vanhees71, The Feynman Lectures on Physics were used for nearly two decades as the primary textbook for Caltech's mandatory 2-yr introductory physics course, which all students, regardless of major, must take. Each class has about 250 students, so it has in fact been used, very effectively, as "the ... first encounter with physics at the university level" by thousands of Caltech alumni, and they have not done too badly - many are now leaders in science and industry. However, I would add that the students who enter Caltech (and I've met many that attended Feynman's lectures) are extraordinarily bright. It's a small school that accepts only 250 new freshmen per year while many thousands apply to enter. Basically, you don't get in unless you are one of the best in math and/or science amongst your peers. These are the kinds of students Feynman was addressing in his lectures. Moreover he tried to address not only the "average" student (in that unusually bright crowd), but to also include plenty of "fireworks" (as he called it): interesting stuff, for the brighter kids in the class, so they wouldn't get bored. The upshot of this is that FLP tends to "aim high."
[NOTE ADDED LATER: When Feynman gave the lectures that form the basis of
The Feynman Lectures on Physics, there was no plan whatsoever to make a book! There was a plan to assemble a set of notes to distribute to future Caltech students, but no plan to publish outside Caltech. So, regarding Feynman "aiming high" I will say this in his defense: he did not aim too high for the average Caltech student, and when he gave the lectures his understanding was that whatever came out of them would be used exclusively at Caltech. They were not intended for a more general audience at the time they were delivered.]
Feynman was aware of the difficulties involved in teaching students having a wide range of abilities and talents, and that is something else he talks about in his Mehra interview (quoted in my previous post):
"I had a special difficulty as I realized that all the students were not the same, and that if we had too much relativity, atoms, quantum theory, and the fireworks, that the other students would get confused. I tried to invent some kind of system to tell them what was essential and what was for the entertainment of those who could understand it. For, if you add something to keep the subject from being dull, it makes it only duller to many students because they have to learn that then too, which is pitiful. That's the way the system works: I was trying to break that. I would write a summary of the essentials on the blackboard. The hope was that the students would just pay attention to the essentials..."
"... The problem of making it interesting for the intelligent student, and basic enough that the duller student can understand it, is a hard one and I didn't quite solve it. I am also disappointed that in the books the summaries are not there to guide the reader as to what's the essential basic course, and what's the fireworks and interesting -- but there you are!"
FLP
is the right introductory physics book for certain kinds of students. I know people who have learned physics from it, quite well. But it's not for everyone. For example, I have a young friend who found FLP not to his tastes, and he used Landau and Lipschitz as his introduction to physics, when he was 16 - he's now working on his Ph.D in loop quantum gravity at the U. of Warsaw. Different strokes for different folks.
P.S. I am currently working on including in the
online edition the lecture summaries that Feynman bemoaned are missing from FLP.
