Richard Feynman On Understanding Versus Understanding
by TeachThought Workers
Who’s Richard Feynman?
Richard Feynman, born in 1918, was a theoretical physicist whose work in quantum mechanics earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965.
In line with nobelprize.org, Feynman obtained his B.Sc. in 1939 on the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise and studied “at Princeton College, the place he obtained his Ph.D. in 1942. “He was Analysis Assistant at Princeton (1940-1941), Professor of Theoretical Physics at Cornell College (1945-1950), Visiting Professor and thereafter appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics on the California Institute of Expertise (1950-1959).”
Feynman’s legendary intelligence–usually talked about alongside Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein–extends past idea and apply in science. Feynman was additionally famend for his capacity to elucidate advanced ideas with readability and humor. His progressive educating strategies, characterised by wit and a deep understanding of basic ideas, encourage educators globally. Feynman’s legacy emphasizes the significance of curiosity, creativeness, and demanding pondering.
The next is an excerpt from a lecture titled, ‘The Worth of Science,’ delivered in New York Metropolis in 1955 on the Nationwide Science Lecturers Affiliation assembly.
See additionally What Is The Feynman Method?
“Newton’s concepts about area and time agreed with experiment very nicely, however in an effort to get the proper movement of the orbit of Mercury, which was a tiny, tiny distinction, the distinction within the character of the speculation wanted was huge. The reason being that Newton’s legal guidelines had been so easy and so excellent, and so they produced particular outcomes. So as to get one thing that might produce a barely completely different end result it needed to be utterly completely different. In stating a brand new regulation you can not make imperfections on an ideal factor; you must have one other excellent factor. So the variations in philosophical concepts between Newton’s and Einstein’s theories of gravitation are huge.
What are these philosophies? They’re actually difficult methods to compute penalties rapidly. A philosophy, which is typically known as an understanding of the regulation, is solely a approach that an individual holds the legal guidelines in his thoughts in an effort to guess rapidly at penalties. Some individuals have mentioned, and it’s true in instances like Maxwell’s equations, ‘By no means thoughts the philosophy, by no means thoughts something of this type, simply guess the equations. The issue is just to compute the solutions in order that they agree with experiment, and it isn’t essential to have a philosophy, or argument, or phrases, concerning the equation’.
That’s good within the sense that if you happen to solely guess the equation you aren’t prejudicing your self, and you’ll guess higher. However, perhaps the philosophy lets you guess. It is vitally laborious to say. For these individuals who insist that the one factor that’s essential is that the speculation agrees with experiment, I wish to think about a dialogue between a Mayan astronomer and his scholar. The Mayans had been in a position to calculate with nice precision predictions, for instance, for eclipses and for the place of the moon within the sky, the place of Venus, and so on. It was all executed by arithmetic. They counted a sure quantity and subtracted some numbers, and so forth. There was no dialogue of what the moon was. There was no dialogue even of the concept that it went round. They simply calculated the time when there could be an eclipse, or when the moon would rise on the full, and so forth.
That’s good within the sense that if you happen to solely guess the equation you aren’t prejudicing your self, and you’ll guess higher. However, perhaps the philosophy lets you guess. It is vitally laborious to say.
Feynman
Suppose {that a} younger man went to the astronomer and mentioned, ‘I’ve an thought. Possibly these issues are going round, and there are balls of one thing like rocks on the market, and we may calculate how they transfer in a totally completely different approach from simply calculating what time they seem within the sky’. ‘Sure’, says the astronomer, ‘and the way precisely can you expect eclipses?’ He says, ‘I haven’t developed the factor very far but’. Then says the astronomer, ‘Nicely, we will calculate eclipses extra precisely than you may together with your mannequin, so you have to not pay any consideration to your thought as a result of clearly the mathematical scheme is best’.
There’s a very robust tendency, when somebody comes up with an thought and says, ‘Let’s suppose that the world is this manner’, for individuals to say to him, ‘What would you get for the reply to such and such an issue?’ And he says, ‘I haven’t developed it far sufficient’. And so they say, ‘Nicely, now we have already developed it a lot additional, and we will get the solutions very precisely’.
So it’s a drawback whether or not or to not fear about philosophies behind concepts. One other approach of working, in fact, is to guess new ideas. In Einstein’s idea of gravitation he guessed, on prime of all the opposite ideas, the precept that corresponded to the concept that the forces are at all times proportional to the lots. He guessed the precept that if you’re in an accelerating automotive you can not distinguish that from being in a gravitational area, and by including that precept to all the opposite ideas, he was in a position to deduce the proper legal guidelines of gravitation.
Some of the essential issues on this ‘guess – compute penalties – evaluate with experiment’ enterprise is to know if you find yourself proper. It’s attainable to know if you find yourself proper approach forward of checking all the implications. You may acknowledge fact by its magnificence and ease. It’s at all times simple when you could have made a guess, and executed two or three little calculations to make it possible for it isn’t clearly flawed, to know that it’s proper. While you get it proper, it’s apparent that it’s proper – at the very least you probably have any expertise – as a result of normally what occurs is that extra comes out than goes in. Your guess is, in truth, that one thing could be very easy. In case you can’t see instantly that it’s flawed, and it’s easier than it was earlier than, then it’s proper.
The inexperienced, and crackpots, and folks like that, make guesses which are easy, however you may instantly see that they’re flawed, so that doesn’t rely. Others, the inexperienced college students, make guesses which are very sophisticated, and it form of appears as if it’s all proper, however I do know it isn’t true as a result of the reality at all times seems to be easier than you thought. What we want is creativeness, however creativeness in a horrible strait-jacket. Now we have to discover a new view of the world that has to agree with every part that’s identified, however disagree in its predictions someplace, in any other case it isn’t attention-grabbing. And in that disagreement it should agree with nature.
Others, the inexperienced college students, make guesses which are very sophisticated, and it form of appears as if it’s all proper, however I do know it isn’t true as a result of the reality at all times seems to be easier than you thought.
Feyman
If you could find every other view of the world which agrees over the complete vary the place issues have already been noticed, however disagrees someplace else, you could have made an important discovery. It is vitally practically unimaginable, however not fairly, to seek out any idea which agrees with experiments over the complete vary through which all theories have been checked, and but offers completely different penalties in another vary, even a idea whose completely different penalties don’t end up to agree with nature. A brand new thought is extraordinarily tough to consider. It takes a incredible creativeness…”
Video Transcription Courtesy Of Reddit consumer Reltpid
