Feynman lectures on physics: all volumes now free

This is a continuation of the announcements of the free Volume I and Volume III.
Electromagnetism and elementary condensed matter from a top guru



Finally, all three volumes of the Feynman Lectures on Physics are available for free.




The URLs are:

feynmanlectures.info/ (main)
feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/ (backup)

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...Volume II TOC main server (primary),
...Volume II TOC backup (delayed)

The tome on electromagnetism and macroscopic matter, including the errata, became the latest and last edition to the marvelous Caltech project that transformed the famous physicist's lectures to free HTML pages with equations in MathJax.




The Volume II teaches you about electric and magnetic forces, the notion of a field, practical applications of electromagnetism, differential operations involving vectors, heat conduction and diffusion equation, Gauss' law and electrostatic fields in various situations, plasma oscillations, electromagnetism in Earth sciences, dielectrics, magnetostatics, electromagnetic induction, currents, Maxwell's equations, and everything else that is basic enough when it comes to classical electrodynamics.

The book continues with the principle of least action, solutions to Maxwell's equations in empty space and waves, the solutions with sources (charges and currents), alternating current circuits, resonant cavities, guided waves, relativistic form of Maxwell's equations, Lorentz symmetry, local form of energy conservation law, electromagnetic mass including the divergences and outdated attempts to remove them as well as a derivation of the flawed and confusing \(E=(3/4)mc^2\) at the end of Section 28-3, and forces acting on electric charges.

Finally, the attention moves to macroscopic laws of matter: crystals and lattices, their mathematical and physical properties, tensors, refractive indices of materials, diamagnetism, paramagnetism, ferromagnetism and hysteresis, elasticity of materials and stresses, hydrostatics, hydrodynamics, turbulence, and even curved space from Einstein's theory of gravity.

This is quite a collection of wisdom – more or less the bulk of the "newer half" of classical physics – or all of classical physics except for mechanics, thermodynamics, and statistical physics that is discussed in Volume I. I do believe that it could become standard for certain undergraduate courses to recommend the Feynman Lectures on Physics as the main recommended literature. The students could entirely avoid paper-based books. I wonder whether it would cause any problems.

I hope that many smart undergraduates and teenagers will study physics from these Feynman lectures. If you're a bit younger – a high school student or a college freshman who really likes physics – you may also be recommended a book by Feynman targeting folks like you, "Feynman's Tips on Physics: Reflections, Advice, Insights, Practice". A Kindle edition is linked to in the amazon.com link in the cover image above. The hardcover edition of that book is over $100, however. An advantage of the hardcover book is that according to amazon.com, it was released in the middle ages (1000 AD).