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The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume I
- doctorwho 13y agoAlso... Microsoft Research announced on Wednesday that Mr. Gates, who purchased the rights to the videos privately from the Feynman estate, BBC and from Cornell University, in cooperation with Curtis Wong, a Microsoft researcher, has created a Web site that is intended to enhance the videos by annotating them with related digital content. Project Tuva http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/index.html http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/index.html
- GeorgeOrr 13y agoThanks for the link. I'm really glad he's made this available on line. And at the risk of looking a gift horse in the mouth, I wish it didn't require silverlight.
- easytiger 13y ago> And at the risk of looking a gift horse in the mouth, I wish it didn't require silverlight That's a very sad requirement indeed.
- anaphor 13y agoHopefully it will work with moonlight but somehow I doubt it. It's most likely for silly DRM reasons :(
- gogras 13y agoI wish the audio didn't have noise artifacts ("clicks") from SilverLight's encoding that make it a bit annoying to listen to after a while, and that Microsoft had listened to it after encodeing or would have been so kind as to fix after it was brought to their attention years ago.
- Luc 13y agoIt's also on the Pirate Bay.
- AsymetricCom 13y agoWhat better way to preserve such a valuable educational resource for the future generations than wrapping it into a failed proprietary content platform designed to keep people from using the content!
- doctorwho 13y agoDid you find any DRM on the content or do you just like to whine?
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoTry this from a Linux machine. http://www.go-mono.com/moonlight/redirector.html http://www.go-mono.com/moonlight/redirector.html I got the following 403 Error, which is kind of amusing. Forbidden You don't have permission to access /moonlight/redirector.html on this server. Apache/2.2.22 (Ubuntu) Server at www.go-mono.com Port 80
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Luc 13y ago[2009], by the way.
- barista 13y agoThese are great. Not just the content but love how they are presented. I wish all the lectures in colleges were as rich an immersive as these.
- packetslave 13y agoThe Microsoft project seems to only be the "Messenger Lectures" that Feynman gave at Cornell in 1964, not the more well-known Caltech lectures. They're still a fantastic watch and kudos to billg for putting up the money to obtain the rights. There are a ton of Feynman lectures on this YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/FeynmanVideoLectures/videos http://www.youtube.com/user/FeynmanVideoLectures/videos although I'm unable to tell if they are authorized / legitimate. They've been up for 3 years, though, so presumably they would have been DMCA'd by now if they weren't.
- 3327 13y agoGates is the man seriously for doing this. Feynman is such a great person I am so sad I missed seeing and learning from him. And Carl Sagan of course.
- mhartl 13y agoI know how you feel. I "miss" Feynman, and it's weird to miss someone you never met. (N.B. Gates wasn't involved in this project.)
- loudmax 13y agoThere are Feynman videos online as well, but unfortunately, they require Silverlight. Reading the headline, I was hoping that they'd finally made them available in an open format.
- kphild 13y agoThey don't even work in Chrome with Silverlight installed. Microsoft is a silly, mediocre company.
- mbucc 13y agoI found it interesting how radically different his teaching premise is from the current U.S. public school approach. From the preface: I thought to address them to the most intelligent in the class and to make sure, if possible, that even the most intelligent student was unable to completely encompass everything that was in the lectures.
- Almaviva 13y agoBut what if there's a student in the class more intelligent than Feynman... oh wait.
- AimHere 13y agoIf I recall the introduction correctly, the lectures were kindof a failed pedagogical experiment because of this - it worked well for the best students, but the mediocre/worse students did a fair amount worse than in previous years. I don't think Caltech continued to teach the first two years in the Feynman style after this. But regardless, the lecture series is a wonderful overview on the actual physics, even if it doesn't work that well as a straight textbook.
- dfan 13y agoThese lectures are awesome if you have already encountered the material and want to start over from scratch really internalizing it this time. If you use them as a first-time learner you are likely to be pretty confused.
- ISL 13y agoFailed experiment or no, it's probably the single most influential set of undergraduate physics classes ever taught. Grad students attened these classes too, and nearly everyone in the field has a copy of these lectures sitting on the shelf. They're not a singular reference, but they're really good. His rachet and pawl lecture is timeless.
- tilthouse 13y agoAs a family friend once said to me, when I was a student (I studied physics before switching to Computer Science): "The Feynman Lectures are wonderful. While you are actually physically reading them, you feel as if you understand."
