Buy used: $10.94

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime

FREE delivery February 6 - 7 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon

Or fastest delivery January 31 - February 3

Select delivery location

Used: Acceptable | Details

Sold by Books Galore & More LLC

Fulfilled by Amazon

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Follow the Authors

Richard Feyman

Richard P. Feynman

The Character of Physical Law (Modern Library) Hardcover – November 8, 1994

by Richard Feynman (Author)

237 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$10.94

—

$4.37

Paperback

"Please retry"

$17.26

$10.01

$2.34

MP3 CD, Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$19.46

—

Like any set of oral reflections, The Character of Physical Law has special value as a demonstration of the mind in action. The reader is particularly lucky in Richard Feynman - one of the most eminent and imaginative modern physicists.

In these Messenger Lectures, originally delivered at Cornell University and recorded for television by the BBC, Richard Feynman offers an overview of selected physical laws and gathers their common features into one broad principle of invariance. He maintains at the outset that the importance of a physical law is not ''how clever we are to have found it out - but . . . how clever nature is to pay attention to it'' and steers his discussions toward a final exposition of the elegance and simplicity of all scientific laws. Rather than an essay on the most significant achievements in modern science, The Character of Physical Law is a statement of what is most remarkable in nature. Feynman's enlightened approach, his wit, and his enthusiasm make this a memorable exposition of the scientist's craft. The law of gravitation is the author's principal example. Relating the details of its discovery and stressing its mathematical character, he uses it to demonstrate the essential interaction of mathematics and physics. He views mathematics as the key to any system of scientific laws, suggesting that if it were possible to fill out the structure of scientific theory completely, the result would be an integrated set of mathematical axioms. The principles of conservation, symmetry, and time irreversibility are then considered in relation to developments in classical and modern physics, and in his final lecture, Feynman develops his own analysis of the process and future of scientific discovery.

Print length

192 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Modern Library
Publication date

November 8, 1994
Dimensions

4.9 x 0.85 x 7.5 inches
ISBN-10

0679601279
ISBN-13

978-0679601272
See all details

Richard P. Feynman
2,959
Paperback
82 offers from $4.70
Steven Weinberg
544
Paperback
91 offers from $2.46
Richard P. Feynman
547
Paperback
44 offers from $8.07
Richard P. Feynman
6,265
Paperback
72 offers from $7.56
Richard P. Feynman
1,305
Paperback
63 offers from $5.21
Richard P. Feynman
900
Paperback
59 offers from $3.50

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Richard Feynman was perhaps the most brilliant, iconoclastic, and influential physicist of modern times. The Character of Physical law, first published in 1965, contains the text of seven brilliant lectures, originally delivered to standing-room-only audiences at Cornell University, that demonstrate Feyman's unique ability to bring his subject to life to the non-physicist.

About the Author

Richard P. Feynman was born in 1918 in Far Rockaway, New York, and attended MIT at the age of 17. In 1939 he was one of the scientists who built the atomic bomb that would end World War II. He received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1965 and was a member of the Shuttle Commission in 1986. He died in 1988. The US Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp in Dr. Feynman's name in 2005.

James Gleick is our leading chronicler of science and technology, the bestselling author of Chaos: Making a New Science, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, and The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. His books have been translated into 30 languages.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Modern Library (November 8, 1994)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0679601279
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0679601272
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.9 x 0.85 x 7.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #382,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #182 in Science Essays & Commentary (Books)
- #588 in Philosophy History & Survey
- #1,684 in Biology (Books)

Customer Reviews:
237 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Richard Feyman
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
See more on the author's page
Richard P. Feynman
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
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.
See more on the author's page

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5

237 global ratings

5 star		78%
4 star		15%
3 star		6%
2 star		1%
1 star		1%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

C D

Great explanation for all the things I didn’t learn in high school or college physics.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 12, 2022

Great explanations!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 12, 2003

Verified Purchase

This is yet another book that attempts to convey the essence of physics to common people. After explaining exactly why it can't be done, arguing that you'll never get it, Feynman goes right ahead and does it anyway.
For each topic, you get a feel for his goal in covering a topic. He explains gravity, yes, to explain gravity, but also because by explaining it he can also convey what essential properties gravity has that other laws have.
He also explains the difference between fundamental laws and the consequences of those laws. That the individual laws are reversible, but that probability is responsible for the arrow of time. He spends a lot of time showing the difficult relationship between the basic laws (which are reversible) and the irreversibility of events. Both are characteristics of the physical universe but the latter is not a fundamental law. The latter is a logical outcome of them.
So there's a hierarchy, which goes; fundamental laws like gravity at the ground level, consequences of them like irreversibility and surface tension at one level up, organic chemistry further up, then eventually concepts like tree, frog, man, pain, beauty, good and evil - each at a higher level, but based upon the levels below them, and difficult to fully predict using only the laws of the lower levels. The levels can be extended up and down. Below gravity is the unification theory of everything. Above good and evil are love, politics, etc.
And then he asks, of the extremes on this hierarchy, the fundamental laws and the most abstract concepts, which is closest to God? After asking for patience with his religious reference, he spends little time before revealing his belief that the question is flawed. To understand God is to understand how the levels interrelate; how the fundamental laws were "chosen" so that they would lead to the unfolding of all the beautiful complexity that we see around us.
Is this what you want to learn? Why else do we read these books than to attempt to gain a bit more insight into the eternal questions. Most authors that tackle the nature of the universe have a theological axe to grind (the need for God or not) and can't hide it. This book did more on this topic, with fewer pages, while offending me the least because of any theological bias (either way), than anything I've read before.

