
The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume I - trevyn
http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_toc.html
======
mhartl
I 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
Trevyn, 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?

~~~
npsimons
This was one of my first thoughts; I know it's oversimplifying it by a wide
margin, but there is a latex2html program in existence.

~~~
mhartl
Unfortunately, there's no general mapping from LaTeX to HTML, so for any
realistic pre-written source you have to write many custom modifications to
complete the conversion. This is a time-consuming and error-prone process,
involving a large amount of custom software.

------
doctorwho
Also...

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
Thanks 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.

~~~
AsymetricCom
What 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
Did you find any DRM on the content or do you just like to whine?

------
Jun8
You can read the first answer to this Physics SO question
([http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/29355/reading-
the...](http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/29355/reading-the-feynman-
lectures-in-2012)) to see how these lectures fare in light of later findings.

~~~
zodiac
Physics SE

------
nilkn
By far my favorite piece of writing from Feynman is QED:

[http://www.amazon.com/QED-Strange-Princeton-Science-
Library/...](http://www.amazon.com/QED-Strange-Princeton-Science-
Library/dp/0691125759/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379090424&sr=8-1&keywords=qed)

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
The 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
I recommend the book over the video lecture because I think the book explains
it better.

------
dylanz
I'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.

~~~
ohazi
This 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
I 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?

------
mbucc
I 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.

~~~
AimHere
If 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.

~~~
ISL
Failed 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.

------
ivan_ah
This 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.

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loudmax
There 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
They don't even work in Chrome with Silverlight installed. Microsoft is a
silly, mediocre company.

------
trevyn
Original 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!

~~~
thinkersilver
I've always felt that the one thing missing from my education was at least
some basic understanding of physics. I've flicked through the chapters and I
have come across many topics before but by proxy of other subjects such as
game programming,chemistry and some applied math. Now I have a book to read
that will plug obvious gaps in my learning. I particularly like the
'relativistic' illustrations in the units of scale chapter. The descriptions
on durations less than a day are quite illuminating and enjoyable. It's funny
that I have spent years learning to build huge complex concurrent distributed
systems and compute Monte Carlo simulations on clusters, all very abstract and
intangible; and yet I have been intimidated with anything beyond a pop culture
knowledge of physical phenomena. Thank you for the book.

BTW - Nice touch on the equations.

------
fedvasu
I 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.

------
plg
wget -r -k -np -N
[http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/](http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/)

~~~
bayesianhorse
Be careful. Using wget can get you hacking conviction...

~~~
bayesianhorse
Seriously. Ask Bradley Manning...

~~~
pushtheenvelope
As 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!

------
solarmist
Audible 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...](http://www.audible.com/search/ref=sr_1_18_asrch?searchAuthor=Richard+P.+Feynman&qid=1379093712&sr=1-18)

------
thufry
I 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.

------
megaframe
I 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.

------
Zarathust
I 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.

------
pge
I 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.

------
3327
Gates 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
I 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.)

------
educating
I 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.

------
jackfoxy
I 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.

------
zokier
Is the material going to be available in some format suitable for Kindle? Or
do I need to convert the HTML myself?

~~~
npsimons
I'm really hoping that we can get the original LaTeX someday - the conversion
possibilities from that are endless.

~~~
lutusp
Well, since Caltech is still selling the original printed volumes, that's not
likely. Nice idea, but it's easy to see why it's not in the cards for now.

------
ChuckMcM
So 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.

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bliker
If I make it into .mobi or .epub. Can I publish it? (with proper licence of
course)

------
ekm2
Thank 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

------
Jugurtha
The 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.

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mrbrowning
Thanks, this is wonderful. The foreword mentions a set of exercises that are
only loosely coupled with the lectures themselves -- are these freely
available anywhere?

------
picardo
Is 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.

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andimai
Have they finally updated the lectures to use SI units?

~~~
mhartl
As far as I know, the _Feynman Lectures_ have always used SI units.

~~~
drivers99
I just checked Chapter 4, and it has inches and ounces. I could be wrong,
since I haven't read it, but I don't see why it would affect understanding of
the ideas.

~~~
mhartl
The _Lectures_ may occasionally mix in Imperial units, but the vast majority
of the calculations use SI.

------
FlailFast
Was anyone else really happy to see the images seem to be predominantly SVGs?
Open-standards-based vector graphics make me super happy.

------
rexreed
Are the audio files available as well? I know there's the Silverlight version,
but looking for audio I can play while I drive.

~~~
solarmist
Audible has all the lectures available for download in good quality format.
[http://www.audible.com/search/ref=sr_1_18_asrch?searchAuthor...](http://www.audible.com/search/ref=sr_1_18_asrch?searchAuthor=Richard+P.+Feynman&qid=1379093712&sr=1-18)

~~~
acqq
You are then missing everything written on the blackboard. Even the order of
presentation doesn't match the one in the books.

------
Datsundere
Thank you for this, I got all the 3 volumes over the summer to read, but
couldn't finish them but had to return them.

------
shire
I love Feynman this is much appreciated. I wish there were HD videos of him
lecturing.

------
garrettheaver
Is it just me or does everyone else naturally read this in Feynman's voice?

------
jcburns
The whole universe is a hot, dense place.

~~~
rimantas
Nope, it's just another way around: a vast, cold emptiness.

~~~
ahknight
Depends on when you look at it.

~~~
evanb
The average density of the universe is the same as 1 hydrogen atom / cubic
meter. Pretty damn empty.

~~~
Almaviva
The Earth, by volume, has less than 1 person per 100 cubic kilometers. Since a
lot more people could fit in that space, it's underpopulated, right?

