I never understood the appeal of Feynman and these Lectures. It has been a constant topic for years around here.
For example, the Electricity and Magnetism book by Purcell is phenomenal but it is hardly ever mentioned. To quote wikipedia,
Electricity and Magnetism is a standard textbook in electromagnetism originally written by Nobel laureate Edward Mills Purcell in 1963. Along with David Griffiths' Introduction to Electrodynamics, this book is one of the most widely adopted undergraduate textbooks in electromagnetism. A Sputnik-era project funded by the National Science Foundation grant, the book is influential for its use of relativity in the presentation of the subject at the undergraduate level. In 1999, it was noted by Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. that the book was widely adopted and has many foreign translations.
Feynman was a uniquely gifted teacher that made things intuitive and simple. Those other books are course textbooks for physics majors, and they require an order of magnitude more effort and time to understand.
When I was a physics student the best students seemed to use both types of materials simultaneously. A work like Feynmans would give a bigger picture and more intuitive understanding of what is going on and help you not miss the forest for the trees so to speak, the regular textbooks will teach you all of the little details and math tricks you need to actually solve difficult problems with these concepts.
>>Feynman was a uniquely gifted teacher that made things intuitive and simple.
I think explainers like Neil deGrasse Tyson have a job harder than people imagine. Historically the problem with science education has been, that, as the conceptual universe gets bigger and complicated there's a tendency to assume the common person is too stupid and beneath the subject to understand it.
To simplify and demystify science to a point to get people interested in it as a intuitive iterative process helps a lot in increasing participation of the general crowd.
Bang on.. Several thought experiments and constructs he would present in the lectures will elucidate/challenge a foundational concept in such a manner as to lead an inquisitive reader or student on a quest to absorb the extant knowledge just to be able to answer the conundrum satisfactorily. Many of these have since become classics.
Yes, another thing Feynman is doing is teaching people how to think about and model problems in a simple but reliable way in their mind, something he was very good at. In a sense his specific subject matter is just an example to demonstrate the process.
A textbook that just plainly presents the facts about a specific phenomenon isn't necessarily training you to think like a theorist, in the way Feynman is.
Angela Collier has a 3-hour video on the topic (The Sham Legacy of Richard Feynman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc) with funny takes and criticism. It has been a while, so I cannot remember if she was criticizing Feynman himself to some extent or how his legacy is being portrayed by the media. In the latter case, I am also a bit annoyed how he is constantly portrayed as some kind of a super star by American media, where the rest of the world does not really care that much.
Her primary thesis, if I understood correctly, is to clarify that none of the books with Feynman listed as the author were written by him, and that they were transcribed from interviews, lectures etc with editorializing. For example, by Ralph Leighton. Her secondary point was that she hates the "autobiographical" ones, and finds parts sexist, and thinks most of the stories are mostly false/lies/storytelling.
With that in mind, I think we'll agree it's not relevant here, as these seem to be handwritten notes by Feynman himself.
> and thinks most of the stories are mostly false/lies/storytelling.
It's been a while since I read "Surely, you must be joking" but I seem to recall Feynman himself makes the same point. He basically says something to the effect that some of his stories and bon mots are things he wished he said or did rather than stuff that actually happened.
especially reading Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! leaves a bad taste in my mouth after all these years. i can only take the title literally "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"
Surely you're joking Mr Feynman begins in the 30s and takes us to the 60s IIRC, so one has to take into account, what the mainstream was in those times. But he is against hazing, explaining how traumatized European Jews were hazed and reliving their fears in Europe. But, of course, some things cannot be understood nowadays with the mindset we have now.
Her criticism is purely about the man, not Feynman as a physicist, a thinker, or a teacher. Feynman was probably on the spectrum and he had a lot of problematic behaviors. That doesn't meaningfully alter the core of his legacy.
It's also not terribly insightful to point out that a great figure from history was deeply flawed. If anything, that's so common as to be nearly guaranteed.
I don't think you actually watched the video? Nearly all of the criticism is about the myth creation around him with a short bit at the end mostly praising him as a person
Normal students learn the material from normal textbooks. The Feynman Lectures on Physics are a fantastic supplement and a great reference for people who already have a solid background. They’re not a practical introduction. Feynman acknowledged in his preface that, as an intro physics course, the Lectures were a failed experiment.
Especially as a beginner it’s possible to read along with the Feynman Lectures and think you’re getting it, without really getting very much.
Another way you may hear this same point: “only Feynman could get away with doing things in this crazy unrigorous way. You better do things normal and check obsessively, and understand the normal approach very clearly before you do anything weird.” That’s mostly fair but it’s incomplete. Feynman also checked the living shit out of everything he wrote. He just doesn’t show all the checking, so he appears to be fast and loose.
