karenika - books

QED

So now you know what I'm going to talk about. The next question is, will you understand what I'm going to tell you? Everybody who comes to a scientific lecture knows they are not going to understand it, but maybe the lecturer has a nice, colored tie to look at. Not in this case! (Feynman is not wearing a tie.)

What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school - and you think I'm going to explain it to you so you can understand it? No, you're not going to be able to understand it. Why, then, am I going to bother you with all this? Why are you going to sit here all this time, when you won't be able to understand what I am going to say? It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it. Nobody does.

I'd like to talk a little bit about understanding. When we have a lecture, there are many reasons why you might not understand the speaker. One is, his language is bad - he doesn't say what he means to say, or he says it upside down - and it's hard to understand. That's a rather trivial matter, and I'll try my best to avoid too much of my New York accent.

Another possibility, especially if the lecturer is a physicist is that he uses ordinary words in a funny way. Physicists usually use ordinary words such as "work" or "action" or "energy" or even, as you shall see, "light" for some technical purpose. Thus, when I talk about "work" in physics, I don't mean the same thing as when I talk about "work" on the street. During this lecture I might use one of those words without noticing that it is being used in this unusual way. I'll try my best to catch myself - that's my job - but it is an error that is easy to make.

The next reason that you might think you do not understand what I am telling you is, while I am describing to you how Nature works, you won't understand why Nature works that way. But you see, nobody understands that. I can't explain why Nature behaves in this peculiar way.

Finally, there is this possibility: after I tell you something, you just can't believe it. You can't accept it. You don't like it. A little screen comes down and you don't listen anymore. I'm going to describe to you how Nature is - and if you don't like it, that's going to get in the way of your understanding it. It's a problem that physicists have learned to deal with: They've learned to realize that whether they like a theory or the don't like a theory is not the essential question. Rather, it is whether or not the theory gives predictions that agree with the experiment. It is not a question of whether a theory id philosophically delightful, or easy to understand, or perfectly reasonable from the point of view of common sense. The theory of quantum electrodynamics describes Nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment. Nature as She is - absurd.

Richard Feynman is a fantastic author. QED is no exception. I've read several of his anecdotal books and short stories but I had never previously read a physics book by him.

Intelligence turns me on. Varied interest coupled with intelligence turns me on even more. If Richard Feyman were alive today, I am confident I would have easily paid a lot of money to sit in one of these lectures. He is a rare example of an extremely intelligent man who has achieved incredible success in Physics and also loved his wife like crazy, played the drums, obsessed over visiting Tuva, and picked locks for fun. He worked on Quantum Electrodynamics (the topic of this book), was part of the team that created the Atom Bomb, and solved why the Challenger blew up among other amazing achievements.

A true sign of understanding a subject, in my opinion, is being able to put it into laymen's term. For someone who has had an exceptionally bad physics education, Feynman's lectures are magical to me. The ones in this book are simple, entertaining, make sense, make few assumptions on my previous knowledge, and most importantly, don't talk down to me. The reading is dense. It takes time. But if you're interested in physics and know as little as I do about QED, it's well worth it.

If physics isn't your cup of tea, I would still recommend two of my favorite Feynman books: What Do You Care What Other People Think? and Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! both of which aren't about physics but will entertain you and show you what a curious and amazing person Feynman was.