Richard Feynman On Figuring out Versus Understanding

Richard Feynman On Figuring out 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.

Based on 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–typically talked about alongside Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein–extends past concept and observe in science. Feynman was additionally famend for his means to elucidate complicated ideas with readability and humor. His revolutionary educating strategies, characterised by wit and a deep understanding of elementary rules, encourage educators globally. Feynman’s legacy emphasizes the significance of curiosity, creativeness, and important considering.

The next is an excerpt from a lecture titled, ‘The Worth of Science,’ delivered in New York Metropolis in 1955 on the Nationwide Science Academics Affiliation assembly.

See additionally What Is The Feynman Approach?

“Newton’s concepts about house and time agreed with experiment very properly, however as a way to get the right 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 have been so easy and so good, they usually 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’t make imperfections on an ideal factor; it’s important to have one other good 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 tough methods to compute penalties shortly. A philosophy, which is usually referred to as an understanding of the regulation, is just a means that an individual holds the legal guidelines in his thoughts as a way to guess shortly at penalties. Some individuals have stated, 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, in regards to the equation’.

That’s good within the sense that should you solely guess the equation you aren’t prejudicing your self, and you’ll guess higher. However, perhaps the philosophy lets you guess. It is rather 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 pupil. The Mayans have 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 forth. It was all finished 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 can be an eclipse, or when the moon would rise on the full, and so forth.

That’s good within the sense that should you solely guess the equation you aren’t prejudicing your self, and you’ll guess higher. However, perhaps the philosophy lets you guess. It is rather laborious to say.

Feynman

Suppose {that a} younger man went to the astronomer and stated, ‘I’ve an concept. Perhaps 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 means 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, ‘Properly, we will calculate eclipses extra precisely than you’ll be able to together with your mannequin, so you could not pay any consideration to your concept as a result of clearly the mathematical scheme is healthier’.

There’s a very robust tendency, when somebody comes up with an concept 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’. They usually say, ‘Properly, we have now 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 means of working, after all, is to guess new rules. In Einstein’s concept of gravitation he guessed, on prime of all the opposite rules, the precept that corresponded to the concept that the forces are all the time proportional to the plenty. He guessed the precept that in case you are in an accelerating automotive you can’t distinguish that from being in a gravitational discipline, and by including that precept to all the opposite rules, he was in a position to deduce the right legal guidelines of gravitation.

One of the essential issues on this ‘guess – compute penalties – evaluate with experiment’ enterprise is to know when you find yourself proper. It’s attainable to know when you find yourself proper means forward of checking all the implications. You possibly can acknowledge fact by its magnificence and ease. It’s all the time straightforward when you might have made a guess, and finished two or three little calculations to make it possible for it isn’t clearly improper, to know that it’s proper. Once you get it proper, it’s apparent that it’s proper – at the least when you have any expertise – as a result of normally what occurs is that extra comes out than goes in. Your guess is, actually, that one thing may be very easy. In case you can’t see instantly that it’s improper, 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’ll be able to instantly see that they’re improper, so that doesn’t rely. Others, the inexperienced college students, make guesses which are very sophisticated, and it form of appears to be like as if it’s all proper, however I do know it isn’t true as a result of the reality all the time seems to be easier than you thought. What we’d like is creativeness, however creativeness in a horrible strait-jacket. We now 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 fascinating. 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 to be like as if it’s all proper, however I do know it isn’t true as a result of the reality all the time seems to be easier than you thought.

Feyman

If you could find another view of the world which agrees over all the vary the place issues have already been noticed, however disagrees some other place, you might have made a fantastic discovery. It is rather practically unattainable, however not fairly, to seek out any concept which agrees with experiments over all the vary by which all theories have been checked, and but provides completely different penalties in another vary, even a concept whose completely different penalties don’t prove to agree with nature. A brand new concept is extraordinarily troublesome to think about. It takes a implausible creativeness…”

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