Watch ‘Feynman’s lectures on physics’ for free online

In my experience, physics is one subject that’s so often poorly taught and seems incomprehensible. And yet, when it’s actually explained well, a lot of the concepts can be so easy to understand…even when the math behind them may be out of reach 🙂

Richard Feynman was probably one of the most brilliant and eccentric physicists, and a great lecturer – I remember hearing about the famous ‘Feynman’s lectures on physics’ back in my school days, and knowing multiple physicists with worn copies that they’d referred to in college.

I read the ‘easy’ lectures in ‘6 easy pieces’, which I could actually understand, though the harder lectures, printed in ‘6 not-so-easy pieces’, were beyond me. But while one could read the lectures, it could never be the same as actually seeing Feynman teach.

Now Project Tuva, an undertaking by Microsoft Research, and Bill Gates, who recently purchased the rights, are making the original lectures available for free online at the ‘Project Tuva Richard Feynman videos’ site. Delivered in 1964 at Cornell University (my alma mater; Feynman and I only missed each other by 35 years…), the seven lectures are based on several of the 1961-62 Caltech freshman physics lectures that appear in The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume I. Apparently seeing the videos made such an impact on a young Bill Gates that he decided to allow everyone to experience them.

If nothing else, it’s fascinating seeing videos of Feynman in action 🙂

For more information on Richard Feynman and his eccentric, frequently unbelievable life, see his thoroughly entertaining autobiography that I’ve read and highly recommend, ‘Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character)’. The follow up to it, ‘What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character’, is also well worth reading.

I’ve also heard a lot about ‘Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman’, by James Gleick, though I haven’t had a chance to read it. And here’s a website dedicated to Feynman’s lectures on Physics.