- rexreed 13y agoAre the audio files available as well? I know there's the Silverlight version, but looking for audio I can play while I drive.
- Jach 13y agoI don't think they're widely available, but you can get mp3s (2.5 GB) if you know where to look... [1] They're not very high quality, it'd be cool if Bill Gates paid some audio engineers to clean them up. (I found a simple 1KHz low pass filter in Audacity helps quite a bit.) [1] https://mega.co.nz/#!eYJ2SaZY!PuMb5BI4j4XrEX8anIZrPmEMbHZ7cQbO5Veq--sQbcQ https://mega.co.nz/#!eYJ2SaZY!PuMb5BI4j4XrEX8anIZrPmEMbHZ7cQ...
- solarmist 13y agoAudible has all the lectures available for download in good quality format. http://www.audible.com/search/ref=sr_1_18_asrch?searchAuthor=Richard+P.+Feynman&qid=1379093712&sr=1-18 http://www.audible.com/search/ref=sr_1_18_asrch?searchAuthor...
- acqq 13y agoYou are then missing everything written on the blackboard. Even the order of presentation doesn't match the one in the books.
- trevyn 13y agoOriginal email from this morning to give some color: Dear Feynman Lectures Forum Members, Have you ever wished there was a high-quality up-to-date version of The Feynman Lectures on Physics available online? One that could be read with a browser so you could study FLP on your smartphone, tablet, notebook or desktop computer, whenever you felt like it? For free? Well, now there is, and you are among the first to hear about it! A few words about the free HTML edition of FLP (New Millennium Edition) It was an idea conceived many years ago, when through FL website correspondence I became aware of the many eager young minds who could benefit from reading FLP, who want to read it, but for economic or other reasons have no access to it, while at the same time I was becoming aware of the growing popularity of horrid scanned copies of old editions of FLP circulating on file-sharing and torrent websites. A free high-quality online edition was my proposed solution to both problems. All concerned agreed on the potential pedagogical benefits, but also had to be convinced that book sales would not be harmed. The conversion from LaTeX to HTML was expensive: we raised considerable funds, but ran out before finishing Volumes II and III, so we are only posting Volume I initially. (I am working on finishing Volumes II and III myself, as time permits, and will start posting chapters in the not-too-distant future, if all goes as planned.) When you read our HTML edition you will notice a floating menu in the top right corner with Twitter, Facebook, and email buttons (to tell your friends about it!), navigation buttons ('last chapter,' 'table of contents', and 'next chapter'), a "contact us" button (that sends email to me), and a "Buy" button that links to a page of advertising for our books and ebooks, with links to retailers' web pages. To support our effort in producing and maintaining the HTML edition, and to help us keep it free, I would appreciate it very much if you would take some time to explore the retailer's pages through the links on our "Buy" page. Enough said! You can access the free HTML edition of FLP either by going to the home page of www.feynmanlectures.info and clicking on "Read," or you can go directly to it at either of two servers: www.feynmanlectures.info/flp or www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu (So what's the difference between the servers? I maintain the site at feynmanlectures.info, so changes are reflected there immediately. On the other hand, feynmanlectures.caltech.edu is generally faster and more responsive. The entire edition is mirrored from feynmanlectures.info to feynmanlectures.caltech.edu every day, so the latter is current within 24 hours.) - hope you enjoy the new edition! If you like it, please tell your friends. Best regards, Mike Gottlieb Editor, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, New Millennium Edition P.S. If you've received this email more than once, I apologize. We're having some problems with our mail servers this morning!
- jcburns 13y agoThe whole universe is a hot, dense place.
- Datsundere 13y agoThank you for this, I got all the 3 volumes over the summer to read, but couldn't finish them but had to return them.
- Zarathust 13y agoI just quickly browsed through the lectures and this seems very consistent with Feynman style where there is a lot of text and very little math. From his book "surely you must be joking Mr. Feynman", he mentioned that fundamental understanding is largely is lacking in modern education. Instead, students go on and on about memorizing complex formulas that made no sense to them. Maybe we're not all smart enough for this, but it does make sense that if we understand the problem well, then the calculation for it will be obvious.
- zokier 13y agoIs the material going to be available in some format suitable for Kindle? Or do I need to convert the HTML myself?
- pge 13y agoI first read these as an undergraduate physics major. They are fascinating if you already understand the physics, because his approach is always unconventional and a little brain-bending. For an introductory text for those not familiar with the physics, they are often very confusing. I would not recommend them to someone trying to learn physics. Go learn physics elsewhere, but then absolutely come back to Feynman and look at the things you have already learned in a very different light.
