9 ms·

Feynman Algorithm

91 points by alexitosrv 16y ago

joe_the_user 16y ago
Somehow, I'll take that "I have an unusual toolkit" theory over the "he's just super-smart" theory, especially since the later theory isn't really a theory but a "throwing-up of the hands" - and also, Feynman might know Feynman a little better someone else (though that's never certain either). One thing I noticed in the Feynman book I read was that he seemed good at being willing to going for an outcome without engaging in the usual activity people think of as leading to the outcome - his safe-cracking involved a lot of social engineering rather than insight into the safe's mechanism. He got the safe open without "cracking" it.
- jarin 16y ago
  Another insight into his process was all the talk about envisioning math problems as "ok you have a sphere, and now the sphere has hair on it", and things like that. I think Feynman's brain was wired in a way that he could use strange pathways to come up with an intuitive solution.
- ob 16y ago
  Note however that the "unusual toolkit" and "being super-smart" are not mutually exclusive. He probably had both.
- espeed 16y ago
  Once you see the problem the right way, the solution will present itself. Instead of trying to "solve" the problem, work on trying to see the problem from different perspectives. Like in chess -- "see the whole board." Feynman said, "You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, “How did he do it? He must be a genius!" This was one of his "tricks" for finding associations among things others had yet to see. The more associations you can find, the better you will see the problem and draw from different domains of knowledge. This helped him see things in way where solutions presented themselves.
  - DennisP 16y ago
    "A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points." --Alan Kay
- bialecki 16y ago
  I was telling someone about the safe cracking "algorithm" he had. Sometimes a problem seems hard until you recognize special pieces of information that dramatically change the constraints. In the case of the safe, he realized that the precision of a safe was to the closest multiple of 5, which reduced the set of combinations from 216,000 to 1,728) and then later that certain combinations are far more common than others (e.g. the default combo). It makes you realize that real brilliance is generally in understanding the problem and its constraints, not in solving it.
- cynest 16y ago
  This is how I hear very talented physicists describe themselves and others in that category. Stephen Hawking did not achieve in spite of his condition, but rather because of it. It forced him to develop a very specific set of visualization skills likely unique to him. Feynman had similar skills. There is a story in which he was once able to calculate something that took a presenter 6 months in a single night due to his better methods. Similarly he was once able to derive a strictly better model of some physical system (liquid hydrogren iirc) simply by going off of the obvious interacting forces.
swah 16y ago
This works, sometimes. The other one that works even better is when explain the problem to your dog.
Jun8 16y ago
I think that many such great thinkers have, due to circumstances and early on, have developed (1) a unique, uninhibited way of looking at problems, i.e. not different from what's generally prescribed to entrepreneurs: Consider every possible lead, even if people say it's stupid/has been done, etc. Einstein, famously had difficulty at school as a kid, so he actually thought about many concepts that we take for granted or find silly ("what would happen if I shine a flashlight while riding a bike"). (2) power to concentrate on a problem. When asked how he came up with his solutions Newton said that he thought on the problem until the solution came to him. This sounds simple but embedding yourself in a problem like that is beyond most people's focusing skills (I can't go by 10 minutes without checking HN, for example).
endlessvoid94 16y ago
I think a huge reason Feynman seems so brilliant is because he didn't learn physics or math in a traditional way. He explored. He had passion for it. Not unlike the manner in which many successful hackers learn. Nothing kills your interest in a subject like taking it as a class and getting grades.
- fletchowns 16y ago
  Nothing kills your interest in a subject like taking it as a class and getting grades. Maybe if you have a terrible teacher. The good teachers did nothing but enhance my interest in a particular subject.
  - BCM43 16y ago
    For me, the teachers will enhance my interest, but the grades aspect of it will muffle it. I'm not exactly sure why this is.
- deleted 16y ago
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- deleted 16y ago
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- ANH 16y ago
  Freeman Dyson got to know Feynman quite well when they were at Cornell after WWII. He described how Feynman refused to take anybody's word for anything, so he spent five years rebuilding quantum mechanics from the ground up in a way he could understand. He wrote that he'd never seen anyone work so hard as Feynman.
jashmenn 16y ago
