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That someone is Matthew Sands: “Early on, though, a small problem surfaced. Feynman had a long-time commitment to be absent from Caltech the third week of the fall semester, and so would miss two class lectures. The problem was easily solved: I would substitute for him on those days. However, to avoid breaking the continuity of his presentation, I would give the two lectures on subsidiary topics that, although useful to the students, would not be related to his main line of development.” https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.1955479 Later on he writes about the published books: “The next stumbling block was more serious: choosing a title for the book. Visiting Feynman in his office one day to discuss the subject, I proposed that we adopt a simple name like “Physics” or “Physics One” and suggested that the authors be Feynman, Leighton, and Sands. He didn’t particularly like the suggested title and had a rather violent reaction to the proposed authors: “Why should your names be there? You were only doing the work of a stenographer!” I disagreed and pointed out that, without the efforts of Leighton and me, the lectures would never have come to be a book. The disagreement was not immediately resolved. I returned to the discussion some days later and we came up with a compromise: “The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Feynman, Leighton, and Sands.” |