[FRIAM] All Of Feynman’s Lectures Now Available Online Completely Free

[David Eric Smith]

> On Jul 24, 2022, at 7:43 AM, Edward Angel <angel at cs.unm.edu> wrote:
> 
> Feynman once claimed he started Feynman Physics because he couldn’t do those problems.

“Couldn’t” here is an interesting word.

One of the few books I couldn’t read (back when I did seem able to read book-length material), was the Dao of Physics.  Several people had, believing it was an act of friendship, given me copies when I went away to college.  After getting a little way in, any time I dutifully opened it to try to get through a little more, I would be seized in a narcoleptic fit before getting through a half-page.  Like having one’s head pushed underwater by god; no resisting it.  I think it was the first book I accepted permanent defeat before.

Nowadays there seem to be many mindless, tedious, and world-destroyingly stupid (mandatory) things that, when I chain myself to the desk to do them, I never advance on because I can’t or won’t restrain a superhuman pressure to daydream.  

These cases have increased my tolerance for the ambiguity between “can’t” and “won’t”, when I see it in others who, for whatever their reasons, “won’t” do something needful that seems to me like it shouldn’t be that hard to do.

Eric