8 ms·

Feynman was wrong on his view. The same thing could have been said of him and physicists. Oh, you spent your time memorizing formulas when it could be looked

by sykh 8y ago

Feynman was wrong on his view. The same thing could have been said of him and physicists. Oh, you spent your time memorizing formulas when it could be looked up in 15 minutes. This is a nonsensical point of view for two reasons. People in areas of their expertise tend to know a lot in that area off the top of their head because they have encountered this stuff so much that it has become memorized. That memorized knowledge comes from experience not a memorization exercise. It’s also nonsensical because if you didn’t have a core set of knowledge memorized in your area of expertise and instead relied on spending 15 minutes looking up each fact necessary to understand a given situation you’d end up wasting your whole day just trying to understand the meaning of the problem.

sametmax 8y ago
It's true for formulas, but not for muscle names. You need to know what muscles do and their context, but names are just useful for communication, not analysis.
- moccachino 8y ago
  Also true of street names, you just need to know physically where your town's various businesses are and where your people live. But still you kind of have to know most of the street names off the top of your head to function properly. Besides, I think most muscle names are literally just derived from their position on the body and their movement range, so their name and their function are closely linked.
  - sametmax 8y ago
    > But still you kind of have to know most of the street names off the top of your head to function properly. I know 10 street names in my city. The rest, I look up. Well, I used to, now I use the GPS. Note that I do think you are more efficient if you know the street names and where they are. But I also do think the time and energy requires to learn 100 street names and position in my city can be better used for something else.
    - sykh 8y ago
      What if you were a cop? Would you criticize a cop who has learned the streets? Shouldn’t a biologist who is at a talk about felines understand the biology of felines without looking it up in a book? Feynman's criticism shows an ignorance on his part.
      - sametmax 8y ago
        It's not about knowing, it's about learning artificially. > What if you were a cop? Would you criticize a cop who has learned the streets? I would appreciate cops learning anything, but given they got a GPS and older colleagues knowing the streets name by habit, I'd prefer they spend time learning the law. The names will come naturally with practice. > Shouldn’t a biologist who is at a talk about felines understand the biology of felines without looking it up in a book? See that's the problem here. You assume you can't know the biology of felines without knowing all the names of all muscle by heart. It's like saying I can't understand a program if I don't know all the functions of it's API. And while after years of programming I know a lot of things without needing to look them up, I never learned nor will learn any listing by heart. It's a waste of my time. I need to understand algo, complexity, interractions. Names are just an interface, useful, but not required for modeling. Same things for you biologist. He must understand the interractions between the organs, the chemistry, the musculo-skeletic chain. Naming all the muscle is just a bonus, and now that we have books and computers, it's not a priority anymore. Does knowing stuff by heart makes you more efficient ? Does it make you a better pro ? Yes, but only if the more important stuff are understood. And if you are a student, mindlessly learning all names is completly a waste of time. Espacially since they are going to forget most of it after graduation, and learn it back again on the way.
        sykh 8y ago
        You can’t converse with an expert on felines without knowing the names. There are simply too many parts of the body. You have to name them in order to communicate. There’s a reason for the names. It’s nit like someone sadistically decided to give a name to each part. Go ahead have try having a conversation with someone who knows the names and functions of each muscle where you don’t. Looking up each term is not efficient. I’ll take a cop who knows the streets over one who has to look up on GPS. Cops chasing a suspect have report on their progress so that backup can reach them. What do you think they’ll do? Pause every 20 seconds and look up GPS coordinates? Feynman's critique was born of ignorance. He criticizes people for knowing the parts of the cat. In the lecture they criticize him for drawing the map of the cat. They know this already. Feynman does not. He is not at their level and instead of admitting this he makes an ignorant quip. Virtually all knowledge is an easy internet search these days. This has not diminished the need to know, have memorized, terminology. Let S be an infinite dimensional ring extension of R with R a commutative Noetherian ring with identity. Under what conditions is S flat as an R-module? If someone gives a talk on commutative ring theory and the above is the topic they best not waste everyone’s time by looking up the meaning of each word and writing it on the board. Such a person exposes that they aren’t learned enough in the field to be giving a talk.
AQuantized 8y ago
I'm uncertain how it was in Feynman's day in particular, but in my physics course you are given essentially all relevant formulas during any exams. You have to understand what they represent, and may end up remembering some of the more useful formula off the top of your head from using them often, but there is no rote memorization required. There are also dozens of constants involved that are possibly a better analog, very few of which end up memorized.
- sykh 8y ago
  And by the time you are ready to get a degree in physics it will no longer be necessary to give you those formulas in a test. You have used them so often and understand them so well that a formula sheet isn’t necessary. You have missed the point of my comment. Do you think Feynman lacked a vast amount of physics knowledge that he memorized (to use his phrasing)? Part of acquiring expertise in any area is the fact that you end up storing lots of information about that area so that you don’t need to look up every little detail or fact. If you are going to have a serious discussion with biologists about cell processes you need to have lots of knowledge, names, etc. at the ready. Can't go looking up every little thing as you go along. It would be impossible communicate if you did that. Feynman was being a jerk with that comment. His dismissiveness reminds me of comment that a well respected mathematician once made. “Quantumn mechanics is just such and such theory in dimesion 1.” Only ignorance allows one to hold such a belief.
  - credit_guy 8y ago
    In addition to that, I think it’s generally not a good teaching technique to belittle your students, even if they show a bit of immaturity.
  - danharaj 8y ago
    > “Quantumn mechanics is just such and such theory in dimesion 1.” Well, quantum mechanics is "just" 0+1 quantum field theory which is actually a good insight and not at all dismissive.
    - 8y ago

by sykh 8y ago

sametmax 8y ago

It's true for formulas, but not for muscle names. You need to know what muscles do and their context, but names are just useful for communication, not analysis.

