This man is my science idol. I’ve read all his books including his lectures. I love how he sees the world and is able to explain it. I’m proud to say that I worked where he worked and built upon his labors in my small way.
Awesome. From what I've read about, and from what I've listened to or watched in media that still exists about Feynman, that's exactly what he would be most happy with. That people are still using his work and building upon it. I suggest you ignore the useless political bait from the asshole from 3 months ago (in the comments), and instead answer my question. What did you work on at Los Alamos? I had the good fortune to do an undergrad summer program in nuclear chemistry and the fuel cycle (it was open to other majors, and I was in engineering), but I never went further in the field since then. I've always loved the science and the history of nuclear physics though. Edit: be vague if you need to, I'm not trying to doxx you lol.
Feynman was an empiricist. The Babylonian method he talks about is eerily like the description of heuristic/associative thinking, where pre-analytic processes allow for the formation of sets (the selection and arrangement of ideas in some scenario/experiment). Similarly, Einstein's philosophy of mind emphasized the intuitive selection of ideas, which through deductive evaluation, can derive new laws. His use of 'Greek' and 'Babylonian' is less metaphorical than one might assume, with the former historically emphasizing analysis and induction, and the latter emphasizing empirical type trial and error, and 'whatever seems to work' approach. The 'Babylonian' method creates the framework to an idea (it brings order to a relationship by selecting bits and pieces of principles), and the 'Greek' method pulls away from it (by further abstracting from this framework). I appreciate Feynman, because he understands that a new idea is more than just the process of abstracting away from something, but requires the intuitive attraction (Either through basic Hume type induction or brute force searching) and special arrangement of principles - something that analysis depends on.
I agree with you! And "empiricist'' is a good way of putting it! People like Newton and Einstein were engrossed with discovering the fundamental laws of the universe. Bohr, with his philosophical slant, was engrossed with establishing the fundamental epistemological principles of any physical enquiry. Feynman, on the other hand, seems more concerned with discovering and collecting "empirical principles'' as it were, patterns and regularities that have been repeatedly and frequently encountered in the actual practice of mathematically modeling physical phenomena. Building up a modeler's arsenel of previous successes which, with a bit of luck and a bit of ingenuity, you can find a way to apply, perhaps with slight modifications and generalizations, to fresh modeling problems. Typical problem solver's mentality! He's lecturing to a bunch of students but his ideas of how physicists should think are actually are very radical! Newton and Einstein would have been shocked if they had been in the audience! (And heckled him roundly perhaps!) Einstein said "I want to know God''s thoughts" This bucko is saying "I want to subject God to some psychological tests to uncover His recurring patterns which He Himself may be unaware of"! He also seems convinced that any talk of discovering fundamental principles, even by trial and modification, is not the right way to go about things(because there is too much of a qualitative change in even the nature of these principles with each modification) We may never discover all the laws of the universe, which alone would be the right season to order them as a hierarchy of consequences of some fundamental laws. And even if did discover all the laws of the universe, we wouldn't know that we have! So there is never a good time or reason to hunt for fundamental laws! That is simply a way to restrict our imagination and weigh it down with undue prejudice! Let's instead just get really clever at discovering patterns by practising a lot and making a close and imaginative study of previous successes. He freely admits that this is a prejudice and others may pursue their own way of looking at things and their own priorities. BUT THIS IS HIS WAY! And a charismatic brilliant and influential guy like him probably inspired vast numbers to taking this view of research for ever onwards!
Judy, this makes sense, because set theory forms the foundation of Mathematics. Or used to. Mathematicians have been exploring more fundamental foundations since the late 1950's, in the form of Category Theory.
+geocarey It's weird. That commenter has learnt a bit of Cartesian geometry and just keeps making a fool of himself - with such confidence! There's another guy who is promoting a couple of bogus scientists and there's an anti-Semite. They're all coming out of the woodwork!
2. I'm so glad we have the technology to share videos with people, especially ones that the viewers specifically want to see. Now thanks to services like RU-vid, when I want to learn more about Richard Feynman; see him, hear him, and pick up on the subtleties that make him unique, I can search for more. I can soak up as much as I'm able until I am saturated with the man's personality and I gain a little perspective into what it must be like to see the world through the eyes of this man.
yeah it's nice to have all that. And still, people today are more into anti-scientific regression than they ever were during the 20th Century. Exactly like Sagan feared. How about that.
