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Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

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Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#121

Post by adastra22 »

baxtr wrote: post #87
ChuckMcM wrote: post #14

His motto "What I cannot create, I do not understand" has been one of the driving forces in my own quest to understand more about the world around me. A good friend had picked up a corollary which was "What I cannot teach, I do not understand" which I think was quite similar. Definitely one of my heroes.

Love his books! Although, it seems like he’s getting a bad rep these days. How did that happen? PS: I’m referring to that video that pops up on top when you google him for example.

All the first page results of my Google search are positive, except for the one video (not near the top of the results) that has a provocative title but is 2 hours long. I’m not going to watch that. Can you link to the negative stuff you’re seeing?

Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#122

Post by kayvulpe »

everly wrote: post #78
JKCalhoun wrote: post #59

There's something rather sad, maybe poignant about it. It stands there as a testimonial to our brevity on this planet, to all that we will not see, do, understand. So it goes, I guess.

I'm reminded of a passage from the last psychiatrist blog: “One of the great insights of psychoanalysis is that you never really want an object, you only want the wanting, which means the solution is to set your sights on an impossible ideal and work hard to reach it. You won’t. That’s not just okay, that’s the point. It’s ok if you fantasize about knowing kung fu if you then try to actually learn kung fu, eventually…

Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objet_petit_a

Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#123

Post by adastra22 »

everly wrote: post #78
JKCalhoun wrote: post #59

There's something rather sad, maybe poignant about it. It stands there as a testimonial to our brevity on this planet, to all that we will not see, do, understand. So it goes, I guess.

I'm reminded of a passage from the last psychiatrist blog: “One of the great insights of psychoanalysis is that you never really want an object, you only want the wanting, which means the solution is to set your sights on an impossible ideal and work hard to reach it. You won’t. That’s not just okay, that’s the point. It’s ok if you fantasize about knowing kung fu if you then try to actually learn kung fu, eventually…

I once wanted to learn how to change the oil in my car. I learned, and then I changed the oil in my car. It was never about wanting to want to learn about my car.

Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#124

Post by ScotterC »

jszymborski wrote: post #115
gowld wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are calling Richard Feynman "profoundly unwise" and "endlessly futile", you might need to do a bit more reflection on the grounding for your opinion.

Surely it can be true that a profoundly wise and consistently effective person holds a belief or utters a phrase that is profoundly unwise and endlessly futile.

Absolutely true. And paradoxically, they may fully understand that the phrase is profoundly unwise and endlessly futile and yet know the benefit of holding the belief anyway.

Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#125

Post by jkaptur »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #110
cyberax wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One my personal trick: imagine that you are magically transported into the 19-th century (or earlier). Can you teach the subject to a well-known scientist of that era? E.g. if you want to explain radioactivity to somebody from 1860-s, how would you do that? Or for math, how would you explain calculus to Archimedes?

Those both seem much easier to me than what I usually struggle with: Transported back to a pre-industrial time, is any of my technological knowledge or understanding even remotely useful? Like, sure, germ theory is great I guess, but I have no idea how I'd begin to explain the internal combustion engine (which I'm fairly sure requires pretty advanced metallurgy) let alone something as esoteric as solar panels. Hell,…

Nate Bargatze has a great standup routine about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5X1m16-Jvc&t=204s

Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#126

Post by [deleted] »

hcs wrote: post #98
ChuckMcM wrote: post #14

His motto "What I cannot create, I do not understand" has been one of the driving forces in my own quest to understand more about the world around me. A good friend had picked up a corollary which was "What I cannot teach, I do not understand" which I think was quite similar. Definitely one of my heroes.

> "What I cannot teach, I do not understand" I tend to agree, but teaching another person is also a whole different set of skills from being able to drive something yourself. One prominent example is the "curse of knowledge"; it may take a lot of practice becoming a beginner to be able to teach for a beginner's perspective in your area of expertise.

[deleted]

Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#127

Post by willy_k »

NotAnOtter wrote: post #70
frakt0x90 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? If I recall he was a womanizer but we can admonish his personal choices while celebrating his incredible scientific and pedagogical achievements.

He was a top-tier scientists but kinda disgraceful in every other aspect of his life. Womanizer is a polite way of saying it, I would choose harsher words. He was also just generally a jerk to the people around him. Think Edison, more than Tesla.

And he’s celebrated for his contributions as a scientist and educator, not to ethics or social issues. People don’t disavow Ghandi out of hand because he was anti-vax.

Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#128

Post by rcxdude »

adastra22 wrote: post #119
somat wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We(by which I mean a person who knows how to ride a bike) do understand how to ride a bike. The problem in communicating that is a riding a bike is a skilled act. that is you cant get good at riding a bike by reading about it, and it is very hard to describe a well trained skill, it boils down to "practice a lot" which makes nobody happy.

One of the reasons you can’t get good at riding a bike by reading about it is that we literally don’t understand the mechanics of bike riding. It’s a currently unsolved problem in physics. Google it if you do t believe me! So I get what you’re saying, but it is maybe not the optimal example.

It's not unsolved per se, just a complex topic that resists simple explanations. (see also: what causes lift in an airfoil)

Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#129

Post by iterance »

gowld wrote: post #88
hinkley wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feynman was a huge proponent of, whether he knew it or not, compression being a form of modeling. He thought everything settled about physics should be teachable in the freshmen introductory series, and if he couldn’t make it fit that meant we didn’t really understand it yet. I personally like the idea of upper level classes being about things we are still working out. That feels more like preparing people for the re…

You can't reasonably keep compressing centuries of progress into an intro series. I think you are describing undergrad vs graduate, not intro vs upper level, and even that is optimistic. Even tenured professors are still learning new things about what is already known to the world at large.

Modern physics has actually done it quite well. This is because the core of many physics concepts revolve around general principles which can be taught directly or by example. A modern undergraduate education in classical mechanics teaches concepts around symmetry and energy that generalize to other areas in physics (for instance, the notion of a potential well giving rise to bound states reappears several times in different problem domains). A modern undergraduate optics education generalizes enough that students should readily understand concepts like evanescent waves and acousto-optical modulation.

It's only when one moves away from these principles to something more subtle or less well-understood that the education becomes hairier. But as these are further characterized, compression again becomes possible. Landau & Lifshitz, for example, attempts to do this at a graduate level. Many concepts they discuss are increasingly available to the advanced undergraduate due to better compression and better physics principles / pedagogy.

Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#130

Post by y1n0 »

NotAnOtter wrote: post #70
frakt0x90 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? If I recall he was a womanizer but we can admonish his personal choices while celebrating his incredible scientific and pedagogical achievements.

He was a top-tier scientists but kinda disgraceful in every other aspect of his life. Womanizer is a polite way of saying it, I would choose harsher words. He was also just generally a jerk to the people around him. Think Edison, more than Tesla.

Knew him well, did you?
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