I agree. It's like a fairy tales book for Physic students. You learn from the main book and just before bed you read one of the lessons, just the relevant one. It's not a book to marathon, unless you have a (almost) complete degree in Physics, or something equivalent.
Feynman was the epitome of "think outside the box" for physics, revisiting most topics with a personnal, "back to first principles" angle. Therefore his lecture notes are engaging and entertaining like no others, and a perfect complementary text to normal text books. When I was in college we used to pair the Feynman lecture notes with the much more dry Landau textbooks. A perfect mix, although probably already outdated at the time.
I'm not sure I'm seeing the mystery - do you mean you think that book is not mentioned enough?
Digestible lectures from a charismatic man (who made the television circuit pretty often) have a different audience than comprehensive textbooks I would think.
If one would really be interested in these kind of things, I'm pretty sure one would be interested in other great resources, like the one mentioned.
If one would really be interested in classical music or philosophy one would sure not miss the (other) giants in the field instead of concentrating on just one or two.
Interested enough to listen to a lecture for an hour is not the same level of interest as focusing on a book for many hours, basically. The two things aren't comparable in terms of depth, and many people are interested only enough for surface level understanding or intuition?
One collection that I always loved due to the clear exposition is the one from Walter Greiner[0].
It goes from zero to quite advanced theoretical physics topics in a very nice way. I think that sadly some volumes were never translated, so there is a gap if you read them in English.
I never found anybody taking about Greiner, and at this point, I'm way too afraid to ask why.
1) He had a HUGE amount of personal charisma. Some lecturers are watched because they know a lot or are famous, despite a lack of public speaking skills. Feynman could have gone into acting or politics the guy is genuinely entertaining and a VERY skilled presenter. Feynman's on camera personality is the professor from Gilligan's island but funnier and friendlier.
2) He got his Nobel price in peak boomer years 1965 and then didn't die until the end of the 80s. For boomers he is "their" generation's physicist just like the WWII gen had Einstein as "their" physicist. Who is "the" popular science fad physicist for the X-ers and younger? Hawking, maybe Susskind, possibly even Sabine, I guess?
3) IMHO he was an autodidact who wrote for fellow autodidacts. That is my learning style. His style REALLY STRONGLY resonates with me and my learning style. If you're capable of self-teaching you get a feel for who's your type of author and who is not. Feynman definitely writes books for people like me. His books and notes are all old, of course, which is sad. As for "moderns" who emit similar intense autodidact vibes, I'd suggest Schroeder and his famous "Introduction to Thermal Physics" from the turn of the century. I subjectively like that book. I don't care if there's a better way to learn bachelors thermodynamics by taking a course in a classroom or watching video lecture, I just like the book's style. Not the superficial style like typography but the organization and connectivity of the topics is very autodidactical, just like Feynman's books. To some extent, he's post-education in that once you are done officially learning, the rest of your life you're an autodidact, like it or not, and Feynman's style leans into that. I still remember as a kid in high school, where I took two years of public high school physics, paging thru a copy of Feynman's lectures in the library and it was so clear and so fascinating compared to my experience in "official classes with new textbooks".
I'm saving these files, not for the content, but just to admire the hard work that has gone into writing these pages - all in capital letters with fantastic drawings and equations. These are like pieces of renaissance art.
Almost a thousand pages of presumably well thought out and neatly written notes. For lectures, and not even his own research. I'm always amazed at the productivity and output of the great ones.
At that time there was less publish or perish and fighting to actually obtain a tenured position. In such a comfortable situation, you can invest more times into preparing good lectures.
To clarify, these aren’t the normal Feynman lectures. He lectured at a different institution and the author of this webpage transcribed those lectures to produce this set of notes. The content covered is different from the famous set of lectures.
I never understood the appeal of Feynman and these Lectures. It has been a constant topic for years around here.
For example, the Electricity and Magnetism book by Purcell is phenomenal but it is hardly ever mentioned. To quote wikipedia,
Electricity and Magnetism is a standard textbook in electromagnetism originally written by Nobel laureate Edward Mills Purcell in 1963. Along with David Griffiths' Introduction to Electrodynamics, this book is one of the most widely adopted undergraduate textbooks in electromagnetism. A Sputnik-era project funded by the National Science Foundation grant, the book is influential for its use of relativity in the presentation of the subject at the undergraduate level. In 1999, it was noted by Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. that the book was widely adopted and has many foreign translations.
Something mysterious is going on here.
Feynman was a uniquely gifted teacher that made things intuitive and simple. Those other books are course textbooks for physics majors, and they require an order of magnitude more effort and time to understand.
When I was a physics student the best students seemed to use both types of materials simultaneously. A work like Feynmans would give a bigger picture and more intuitive understanding of what is going on and help you not miss the forest for the trees so to speak, the regular textbooks will teach you all of the little details and math tricks you need to actually solve difficult problems with these concepts.
