Ping Rickman (OT)

Apr 25, 2016 11 Replies

Rick, I was reading this in the Feynman lectures over the weekend.

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It's a nice intro to GR... And I was recalling an early discussion (here) about curve space time.



Hope you enjoy, (being blown away by Feynman's awesomeness)



George H.


I apologize for intruding into this thread.

I have Feynman's books. QED is my favorite. I have read it several times and never tire of it. It makes a perfect sense in the first half and then exceeds my abilities later on. I, too, am blown away by Feynman's awesomeness.

Do you have his lectures on physics?

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That's what the above is from. I know, you think, basic freshman physics, what's to learn? But there are all sorts of beautiful gems in there.

I've read QED, but maybe only once. It's not really connected to what I do every day.

George H.

I've read Feynman's autobiography, and heard him give a public lecture in Cambridge in the 1980's. Impressive character.

Bill Sloman, Sydney

I misled you. I should have typed that I have three of his books. I do not have the Lectures as they are way above my abilities to understand. But, I have a couple of others such as "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?"

I had those two (semi-autobiography) books in grad school, but they grew legs and I've never replaced them.

The lectures are now all free online at Caltech, so if you have some kindle or tablet thing (I don't) then you could down load and read.

I think you are underselling yourself, if you claim not to be able to understand them. (Certainly easier than QED!) They are written for smart freshman at Caltech. Now certainly I would never have been admitted to caltech when I was a freshman, and if by some mistake I was, I would not have been able to keep up with the pace set. But now I have all the time in the world. (And also the benefit of more education.) Hey if you wanted to read something, and then had questions, I'd be happy to help try and answer.

A few favorite chapters.

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Atmospheric electricity. You can read this with almost no prerequisites.

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Ratchet and pawl... reversibility and thermo.. Maxwell's demon... This would take some more thermo background. (the previous chapters)

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superconductivity and the Josephson junction, OK this is heavy in QM. But I remember it fondly. (I was doing an advanced lab experiment, making my own junctions, and struggling to understand the physics. Feynman makes it seem simple.)

George H.

Then you might also enjoy this:

Reinhardt

The lectures are now all free online at Caltech, so if you have some kindle or tablet thing (I don't) then you could down load and read. ===============================================================

Get Calibre, at

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Freeware that does interconversion between all the ebook formats (like .mobi and .epub) and includes a viewer so you can read ebooks on your pc. Also a shareware version that handles docking and automatic syncing and updating tablets, etc, but I've not used that, just the basic freeware version.

----- Regards, Carl Ijames

Thanks, George. Good suggestions. I might as well give it a try.

I'm sure I will. Thanks for the link.

Ya know, I think, It's probably best to start with his first chapter. He does a decent job of covering all you need to know. Problem sets, with some solutions, would be a big plus...

George H. (It's one of my favorite "books" of all time, Big thumbs up to caltech or whoever made it free.)

I watched all the lectures. They are a treasure. Thank you again for the link.

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