Richard Feynman was obviously famous for his work as a physicist, but he's also widely regarded as one of the most lucid and effective lecturers to ever address an audience. So renowned, so readily accessible were his presentations, that his introductory physics lectures (which he delivered to undergraduates at Caltech) have since been immortalized in the form of a three-volume set called, quite simply, The Feynman Lectures.

The set is a phenomenal resource to anyone with even a passing interest in the physical world and the laws that govern it — but even these lectures cannot capture the essence of what it might have been like to attend a presentation given by Feynman himself.

Fortunately for all of us, in 1964, Feynman delivered a series of seven, hour-long lectures at Cornell University. Those lectures were recorded by the BBC, and in 2009 (with a little help from Bill Gates), they were released to the public. You'll find all seven of them featured below, but you'll also want to check out the lectures on Microsoft's Project Tuva, where they have been carefully edited to include closed captioning and annotations.

http://research.microsoft.c...b-9c0ea0cbc45f%7C%7C


http://io9.com/5894600/watc...s-by-richard-feynman

[This message has been edited by TheDigitalAlchemist (edited 03-20-2012).]

quote Originally posted by TheDigitalAlchemist: ... his introductory physics lectures (which he delivered to undergraduates at Caltech) ...

I was there, a naive freshman, usually sitting in the second or third row. Each of the lectures was recorded (audio only), and I still have some of the original edited transcripts that were provided to us students (usually weeks after the fact) in lieu of a textbook. Fifty years later, those lectures remain perhaps the most stimulating intellectual experience of my life. Many of the "Feynman Lectures" are now available on audio CD, but they lack much of the impact of experiencing such a brilliant and enthusiastic master showman in person.

[This message has been edited by Marvin McInnis (edited 03-20-2012).]

quote Originally posted by Marvin McInnis: I was there

VERY cool.

quote Many of the "Feynman Lectures" are now available on audio CD, but they lack much of the impact of experiencing such a brilliant and enthusiastic master showman in person.

I've been seeing a lot of comments like this...


Some professors were true gems...

Dr. Feynman would occasionally accept an invitation to dinner at one of the seven student houses, which were kind of a hybrid between dorms and fraternity houses, and afterwards we would retire to the large living room/lounge area and just shoot the bull with him for several hours. That was how I was privileged to hear many of the now-famous "Feynman Stories" told in the first person. These stories, and others I never heard, were later published in his two semi-autobiographies, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman?" and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" The classic story of failing his Draft physical after his Manhattan Project deferment expired at the end of WW-II, complete with exaggerated facial expressions and hand gestures, was particularly hilarious to a group of college students who would themselves soon face the Draft.

For an idea of the dynamism of his lectures, here are the last two paragraphs from the very first of his "Feynman Lectures on Physics," exactly as he spoke them fifty years ago, which still ring in my ears today:

"Everything is made of atoms. That is the key hypothesis. The most important hypothesis in all of biology, for example, is that everything that animals do, atoms do. In other words, there is nothing that living things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics. This was not known from the beginning: it took some experimenting and theorizing to suggest this hypothesis, but now it is accepted, and it is the most useful theory for producing new ideas in the field of biology.

"If a piece of steel or a piece of salt, consisting of atoms one next to the other, can have such interesting properties; if water—which is nothing but these little blobs, mile upon mile of the same thing over the earth—can form waves and foam, and make rushing noises and strange patterns as it runs over cement; if all of this, all the life of a stream of water, can be nothing but a pile of atoms, how much more is possible? If instead of arranging the atoms in some definite pattern, again and again repeated, on and on, or even forming little lumps of complexity like the odor of violets, we make an arrangement which is always different from place to place, with different kinds of atoms arranged in many ways, continually changing, not repeating, how much more marvelously is it possible that this thing might behave? Is it possible that that "thing" walking back and forth in front of you, talking to you, is a great glob of these atoms in a very complex arrangement, such that the sheer complexity of it staggers the imagination as to what it can do? When we say we are a pile of atoms, we do not mean we are merely a pile of atoms, because a pile of atoms which is not repeated from one to the other might well have the possibilities which you see before you in the mirror."

The applause which followed was spontaneous and totally unexpected; I had never in my life applauded a classroom lecture before. " ... how much more is possible?" Wow, that still really speaks to me ... even after all these years.


Edit: Here is a link to an MP3 of the first lecture, titled "Atoms in Motion." The audio quality is poor (severe clipping because his new-fangled wireless microphone was plugged into the wrong input of the tape recorder), but it still allows you to partake of the experience. It may help to read along with the transcript posted above.

[This message has been edited by Marvin McInnis (edited 03-20-2012).]