>>Feynman was a uniquely gifted teacher that made things intuitive and simple.
I think explainers like Neil deGrasse Tyson have a job harder than people imagine. Historically the problem with science education has been, that, as the conceptual universe gets bigger and complicated there's a tendency to assume the common person is too stupid and beneath the subject to understand it.
To simplify and demystify science to a point to get people interested in it as a intuitive iterative process helps a lot in increasing participation of the general crowd.
That particular person is more of a shouter and interrupter than an explainer.
He's not perfect, but he's really good at explaining science and conveying a sense of awe.
patently false, have you attended one of his lecture series in person?
And then gatekeepers criticize them for doing so.
Bang on.. Several thought experiments and constructs he would present in the lectures will elucidate/challenge a foundational concept in such a manner as to lead an inquisitive reader or student on a quest to absorb the extant knowledge just to be able to answer the conundrum satisfactorily. Many of these have since become classics.
Yes, another thing Feynman is doing is teaching people how to think about and model problems in a simple but reliable way in their mind, something he was very good at. In a sense his specific subject matter is just an example to demonstrate the process.
A textbook that just plainly presents the facts about a specific phenomenon isn't necessarily training you to think like a theorist, in the way Feynman is.
Angela Collier has a 3-hour video on the topic (The Sham Legacy of Richard Feynman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc) with funny takes and criticism. It has been a while, so I cannot remember if she was criticizing Feynman himself to some extent or how his legacy is being portrayed by the media. In the latter case, I am also a bit annoyed how he is constantly portrayed as some kind of a super star by American media, where the rest of the world does not really care that much.
Her primary thesis, if I understood correctly, is to clarify that none of the books with Feynman listed as the author were written by him, and that they were transcribed from interviews, lectures etc with editorializing. For example, by Ralph Leighton. Her secondary point was that she hates the "autobiographical" ones, and finds parts sexist, and thinks most of the stories are mostly false/lies/storytelling.
With that in mind, I think we'll agree it's not relevant here, as these seem to be handwritten notes by Feynman himself.
> and thinks most of the stories are mostly false/lies/storytelling.
It's been a while since I read "Surely, you must be joking" but I seem to recall Feynman himself makes the same point. He basically says something to the effect that some of his stories and bon mots are things he wished he said or did rather than stuff that actually happened.
Feynman didn’t write these notes. John T. Neer did. There’s an explanation at the beginning.
Ty for the correction!
This video really helped solidify for me why I always thought the worship of Feynman was kind of weird. Collier is a treasure.
especially reading Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! leaves a bad taste in my mouth after all these years. i can only take the title literally "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"
Surely you're joking Mr Feynman begins in the 30s and takes us to the 60s IIRC, so one has to take into account, what the mainstream was in those times. But he is against hazing, explaining how traumatized European Jews were hazed and reliving their fears in Europe. But, of course, some things cannot be understood nowadays with the mindset we have now.
i don't mean the misogyny but the general vibe of how full of himself/sociopathic he was
there are books from the 19 century written by people with much better values
There is a nice essay from Paul Graham that starts with:
> The word "prig" isn't very common now, but if you look up the definition, it will sound familiar.
This should be required reading to make an account here.
calling someone that is rich coming from paul graham. come on guys. what's next? reading mark manson? a16z?
This video is clickbait drivel.
Her criticism is purely about the man, not Feynman as a physicist, a thinker, or a teacher. Feynman was probably on the spectrum and he had a lot of problematic behaviors. That doesn't meaningfully alter the core of his legacy.
It's also not terribly insightful to point out that a great figure from history was deeply flawed. If anything, that's so common as to be nearly guaranteed.
I don't think you actually watched the video? Nearly all of the criticism is about the myth creation around him with a short bit at the end mostly praising him as a person
I think Feynman needs to be heard and preferably seen. While he was a Nobel Prize winning physicist and great teacher he was also really funny.
I bought the audio book version on CD about 25 years ago.
Now it is on various sites and youtube.
https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/flptapes.html
This is a video of him giving the lecture.
Feynman's Lectures on Physics - The Law of Gravitation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNO11GLabOc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dW4mctBMI0
Normal students learn the material from normal textbooks. The Feynman Lectures on Physics are a fantastic supplement and a great reference for people who already have a solid background. They’re not a practical introduction. Feynman acknowledged in his preface that, as an intro physics course, the Lectures were a failed experiment.
Especially as a beginner it’s possible to read along with the Feynman Lectures and think you’re getting it, without really getting very much.
Another way you may hear this same point: “only Feynman could get away with doing things in this crazy unrigorous way. You better do things normal and check obsessively, and understand the normal approach very clearly before you do anything weird.” That’s mostly fair but it’s incomplete. Feynman also checked the living shit out of everything he wrote. He just doesn’t show all the checking, so he appears to be fast and loose.
