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Meh, I'm not sure it's worth continuing the debate over, honestly. But yes, I've watched the clip before, and have now watched it again. While he does give an a
by qrendel 11y ago
Meh, I'm not sure it's worth continuing the debate over, honestly. But yes, I've watched the clip before, and have now watched it again. While he does give an answer at around 5:30, it's a pretty small part of the response. Imo, there are many possible ways to explain why a magnetic force is felt to a lay-audience, even touching on more advanced aspects like magnetism as a relativistic by-product of moving charges or dipole moments created by orbiting electrons. It's not like he didn't also write entire books for lay-audiences, the same as so many other physicists from Einstein to Tegmark have. I'd really rather not get into a huge conflict about the tactfulness of his answer, though. Cool, he decided to explain the infinite regress. Oh, some people found his tone or approach patronizing, and thought he could have taken the time to go into more detail about magnets instead. Difference of opinion.
Also, at the risk of being controversial: the clip is less valuable if you already know more about magnetism than he explains in the video, and if you're already familiar with the regressive argument. I like Feynman, have read several of his books and am planning on reading the Gleick biography when I can get around to it, but a lot of the love for this seems to come as much from that it's him saying it as much as what is actually said. On the other hand, perhaps I'm just biased because I see these clips getting reposted somewhere or another every so often, and it loses its magic eventually.
In Feynman's defense, the BBC audience the show was created for was probably less sophisticated than the 2015 HN audience, and since it has become such a popular clip, he clearly did something right. :)
- simoncion 11y ago> Also, at the risk of being controversial: the clip is less valuable if you already know more about magnetism than he explains in the video, and if you're already familiar with the regressive argument. I can't see any possible way in which that statement would be controversial. That you felt you had to couch such a statement in a preemptive defense says a lot about how little time many folks take to think before criticising. :( > [P]erhaps I'm just biased because I see these clips getting reposted [often so they lose their] magic eventually. True. I know of very few things that retain their magic after being replayed for the billionth time. > While he does give an answer at around 5:30, it's a pretty small part of the response. But he does give a good answer to the question. Your statement indicated that you held the opinion that he never answered the question, choosing instead to deflect the original question and answer another, unrelated one of his choosing. Given that the tone of the thread is "At least one person thinks that Feynman is being a condescending jerk.", you might see why I thought that a statement that supported that conclusion but was based on a basic misunderstanding of the material warranted a clarifying response.
- wtallis 11y ago> Imo, there are many possible ways to explain why a magnetic force is felt to a lay-audience, even touching on more advanced aspects like magnetism as a relativistic by-product of moving charges or dipole moments created by orbiting electrons. That wouldn't have been a correct answer. In permanent magnets, most of the dipole moment comes from electron spin, not angular momentum. Angular momentum alone can't produce a permanent magnet.