This Feynman quote from the article is put in the wrong context: > I really can’t do a good job, any job, of explaining magnetic force in terms of something el

This Feynman quote from the article is put in the wrong context: > I really can’t do a good job, any job, of explaining magnetic force in terms of something else you’re more familiar with, because I don’t understand it in terms of anything else you’re more familiar with. The article implies this is a case of the scientist expressing that he didn't understand a thing. But watching the video in full[1], one realizes he is saying something different: "It's a force which is present all the time and very common and is a basic force. [...] I can't explain that attraction in terms of anything else that's familiar to you. For example if we say that magnets attract like as if they are connected by rubber bands I would be cheating you because they're not connected by rubber bands-- I should be in trouble if you soon ask me about the nature of the band. And secondly, if you were curious enough you would ask me why rubber bands tend to pull back together again, and I would end up explaining that in terms of electrical forces which are the very things that I'm trying to use the rubber bands to explain. So I have cheated very badly, you see." In other words, for some phenomena the only simple examples are themselves instances of that same phenomena. So the only possible analogies are themselves merely tautologies. I've noticed something less sweeping though similarly absurd with the internet. As more and more of people's daily lives depend on internet technologies, it becomes more difficult to find modern, simple examples for analogies that don't rely on similar internet technologies. So someone who wants to explain the wonders of packet switching compares it to long-distance telephone calls, but they then spend the bulk of that time explaining long-distance phone calls to people who have never used a wired phone. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFPe-DwULM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFPe-DwULM