The Final Verdict on the Feynman Lectures?

[Mondayman]

BTW the website is free and has the advantage of readability - my old eyes can't read the new millenial edition at $120 or so, and the left-hand pages' right margins are nearly obscured by the binding

Ah, I am the opposite, I find computer screens strain my eyes. Plus I am a book freak and must own an actual hard copy. But, I must definitely agree with this! When light shines on the glossy pages, it can be unreadable and hard on the eyes. I often have to prop up one side of the book so I can read the margins.

 

[ogg]

You seem a bit young to be taking on college level physics. Have you considered High School Level (or even AP) texts? It is really a bad idea, imho, to separate physics textbooks from the physics lab. Probably you're better at reading than doing (just a guess), but doing is as important, especially for the beginner, as mental learning. Feynman's Lectures are outdated and contain a lot of incorrect or misleading statements. (Even the so-called "corrected" versions). Two examples: Mesons - in his day they were considered elementary particles and many dozens were discovered before our understanding of the Standard Model solidified (roughly 1967-74) and he WASTES a great deal of time talking about them, 2nd he claims (as a chemist, I find this egregious) that solids are crystalline. What?! Humans are 1.5 meters tall, too. He knew better, I suppose he was simplifying, but his complete dismissal of the semi-crystalline or amorphous is lame! So, learning Physics. How would I recommend a precocious teen do it? Well, I wasn't one, so ymmv, but 1. Buy two textbooks which have plenty of problems and answers. Use one as the primary, follow along in the 2nd subject to subject to check your understanding. (and don't be afraid to dump them if you're not satisfied with your grasp of the subjects they cover). 2. Do all of the problems. 3. For each of the major subjects: mechanics, optics, electrostatics, BUILD something (relevant). (and acquire some of the relevant tools necessary). 4. Nothing wrong with biology or chemistry, but you should be need a lot of experience with differential calculus (precalc = algebra and trig, too), and by the time you finish should be good in integral calculus, & acquainted with multivariate calculus, just a bit of differential equations (they are the FOUNDATION of modern physics), good at linear algebra & matrices and comforatble with probability and statistics. HTH.

 

[ogg]

To be clear, AVOID The Feynman Lectures until after you've learned the material. It's nothing against Feynman, I admire him a lot, but he wrote them in 1962, over 54 years ago. If you consider human knowledge doubling every 10 or 20 years then you can see that what we knew then isn't even half of the story we can tell today. A lot of his comments are right-on, very few are far from right, and his explanation of the philosophy behind his view of physics is admirable (note that many of the world's greatest physicists TODAY would not agree with his fundamental contention that physics must be measurable to be meaningful, but I do - not that my vote counts for anything (except to me).) But there's just too much outdated information accompanying the basics (which haven't changed), imho. My advice would be once you've mastered the basics, take Susskind's online courses (Stanford) for more advanced (but undemanding) treatment, instead of The FLP.

 

[Vardaan Bhat]

Regarding my preparation, I'm currently taking a calculus course from AOPS and know differentiation and the basics of integration.

I'm also wondering if it would be fine to use young and freedman instead of hrw, since young and freedman seems to have better and more concise explanations.

 

[Mondayman]

If young and freedman seems more clear, use it. We can suggest textbooks at your level, but up to you to shop around and find what works best for you.

 

[Adirondack Will]

I love the Feynman lectures. One of my good friends had the unique opportunity(?) to be one of Feynman's guinea pigs when he actually gave them in person-- before there were books. His take was not so kind as mine-- and he was a good theoretical physicist who made several significant contributions to renormalization group theory and published north of 100 articles in PR and similar journals. I would never have called him "dull."

In my case, I was a grad student at Cornell when first exposed to these volumes (I learned freshman physics out of H&R and thought covering both volumes in a single year was plenty). At Cornell before you can take your orals and enter into formal thesis work, everyone takes a day and half of written qualifiers. The top qualifiers go immediately to their orals, others are told to study another year. A third set is directed to complete a masters before or perhaps instead of a PhD. (This was 50 years ago, mind you). In any case I was the top scorer on the written quals and very proud of it. When my teachers and friends asked how I prepared, I answered that i spent all my spare time that summer reading the three volumes of Feynman's Lectures and doing as many problems as I could (I did not do them all!). So much for freshman physics! BTW, at that time Cornell was in the top 5 graduate schools in physics in the world along with Harvard, MIT, Stanford and Princeton; so their quals would have been competitive with any.

I would never discourage you from studying those lectures; but if you want a broad and solid preparation for the rest of undergrad physics, I would definitely study H&R or K&K first or in parallel. For one thing because Feynman went so deeply into advanced areas like E&M and QM (at a level normally taught to mrs and seniors), he had to scrimp on coverage of important but more routine things. For example, is it more important to learn Lagrangian formulations of mechanics than to beat the dickens out the application of Newton's laws in many different situations? I don't know. Clearly if you want to be an engineer I would opt for the latter.

Note added in proof: whoops I almost forgot; the one other thing I did was get my hands on a Russian textbook that was entirely devoted to solved problems in QM from elementary to those typical of Bethe's Intermediate QM-- which anyone who has used it will tell you is not necessarily intermediate (many of the problem sets came out of early journal articles on QM of 2-electron atoms. I guess I would advise anyone wanting to really master a field to spend three times as much time on problem solving as they do on the theoretical formulation. It is easy to fool yourself into thinking that you understand an area just because you can parrot back, however elegantly, the "theory." That was Bethe's modus operandi; and he was one of the great of the 20th century.

ADK Will

 

[Vardaan Bhat]

Are you saying K&K is okay as an introduction?

 

[Vardaan Bhat]

If young and freedman seems more clear, use it. We can suggest textbooks at your level, but up to you to shop around and find what works best for you.

In your opinion, which one is the best? I feel like HRW is fine especially considering I already have it, but I really haven't seen enough of other textbooks. Which one does the best explanation?

 

[Student100]

In your opinion, which one is the best? I feel like HRW is fine especially considering I already have it, but I really haven't seen enough of other textbooks. Which one does the best explanation?

Use the book you have, start with FoP.

 

[Vardaan Bhat]

Okay. Thanks!

 

[Adirondack Will]

Are you saying K&K is okay as an introduction?

I am, if you are not easily daunted.
Will

 

[Vardaan Bhat]

I think it would be better to do HRW first so I can get a deeper understanding. I have more than enough time, I don't really need to worry :p

 

[Student100]

I think it would be better to do HRW first so I can get a deeper understanding. I have more than enough time, I don't really need to worry :p

Yes.

 

[Adirondack Will]

Your approach is definitely different to mine: at your age, I just started reading, if I found that the book was beyond me, I found another that looked less daunting. By now you could have gone through 8--10 chapters of any of the books you mentioned.
Will

 

[Student100]

Your approach is definitely different to mine: at your age, I just started reading, if I found that the book was beyond me, I found another that looked less daunting. By now you could have gone through 8--10 chapters of any of the books you mentioned.
Will

A careful reading of the text can take a year. You might read 8-10 chapters but not be able to solve a single physics problem.

It's the problem sets where you learn the physics.

 

[Ralph Dratman]

My recollection (from about 45 years ago) is that I did not get a look at the Feynman books until I had finished one or two semesters of undergrad physics. My feeling has always been that the lectures are fascinating and informative, but that they are almost impressionistic accounts, not systematic or full-coverage books. If the Feynman Lectures were to be the primary textbooks for a first exposure, a lot of particulars would need to be filled in during classroom sessions. On the other hand, the lectures do a wonderful job of conveying the enjoyment that can come from absorbing so many marvelous ideas and explanations for what happens in our physical world.