"It's not quite true that Feynman could not accept an idea until he had torn it apart. Rather, the idea could not yet be part of his way of thinking and looking

"It's not quite true that Feynman could not accept an idea until he had torn it apart. Rather, the idea could not yet be part of his way of thinking and looking at the world. Before an idea could contribute to that worldview, Feynman wanted to turn over the idea, to see why it was true, from any angle that he could find...In other words, he wanted to connect a new idea to what he already understood and thereby extend his understanding." Perspective is the key to genius. Feynman wanted to understand problem from all angles and understand why something was true, not just that it merely was true. Your perspective is your answer to "Why?" (see http://jamesthornton.com/blog/how-to-get-to-genius http://jamesthornton.com/blog/how-to-get-to-genius). His approach resulted in a tight mental framework that enabled him to connect new ideas and build upon insights from the outside in -- breadth before depth.