moccachino 8y ago
Also true of street names, you just need to know physically where your town's various businesses are and where your people live. But still you kind of have to know most of the street names off the top of your head to function properly. Besides, I think most muscle names are literally just derived from their position on the body and their movement range, so their name and their function are closely linked.
- sametmax 8y ago
  > But still you kind of have to know most of the street names off the top of your head to function properly. I know 10 street names in my city. The rest, I look up. Well, I used to, now I use the GPS. Note that I do think you are more efficient if you know the street names and where they are. But I also do think the time and energy requires to learn 100 street names and position in my city can be better used for something else.
  - sykh 8y ago
    What if you were a cop? Would you criticize a cop who has learned the streets? Shouldn’t a biologist who is at a talk about felines understand the biology of felines without looking it up in a book? Feynman's criticism shows an ignorance on his part.
    - sametmax 8y ago
      It's not about knowing, it's about learning artificially. > What if you were a cop? Would you criticize a cop who has learned the streets? I would appreciate cops learning anything, but given they got a GPS and older colleagues knowing the streets name by habit, I'd prefer they spend time learning the law. The names will come naturally with practice. > Shouldn’t a biologist who is at a talk about felines understand the biology of felines without looking it up in a book? See that's the problem here. You assume you can't know the biology of felines without knowing all the names of all muscle by heart. It's like saying I can't understand a program if I don't know all the functions of it's API. And while after years of programming I know a lot of things without needing to look them up, I never learned nor will learn any listing by heart. It's a waste of my time. I need to understand algo, complexity, interractions. Names are just an interface, useful, but not required for modeling. Same things for you biologist. He must understand the interractions between the organs, the chemistry, the musculo-skeletic chain. Naming all the muscle is just a bonus, and now that we have books and computers, it's not a priority anymore. Does knowing stuff by heart makes you more efficient ? Does it make you a better pro ? Yes, but only if the more important stuff are understood. And if you are a student, mindlessly learning all names is completly a waste of time. Espacially since they are going to forget most of it after graduation, and learn it back again on the way.
      - sykh 8y ago
        You can’t converse with an expert on felines without knowing the names. There are simply too many parts of the body. You have to name them in order to communicate. There’s a reason for the names. It’s nit like someone sadistically decided to give a name to each part. Go ahead have try having a conversation with someone who knows the names and functions of each muscle where you don’t. Looking up each term is not efficient. I’ll take a cop who knows the streets over one who has to look up on GPS. Cops chasing a suspect have report on their progress so that backup can reach them. What do you think they’ll do? Pause every 20 seconds and look up GPS coordinates? Feynman's critique was born of ignorance. He criticizes people for knowing the parts of the cat. In the lecture they criticize him for drawing the map of the cat. They know this already. Feynman does not. He is not at their level and instead of admitting this he makes an ignorant quip. Virtually all knowledge is an easy internet search these days. This has not diminished the need to know, have memorized, terminology. Let S be an infinite dimensional ring extension of R with R a commutative Noetherian ring with identity. Under what conditions is S flat as an R-module? If someone gives a talk on commutative ring theory and the above is the topic they best not waste everyone’s time by looking up the meaning of each word and writing it on the board. Such a person exposes that they aren’t learned enough in the field to be giving a talk.

AQuantized 8y ago

I'm uncertain how it was in Feynman's day in particular, but in my physics course you are given essentially all relevant formulas during any exams. You have to understand what they represent, and may end up remembering some of the more useful formula off the top of your head from using them often, but there is no rote memorization required. There are also dozens of constants involved that are possibly a better analog, very few of which end up memorized.

sykh 8y ago
And by the time you are ready to get a degree in physics it will no longer be necessary to give you those formulas in a test. You have used them so often and understand them so well that a formula sheet isn’t necessary. You have missed the point of my comment. Do you think Feynman lacked a vast amount of physics knowledge that he memorized (to use his phrasing)? Part of acquiring expertise in any area is the fact that you end up storing lots of information about that area so that you don’t need to look up every little detail or fact. If you are going to have a serious discussion with biologists about cell processes you need to have lots of knowledge, names, etc. at the ready. Can't go looking up every little thing as you go along. It would be impossible communicate if you did that. Feynman was being a jerk with that comment. His dismissiveness reminds me of comment that a well respected mathematician once made. “Quantumn mechanics is just such and such theory in dimesion 1.” Only ignorance allows one to hold such a belief.
- credit_guy 8y ago
  In addition to that, I think it’s generally not a good teaching technique to belittle your students, even if they show a bit of immaturity.
- danharaj 8y ago
  > “Quantumn mechanics is just such and such theory in dimesion 1.” Well, quantum mechanics is "just" 0+1 quantum field theory which is actually a good insight and not at all dismissive.
  - 8y ago