[HN Gopher] Feynman's Hughes Lectures: 950 pages of notes
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Feynman's Hughes Lectures: 950 pages of notes
Author : gnubison
Score : 158 points
Date : 2025-12-29 10:43 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thehugheslectures.info)
(TXT) w3m dump (thehugheslectures.info)
| molteanu wrote:
| 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.
| nemomarx wrote:
| 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.
| molteanu wrote:
| 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.
| nemomarx wrote:
| 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?
| spicyusername wrote:
| 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.
| rixed wrote:
| 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.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| 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.
| kamaal wrote:
| >>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.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| And then gatekeepers criticize them for doing so.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| That particular person is more of a shouter and interrupter
| than an explainer.
| joebig wrote:
| 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.
| biophysboy wrote:
| 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.
| bsoles wrote:
| 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.
| RickyLahey wrote:
| 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!"
| wolfi1 wrote:
| 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.
| startupsfail wrote:
| 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.
| sp527 wrote:
| 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.
| contagiousflow wrote:
| 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
| the__alchemist wrote:
| 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.
| oh_my_goodness wrote:
| Feynman didn't write these notes. John T. Neer did. There's
| an explanation at the beginning.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Ty for the correction!
| idiotsecant wrote:
| This video really helped solidify for me why I always thought
| the worship of Feynman was kind of weird. Collier is a
| treasure.
| oh_my_goodness wrote:
| 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.
| gus_massa wrote:
| 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.
| lizknope wrote:
| 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
| somethingsome wrote:
| 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
| almostgotcaught wrote:
| Greiner's QFT book is by far the best I've ever seen.
| VLM wrote:
| 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".
| divbzero wrote:
| _Electricity and Magnetism_ by Purcell is one of my favorites
| too, especially the chapter on "The Fields of Moving Charges".
| bvan wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. This is the best HN post of 2025 as far as my
| humble self is concerned.
| k2enemy wrote:
| 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.
| amelius wrote:
| Yeah well he didn't get addicted to computer programming so
| that gave him a lot of extra time to just think.
| zkmon wrote:
| 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.
| joebig wrote:
| Was it God who these lines...
| gnubison wrote:
| 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/
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(page generated 2025-12-29 23:01 UTC)