## I don’t know how to teach…

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , , on October 25, 2021 by telescoper

Making use of this Bank Holiday Monday morning to tidy up some things on my computer I realized I had bookmarked this short clip of Richard Feynman answering a question about teaching. I clearly intended to blog about it at some point but forgot to do so, so I’m correcting that now.

Feynman was of course a renowned lecturer both for university students and for public audiences. I think one of the things that made him so successful is that he liked talking about his subject and liked being the centre of attention; people who like neither of those things are unlikely to make good lecturers!

But the thing that really struck me about what he says in this clip is near the beginning where he says he thinks the way to approach teaching is “be chaotic” to “use every possible way of doing it”. Now some of us are occasionally chaotic by accident, but I think there is a great deal of truth in what he says. I also agree with him when he says “I really don’t know how to do it..” I don’t either

If you start from the premise that every student is different, and will consequently learn in a different way, then you have to accept that there is no one unique style of teaching that will suit everyone. It makes sense therefore to try different kinds of things: worked examples, derivations, historical asides, question-and-answer sessions, and so on. And we shouldn’t rely exclusively on lectures: there must be a range of activities: problems classes, tutorials, supplementary reading, etc. With a bit of luck the majority of your class will find something that stimulates and/or enlightens them.

The point about using every possible method at your disposal has become especially relevant now that we have had about 18 months’ experience of online teaching. I feel very strongly that we should make recordings of lectures routinely available to all students, not as a replacement for the “live” experience but to add to the set of resources a student can draw on. The same goes for other things which came into regular use doing our online period, such as printed lecture notes (again, not as a replacement for a student’s own notes but as a supplement).

I think it also helps to acknowledge that what you can actually achieve in a lecture is very limited: you shouldn’t be simply trying to “deliver” material for later regurgitation. You should be pointing out the particularly interesting aspects, explaining why they are particularly interesting, and what things students should follow up in private study where in textbooks and on the net they will find yet more different ways of approaching the subject.

After over thirty years of teaching have come to the conclusion that the main purpose of university education is to convince students that their brain is more than simply a memory device, i.e. that it can also be used for figuring things out. I’m not saying that a good memory is worthless. It can be extremely useful and memory skills are important. I’m just saying that the brain can do other things too. Likewise, examinations should not be simple memory tests. Sadly school education systems seem to be focussed on coaching students passing exams by rote learning.

We see particular evidence of this in physics, with many students afraid to even attempt to solve problems they haven’t seen before. One infers that they passed exams by simply memorizing answers to questions very similar to those on the paper. Our job is to remove that fear, not by pretending that physics is easy, but by giving students the confidence to start believing that they can do things that they previously thought were too difficult. In other words, university education is often about undoing some of the limitations imposed on students by their school education.

Back to lecturing, there are some obvious basics which lecturers need to do in order to teach competently, including being prepared, talking sufficiently loudly, writing clearly (if relevant), and so on. And of course turning up at the right theatre at the right time. But there are also those things that turn mere competence into excellence. Of course there are many ways to lecture, and you have to put your own personality into what you do, but the main tips I’d pass on to make your lectures really popular can be boiled down into the Three Es. I add that these are things that struck me while watching others lecture, rather than me claiming to be brilliant myself (which I know I’m not). Anyway, here we go:

Enthusiasm. The single most obvious response on student questionnaires about lecturing refers to enthusiasm. My take on this is that we’re all professional physicists, earning our keep by doing physics. If we can’t be enthusiastic about it then it’s clearly unreasonable to expect the students to get fired up. So convey the excitement of the subject! I don’t mean by descending into vacuous gee-whizz stuff, but by explaining how interesting things are when you look at them properly as a physicist, mathematics and all.

Engagement. This one cuts both ways. First it is essential to look at your audience, ask questions, and make them feel that they are part of a shared experience not just listening to a monologue. The latter might be fine for a public lecture, but if a teaching session is to be successful as a pedagogical exercise it can’t be passive. And if you ask a question of the audience, make your body language tell them that it’s not just rhetorical: if you don’t look like you want an answer, you won’t get one. More importantly, try to cultivate an atmosphere wherein the students feel they can contribute. You know you’ve succeeded in this when students point out mistakes you have made. On the other hand, you can’t take this too far. The lecturer is the person who is supposed to know the stuff so fundamentally there’s no symmetry between you and the audience. You have to be authoritative, though that doesn’t mean you have to behave like a pompous schoolmaster. Know your subject, explain it well and you’ll earn respect without needing to bluster.

