Study Tips from Richard Feynman
piggsboson.medium.com
piggsboson.medium.com
But people often also forget that there is another method associated with Feynman aka The Feynman Algorithm (which was outlined by his colleague Murray Gell-Mann, a noble prize winning physicist himself). This method goes as follows:
1. Write down the problem. 2. Think real hard. 3. Write the solution.
Not to discount or discredit anything (or anyone) here but we must understand that Feynman was no average person and that his advice on anything related to learning or problem-solving must be viewed through an optics that adequately adjusts for his intellect as well.
1. load my brain with all the context of the problem
2. go out for a run, which bounces it all around in my brain until things fall into place
3. write the solution when I get back
If there's no one around, try explaining it to yourself. An easy method to determine whether you superficially understood a topic or not. After reading some material, it's remarkable how little of it you've truly understood sometimes.
We generally sat opposite each other at a table drinking tea and eating biscuits while describing our problems to each other. Neither of us ever really said much about the other person's problems, we certainly didn't attempt to offer any real solutions, but it was striking how many problems that had seemed intractable before the tea break were trivially soluble afterward.
We were designing and programming embedded controllers in the early '80s.
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Are you willing to put in the time
to learn to throw the ball faster,
even if it takes hours and hours of
throwing that ball over and over again?
Or will you say that it's only for those who
are good at throwing the ball very fast
and submit voluntarily to being average?
I.e Study hard, Teach it to others, Identify the gaps in your own knowledge, and Simplify/Synthesize.
THEN 1. Write down the problem. 2. Think real hard. 3. Write the solution.
If a problem seems intractable, return to the first process.
Also, remember that Feynman also spent weeks at play with problems that interested him. Do that too. Be kind to yourself.
I always took it as a dig at the way Feynman liked to make out that ideas just came naturally to him, when in fact (as Murray would have known) Feynman had to put the work in the same as everyone else, even if he was a genius.
I think we'd have better thinkers in the future if we put more focus on refining abilities in kids like visualization of problems, or giving them different tactics to approach things they don't understand.
I wonder about this a little. Let's assume the premise, Feynman was "no average person". To what extent is this explained by the hardware, as it were, between his ears and to what extent the software he was running? The way he approached puzzles, problems and so on throughout his life from a very early age influencing the functioning of that hardware? It seems to me he had some impressive sounding intellectual programming going on, much of which he was doing himself, when I listen to his stories of his childhood.
Michael Jordan was pretty good at a particular sport. He was "no ordinary person" and obviously so - he's 6 ft 7 or so which makes him an outlier in just that one dimension of his genetics, ie his hardware (and no doubt some others too, just that one is measurable in a clear and obvious way). If I wanted to play "like Mike" I can forget about it and there was nothing I could have done or that could have been done for me, or to me while I was growing up and after that would make any meaningful difference. Is that statement true of every single person reading this comment? I am in no way discounting Michael Jordan's work ethic, competitive drive & basketball decision making study and genius, I'm just noting if I had all those and had them to a greater extent that Jordan (if such a thing is possible - I have no clue) I still would not play like him, I had literally zero chance.
Is the same true of Feynman? I don't think it's a question that can be answered with anything much more than "belief" and prejudice. Psychology is probably the academic field that might address this and the question is too complex & sophisticated to get a good answer so much so that we have seen rather a lot of utterly discredited, appallingly bad answers that have gained traction over the years. Too many factors that cannot be controlled for. Too much that cannot be measured. Given that, if we believe Feynman had the genetics the way Jordan did as a necessary condition of whatever we're calling success, and it's reasonable to believe that, we still must have a doubt about it.