One problem he didn't mention is that no finite set of axioms can ever be complete, from Godel's Incompleteness Theorems. This basically means that you will always have pathological, 'undecidable' statements, ones that can be true OR false according to your current axioms and only resolvable by adding more. In fact, formal math already ran into this problem and it resulted in at least 2 distinct sets of axioms for set theory that are mutually INCONSISTENT- theorems in 1 are false in another, and vice versa. The ones I know of personally are "ZFC with Axiom of Choice" and "ZFC with Axiom of Determinability". So, Feynman's actually making a stronger argument than you might think. In effect, "Greek" (i.e. axiomatic) mathematical logic offers you infinitely many self-contained and self-consistent logical universes. The entire point of science is to find the one (or one of the subset) that will let you accurately model the entire physical world, and what he's not telling you is that this is an inherently endless task- even if we had a theory that perfectly described every experiment ever done for the last 10,000 years, we'd still never be able to be certain that we truly had no more to discover.
The best comment of all...perfectly describes the methodical difference between exploring the limits of a theorem and finding the best fitting theorem. Yet this comment got no recognition. Only the self-entitled, arrogant, half educated a**holes, who call Feynman stupid based on their limited view of science, only those receive hundreds of replies.
Goedel's theorem isn't actually much of a hindrance to physics for a few reasons. Off the top of my head, one reason is that there are axiomatic systems and logics to which the theorem doesn't apply and that can be sufficient for physics, another is that physics doesn't need the full strength of standard set theory and real analysis, which make assumptions that are not necessarily even physically plausible.
Mathematics and logic are languages invented my mankind to try to describe some abstract concepts relating to the universe. Physics is the systematic attempt to describe the behaviour of the universe in terms of these mathematical and logical langauges. The universe is what it is and *not* how the physics says - remember that physics is *descriptive* and not *prescriptive* and presents a model of the universe, albeit a very - and increasingly - precise one, but it is still nonetheless just a model, and *not* how the universe "actually" is - whatever that means. That there are problems with mathematics and logic, such as with Goedel's theroem or even with the paradoxes with logic and set theory that so occupied Russell etc, doesn't mean that physics can't work. It might mean that there are limits in how fundamental our physical understanding can be in terms of the tools we use to understand them, but the universe continues to be how it is, and we continue to be able to describe it quite accurately, because our tools were invented to describe it. The fact that we have no word for a particular object, (a gap in the language) does not mean that we can not describe that object. This is what physcis and maths are. Perhaps in the future someone will invent some new forms of maths and logic that do not have these problems, and perhaps they never will, but the fact remains that all we have is the universe and how it behaves, so in that sense, we do indeed deduce the axioms from the observed "laws" - all we have are observation and the universe, so in a real sense you can see that what Feynman is saying is in fact true.
I don’t think there will ever be another Feynman. But rightly so. The man was truly unique for his time and a gift upon the minds of millions. These days, Professor Brian Cox and Dr. NdGT are doing a stellar job of communicating science to the masses. My only gripe (and I’m sorry to say) is that NdGT doesn’t support private space-exploration enterprise -namely SpaceX; he only gets behind national institutions. A real shame that a mind so inquisitive about the cosmos as his is so bound down by such a sorry and paltry nationalism.
1. I feel terrible that I lived for 10 years of Richard's life but I didn't learn about him until after he'd passed away. I read all the biographies and bibliographies of scientists, physicists, chemists and astronomers more specifically, that were available in my Junior High and High School libraries, but neither had a book on Feynman. I even recall him being the man that figured out why the challenger exploded but that was all I knew about him until maybe 10 years after he'd passed away.
Alot of the top physicist are excellent teachers / speakers. Two things that harm their talks 1: many people do not want to hear the truth and 2: many people do not want to hear "we do not know "
The point of the Greek approach is to find the smallest, simplest set of points or axioms from which you can derive everything else, like basis vectors for a space. When you pare the entire set of ideas down to that smallest, simplest set, it contains the essential nature of the entire space of ideas it explains. This may not be useful for solving practical problems, but it can reveal new insights and deeper understanding.
I agree that 'Babylonian' approach to physics can be useful for practical use, but it is not true for every kind of physics. In fact, Feynman spoke about this very thing in a different lecture. He said that if there are two theories or two approaches that yield the same predictions, conforming to reality to the same degree, then a professional physicist should keep both theories in mind, even though he might prefer the philosophical implications and ease of use of one of the theories. That is because you can never know if a new superior theory is easier to derive from one of the existing two or the other.
