Physics professor Walter Lewin, now 71, has long had a cult following at MIT. But he has also recently become an international Internet guru, thanks to an internet project designed to spread knowledge through cyberspace.
Professor Lewin’s videotaped physics lectures, which are free online through MIT’s OpenCourseWare, have won him devotees across the country.
The New York Times says that, “Professor Lewin delivers his lectures with the panache of Julia Child bringing French cooking to amateurs and the zany theatricality of YouTube’s greatest hits.” He has used a cannon loaded with a golf ball, fired at a stuffed monkey in a bulletproof vest, to demonstrate the trajectories of objects in free fall, and a tricycle propelled by a fire extinguisher to show how a rocket lifts off.
Judging from the fan mail he gets, Professor Lewin appeals to students of all ages.