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Comment by techwind | Hacker News Reader

I think it's a little bit of fun implying there's more than one solution to a given problem

Agreed, but that is why I'm ... basically complaining, I suppose. Feynman's reputation was never "dude who comes up with lots of solutions". Invoking Feynman is for when:

* There is a difference between the name of the thing and what it does (very much his style).

* When bureaucracy is disconnected from physical reality (alluding to the Challenger incident).

* When a blisteringly intelligent person can just get it right by thinking from first principles (dude was wicked smart).

Which is why the original article cited [0] worked so well. Feynman's name was being invoked for someone who immediately and insightfully tore the pro-forma question apart as having a faulty premise where the name of the thing didn't imply it was round. It is still words in his mouth, but that is on character for Feynman stereotypes.

Throwing out lots of ideas that don't quite work isn't really a good time to invoke the name.

[0] http://sellsbrothers.com/12395

Maybe a bit overdone, but I think in between lines the interviee well knows the intended solution to the question and is just toying with the interviewer to make a point, much like a cat playing with a barely dead mouse

I couldn't interpret it any other way, really. The interviewer is asking the interviewee to be "clever", but the cleverness of the interviewee is to choose a common-sense solution and expose the artificiality of the questions, thus the low quality of the interview. (Common sense solutions should usually be the first choice, after all.)

There are often infinitely many solutions. Part of the fun of science is figuring out a solution that satisfies all of the constraints of experiment.

While the constraints in this puzzle are artificial, from what I've read of Feynman, it seems more likely he would engage with it and welcome the constraints.

I do like the part about asking the details of the electrical system's wiring though. That part is spot on.

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