Amazing lecture by Walter Lewin

A rare chance that I got to watch LIVE teaching by Walter Lewin

Last wednesday, the 26th of Oct 2011 was one of the special days here at TU Delft. Why? Because the famous Walter Lewin was coming down to the small town of Delft and his own university (from where he received his Phd) to give a lecture on "Rainbows & skies". I did get a message on my university portal about the event, asking students to pre-register beforehand but I just ignored it, thinking that there will be sufficient space to accommodate all. Let me tell you I was wrong, very wrong.

So on that day I went to the lecture hall in aerospace building @ 13:30 hrs, only to find that people were not allowed inside unless they had a badge, which they receive only if they have pre-registered. I was disappointed but the girl at the welcoming desk gave me a slight hope that if by 14:00 hrs the badges left on the table are not taken then I could just pick up one of them and get into the hall. Along with me there were 30 others who had not registered and were waiting anxiously. I could have easily picked someone else's badge and just walked into the lecture hall but I have my own principles and my inner conscience did not allow me to do so. So I just waited, hoping against hope that I would get a chance to watch Walter Lewin LIVE.

Finally @ 14:00 there were sufficient badges left which were not picked up by people who had pre-registered so the rest of us waiting for a chance to barge into the hall picked one each and got into the hall by the back entrance. The lecture hall was jam packed with audience, young and old and all waiting to hear this great man talk.

Walter Lewin, the professor at MIT is known world wide for his amazing lectures on principles of physics and the way he teaches them to his students. Today he was going to teach us the physics behind rainbows & skies. before beginning the lecture he posed a few questions to the audience which are:

1) Whats the radius of the rainbow?

2) Whats the colour sequence of the rainbow?

3) Is the sky darker or lighter on the inside of the bow?

4) Do we get to see a second bow or perhaps even a third bow?

5) Is the light in the rainbow polarized?

To my amazement even though I had looked at rainbows before I had no clue to the answer to these questions except for the second one and this too I just knew the colour sequence but not which colour on the inside and which on the outside. Walter Lewin quoted "Anyone can look at art but it takes education to see art" and this amazing quality of his which infuses the knowledge into his students is what makes him unique.

The lecture began and in due course he went step by step starting from incidence angle from the sun to the refracted angle to the principle behind diffraction and other terms in physics to make his audience understand the concept. The lecture was well delivered and bang on target. The audience were awestruck and listened with the greatest of interest, I must admit I have never seen such a large crowd being totally glued to a lecture for the full 120 minutes. This is truly great of Walter Lewin.

At the end of the lecture the audience were able to answer all of the questions above and that too not with just figures and numbers but with the scientific principles behind getting those numbers. As Prof Lewin said before the start this lecture would change your life for ever and indeed it did change my life about the understanding of the principles behind rainbows and skies.

For those who missed this live lecture there is always 'youtube' and 'collegerama' (TU Delft's own lecture video portal)