A series of lectures by the renowned, late Caltech physicist Richard Feynman is now available online from Microsoft Research, which this morning launched a new site to showcase the Feynman lectures acquired by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.

Rather than simply posting the videos, they've created an enhanced online interface with clickable transcripts; links to supplementary materials; a note-taking feature; and expert commentary. It's a nice blend of old-school footage and 21st Century interactivity.

In an interview on the site, Gates explains that he discovered Feynman more than 20 years ago, when he and a friend looked at a university catalog for films to watch while on vacation.

"One of them was a Feynman lecture, and it was so engaging that we watched it twice and we found out that they had more," Gates says. "So this entire Cornell series we watched on that vacation. And from that moment on, I thought, boy, everybody ought to see these, because they make science interesting, they explain what physics is about, how physicists think."

Also see an extensive interview of Gates on the topic by CNet News.com's Ina Fried.