It reminded me of a piece I had read in Richard Feymann’s autobiography.
When he returned from Los Alamos he joined Cornell ig, to do research and he didn't have any motivation in physics at all, so one day (better let me just quote his book here)
So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I'll never accomplish
anything, I've got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather
enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I'm going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate
in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion
of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went
around faster than the wobbling.
I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I
discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the
wobble rate two to one. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, "Is
there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the
dynamics, why it's two to one?"
I don't remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the
mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.
I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron
orbits start to move in relativity. Then there's the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And
then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was "playing" working, really with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had
stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesistype problems; all those oldfashioned, wonderful things.
I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, "Hey, Hans! I noticed
something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it's two to one is. . ." and I showed him the accelerations. He says .... ( read the book if you want to know what happened,
SPOILER ALERT - long story short he won the Nobel prize )
That is a nice, interesting and inpiring story! It corresponds well with RECENT theories and practices around career development (which unfortunately are not yet used in education...)
My pleasure. I refer to Perceptual Control Theory and Acceptance and Commitment Aproaches. If you want to dive more deeply into it, here is a link to an article I wrote about this: http://tom-luken.nl/EasyDoesIt.pdf
Great read!
It reminded me of a piece I had read in Richard Feymann’s autobiography.
When he returned from Los Alamos he joined Cornell ig, to do research and he didn't have any motivation in physics at all, so one day (better let me just quote his book here)
So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I'll never accomplish
anything, I've got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather
enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I'm going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate
in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion
of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went
around faster than the wobbling.
I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I
discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the
wobble rate two to one. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, "Is
there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the
dynamics, why it's two to one?"
I don't remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the
mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.
I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron
orbits start to move in relativity. Then there's the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And
then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was "playing" working, really with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had
stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesistype problems; all those oldfashioned, wonderful things.
I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, "Hey, Hans! I noticed
something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it's two to one is. . ." and I showed him the accelerations. He says .... ( read the book if you want to know what happened,
SPOILER ALERT - long story short he won the Nobel prize )
That’s a great anecdote, yeah, similar vibe!
Amazing stuff -- brilliant advice on tying things back -- going to have to implement this more.
Thanks! glad you liked it!
This is a lot of fun and very interesting! Looking forward to future posts
Aw thanks! :D
That is a nice, interesting and inpiring story! It corresponds well with RECENT theories and practices around career development (which unfortunately are not yet used in education...)
Thanks! Which theories do you mean?
My pleasure. I refer to Perceptual Control Theory and Acceptance and Commitment Aproaches. If you want to dive more deeply into it, here is a link to an article I wrote about this: http://tom-luken.nl/EasyDoesIt.pdf