7 ms·

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

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.
  - sykh 8y ago
    It is dismissive because if it was just that then knowing the mathematics would be sufficient to do research in theoretical quantumn mechanics but it isn't. One needs to know the physics and have physical intuition. To say that theoretical quantumn mechanics is just a small branch of mathematics is ignorance. It is not insightful at all. Is commutative algebra just a branch of set of theory? Are set theorists generally equipped to understand research papers on Galois Cohomology? No. Set theory is used in these areas but to suggest that these areas "are just aspects of set theory" is not all insightful.
    - danharaj 8y ago
      I don't understand the complaint here, Quantum Field Theory is physics just as much as Quantum Mechanics?
      - sykh 8y ago
        The mathematician who made the quote I mentioned said that quantum mechanics was just <some branch of mathematics that I’ve forgotten> in dimension 1. I don’t know what quantumn field theory is. If it is a branch of physics then it’s not the theory the mathematician I referred to mentioned. Some mathematicians view mathematics as superior to physics and are dismissive about physics. They tend to believe that since they mastered mathematics then learning physics is easy.
    - throwaway37585 8y ago
      > It is dismissive because if it was just that then knowing the mathematics would be sufficient to do research in theoretical quantumn mechanics but it isn't. This not at all the same. QM is a special case of QFT. > To say that theoretical quantumn mechanics is just a small branch of mathematics is ignorance. It’s not. That statement is objectively true. > It is not insightful at all. It is. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of_Mathematics_in_the_Natural_Sciences https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectivene... > Is commutative algebra just a branch of set of theory? Are set theorists generally equipped to understand research papers on Galois Cohomology? No. Set theory is used in these areas but to suggest that these areas "are just aspects of set theory" is not all insightful. Intersection (overlap) is not the same as containment, so I have no idea why you’re bringing this up.
andrepd 8y ago
There is little rote memorisation required in physics because we have formulated it based on logical ideas, intuition, and fundamental principles. You can understand, not memorise. Biology is immeasurably harder than physics, the systems so much more complex and opaque and non amenable to fundamental explanation. Rote memorisation is a must.
- stochastic_monk 8y ago
  This is true at the surface level. However, biological systems are organized by principles. Source: degrees in both fields. Memorizing large numbers of facts give way to understanding and intuition in my experience. It’s quite similar to how a chess player’s experience regarding strategy starts out by exhaustively enumerating potential futures and eventually turns into an intuitive understanding of future plays and how training a neural network leads to a high dimensional manifold representation of a concept.
  - sooheon 8y ago
    Isn't it at least literally true that biology encompasses all of physics, plus some added complexity/emergence on top of that?
    - skuzye 8y ago
      Biology is a huge field so I don't mean to speak for all of them. My wife is doing a PhD in Immunology so I know that at least for her, she's thinking in a whole different abstraction level. She's not that concerned about the physics in her day to day experiments.
      - stochastic_monk 8y ago
        Good point. It really depends on what area in biology you're in. For immunology, pathology, and, honestly, most subfields, you're closer to phenomenology than emergence. I will say that I'm skeptical of a lot of the work done in biology in relation to networks and complexity. It's often either done by those without sufficient mathematical background (and, typically, wholly statistically invalid) or a bunch of hand-wavy, feel-good nonsense for a sexy tagline by those who should know better. Better work is done by researchers in complexity who analyze biological systems.

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.
- sykh 8y ago
  It is dismissive because if it was just that then knowing the mathematics would be sufficient to do research in theoretical quantumn mechanics but it isn't. One needs to know the physics and have physical intuition. To say that theoretical quantumn mechanics is just a small branch of mathematics is ignorance. It is not insightful at all. Is commutative algebra just a branch of set of theory? Are set theorists generally equipped to understand research papers on Galois Cohomology? No. Set theory is used in these areas but to suggest that these areas "are just aspects of set theory" is not all insightful.
  - danharaj 8y ago
    I don't understand the complaint here, Quantum Field Theory is physics just as much as Quantum Mechanics?
    - sykh 8y ago
      The mathematician who made the quote I mentioned said that quantum mechanics was just <some branch of mathematics that I’ve forgotten> in dimension 1. I don’t know what quantumn field theory is. If it is a branch of physics then it’s not the theory the mathematician I referred to mentioned. Some mathematicians view mathematics as superior to physics and are dismissive about physics. They tend to believe that since they mastered mathematics then learning physics is easy.
  - throwaway37585 8y ago
    > It is dismissive because if it was just that then knowing the mathematics would be sufficient to do research in theoretical quantumn mechanics but it isn't. This not at all the same. QM is a special case of QFT. > To say that theoretical quantumn mechanics is just a small branch of mathematics is ignorance. It’s not. That statement is objectively true. > It is not insightful at all. It is. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of_Mathematics_in_the_Natural_Sciences https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectivene... > Is commutative algebra just a branch of set of theory? Are set theorists generally equipped to understand research papers on Galois Cohomology? No. Set theory is used in these areas but to suggest that these areas "are just aspects of set theory" is not all insightful. Intersection (overlap) is not the same as containment, so I have no idea why you’re bringing this up.

andrepd 8y ago

There is little rote memorisation required in physics because we have formulated it based on logical ideas, intuition, and fundamental principles. You can understand, not memorise. Biology is immeasurably harder than physics, the systems so much more complex and opaque and non amenable to fundamental explanation. Rote memorisation is a must.

stochastic_monk 8y ago
This is true at the surface level. However, biological systems are organized by principles. Source: degrees in both fields. Memorizing large numbers of facts give way to understanding and intuition in my experience. It’s quite similar to how a chess player’s experience regarding strategy starts out by exhaustively enumerating potential futures and eventually turns into an intuitive understanding of future plays and how training a neural network leads to a high dimensional manifold representation of a concept.
- sooheon 8y ago
  Isn't it at least literally true that biology encompasses all of physics, plus some added complexity/emergence on top of that?
  - skuzye 8y ago
    Biology is a huge field so I don't mean to speak for all of them. My wife is doing a PhD in Immunology so I know that at least for her, she's thinking in a whole different abstraction level. She's not that concerned about the physics in her day to day experiments.
    - stochastic_monk 8y ago
      Good point. It really depends on what area in biology you're in. For immunology, pathology, and, honestly, most subfields, you're closer to phenomenology than emergence. I will say that I'm skeptical of a lot of the work done in biology in relation to networks and complexity. It's often either done by those without sufficient mathematical background (and, typically, wholly statistically invalid) or a bunch of hand-wavy, feel-good nonsense for a sexy tagline by those who should know better. Better work is done by researchers in complexity who analyze biological systems.