

Even if just internally (e.g. film Complex Analysis 101 one year, that stuff doesn't change, and not need to lecture it again), but still give the assignments and personal feedback. Perhaps do a weekly new video'd 'feedback for everyone' for the course based on homework understanding. It certainly is not done in universities in the country I'm in.

It seems an ideal opportunity to do more with less.

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