The Four Lectures
- 1. Introduction
- In the first lecture, Feynman describes the basic properties of photons which acts as a gentle lead-in to the subject (as he colloquially stated before that a science lecture is boring if either it's not using layman terms or saying something upside down). Feynman discusses how to measure the probability that a photon will reflect or transmit through a partially reflective piece of glass.
- 2. Photons: Particles of Light
- In the second lecture, Feynman looks at the different paths a photon can take as it travels from one point to another and how this affects phenomena like reflection and diffraction.
- 3. Electrons and Their interactions
- The third lecture describes Quantum phenomena such as the famous double-slit experiment and Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, thus describing the transmission and reflection of photons. It also introduces his famous "Feynman diagrams" and how quantum electrodynamics describes the interactions of subatomic particles.
- 4. Loose Ends
- In the fourth lecture, Feynman discusses the meaning of Quantum electrodynamics and some of its problems. He then describes "the rest of physics", giving a brief look at quantum chromodynamics, the weak interaction and gravity, and how they relate to quantum electrodynamics.
Read more about this topic: QED: The Strange Theory Of Light And Matter
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