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.
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: