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Learn Anything Faster With The Feynman Technique (2012)

50 points by zbravo 13y ago

crystaln 13y ago
TLDR: Learn what you're trying to learn well enough that you can write it in your own words. Feynman was wonderfully intelligent, but I'm not sure he deserves to be named the inventor learning.
asafira 13y ago
As a current physics PhD student, I'd like to mention that this is exactly how I've gone through my educational career. In physics, such simple terms go a long long way, and to this day I still fall back on very simple ideas to understand sophisticated systems (e.g., "Well, there is positive charge here, so negative charge would want to get close to it", etc.). Many papers and many people make things seem far more complicated than they are. Personally, I am a huge fan of using colloquial language in describing things, as I think it makes things far easier to parse and get something out of it that you feel comfortable with. I've seen a lot of success in my teaching, too, largely because of my effort to keep things colloquial and down-to-earth. Too many teachers fall into the trap of not falling back on things students are comfortable with when students are not understanding the material (or, hell, maybe the teachers aren't particularly comfortable with the subject matter). A huge part of my success as a teacher is exactly that I try to see where the students' train of logic gets derailed and take a step back in how abstract the explanation is there while also providing ample motivation for that sort of thinking. Lastly, I wanted to recommend a great resource for learning specifically physics from a guy that is fantastic at explaining things in simple terms: Walter Lewin. Walter Lewin is a professor at MIT, and has incredible video-recorded lectures on electricity and magnetism (the class is 8.02). if you have an ounce of interest, go watch some --- you won't regret it.
- greenyoda 13y ago
  Here's the link to Lewin's lecture videos: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-02-electricity-and-magnetism-spring-2002/video-lectures/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-02-electricity-and-magn...
- crusso 13y ago
  Many papers and many people make things seem far more complicated than they are cough wikipedia cough
  - iLoch 13y ago
    Many professors love making their students feel dumb for some reason.
    - reeses 13y ago
      You can generalize that to "many people love making less experienced or knowledgable people feel dumb." Feel free to add qualifiers such as "experts", "position of authority", "newcomers", and "it's tradition!"
  - junkblocker 13y ago
    Wikipedia tries to be precise. For simplicity, you can look at the simple.wikipedia.org pages when available. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque vs https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque . Most people aren't aware of this.
tbarbugli 13y ago
this works great for me!
vubuntu 13y ago
This is how I have intuitively learnt pretty much everything that I know so far. Didn't know there is a name to this technique. The only way to know that I understood something properly, is to try to explain it in my own words/vocabulary/analogies. Mostly I would be thinking out loud to myself or writing down/drawing flow chart etc, during such 'absorb info & explain' phase. Sometimes sounding off to a friend or colleague also helps.

50 points by zbravo 13y ago

TLDR: Learn what you're trying to learn well enough that you can write it in your own words. Feynman was wonderfully intelligent, but I'm not sure he deserves to be named the inventor learning.

asafira 13y ago

As a current physics PhD student, I'd like to mention that this is exactly how I've gone through my educational career. In physics, such simple terms go a long long way, and to this day I still fall back on very simple ideas to understand sophisticated systems (e.g., "Well, there is positive charge here, so negative charge would want to get close to it", etc.). Many papers and many people make things seem far more complicated than they are. Personally, I am a huge fan of using colloquial language in describing things, as I think it makes things far easier to parse and get something out of it that you feel comfortable with. I've seen a lot of success in my teaching, too, largely because of my effort to keep things colloquial and down-to-earth. Too many teachers fall into the trap of not falling back on things students are comfortable with when students are not understanding the material (or, hell, maybe the teachers aren't particularly comfortable with the subject matter). A huge part of my success as a teacher is exactly that I try to see where the students' train of logic gets derailed and take a step back in how abstract the explanation is there while also providing ample motivation for that sort of thinking. Lastly, I wanted to recommend a great resource for learning specifically physics from a guy that is fantastic at explaining things in simple terms: Walter Lewin. Walter Lewin is a professor at MIT, and has incredible video-recorded lectures on electricity and magnetism (the class is 8.02). if you have an ounce of interest, go watch some --- you won't regret it.

greenyoda 13y ago
Here's the link to Lewin's lecture videos: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-02-electricity-and-magnetism-spring-2002/video-lectures/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-02-electricity-and-magn...
crusso 13y ago
Many papers and many people make things seem far more complicated than they are cough wikipedia cough
- iLoch 13y ago
  Many professors love making their students feel dumb for some reason.
  - reeses 13y ago
    You can generalize that to "many people love making less experienced or knowledgable people feel dumb." Feel free to add qualifiers such as "experts", "position of authority", "newcomers", and "it's tradition!"
- junkblocker 13y ago
  Wikipedia tries to be precise. For simplicity, you can look at the simple.wikipedia.org pages when available. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque vs https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque . Most people aren't aware of this.

tbarbugli 13y ago

this works great for me!

vubuntu 13y ago

This is how I have intuitively learnt pretty much everything that I know so far. Didn't know there is a name to this technique. The only way to know that I understood something properly, is to try to explain it in my own words/vocabulary/analogies. Mostly I would be thinking out loud to myself or writing down/drawing flow chart etc, during such 'absorb info & explain' phase. Sometimes sounding off to a friend or colleague also helps.