Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Choosing Coordinate Systems



At 01:53 PM 9/24/01 -0400, Hugh Haskell wrote:

I have often found that, when working a new problem, I don't see the
simpler way to do it until after I have spent some time trying it the
hard way. Students need to know that the best way to do a problem is
not always the most obvious way (except to the Feynmans of the
world).

RPF was not quite as different from the rest of us as you might think.

He figured out quantum electrodynamics the hard way. It was only
afterwards that he devised the diagrams as a simpler way to do it.

==============

Indeed, part of the reason why he was a very good teacher is that he was
keenly aware that solving a problem for the first time was different from
solving it the second time, when _a posteriori_ simplifications can be
applied.

This doesn't always come through in his books, which are perhaps too
polished, but they are better than most in this regard. And it really came
through when he was lecturing, live. He would often say "Now at this point
you might be tempted to do xxxxx, but that's a trap. Let me tell you how
to recognize traps of this kind, and then I'll show you a little trick that
helps a lot...."

It always impressed me that he knew about the xxxxxx trap; obviously he
hadn't fallen into that trap in many years, if ever. But he discussed it
for the good of the class.