Entertainment. As I said above, lecturing is very limited as a way of teaching physics. That is not to say that lectures don’t have a role, which I think is to highlight key concepts and demonstrate their applicability;  the rest, the details, the nuts and bolts are best done by problem-based learning. I therefore think it does no harm at all if you make your lectures fairly light on detail and (with reason) enjoyable as pieces of entertainment. By all means introduce the odd joke, refer to surprising examples, amusing analogies, and so on.  As long as you don’t overdo it, you’ll find that a bit of light relief will keep the attention levels up. A key element of this is spontaneity. A lecture should appear as if it develops naturally, in an almost improvised fashion. Of course your spontaneity will probably have to  be very carefully rehearsed, but the sense of a live performance always adds value. A lecture should be a happening, not just a presentation. Lecture demonstrations also play this role, although they seem to be deployed less frequently  nowadays than in the past. Being a showman doesn’t come naturally to everyone, and the audience will know if you’re forcing it so don’t act unnaturally, but at the very least try to move about. Believe me, watching a lecturer drone on for an hour while rooted to the spot is a very tedious experience (especially on a video recording). You’d be surprised how much difference it makes if you can convey at least the impression of being alive.

On this last point, I’ll offer a few quotes from a physicist who definitely knew a thing or two about lecturing, Michael Faraday. First, his opinion was that the lecturer should not be

…glued to the table or screwed to the floor. He must by all means appear as a body distinct and separate from the things around, and must have some motion apart from that which they possess.

Conventional wisdom nowadays suggests that one should take breaks in lectures to stop students losing concentration. I’m not sure I agree with this, actually. It’s certainly the case that attention will flag if you persist with a dreary monotone for an hour, but  I think a lecture can have a natural dynamic to it which keeps the students interested by variation rather than interruption. Faraday also thought this.

A flame should be lighted at the commencement and kept alive with unremitting splendour to the end…I very much disapprove of breaks in the lecture.

Finally, here is one of my all-time  favourite physics quotes, Faraday’s take on the need for lectures to be entertaining:

..for though to all true philosophers science and nature will have charms innumerable in every dress, yet I am sorry to say that the generality of mankind cannot accompany us one short hour unless the path is strewn with flowers.

## 100 Years of Feynman

Posted in Cute Problems, Education with tags , , , , , , on May 11, 2018 by telescoper

Today marks the centenary of the birth of Noble Prize-winning physicist, science communicator and bongo player Richard Feyman. It’s great to see so many articles about him today, so I was wondering how to do my own quick tribute before I head to London for the Royal Astronomical Society Annual General Meeting this afternoon.

With university exams coming up it seemed a good idea to celebrate Richard Feynman’s legacy by combining todays 100th anniversary with some tips (inspired by Feynman) about how to tackle physics problems, not only in terms of how to solve them but also how to present the answer in an appropriate way.

I began with Richard Feynman’s formula (the geezer in the above picture) for solving physics problems:

1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.

That may seem either arrogant or facetious, or just a bit of a joke, but that’s really just the middle bit. Feynman’s advice on points 1 and 3 is absolutely spot on and worth repeating many times to an audience of physics students.

I’m a throwback to an older style of school education when the approach to solving unseen mathematical or scientific problems was emphasized much more than it is now. Nowadays much more detailed instructions are given in School examinations than in my day, often to the extent that students  are only required to fill in blanks in a solution that has already been mapped out.

I find that many, particularly first-year, students struggle when confronted with a problem with nothing but a blank sheet of paper to write the solution on. The biggest problem we face in physics education, in my view, is not the lack of mathematical skill or background scientific knowledge needed to perform calculations, but a lack of experience of how to set the problem up in the first place and a consequent uncertainty about, or even fear of, how to start. I call this “blank paper syndrome”.

In this context, Feynman’s advice is the key to the first step of solving a problem. When I give tips to students I usually make the first step a bit more general, however. It’s important to read the question too. The key point is to write down the information given in the question and then try to think how it might be connected to the answer. To start with, define appropriate symbols and draw relevant diagrams. Also write down what you’re expected to prove or calculate and what physics might relate that to the information given.

The middle step is more difficult and often relies on flair or the ability to engage in lateral thinking, which some people do more easily than others, but that does not mean it can’t be nurtured.  The key part is to look at what you wrote down in the first step, and then apply your little grey cells to teasing out – with the aid of your physics knowledge – things that can lead you to the answer, perhaps via some intermediate quantities not given directly in the question. This is the part where some students get stuck and what one often finds is an impenetrable jumble of mathematical symbols  swirling around randomly on the page. The process of problem solving is not always linear. Sometimes it helps to work back a little from the answer you are expected to prove before you can return to the beginning and find a way forward.

Everyone gets stuck sometimes, but you can do yourself a big favour by at least putting some words in amongst the algebra to explain what it is you were attempting to do. That way, even if you get it wrong, you can be given some credit for having an idea of what direction you were thinking of travelling.

The last of Feynman’s steps  is also important. I lost count of the coursework attempts I marked this week in which the student got almost to the end, but didn’t finish with a clear statement of the answer to the question posed and just left a formula dangling.  Perhaps it’s because the students might have forgotten what they started out trying to do, but it seems very curious to me to get so far into a solution without making absolutely sure you score the points.  IHaving done all the hard work, you should learn to savour the finale in which you write “Therefore the answer is…” or “This proves the required result”. Scripts that don’t do this are like detective stories missing the last few pages in which the name of the murderer is finally revealed.

So, putting all these together, here are the three tips I gave to my undergraduate students this morning.

1. Read the question! Some students give solutions to problems other than that which is posed. Make sure you read the question carefully. A good habit to get into is first to translate everything given in the question into mathematical form and define any variables you need right at the outset. Also drawing a diagram helps a lot in visualizing the situation, especially helping to elucidate any relevant symmetries.
2. Remember to explain your reasoning when doing a mathematical solution. Sometimes it is very difficult to understand what students are trying to do from the maths alone, which makes it difficult to give partial credit if they are trying to the right thing but just make, e.g., a sign error.
3.  Finish your solution appropriately by stating the answer clearly (and, where relevant, in correct units). Do not let your solution fizzle out – make sure the marker knows you have reached the end and that you have done what was requested. In other words, finish with a flourish!

There are other tips I might add – such as checking answers by doing the numerical parts at least twice on your calculator and thinking about whether the order-of-magnitude of the answer is physically reasonable – but these are minor compared to the overall strategy.

And another thing is not to be discouraged if you find physics problems difficult. Never give up without a fight. It’s only by trying difficult things that you can improve your ability by learning from your mistakes. It’s not the job of a physics lecturer to make physics seem easy but to encourage you to believe that you can do things that are difficult!

## How to Solve Physics Problems

Posted in Cute Problems, Education with tags , , , , , , on September 18, 2015 by telescoper

It’s Friday afternoon at the end of Induction Week here at the University of Sussex. By way of preparation for lectures proper – which start next Monday – I gave a lecture today to all the new students in Physics during which I gave some tips about how to tackle physics problems, not only in terms of how to solve them but also how to present the answer in an appropriate way.

I began with Richard Feynman’s formula (the geezer in the above picture) for solving physics problems:

1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.

That may seem either arrogant or facetious, or just a bit of a joke, but that’s really just the middle bit. Feynman’s advice on points 1 and 3 is absolutely spot on and worth repeating many times to an audience of physics students.

I’m a throwback to an older style of school education when the approach to solving unseen mathematical or scientific problems was emphasized much more than it is now. Nowadays much more detailed instructions are given in School examinations than in my day, often to the extent that students  are only required to fill in blanks in a solution that has already been mapped out.

I find that many, particularly first-year, students struggle when confronted with a problem with nothing but a blank sheet of paper to write the solution on. The biggest problem we face in physics education, in my view, is not the lack of mathematical skill or background scientific knowledge needed to perform calculations, but a lack of experience of how to set the problem up in the first place and a consequent uncertainty about, or even fear of, how to start. I call this “blank paper syndrome”.

