Items related to Character of Physical Law
[MP3-CD audiobook format in Vinyl case.]
[Read by Sean Runnette]
Like any set of oral reflections, The Character of Physical Law has special value as a demonstration of the mind in action. The reader is particularly lucky in Richard Feynman - one of the most eminent and imaginative modern physicists.
In these Messenger Lectures, originally delivered at Cornell University and recorded for television by the BBC, Richard Feynman offers an overview of selected physical laws and gathers their common features into one broad principle of invariance. He maintains at the outset that the importance of a physical law is not ''how clever we are to have found it out - but . . . how clever nature is to pay attention to it'' and steers his discussions toward a final exposition of the elegance and simplicity of all scientific laws. Rather than an essay on the most significant achievements in modern science, The Character of Physical Law is a statement of what is most remarkable in nature. Feynman's enlightened approach, his wit, and his enthusiasm make this a memorable exposition of the scientist's craft. The law of gravitation is the author's principal example. Relating the details of its discovery and stressing its mathematical character, he uses it to demonstrate the essential interaction of mathematics and physics. He views mathematics as the key to any system of scientific laws, suggesting that if it were possible to fill out the structure of scientific theory completely, the result would be an integrated set of mathematical axioms. The principles of conservation, symmetry, and time irreversibility are then considered in relation to developments in classical and modern physics, and in his final lecture, Feynman develops his own analysis of the process and future of scientific discovery.
[Read by Sean Runnette]
Like any set of oral reflections, The Character of Physical Law has special value as a demonstration of the mind in action. The reader is particularly lucky in Richard Feynman - one of the most eminent and imaginative modern physicists.
In these Messenger Lectures, originally delivered at Cornell University and recorded for television by the BBC, Richard Feynman offers an overview of selected physical laws and gathers their common features into one broad principle of invariance. He maintains at the outset that the importance of a physical law is not ''how clever we are to have found it out - but . . . how clever nature is to pay attention to it'' and steers his discussions toward a final exposition of the elegance and simplicity of all scientific laws. Rather than an essay on the most significant achievements in modern science, The Character of Physical Law is a statement of what is most remarkable in nature. Feynman's enlightened approach, his wit, and his enthusiasm make this a memorable exposition of the scientist's craft. The law of gravitation is the author's principal example. Relating the details of its discovery and stressing its mathematical character, he uses it to demonstrate the essential interaction of mathematics and physics. He views mathematics as the key to any system of scientific laws, suggesting that if it were possible to fill out the structure of scientific theory completely, the result would be an integrated set of mathematical axioms. The principles of conservation, symmetry, and time irreversibility are then considered in relation to developments in classical and modern physics, and in his final lecture, Feynman develops his own analysis of the process and future of scientific discovery.
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From the Back Cover:
Richard Feynman was perhaps the most brilliant, iconoclastic, and influential physicist of modern times. The Character of Physical law, first published in 1965, contains the text of seven brilliant lectures, originally delivered to standing-room-only audiences at Cornell University, that demonstrate Feyman's unique ability to bring his subject to life to the non-physicist.
About the Author:
RICHARD P. FEYNMAN (1918-1988) earned a BS from MIT and a PhD from Princeton. From 1942 to 1945, he assisted with the development of the atomic bomb. Feynman then taught at Cornell and Caltech, where he contributed to the theories of superfluidity and quarks. He shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics for work on the theory of quantum electrodynamics.
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- PublisherBBC
- Publication date1965
- ISBN 10 0563062703
- ISBN 13 9780563062707
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Rating
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The Character of Physical Law
Published by
British Broadcasting Corporation
(1965)
ISBN 10: 0563062703
ISBN 13: 9780563062707
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Character of Physical Law
Published by
British Broadcasting Corporation
(1965)
ISBN 10: 0563062703
ISBN 13: 9780563062707
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