An Unlikely Podcast Star

If you celebrated the internet for nothing else, you'd have to love it for turning Walter Lewin into an unexpected star.

The 71-year-old professor has long been cherished at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he teaches introductory physics. Now people around the world with no previous knowledge of, or interest in, physics are devotees, thanks to free podcasts of his lectures.

Dutch-born Lewin is a natural showman in the Julius Sumner-Miller tradition, bringing his subject to life with bits of business including riding a fire extinguisher-propelled tricycle (demonstrating rocket propulsion), dressing up in safari gear and firing a golf-ball gun at a stuffed monkey called Robert (in a lecture on trajectories) and using his own body to show how pendulums work.

"Your life will never be the same," Lewin tells his students. "Because of your knowledge, you will be able to see way more than just [what] everyone else can see." As one fan explained to the New York Times, "Professor Lewin was correct. He made me SEE ... and it has changed my life for the better!"

Lewin's lectures are available as free video downloads direct from MIT or on the new education section of iTunes.

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