Undergraduate attendees of the 1961-63 Feynman Lecture Series pursued documented career paths
the verdict
INSUFFICIENT LEANING
refutedsupported
the weight of evidence
2 sources for · 0 against
AS REPORTEDno primary record reached; this is what the reporting says
Retrieved sources confirm that undergraduate students attended Richard Feynman's lecture series at Caltech during the early 1960s and raise the question of what happened to their careers, but no evidence documents their actual career paths.
The Feynman Lectures on Physics
The Feynman Lectures on Physics is a physics textbook based on a great number of lectures by Richard Feynman, a Nobel laureate who has sometimes been called "The Great Explainer". The lectures were presented before undergraduate students at the California Institute of Technology(Caltech), during 1961–1964. The book's co-authors are Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, and Matthew Sands.
A 2013 review in Nature described the book as having "simplicity, beauty, unity ... presented with enthusiasm and insight".
| The Feynman Lectures on Physics including Feynman's Tips on Physics: The Definitive and Extended Edition (2nd edition, 2005) | - |
| --- | --- |
| Author | Richard Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, Matthew Sands |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Physics |
| Publisher | Addison–Wesley |
| Publication date | 1964. revised and extended edition in 2005 |
| Publication place | United States |
| OCLC | 19455482 |
| Website | feynmanlectures.caltech.edu |
## Description
The textbook comprises three volumes. The first volume focuses on mechanics, radiation, and heat, including relativistic effects. The second volume covers mainly electromagnetism and matter
# What happened to the undergrad students who attended the Feynman Lecture Series in 1961-63?
Tags: science, education
- Score: 14
- Views: 1643
- Answers: 3
- Answered: yes
- Asked by: PGeerkens (73103 rep)
- Asked: 2019-03-19
- Edited: 2019-06-20
- Site: history
## Question
In the academic years of 1962-2 and 1962-3, Richard Feynman gave his celebrated series of lectures to a cohort of undergraduate physics students at Caltech. It has been claimed, probably tongue in cheek, that over the course of the two years the undergrad students themselves abandoned the lectures, but Feynman never noticed because academic staff from across Caltech replaced them, so attendance continuously increased rather than deceasing.
The careers of all those students, now aged somewhere in their mid 70's, have all ended or are winding down. Has anyone done an analysis of performance, relative to expectations, of the careers of these fortunate students?
It is worth noting that while the lectures themselves are brilliant, the courses themselves were a mess. Leighton and Sands and the teaching assistants never knew in advance what Feynman would cover in a lecture, beyond a sentence or two of outline.
Everything we examined (2)
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