The Character of Physical Law
(Messenger Lectures, 1964) by
Richard Feynman
Everybody's Physicist
In these Messenger Lectures, originally delivered at Cornell University and
recorded for television by the BBC, Richard Feynman offers an overview of
selected physical laws and gathers their common features into one broad
principle of invariance. He maintains at the outset that the importance of a
physical law is not how clever we are to have found it out, but . . . how
clever nature is to pay attention to it, and tends his discussions toward a
final exposition of the elegance and simplicity of all scientific laws. Rather
than an essay on the most significant achievements in modern science,
The Character of Physical Law is a statement of what is most remarkable
in nature. Feynmans enlightened approach, his wit, and his enthusiasm
make this a memorable exposition of the scientists craft. The Law of
Gravitation is the authors principal example. Relating the details of its
discovery and stressing its mathematical character, he uses it to

demonstrate the essential interaction of mathematics and physics. He
views mathematics as the key to any system of scientific laws, suggesting
that if it were possible to fill out the structure of scientific theory completely,
the result would be an integrated set of mathematical axioms. The
principles of conservation, symmetry, and time-irreversibility are then
considered in relation to developments in classical and modern physics,
and in his final lecture Feynman develops his own analysis of the process
and future of scientific discovery. Like any set of oral reflections, The
Character of Physical Law has special value as a demonstration of the
mind in action. The reader is particularly lucky in Richard Feynman. One of
the most eminent and imaginative modern physicists, he was Professor of
Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology until his death
in 1988. He is best known for his work on the quantum theory of the
electromagnetic field, as well as for his later research in the field of low-
temperature physics. In 1954 he received the Albert Einstein Award for his
outstanding contribution to knowledge in mathematical and physical
sciences; in 1965 he was appointed to Foreign Membership in the Royal
Society and was awarded the Nobel Prize.
Personal Review: The Character of Physical Law (Messenger
Lectures, 1964) by Richard Feynman
A great book by a great scientist.
Richard Feynman was a genius, a great scientist and a great teacher.
This book is a testament to all three of these contentions. As the title
states, this book is about physical laws: what they are, what they are not
and why they require mathematics for their complete understanding. While
the need to understand physical laws in terms of mathematics is stressed,
this book uses almost no math, and none beyond basic high school math
is required.
The book is based on 7 lectures, each of which is covered by an
approximately 25-page chapter. These chapters cover: the law of
gravitation, the relation of mathematics to physics, the great conservation
principals, symmetry in physical law, distinction of past and future,
probability and uncertainty, and seeking new laws. These chapters touch
on classical physics, relativistic physics and quantum mechanics, all in a
fluid and continuous manner. This book is not, however, a physics text
because it does not discuss how to solve specific problems. It is, however,
a great adjunct to those texts as it goes deeper into what physical laws
really mean.
The stated audience for this book is people who are interested in science,
but may have little or no background in this field. This is not to say that
people who are well versed in the physical sciences would get nothing
from this book. Quite the contrary, the more your scientific background the
more you will get from the time spent with this book. Theoretical physicists
may already understand all of what Professor Feynman is teaching, so this
may be old hat to them. They may, however, still enjoy the presentation,
so even they may get something from this book. As someone with an

advanced degree in the physical sciences, but not in theoretical physics, I
found this book to be mind expanding. Feynman gets to the heart of
physical laws in ways that I had never considered. For instance, he
provides one of the best descriptions of the first and second laws of
thermodynamics that I have ever read, but never mentions them as laws
per se, as he shows that they are manifestations of more fundamental
laws. (Actually, he shows that there is no single set of fundamental laws,
as many different ones could be used as the starting point to get to the
same conclusions.) College physics students should love this book. It
should be of immeasurable help in their more fully understanding what
their texts may only hint at. Those with only a high school physics
background should also get a lot from this book, but it may be a bit of a
hard slog for them.
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