How can you not love Richard Feynman? This is as easy a lesson in quantum electrodynamics as you'll find, I think. Which is not to say "easy," but painless to read and absorbable with enough concentration and/or re-reading of the harder parts. No more math than you are already familiar with, just kind of hard to wrap your mind around.
I have often complained that I didn't "believe in" quantum theory because it doesn't make sense. It turns out that nobody understands WHY it works, but Dr. Feynman does explain HOW it works and the experimental evidence that PROVES it works. At the time of the writing, they were still working on it and as far as I know, they are still. It is vexing and puzzling but like it or not, it's life.
There are 4 lectures on QED on Youtube with the infamous Dr. Feynman. If you don't even like math or science you will still love the good humored, enthusiastic and irresistibly adorable Nobel prize winner. Here's the link to the first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLQ2a...
Watch the lectures and read the book and you'll understand QED .... somewhat. Very fun, believe it or not.

Jæja, nú náði ég ekki lestrarmarkmiðinu (skandall), en ég er hinsvegar með amk 5 bækur sem ég byrjaði en gafst upp á. Hér kemur sú fyrsta.

Verdict: Fín

Alls ekki jafn áhugaverð og margar aðrar eðlisfræðibækur ætlaðar almenningi (vissulega bara út af umfangsefni bókarinnar, en þá eru bara umfangsefnið OG bókin óáhugaverð þ.a. það breytir engu). Lengst af bara einfölduð tæknileg umfjöllun um útreikninga í skammtafræði sem er ekkert sérstaklega áhugavert fyrir almenning. Grunar líka að mikið af innsæinu glatist við einföldunina (eða ekki, hver veit, ekki ég amk). Feynman hlýtur þó að eiga hrós skilið fyrir að geta sett þetta efni fram á hátt sem er amk smá aðgengilegur almenningi, en það er ekkert nýtt.

Hefði ekki klárað að lesa ef ég væri ekki að reyna að ná lestrarmarkmiðinu fyrir 2024.

Held ég sé farinn að eiga erfiðara með að lesa fræðibækur á íslensku en ensku :((

QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter is an outstanding book on a subject that is often overlooked or glossed-over in many popular physics books. Feynman does a deep dive on Quantum Electrodynamics: a theory that deals not only with the various interactions between light and matter, but which can be applied to every area of physics with the exception of gravitation and nuclear physics.

The theory of QED is fascinating, both in its explanatory power and its elegance. Using only a handful of conceptual tools, and working with just two fundamental particles - the photon and electron - it can describe phenomena as varied as reflection and refraction of light, changes in the speed of light through different mediums, quantum interference, lenses (I found the application of QED to this seemingly mundane property of glass to be particularly mind-blowing), and even suggests how all the diverse properties of the elements arise from only three basic actions performed by these two fundamental particles.

To say that this book changed the way I see the world is only a slight overstatement - it has certainly opened my eyes. QED is an absolute must-read for anyone with an interest in physics. Feynman takes great pains to present the theory in a clear and logical way, and while the subject is challenging, it is utterly comprehensible from cover to cover. This is by far the best popular science book I've read in a long time - I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Although a bit more conceptually demanding, technically trying and theoretically abstract than some of his other, more widely-read pop-science books (I’m thinking primarily of the bestselling “Six Pieces” duet published in the 1950s—a titularly symmetrical though somewhat uncreatively named duology, comprised of the now-classic tomes, “Six Easy-, and “Six Not-So-Easy Pieces”), “QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter” is still an engaging and elegant expostulation of some of the most thorny and mind-bending theories of the twentieth century—and which still challenge the brightest minds of the twenty-first—punctuated by Feynman’s characteristic exuberance, creative outside-of-the-box thinking, and pure, childlike wonder at the mysteries of Nature that always come across so clearly in his prose. Feynman’s unabashed aim of educating the broader public; his very un-professorial tone; his interspersed jokes and common touch; surmounted by his folksy, metaphor-rich explanations may bother the more fastidious and advanced (not to say snooty!) reader who may be looking for and expecting something closer to a post-graduate level seminar from this eternally-adolescent Nobel laureate, but the fact that a minuscule portion of the physics contemporary to Feynman’s writing of “QED” (and, in case you’re wondering, the acronym in the book’s title stands for Quantum Electrodynamics—definitely not for “quod erat demonstrandum,” the better-known, slightly arrogant mic-drop Latin phrase shouted gleefully upon pummeling one’s interlocutor in scientific or philosophical argument) really isn’t much of a strike against the book—especially for anyone interested not only in science, but also in the history (and to a lesser extent the epistemology) of science. “QED” is a unique time-capsule of a book written by one of the most unique and influential geniuses of the 20th century. And of course, it’s also a typically entertaining, informative, and adept piece of Feynmanian explication. As Feynman himself once said, he didn’t believe that he could have fully absorbed and understood a theory until he was able to effectively explain it to a class of undergraduates (Feynman is chock-full of these sorts of casually brilliant and insightful maxims).

The most salient point of all, though, is the inherent value in reading a book like “QED”. I found the experience both deeply fascinating and profoundly informative, which has been my reaction to everything else I’ve ever read by Feynman. And I expect that reading this book will enhance most anyone’s overall understanding not only of 20th, but 21st century physics—in particular quantum electrodynamics. It generously imparts to the reader both the complexity and the innate beauty of our extraordinary cosmos; of the still-mysterious and hotly debated significance of the preternatural success of mathematics, and the superhuman ability it imparts to human scientists who wish to define and delimit, and then structure of the cosmos—to successfully predict the far future, as well as retrodict the distant past; of the epiphanic simplicity and intellectually harmonious perspective that only a mind like Feynman’s (even decades after his death) can still offer any reader with a curious and open mind.

A masterpiece of popular science. Feynman did what most authors can only dream of... He explained extremely difficult concepts from his path integral formulation of quantum mechanics and he even made renormalization sound intuitive... and he did it all without any equations, but without hand-waving.

I feel like I really understood something... maybe that's because I'm a physicist and I know some of these things, but nevertheless I think Feynman explained everything so clearly that a layman could understand it without any difficulties.

That's what a good popular science book should be like.
Highly recommended, obviously. Don't you want to understand how our world works?

Richard Feynman, a quien suele llamarse el físico más importante desde Einstein, dijo que sólo podía esperar explicar la manera en que las cosas funcionan, pero no por qué funcionan así. Debemos aceptar, dijo, «la Naturaleza como es: absurda»

Religión sin dios Pág.53

ফাইনম্যান লোকটা কিন্তু ফাইন!

Ще одна книжка в якій я (гуманітарій) пробує шось зрозуміти в квантовій фізиці. І от скажу чесно, при тому, що сказати що "зрозумів" було б дуже голосно, ця книжка насправді наблизила до розуміння. Дуже круто розжовано звідки взагалі взялась теорія (на простому есперименті з відбиттям світла), яка математика лежить під нею (є прості формули), як це все потім експериментально підтверджувалось і головне - в правильних місцях повторюється що "так, це є незрозуміло і нелогічно і не співставляється з логікою фізики нормальних величин, тут правила інші".
Точно не скажу що легко читається - місцями прям дуже складно і незрозуміло, але загальна картина сприймається якось цілісніше. Дуже сподобався останній розділ (лекція) про інші проблеми і суміжні теорії. Викладено трошки поверхневіше але дуже цікаво. Нарешті, хтось нормально пояснив субатомні частинки (їх масу,заряд, "покоління") і як це все працює.
Все це здобрено хорошим саморінічним і "задротським" гумором.

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I took this photo when I was about half way through the book. It shows a picture of a CD [click to enlarge]. It's been illuminated by an ordinary office lamp and the flashlight from my camera. I knew about this "rainbow" effect for a long time, but I didn't know exactly how it is created. This book gives some answers.

To write a successful book like QED (short for Quantum Electro-Dynamics) two prerequisites are required: 1) The author must know a great deal about the subject matter, and 2) He must love his work. Only then it is possible to explain the theory of QED to laypersons like me. Richard Feynman obviously fulfilled both of these conditions. For one he virtually "invented" Quantum Electro-Dynamics (and received the Nobel Prize for physics for it in 1940) and secondly you can clearly sense his deep affection for the nature of objects and processes in the realm of the very very very small things, that is the quantum world.

Instead of bothering the reader with mathematical formulas like this...



...Feynman developed a rather ingenious way of explaining the interaction of light particles (photons) and electrons (and later other particles too) using diagrams like this:



All those little arrows are of the utmost importance because they represent what is called "probability amplitudes" for an event. The longer the arrow the more likely the event. In fact all we have to do–in theory–is to draw all possible little arrows on a piece of paper to explain almost any phenomenon concerning light that we can observe in nature. Don't ask me why that is. In fact even Richard Feynman couldn't answer the "why", only the "how". That's the charming thing about quantum theory. It has to be pointed out that this way of dealing with quantum effects is not a deviation from the truth (as far as anyone knows the truth). Other popular science books make things too easy and thereby achieve simplicity only for the price of a somewhat distorted truth. Not so here!

But don't think that this drawing of arrows (and then later in the book what is called the "Feynman diagrams") is very simple. There are quite some things to consider, and the text is pretty dense. Anthony Zee, a Chinese American physicist, wrote in his introduction to QED:

[...] you must mull over each sentence carefully and try hard to understand what Feynman is saying before moving on. Otherwise, I guarantee that you will be hopelessly lost. It is the physics that is bizarre, not the presentation.

I have to agree to that. Whenever I came to a point where Feynman lost me I skipped back a few pages and read it again....and again, until I made sense of it (as much sense as was possible for me). I think I understood the majority of this book, I just haven't internalized it. Not yet anyway. Maybe I have to read the whole book again after a couple of weeks. Until then I keep a quantum of solace that we (the humankind) are by now advanced enough to understand what make these cool "rainbow things" on CDs.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the very foundation of what makes the world work the way it does.

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Al principi no m'acabava de convèncer l'enfoc que Feynman va escollir per divulgar, i més per divulgar quelcom tan complicat com és Teoria Quàntica de Camps. El llibre bàsicament t'ensenya com es fan els càlculs! En comptes de parlar de la física que hi ha al darrere, simplifica i explica de manera molt original com obtenir els números. Tot i que em va sobtar, a mesura que seguia amb el llibre més li trobava el sentit, i després de reflexionar-hi, trobo que és una manera excepcional d'enfrontar la divulgació sobre la Quàntica, ja que resumeix molt bé com ens prenem nosaltres, els físics, aquestes teories. Així que m'ha agradat molt, i li he trobat molt el gust a llegir-lo una vegada ja estic familiaritzat amb el tema en qüestió

Imagine having such a powerfully visual thought process that when you look at complex electrodynamic interactions at the quantum level and all the tedious, long equations that need to be solved to compute the probability of their occurence, you think "Actually, you know what? It's all a bunch of arrows going in and coming out. Some arrows are straight, some of them are wiggly, some of them even travel backwards in time, but they're all arrows nonetheless." Imagine starting with a toy model of this, sketching various quirky almost arts-y diagrams and immeasurably simplifying quantum electrodynamics for generations of physics students to come. Can you? I definitely can't.

Of course this is brilliant, but what stands out and I daresay even more, is the elegance of Feynman's simple writing. There are no grand words here, no pompous pretensions of technical terms but no false modesty either. There are arrows and there are simple everyday words. Reading this book is like a revelation, of understanding how deeply exquisite and how deceptively complex nature is. You also understand how it's all a problem with semantics, we don't have the language to understand nature. But Feynman here has quirky pictures and that makes him a physicist like no other.

This is a must read, if only to feel the satisfaction that you don't need to be a theoretical physicist to understand nature at its simplest. All you need is a pencil, a paper and minimal drawing skills. And every once in a while you need a brilliant theoretical physicist to guide you. Thankfully, we have Feynman.

I've never seen something like this before! It explains the way quantum electrodynamics actually works (not just analogies), but without assuming any physics or math background. I would have been skeptical if the author were anyone other than Richard Feynman, but it's super well done. With my limited physics background, I found the explanations super clear, at least in the beginning.

Some of my favorite parts: I learned that light doesn't always travel in a straight line or at the speed of light, but I also learned why paths where it doesn't won't be observed at macroscopic scales. I learned why puddles of oil make rainbows and what a diffraction grating is. And I learned why when light reflects off or travels through a piece of glass, we can treat it as only interacting with the two surfaces of the glass, even though actually it interacts with all the electrons inside.

Towards the end, the explanations became less complete and didn't make as much sense to me. For example, Feynman says that in a hydrogen atom, "by exchanging photons, the proton keeps the electron nearby", but he didn't explain how exchanging photons would make it more likely that the electron stays near. Overall, though, this was well worth reading.