I once had this taped to the wall of my cube when I worked for a small internet company. One of the C-level employees saw it and loved it. In company meetings when we would be talking about a genuinely hard problem, this exec would say "well what I think we need to do is write this problem on the white board, think real hard, and come up with a solution". Silence + confused looks. This happened multiple times. He ended up being fired within 3 months.
endlessvoid94 16y ago
I can't help but feel like this page does a huge disservice to what he was all about. He wasn't some mystical super brilliant genius. He was a guy who had some particular skills in thinking about problems and communicating them effectively. I have enormous respect for him. Maybe I'm being too sensitive, but it seems like WAY too many things on that page miss the point completely.
- deleted 16y ago
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- mturmon 16y ago
  "mystical" -- no. But "super brilliant genius" -- yes. That's just the best quick way of summarizing it. Alas, this is a "method" for achieving greatness that you or I can't replicate. Feynmann was not "just a guy who had some particular skills in thinking about problems". This is just not accurate. At age 24, his Princeton advisor suggested he join the Manhattan Project. He routinely dazzled the other physicists there, probably the greatest collection of physics talent (Bohr, Oppenheimer, Bethe, Fermi) gathered in one place since the Cavendish Lab in the early 1900s. And that was only the start of his long career.
  - endlessvoid94 16y ago
    Yes, I'm not denying that he was unconventionally an incredibly talented physicist. But in the process of figuring out his process (and the processes of lots of 'brilliant' people), we discover that we can't pinpoint exactly WHY or HOW he worked. That's the point. Nobody can. He was a human being and he certainly had flaws, which I imagine he'd be happy to acknowledge. I just dislike putting people onto pedestals like this. If you had hung out with him over a beer, I'm willing to bet you'd be surprised how normal of a person he was.
    - mturmon 16y ago
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wicknicks 16y ago
Here is what I would prefer to do: 1. Write down the problem. 2. Think real hard. 3. Program the solution. 4. Understand changes caused by the solution. 5. Iterate.
- dman 16y ago
  I think between 1 and 2 it also helps to talk to other people in your network who might have knowledge / wisdom to share about the problem at hand.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - wicknicks 16y ago
    Would totally add that! Real problems never get solved in isolation.
- noonespecial 16y ago
  Hmm, I tried it in LISP and did fine until step 4. There were no side effects and it didn't iterate...
dcosson 16y ago
I really like the variation offered by IraCooper on that page, 1. Write down the problem 2. Become convinced it's very important, then think about it 3. Write down the answer My own problem solving attempts are often thwarted by me working for 20 minutes and then getting discouraged and convincing myself that what I'm working on isn't really that important. After which I, of course, waste the next hour watching hour tv or something. If I've heard anything about Feinman it's that he was always deeply interested in everything he did, and his accomplishments reflect it.
DTrejo 16y ago
How to Solve It, by G. Polya http://www.math.utah.edu/~pa/math/polya.html http://www.math.utah.edu/~pa/math/polya.html
billmcneale 16y ago
For people not familiar with Feynman, here is a recent review of one of his story books: http://goo.gl/5QLaG http://goo.gl/5QLaG
phil 16y ago
Reminds me of another classic Feynman/Gell-Mann quote, from Surely You're Joking: Telegdi also sent us a letter, which wasn't exactly scathing, but nevertheless showed he was convinced that our theory was wrong. At the end he wrote, "The F-G (Feynman-Gell-Mann) theory of beta decay is no F-G."
rfzabick 16y ago
I think I remember reading Feynman saying that you should always have 15 or 20 problems that you have percolating in the back of your mind at any given time. Then, any time you learn a new trick or technique, apply it to all of those problems. Sometimes the new technique will work really well on one of those problems and you'll look really smart, but all you did was apply a technique from one person to one of your old problems. I can't find the reference now...
rimantas 16y ago
This must be later version — while a kid he skipped steps 1 and 3 (I am reffering to "He fixes radios by thinking" in Surely You're Joking).
microcentury 16y ago
The story that best illustrates Feynman for me is in Surely You're Joking Mr F (I think - it might be the sequel). On a trip to Japan he insists on going to an area where there is 'nothing to see' rather than the standard tour, and of course discovers a unique and unspoiled part of the country. But even if he hadn't, he would have considered it a win - in another of his stories, he talks about going to bars and waiting for something interesting to happen, knowing that much of the time nothing of note would occur. That drive to keep experiencing something new, and the understanding that the drive would often lead to nothing, is inspirational to me, and I think is what led Feyman to so many interesting things in so many fields.

