The Feynman Lectures on Physics

I want to earn enough money to never (have to) work again, so I can lay in the garden and read all his lectures

Feynman Lectures on Physics books. It might just be the right timing for me as I've only recently really started to grasp calculus and linear algebra, but a lot of things are clicking into place as I read.

As someone who was preparing for International physics Olympiad in heydays in senior year of high school, reading Feynman Lectures of Physics (especially part-2 on Electrodynamics), made the real difference. I was reasonably prepared competing at regional level, but Feynman's way of prodding the deep questions made me realize how many cracks I had missed. It also helped me build the skill of stopping at a reasonable point - its incredibly easy to keep grappling at really hard problems which may never lead to solution with existing skillsets. Judging what you don't know & incapable to solve is very important and perhaps applicable to all disciplines.

Physics: Feynman's lectures on physics. Maths: Rudin's Real and Complex analysis. Software engineering: The Mythical Man-Month. Computer science: Knuth's TAOCP.

> Feynman Lectures on Physics I havy skimmed through the volumes of Feynman lectures, and can confirm this. Especially things concerning computational complexity.

I have a love-hate relationship with that book. It elegantly shows how to think about the topics, but it also left me with many unanswered questions to which I could never find answers with any amount of Internet searching (even though those answers are known to the humankind, buried in a set of complex topic-specific books). Feynman's Lectures are much more complete in that sense, even though as other comments on this thread note, the reader may not be able to use the learning to solve practical problems without going beyond Feynman's lectures.

Personally I thought the Feynman lectures were ok but with room for improvement. Vol 1 was good. Vol 2 was good though overly repetitive, iirc it's 90 percent Maxwell's equations. Vol 3 was unintuitive to me. Still I learned qm from it and made this http://tropic.org.uk/~crispin/quantum/ I'm fairly confident I get qm now, but most of that understanding came from trying to code it in simulation. Which suggests there are better ways to learn than Feynman 3.

The Feynman Lectures. (I think I've read the first volume, at least, even though I don't claim to have understood it all.)

I agree. Feynman lectures aren't in anyway comprehensive or bible-like, but they're nonetheless very fun. As for Tipler, I'd stay far away from it haha (take it as an example of how badly a physics textbook can be written). As for bible-like/comprehensive (I don't know if anyone has written such a thing in such a vast subject), but many consider the Landau/Lifshitz "Course in Theoretical Physics" series to be an elegant summary of important results in physics. Check out the Chicago Undergraduate Physics Bibliography if you're interested in what books to study to become a physicist.

Modern Physics by Paul Tipler and the Feynman lectures by Richard Feynman.

There were several books mentioned in HPMoR that seem like good recommendations. I know for a fact that Feynman's Lectures on Physics is superb. See http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/ for the texts.

Minds, Brains and Machines by Geoffrey Brown [1] for introducing me to the complexities of the mind-body problem. It did not show the answers of course, but helped me think right about it. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse [2] for contributing to helping me come out of excessive questioning of everything (philosophy) to science that helps towards actually answering the questions answerable. Feynman Lectures in Physics [3] and Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman [4], with no need to explain "how". :-) The Ghost in the Atom [5] for explaining varied views on the nature of science, especially Quantum Mechanics, and what goes in the minds of the top-notch scientists working on these problems. Parsing Techniques by Dick Grune [6] for teaching me the fundamentals of computer science and helping me proceed with my deep interest in Artificial Intelligence. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Minds-Brains-Machines-Mind-Matters/dp... (https://www.amazon.com/Minds-Brains-Machines-Mind-Matters/dp/1853990132) [2] https://www.amazon.com/Siddhartha-Hermann-Hesse/dp/161382378... (https://www.amazon.com/Siddhartha-Hermann-Hesse/dp/1613823789/) [3] http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/…

IMHO to really change your whole life perspective, you must experience a traumatic event, not reading a book. Anyway I would say that a book can trigger a change of perspective on a particular aspect of your life: '4-hour workweek' - Tim Ferriss (on lifestyle) 'Get Things Done' - David Allen (on organization and productivity) 'The Way of the Superior Man' - David Deida (on relationships) 'The prince' - Machiavelli' (on business and strategy) 'The little prince' - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (on meaning of life) 'The Feynman Lectures on Physics' - Richard Feynman' (to remember you to be humble) A lot of other books had broaden my perspective of life even if they weren't enough to trigger a change. That list would be immense.

Feynman lectures on physics - vol 1 If at some point you found Physics wonderful, and then lost it when everything became calculations, I wholeheartedly recommend this book, and the other volumes once you are done with it. Feynman has an engaging conversation style, and when you are immersed in the book, you literally feel the wonders of the universe. You go through Newton's motion and gravitation laws, and then using simple numerical methods, he plots you the orbital path around the sun of a given planet. It does has derivations, but it doesn't let derivation take over the idea it's discussing. And some derivations and deductions will be enlightening when you already know something about something - for e.g for the first time in my life, I saw why the observed velocity won't exceed speed of light.…

The Feynman Lectures on Physics The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad A Latin/English dictionary for new company names