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The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1961-1964)

feynmanlectures.caltech.edu

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Re: The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1961-1964)

#121

Post by srean »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #87
renhanxue wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The speaker says that Feynman didn't write the Feynman lectures. Wrong. No, she's right, just talking about a different thing. "The Feynman Lectures on Physics" is a physics textbook. [0] He did prepare his own lecture material, but he did not write the book. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feynman_Lectures_on_Physic...

No, she's absolutely wrong about this. The book is based very closely on Feynman's lectures. He wrote the material and gave the lectures. Other people edited that material into book form, but Feynman did the lion's share of the work. Saying that Feynman didn't write the book is just dishonest, unless you immediately clarify afterwards that Feynman did indeed write almost all of the material in the book, in something…

Seems she isn't interested in dragging a bit of fame and recognition her way.

It's a low effort way to do that when the other party cannot defend himself.

Re: The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1961-1964)

#122

Post by srean »

xqcgrek2 wrote: post #18
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy invented the path integral in his PhD thesis. He invented Feynman diagrams and figured out how to do finite calculations in quantum electrodynamics. Unless you're a perfect human being, please, cut him just a tiny bit of slack.

path integrals existed since the 19th century

Cite an example please.

Re: The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1961-1964)

#123

Post by CamperBob2 »

melling wrote: post #35
CamperBob2 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just wears thin after a while. Nobody studies Feynman to learn social skills or sexual ethics. If they did, these types of complaints would certainly be relevant... but they don't, and they aren't.

People also don’t think he’s one of the greatest physicists ever. As he said, he was just an ordinary person who worked very hard.

Well, the Nobel committee certainly seemed to disagree with you.

Re: The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1961-1964)

#124

Post by assemblyman »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #120
assemblyman wrote: post #117

It is very interesting to see completely different impressions of Feynman from comments here. As a physicist, I first got introduced to Feynman from his popular QED book as a freshman in college. Over the years, I came to admire his contributions and way of thinking but could also see the cult of personality that has formed. Feynman is definitely not like Neil deGrasse Tyson or Kaku. He was a very creative and techni…

Feynman had the vanishingly rare combination of being at world-shaking (literally) historical events like the Manhattan Project and the Trinity test that ordinary people can relate to¹, actual scientific contribution enough to merit a Nobel Prize in Physics, and being an engaging storyteller and educator. I don't think it's all that surprising that his recognizability very high. ¹ Ordinary people can relate to a gian…

My point is that it's really the storytelling/gregarious nature character. There is no shortage of people who were at the Manhattan project and won Nobel prizes or were prominent. A partial list: Oppenheimer, Bethe, Rabi, Teller, von Neumann, Compton, Fermi, Segre, Ramsey, Alvarez. There are easily many more. Schwinger was at Rad lab.

Schwinger was considered a tremendous educator. I think he had ~90 PhD students and four won Nobel prizes. His lectures were often described as Mozart symphonies. I have studied parts of his books and the experience was always eye-opening. But, his education was focused on students, mostly graduate students. He was also a shy character.

In any case, I still love reading Feynman and Schwinger's works. I would also include Sommerfeld, Pauli, Landau, Weinberg in that list.

Re: The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1961-1964)

#125

Post by dtartarotti »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #87
renhanxue wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The speaker says that Feynman didn't write the Feynman lectures. Wrong. No, she's right, just talking about a different thing. "The Feynman Lectures on Physics" is a physics textbook. [0] He did prepare his own lecture material, but he did not write the book. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feynman_Lectures_on_Physic...

No, she's absolutely wrong about this. The book is based very closely on Feynman's lectures. He wrote the material and gave the lectures. Other people edited that material into book form, but Feynman did the lion's share of the work. Saying that Feynman didn't write the book is just dishonest, unless you immediately clarify afterwards that Feynman did indeed write almost all of the material in the book, in something…

You should watch the whole video. From memory, the video author claims that the books are not based directly on the recordings nor on material that Feynman wrote himself, but rather on lecture notes written by another professor who had to cover for Feynman (who is also listed as one of the authors in the book). She also mentions how those lecture notes from this other professor correct some small mistakes Feynman made in some calculations and diagrams from the lecture. Her claim is that Feynman was not the person who actually wrote the text of the book.

Re: The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1961-1964)

#126

Post by melling »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #123
melling wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People also don’t think he’s one of the greatest physicists ever. As he said, he was just an ordinary person who worked very hard.

