The Character of Physical Law, Richard P. Feynman
The Character of Physical Law, Richard P. Feynman
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The Character of Physical Law

Author: Richard P. Feynman

Narrator: Sean Runnette

Unabridged: 5 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/15/2013

Categories: Nonfiction, Science, Physics


Synopsis

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 buthow 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 Lawis a statement of what is most remarkable in nature. Feynmans enlightened approach, his wit, and his enthusiasm make this a memorable exposition of the scientists craft. The law of gravitation is the authors 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. Like any set of oral reflections,The Character of Physical Lawhas special value as a demonstration of the mind in action. The reader is particularly lucky in Richard Feynmanone of the most eminent and imaginative modern physicists.

About Richard P. Feynman

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. He 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.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Manny

As I progressed through this excellent little book, I began to feel that the style was somehow familiar from another genre. Mozart? Perhaps e.e. cummings? But my subconscious, while granting that I wasn't totally off-base, informed me that it had a chess analogy in mind. I had never thought about it......more

Goodreads review by brian

all the great early-20th century physicists came up with this l. ron hubbardish conceit to invent a pornucopia of whackadoo sci-fi theories and sell 'em to the public as hard 'reality'… the solvay conference - where they came up with the first round of bullshit - was a blast! they eliminated absolut......more

Goodreads review by Roy

It is impossible, by the way, by picking one of anything to pick one that is not atypical in some sense. That is the wonder of the world. I would probably be giving this little book five stars if I wasn't already familiar with much of it from reading Feynman's Six Easy Pieces and Six Not-So-Easy......more