Feynman's Tips on Physics: A Problem-Solving Supplement to the Feynman Lectures on Physics Book

I still remember one of the first Feynman Physics problems I worked on in the Supplemental Problems booklet of my freshman physics class. It was something like this:

"Long ago, a raindrop falls from the sky into a Paleozoic footprint of a T. Rex. Then, in 1963, you drink a glass of water. Estimate the number of water molecules from that Paleozoic raindrop you just swallowed."

Well, I eventually came up with an estimate that turned out to be not even close, off by many orders of magnitude. But I still recall the difficulty of Feynman Physics problems!

This book is a collection of Richard P. Feynman's insights into the nature of solving physics-related problems. Included are some of those brain-puzzling problems, a prelude to the forthcoming book, Exercises for the Feynman Lectures on Physics.

I really enjoyed the memoir by Matthew Sands, one of the co-authors of the Feynman Lectures on Physics books. It focuses on the background of the creation of the Lecture books and the many decisions that were made regarding the course Feynman taught at CalTech and the books that followed, authored by Feynman, Leighton, and Sands.

It was interesting that in talking to physics professors at various universities, Sands found that "most instructors did not consider that the Lectures suitable for use in their classes." Sometimes there was a fear that students would ask questions the teachers could not answer! The books were often used by graduate students as study aides.


In the Foreward, Ralph Leighton relates an anecdote in which Chinese soldiers waving Mao's Little Red Book are taunted by a drafted Indian physics student by the waving of the three red volumes of Feynman's Lectures on Physics!


A great read for anyone who has taken a course using the Lectures--or has just heard of them! Or anyone with an interest in the history of physics teaching!