In this context, Feynman’s advice is the key to the first step of solving a problem. When I give tips to students I usually make the first step a bit more general, however. It’s important to read the question too. The key point is to write down the information given in the question and then try to think how it might be connected to the answer. To start with, define appropriate symbols and draw relevant diagrams. Also write down what you’re expected to prove or calculate and what physics might relate that to the information given.

The middle step is more difficult and often relies on flair or the ability to engage in lateral thinking, which some people do more easily than others, but that does not mean it can’t be nurtured.  The key part is to look at what you wrote down in the first step, and then apply your little grey cells to teasing out – with the aid of your physics knowledge – things that can lead you to the answer, perhaps via some intermediate quantities not given directly in the question. This is the part where some students get stuck and what one often finds is an impenetrable jumble of mathematical symbols  swirling around randomly on the page. The process of problem solving is not always linear. Sometimes it helps to work back a little from the answer you are expected to prove before you can return to the beginning and find a way forward.

Everyone gets stuck sometimes, but you can do yourself a big favour by at least putting some words in amongst the algebra to explain what it is you were attempting to do. That way, even if you get it wrong, you can be given some credit for having an idea of what direction you were thinking of travelling.

The last of Feynman’s steps  is also important. I lost count of the coursework attempts I marked this week in which the student got almost to the end, but didn’t finish with a clear statement of the answer to the question posed and just left a formula dangling.  Perhaps it’s because the students might have forgotten what they started out trying to do, but it seems very curious to me to get so far into a solution without making absolutely sure you score the points.  IHaving done all the hard work, you should learn to savour the finale in which you write “Therefore the answer is…” or “This proves the required result”. Scripts that don’t do this are like detective stories missing the last few pages in which the name of the murderer is finally revealed.

So, putting all these together, here are the three tips I gave to my undergraduate students this morning.

1. Read the question! Some students give solutions to problems other than that which is posed. Make sure you read the question carefully. A good habit to get into is first to translate everything given in the question into mathematical form and define any variables you need right at the outset. Also drawing a diagram helps a lot in visualizing the situation, especially helping to elucidate any relevant symmetries.
2. Remember to explain your reasoning when doing a mathematical solution. Sometimes it is very difficult to understand what students are trying to do from the maths alone, which makes it difficult to give partial credit if they are trying to the right thing but just make, e.g., a sign error.
3.  Finish your solution appropriately by stating the answer clearly (and, where relevant, in correct units). Do not let your solution fizzle out – make sure the marker knows you have reached the end and that you have done what was requested. In other words, finish with a flourish!

There are other tips I might add – such as checking answers by doing the numerical parts at least twice on your calculator and thinking about whether the order-of-magnitude of the answer is physically reasonable – but these are minor compared to the overall strategy.

And another thing is not to be discouraged if you find physics problems difficult. Never give up without a fight. It’s only by trying difficult things that you can improve your ability by learning from your mistakes. It’s not the job of a physics lecturer to make physics seem easy but to encourage you to believe that you can do things that are difficult.

To illustrate the advice I’ve given I used this problem, which I leave as an exercise to the reader. It is a slightly amended version the first physics problem I was set as tutorial work when I began my undergraduate studies way back in 1982. I think it illustrates very well the points I have made above, and it doesn’t require any complicated mathematics – not even calculus! See how you get on…

## Three Tips for Solving Physics Problems

Posted in Cute Problems, Education with tags , , , , , on November 2, 2012 by telescoper

I spent quite some time this morning going over some coursework problems with my second-year Physics class. It’s quite a big course – about 100 students take it – but I mark all the coursework myself so as to get a picture of what  the students are finding easy and what difficult. After returning the marked scripts I then go through general matters arising with them, as well as making the solutions available on our on-line system called Learning Central.

Anyway, this morning I decided to devote quite a bit of time to some tips about how to tackle physics problems, not only in terms of how to solve them but also how to present the answer in an appropriate way.

I began with the Feynman algorithm for solving physics problems:

1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.

That may seem either arrogant or facetious, or just a bit of a joke, but that’s really just the middle bit. Feynman’s advice on points 1 and 3 is absolutely spot on and worth repeating many times to an audience of physics students.

I’m a throwback to an older style of school education when the approach to solving unseen mathematical or scientific problems was emphasized much more than it is now. Nowadays much more detailed instructions are given in School examinations than in my day, often to the extent that students  are only required to fill in blanks in a solution that has already been mapped out.