I'm pretty sure this is from the exact same lecture, and indeed is exactly what he was advocating in the "Babylonian" approach: don't derive theories from a set of narrow well-defined axioms, but try and derive all theories from each other simultaneously. With the example he gave which you reference regarding the three ways of viewing (classical) gravitation, his point was that, even though it's possible to mathematically derive the other 2 from any one of them, it's important to not prioritise any one of them as the "true" or "axiomatic" law (treating the other 2 as simply derivations), but to treat them as co-equal interlinked truths which form part of that "Babylonian" *web* of ideas ( rather than a "Greek" *tree*)
If you have two theories that explain reality you choose the one that requires less "extraordinary" agents, see Occam's Razor. Sure still keep both in mind...
Pozzaa90 in these cases there isn't a meaningful difference in those terms. Occam's razor usually applies in a situation one theory has some "unnecessary moving parts" which another doesn't. Feynman is referring to a system in which all theories adequately describe the phenomenon equally accurately, are more or less equally complex, and (to our knowledge) cannot be simplified further. The question of which should be treated as fundamental is therefore simply an aesthetic one, and Feynman advocates that in the case of Physics we ought not to choose at all.
Yes yes. You do not cut the interpretation of a theory with OR. You cut between different theories. I was answering to OP, and maybe not even completely getting his point.
I always learned better (and to apply it to other things) by learning the "idea" or "way of thinking" than memorizing something. I think that is basically what he is saying.
Mweh. First: transistors existed when this lecture was given. Second: the principle of RAID is very simple. The fact that it may be more effective to use many cheap failing drives rather than a single reliable expensive drive was more an engineering economics related observation rather than a theoretical discovery.
Why do i get the feeling this thread is being trolled by people threatened by someones understanding of physics, 50+ years ago, because they are too stupid to listen, in order to understand, idk im drunk but it sounds like," i dont understand, so ill talk down to this, even though i dont have enough education on the subject to know what im talking down to."
I remember my first class that used Feynman's lectures on quantum physics. In my mind, I had this preconceived image of Feynman. When I first saw a video of him lecturing, I couldn't believe it. This genius sounded like a taxi cab driver from the Bronx! It's funny how we learn about our prejudices.
I am still prejudiced against the way the "ruling class" in England pronounce the words. It''s slovenly. They leave out important consonants, especially 'h', in where, when, loch, and Buchan. Hardly anybody pronounces the 'h' in Tehran, but the papers used to spell it Teheran. I was utterly delighted to learn, when Fred Hoyle introduced his science fiction series "A For Andromeda" on BBC TV, that he, a scientific genius, a Cambridge graduate and Fellow of the Royal Society, had held on to his Yorkshire accent.
I use math when I study cultures, and languages. Everything is connected, like he said it doesn't matter where you start. Study long enough and it all comes together.
Best way to understand Feynman diagrams is to listen to Feynman himself, so he developed his set of theorems from Babylonian mathematics. Question is, why this can't be done Greek way, quantum particles should be tinny axioms by definition. I like how he described motion of solar system bodies, whole system has some definite mass, but relations between those masses inside are changed by motion, causing interplay of space time effects. It's very hard to distinguish effects of gravity from other emerged and relative forces.
Can anyone point me in the direction of references which might explain, geographically and/or historically, why the differences may have risen? Mythology, interactions, trade..?
Curiously enough, his description of the "Babylonian" method is comparable to models of how ego-formation is hypothesized to take place each day upon awakening ... forgotten stuff gets filled in by relative position in the structure and heuristics that describe the relations of the memories.
Cherie A. Nice, people don't understand how turn of the century physics and math were influenced by the ideas of phenomenological methods and how it was an acknoledgement of our anthropocentrism.
What he says is absolutely true: a lot of what passes for axioms, theorems, etc. are just arbitrary stopping points along the way. Makes you think that all mathematical expressions are reducible to graph theory.
Princess Bubblee Interesting when you say that - guess you could create visible maps. With dots representing statements and arrows representing dependence of statements. But the surprising thing of math is when something is dependent on something else seemingly weaker, which happens all the time.
Feynman was always running into very bright scientists who were so tied up in a rigid understanding of mathematics they would not solve real-life problems.
@@sirrathersplendid4825 People who spend their lives on such pursuits as perfecting the art of tying shoelaces simply don't have the time left for science.
@@khandmo According to the very video that you're commenting on, it's not "supposed" to be either way. You can start with either and work your way to the other; it is meaningless to define one or the other as the base.
Albert Rogers I think that Feynman's observation "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics" is a proper version of the commandment that tells you not to think you know enough about ultimate reality to make any kind of picture of it. Yeah, that's the Second Commandment. It also contains the self-evident truth that you should not worship false Gods, which is why I'm an atheist.
