5 ms·

We all learn differently. Please don't deal in pedagogical certainties that may close doors unventured. Feynman's lectures were crucially eye-opening for me and

We all learn differently. Please don't deal in pedagogical certainties that may close doors unventured. Feynman's lectures were crucially eye-opening for me and many others.

ska 7y ago
It's pretty well established now that Feynman is not a good general approach for introductory physics. Plenty of talented teachers have tried it, and moved on to something more effective. This doesn't contradict your point. A particular individual may find them very helpful in learning and understanding the foundational stuff. By all means try, and if it works for you, great. However, it shouldn't be at the top of anyone's list of things to try first. And if you have tried, and it didn't work well for you - it's not you.
- AnthonBerg 7y ago
  Exactly. I ask that the applicability of Feynman’s lectures is not presented in absolutes - not always, not for everyone, not never. But definitely sometimes for some. Including to start with. They’re quite beautiful.
- gowld 7y ago
  > Plenty of talented teachers have tried it, and moved on to something more effective. Including, you know, Richard Feynman.
- stared 7y ago
  > It's pretty well established now that Feynman is not a good general approach for introductory physics. Citation needed. For people at the Physics Olympiad level, it is hard to find something as eye-opening and insightful as Feynman Lectures on Physics. For more "general audience", I guess that a more step-by-step is preferred. I know many people (usually not the Olympiad tribe) who preferred Halliday & Resnick.
  - dtornabene 7y ago
    I'm a logician and the Feynman lectures were incomprehensible when I tried to work through them. I for one am glad to see people pushing students toward more approachable texts.
    - AnthonBerg 7y ago
      This is very important! It's great to push students towards those texts that are approachable for them. It would be bad if we were to push students away from texts that are approachable for them, right? And very important that someone who learns like you is not pushed towards the Feynman lectures because they are not a good cognitive fit. I promise, we all learn very differently sometimes. I for one found logic as classically presented in CS studies - as symbolic text? - I found it to be very inefficient to acquire. There's a great deal of cognitive transformation that needs to happen. I do much better with wide-ranging abstractions and then then approaching the core logic in a variety of different mechanical approaches – then I "see" the core logic "through" the abstractions and implementations. And that said, I honestly wish I had easier access to the cognitive style that works "directly" in mathematical symbols and logic and that classical logical training works for. (I don't know if that's you, but I've talked to people that think/function like that.) And I greatly respect that capacity. I.e. I'm definitely not saying mine is better. Only different.
  - ska 7y ago
    I don't see how your contention really fits - physics Olympiad types are by definition not general. For what it's worth, when I was in that position I found some of the Landau and Lifshitz stuff at least as insightful. I'm all for Feynman as a supplement, by the way.
abdullahkhalids 7y ago
I disagree with you. I teach physics. Everyone interested in physics should read the Feynman lectures, but they are neither sufficient or necessary to understand physics. They are merely oomph on top of already good understanding. Let's imagine physics=boxing. No amount of reading boxing books, or watching boxing videos is going to teach you any boxing. To learn boxing you have to throw 10,000 punches. To learn physics, you need to solve 1000s of questions. That is the necessary and sufficient condition for understanding physics. Same way one learns software engineering after writing 100s/1000s of programs, not by watching videos of smart people coding (though that can help make you better).
- mindcrime 7y ago
  Let's imagine physics=boxing. No amount of reading boxing books, or watching boxing videos is going to teach you any boxing. To learn boxing you have to throw 10,000 punches. To learn physics, you need to solve 1000s of questions. I'm not sure that this is a very good analogy. You can buy a heavy bag, and go out in your garage and throw 10000 punches - with no instruction - and still not know how to throw a proper punch. OTOH, you can watch a few videos, learn some technique, and then go refine it by throwing the 10000 punches in the gym, and be a lot better off. Of course, it still won't be as good as hands-on training from a proper trainer, but my point is that you need both in the boxing case. For physics... eh, I dunno. My original plan for college was to major in physics, and then I discovered computers, and physics went (mostly) out the door and in the rear-view mirror.
  - abdullahkhalids 7y ago
    > learn some technique, Exactly. Feynman lectures tell you what the laws are, and why they make intuitive sense. They don't tell you how to apply the laws to a wide variety of scenarios, even those not discussed in the book. Physics textbooks like Haliday & Resnick do exactly this; briefly state the law and then teach you how to apply the law. But merely reading those textbooks won't help you either. You still have to turn to the exercises and solve a bunch of questions correctly to actually learn.
- AnthonBerg 7y ago

We all learn differently. Please don't deal in pedagogical certainties that may close doors unventured. Feynman's lectures were crucially eye-opening for me and many others.

ska 7y ago

It's pretty well established now that Feynman is not a good general approach for introductory physics. Plenty of talented teachers have tried it, and moved on to something more effective. This doesn't contradict your point. A particular individual may find them very helpful in learning and understanding the foundational stuff. By all means try, and if it works for you, great. However, it shouldn't be at the top of anyone's list of things to try first. And if you have tried, and it didn't work well for you - it's not you.

AnthonBerg 7y ago
Exactly. I ask that the applicability of Feynman’s lectures is not presented in absolutes - not always, not for everyone, not never. But definitely sometimes for some. Including to start with. They’re quite beautiful.
gowld 7y ago
> Plenty of talented teachers have tried it, and moved on to something more effective. Including, you know, Richard Feynman.
stared 7y ago
> It's pretty well established now that Feynman is not a good general approach for introductory physics. Citation needed. For people at the Physics Olympiad level, it is hard to find something as eye-opening and insightful as Feynman Lectures on Physics. For more "general audience", I guess that a more step-by-step is preferred. I know many people (usually not the Olympiad tribe) who preferred Halliday & Resnick.
- dtornabene 7y ago
  I'm a logician and the Feynman lectures were incomprehensible when I tried to work through them. I for one am glad to see people pushing students toward more approachable texts.
  - AnthonBerg 7y ago
    This is very important! It's great to push students towards those texts that are approachable for them. It would be bad if we were to push students away from texts that are approachable for them, right? And very important that someone who learns like you is not pushed towards the Feynman lectures because they are not a good cognitive fit. I promise, we all learn very differently sometimes. I for one found logic as classically presented in CS studies - as symbolic text? - I found it to be very inefficient to acquire. There's a great deal of cognitive transformation that needs to happen. I do much better with wide-ranging abstractions and then then approaching the core logic in a variety of different mechanical approaches – then I "see" the core logic "through" the abstractions and implementations. And that said, I honestly wish I had easier access to the cognitive style that works "directly" in mathematical symbols and logic and that classical logical training works for. (I don't know if that's you, but I've talked to people that think/function like that.) And I greatly respect that capacity. I.e. I'm definitely not saying mine is better. Only different.
- ska 7y ago
  I don't see how your contention really fits - physics Olympiad types are by definition not general. For what it's worth, when I was in that position I found some of the Landau and Lifshitz stuff at least as insightful. I'm all for Feynman as a supplement, by the way.

abdullahkhalids 7y ago

I disagree with you. I teach physics. Everyone interested in physics should read the Feynman lectures, but they are neither sufficient or necessary to understand physics. They are merely oomph on top of already good understanding. Let's imagine physics=boxing. No amount of reading boxing books, or watching boxing videos is going to teach you any boxing. To learn boxing you have to throw 10,000 punches. To learn physics, you need to solve 1000s of questions. That is the necessary and sufficient condition for understanding physics. Same way one learns software engineering after writing 100s/1000s of programs, not by watching videos of smart people coding (though that can help make you better).

mindcrime 7y ago
Let's imagine physics=boxing. No amount of reading boxing books, or watching boxing videos is going to teach you any boxing. To learn boxing you have to throw 10,000 punches. To learn physics, you need to solve 1000s of questions. I'm not sure that this is a very good analogy. You can buy a heavy bag, and go out in your garage and throw 10000 punches - with no instruction - and still not know how to throw a proper punch. OTOH, you can watch a few videos, learn some technique, and then go refine it by throwing the 10000 punches in the gym, and be a lot better off. Of course, it still won't be as good as hands-on training from a proper trainer, but my point is that you need both in the boxing case. For physics... eh, I dunno. My original plan for college was to major in physics, and then I discovered computers, and physics went (mostly) out the door and in the rear-view mirror.
- abdullahkhalids 7y ago
  > learn some technique, Exactly. Feynman lectures tell you what the laws are, and why they make intuitive sense. They don't tell you how to apply the laws to a wide variety of scenarios, even those not discussed in the book. Physics textbooks like Haliday & Resnick do exactly this; briefly state the law and then teach you how to apply the law. But merely reading those textbooks won't help you either. You still have to turn to the exercises and solve a bunch of questions correctly to actually learn.
AnthonBerg 7y ago