Well, the Nobel committee certainly seemed to disagree with you.

I guess you didn’t watch the video so you don’t understand the point I’m trying to address.

At any rate, this garbage doesn’t belong on HN.

Re: The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1961-1964)

#127

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

assemblyman wrote: post #124
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feynman had the vanishingly rare combination of being at world-shaking (literally) historical events like the Manhattan Project and the Trinity test that ordinary people can relate to¹, actual scientific contribution enough to merit a Nobel Prize in Physics, and being an engaging storyteller and educator. I don't think it's all that surprising that his recognizability very high. ¹ Ordinary people can relate to a gian…

My point is that it's really the storytelling/gregarious nature character. There is no shortage of people who were at the Manhattan project and won Nobel prizes or were prominent. A partial list: Oppenheimer, Bethe, Rabi, Teller, von Neumann, Compton, Fermi, Segre, Ramsey, Alvarez. There are easily many more. Schwinger was at Rad lab. Schwinger was considered a tremendous educator. I think he had ~90 PhD students and…

Sorry, my wording was imprecise; when I said "educator", I meant popular science educator, along the lines of Asimov, Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, etc. I can't think of anything Schwinger ever wrote or a public lecture that he gave that would be accessible to a general or even a semi-technical, non-physicist audience.

But, beyond that, yes, I think we're largely in agreement.

Re: The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1961-1964)

#128

Post by CamperBob2 »

melling wrote: post #126
CamperBob2 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the Nobel committee certainly seemed to disagree with you.

I guess you didn’t watch the video so you don’t understand the point I’m trying to address. At any rate, this garbage doesn’t belong on HN.

Can you elaborate on that point? I didn't downvote you, but I'm also not going to watch a 3-hour #metoo video about a guy from my grandfather's era in order to understand what you mean.

What's next... is she going to tell me that Newton was a real asshole? Noooooo, say it isn't so.

Re: The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1961-1964)

#129

Post by griffzhowl »

dgfl wrote: post #34
jesuslop wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, he also talks about quantum computing (a first?): p. 191, "We now go on to consider how such a computer can also be built using the laws of quantum mechanics. We are going to write a Hamiltonian, for a system of interacting parts, which will behave in the same way as a large system in serving as a universal computer." p. 196: "In general, in quantum mechanics, the outgoing state at time t is eⁱᴴᵗ Ψᵢₙ whe…

Feynman is indeed often quoted among the first people to propose the idea of a quantum computer! This talk he gave in ‘81 is among the earliest discussion of why a quantum universe requires a quantum computer to be simulated [1]: > Can a quantum system be probabilisticaUy simulated by a classical (probabilistic, I'd assume) universal computer? In other words, a computer which will give the same probabilities as the q…

If you're into atomic physics and getting a feel for the intricate structure of the basic processes, the best find I had recently is this MIT course by Wolfgang Ketterle. The first lecture is an informal overview, and he gives vivid and detailed descriptions of the phenomena they can create and control now, like why we see different kinds of thing happening at very low temperatures: the atoms are moving past each other so slowly that it gives their wavefunctions time to overlap and interact, using intersecting lasers to create arrays of dimples in the electromagnetic field to draw in and hold single atoms, this kind of thing. It gives a more tangible insight into the quantum aspects of matter that can otherwise seem inscrutable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agu68RGaoWM&list=PLUl4u3cNGP...

He also got the Nobel prize in the 90s for making a Bose-Einstein condensate iirc.

Re: The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1961-1964)

#130

Post by muwtyhg »

ontouchstart wrote: post #101
another_twist wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self study is the best study. Out of all the bloatedness of modern education, one thing that doesnt bother me is the high cost of textbooks. High quality books and a habit of studying yourself enables you to learn high skill disciplines on the cheap. For me, I am currently slogging through Lazlo Lovasz's combinatorics book and another one on Monte Carlo method. Dont know why but its just a good way to pass the time w…

I got a kindle Scribe which can load PDF, HTML and text files via iPhone Kindle App and read offline. Since most pre-1925 books are out of copyright and free on https://gutenberg.org , ACM is open access ( https://dl.acm.org/ ) and we have open https://arxiv.org/ , it is the golden age for readers seeking original content. We don’t need bots to read for us. We can live in the mind of human writers.

Are technical/scientific books from pre-1925 particularly useful for self-learning today? I'd imagine for most disciplines, the knowledge has progressed and possibly changed course since then and it may be more outdated than not.
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