Selected Papers of Richard Feynman: With Commentary (World Scientific Series in 20th Century Physics) [Paperback]

Richard Phillips Feynman (Author), Laurie M. Brown (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 9810241313 | ISBN-13: 978-9810241315 | Publication Date: October 20, 2000 | Edition: annotated edition

These scientific papers of Richard Feynman are renowned for their brilliant content and the author s striking original style. They are grouped by topic: path integral approach to the foundations of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, renormalized quantum electrodynamics, theory of superfluid liquid helium, theory of the Fermi interaction, polarons, gravitation, partons, computer theory, etc. Comments on Feynman s topics are provided by the editor, together with biographical notes and a complete bibliography of Feynman s publications.

Contents: Quantum Chemistry; Classical and Quantum Electrodynamics; Path Integrals and Operator Calculus: QED and Other Applications; Liquid Helium; Physics of Elementary Particles; Quantum Gravity; Computer Theory.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Feynman s reputation ultimately rests on his major contributions to science, which this book amply documents ... such a selection of key papers is a useful reference. --CERN Courier

This book has an excellent chronological bibliography of Feynman s work ... --Choice

Anyone with the smallest interest in physics learns that Feynman was a great physicist, on a historic scale. What might come as a surprise is that his original papers maintain a special freshness and life even today. He always tried to construct his own version of physics, from the ground up, squeezing the maximum of insight from the minimum of formalism. In his greatest successes, including path integrals, the modern version of quantum electrodynamics, and the parton model, he achieves a combination of originality, simplicity, and power that is like Mozart's best music, a reliable source of refreshment and inspiration. But even his lesser works contain unique material. The path-integral variational principle, the ordered operator calculus, and the influence functional, for example, are nowhere better presented than in Feynman's original papers, and they may be capable of much further development. --Frank Wilczek, Nobel Laureate

Product Details

• Paperback: 1012 pages
• Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Company; annotated edition edition (October 20, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9810241313
• ISBN-13: 978-9810241315
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.6 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,195,401 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Richard P. Feynman was born in 1918 and grew up in Far Rockaway, New York. At the age of seventeen he entered MIT and in 1939 went to Princeton, then to Los Alamos, where he joined in the effort to build the atomic bomb. Following World War II he joined the physics faculty at Cornell, then went on to Caltech in 1951, where he taught until his death in 1988. He shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1965, and served with distinction on the Shuttle Commission in 1986. A commemorative stamp in his name was issued by the U.S. Postal Service in 2005.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great stuff, but unjustifiably expensive, November 10, 2010

By 

arpard fazakas - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Selected Papers of Richard Feynman: With Commentary (World Scientific Series in 20th Century Physics) (Hardcover)

Of course anything by Feynman is great, but it's not clear to me that publishers have the right to charge an arm and a leg for a compilation that is essentially just a collection of previously published papers.

You can get all of his important QED publications much more cheaply in Schwinger's "Selected Papers on Quantum Electrodynamics", which also includes gems by Dirac, Fermi, Heinsenberg, Weisskopf, Schwinger, Tomonaga, and Pauli, a total of 34 papers in all. So why is this book so much more expensive than that one?

Publisher's greed pure and simple, trying to make bank on a brand name.

3 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Selected Papers of Richard Feynman, October 3, 2001

By 

Stanford Chong (Caltech, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Selected Papers of Richard Feynman: With Commentary (World Scientific Series in 20th Century Physics) (Paperback)

The Selected Papers of Richard Feynman should become a fixture on the bookshelf of every physicist ...