3 ms·

Can anyone who's read the Feynman Lectures comment on how good they are? I started reading them, but after a few chapters I didn't feel that I was actually lear

by huntie 9y ago

Can anyone who's read the Feynman Lectures comment on how good they are? I started reading them, but after a few chapters I didn't feel that I was actually learning physics. I get the feeling that the Feynman Lectures are like Knuth's Art of Computer Programming: few people have read it, but it's widely known as being amazing. I'd be interested in hearing if this is correct.

CamperBob2 9y ago
The material in the Feynman lectures is deceptively deep. When he originally gave the lectures at Caltech, they were not all that well received. They were aimed at undergraduates, but the undergraduates -- some of the brightest in the country -- would end up stumbling out of the lecture hall looking like they'd been hit by a bus. On the other hand, the lectures were quite popular among grad students and faculty members, if that tells you anything.
- abecedarius 9y ago
  This stumbling out of the hall sounds like folklore. There are contradictory claims about how well the students took the lectures. (I attended Feynman's last lecture for Caltech freshmen, in the 80s -- a reprise of the volume 1 lecture on general relativity -- and saw nobody reacting like that. Admittedly we weren't going to get tested on it.)
Tomminn 9y ago
For a few years at the beginning of my PhD, when I typed 'f' into the URL bar of my browser, www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/III_toc.html was the autocomplete instead of www.facebook.com. They are genuinely amazing once you have already studied some physics because they are so basic, yet so deep.
abecedarius 9y ago
The first half-dozen lectures are not representative. They're sort of easing into the picture before getting started tackling problems. I'd recommend giving volume 1 a shot to anyone comfortable with freshman calculus and willing to work at it. Like SICP, it might change the way you think. Much as I love SICP, the Feynman lectures are greater.
- huntie 9y ago
  Ah that's good to hear. I'm finishing up SICP now, so hearing you compare the two really makes me want to jump into the Feynman Lectures afterwards.
keldaris 9y ago
I may be biased (physics postdoc), but I think a lot more people have read (as in properly read, not just skimmed or cherry picked) the Feynman lectures than TAOCP. They're very approachable to anyone who understands basic real analysis and fairly short. They do start slow, though, that part is true. I do think there's a bit of a misconception in that people think the Feynman lectures will teach them all there is to know about physics, at least in summary. That's false, if you want comprehensive coverage (of classical physics, mostly), try Landau-Lifshitz. The Feynman lectures are an idiosyncratic, fairly shallow treatment of selected parts of physics, produced by an extremely original mind. They're invaluable for the peculiar perspective they offer more so than anything else.

by huntie 9y ago

CamperBob2 9y ago

The material in the Feynman lectures is deceptively deep. When he originally gave the lectures at Caltech, they were not all that well received. They were aimed at undergraduates, but the undergraduates -- some of the brightest in the country -- would end up stumbling out of the lecture hall looking like they'd been hit by a bus. On the other hand, the lectures were quite popular among grad students and faculty members, if that tells you anything.

abecedarius 9y ago
This stumbling out of the hall sounds like folklore. There are contradictory claims about how well the students took the lectures. (I attended Feynman's last lecture for Caltech freshmen, in the 80s -- a reprise of the volume 1 lecture on general relativity -- and saw nobody reacting like that. Admittedly we weren't going to get tested on it.)

Tomminn 9y ago

For a few years at the beginning of my PhD, when I typed 'f' into the URL bar of my browser, www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/III_toc.html was the autocomplete instead of www.facebook.com. They are genuinely amazing once you have already studied some physics because they are so basic, yet so deep.

abecedarius 9y ago

The first half-dozen lectures are not representative. They're sort of easing into the picture before getting started tackling problems. I'd recommend giving volume 1 a shot to anyone comfortable with freshman calculus and willing to work at it. Like SICP, it might change the way you think. Much as I love SICP, the Feynman lectures are greater.

huntie 9y ago
Ah that's good to hear. I'm finishing up SICP now, so hearing you compare the two really makes me want to jump into the Feynman Lectures afterwards.

keldaris 9y ago

I may be biased (physics postdoc), but I think a lot more people have read (as in properly read, not just skimmed or cherry picked) the Feynman lectures than TAOCP. They're very approachable to anyone who understands basic real analysis and fairly short. They do start slow, though, that part is true. I do think there's a bit of a misconception in that people think the Feynman lectures will teach them all there is to know about physics, at least in summary. That's false, if you want comprehensive coverage (of classical physics, mostly), try Landau-Lifshitz. The Feynman lectures are an idiosyncratic, fairly shallow treatment of selected parts of physics, produced by an extremely original mind. They're invaluable for the peculiar perspective they offer more so than anything else.