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I've recently been reviewing the Feynman Lectures. Caltech has posted Feynman's actual handouts from his lectures on the website below.

https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/flphandouts.html

Though they are helpful supplemental material, most handouts do not come with solutions. Does anybody happen to know how I can find solutions to them?

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  • $\begingroup$ You could try to contact the creator and maintainer of that website. Maybe your question would get his attention. ;) $\endgroup$
    – robphy
    Commented Aug 31, 2023 at 21:10
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    $\begingroup$ If you want to gain anything from them you should solve them yourself. $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 1, 2023 at 18:46
  • $\begingroup$ Ditto @MichaelA.Gottlieb -- in fact, I would go further to suggest that working on such exercise problems and getting the wrong answers a few times is itself a worthy part of ones education. Getting the right answer right off the bat does nothing to add to your knowledge. $\endgroup$
    – K7PEH
    Commented Sep 1, 2023 at 23:09
  • $\begingroup$ @K7PEH MichaelA.Gottlieb Yes, I agree. I was planning to attempt to solve the problems until I get a solution I am satisfied with. The frustration is part of the fun. I was looking for a resource I could verify my solutions. Taking rophy's comment, I will reach out to the editors once I come up with solutions I'm satisfied with. Thank you for the feedbacks! $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 2, 2023 at 21:38

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Solutions to the problems exist in notebooks made by the professors who taught the Introductory Physics course at Caltech in the 1960s (though of course, those are not the only possible solutions). Copies of these notebooks were entrusted to me and Rudolph Pfeiffer, editors of the book Exercises for The Feynman Lectures on Physics in which most, if not all, the problems that appear in the Original Course Handouts published at The Feynman Lectures Website can be found. However, these notebooks were given only for the purpose of checking the solutions in them, to ensure the answers published in the exercise book are all correct. Moreover, they were given under the strict condition that the solutions would never be published or shared, because the Caltech professors who compiled the notebooks feel strongly that students can only learn something from the problems if they create their own solutions, and that showing students solutions to problems is counterproductive because it robs the problems of their power to teach, rendering them useless. We publish the answers to the problems in the back of the exercise book so that students can check whether their own solutions produce the same (verified) answers.

That being said, I might add that we have in fact published solutions to a minority of the problems in the exercise book - the problems that ask students to demonstrate something is true. In this case the "answer" is given and the only possible response is a solution. All such problems for which a brief (one paragraph) solution is known are solved in the back of the exercise book.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you for the detailed response. Because I am studying alone, I was planning to solve the problems and use published solutions to check my own answers. To mimic the intention of the Caltech professors, would you recommend I post my solutions online and receive feedback there? $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 2, 2023 at 21:33

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