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Re: Not Einstein's quote

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john <johnsefton288@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Feynman was a truly great teacher. He prided himself on being able to
> devise ways to explain even the most profound ideas to beginning
> students. Once, I said to him, “Dick, explain to me, so that I can
> understand it, why spin one-half particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics.”
> Sizing up his audience perfectly, Feynman said, “I’ll prepare a freshman
> lecture on it.” But he came back a few days later to say, “I couldn’t do
> it. I couldn’t reduce it to the freshman level. That means we don’t really understand it.”"
> From David Goodsteins book "Feynmann's Lost Lecture", which I'm sure Odd has read.
> 
> There you go, Odd- WE DONT REALLY UNDERSTAND IT.
> You don't have a model.
> 

Which is a pithy and oft-quoted remark that if you can’t explain it to a
freshman, then you don’t understand it. He said this to be amusing and
pithy. Note that the VERY SAME Feynman also said, “Hell, if I could explain
it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel prize.” 

Now, which pithy comment are you hanging your estimation of science on, and
WHY?

-- 
Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables

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Not Einstein's quote john <johnsefton288@gmail.com> - 2018-04-12 13:01 -0700
  Re: Not Einstein's quote Odd Bodkin <bodkinodd@gmail.com> - 2018-04-12 23:16 +0000
  Re: Not Einstein's quote moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) - 2018-04-13 06:30 +0000
    Re: Not Einstein's quote Helmut Wabnig <hwabnig@.- --- -.dotat> - 2018-04-13 12:09 +0200
  Re: Not Einstein's quote Edward Prochak <edprochak@gmail.com> - 2018-04-13 07:30 -0700

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