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RICHARD P. FEYNMAN
Richard Chace Tolhman Professor oƒ Theoretical Physics
California Institute oƒ Technology
ROBERT B. LEIGHTON
Professor 0ƒ Physics
California Institute oƒ Technology
MATTHEW SANDS
Professor 0ƒ Physics
California Institute oƒ Technology
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Copyright © 1963
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Primted in the United States oƒ America
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS BOOK, OR PARTS THEREOF
MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT
WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER.
Library oƒ Congress Catalog Card No. 63-20717
Sixth priming, February 1977
TSBN 0-201-02010-6-H
0-201-02116-1-P
CCDDEEFFGG-MU-89
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WA IS
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TUẾ ¡
Mroggrtraerrt`s Profqe© -"
These are the lectures in physics that I gave last year and the year before
to the freshman and sophomore classes at Caltech. 'Phe lectures are, of cOUrse,
not verbatim——they have been edited, sometimes extensively and sometimes less
so. The lectures form only part of the complete course. The whole group of 180
students gathered in a big lecture room twice a week to hear these lectures and
then they broke up into small groups of 15 to 20 students in recitation sections
under the guidance of a teaching assistant. In addition, there was a laboratory
Session once a week.
The special problem we tried to get at with these lecbures was to maintain
the interest of the very enthusiastic and rather smart students coming out of
the high schools and into Caltech. They have heard a lot about how interesting
and exciting physics is—the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, and other
modern ideas. By the end of two years of our previous course, many would be
very discouraged because there were really very few grand, new, modern ideas
presented to them. They were made to study inclined planes, electrostatics, and
so forth, and after bwo years it was quite stultifying. The problem was whether
or not we could make a course which would save the more advanced and excited
student by maintaining his enthusiasm.
'The lectures here are not in any way meant to be a survey course, but are very
serious. I thought to address them to the most intelligent in the class and to make
sure, if possible, that even the most intelligent student was unable to completely
encompass everything that was in the lectures—by putting in suggestions of
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applications of the ideas and concepts in various directions outside the main line
of attack. For this reason, though, I tried very hard to make all the statements
as accurate as possible, to point out in every case where the equations and ideas
ñtted into the body of physics, and how—when they learned more—things would
be modifed. T also felt that for such students ï§ is Important to indicate what
1E is that they should—if they are sufficiently clever—be able to understand by
deduction from what has been said before, and what is beïng put in as something
new. When new ideas came in, Ï would try either to deduce them ïf they were
deducible, or to explain that it øas a new idea which hadn't any basis in terms of
things they had already learned and which was not supposed to be provable—but
was Just added in.
At the start of these lectures, Ï assumed that the students knew something
when they came out of high school——such things as geometrical opties, simple
chemistry ideas, and so on. I also didn't see that there was any reason to make the
lectures in a defnite order, in the sense that I would not be allowed to mention
something until Ï was ready to discuss i% in detail. 'Phere was a great deal of
mention of things to come, without complete discussions. 'Phese more complete
discussions would come later when the preparation became more advanced.
Examples are the discussions of inductance, and of energy levels, which are at
ñrst brought in in a very qualitative way and are later developed more completely.
At the same time that Ï was aiming at the more active student, I also wanted
to take care of the fellow for whom the extra fireworks and side applications are
merely disquieting and who cannot be expected to learn most of the material
in the lecture at all. For such students I wanted there to be at least a central
core or backbone of material which he could get. ven if he didn't understand
everything in a lecture, Ï hoped he wouldn't get nervous. I didn”t expect him to
understand everything, but only the central and most direct features. It takes,
of course, a certain intelligence on his part to see which are the central theorems
and central ideas, and which are the more advanced side issues and applications
which he may understand only in later years.
In giving these lectures there was one serious difficulty: in the way the course
was given, there wasn't any feedback from the students to the lecturer to indicate
how well the lectures were going over. 'This is indeed a very serious difliculty, and
T don't know how good the lectures really are. 'Phe whole thỉng was essentially
an experiment. Ảnd ïf I did it again I wouldn”t do it the same way——I hope Ï
đorft have to do it againl I think, though, that things worked out——so far as the
physics is concerned——qulte satisfactorily in the first year.
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In the second year Ï was not so satisfed. In the frst part of the course, dealing
with electricity and magnetism, I couldnˆt think of any really unique or diferent
way of doing it —oŸ any way that would be particularly more exciting than the
usual way of presenting it. So I don't think I did very much in the lectures on
electricity and magnetism. At the end of the second year I had originally intended
to go on, after the electricity and magnetism, by giving some more lecbures on
the properties of materials, but mainly to take up things like fundamental modes,
solutions of the difusion equation, vibrating systems, orthogonal functions, ...
developing the frst stages of what are usually called “the mathematical methods
of physics.” In retrospect, I think that if Ï were doing i% again I would go back
to that original idea. But since it was not planned that I would be giving these
lectures again, it was suggested that it might be a good idea to try to give an
introduection to the quantum mechanics—what you will ñnd in Volume THỊ.