Feynman's Hughes Lectures: 950 pages of notes

Post by vlovich123 » Mon, Dec 29, 2025, 4:37 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #14

_yb2s wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feynman was a uniquely gifted teacher that made things intuitive and simple. Those other books are course textbooks for physics majors, and they require an order of magnitude more effort and time to understand. When I was a physics student the best students seemed to use both types of materials simultaneously. A work like Feynmans would give a bigger picture and more intuitive understanding of what is going on and he…

>>Feynman was a uniquely gifted teacher that made things intuitive and simple. I think explainers like Neil deGrasse Tyson have a job harder than people imagine. Historically the problem with science education has been, that, as the conceptual universe gets bigger and complicated there's a tendency to assume the common person is too stupid and beneath the subject to understand it. To simplify and demystify science to…

Post by contagiousflow » Mon, Dec 29, 2025, 4:41 PM UTC

sp527 wrote: post #19

bsoles wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Angela Collier has a 3-hour video on the topic (The Sham Legacy of Richard Feynman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc ) with funny takes and criticism. It has been a while, so I cannot remember if she was criticizing Feynman himself to some extent or how his legacy is being portrayed by the media. In the latter case, I am also a bit annoyed how he is constantly portrayed as some kind of a super star by Amer…

This video is clickbait drivel. Her criticism is purely about the man, not Feynman as a physicist, a thinker, or a teacher. Feynman was probably on the spectrum and he had a lot of problematic behaviors. That doesn't meaningfully alter the core of his legacy. It's also not terribly insightful to point out that a great figure from history was deeply flawed. If anything, that's so common as to be nearly guaranteed.

Post by oh_my_goodness » Mon, Dec 29, 2025, 5:06 PM UTC

the__alchemist wrote: post #20

bsoles wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Angela Collier has a 3-hour video on the topic (The Sham Legacy of Richard Feynman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc ) with funny takes and criticism. It has been a while, so I cannot remember if she was criticizing Feynman himself to some extent or how his legacy is being portrayed by the media. In the latter case, I am also a bit annoyed how he is constantly portrayed as some kind of a super star by Amer…

Her primary thesis, if I understood correctly, is to clarify that none of the books with Feynman listed as the author were written by him, and that they were transcribed from interviews, lectures etc with editorializing. For example, by Ralph Leighton. Her secondary point was that she hates the "autobiographical" ones, and finds parts sexist, and thinks most of the stories are mostly false/lies/storytelling. With tha…

Post by lizknope » Mon, Dec 29, 2025, 5:10 PM UTC

molteanu wrote: post #2

I never understood the appeal of Feynman and these Lectures. It has been a constant topic for years around here. For example, the Electricity and Magnetism book by Purcell is phenomenal but it is hardly ever mentioned. To quote wikipedia, Electricity and Magnetism is a standard textbook in electromagnetism originally written by Nobel laureate Edward Mills Purcell in 1963. Along with David Griffiths' Introduction to E…

Post by the__alchemist » Mon, Dec 29, 2025, 5:18 PM UTC

oh_my_goodness wrote: post #25

the__alchemist wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Her primary thesis, if I understood correctly, is to clarify that none of the books with Feynman listed as the author were written by him, and that they were transcribed from interviews, lectures etc with editorializing. For example, by Ralph Leighton. Her secondary point was that she hates the "autobiographical" ones, and finds parts sexist, and thinks most of the stories are mostly false/lies/storytelling. With tha…

Feynman didn’t write these notes. John T. Neer did. There’s an explanation at the beginning.