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 TA

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.