3 ms·

there are two kinds of geniuses: the “ordinary” and the “magicians.” An ordinary genius is a fellow that you and I would be just as good as, if we were only man

by p1esk 4y ago

there are two kinds of geniuses: the “ordinary” and the “magicians.” An ordinary genius is a fellow that you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what he has done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different with the magicians. They are, to use mathematical jargon, in the orthogonal complement of where we are and the working of their minds is for all intents and purposes incomprehensible. Even after we understand what they have done, the process by which they have done it is completely dark. They seldom, if ever, have students because they cannot be emulated and it must be terribly frustrating for a brilliant young mind to cope with the mysterious ways in which the magician’s mind works. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest caliber https://www.comesaunter.com/2008/07/mark-kac-on-the-two-kinds-of-geniuses.html https://www.comesaunter.com/2008/07/mark-kac-on-the-two-kind...

sigmoid10 4y ago
From OP's link: >What Penrose and many other physicists didn't realize was the reason that accounted for Feynman's quickness on many matters in physics. Feynman thought about some of these areas in great depth and for long periods of time. A topic like quantum gravity would be one that Feynman had spent countless hours thinking about. It wasn't all off the cuff. This is also beautifully laid out across many examples in Feynman's book. His incredible reasoning abilities were not magic, they would merely appear so to the uninitiated. Like all magic tricks, there was a very reasonable, down to earth explanation behind them. In his case, he was simply a physicist that lived and breathed for his job and for any question you could ask him, there was a good chance that he already spent quite some time pondering it in private.
- p1esk 4y ago
  I’m pretty sure the way people like Feynman “ponder about” things is very different from how normal people (like an average physicist) ponder about things. Probably similar to how we could compare me playing tennis and Roger Federer playing tennis. No matter how much I practice I will not approach that level.
  - 082349872349872 4y ago
    Federer didn't get there alone, btw. He originally wanted to play some other sport (football?) but when he got to the national training centre, somebody there said "you know, you'd make a decent $(SPORT)er, but you'll make an excellent tennis player".
  - sigmoid10 4y ago
    That's what a lot of people believe who don't know how he actually does it. But in his book he describes it pretty well. He doesn't think in different, contrived ways or is somehow able to visualize higher dimensions or whatever. He just spent a lot of time working on problems until he could break them down to easily understandable components. This is like thinking a computer algebra system is wicked smart for being able to solve tricky undergrad integrals. But if you ever learn how it works, it turns out that it's not superhuman at all. It just a huge accumulation of basic knowledge and heuristics - i.e. a result of hard work. For sports this is a bit different, since you will hit genetic limits pretty fast once you approach the top. A 5'5 volleyball player will never be competitive on standard net heights. But from experiments by people like Polgár, we know that e.g. a chess prodigy is mostly about starting early and then keeping motivation and persistence. Some would argue that genetics still play a big role through IQ, but even here Feynman serves as a counter-example: As a student he was denied membership in Mensa for not passing their IQ test. Success is a combination of hard work and luck. It is certainly not "magic." That's just a lazy fallback and rationalization used by people for things they do not understand.
    - p1esk 4y ago
      It’s not just “people who don’t know how he actually does it”, it’s people who themselves are distinguished physicists (like Mark Kac in my quote) - they call Feynman “a magician“. There have been a lot of smart people who work hard at physics. Most achieve some degree of success, but very few reach the genius level. I agree luck is important (being born in the right family, having right teachers in school, etc), but the main ingredient is a raw talent. Again, no amount of luck and hard work would turn you into a genius if you weren’t born with the necessary mental capacity.

by p1esk 4y ago

sigmoid10 4y ago

From OP's link: >What Penrose and many other physicists didn't realize was the reason that accounted for Feynman's quickness on many matters in physics. Feynman thought about some of these areas in great depth and for long periods of time. A topic like quantum gravity would be one that Feynman had spent countless hours thinking about. It wasn't all off the cuff. This is also beautifully laid out across many examples in Feynman's book. His incredible reasoning abilities were not magic, they would merely appear so to the uninitiated. Like all magic tricks, there was a very reasonable, down to earth explanation behind them. In his case, he was simply a physicist that lived and breathed for his job and for any question you could ask him, there was a good chance that he already spent quite some time pondering it in private.

p1esk 4y ago
I’m pretty sure the way people like Feynman “ponder about” things is very different from how normal people (like an average physicist) ponder about things. Probably similar to how we could compare me playing tennis and Roger Federer playing tennis. No matter how much I practice I will not approach that level.
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  Federer didn't get there alone, btw. He originally wanted to play some other sport (football?) but when he got to the national training centre, somebody there said "you know, you'd make a decent $(SPORT)er, but you'll make an excellent tennis player".
- sigmoid10 4y ago
  That's what a lot of people believe who don't know how he actually does it. But in his book he describes it pretty well. He doesn't think in different, contrived ways or is somehow able to visualize higher dimensions or whatever. He just spent a lot of time working on problems until he could break them down to easily understandable components. This is like thinking a computer algebra system is wicked smart for being able to solve tricky undergrad integrals. But if you ever learn how it works, it turns out that it's not superhuman at all. It just a huge accumulation of basic knowledge and heuristics - i.e. a result of hard work. For sports this is a bit different, since you will hit genetic limits pretty fast once you approach the top. A 5'5 volleyball player will never be competitive on standard net heights. But from experiments by people like Polgár, we know that e.g. a chess prodigy is mostly about starting early and then keeping motivation and persistence. Some would argue that genetics still play a big role through IQ, but even here Feynman serves as a counter-example: As a student he was denied membership in Mensa for not passing their IQ test. Success is a combination of hard work and luck. It is certainly not "magic." That's just a lazy fallback and rationalization used by people for things they do not understand.
  - p1esk 4y ago
    It’s not just “people who don’t know how he actually does it”, it’s people who themselves are distinguished physicists (like Mark Kac in my quote) - they call Feynman “a magician“. There have been a lot of smart people who work hard at physics. Most achieve some degree of success, but very few reach the genius level. I agree luck is important (being born in the right family, having right teachers in school, etc), but the main ingredient is a raw talent. Again, no amount of luck and hard work would turn you into a genius if you weren’t born with the necessary mental capacity.