There Are No Miracle People

kelvinng

Do you agree with Feynman? Can anyone aspire to be a physicist?

There Are No Miracle People

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIDLcaQVMqw

Kelvin

micromass

Yes, I agree with him.

I'm not gonna claim that some people are not smarter than other people. Surely, some people might study the physics much quicker, and have it easier with things. That doesn't mean that these are the only people who can study it.

But do note that Feynman talks about investing a great deal of time and hard work. This is absolutely necessary. In fact, working hard is the most important factor of becoming a physicist.

simpy

Of course, there are no miracle people. We all have equal abilities and chances to excel in 'something' but the thing that matters most is how much we make use of it.

Ivan Seeking

No. Anyone can grasp the ideas involved, but I think the notion that anyone can get past the math needed to be a physicist is incorrect. As a physics student, I worked my butt off just to be above average. And this stuff is far easier for me than most people I know. There are people who struggle just to get past one or two algebra classes for their majors. I know. I tutored some of them. And I was often struck by the difficulty they had doing things that seemed obvious and simple to me. So I think the claim that anyone can do this shows a clear loss of perspective - too much time spent in the ivory tower!

CDTOE

I disagree. It takes a blonde, blue-eyed, slim, full of trust, rich and liberal human being to understand quantum mechanics. Brown people are incapable. That's how I saw it in movies.

I'm not racist. Don't give me infraction, please.



Maybe there weren't interested enough, or didn't study well, so that's why they struggled. We go back to Feynman's main argument in this video, time devotion and interest.

In my university, and as an electrical engineering student, we weren't given courses fully devoted for algebra, but only a few chapters in two calculus-oriented math courses, such as chapter on vector algebra, and things in geometry, such as conic section. However, I found that some people had problems and they still have, because they really seem not interested.

I know that I lack good skills in some areas in algebra, but a review will be enough to remember what I forgot. I know that.

Ivan Seeking

I don't agree. I had at least several students who tried and worked extremely hard but struggled with relatively simple concepts. There is no way they will ever be managing tensors!

From my point of view, it is nothing short of a cop out to claim that anyone who fails just didn't try hard enough. To me this is insanely silly. The drop out and failure rate in some core classes early on was often 50-70%. I know all of those other students weren't just flaking out.

Ivan Seeking

As we often do in physics, let's consider the limits of the problem...at least the lower limit, the upper limit we know about.

I have an uncle who is a functioning adult with an IQ of 60. Am I to believe that someone like him who can't even balance a checkbook could be doing QM? Is he not someone?

phinds

It's very egalitarian of you to say so, but it is blatant nonsense. How do you respond to Ivan's post #7?

Chi Meson

As a public school teacher I need to be careful, but I have had direct contact with hundreds of "data" that support Ivan's assertion.

Feynman's intelligence was beyond that usually tested in IQ tests (reportedly 127). For some people, many of us here, those initial concepts in physics were about as difficult as breathing air. If one is so talented, you can sometimes be misled to believe that "anyone can get this." Some just can't. Sorry.

micromass

In my opinion and (limited) experience, I think that people who don't get it are not too "dumb" at all to do theoretical physics. They usually have some sort of mental block that prevents them from understanding the material. Whenever we lift this mental block, they usually understand the material pretty well. But lifting such a block takes a huge effort from the student and the teacher, and not everybody is willing to put that in.

Everybody in science hits a wall sooner or later. It is inevitable. But scientists are exactly the people who want to climb that wall no matter what. Other people just give up after a while and start hating it.

So if not everybody is able to understand physics, then it is mostly because of a lack of persistence than a lack of intelligence.

Pythagorean

I don't know which is correct. Are Ivan and Chi's experiences just cases of kids who pretend to be trying hard or are trying just for social congruency (and really just don't care)?

Surely there's people that just can't do it due to mental disease, but I think micro has a point that you can't really tell whether people are incapable or are just not interested (even if they appear to be trying. We're taught to try in school... It may not alway be genuine attempts at understanding so much as attempts at hoop jumping.)

ViolentCorpse

Abdus Salam was brown.

leroyjenkens

There are too many factors to just say that someone simply can't do something.
If someone is having trouble with algebra, for instance, there are a few reasons why that could be happening. If they really hate the subject, that could impede their learning. That might cause them to study less or it could cause them to not retain the knowledge they gained through the time they did study. They may want to get it, simply to pass the class, but that won't necessarily help them.
I hated programming, so I didn't study like I should and I forgot a lot of things I learned because I just didn't like the subject, so that affected my retention.
I do well in subjects I like. I do really well in chemistry, and I'd consider that more difficult than intro to programming.

And when you're doing something like algebra, you need to have prior knowledge and experience with math. Not everyone's prior knowledge and experience is the same. I struggled through calculus because I didn't prepare myself enough in algebra and trig. Someone who did would have had an easier time in calculus than I did. That's not because they're smarter than me, it's just because their links in the chain of math knowledge were stronger than mine. Maybe they took the precalculus and trig classes separately. I took the combined class. That's one thing that probably hurt me in calculus.

Also, some people need to be taught differently. One person may understand something sooner because, for some reason, their brain put the puzzle together correctly the first time. Some people may need it to be explained differently, or in a more step by step way so that the puzzle comes together in their mind.
I don't see how someone could simply reach a point in a subject that they are incapable of understanding. No matter how much or what kind of explaining goes into it, they'll never understand? That makes no sense to me. There's just too many factors to simply conclude that person A can do it and person B can't. That just seems lazy.

bamahabir

Feynman is quite correct I believe, what it takes is time and interest.

I'll use myself as an example, in high school a lot of things were thrown my way and to be honest I could care less about learning it. It was pretty much ace the class by whatever means necessary, not learn the material and grasp an understanding for the subject matter.

However now, as I'm realizing, I want to know these things. And I have an excess of free time, therefore I will learn on my own through rigorous self study.

If your really interested in learning about something, you'll learn it. Doesn't matter who you are or what your intelligence is. Granted it'll take longer for some to get that "AHA!" moment where all the pieces come together but with dedication it's not some impossible magical feat.

phinds

It's very egalitarian of you to say so, but it is blatant nonsense. How do you respond to Ivan's post #7?

WannabeNewton

There are always exceptions due to special circumstances or impairments. That doesn't mean you can't draw a general conclusion.

Pythagorean

In fact, proof by example is not a proof at all. It's a fallacy.