- garrettheaver 13y agoIs it just me or does everyone else naturally read this in Feynman's voice?
- ivan_ah 13y agoThis is awesome! You can read the Feynman lectures either as a first-year UGRAD, a last-year UGRAD, or even as a graduate student and you will always find lots of things to learn. The thing that I appreciate the most about Feynman's teaching is he shows you how to derive things from first principles. That is what learning should be like---just stating results is not enough: the teacher's job is to show (intuitively or formally) how the result is derived from other things the student knows.
- megaframe 13y agoI tried watching his lectures as an undergrad and found them a bit confusing. I can follow them now but still find them to be all over the place. I always learn better from reading so hopefully these will work out better.
- jackfoxy 13y agoI think Vol. 1 is really masterful. I read somewhere Feynman was most pleased with Vol. 1, and less so with Vol. 2. The material in the second volume is certainly more difficult, and I did not quite finish it myself. I've been busy with other things, and the relatively thin Vol. 3 still sits on the shelf.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoSo freakin' awesome. These lectures are on my list of 'must have' volumes in any personal library. Generally very easy to read, I found them invaluable when I was going through the physic's curriculum at USC.
- andimai 13y agoHave they finally updated the lectures to use SI units?
- plg 13y agowget -r -k -np -N http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/ http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/
- bayesianhorse 13y agoBe careful. Using wget can get you hacking conviction...
- bayesianhorse 13y agoSeriously. Ask Bradley Manning...
- pushtheenvelope 13y agoAs I understand it, it was a technicality they got him under: don't use software not officially sanctioned on official machines. Go forth and use wget on your own machines!
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- mrbrowning 13y agoThanks, this is wonderful. The foreword mentions a set of exercises that are only loosely coupled with the lectures themselves -- are these freely available anywhere?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- pvarangot 13y agoExcept they maybe... will learn some physics?
- juhanima 13y agoThat is just sad. Why do you think most people get nothing out of art? Do you not consider Bach's fugas art? Or the Brothers of Karamazov? Or the statue of Nefertiti? I suppose you must mean that most people do not get an immediate material benefit out of art. But there is so much more in life than that.
- Kliment 13y agoAnd even if you feel there is no value at all in art, there is still informational value in effective education. And an understanding of physics IS a material benefit.
- dylanz 13y agoI'm in the middle of reading "Surely you're joking, Mr. Fenyman!", and so far, it is a FANTASTIC read. He has so many interesting stories about fiddling with stuff as a kid, working on the manhattan project, picking locks, interactions with Oppenheimer, Einstein, etc. Even if you aren't at all interested in physics, math, or anything science related, I would still recommend this book. That said, I now have a lot more reading to do. I know almost nothing about physics, and this collection looks like the perfect introduction. I'm going to read it in Mr. Fenyman's voice, and try to have the same curiosity as he did as a kid. Very excited to see this post.
- sanderjd 13y agoIt is the best collection of memoirs I've read by an order of magnitude, and the sequel - What do you care what other people think? - is great too!
- ohazi 13y agoThis book (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman) is absolutely fantastic. The first time I read it, I opened it up in the middle and just started casually reading an excerpt. I ended up reading to the end in one sitting, going back to the beginning, and continuing to point where I started. It was that good.
- Einherji 13y agoI know how you feel! I started reading it on a plane, and I remember feeling cheated when the plane landed and I had to put the book away. Didn't the airline understand that reading Surely You're Joking is more important than their petty schedule?
- Jun8 13y agoYou can read the first answer to this Physics SO question (http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/29355/reading-the-feynman-lectures-in-2012 http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/29355/reading-the...) to see how these lectures fare in light of later findings.
- zodiac 13y agoPhysics SE
- picardo 13y agoIs there a similar project to make Feynman Lecture on Computation easily available? I've been trying to find a decent digital copy for the longest time.
