The best physics public speakers - #1 Feynman

Richard Feynman, not only worked at Los Alamos, figured out the O-ring cause of the Challenger shuttle disaster, played the Bongos, and became an accomplished painter - he was also a GREAT lecturer.

He has always been known for his ability to take complicated physics concepts and make them accessible to the everyday student. In the following brief, but grainy clip, you can see some of the keys to his style.

He connects with his audience with humor. You can see how his smile and obvious passion cues the audience and sets a tone. You can notice at the end the students laughing. He is animated, walking back and forth and making many hand gestures. He comes back to his notes for a pause and anchor (as discussed in class), but then clearly doesn't read off them, and although the clip ends, he goes back to his animated lecturing



In this second clip, you can see that his style hasn't changed all that much. You always get the feel that he is speaking both plainly, and directly to you. I think he plays well on expectation setting/know your audience - the audience knows he is one of the great scientific minds of the 20th century, yet he talks as if he was your crazy uncle at Thanksgiving explaining to a you how to carve a turkey.