6 Easy Pieces/ 6 Not-So Easy Pieces

Six Easy Pieces/ Six Not-So-Easy Pieces
by Richard Feynman




Main Points:
  • Richard Feynman was a professor at Caltech who taught freshman physics (1961-1963). Parts of his famous Lectures on Physics are in these two books. He won the 1965 Nobel Prize for work on quantum electrodynamics (QED). We can imagine a freely moving electron not just traveling in straight line from A to B but taking many wiggly routes. So when an electron hits a target screen, many paths need to be integrated- Feynman's "path-integral" method. The "Feynman diagrams" helped calculate the probability of subatomic reactions.
  • All of the famous Feynman Lectures can be found online- courtesy of the California Institute of Technology!
  • Feynman was adamantly opposed to authority and blind reverence to those who philosophize. To get a feel for his humorous and intellectual lecturing style you need to watch his video lecture on entropy. "There is no difference between past and future." And his part II of the lecture on entropy here.
  • One of my favorite Feynman videos is below, I hope you enjoy ;) 
What is the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something?


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