Beyond that, we don't know how many other humans have or had a "Jordan like" body who did not go on to his levels of achievement and if there are any or many, why they did not which would tell us something about the worth of potentially controllable factors - eg training & study. And yet when we try to achieve something with our physical strength, stamina and so on, listening to Jordan on his training regime is probably useful - unless you're getting something equally good, somewhere else (which is very readily available). Physical training regimes seem to have had a lot of work put into their analysis and we can probably all talk meaningfully about some aspects of achieving better physical fitness than we currently have. Is the same true for training our brains? Listening to anyone who has done impressive things with their brain on the topic of how they prepared seems quite worthwhile to me. Contextualizing their thoughts also seems worthwhile. We genuinely do not /know/ what makes a person into someone with Feynman's intellectual abilities. So as far as listening and trying what he recommends? What else do you have? Why do you think it's better? What is he recommending that would only work for someone with better hardware between their ears that we have? How could we get meaningful metrics on any of it if we can at all?
But putting jokes aside - we know for sure that there are conditions that limits brains capacity to learn. Be it genetical, environmental or acquired through some events (if I hit You hard enough with metal rod at right spot at head there will be some possibility for You to loose ability to retain memory). And its quite for me to believe that this conditions are discrete - I would expect some continuity.
>>We genuinely do not /know/ what makes a person into someone with Feynman's intellectual abilities.
We don't event know what makes people learn to think critically (a opposed to learn just to repeat facts ad verbum). If You look at debates of education specialists in my country all You can see is people that try to create some giant sieves that will pick up students that are worth investing in and throw out others.
So while brains can and do develop new connections, there is likely a non-linear effect of having “better” connections by default.
I wasn't planning to work on models of fundamental physics.
Defining the problem can be a task in itself. So write it down.
Think hard. If you aren't willing to sweat and endure mental pain, then it isn't a problem. It's an exercise.
Write it down. Here is where the biggest gap lies in the algorithm. Usually a solution in your head isn't a solution and writing will reveal that. So there is a feedback loop between thinking and writing.
All of these are good, but obviously they don't help much beyond the obvious. It probably advantaged Feynman to create a mystique around his problem solving tactics. Which is why it is probably so obvious.
That's sums it up pretty well.
When I was younger, I liked working in software. It was fun, and interesting, but did I "love" it? Honestly I don't think so.
Looking back on my time as a student, I can't think of any subject that I loved so much that that studying was something I wanted to do. It was always a chore, always something I did because it was a means to getting to a point in life where I didn't have to do it anymore.
Now, at halfway through my 50s, I would not be able to answer the standard interview question "what are you passionate about?" Nothing comes to mind. Everything I do day-to-day is either stuff that I need to do to pay the bills and support my family, or is in some way procrastinating on stuff that isn't yet so urgent that I have to do it.
I think people like Feynman are born with a burning passion for learning that most people just don't have.
I try to make up for it with my own children by sending them to regular school, but then encouraging them to self-teach the things that interest them.
I'm sorry that you are unsatisfied in your work. Perhaps if it were economically viable, a long sabbatical would allow you to find more meaning in your life and perhaps a new career. I wish we could all do that when nescessary.
...created by/for those who are trying to get it, not by those who did.
That's the universal trap.
> people like Feynman are born with a burning passion for learning that most people just don't have.
I am not sure about that. I'd say most people lose sight of their true passion. Mine happened to be programming, which now helps me pay my bills. But I'd be screwed if my true passion was drawing...
Wait, I used to love drawing, until I took drawing "lessons".
> Now, at halfway through my 50s, I would not be able to answer the standard interview question "what are you passionate about?"
I once heard this logic which did guide me a lot : if you were older (say 80), what would yo regret not having even tried ? If you haven't even tried, let's try.
I would imagine it would be the same answer as today: nothing comes to mind. I honestly cannot think of anything that I regret never trying. I mean, it seems almost tautological. If I had that much of a drive and/or passion for something, I would have tried it or be doing it.
What do you mean by 'trap'. Its something people have to do no?
That means that for now, a philosophically resigned stance combined if you're contributing to research with curiosity to motivate you rather than an expectation of any results, is the most appropriate stance as far as anyone knows.