91 points by alexitosrv 16y ago

Somehow, I'll take that "I have an unusual toolkit" theory over the "he's just super-smart" theory, especially since the later theory isn't really a theory but a "throwing-up of the hands" - and also, Feynman might know Feynman a little better someone else (though that's never certain either). One thing I noticed in the Feynman book I read was that he seemed good at being willing to going for an outcome without engaging in the usual activity people think of as leading to the outcome - his safe-cracking involved a lot of social engineering rather than insight into the safe's mechanism. He got the safe open without "cracking" it.

jarin 16y ago
Another insight into his process was all the talk about envisioning math problems as "ok you have a sphere, and now the sphere has hair on it", and things like that. I think Feynman's brain was wired in a way that he could use strange pathways to come up with an intuitive solution.
ob 16y ago
Note however that the "unusual toolkit" and "being super-smart" are not mutually exclusive. He probably had both.
espeed 16y ago
Once you see the problem the right way, the solution will present itself. Instead of trying to "solve" the problem, work on trying to see the problem from different perspectives. Like in chess -- "see the whole board." Feynman said, "You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, “How did he do it? He must be a genius!" This was one of his "tricks" for finding associations among things others had yet to see. The more associations you can find, the better you will see the problem and draw from different domains of knowledge. This helped him see things in way where solutions presented themselves.
- DennisP 16y ago
  "A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points." --Alan Kay
bialecki 16y ago
I was telling someone about the safe cracking "algorithm" he had. Sometimes a problem seems hard until you recognize special pieces of information that dramatically change the constraints. In the case of the safe, he realized that the precision of a safe was to the closest multiple of 5, which reduced the set of combinations from 216,000 to 1,728) and then later that certain combinations are far more common than others (e.g. the default combo). It makes you realize that real brilliance is generally in understanding the problem and its constraints, not in solving it.
cynest 16y ago
This is how I hear very talented physicists describe themselves and others in that category. Stephen Hawking did not achieve in spite of his condition, but rather because of it. It forced him to develop a very specific set of visualization skills likely unique to him. Feynman had similar skills. There is a story in which he was once able to calculate something that took a presenter 6 months in a single night due to his better methods. Similarly he was once able to derive a strictly better model of some physical system (liquid hydrogren iirc) simply by going off of the obvious interacting forces.

swah 16y ago

This works, sometimes. The other one that works even better is when explain the problem to your dog.

Jun8 16y ago

I think that many such great thinkers have, due to circumstances and early on, have developed (1) a unique, uninhibited way of looking at problems, i.e. not different from what's generally prescribed to entrepreneurs: Consider every possible lead, even if people say it's stupid/has been done, etc. Einstein, famously had difficulty at school as a kid, so he actually thought about many concepts that we take for granted or find silly ("what would happen if I shine a flashlight while riding a bike"). (2) power to concentrate on a problem. When asked how he came up with his solutions Newton said that he thought on the problem until the solution came to him. This sounds simple but embedding yourself in a problem like that is beyond most people's focusing skills (I can't go by 10 minutes without checking HN, for example).

endlessvoid94 16y ago

I think a huge reason Feynman seems so brilliant is because he didn't learn physics or math in a traditional way. He explored. He had passion for it. Not unlike the manner in which many successful hackers learn. Nothing kills your interest in a subject like taking it as a class and getting grades.

fletchowns 16y ago
Nothing kills your interest in a subject like taking it as a class and getting grades. Maybe if you have a terrible teacher. The good teachers did nothing but enhance my interest in a particular subject.
- BCM43 16y ago
  For me, the teachers will enhance my interest, but the grades aspect of it will muffle it. I'm not exactly sure why this is.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
ANH 16y ago
Freeman Dyson got to know Feynman quite well when they were at Cornell after WWII. He described how Feynman refused to take anybody's word for anything, so he spent five years rebuilding quantum mechanics from the ground up in a way he could understand. He wrote that he'd never seen anyone work so hard as Feynman.

jashmenn 16y ago

I once had this taped to the wall of my cube when I worked for a small internet company. One of the C-level employees saw it and loved it. In company meetings when we would be talking about a genuinely hard problem, this exec would say "well what I think we need to do is write this problem on the white board, think real hard, and come up with a solution". Silence + confused looks. This happened multiple times. He ended up being fired within 3 months.

