You appear to be parroting the nonsense from Collier's "I hate Feynman" videos. Feynman gave the FLP lectures at Caltech, which were recorded and photographed, but at that time there was no intention of making them into a book. Leighton and Sands (with the help of some secretaries and grad. students) transcribed these lectures, and then lightly edited them, for use by Caltech students as study notes. These fell into the hands of publishers a couple years later, and they were the ones who proposed turning them into a book. I am now the Editor of those books. To say Feynman "didn't write" FLP may be true in the most literal sense that he did not set pen to paper, but the content is his, as you can easily verify by going to The Feynman Lectures Website, where you can listen to the recordings and see the photos of the original lectures and compare them to the book - they are the same, except for very minor changes that would be required to make any spoken lecture readable.
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Let me begin by saying that I am a friend of Ralph Leighton, whom I have known for 27 years. I am also a friend of Feynman's children, and several of Feynman's friends and colleagues. Now I will tell you this: Collier is a liar. The books "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" and "What Do You Care What Other People Think" were made the same way that The Feynman Lectures on Physics was made: Feynman was recorded, and the recordings were transcribed and (lightly) edited for readability. It is true for ALL of Feynman's books (also Stephen Hawking's many books, and those of some other authors) that he did not put pen to paper himself, but what is written came from him, and are not the inventions of Ralph Leighton, nor does Leighton claim authorship to them. It is another lie of Collier that the stories in Feynman's autobiographical books are "either made up or greatly exaggerated," for which Collier provides no evidence whatsoever, and for which there are witnesses who claim the contrary - this is something Collier just "made up", because, apparently her goal in making several pejorative videos about Feynman is to defame him, for her own personal reasons. Yes it is true that Ralph Leighton is Robert Leighton's son, and Robert Leighton, who is one of Feynman's coauthors in The Feynman Lectures on Physics, was a great physicist, best known for establishing the field of microwave astronomy. But why would Ralph mention his father in Feynman's autobiographical books, when Robert Leighton is not a character in any of the stories Feynman tells in those books? What kind of criticism is that to make of Ralph? This is another example of how Collier is merely trying to smear the names of Feynman and the people associated with him. Note that Collier also says in her videos that The Feynman Lectures on Physics (the subject of this discussion) is "not worth reading," which puts her at odds with almost everyone who reads it - it is, in fact, one of the most (if not THE most) popular physics books ever written, and many great physicists sing its praises. Once again, this is Collier just dissing Feynman and his works. Collier is a Feynman-hating liar who fully deserves to be ignored.
Yang died very recently. He was 103 years old.
I don't know what "notes" you are referring to, but if you mean the chapters of The Feynman Lectures on Physics, the recordings and photos of Feynman's 2-year Caltech course on Introductory Physics were the source material from which they were made. When these edited versions of Feynman's lectures were created there was no intention of publishing the lecture recordings or photos - indeed there was no intention of publishing them as a book! You can find all the recordings and lecture photos, as well as Feynman's lecture notes and other materials related to The Feynman Lectures on Physics at www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu.
Hello _wire_. I tried to find the "quotations" you have attributed to The Feynman Lectures on Physics. I looked in Volume I chapters 37 and 38 (which are the same as Volume III chapters 1 and 2) and I could not find them, neither in those chapters nor in the recordings of the original lectures they are based on (for which I made transcripts using the Parakeet STT), so I am wondering where you got these quotations. Could you enlighten us in that regard?
Anyone who could write this has apparently no familiarity with The Feynman Lectures on Physics, which is chock full of quite difficult mathematics.
Feynman's introductory physics course also entailed a lot of problem-solving and labs, in addition to the lectures that are the basis for The Feynman Lectures on Physics. If you go to The Feynman Lectures Website (www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu) and you take a look at the "Original Course Handouts" you can see the homework sets, quizzes and tests his students took (which are not for the feint of heart - many of the problems are quite difficult), and also the labs they did. For those reading the book now, there is also a supplemental volume (sold separately), "Exercises for The Feynman Lectures on Physics" which includes most of the problems given to Feynman's students, and many from later years given to students whose textbook was The Feynman Lectures on Physics.
You have to bear in mind that the lectures in The Feynman Lectures on Physics were only one third of an introductory physics course, the other parts being recitation sections (in which homework problems, quizzes and tests were given and discussed), and labs. Lecture attendance was optional - many people prefer reading to listening - but the recitation sections and labs were mandatory, because they were considered much more important. Nobody learns physics from just reading lectures.
The Feynman Lectures on Physics was used as the textbook for Caltech's introductory physics course for nearly two decades, and it is still used in some universities. I learned physics from it and have met many Caltech alumni who used it as their textbook, all of whom felt they learned a great deal more than "intuition" from it. So I am guessing you've never actually tried to learn something from it if you feel that way.
Yuo. Collier claims Robert Leighton wrote The Feynman Lectures on Physics, but all he did was edit Feynman's lectures in Volume I, as she (or you) could ascertain by listening to the lecture recordings and reading along with the text, both of which are available online (free) at The Feynman Lectures Website, https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu. Collier completely fails to mention Matthew Sands who edited Volumes II and III. So Collier is full of it. And not only with regard to FLP. She claims, for example, that Feynman's stories in Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman and What Do You Care What Other People Think are lies which is itself a lie (for which she offers no proof - because there is none) and that Ralph Leighton, who edited those books, by admiring Feynman as a physicist, was intentionally insulting his father Robert Leighton, which is complete bullsh*t, as I can tell you for a fact because I know them personally. Collier, in fact, defames Feynman and Leighton, not only in this video, but in others, and that is to attract views from ignoramuses, through hate-mongering. Let me mention also that Collier is just some poorly paid junior postdoc who makes money from her YouTube videos. And let me also mention that Feynman is greatly admired, as a physcist, a teacher, and as a human being, by millions of people, including many great physicists, physics teachers, and physics students. Finally, in closing I will mention that Feynman's books, including his autographical books (edited by Ralph Leighton) and The Feynman Lectures on Physics (edited by Robert Leighton and Matthew Sands) are best sellers, have been for a long time, and will continue to be, despite hate-mongering YouTubers like Collier, and the idiots who parrot them.
Angela Collier, who made that video, if full of it.
Thanks for buying my book. You're very welcome for the website. I don't know specifically to what plot Feynman was referring, but it may have been one he made himself.
At the time my colleagues and I proposed creating an online edition of FLP, one could only read it in expensive printed editions or in (lousy-looking) pirated PDFs. It was not easy to convince FLP's publisher, which makes a lot of money from FLP sales, that a freely accessible online edition was a good idea! However, we persuaded them, arguing that increased exposure would lead to more, not fewer, book sales. They were still hesitant, but they allowed it, stipulating some conditions, one of which was that downloading/copying the content of the online edition for offline use or distribution would be forbidden. The text you are quoting, written by Caltech's Office of the General Counsel, appears in a footnote on the homepage of The Feynman Lectures Website for this reason.
The "2013" is the copyright date of the initial publication of the online edition of The Feynman Lectures on Physics, but that edition (as well as the printed edition) and the Feynman Lectures Website where it is published is far from static. I have been working on it continuously since 2006 (with occasional help from volunteers), during which time a lot of improvements have been made and much new material has been added (to the website - we are not adding new material to the printed edition, though we have made, and continue to make, corrections, as needed).
The lecture recordings were added to The Feynman Lectures Website in 2021. It was not easy to convince the publisher (Basic Books) who licenses the exclusive publication rights for The Feynman Lectures on Physics (including the recordings) to allow us to publish them online for free listening. In fact it took many years of persistent pestering. :-)
The original Feynman Lectures Website was feynmanlectures.info, which went online in 2006. The online edition of The Feynman Lectures on Physics was published there in 2013, and also mirrored at a new Caltech website, feynmanlectures.caltech.edu. Some years later (I forget exactly when) feynmanlectures.info was shut down and its contents was moved to feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/info.
We are currently working on a 'reconstruction' of the first lecture recording, which we hope to publish at The Feynman Lectures Website later this year.
The FLP lecture recordings posted at The Feynman Lectures website are "archival" recordings derived from the original 1/4" reel-to-reel tapes, which were digitized at high-resolution in 2010. They are "archival" in the sense that no editing or audio-engineering was applied to them before they were reduced to podcast quality for publication online. We used the best OGG and AAC codecs available, and all but the first lecture, which was recorded poorly in 1961, are "good enough" in the sense that you can understand everything Feynman is saying - in fact I think they sound pretty good. Basic Books, the publisher of FLP, is currently working on a commercial edition of the lecture recordings, which will be edited and audio-engineered, so they should make audiophiles happier, but for the purpose for which they are intended, learning physics, I think the online versions (other than the first lecture) are more than adequate.
If you folks have any questions about the Feynman Lectures Website, the online edition of The Feynman Lectures on Physics, the current ("New Millennium") printed edition (or ePub or Mobi editions), then you can ask me. I am the person who is primarily responsible for them. The same goes for the previous ("Definitive") edition. I've been working with The Feynman Lectures on Physics for about 23 years.
The introductory physics course for which Feynman lectured in 1961-63 is part of Caltech's core curriculum, required of all undergraduate students. It was taken by the entire freshman class in 1961-62, and the same people, then sophomores, in 1962-63. The course consists of 3 parts: lectures, recitation sections, and labs. The recitation sections and labs are mandatory, but the lectures are not, and many Caltech students - particularly those who do not understand English well - choose not to attend all the lectures. Attrition in Feynman's lectures was typical for this course: an average of about 10%-20% of the students did not attend any given lecture. However, I would like to inform the poster that graduate students and faculty do not "sign up" for this course - that is not possible. Some graduate students and a few faculty members sometimes attended Feynman's lectures, almost all of whom were leading recitation sections or working in the course's labs. The ratio of undergraduate students to others who attended Feynman's lectures was very large, as you can see for yourself in this photo taken during a typical lecture (the ones with ties are faculty): http://www.feynmanlectures.info/FLP%20Classroom.JPG . For more information please see http://www.feynmanlectures.info/popular_misconceptions_about... . Michael A. Gottlieb, Editor, The Feynman Lectures on Physics New Millennium Edition
Thank you, packetslave!
Some facts regarding this matter can be read here: http://www.feynmanlectures.info/popular_misconceptions_about...
I am working on the conversion of Volume II from LaTeX to HTML. There are 8 chapters left to go. When they are done, and after I have spent some time testing and debugging Volume II, I will post it. There is no schedule or deadline, and it's hard to predict exactly when I will be done because of other (often unpredictable) demands on my time.
For a similar, but more complete, description (with figures), see "Feynman's Tips on Physics," Section 4-10, The Spinning Disk, and "The Feynman Lectures on Physics," Volume I, Section 20-4 Angular Momentum of a Spinning Body.
Mike Gottlieb Editor, The Feynman Lectures on Physics Coauthor, Feynman's Tips on Physics