Richard Feynman

I know this is not actually news given that word of this came out several days ago, but you have to trust me on this: Turn off the Simpsons, NCI, America’s Got Talent or whatever you would be watching on the tube, and instead gather the entire family around to start watching something really, really special – Richard Feynman’s incredible set of seven lectures on physics given at Cornell University in 1964. They are now available through a special Bill Gates/Microsoft science video archiving effort called Project Tuva .

Seriously, turn off that other junk, get the spouse and kids, and have a look. Say what you will about Gates and Microsoft, but here they did a helluva job, restoring the videos and adding important annotations, notes and closed captioning. The original taping was done by the BBC and the quality is very good (remember, those were black & white days!).

Feynman is truly engaging. He had a way of making physics fun and approachable for everyone. And, the guy was brilliant!

Trust me. Just start watching and you will be addicted. The opening scenes of Cornell in the 1960s and students hurrying to get to the lectures is enough to get you hooked.

(Note: Viewing the lectures requires downloading a special plugin for Firefox and Explorer. This plugin allows all of the “extras” added to the videos to work correctly.)

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