Stats for nerds
4recommend
4mentions
4people
2018–2025years
100% recommend
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- 1) He had a HUGE amount of personal charisma. Some lecturers are watched because they know a lot or are famous, despite a lack of public speaking skills. Feynman could have gone into acting or politics the guy is genuinely entertaining and a VERY skilled presenter. Feynman's on camera personality is the professor from Gilligan's island but funnier and friendlier.
2) He got his Nobel price in peak boomer years 1965 and then didn't die until the end of the 80s. For boomers he is "their" generation's physicist just like the WWII gen had Einstein as "their" physicist. Who is "the" popular science fad physicist for the X-ers and younger? Hawking, maybe Susskind, possibly even Sabine, I guess?
3) IMHO he was an autodidact who wrote for fellow autodidacts. That is my learning style. His style REALLY STRONGLY resonates with me and my learning style. If you're capable of self-teaching you get a feel for who's your type of author and who is not. Feynman definitely writes books for people like me. His books and notes are all old, of course, which is sad. As for "moderns" who emit similar intense autodidact vibes, I'd suggest Schroeder and his famous "Introduction to Thermal Physics" from the turn of the century. I subjectively like that book. I don't care if there's a better way to learn bachelors thermodynamics by taking a course in a classroom or watching video lecture, I just like the book's style. Not the superficial style like typography but the organization and connectivity of the topics is very autodidactical, just like Feynman's books. To some extent, he's post-education in that once you are done officially learning, the rest of your life you're an autodidact, like it or not, and Feynman's style leans into that. I still remember as a kid in high school, where I took two years of public high school physics, paging thru a copy of Feynman's lectures in the library and it was so clear and so fascinating compared to my experience in "official classes with new textbooks".
- I'd second the recommendation of An Introduction to Thermal Physics by Daniel V. Schroeder if anyone is looking for an undergrad level text. It is on my shortlist of "best undergrad textbooks read". It is also physically quite a small book; the quantum physicists must have some insight into density.
- It took a couple years in college for me to understand entropy.
Entropy in classical thermodynamics is presented in a mysterious way that leads to confusion.
Entropy in statistical thermodynamics, however, is logical. Once one understands basic statistical thermodynamics, entropy isn't mysterious.
The book in my statistical thermodynamics class was An Introduction to Thermal Physics by Daniel Schroeder, which is an excellent book that I've referred to many times since.
- I should probably write this up more formally somewhere. But have a look, and it would be cool if you'd give me credit somewhere if you use these notes in your own stuff (I'm Steuard Jensen, and I'm a professor at Alma College). For each course below, the books are listed in roughly my order of preference. This is far, far from being every book for each course or even every popular one, but it's a start.
Intro Physics (Mechanics, E&M, waves, etc.):
* Six Ideas That Shaped Physics, by Tom Moore: Conservation laws first, and a nice conceptual approach (and can incorporate "modern physics" along the way).
* Matter and Interactions, by Chabay and Sherwood: Integrated VPython programming, and uses "true" relativistic mechanics right from the start (and quantum's built in, too).
* Physics for Scientists and Engineers, by Randall Knight: As close to a "traditional" intro book as you can get while still paying attention to physics education research. It's very good, though I feel like the latest edition has veered back a bit to a bit more traditional order, perhaps to make it smoother for old professors to switch.
Uncertanity/Error Analysis: (Essential for understanding experimental physics)
* An Introduction to Error Analysis, by John Taylor: Such a beautiful little book!
"Modern Physics": (Is a class whose content mostly ends before 1950 really "modern"?)
* Six Ideas That Shaped Physics (Units R and Q), by Tom Moore: A very nice first introduction to both special relativity and quantum physics. Might need some supplemental content if you have time for more advanced quantum/nuclear stuff.
[* Special Relativity, by Tom Helliwell: I learned out of this, and it was very good. I haven't taught out of it.]
[* Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, by Eisberg and Resnick: I learned out of this, but haven't taught out of it. Comprehensive.]
Intermediate Classical Dynamics: (I haven't taught this one!)
* ?Classical Mechanics, by John Taylor: I've heard very good things about this one.
[* Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems, by Thornton and Marion: I learned out of it. It was fine.]
Intermediate Electromagnetism:
* Introduction to Electrodynamics, by David Griffiths: Truly excellent introduction to analysis of electric and magnetic fields using vector calculus and partial differential equations.
[* ?Classical Electromagnetic Radiation, by Heald and Marion: I learned out of this. Not my favorite book, but it did the job.]
Intermediate Quantum Mechanics:
* A Modern Approach to Quantum Mechanics, by John Townsend: Inspired by Sakurai's graduate text, Townsend starts by studying spin and Stern-Gerlach experiments in depth using Dirac bra-ket notation, and then progresses to time evolution and position space. The chapter on the path integral formulation is fun but optional, and there's good stuff on perturbation theory and scattering and some hints toward field theory. (This may work best if students had a strong "Modern Physics" course first that studied wavefunctions in some depth.)
[* Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, by David Griffiths: I haven't used this myself. An excellent quantum book with a more "traditional" organization, starting with wavefunctions and only later talking about Dirac notation and spin.]
Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics:
* An Introduction to Thermal Physics, by Daniel Schroeder: A fantastic, multi-pass blend of statistical mechanics and classical thermodynamics. It starts with basic classical definitions of thermal concepts, then introduces explicit state counting in medium-sized systems with the help of Excel, then discusses classical thermodynamics in depth, and finally goes into a full discussion Boltzmann factors and statmech.
* Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics, by Frederick Reif: This was (for me) the least bad of the books that I used to teach myself undergraduate statmech while I was in graduate school. (I foolishly arranged to avoid the class as an undergrad.)
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