Another example from Feynman: Besides the object level of what the math or physics described symbolically, he was tracking what that meant in real life. Not as obvious as you’d think. See, e.g., the anecdote about Brewster’s angle. The most common form is Guessing the Teacher’s Password—which happens if there is no spare capacity to track what all these symbols mean in real life. Tracking the symbols is difficult enough if you are at the limits of your ability (though it might also result from investing as little effort as possible to pass).
One other thing I could never get them to do was to ask questions. Finally, a student explained it to me: “If I ask you a question during the lecture, afterwards everybody will be telling me, `What are you wasting our time for in the class? We’re trying to learn something. And you’re stopping him by asking a question’.” It was a kind of one-upmanship, where nobody knows what’s going on, and they’d put the other one down as if they did know. They all fake that they know, and if one student admits for a moment that something is confusing by asking a question, the others take a high-handed attitude, acting as if it’s not confusing at all, telling him that he’s wasting their time. I explained how useful it was to work together, to discuss the questions, to talk it over, but they wouldn’t do that either, because they would be losing face if they had to ask someone else. It was pitiful! All the work they did, intelligent people, but they got themselves into this funny state of mind, this strange kind of self-propagating “education” which is meaningless, utterly meaningless!
Damn, I just used up half a cup of sugar and the only result I got was learning sugar packs into the grooves of my pliers INCREDIBLY WELL. I will have to try again later, maybe after making some larger crystals (so that the pliers are capable of breaking them apart).
Edit: Dissolving the sugar (in coldish water, just by stirring) and then letting that dry worked! Little greenish flashes. Fun
The link on “anecdote about Brewster’s angle” goes to a story about Richard Feynman contains the paragraphs:
Therefore I am brave enough to flip through the pages now, in front of this audience, to put my finger in, to read, and to show you. So I did it. Brrrrrrrup-I stuck my finger in, and I started to read: “Triboluminescence. Triboluminescence is the light emitted when crystals are crushed …”
I said, `And there, have you got science? No! You have only told what a word means in terms of other words. You haven’t told anything about nature-what crystals produce light when you crush them, why they produce light. Did you see any student go home and try it? He can’t.
“But if, instead, you were to write, `When you take a lump of sugar and crush it with a pair of pliers in the dark, you can see a bluish flash. Some other crystals do that too. Nobody knows why. The phenomenon is called “triboluminescence.” ′ Then someone will go home and try it. Then there’s an experience of nature.” I used that example to show them, but it didn’t make any difference where I would have put my finger in the book; it was like that everywhere.
Another example from Feynman: Besides the object level of what the math or physics described symbolically, he was tracking what that meant in real life. Not as obvious as you’d think. See, e.g., the anecdote about Brewster’s angle. The most common form is Guessing the Teacher’s Password—which happens if there is no spare capacity to track what all these symbols mean in real life. Tracking the symbols is difficult enough if you are at the limits of your ability (though it might also result from investing as little effort as possible to pass).
An all too common folly.
Damn, I just used up half a cup of sugar and the only result I got was learning sugar packs into the grooves of my pliers INCREDIBLY WELL. I will have to try again later, maybe after making some larger crystals (so that the pliers are capable of breaking them apart).
Edit: Dissolving the sugar (in coldish water, just by stirring) and then letting that dry worked! Little greenish flashes. Fun
Should this reply have gone somewhere else? I don’t get it.
UPDATE: Ah, now I remember it. +1 for going out and actually doing the experiment!
The link on “anecdote about Brewster’s angle” goes to a story about Richard Feynman contains the paragraphs: