Feynman's Lost Lecture - Book Report/Review Example

Feynmans Lost Lecture Introduction This book “Feynmans Lost Lecture” is a good thing for all of the followers of the Feynman. This wonderful lecture “The Motion of the Planets Around the Sun” utilizes not anything more highly developed than geometry of high school level to give explanation related to the orbit of planet around sun, which according to him is elliptical instead in perfect circles, and in a conclusive way he establishes the amazing fact that has puzzled and conspiracies creative thinker since Newton, “Nature obeys mathematics.

” Judith and David Goodstein imparts a magnificently printed short account of days with Feynman, furnish thorough observations on the lecture itself, and connect the thrilling history of their attempt to go after one of most brilliant and innovative lecture of Feynman.Feynman’s Derivation of Kepler’s First Law According to Feynman, “simple things have simple explanations.” In his lecture one of the simple object that was in his intelligence was the “Kepler’s First Law,” that is the Law of ellipses.

In his derivation, he first he presents the shape of ellipse is an elongated circle which can be easily drawn by using the string, pencil and 2 paths (Goodstein & Judith: 64). (Goodstein & Judith: 64)Then he draws a line from F to point P on the ellipse and back to F´. (Goodstein & Judith: 65)He further explains the properties of ellipse by placing a bulb on F. When turning it on all the light would come back to point F´, if all the sides of the ellipse act as a mirror. (Goodstein & Judith: 67)Feynman considers it as an elementary property of ellipse and then he begins to prove this property of ellipse.

For this purpose he drew a point on the ellipse and drew a tangent on it.(Goodstein & Judith: 66)He subsequently shows the reflected ray of light from the surface of ellipse.(Goodstein & Judith: 66)The reason of the reflection is that the tangent line shows the direction of the curve and on magnifying it, a curve becomes a tangent (Goodstein & Judith: 67).(Goodstein & Judith: 67)He afterwards shows that this follows the law of reflection. Feynman continues his derivation and drew a point G´, which is image pint of F´ and connects point P and G´ (Goodstein & Judith: 68).

(Goodstein & Judith: 68)Feynman considers 2 triangles from above diagram and shows that all the sides and angles of these triangles are equal (Goodstein & Judith: 69).(Goodstein & Judith: 69)He uses this concept to prove that motion of planet around sun is elliptic not a perfect circular. (Goodstein & Judith: 84)The above is the Feynman diagram which he uses to derive the Kepler’s First Law. In this diagram he shows the velocity vector of planets and shows their movement direction around sun (Goodstein & Judith: 84).

He divides the path of planets in small segments and proves that the angles made by these segments are equal (Goodstein & Judith: 160).(Goodstein & Judith: 160)ConclusionFeynman in this book provides wonderful knowledge and also explains the Kepler’s First law which is also known as Law of ellipse. In this derivation he begins with the simple example of ellipse and expands his idea in order to explain the orbit of the planet. For this purpose he considers small segments and velocity and prove that the angles made by all of these segments are equal.

Work CitedGoodstein, D.L. & Judith R.G. Feynmans Lost Lecture: The Motion of Planets Around the Sun. New York: Norton, 1999. Print.