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www. feynmanlectures. in£o.
Clearly, making The Fewman Lectures on Phụs¿cs error-free has become a
world-wide community enterprise. Ôn behalf of Caltech I thank the 50 readers
who have contributed since 2005 and the many more who may contribute over the
coming years. The names of all contributors are posted at www..feynmanlectures.
info/flp_errata.htm1l.
Almost all the errata have been of three types: (1) typographical errors
in prose; (ii) typographical and mathematical errors in equations, tables and
fgures—sign errors, incorrect numbers (e.g., a 5 that should be a 4), and missing
subscripts, summation signs, parentheses and terrmms in equations; (i11) incorrecE
cross references to chapters, tables and fgures. 'Phese kinds of errors, though
not terribly serious to a mature physicist, can be frustrating and confusing to
Feynman”s primary audience: students.
--- Trang 10 ---
Tt is remarkable that among the 1165 errata corrected under my auspices,
only several do Ï regard as true errors in physics. An example is Volume TT,
page 5-9, which now says “... no static distribution of charges inside a closed
grounded conductor can produce any |electric] fields outside” (the word grounded
was omitted in previous editions). This error was pointed out to Feynman by a
number of readers, including Beulah Elizabeth Cox, a student at The College of
William and Mary, who had relied on Feynmanˆs erroneous passage in an exam.
To Ms. Cox, Feynman wrote in 1975,* “Your instructor was right not bo give
you any points, Íor your answer was wrong, as he demonstrated using Gauss's
law. You should, in science, believe logic and arguments, carefully drawn, and
not authorities. You also read the book correctly and understood it. I made a
mistake, so the book is wrong. I probably was thinking oŸ a grounded conducting
sphere, or else of the fact that moving the charges around in diferent places
inside does not affect things on the outside. I am not sure how T dịd it, but
goofed. And you goofed, too, for believing me.”
Note thís 'Votr Wĩiliortrtrtrrtre EcÏfffOre Ấ (qiaớc Éo lồo
Between November 2005 and July 2006, 340 errata were submitted to 7 he
teunman Lectures Website www.feynman1ectures.info. Remarkably, the bulk
of these came from one person: Dr. Rudolf Pfeifer, then a physics postdoctoral
fellow at the Ủniversity of Vienna, Austria. The publisher, Addison Wesley, fixed
80 errata, but balked at fixing more because of cost: the books were being printed
by a photo-offset process, working ữom photographic images of the pages om
the 1960s. Correcting an error involved re-typesetting the entire page, and to
ensure no new errors crept in, the page was re-typeset twice by two diferent
people, then compared and proofread by several other people—a very costÌy
process indeed, when hundreds of errata are involved.
Gottlieb, Pfeifer and Ralph Leighton were very unhappy about this, so they
formulated a plan aimed at facilitating the repair of all errata, and also aimed
at produeing eBook and enhanced electronic versions of The henman Lectures
on Phụsics. They proposed their plan to me, as Caltech”s representative, in
2007. I was enthusiastic but cautious. After seeing further details, including a
one-chapter demonstration of the Enhanced PElectronic Version, Ï recommended
* Pages 288-289 of Perfectu Reasonable Dcuialions jrom the Beaten Track, The Letters oŸ
lRichard P. Fewman, ed. Michelle EFeynman (Basic Books, New York, 2005).
--- Trang 11 ---
that Caltech cooperate with Gottlieb, Pfeifer and Leighton in the execution of
their plan. 'Phe plan was approved by three successive chairs of Caltech's Division
of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy——Tom 'Tombrello, Andrew Lange, and
Tom Soifer—and the complex legal and contractual details were worked out by
Caltech's Intellectual Property Counsel, Adam Cochran. With the publication of
this Neu Millenn¿um Edition, the plan has been executed successfully, despite
1ts complexity. Specifically:
Pfeifer and Gottlieb have converted into IAIEX all three volumes of LP
(and also more than 1000 exercises from the Feynman course for incorporation
into FeWwmans Tips on Phụsics). The FPLP figures were redrawn in modern
electronic form in India, under guidance of the ƑLP German translator, Henning
Heinze, for use in the German edition. Gottlieb and Pfeifer traded non-exclusive
use of their IXTIEX equations in the German edition (published by Oldenbourg)
for non-exclusive use of Heinze”s fñgures in this Weu MiiHennium English edition.
Pfeifer and Gottlieb have meticulously checked all the IÃTERX text and equations
and all the redrawn fñgures, and made corrections as needed. Nate Bode and
1, on behalf of Caltech, have done spot checks of text, equations, and figures;
and remarkably, we have found no errors. Pfeifer and Gottlieb are unbelievably
meticulous and accurate. Gottlieb and Pfeifer arranged for John Sullivan at the
Huntington Library to digitize the photos of Eeynmans 1962-64 blackboards,
and for George Blood Audio to digitize the lecture tapes—with financial support
and encouragement from Caltech Professor Carver Mead, logistical support from
Caltech Archivist Shelley Erwin, and legal support om Cochran.
The legal issues were serious: In the 1960s, Caltech licensed to Addison Wesley
rights to publish the print edition, and in the 1990s, rights to distribute the audio
of Feynman's lectures and a variant of an electronic edition. In the 2000s, through
a sequence of acquisitions of those licenses, the print rights were transferred to
the Pearson publishing group, while rights to the audio and the electronic version
were transferred to the Perseus publishing group. Cochran, with the aid of Ike
'Williams, an attorney who specializes in publishing, succeeded in uniting all of
these rights with Perseus (Basic Books), making possible this Neu Miilenniumn
kdition.
Ackreo:r-loclqgrraorsÉs
Ơn behalf of Caltech, I thank the many people who have made this Neu
MMiilenniuưun PEdition possible. Specifically, I thank the key people mentioned
--- Trang 12 ---
above: Ralph Leighton, Michael Gottlieb, Tom Tombrello, Michael Hartl, Rudolf
Pfeifer, Henning Heinze, Adam Cochran, Carver Mead, Nate Bode, Shelley Erwin,
Andrew Lange, Tom Soifer, Ike Williams, and the 50 people who submitted errata
(listed at www.feynmanlectures.info). And I also thank Michelle Feynman
(daughter of Richard Feynman) for her continuing support and advice, Alan Rice
for behind-the-scenes assistance and advice at Caltech, Stephan Puchegger and
Calvin Jackson for assistance and advice to Pfeifer about conversion of #'LP to
HATEX, Michael Figl, Manfred Smolik, and Andreas Stangl for discussions about
corrections of errata; and the Staff of Perseus/Basic Books, and (for previous
editions) the staff of Addison Wesley.
lip S. Thorne
The Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus
California Institute of 'Technology October 2010
--- Trang 13 ---
MAINLY MECHANICS, RADIATION, AND HEAT