5 Greatest Physics Lectures of All Time
Remarkable concepts explained by remarkable professors
If you are a physics major, you must have explored the internet looking for some simple explanations of complicated topics of physics. There are many freely available resources out there on the internet — lecture videos, pdfs, notes, books, etc. that you can use as a reference for your subject majors. I have a major in physics and mathematics so I shall be talking about these two disciplines, as always. There are certain lectures out there that are gold. They are remarkable, authentic, and amazingly thought-provoking. In this article, I shall share the five best physics lectures that you can watch right now for free.
Dirac Lectures on Quantum Mechanics
Physicist Paul Dirac is considered to be one of the most prolific theoretical physicists of the 20th century. The 1933 Physics Nobel laureate revolutionized the field of quantum mechanics by pioneering Quantum electrodynamics and introducing the Dirac equation which predicts the existence of antimatter. There are four lectures of the physicist freely available on YouTube. The lectures focus on quantum mechanics and its various aspects. The videos are uploaded by Richard Smythe.
Feynman Messenger Lectures
Richard Feynman isn’t a new name in my blogs. I’ve written plenty of stories about him and will keep doing so. He is one of my favorite physicists, not just because he was smart but because he could smartly explain complicated concepts in physics and in general any scientific concept with simplicity and elegance and ease. These lectures were delivered by the physicist around 1964 at the prestigious Cornell University. They have been made freely available on the internet by the official FeynmanLectures website.
Walter Lewin’s ‘For the Love of Physics’
These lectures are gold for any undergraduate physics student and in fact for anyone who is interested in science in general. Walter Lewin is a famous name in the genre of physics widely popular because of his prolific lectures at MIT which are uploaded in his own YouTube channel Lectures by Walter Lewin. They will make you ♥ Physics. The channel is followed and his lecture videos are watched by millions all across the world. What makes his lectures unique and different from conventional ones is his style of teaching with practical and real-life examples and applications of principles.
Sidney Coleman Lectures on Quantum Field Theory
“He was a giant in a peculiar sense because he’s not known to the general populace, he has virtually no visibility outside. But within the community of theoretical physicists, he’s kind of a major god. He is the physicist’s physicist.”
Sidney Coleman was a Harvard professor of theoretical physics who completed his Ph.D. under Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann and was a very good friend to physics giant Steven Weinberg. The late professor made the QFT idea much easy and in these lectures explained the concepts with such clarity and wit and it becomes very enjoyable. The lectures are for graduate students of physics but can be enjoyed by pretty much anyone interested in physics.
Leonard Susskind Lectures on Modern Physics
Prof. Susskind is also known as the Bad boy of physics. The man is a best-selling science author and a prolific lecturer. His Theoretical minimum books are some of my favorite physics reads which I highly recommend to every physics lover. The professor lectured at Stanford University in January 2008 covering several topics ranging from black holes to quantum mechanics. The lectures can be freely viewed on Sandford University’s YouTube channel.
Some honorable mentions for best physics lectures:
Barton Zwiebach’s quantum mechanics lecture series at MIT OCW
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