The Final Verdict on the Feynman Lectures?

In summary: I said: "No, I don't think so." "But you'll see," he said. And that's what happened. I went back to teaching, but I began to understand what he meant."In summary, the lectures are not suitable for a beginner, but if you love physics and don't mind forking up a few hundred dollars, I'm sure you won't be disappointed with the lectures.
  • #36
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
 
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  • #37
Are you saying K&K is okay as an introduction?
 
  • #38
Mondayman said:
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?
 
  • #39
Vardaan Bhat said:
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.
 
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  • #40
Okay. Thanks!
 
  • #41
Vardaan Bhat said:
Are you saying K&K is okay as an introduction?
I am, if you are not easily daunted.
Will
 
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  • #42
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
 
  • #43
Vardaan Bhat said:
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.
 
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  • #44
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
 
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  • #45
Adirondack Will said:
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.
 
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  • #46
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.
 

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