Feynman's Lost Lecture: The Motion of Planets Around the Sun (original 1996; edition 1996)

Richard Feynman will always be my favorite geek. I’ve read at least three of his books, but have never heard him speak anywhere, although he was the principle investigator of the Challenger disaster and there was much televised about that. The edition of this lecture was a CD that was available from my local library, no book. Other than the poor quality of the original recording transferred from the tape, I found his talk to be excellent.

I never studied Physics in school, but read a few books on the subject over the years, especially when my interest in Astronomy hit a fevered pitch around twenty-five years (or more) ago. Fortunately, I have a gift for all-things-mathematical, and was able to follow his lecture while driving at 70 mph up the highway. Planetary Motion explained in Plane Geometry – and done so eloquently! Then he follows that up with (if I recall correctly) an explanation of Rutherford’s Law (the scattering of subatomic particles) using PG again! When the lecture was over, the tape recorder was left running for another fifteen minutes as students came up to him and asked questions about various aspects of his lecture. He was generous to a fault with his time and his enthusiasm, and worked out the misunderstanding/answers with them.

Feynman speaks in the same style as he writes. Engaging would be a good word to start with. It was thrilling to hear him make comments to himself, give brief asides about a point he had just made, off-the-cuff remarks… The man was as brilliant as they come, and endlessly curious.

I can’t comment about the book because it is not available to me. So, suffice to say that if you have a half-way decent background in Math, you could probably learn from listening to the CD. If you have a nerdy side to you, you’ll probably like this more than you’d prefer to admit. I wish I had more professors with his level of enthusiasm when I went to college! ( )

Wow, this is brilliant. And it's pitched at a level that I can even follow. ( )

This is a highly engaging lecture, but you have to work to 'get' the argument that Mr. Feymann makes regarding the elliptical orbit of our planets. This is a very rewarding book, which features a CD of Mr. Feymann 'proving' the shape of orbits using relatively simple math. ( )