I agree. It's like a fairy tales book for Physic students. You learn from the main book and just before bed you read one of the lessons, just the relevant one. It's not a book to marathon, unless you have a (almost) complete degree in Physics, or something equivalent.
Feynman was the epitome of "think outside the box" for physics, revisiting most topics with a personnal, "back to first principles" angle. Therefore his lecture notes are engaging and entertaining like no others, and a perfect complementary text to normal text books. When I was in college we used to pair the Feynman lecture notes with the much more dry Landau textbooks. A perfect mix, although probably already outdated at the time.
I'm not sure I'm seeing the mystery - do you mean you think that book is not mentioned enough?
Digestible lectures from a charismatic man (who made the television circuit pretty often) have a different audience than comprehensive textbooks I would think.
If one would really be interested in these kind of things, I'm pretty sure one would be interested in other great resources, like the one mentioned.
If one would really be interested in classical music or philosophy one would sure not miss the (other) giants in the field instead of concentrating on just one or two.
There's the mistery.
Interested enough to listen to a lecture for an hour is not the same level of interest as focusing on a book for many hours, basically. The two things aren't comparable in terms of depth, and many people are interested only enough for surface level understanding or intuition?
One collection that I always loved due to the clear exposition is the one from Walter Greiner[0]. It goes from zero to quite advanced theoretical physics topics in a very nice way. I think that sadly some volumes were never translated, so there is a gap if you read them in English.
I never found anybody taking about Greiner, and at this point, I'm way too afraid to ask why.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Greiner
Greiner's QFT book is by far the best I've ever seen.
Its just charisma. His pedagogy isn't great; my main criticism is that he isn't very incisive.
Edit: to be fair though, textbooks are written while lectures are oral. So its hard to compare them.
I'm with you. As a physicist, I never found his lectures easy to learn from. They do have interesting explanations, though.
History and pop culture (and life) are like that.
Richard Feynman is a person well worth remembering, but I'm sure many of his contemporaries that get talked about less were as well.
So it goes.
1) He had a HUGE amount of personal charisma. Some lecturers are watched because they know a lot or are famous, despite a lack of public speaking skills. Feynman could have gone into acting or politics the guy is genuinely entertaining and a VERY skilled presenter. Feynman's on camera personality is the professor from Gilligan's island but funnier and friendlier.
2) He got his Nobel price in peak boomer years 1965 and then didn't die until the end of the 80s. For boomers he is "their" generation's physicist just like the WWII gen had Einstein as "their" physicist. Who is "the" popular science fad physicist for the X-ers and younger? Hawking, maybe Susskind, possibly even Sabine, I guess?
3) IMHO he was an autodidact who wrote for fellow autodidacts. That is my learning style. His style REALLY STRONGLY resonates with me and my learning style. If you're capable of self-teaching you get a feel for who's your type of author and who is not. Feynman definitely writes books for people like me. His books and notes are all old, of course, which is sad. As for "moderns" who emit similar intense autodidact vibes, I'd suggest Schroeder and his famous "Introduction to Thermal Physics" from the turn of the century. I subjectively like that book. I don't care if there's a better way to learn bachelors thermodynamics by taking a course in a classroom or watching video lecture, I just like the book's style. Not the superficial style like typography but the organization and connectivity of the topics is very autodidactical, just like Feynman's books. To some extent, he's post-education in that once you are done officially learning, the rest of your life you're an autodidact, like it or not, and Feynman's style leans into that. I still remember as a kid in high school, where I took two years of public high school physics, paging thru a copy of Feynman's lectures in the library and it was so clear and so fascinating compared to my experience in "official classes with new textbooks".
Electricity and Magnetism by Purcell is one of my favorites too, especially the chapter on “The Fields of Moving Charges”.
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I'm saving these files, not for the content, but just to admire the hard work that has gone into writing these pages - all in capital letters with fantastic drawings and equations. These are like pieces of renaissance art.
Almost a thousand pages of presumably well thought out and neatly written notes. For lectures, and not even his own research. I'm always amazed at the productivity and output of the great ones.
Yeah well he didn't get addicted to computer programming so that gave him a lot of extra time to just think.
At that time there was less publish or perish and fighting to actually obtain a tenured position. In such a comfortable situation, you can invest more times into preparing good lectures.
To clarify, these aren’t the normal Feynman lectures. He lectured at a different institution and the author of this webpage transcribed those lectures to produce this set of notes. The content covered is different from the famous set of lectures.
The normal Feynman lectures are here: https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/
Thanks for sharing. This is the best HN post of 2025 as far as my humble self is concerned.
Malcolm Longair's books are really what most people who want to read the Feynman lectures should read.
Was it God who these lines...