Physicist Richard Feynman's thoughts on weak imaginations.
The whole question of imagination in science is often misunderstood by people in other disciplines. They try to test our imagination in the following way. They say, “Here is a picture of some people in a situation. What do you think will happen next?” When we say, “I can’t imagine,'' they may think we have a weak imagination. They over look the fact that whatever we are allowed to imagine in science must be consistent with everything else we know; that the electric fields and the waves we talk about are not just some happy thoughts which we are free to make as we wish, but ideas which must be consistent with all the laws of physics we know. We can't allow ourselves to seriously imagine things, which are obviously in contradiction to the known laws of nature. And so our kind of imagination is quite a difficult game. One has to have the imagination to think of something that has never been seen before, never been heard of before. At the same time the thoughts are restricted in a straitjacket, so to speak, limited by the conditions that come from our knowledge of the way nature really is. The problem of creating something which is new, but which is consistent with everything which has been seen before, is one of extreme difficulty.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Have you read about his obsession with visiting TUVA? Whatta' guy!
LucyLoohoo
Level 9
May 16, 2018
0
Feynman was quick thinking, intuitive, energetic, etc. but his type of person was not really meant for Physics for this reason. He could have been a musician, inventor, lawyer, painter, military strategist, game theorist, or something else more extraverted instead, and would have caused less of a ruckus.
Physics is more meant for people who are momentarily conscious, concept oriented, but have lots of mathematical knowledge. Feynman's type is more emotional, gets averse to periods of long, deep linguistic thinking, in comparison to the other physicists of the time, who were much more hardcore, like Boltzmann....basically any of the old Physicists produced better work than him, although his personality, and intelligence were clearly through the roof.
DZhukovin
Level 7
May 3, 2018
0
"False: Physics is more meant for people who are momentarily conscious"
You're not grasping the premise that I am speaking from. Momentary consciousness has to do with moving objects, I am not using the word "momentary" to say something else.
"Momentary" refers to the motion of things. Basically every object has a moment of force, which is a form and strength of an inertial vector required for that object to leave the resting position. So a person who is momentarily conscious is thinking mechanically, which is essential to Physics. Now you know what the phrase means.
@TheMiddleWay Gay, I deflect it.
@Silverwhisper I think those mental peculiarities just diminish intelligence.
@TheAstroChuck I fully support your position.
@Silverwhisper Which specific tests do this? The only one I have encountered that does any real right brain functions is this one test they sell at Barnes & Noble, where they do a creativity subtest. I'm in the camp that object rotation is inherently left-brained because it requires convergent thinking, but I could be very off on that one.
@Silverwhisper, @bolshevik41 woah
One of my favourite stories about Feynman is that he used to drive a battered old van with Feynman Diagrams drawn all over it. Often, people would recognise the diagrams but not him, and would ask why he had them on his van and if he knew what they meant.
Jnei
Level 8
May 3, 2018
2
Yup, he was that cool.... Those diagrams as of this day, are simple tools to handle deep concepts. He was a clover dude.... Many great stories. He was an "amateur" bongo player that performed several times in Brazil crazy carnaval parades. Why is he not a role model to today's young minds, beats me...
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