I find that many, particularly first-year, students struggle when confronted with a problem with nothing but a blank sheet of paper to write the solution on. The biggest problem we face in physics education, in my view, is not the lack of mathematical skill or background scientific knowledge needed to perform calculations, but a lack of experience of how to set the problem up in the first place and a consequent uncertainty about, or even fear of, how to start. I call this “blank paper syndrome”.

In this context, Feynman’s advice is the key to the first step of solving a problem. When I give tips to students I usually make the first step a bit more general, however. It’s important to read the question too.

The middle step is more difficult and often relies on flair or the ability to engage in lateral thinking, which some people do more easily than others, but that does not mean it can’t be nurtured.  The key part is to look at what you wrote down in the first step, and then apply your little grey cells to teasing out – with the aid of your physics knowledge – things that can lead you to the answer, perhaps via some intermediate quantities not given directly in the question. This is the part where some students get stuck and what one often finds is an impenetrable jumble of mathematical symbols  swirling around randomly on the page.

Everyone gets stuck sometimes, but you can do yourself a big favour by at least putting some words in amongst the algebra to explain what it is you were attempting to do. That way, even if you get it wrong, you can be given some credit for having an idea of what direction you were thinking of travelling.

The last of Feynman’s steps  is also important. I lost count of the coursework attempts I marked this week in which the student got almost to the end, but didn’t finish with a clear statement of the answer to the question posed and just left a formula dangling.  Perhaps it’s because the students might have forgotten what they started out trying to do, but it seems very curious to me to get so far into a solution without making absolutely sure you score the points.  IHaving done all the hard work, you should learn to savour the finale in which you write “Therefore the answer is…” or “This proves the required result”. Scripts that don’t do this are like detective stories missing the last few pages in which the name of the murderer is finally revealed.

So, putting all these together, here are the three tips I gave to my undergraduate students this morning.

1. Read the question! Some solutions were to problems other than that which was posed. Make sure you read the question carefully. A good habit to get into is first to translate everything given in the question into mathematical form and define any variables you need right at the outset. Also drawing a diagram helps a lot in visualizing the situation, especially helping to elucidate any relevant symmetries.
2. Remember to explain your reasoning when doing a mathematical solution. Sometimes it is very difficult to understand what you’re trying to do from the maths alone, which makes it difficult to give partial credit if you are trying to the right thing but just make, e.g., a sign error.
3.  Finish your solution appropriately by stating the answer clearly (and, where relevant, in correct units). Do not let your solution fizzle out – make sure the marker knows you have reached the end and that you have done what was requested.

There are other tips I might add – such as checking answers by doing the numerical parts at least twice on your calculator and thinking about whether the order-of-magnitude of the answer is physically reasonable – but these are minor compared to the overall strategy.

And another thing is not to be discouraged if you find physics problems difficult. Never give up without a fight. It’s only by trying difficult things that you can improve your ability by learning from your mistakes. It’s not the job of a physics lecturer to make physics seem easy but to encourage you to believe that you can do things that are difficult.

So anyway that’s my bit of “reflective practice” for the day. I’m sure there’ll be other folk reading this who have other tips for solving mathematical and scientific problems, in which case feel free to add them through the comments box.

## Feynman Lectures on the Character of Physical Law

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on September 21, 2012 by telescoper

I’m going to be a bit busy today so by way of a post here’s a marvellous video showing the great Richard Feynman delivering a lecture at Cornell University in 1964, in full, complete with a lengthy introduction (but with some glitches in the film). This is the first in a series of four lectures called the Messenger Lectures, and is on the subject of the Law of Gravitation. The clip not only shows what a great showman Feynman was but also how he was able to talk in an interesting and original way about seemingly very familiar material. Do check out the other videos in this series; they’re really marvellous. Oh to be as gifted a communicator of science as Feynman!

## Is there only one electron in the Universe?

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , , , on February 1, 2012 by telescoper

I started teaching Nuclear and Particle Physics to the 3rd year Physics students today. I decided to warm up with a few basics about elementary particles and their properties – all pretty standard stuff and no hairy mathematics. Cue pretty picture:

This doesn’t show the whole picture, of course, because for every particle there is an antiparticle, so there are antiquarks and antileptons. The existence of these was first suggested by Paul Dirac in 1928 based on his investigations into relativistic quantum theory, basically because invariance of special relativity is compatible with the existence of both positive and negative energy states, i.e.