Then he also studied math and then won the Putnum. How would he have gone without doing all that "non-study" about problem solving and looking at problems from different ways and just doing math quite well? Maybe he was so brilliant he still would have won? I suspect not. How many others sitting for the Putnum had done similar amounts of the same quality work by way of preparation?
Genius? Or learned and honed? Both? In what proportions? Whatever I think about it is "Just like my opinion, man." Right?
Yes, you tend to get good at what gives you a buzz, in a compounding way. But I expect 'buzz' isn't random, either: it'd make sense for personality formation to notice when you show talent at something valued by some of the people around you, and flip some motivational switches in your developing mind. This seems like a better bet for your genes than trying to engineer your motivation and talent towards a common target separately.
You can't just train to win the Putnam if you don't have the talents. Have you ever sat and worked problems with someone exceptional in that area? Try it if you get the chance. The variation in ability will blow you away.
With physical abilities this is more accepted but I don’t see a reason why mental capabilities would be any different. Some people just have more powerful brains by birth. You can achieve a lot by exercise and discipline but some people can achieve higher levels than others.
I have been around many many many smart people. So many of them seem naturally gifted. It's effortless how easily they solve things. But if you hang around long enough, it's also impressive when they reveal their magic: they just used so-and-so's technique from some discipline I've never heard of. Oh. Of course! How easy, when you put it that way.
How long did it take them to read, digest, and master all those techniques? Hard to say. Nobody followed them around with a stopwatch 24x7x365 for years.
So, lacking data, I fall back to antecdotes. I personally know very intimately a handful of valedictorian smartest person in the room type people. The kind that everyone knows is just naturally smart. I know their family life intimately. I know that none of it came without enormous time and effort.
We have the testimony of the man himself about the price he paid. I'd be interested in anyone at his level in any endevour who claimed they were just born with it.
I do believe that different people are born with different abilities. But I have seen those "smartest person in the room" people fail elementary math, then spend 100s of hours drilling flash cards to master simple arithmetic tables. I have seen them with reading (I hate the word disabilities) challenges spend 10 years reading 100s of books, then get perfect scores on college entrance exams. I have seen in person some poor child spend 3 hours every single night for a year to master 5 spelling words a week. Just to be average. Then have people think they were born knowing the dictionary.
I believe that if you randomly choose any 20 students from any elementary school in the United States and let me select 10 people from that group, then subject them to what I have seen... those students will graduate high school with perfect grades and nearly perfect standardized test scores. I am certain of it. But I do not condone doing such a thing.
Of course, that doesn't make them Feynman. But I believe Feynman when he says that he was once ordinary and that time and effort transformed him.
I also believe the smartest people also come with a different family/life background that is unknowingly supportive in ways they cannot explain, quantify or teach others to be.
I was valedictorian. That might be achievable through work. Fair enough. But that's nothing compared to what top-tier minds can do.
I also had a childhood friend who tested 4 standard deviations out on a psychologist administered IQ test in high school. We had similar backgrounds. We sometimes "tied" in grades, but there is a huge gaping ability gap between me and him. You cannot study your way to that level. The raw throughput, creativity, and abstract conceptual ability cannot be achieved through practice. Maybe you have to see it yourself to believe it.
And really this shouldn't surprise us. There is huge variation in athletic talent, and anyone can see it. Why should our brains be different?
In my opinion, learning how to learn is nuanced and operator specific. Lots of us are in the long tail of people for who highlighting, skimming, Anki, etc makes no difference. So, the advise from Feynman and generally I usually find is insufficiently meta — or overly first order if you prefer.
You’ll get more purchase starting at the second order, but few articles are titled “learning how to learn how to learn”.
I think the most important thing to learning like Feynman is not trying to take motes abuot how to emulate Feynman.
The most important stuff is curiosity. About everything. Even things off limits! Everything meaningful. And don't try to define that - just be curious!
To poke at it or try to trap it or create simulacra are not the same things as being Richard Feynman. It's the intended legacy that matters. Learn from it, sure, but you're not gonna be it. And the unintended stuff - we all have that 'casue we're human. Ignore it.