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I once heard Richard Feynman give a talk where he mentioned that in grad school he would challenge the pure mathematicians to give him their hardest, most abstr
by jleader 16y ago
I once heard Richard Feynman give a talk where he mentioned that in grad school he would challenge the pure mathematicians to give him their hardest, most abstract problems, and he'd often solve them by thinking up a physical analogy about which he could reason intuitively. So in his case it wasn't a matter of ignoring his intuitions, but finding the right intuition, that actually corresponded correctly with the math.
- dwwoelfel 16y agoAre you sure you're remembering this right? In "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" there is a story he tells about an ongoing challenge he had with the mathematicians. They would come to him with a theorem about topology, and he would tell them if it was true or false. That is much different from solving the theorems.
- jleader 16y agoI assume you're right; my memory of a talk I heard almost 30 years ago is unlikely to be completely correct.