Feynman on explanations
lesswrong.com
lesswrong.com
I've watched and shared this video several times. The video is just fine in 240p. You miss out on Feynman's delivery and style when it you just read it as text.
I think it's from a BBC documentary; the other parts are on YouTube as well. The discussion about how humans model or understand really big/really small numbers is especially interesting.
That’s all I’m saying.
When you think about it, and maybe I feel like this because I just watched Feynmann, but it's totally insane that we can watch videos on the Internet at all! Even in 240p, which apparently, nobody likes.
Why do you think I said it was equal to specifying the font-size? As I said, it practically refers to the number of lines. Font-size has nothing to do with that, directly. You can't specify the number of lines in CSS, AFAIK. CSS is for styling. Lines are content.
Anyway, I was just trying to point out how nonsensical it is to compare the "resolution" of a text with a resolution of a video. And if you do, I think it's interesting to think about that the number actually is dynamic, as is, it depends on the container and so on. Which is actually quite an appropriate analogy, since it is often easier (IMHO) to think profoundly about something you're reading (where you control the tempo), in comparison to a video, where you constantly have to follow their tempo. Yes, you can rewind, but if you do that, I think you'd agree with me that it'd be easier with a transcript.
Yes there are many benefits to having a transcript, but those arguments apply just as much to 1080p as to 240p.
"Fun to Imagine" playlist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pYRn5j7oI&feature=BFa&#...
It's very hard to estimate the level of explanation that will actually convey information to the person asking teh question while at the same time keeping them interested.
> But I really can't do a good job, any job, of explaining magnetic force in terms of something else you're more familiar with, because I don't understand it in terms of anything else that you're more familiar with
I've never heard that impedance mismatch being told in such clear, humble words. Basically, he's saying "I know things in so much detail that I can't in all honesty imagine wrongful analogies, let alone present them to you".
Feynman does (explain a little bit of) Quantum Mechanics by analogy (photons are spinning clocks), but goes on the say you have to learn a truly ne wmodel to understand more deeply.
See also: Dijkstra's "On the cruelty of really teaching computing science: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1036...
> It is the most common way of trying to cope with novelty: by means of metaphors and analogies we try to link the new to the old, the novel to the familiar. Under sufficiently slow and gradual change, it works reasonably well; in the case of a sharp discontinuity, however, the method breaks down: though we may glorify it with the name "common sense", our past experience is no longer relevant, the analogies become too shallow, and the metaphors become more misleading than illuminating.
There are lots of gems in that essay, such as this:
> We can view the program as what turns the general-purpose computer into a special-purpose symbol manipulator, and does so without the need to change a single wire (This was an enormous improvement over machines with problem-dependent wiring panels.) I prefer to describe it the other way round: the program is an abstract symbol manipulator, which can be turned into a concrete one by supplying a computer to it. After all, it is no longer the purpose of programs to instruct our machines; these days, it is the purpose of machines to execute our programs.
Practically speaking, the impact of walking away from such loaded discussions is minimal, because in a healthy society generally these dishonest interrogators' views and opinions simply don't matter (apart from the odd grade-school curriculum debacle). They don't matter for two reasons: first, normally the point of understanding (e.g. evolution, or even magnetism) is not necessary to the persons practical day. Second, a healthy society tends to disregard the views of the dishonest.
This is an argument from practicality. Know when to walk away from some debates.
I simply don't have the verbal chops to compete. Newt studied rhetoric as I recall.
"For example, Aunt Minnie is in the hospital. Why? Because she went out, slipped on the ice, and broke her hip."
to:
"You know you can't put your hand through the chair; that's taken for granted."
What an incredible mind.
Richard Feynman on Computer Science - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL4wg6ZAFIM&feature=relat...
I believe he has a point, I don't know if term Computer Science is the best choice of words.
If this has whet your taste for his wonderful explanations, I highly encourage you to take a look at his lecture series made available by Microsoft Research on Project Tuva[1].
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+character+of...
I am actually half-way through watching them and as with all Feynman lectures they are a real joy to watch.
This to me tells me two things about Feynman:
1) He was a man of great integrity
2) He wanted people to be more curious about the world
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PS: I wish more scientists would act this way when interviewed. Global worming, simplest explanation for the 100+ million direct and indirect measurements of atmospheric chemistry and temperature we have taken that fits in with the basic physical laws. Don't agree with it? How do you discount the discrepancy of absorption spectrum as you change atmospheric chemistry etc?
Umm, you're missing an important detail. The additional absortion is orders of magnitude too small to produce the predicted temperature increases. The predicted temperature increases are based on feedback and some other effects, which took a decade off.
That huge change in CO2 is not a huge change in the atmosphere's ability to retain energy because (a) CO2 concentrations are fairly low and (b) other gasses have a much larger effect.
Note that the atmosphere's ability to retain energy is not dependent on where the CO2 comes from.... I mention that because the earth has had much higher CO2 concetrations.
Not sure if available to watch outside UK but they are the same as on Youtube, just better quality.