I’ve read, listened to and watched a lot of Feynman and if your interested in physics I’d have to say his lectures and books are an excellent tool for learning. So I was excited to see that Microsoft Research has posted 7 video lectures Feynman gave at Cornell. There are more in this series so I’m assuming that the other will be put up later. Evidently Bill Gates is a fan of Feynman and purchased them from the BBC to make them available to all. Its called Project Tuva and can be found here:

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/index.html

Some other great Feynman links:

Take the world from another point of view interview

The Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures

Audio compiled by Ralph Leighton

The Feynman Lectures on Physics (At Caltech)

Fun to imagine interview

Another great lecturer on physics and chemistry is Donald Sadoway of MIT (Who coincidently Gates is a fan of as well). His freshman solid state chemistry course is absolutely amazing. The video lectures can be found here.

I was reading a paper by Cathryn Carson (Who teaches a phenomenal course on the history of physics), "The Origins of the Quantum Theory", and noticed an interesting book in the box "Suggestions for Further Reading" called "From c-Numbers to q-Numbers: The Classical Analogy in the History of Quantum Theory". Unfortunately this publication is out of print but it is available on the eScholarship website. I also took the liberty of converting it to a PDF to make it easier to print out.

From c-Numbers to q-Numbers, The Classical Analogy in the History of Quantum Theory.pdf (2.76 MB)

I came a cross an excellent course on the Berkeley webcast site on the history of physics. I really like the coverage of the development of classical physics starting with Newton. Cathryn really does a good job of getting you thinking in the context of the time period, avoiding contemporary terms and thought and helping you to look at things from the perspective of these scientists. She also does a great job of tying in the religious, political, economical and philosophical influences of the time and how they affected the thinking of these individuals.

History 181B Modern Physics: From The Atom to Big Science Cathryn Carson "Establishment of the ideas and institutions of modern physics. Undoing the classical world picture: radioactivity, Einstein, quantum mechanics, philosophical disputes. The evolving structure of the discipline, links with industry and government, World War II and the atomic bomb. Postwar conceptual consolidation and the emergence of big science."

I have been wanting to dig into F# for quite some time and finally got an opportunity. My first stab at it implements the calculation of kinetic energy given a weight in lbs, speed in mph and output in kJ. Pretty basic, but ya gotta start some where right? :)

KineticEnergy.zip (.95 KB)

// Get info from the user
do Printf.printf "Enter the weight (LBS): "
let m = read_line()
do Printf.printf "Enter the velocity (MPH): "
let mph = read_line()

// Pound to kilogram conversion
let kg lbs = lbs / 2.2

// Miles/h to Meters/s conversion
let mps mph = (((mph * 1.6) * 1000.0) / 60.0) /60.0

// Kinetic energy calculation
let Ek m v = (0.5 * m * (v * v)) / 1000.0

// Show me the money
do Printf.printf "\nEk = %fkJ\n\n" (Ek (kg (float_of_string m)) (mps (float_of_string mph)))

// Wait! Let me see the answer...
do Printf.printf "Press enter to continue..."
let x = read_line()