3 ms·

It depends on a person. For me the lectures deserve all the praise they've got and more. I've read Feynman lectures twice. First time in the secondary school -

by d0mine 5y ago

It depends on a person. For me the lectures deserve all the praise they've got and more. I've read Feynman lectures twice. First time in the secondary school -- it was above my head but it gave me an understanding, the right models to work with later. The second time I read it in the university after I'd already studied the topics by other means (through complex math using e.g., Landau and Lifshitz textbooks). Now, I could appropriate the full depth of the lectures. It is often useful to have several perspectives on a subject , to know it better in particular to solve complex problems (the more tools you can apply, the better).

beagle3 5y ago
Oh, I definitely agree. I appreciate the perspective. The Feynman lectures are great at giving an intuition and perhaps a general framework for thought. What they don’t give you are tools; like you say, you had to learn them in other places before really appreciating the lecture. But those lectures do seem to leave many people with the feeling they also got the tools and not just the gist. They are enjoyable. They are informative. But they are not at a textbook level, even though they leave the impression that they are.
- Shugarl 5y ago
  The reason why they are so popular is because school/textbook leaves the opposite impression to most people, i.e. we're given tools without the "gist". I'd been in a prep school for 3 years, and people were just regurgitating what they had been shown, applying formulas with a very vague idea of what they're doing or what their results means. School is just about remembering things and finding patterns.
  - yesenadam 5y ago
    There's a Feynman story in one of his books where he shows a university class a french curve (a very curvy plastic shape used in technical drawing) and explains to them it has the amazing property that no matter how you turn it, the lowest point is tangent to the horizon. No one in the class realized he was just messing with them.

by d0mine 5y ago

beagle3 5y ago

Oh, I definitely agree. I appreciate the perspective. The Feynman lectures are great at giving an intuition and perhaps a general framework for thought. What they don’t give you are tools; like you say, you had to learn them in other places before really appreciating the lecture. But those lectures do seem to leave many people with the feeling they also got the tools and not just the gist. They are enjoyable. They are informative. But they are not at a textbook level, even though they leave the impression that they are.

Shugarl 5y ago
The reason why they are so popular is because school/textbook leaves the opposite impression to most people, i.e. we're given tools without the "gist". I'd been in a prep school for 3 years, and people were just regurgitating what they had been shown, applying formulas with a very vague idea of what they're doing or what their results means. School is just about remembering things and finding patterns.
- yesenadam 5y ago
  There's a Feynman story in one of his books where he shows a university class a french curve (a very curvy plastic shape used in technical drawing) and explains to them it has the amazing property that no matter how you turn it, the lowest point is tangent to the horizon. No one in the class realized he was just messing with them.