Lectures on Fractures
Dec 31, 2025 00:00 · 175 words · 1 minute read
I recently collaborated with Claude Opus 4.5 to write a short set of lecture notes on fracture mechanics:
How it worked
I wanted something in Feynman’s style. Conversational, building intuition before formalism, full of physical insight. So I had Claude start by reading some of Feynman’s writing and assembling a style guide. That gave us a shared reference for tone.
The technical focus was Griffith’s work on fractures. That’s what I wanted to learn about, and centering on his energy-based approach gave the notes a natural structure.
We did multiple rounds of iteration. I had subagents produce critiques of each chapter and correct errors. I also did visual inspection of the figures. The technical content was usually fine, but tikz diagrams needed adjustment for placement, scaling, and visual clarity.
The whole process took maybe four hours.
Claude was even able to design a cover and order me a hardcopy using a book printing API (Lulu). So I’ll be going through that with a red pen when it arrives in ~2 weeks!