$E^2 = p^2c^2 +m^2 c^4$

has two sets of solutions, one with $E>0$ and the other with $E<0$. Instead of simply assuming the latter set were physically unrealistic, Dirac postulated that they might be real, but completely filled in “empty” space; these filled negative-energy states are usually called the “Dirac Sea”. Injection of an appropriate amount of energy can promote something from a negative state into a positive one, leaving behind a kind of hole (very similar to what  happens in the case of semiconductor). This process creates a pair consisting of a (positive energy) particle and a (negative energy) antiparticle (i.e. a hole in the Dirac Sea). In the case of electrons, the hole is called a positron.

The alternative, and even wackier, explanation of antimatter I usually mention in these lectures derives, I think, from Feynam who noted that in quantum (wave) mechanics the time evolution of particles involves things like

$\exp(i\omega t)=\exp(i Et/\hbar),$

which have the property that changing $E$ into $-E$ has the same effect as changing $t$ into $-t$. This is, in essence, the reason why, in Feynman diagrams, antiparticles are usually represented as particles travelling backwards in time…

This is a useful convention from the point-of-view of using such diagrams in calculations, but it allows one also to raise the wacky bar to a higher level still, to a suggestion that, coincidentally, was  doing the rounds very recently – namely whether it is possible that there may really be only one electron in the entire Universe:

….I received a telephone call one day at the graduate college at Princeton from Professor Wheeler, in which he said, “Feynman, I know why all electrons have the same charge and the same mass” “Why?” “Because, they are all the same electron!” And, then he explained on the telephone, “suppose that the world lines which we were ordinarily considering before in time and space—instead of only going up in time were a tremendous knot, and then, when we cut through the knot, by the plane corresponding to a fixed time, we would see many, many world lines and that would represent many electrons, except for one thing. If in one section this is an ordinary electron world line, in the section in which it reversed itself and is coming back from the future we have the wrong sign to the proper time—to the proper four velocities—and that’s equivalent to changing the sign of the charge, and, therefore, that part of a path would act like a positron.”
—Feynman, Richard, Nobel Lecture December 11, 1965

In other words, a single electron can appear in many different places simultaneously if it is allowed to travel backwards and forwards in time…

I think this is a brilliant idea, especially if you like science fiction stories, but there’s a tiny problem with it in terms of science fact. In order for it to work there should be as many positrons in the Universe as there are electrons. Where are they?

## Hungry Philosophers

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on January 17, 2012 by telescoper

## Feynman on a Flower

Posted in Art, The Universe and Stuff with tags , on July 9, 2011 by telescoper

I have a friend who’s an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say “look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree. Then he says “I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing,” and I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is … I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.

Richard Feynman (1918-1988)

And this time, as a bonus, here’s a clip of him saying the words..

## Feynman on Computers

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , on July 8, 2011 by telescoper

This is a special one for all those people who prefer fiddling about with computers to actually doing science with them!

Well, Mr. Frankel, who started this program, began to suffer from the computer disease that anybody who works with computers now knows about. It’s a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is you *play* with them. They are so wonderful. You have these switches – if it’s an even number you do this, if it’s an odd number you do that – and pretty soon you can do more and more elaborate things if you are clever enough, on one machine.

After a while the whole system broke down. Frankel wasn’t paying any attention; he wasn’t supervising anybody. The system was going very, very slowly – while he was sitting in a room figuring out how to make one tabulator automatically print arc-tangent X, and then it would start and it would print columns and then bitsi, bitsi, bitsi, and calculate the arc-tangent automatically by integrating as it went along and make a whole table in one operation.

Absolutely useless. We *had* tables of arc-tangents. But if you’ve ever worked with computers, you understand the disease – the *delight* in being able to see how much you can do. But he got the disease for the first time, the poor fellow who invented the thing.

Richard Feynman (1918-1988)

## Feynman on Poetry

Posted in Poetry, The Universe and Stuff with tags , on July 6, 2011 by telescoper

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars – mere globs of gas atoms. I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination – stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one – million – year – old light. A vast pattern – of which I am a part… What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?

Richard Feynman (1918-1988)