FEYNMAN, Richard [NEWBURN, Ray L.; COHEN, Michael], Advanced Mathematical Physics [A comprehensive manuscript and mimeographed record of Feynman's Caltech course for the year 1954-55, notes taken by future astrophysicist Ray L. Newburn], [Not published: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 1954]

230x293mm; brown card clip folder with 298 leaves, mostly written on both sides; mimeographed lecture materials interspersed

Good condition: front cover and first leaf loose, wear to join between pages and metal clip for c.5 leaves; otherwise very good, clean and legible throughout

A unique record from the 1954-55 academic year of Feynman's 'Physics 129' course. Transcribed by Ray L. Newburn, later to become a NASA astrophysicist with a specialism in comet analysis.

This series of lectures had been developed by Feynman immediately after World War II at Cornell, as recounted in the chapter titled 'The Dignified Professor' in Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!. James Gleick also describes the genesis of the course in his biography of Feynman: "At Los Alamos mathematical methods had been put through a crucible: refined, clarified, rewritten, reinvented. Feynman thought he knew what was useful and what was mere textbook knowledge taught because it had always been taught. He intended to emphasize nonlinearity more than was customary and to teach students the patchwork of gimmicks and trick that he used himself to solve equations" (Genius, pp. 216–217). Of particular note, the preliminary sketches for that course, quoted by Gleick from Feynman's own notebook, are present here, as recorded directly from Feynman speaking at the blackboard: "Know what to leave out", "Specify accuracy you want", and so on.

The content is particularly valuable given Feynman's many original contributions to mathematical physics, and his later course of introductory lectures at Caltech, now known simply as The Feynman Lectures on Physics. The present lectures were quite technical and must have been a relentless experience: at the end of each semester Newburn makes wry comments to the course Teaching Assistant Michael Cohen, who marked his work with a red crayon (sometimes replying in kind, sometimes taking a sterner tone). At one point Newburn writes "Dr Feynman spent most of period going over problems and telling us how dumb we were".

Whatever the challenges, the reward for Newburn and his fellow students was immense. In the notes we can see Feynman introducing the "different box of tools" that he describes in Surely You're Joking. As he writes there, "I got a great reputation for doing integrals, only because my box of tools was different from everybody else's". Here, in the lecture of 1 October 1954, Feynman gives a list of ways to attack integrals, finishing with "Special tricks", which were then gradually introduced and worked through in numerous examples.

Almost all of the material here relates directly to lectures given by Feynman; in total there are 76 dated sections, each apparently referring to one taught session. Occasionally Newburn has noted that other lecturers subbed for Feynman, and the course grading and some lectures were given by Michael Cohen, Feynman's grad student and a noted physicist in his own right – but the course is Feynman's and the vast majority of the material is here transcribed directly from his lecturing and blackboard examples.

Only two other sets of notes on this course are known: the James C. Keck transcriptions from Cornell, 1946–47, and F. Curtis Michel's transcriptions from the 1959–60 session of the present Caltech course, held at Rice University. A remarkable survival, of the greatest interest for the light it sheds on perhaps the greatest physics lecturer of the modern period.

A full list of the lectures can be provided on request, as well as many further photographs.