He has been a former member of the Manhattan Project. Richard Feynman in the early sixties got recorded during some of his lectures by BBC TV. It was around 20 years later when my former boss Bill Gates, during a vacation, browsed through a university catalogue (typical Bill Gates vacation ;-) and found the recorded lectures. Bill loved the humour and the passion Feynman demonstrated here when explaining complex mathematical and physical interrelationships. Gates was fascinated by the idea of making these lectures available to a wide audience – you, me but also to those who otherwise would not have access to higher education. It took Bill Gates another twenty years before he actually found the time to pick up his favourite project again. The fact that by then the internet had been invented and reached the masses came in handy. Bill finally acquired the rights to broadcast the content and together with the smart guys from Microsoft Research built some supporting applications around the content that help understand the physics as well as some of the “hidden” humour within these recordings. (All done in state of the art Silverlight technology of course…)

To be able to fully enjoy the humours way Feynman presents I must admit that it helps if you either are a mathematician, a physicist or an engineer (which the later I am). During my studies back in Germany, there were not that many teachers or professors that came close to his style, causing those jaw dropping moments amongst the students. The first I met was Herr Weiss back at FOS Weiden as my best ever physics teacher (still remember his famous line when dictating one of his real live examples starting “James Bond was once sitting in a centrifuge…”). The second was Professor Dr. Visser at the FH in Regensburg during my studies in mechanical engineering. Unfortunately both have departed but live on in the hearts and minds of those who had the pleasure of learning from them.

So I would like to invite and encourage everyone to visit Bill Gates’ Project TUVA – and that is whether you are a natural scientist or just the Joe Public who enjoys learning about facts of physics in a funny way.