If Feynman had not been on the Challenger investigation team, would we not know about the rubber 'O' rings, just as we don't know the reason why the Hubble mirror was curved as a spy satellite mirror might be (focused at the ground, rather than infinity)? (My theory is that, as they were using their CAD program, and they came to a line that asked the orbital height of the satellite, they didn't pause to wonder why the program was asking for that information. Instead, they called the astronomer-in-charge and asked for the orbital height.)
Nigel Smith Yup, Feynman said if you can't explain something to a lay person in language they would understand then you don't really understand it yourself.
Feynman shows time and time again that clear basic thinking, especially about the outcome of a proposed explanation, always wins over sophistry with definitions and terms.
Science like physics is discovered by gathering data and examples and then induction is added later to generalize, and then the inducted laws can then imply new consequences that can be tested, and things that looked chaotic now have a relation that might be too subtle to find by example. Often education presents the theory as the start and you can more quickly get to answers and have trust they are true. But if you can’t test your answers, you may have horrible false conclusions, conclusions that you’d not have made if you had built up your answer by many examples. Still, top down theory can also collapse false generalizations as well, and hard earned. knowledge in one field can challenge a related one in new ways. So we need both, bottom up and top down.
This is enlightening. A brilliant mind such as Feynman's making such little communicative sense purely because the medium of 'the lecture' is inefficient. Compare this to any 'average' educational RU-vidr and you realise the necessity to rid universities and schools of lectures and move towards online multi-sensory education systems.
As a physicist, I appreciate Feynman's point on a deep level. However, the title does not do the idea justice. The ancient Greeks used "reasoning", not the scientific method.
Well, the Greeks were certainly influenced by the Persian's spears and swords. However, it is true that many people trace the beginnings of mathematics to Thales of Miletus, and Miletus was located in what is now modern day Turkey. This was before the Persians conquered the area, and in fact, Thales died just a year or two before that happened.
The real flourishing of mathematics in Persian countries didn't happen until after the fall of the Greeks. There we saw many great mathematicians, such as Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi who is credited with the invention of Algebra.
As Henry- Jules Poincaré Has Said Intuitive Mathematics Is Logical And Logical Mathematics Is Intuitive By Means Mathematician By Intuition Is Logical And Mathematician By Logic Is Intuitive The Value Of Science To Review
I asked my calc professor if math is a science or an art. He said it starts as science and becomes art. - Just like everything. In my old age I realize math is a language. We don't even have all the words.
In reality, for the ancient Greeks, axioms weren't arbitrary like they are for us today. Axioms in the classical sense were simply premises that no one deny based on their *common human experience*.
maybe he is right, but without the greek mathematics you will never learn enought mathematics, in order to be able to use them in physics, so what´s the deal??? babylonian mathematics may work for an absolute beginner, but when it gets more complicated, you need a system, in order to learn and remember everything...
Exactly I believe its not so rigid.. We fail to look at the simple connections we read in mathdictionaires and say "ok" that's right well ill just stop their ... But we need to decompose and run the other way with these rigid theories and beliefs and observe nature again... Then take a look in the past and wonder why people lived hundreds of years longer was it an actual lapse of time ... Or was it just percieved because numeric and time was distinguished.... Time didnt exist...time creates friction .. And while fluctuating the time....and by always being sure your watch is the on real time...we start to believe we have 24 hours in a day..?(bullshit) I beliEve other wise..ancient days only denoted the day light as day I believe making it only 12 maybe 15 HR. Days .. They slept less .. Weren't bored ... In the moment of the moment, to sieze the moment.. They're mind had to be equipped to recognize an opportunity and make a way....natural selection...in one accord with mother nature....if we never tallied time. Lived in the moment ..didn't tally time by the millisecond...that means everything we'd do be perfect because time wouldnt be a factor to friction .....fact or fiction? We would be younger.if I'm 24 id be 12 or sum thing...that's how powerful the mind works..... U get 7 billion people to believe there is 24 hours in a day. Then it eventually starts to happen ... Idk man just a theory ive been trigging on
Francisco Reyes It is an "Old Bronx" accent. Listen to Howard Cosell, Tony Curtis, Harvey Keitel, and Regis Philbin. You'll pick up some of the same intonations. The accent of Feynman, once fairly common, is going away as the mix of people and classes is no longer the same.
His point at 8:40 makes no muscle a skater uses to create “conservation of angular momentum” IS CREATING it’s own GRAVITY anyways….so it isn’t different as the Sun doing this at a much larger scale.
I'm a very smart guy, but, after awhile, Feynman started to sound like Professor Irwin Corey to me. Damn. How could his brain stand being inside such a little head?
