4 ms·
Hmm. The closest I can find is this: "Once I asked him to explain to me, so that I can understand it, why spin-1/2 particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics. Gaugi
by happyscrappy 12y ago
Hmm. The closest I can find is this:
"Once I asked him to explain to me, so that I can understand it, why spin-1/2 particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics. Gauging his audience perfectly, he said, "I'll prepare a freshman lecture on it." But a few days later he came to me and said: "You know, I couldn't do it. I couldn't reduce it to the freshman level. That means we really don't understand it." David L. Goodstein, "Richard P. Feynman, Teacher," Physics Today, volume 42, number 2, February 1989, p. 70-75, at p. 75
- snowwrestler 12y agoI think Feynman is drawing a distinction between being able to calculate an accurate prediction, and "understanding" things intuitively enough to describe with plain English.