The Feynman Lectures on Physics

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The Feynman Lectures on Physics including Feynman's Tips on Physics: The Definitive and Extended Edition (2nd edition, 2005)
The Feynman Lectures on Physics including Feynman's Tips on Physics: The Definitive and Extended Edition (2nd edition, 2005)
Cover of Volumes 1 and 2 of the CD release of The Feynman Lectures on Physics
Cover of Volumes 1 and 2 of the CD release of The Feynman Lectures on Physics

The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Richard Feynman, Robert Leighton, and Matthew Sands is perhaps Feynman's most accessible technical work and is considered a classic introduction to modern physics. It includes lectures on mathematics, electromagnetism, Newtonian physics, quantum physics, and even the relation of physics to other sciences. It has three volumes, which were compiled from material presented in a two-year introductory physics course given in the early 1960s by Feynman at Caltech. Six readily accessible chapters were later compiled into a book entitled Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher, and six more in Six Not So Easy Pieces: Einstein's Relativity, Symmetry and Space-Time.

The first volume focuses on mechanics, radiation, and heat. The second volume is mainly on electromagnetism and matter. The third volume, on quantum mechanics, shows, for example, how the double-slit experiment contains the essential features of quantum mechanics.

Contents

[edit] Background

By 1960 Richard Feynman was already a legend in his own time; at age 42 his research and discoveries in physics had resolved a number of troubling inconsistencies in several fundamental theories. In particular, it was his work in quantum electrodynamics which would lead to the awarding in 1965 of the Nobel Prize in physics. At the same time that Feynman was at the pinnacle of his fame, the faculty of the California Institute of Technology was concerned about the quality of the introductory courses being offered to the undergraduate students. It was felt that these were burdened by an old-fashioned syllabus and that the exciting discoveries of recent years, many of which had occurred at Caltech, were not being conveyed to the students.

Thus, it was decided to reconfigure the first physics course offered to students at Caltech, with the goal being to generate more excitement in the students. Who better to teach this course than the most famous lecturer of physics on campus? To the surprise of the Department, Feynman readily agreed to give the course, though only once. Aware of the fact that this would be a historic event, Caltech recorded each lecture and took photographs of each drawing made on the blackboard by Feynman.

Based on the lectures and the tape recordings, a team of physicists and graduate students put together a manuscript that would become "The Feynman Lectures on Physics." Although Feynman's most valuable technical contribution to the field of physics may have been in the field of quantum electrodynamics, the Feynman Lectures were destined to become his most widely read work.

Today the Feynman Lectures are considered by many to be the best introductory set of lectures on Physics ever written. Feynman himself however stated in his original preface that he was "pessimistic" with regard to the success with which he reached all of his students. The Feynman lectures were written "to maintain the interest of very enthusiastic and rather smart students coming out of high schools and into Caltech." Feynman was targeting the lectures to students who, "at the end of two years of our previous course, [were] very discouraged because there were really very few grand, new, modern ideas presented to them." As a result, some physics students find the lectures more valuable after they obtain a good grasp of physics by studying more traditional texts. Many professional physicists refer to the lectures at various points in their careers to refresh their minds with regard to basic principles.

As the two-year course (1961–63) was still being completed, word of it spread throughout the physics community. In a special preface to the 1989 edition, David Goodstein and Gerry Neugebauer claim that as time went on, the attendance of registered students dropped sharply but was matched by a compensating increase in the number of faculty and graduate students. Sands, in his memoir accompanying the 2005 edition, contests this claim. Goodstein and Neugebauer also state that, "it was [Feynman's] peers - scientists, physicists, and professors - who would be the main beneficiaries of his magnificent achievement, which was nothing less than to see physics through the fresh and dynamic perspective of Richard Feynman.", and that his "gift was that he was an extraordinary teacher of teachers". In the 1980s, Goodstein produced a new set of freshman physics lectures called The Mechanical Universe, which in itself is a classic Caltech lecture series which borrows some of its historically based video scenes from Carl Sagan's Cosmos television series.

Addison-Wesley published a collection of problems to accompany The Feynman Lectures on Physics. The problem sets were first used in the 1962-1963 academic year and organized by Robert Leighton. Some of the problems are sophisticated enough to require understanding of topics as advanced as Kolmogorov's zero-one law, for example.

Addison-Wesley also released in CD format all the audiotapes of the lectures, over 103 hours with Richard Feynman, after remastering the sound and clearing the recordings. For the CD release, the order of the lectures was rearranged from that of the original texts.

In March 1964 Feynman appeared before the freshman physics class as a guest lecturer, but the notes for this lecture were lost for a number of years. They were finally located, restored, and made available as Feynman's Lost Lecture: The Motion of Planets Around the Sun.

In 2005 Michael A. Gottlieb and Ralph Leighton co-authored Feynman's Tips on Physics, which includes four of Feynman's freshman lectures not included in the main text (three on problem solving, one on inertial guidance), a memoir by Matt Sands about the origins of the Feynman Lectures on Physics, and exercises (with answers) that were assigned to students by Robert Leighton and Rochus Vogt in recitation sections of the Feynman Lectures course at Caltech. Also released in 2005, was a "Definitive Edition" of the lectures which includes corrections to the original text.