endlessvoid94 16y ago

I can't help but feel like this page does a huge disservice to what he was all about. He wasn't some mystical super brilliant genius. He was a guy who had some particular skills in thinking about problems and communicating them effectively. I have enormous respect for him. Maybe I'm being too sensitive, but it seems like WAY too many things on that page miss the point completely.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
mturmon 16y ago
"mystical" -- no. But "super brilliant genius" -- yes. That's just the best quick way of summarizing it. Alas, this is a "method" for achieving greatness that you or I can't replicate. Feynmann was not "just a guy who had some particular skills in thinking about problems". This is just not accurate. At age 24, his Princeton advisor suggested he join the Manhattan Project. He routinely dazzled the other physicists there, probably the greatest collection of physics talent (Bohr, Oppenheimer, Bethe, Fermi) gathered in one place since the Cavendish Lab in the early 1900s. And that was only the start of his long career.
- endlessvoid94 16y ago
  Yes, I'm not denying that he was unconventionally an incredibly talented physicist. But in the process of figuring out his process (and the processes of lots of 'brilliant' people), we discover that we can't pinpoint exactly WHY or HOW he worked. That's the point. Nobody can. He was a human being and he certainly had flaws, which I imagine he'd be happy to acknowledge. I just dislike putting people onto pedestals like this. If you had hung out with him over a beer, I'm willing to bet you'd be surprised how normal of a person he was.
  - mturmon 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

deleted 16y ago

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deleted 16y ago

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wicknicks 16y ago

Here is what I would prefer to do: 1. Write down the problem. 2. Think real hard. 3. Program the solution. 4. Understand changes caused by the solution. 5. Iterate.

dman 16y ago
I think between 1 and 2 it also helps to talk to other people in your network who might have knowledge / wisdom to share about the problem at hand.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- wicknicks 16y ago
  Would totally add that! Real problems never get solved in isolation.
noonespecial 16y ago
Hmm, I tried it in LISP and did fine until step 4. There were no side effects and it didn't iterate...

dcosson 16y ago

I really like the variation offered by IraCooper on that page, 1. Write down the problem 2. Become convinced it's very important, then think about it 3. Write down the answer My own problem solving attempts are often thwarted by me working for 20 minutes and then getting discouraged and convincing myself that what I'm working on isn't really that important. After which I, of course, waste the next hour watching hour tv or something. If I've heard anything about Feinman it's that he was always deeply interested in everything he did, and his accomplishments reflect it.

DTrejo 16y ago

How to Solve It, by G. Polya http://www.math.utah.edu/~pa/math/polya.html http://www.math.utah.edu/~pa/math/polya.html

billmcneale 16y ago

For people not familiar with Feynman, here is a recent review of one of his story books: http://goo.gl/5QLaG http://goo.gl/5QLaG

phil 16y ago

Reminds me of another classic Feynman/Gell-Mann quote, from Surely You're Joking: Telegdi also sent us a letter, which wasn't exactly scathing, but nevertheless showed he was convinced that our theory was wrong. At the end he wrote, "The F-G (Feynman-Gell-Mann) theory of beta decay is no F-G."

rfzabick 16y ago

I think I remember reading Feynman saying that you should always have 15 or 20 problems that you have percolating in the back of your mind at any given time. Then, any time you learn a new trick or technique, apply it to all of those problems. Sometimes the new technique will work really well on one of those problems and you'll look really smart, but all you did was apply a technique from one person to one of your old problems. I can't find the reference now...

rimantas 16y ago

This must be later version — while a kid he skipped steps 1 and 3 (I am reffering to "He fixes radios by thinking" in Surely You're Joking).

microcentury 16y ago

The story that best illustrates Feynman for me is in Surely You're Joking Mr F (I think - it might be the sequel). On a trip to Japan he insists on going to an area where there is 'nothing to see' rather than the standard tour, and of course discovers a unique and unspoiled part of the country. But even if he hadn't, he would have considered it a win - in another of his stories, he talks about going to bars and waiting for something interesting to happen, knowing that much of the time nothing of note would occur. That drive to keep experiencing something new, and the understanding that the drive would often lead to nothing, is inspirational to me, and I think is what led Feyman to so many interesting things in so many fields.