Available at the arXiv this evening is something quite fascinating. Jim Cline has posted course notes from Feynman’s last course, given in 1987-88 on QCD. There are also some audio files of a few of the lectures available here. The course was interrupted by Feynman’s final illness, with the last lecture given just a couple weeks before Feynman’s death in February of 1988. There’s an introduction to the notes by Cline in which he explains more about the course and how the notes came to be.
The course was given over thirty years ago, and many textbooks have appeared since then, but it seems to me this has held up well as an excellent place for a student to go to learn the subject.
There seems to be a lot of overlap with the course I took from RPF ten years earlier. Definitely a rewarding experience.
I read most of the piece.
I would say that, more than a place for a beginner to go, it is the place for the
non-beginner, non-really-expert to go to for interesting physical insights, especially ones not currently mainstream teaching fodder.
Glashow, whom I saw in person for a whole semester, was like that too … but the big difference is that Feynman’s insights hold up to post-lecture study as not being as empty handywavy as Glashow’s. I, a chemist (!), could and did see through them.