[edit] Contents

[edit] Volume 1. Mainly mechanics, radiation, and heat

Preface: "When new ideas came in, I would try either to deduce them if they were deducible or to explain that it was a new idea ... and which was not supposed to be provable."
Chapter 1. Atoms in motion
Chapter 2. Basic Physics
Chapter 3. The relation of physics to other sciences
Chapter 4. Conservation of energy
Chapter 5. Time and distance
Chapter 6. Probability
Chapter 7. The theory of gravitation
Chapter 8. Motion
Chapter 9. Newton's laws of dynamics
Chapter 10. Conservation of momentum
Chapter 11. Vectors
Chapter 12. Characteristics of force
Chapter 13. Work and potential energy (A)
Chapter 14. Work and potential energy (conclusion)
Chapter 15. The special theory of relativity
Chapter 16. Relativistic energy and momentum
Chapter 17. Space-time
Chapter 18. Rotation in two dimensions
Chapter 19. Center of mass; Moment of inertia
Chapter 20. Rotation in space
Chapter 21. The harmonic oscillator
Chapter 22. Algebra
Chapter 23. Resonance
Chapter 24. Transients
Chapter 25. Linear systems and review
Chapter 26. Optics: The principle of least time
Chapter 27. Geometrical optics
Chapter 28. Electromagnetic radiation
Chapter 29. Interference
Chapter 30. Diffraction
Chapter 31. The origin of the refractive index
Chapter 32. Radiation damping. Light scattering
Chapter 33. Polarization
Chapter 34. Relativistic effects in radiation
Chapter 35. Color vision
Chapter 36. Mechanisms of seeing
Chapter 37. Quantum behavior
Chapter 38. The Relation of Wave and particle viewpoints
Chapter 39. The kinetic theory of gases
Chapter 40. The principles of statistical mechanics
Chapter 41. The brownian movement
Chapter 42. Applications of kinetic theory
Chapter 43. Diffusion
Chapter 44. The laws of thermodynamics
Chapter 45. Illustrations of thermodynamics
Chapter 46. Ratchet and pawl
Chapter 47. Sound. The wave equation
Chapter 48. Beats
Chapter 49. Modes
Chapter 50. Harmonics
Chapter 51. Waves
Chapter 52. Symmetry in physical laws

[edit] Volume 2. Mainly electromagnetism and matter

Chapter 1. Electromagnetism
Chapter 2. Differential calculus of vector fields
Chapter 3. Vector integral calculus
Chapter 4. Electrostatics
Chapter 5. Application of Gauss' law
Chapter 6. The electric field in various circumstances
Chapter 7. The electric field in various circumstances (continued)
Chapter 8. Electrostatic energy
Chapter 9. Electricity in the atmosphere
Chapter 10. Dielectrics
Chapter 11. Inside dielectrics
Chapter 12. Electrostatic analogs
Chapter 13. Magnetostatics
Chapter 14. The magnetic field in various situations
Chapter 15. The vector potential
Chapter 16. Induced currents
Chapter 17. The laws of induction
Chapter 18. The Maxwell equations
Chapter 19. The principle of least action
Chapter 20. Solutions of Maxwell's equations in free space
Chapter 21. Solutions of Maxwell's equations with currents and charges
Chapter 22. AC circuits
Chapter 23. Cavity resonators
Chapter 24. Waveguides
Chapter 25. Electrodynamics in relativistic notation
Chapter 26. Lorentz transformations of the fields
Chapter 27. Field energy and field momentum
Chapter 28. Electromagnetic mass
Chapter 29. The motion of charges in electric and magnetic fields
Chapter 30. The internal geometry of crystals
Chapter 31. Tensors
Chapter 32. Refractive index of dense materials
Chapter 33. Reflection from surfaces
Chapter 34. The magnetism of matter
Chapter 35. Paramagnetism and magnetic resonance
Chapter 36. Ferromagnetism
Chapter 37. Magnetic materials
Chapter 38. Elasticity
Chapter 39. Elastic materials
Chapter 40. The flow of dry water
Chapter 41. The flow of wet water
Chapter 42. Curved space

[edit] Volume 3. Quantum mechanics

Chapter 1. Quantum behavior
Chapter 2. The relation of wave and particle viewpoints
Chapter 3. Probability amplitudes
Chapter 4. Identical particles
Chapter 5. Spin one
Chapter 6. Spin one-half
Chapter 7. The dependence of amplitudes on time
Chapter 8. The Hamiltonian matrix
Chapter 9. The ammonia maser
Chapter 10. Other two-state systems
Chapter 11. More two-state systems
Chapter 12. The hyperfine splitting in hydrogen
Chapter 13. Propagation in a crystal lattice
Chapter 14. Semiconductors
Chapter 15. The independent particle approximation
Chapter 16. The dependence of amplitudes on position
Chapter 17. Symmetry and conservation laws
Chapter 18. Angular momentum
Chapter 19. The hydrogen atom and the periodic table
Chapter 20. Operators
Chapter 21. The Schrödinger equation in a classical context: a seminar on superconductivity

[edit] Abbreviated editions

"Six Easy Pieces grew out of the need to bring to as wide an audience as possible a substantial yet nontechnical physics primer based on the science of Richard Feynman. . . . General readers are fortunate that Feynman chose to present certain key topics in largely qualitative terms without formal mathematics. . . ."

[edit] Six Easy Pieces (1994)

  • Chapters
  1. Atoms in motion
  2. Basic Physics
  3. The relation of physics to other sciences
  4. Conservation of energy
  5. The theory of gravitation
  6. Quantum behavior

[edit] Six Not-So-Easy Pieces (1998)

  • Chapters
  1. Vectors
  2. Symmetry in physical laws
  3. The special theory of relativity
  4. Relativistic energy and momentum
  5. Space-time
  6. Curved space

[edit] Quotations

  • Feynman once commented, about these three volumes: "[This set of books] has views which are very close to my own."

[edit] Publishing information

[edit] External links