Needs to be balanced by understanding of Bohmianism...makes it less strange philosophically. Still a great book, and great in its presentation of Copenhagen interpretation, even if that is the wrong one. ( )

This one sat on my shelf for years, (I almost forgot I bought it), but was quite an amazing geek read. I wish it had been twice as long, actually, as he glossed over a few things at the end that I'd like to know more about, but it was quite a good explanation of what (at least in 1988) we knew about QED. ( )

Feynman is the best author in the field of physics. In his easy-going, humorous style, he covers the sticky topic of Quantum ElectroDynamics. ( )

A video of these lectures can be found at http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8

A master of his craft with a quirky and infectious enthusiasm for his material, puts his forbidding intellect to work to try to explain one of the greatest theories in modern physics to the lay person.

A tremendous achievement which combines an honest wish not to miss any of the best bits out just because they are complicated with a humility about just how much is still unknown.

Jaw dropping comments about light reflecting from mirrors? Yes indeed.

This book is based on four lectures covering light and electrons.

The actual lectures can be found on the web.

A thin book best savoured a bit at a time to allow your brain chance to recover in between sessions. ( )

http://malaysianatheist.blogspot.com ( )

A science classic. Short and sweet exposition of quantum electrodynamics. A must-read for anyone interested in how the world works. ( )

Just the facts, Ma'am, August 6, 2006
In the Introduction to the 'Strange Theory of Light and Matter' Feynman tells us that what he likes to talk about is the "part of physics that is known, rather than a part that is unknown." And he goes on to give us a thumbnail sketch, a "physicist's history of physics," which shows how physicist's, in their quest to describe the world, continually reduce a group of seemingly unrelated phenomenon to a single phenomenon. So heat and sound were found, thanks to Newton, to be reducible to laws of motion, while electricity, magnetism and light were reducible to Maxwell's electromagnetic wave. In this way physicist's explain the world.

Here one is almost tempted to say that they proceed much as religion and ideology do. Religion has from the beginning of recorded history been taking phenomenon and feelings, like storms and suffering or aging and despair, and molding them into an internally coherent explanation of all that is and was and will be. They do this by separating the relevant from the incidental, then uncovering the essential by excluding the accidental. They simplify. In similar ways ideologues like the communists take what at one time were discreet incidents and disparate facts (for instance, the poverty of the third world and imperialism) and weave them into a grand general explanation. Is science merely the latest avatar of religion? - Or perhaps it is an ideology without tears?

Not so fast! Feynman goes on to show us that attempts to explain the atomic world foundered on the laws of motion. He shows us that the rescue of those shipwrecked on the shoals of classical theory involved the invention of a new, counter-intuitive theory, Quantum Mechanics. He then goes on, while discussing a small portion of that theory, to give us the (deliberately) hilarious and 'absurd' example of how physicists predict how many photons, out of a given number, will be reflected back from a surface. 'Draw little arrows on a piece of paper' and watch the clock, he tells us. And with no explanation as to why this procedure works! Of course, for physics, what matters is that it does work. Physicists have been forced "away from making absolute predictions to merely calculating the probability of an event." But where is the essential, the eternal, the necessary?

Perhaps this is what Feynman is driving at. Science describes, it doesn't explain why. We should all wonder at that. The great 'philosophical' questions that drive theology and political ideology are beyond the purview of physics. Science doesn't create worlds; nor does it 'interpret' or change them, it simply describes what it finds. (It is technology that changes the world.) Freud saw fit to end one of his books by saying that 'our science is no illusion, but it would be an illusion to believe you can find elsewhere what it does not offer.' But how much truer this is of physics! One is then perhaps not surprised to come away from this little book wondering exactly what the status of philosophy, psychoanalysis, politics and religion would be in a genuinely scientific world.

But of course there will never be, given human irrationality, an entirely scientific human culture. This book is a superb introduction to quantum electrodynamics. It's 'experimentalism' and agnosticism towards grand philosophical explanations I found very congenial and convincing. Feynman is an engaging personality and this is an entertaining book. While one doesn't need a degree in physics and math to understand him a lay competence and interest in math and physics is certainly necessary. For those of us still living in a Newtonian world, a dwindling number to be sure, this book will have several surprising moments. But that really is part of the show! ( )

Quantum mechanics. Utterly mysterious and accurate to umpteenth decimal places. Why? Who knows?!? This is the best non-whack introduction to QM in general and QED in particular. Among its other virtues, it doesn't overinterpret.