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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)

#51

Post by rramadass »

delichon wrote: post #11

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars—mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is 'mere.' I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination—stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern—of which I am a part—perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one is belc…

The man had a way with words.

The recent HN thread Why is the sky blue? is a good example of this - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46946401

Once you start going down the rabbit hole you start asking questions like "does the photon oscillate?", "what exactly is resonant frequency?", "how different is the electron cloud around a molecule from that around its constituent atoms?", "how does a photon passing by/through a molecule cause its electron cloud to oscillate?" etc. The act of clarifying each to oneself in however simple a form is the insight we all crave. Good teachers like Feynman do a great job of it which is why their books are so highly valued.

PS: People might find the recent free book Atomic Physics for Everyone: An Introduction to Atomic Physics, Quantum Mechanics, and Precision Spectroscopy with No College-Level Prerequisites (2025) good for an initial understanding of atomic physics - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46961595

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

#55

Post by anoncow »

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…

Are there Feynmans today making predictions which we scoff at.

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

#56

Post by dullcrisp »

shanemhansen wrote: post #43
delichon wrote: post #11

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars—mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is 'mere.' I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination—stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern—of which I am a part—perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one is belc…

I've thought of this quote a bunch and I came up with my own addon. "Some people think that the magic of something wondrous is diminished when it's understood. I feel bad for those people." -- Shanemhansen

I pity the fool.

— Mr. T

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

#57

Post by rramadass »

pm90 wrote: post #5

I have the print version and have been working through them slowly. Funnily enough I didn’t find it very useful when I had physics classes in school/uni since most of those classes were just memorizing equations and solving problems. But now that there is no exams pressure, it makes for such wonderful reading! I think its not just an introduction to physics but to the scientific method itself. Its first principles ap…

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education" - Mark Twain

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

#58

Post by mkw5053 »

colmmacc wrote: post #3

Lesser known but possibly more relevant to most HN readers are Feynman's lectures on computation - https://theswissbay.ch/pdf/Gentoomen%20Library/Extra/Richard... . There's some really great explanations in there of computability, information theory, entropy, thermodynamics, and more. Very little of it is now out-dated.

I was just talking to someone about Feynman's lectures on computation the other day. I really really enjoyed it. That's all.

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

#59

Post by chii »

mhh__ wrote: post #45
colmmacc wrote: post #3

Lesser known but possibly more relevant to most HN readers are Feynman's lectures on computation - https://theswissbay.ch/pdf/Gentoomen%20Library/Extra/Richard... . There's some really great explanations in there of computability, information theory, entropy, thermodynamics, and more. Very little of it is now out-dated.

The Feynman lectures are obviously brilliant but think the computation lectures are probably a better display of Feynman's brilliance. It's quite stunning how up to date they are. Although that being said the rough outline of a field is usually worked out almost immediately after a consensus forms that it's "real" so to speak.

The theory of computation hasn't changed a whole lot since those times - and feynman explains it very well to a laymen audience (which is what makes it great, as it's not filled with jargon).

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

#60

Post by haroldp »

delichon wrote: post #11

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars—mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is 'mere.' I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination—stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern—of which I am a part—perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one is belc…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbFM3rn4ldo
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