2013 marks the 25th anniversary of the death of one of the great scientific communicators, Richard Feynman. The ability to translate difficult concepts into easily understandable (and entertaining) language is a rare gift. That rarity is why we so treasure the likes of Feynman or Carl Sagan.
Caltech has recently given the world the gift of a nicely-rendered, free online version of Volume 1 of The Feynman Lectures on Physics (Volumes 2 and 3 are in preparation and some background on how this came about can be found here).
The BBC has also made available the Richard Feynman: Fun to Imagine collection of videos, showing “The Great Explainer” joyously describing the mysterious forces that make ordinary things happen. For a brief taste, here’s Feynman explaining how rubber bands work.