- nilkn 13y agoBy far my favorite piece of writing from Feynman is QED: http://www.amazon.com/QED-Strange-Princeton-Science-Library/dp/0691125759/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379090424&sr=8-1&keywords=qed http://www.amazon.com/QED-Strange-Princeton-Science-Library/... Out of all his writings, this is the one that has always stuck with me. Feynman long held that one does not understand something if one cannot explain it to someone who is not deeply steeped in the subject already. I regard this lecture as probably the culmination of that philosophy for Feynman. Anybody with a deep mathematical background will be stunned on reading this book to realize that, oh, he was actually just talking about complex numbers and the path integral formulation all along. Taken from one of those reviews, I don't need to say much more than this: "He does close to the impossible by explaining the rudimentary ideas of Quantum Electro Dynamics (QED) in a manner that is reasonably accessible to those with some physics background"
- evanb 13y agoThe videos that were essentially transcribed into that book are legally available to watch online. http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8 http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8
- tedsanders 13y agoI recommend the book over the video lecture because I think the book explains it better.
- mhartl 13y agoI was the project lead on this, which involved converting the Feynman Lectures from LaTeX to HTML. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Update: Most of the questions center on cost. I've answered in more detail below, but the short version is simple: no off-the-shelf converter was remotely sufficient for our needs, so we had to write lots of custom software, and writing custom software is hard.
- lvryc 13y agoTrevyn, above, mentioned, > The conversion from LaTeX to HTML was expensive: we raised considerable funds, but ran out before finishing Volumes II and III, so we are only posting Volume I initially. I don't know too much about digitalisation, but why does it cost so much?
- mhartl 13y agoThe LaTeX source of the Lectures is long and heavily formatted, so the conversion to HTML involved writing a large amount of custom software, including lots of tests to catch regressions. In other words, this was a speculative software project; as anyone who has experience with such projects can tell you, it is virtually impossible to anticipate all the problems you'll run into. (The costs would have been even higher had I not worked for a reduced rate, often pro bono, because I wanted to help make the Feynman Lectures accessible to a wider audience.)
- npsimons 13y agoI am very grateful for your work, and I hate to pick on details, but surely you reused much of what's already available for LaTeX? I hope you didn't spend much of your time reinventing the wheel. I freely admit that I am probably vastly underestimating the amount of work that went into this, reuse or no.
- mhartl 13y agoWe did make use of as many existing resources as possible. If you take a look at the [Ruby on Rails Tutorial book](http://railstutorial.org/ http://railstutorial.org/) and [The Tau Manifesto](http://tauday.com/tau-manifesto http://tauday.com/tau-manifesto), both of which are converted to HTML from LaTeX, you'll see that I have deep experience in such conversions. Combined with my previous role as Caltech's editor for the Definitive and Extended Edition of the Feynman Lectures (and my Caltech physics Ph.D.), this made me uniquely qualified to work on this project, which is the main reason I did it. (It certainly wasn't for the money; the opportunity cost of the time I spent on this project was high.) Unfortunately, there's a vast gulf between "kinda-sorta mostly converted"—which is the best you can get with off-the-shelf converters—and "a faithful representation of the Feynman Lectures". Closing this gap required a large amount of gruesome work.
- shire 13y agoI love Feynman this is much appreciated. I wish there were HD videos of him lecturing.
- FlailFast 13y agoWas anyone else really happy to see the images seem to be predominantly SVGs? Open-standards-based vector graphics make me super happy.
- fedvasu 13y agoI wish Prof Landau had given some lectures (atleast audio, in english?). I think it is logical for the "eternal physics enthusiast(student)" to move from FLP to Landau & Lifschitz's books.
- solarmist 13y agoAudible has the audio of the lectures available (not for free) in good quality as well. http://www.audible.com/search/ref=sr_1_18_asrch?searchAuthor=Richard+P.+Feynman&qid=1379093712&sr=1-18 http://www.audible.com/search/ref=sr_1_18_asrch?searchAuthor...
- ekm2 13y agoThank you! I have been trying to get this book online,but apparently only Microsoft's Project Tuva had a right to them.So one had to watch them on a Windows platform requiring software that cant seem to run on my machine
- bliker 13y agoIf I make it into .mobi or .epub. Can I publish it? (with proper licence of course)
- thufry 13y agoI shoplifted the 3-volume hardcover set of Feynman Lectures from the Borders bookstore in Cambridge in 2003. I would be happy to make partial amends for this by donating the full retail cost to any efforts to digitize volumes 2 and 3.
- Jugurtha 13y agoThe courses are absolutely great! There is also an audio version of these lectures, you could hear his students laugh when he'd give one of those witty Feynmanian remarks.
- educating 13y agoI hope this is continued. I would have loved to have been a student in Feynman's physics classes. Unfortunately, I did not realize this until I had already taken a different path and now my mind has gone enough that it is probably good that I didn't try to attain even 1/10 of what Richard knew because I would have lost it all.