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>Follow the math where your instincts fail you

I think that's his point. Your instincts fail you all the time when studying stuff smaller than atoms

Most people don't have a gut feeling for overriding their instincts in favour of math. In fact, when you read some behavioural sciences you'll notice that overriding math with your instincts is the norm

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That's the purpose of the first 2 years of a Physics education. Getting the students to the point where their understanding of the math informs their intuition, rather than the other way around. Somewhere in the second year you do some experiments that demonstrate that in quantum and relativity, their intuitions are wrong and cannot be trusted, and then you dive into the good stuff.

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