78 people found this helpful

Helpful

Nino

Refreshing Look at how Physics Works

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 11, 2010

Verified Purchase

As a practicing physicist, having read and enjoyed Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" and Weinberg's "Lake Views", this Richard Feynman lecture series on the "Character of Physical Law" is even more enjoyable. It reaffirms simple truths in science research that are often forgotten in an age of automated analysis, that for example one must dig into the details of an experiment or observation with as little bias as possible to uncover the next aha moment and what is worth pursuing next (in my experience, one always finds something worthwhile if one digs, even if it is just explaining what went wrong) that arriving at the same answer by using different sets of equations (working in energy vs force space is a favorite example of mine) is anything but a waste of time, as different calculational paths lead on to connections to different phenomena. Despite being almost 50 years old, this series of lectures remains fresh (contrasting with books on Information Technology where one can get bored reading about predictions in technology advancement that have come true already 10 years later (for example, Bill Gates' late 1990's "Business at the Speed of Thought").

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

Suzanne L. Molnar

Brilliant...and challenging

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 18, 2021

Verified Purchase

For a non-scientist, this is difficult to comprehend. Feynman was a wonderful teacher, though, so if you have an ambition to understand more about the fundamentals of science, join me!

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Steven Silz-Carson

Classical Feynman at his Best

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 17, 2020

Verified Purchase

This lecture series from Cornell are considered classics. Richard Feynman is "always on," even if his sometimes folksy 1960s language isn't.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Chris Mason

This is the Feynman you want

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 7, 2013

Verified Purchase

I've been on a bit of a pop-physics bender recently and came across a few Feynman lectures on YouTube. I've tried reading a couple of other Feynman books (eg the 6 easy/not-so-easy pieces) and felt disappointed they weren't the complete series of lectures. This series on the character of physical law is a wonderfully clear description of how physics sat in the 1960s that still feels fresh today. That all of the lectures are present means that complex ideas can be developed properly and delivered over a few chapters. This is a great text for any science nerds who want a genius to clarify for them exactly what it is about science that is so entrancing, from the perspective of physics.

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

John A. Logan

You can see the original presentations for free

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 2, 2020

Verified Purchase

This is a transcription of Feynman's famous lectures at Cornell in the early 1950's. You should know you can easily find the videos on youtube. I can't really see any benefit to the printed version over the videos, and regret buying this. It does give my coffee table an unmerited bit of intellectual panache.

16 people found this helpful

Helpful

Paul

Excellent, only thing better is watching the actual lectures

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 12, 2014

Verified Purchase

As good as you can get with the exception of seeing the original lectures.
This is a transcript.
He did not write any lecture, but had notes. He did not like writing.
I don't think a single book with him credited as author was actually written by him, but a transcript or someone quoting his words.
And when you hear him tell of all these things you realize this guy truly knows what he is talking about. and the tiny errors he makes in the lecture actually make you realize how Intelligent he is, and how much he loves physics.

15 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

jane nicholson

Clarity of explanations patchy

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 7, 2022

Verified Purchase

I bought this book because I had the impression from reviews that it was accessible and the concepts clearly explained. However, I have found this not to be the case. I imagine it would be different, if you had some prior knowledge of the subject, but I couldn't recommend this book to anyone whose base line is as low as mine. I have found myself resorting to google for clearer and more precise explanations, which has been helpful.

One person found this helpful

Soledad

An amazing communicator of the awkward and difficult

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 3, 2021

Verified Purchase

Many writers have dealt with spacetime, gravitation, uncertainty etc - but Richard Feynman sets the standard with his own phenominal comprehension of all things physics, combined with an amazing ability to communicate difficult concepts and behaviours. He avoids unneccessary analogies, favours plain speaking and is able to get right to the central facts with unrivalled clarity.
His reputation as a lecturer was undoubtedly well-deserved, and his own life-long dogged determination to comprehend shines through on every page.
I read several chapters several times... it is that good.

rwb

Classic Feynman

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 16, 2021

Verified Purchase

If you are a Richard Feynman enthusiast, and have a scientific mind, or an interest in mathematics, then this book is well worth reading.

Gentoo

If you need to know you need this

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 29, 2014

Verified Purchase

Clear exposition of difficult ideas. I'd be lying if I said it was an easy read. Feynman eschews analogies (e.g., paired electrons are nothing like two ping pong balls on a spring) as being ultimately unhelpful.

It probably should form part of the A level Physics background syllabus because if your are seriously considering taking the subject further you need to understand this material.

One person found this helpful

B. Hudson

Wish I'd read this book before I did my degree.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 1, 2017

Verified Purchase

I wish I'd read this book before doing my science degree, Feynman presents a clear and extremely useful perspective on the relation between maths and science. Equations are difficult to read though.

See all reviews

Follow the Authors

The Character of Physical Law (Modern Library) Hardcover – November 8, 1994

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

About the Author

Product details

Videos

About the authors

Richard Feyman

Richard P. Feynman

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries