3 ms·

> He could just have given a physics textbook level explanation of how magnets work. But "how" was not a starting question of the interviewer. The questions we

by acqq 7y ago

> He could just have given a physics textbook level explanation of how magnets work. But "how" was not a starting question of the interviewer. The questions were different, and I've marked them with numbers here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/W9rJv26sxs4g2B9bL/transcript-richard-feynman-on-why-questions https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/W9rJv26sxs4g2B9bL/transcript... "Interviewer: If you get hold of two magnets, and you push them, you can feel this pushing between them. Turn them around the other way, and they slam together. <q1> Now, what is it, the feeling between those two magnets? </q1> Feynman: What do you mean, "What's the feeling between the two magnets?" Interviewer: <q2> There's something there, isn't there? </q2> The sensation is that there's something there when you push these two magnets together. Feynman: Listen to my question. What is the meaning when you say that there's a feeling? Of course you feel it. Now what do you want to know? Interviewer: What I want to know is <q3>what's going on between these two bits of metal </q3>? Feynman: They repel each other. Interviewer: <q4> What does that mean, or why are they doing that, or how are they doing that? </q4> I think that's a perfectly reasonable question. Feynman: Of course, it's an excellent question. But the problem, you see, when you ask why something happens, how does a person answer why something happens? For example, Aunt Minnie is in the hospital. Why? Because she went out, slipped on the ice, and broke her hip. That satisfies people. It satisfies, but it wouldn't satisfy someone who came from another planet and who knew nothing about why when you break your hip do you go to the hospital. How do you get to the hospital when the hip is broken? Well, because her husband, seeing that her hip was broken, called the hospital up and sent somebody to get her. All that is understood by people. And when you explain a why, you have to be in some framework that you allow something to be true. Otherwise, you're perpetually asking why." I think Feynman properly responded to the questions asked -- people do thing that they have to "find a meaning" and "why" and talk about "the feeling." Feynman properly answers there "of course you feel it!" Follow very carefully his whole response (I link the transcript) -- it's deeply thought through and applicable to much more than just "feeling -- meaning -- why -- magnets." It's about the "why questions" and "meaning" questions in general, from the view of physics.

foldr 7y ago
>But "how" was not a starting question of the interviewer As your transcript shows, the interviewer asks "why are they doing that, or how are they doing that?". That seems like it would have been a good point to respond with an explanation of why magnets repel each other. I don't buy all this stuff about 'how' vs. 'why' questions anyway. Lots of 'why' questions are perfectly sensible scientific questions. E.g., 'Why don't magnets stick to aluminum?'
- acqq 7y ago
  Exactly, and that "why" is answered thoroughly, see the transcript. The part of "how" is also there: "If you're somebody who doesn't know anything at all about it, all I can say is the magnetic force makes them repel, and that you're feeling that force. You say, "That's very strange, because I don't feel kind of force like that in other circumstances." When you turn them the other way, they attract. There's a very analogous force, electrical force, which is the same kind of a question, that's also very weird. But you're not at all disturbed by the fact that when you put your hand on a chair, it pushes you back. But we found out by looking at it that that's the same force, as a matter of fact (an electrical force, not magnetic exactly, in that case). But it's the same electric repulsions that are involved in keeping your finger away from the chair because it's electrical forces in minor and microscopic details. There's other forces involved, connected to electrical forces. It turns out that the magnetic and electrical force with which I wish to explain this repulsion in the first place is what ultimately is the deeper thing that we have to start with to explain many other things that everybody would just accept. You know you can't put your hand through the chair; that's taken for granted. But that you can't put your hand through the chair, when looked at more closely, why, involves the same repulsive forces that appear in magnets. The situation you then have to explain is why, in magnets, it goes over a bigger distance than ordinarily. There it has to do with the fact that in iron all the electrons are spinning in the same direction, they all get lined up, and they magnify the effect of the force 'til it's large enough, at a distance, that you can feel it. But it's a force which is present all the time and very common and is a basic force of almost - I mean, I could go a little further back if I went more technical - but on an early level I've just got to tell you that's going to be one of the things you'll just have to take as an element of the world: the existence of magnetic repulsion, or electrical attraction, magnetic attraction. I can't explain that attraction in terms of anything else that's familiar to you. For example, if we said the magnets attract like if rubber bands, I would be cheating you. Because they're not connected by rubber bands. I'd soon be in trouble. And secondly, if you were curious enough, you'd 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. So I am not going to be able to give you an answer to why magnets attract each other except to tell you that they do. And to tell you that that's one of the elements in the world - there are electrical forces, magnetic forces, gravitational forces, and others, and those are some of the parts. If you were a student, I could go further. I could tell you that the magnetic forces are related to the electrical forces very intimately, that the relationship between the gravity forces and electrical forces remains unknown, and so on. But 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 that you're more familiar with."

by acqq 7y ago

foldr 7y ago

>But "how" was not a starting question of the interviewer As your transcript shows, the interviewer asks "why are they doing that, or how are they doing that?". That seems like it would have been a good point to respond with an explanation of why magnets repel each other. I don't buy all this stuff about 'how' vs. 'why' questions anyway. Lots of 'why' questions are perfectly sensible scientific questions. E.g., 'Why don't magnets stick to aluminum?'

acqq 7y ago
Exactly, and that "why" is answered thoroughly, see the transcript. The part of "how" is also there: "If you're somebody who doesn't know anything at all about it, all I can say is the magnetic force makes them repel, and that you're feeling that force. You say, "That's very strange, because I don't feel kind of force like that in other circumstances." When you turn them the other way, they attract. There's a very analogous force, electrical force, which is the same kind of a question, that's also very weird. But you're not at all disturbed by the fact that when you put your hand on a chair, it pushes you back. But we found out by looking at it that that's the same force, as a matter of fact (an electrical force, not magnetic exactly, in that case). But it's the same electric repulsions that are involved in keeping your finger away from the chair because it's electrical forces in minor and microscopic details. There's other forces involved, connected to electrical forces. It turns out that the magnetic and electrical force with which I wish to explain this repulsion in the first place is what ultimately is the deeper thing that we have to start with to explain many other things that everybody would just accept. You know you can't put your hand through the chair; that's taken for granted. But that you can't put your hand through the chair, when looked at more closely, why, involves the same repulsive forces that appear in magnets. The situation you then have to explain is why, in magnets, it goes over a bigger distance than ordinarily. There it has to do with the fact that in iron all the electrons are spinning in the same direction, they all get lined up, and they magnify the effect of the force 'til it's large enough, at a distance, that you can feel it. But it's a force which is present all the time and very common and is a basic force of almost - I mean, I could go a little further back if I went more technical - but on an early level I've just got to tell you that's going to be one of the things you'll just have to take as an element of the world: the existence of magnetic repulsion, or electrical attraction, magnetic attraction. I can't explain that attraction in terms of anything else that's familiar to you. For example, if we said the magnets attract like if rubber bands, I would be cheating you. Because they're not connected by rubber bands. I'd soon be in trouble. And secondly, if you were curious enough, you'd 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. So I am not going to be able to give you an answer to why magnets attract each other except to tell you that they do. And to tell you that that's one of the elements in the world - there are electrical forces, magnetic forces, gravitational forces, and others, and those are some of the parts. If you were a student, I could go further. I could tell you that the magnetic forces are related to the electrical forces very intimately, that the relationship between the gravity forces and electrical forces remains unknown, and so on. But 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 that you're more familiar with."