I’ve been meaning to buy a copy of “The Feynman Lectures on Physics” for some years, but I’ve just never gotten around to it. Until today, when I found a copy in the $1 box at a hole-in-the-wall bookstore. And since it had a 29 cent price stamped on the cover, that’s what I got charged. Cool.
As best as I can tell, the “Feynman Lectures” were first published in 1963… but this was printed in 1962, a year earlier. I’m guessing it was printed up by the California Institute of Technology for use by students or staff, prior to official publication. Anyone know anything about this? Might I have stumbled across something of value or historical interest? It’s in really good shape for its age, though there are a few notations I’ve found. It’s clearly printed, not photocopied.
UPDATE: The most likely explanation is that this is a collection of printed “handouts” that were provided to the students in 1962-1963, prior to an actual publisher being found. A few pages of “Feynmans Tips on Physics” available on Google Books describes what appears to be this here thingie. It doesn’t say how many were printed; I’d imagine a few hundred, maybe up to a thousand. That’s be a lot for lecture notes, but not so many for a book. My guess is that the pages were provided loose, perhaps three-hole-punched, and the student decided to put them into this pressboard report cover. Even in 1962 money, ain’t no way this was sold for 29 cents… perhaps just the report cover was (less than a tenth the current going rate for the same thing).
I still have hope that one day I’ll find an original copy of “Über einen Raketenantrieb für Fernbomber” or a stash of General Atomics “Orion” reports just sitting on some used books store shelf with “$1” stickers…