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Very well said, Jeffery!
The following, simpler example seems to me to make your ideas more clear:
Suppose Rutherford and an eskimo baby are shown an x-ray tube and asked the
question: "What is this?". Rutherford says (imeadiately, without hesitation
or rational explanation) "It's an x-ray tube". The eskimo baby says
(imeadiately, without hesitation or rational explanation) "it's a glass
tube with metal inside". Neither has to think rationally about what it is
they see, they just "see" it. Somehow both are correct in their
observations but Rutherford brings his previous experience (intuition if
you like) to bear on the observation. Note that Rutherford could, if asked,
give a rational explantion of his intuition but doesn't need the
explanation to make the initial claim that it is an x-ray tube. Note also
that Rutherford could be wrong; he didn't actually measure x-rays from the
tube, maybe it is actually something else, a fake or a hologram (not the
real thing) or .... so intuition can be wrong. (This example comes from an
article by N.R. Hanson titled 'Observation' in the philosophy of science.)
I submit that we can (and do!) bring much more complicated previous
experiences and associations to bear with the same rapidity as Rutherford
when confronted with a new situation (for example a physics problem or a
completely different example; our "intuition" about a newly met person of
different ethnic background than us). By the same token, when we do this we
don't use rational explanation (although we may be able to fill in the
steps, if called on to do so in the case of physics); these imeadiate
associations may be wrong sometimes; and they are definitely learned
(although we may no longer be able to recall when or where or under what
circumstances we learned them). Kind of like creating a macro comand in a
spreadsheet- we don't have to go through all the steps anymore, we just hit
the one button and "go there" (although in many cases we could repeat the
exact steps if called on to).
As a further example; I knew of someone who played in the stock market and
was very successful. He claimed to have an algorithm for how he did it but
if you were to follow the algorithm exactly you would have lost money. When
confronted with this fact he had to admit that in some cases his experience
lead him to do something different than the algorithm. In other words he
had been in the game long enough to develop an "intuition" (read: vast
experience plus accumulated vague associations) to know what to do even
though he could not accurately (rationally) say what, exactly, it was he
was doing. So sometimes intuiton, even though appearently correct, can't be
rationally explained (but in physics this would make that particular
intuition suspect).
I would guess that"intuitively" recognizing a work of art as great might
have some of these same components; we bring a lot of experience and
associations (and possibly some formal training) to the particular case and
may be very accurate in our evaluation but may have only a vague (or
possibly no) rational explanation as to why we know it is great.
I agree that an important part of physics training is to expose students to
so many examples and cases of the application of physics to physical
situations that they begin to bring this collected ("intuitive") experience
to new but similar problems (without hesitation). At least one way to do
this is to ask students questions which requires answers where their prior
experience ("intuition") either gives them the wrong answer or no answer.
At first they may have to construct all the steps (and we can help them if
we remeber where our intuition came from) but as they get more experience
they can start making their own "inuitive leaps". They should always,
however, be able to fill in the steps when asked.
To respond to Leigh Palmer: It seems to me that if, as well trained
physicists, our "physical intuition" has lead us astray (we were wrong)
then we are in a positon to learn something (make new associations, develop
new intuitions), in the same way students are ripe to learn something when
their naive intution leads them astray. And as always, we should be able to
supply the rational line of thinking which shows that our intuition is
correct if called on to do so.
kyle
At 4:13 PM -0600 4/16/98, RONDO JEFFERY wrote:
Just a couple of thoughts on this new thread. I recall hearing a
definition, I
think of intuition (someone can help me out with the quote if it is not
exactly right), which says "Intuition is the name we give to our experience."
In other words, if we have had experience with a thing, then the next time
we encounter that thing or something related, we know what to expect.
My Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language gives the
following: "Intuition, n, (<L in-, in + tueri, look at), the immediate knowing
or learning of something without the conscious use of reasoning."
This probably comes close to how Leigh was using the term, and goes with
such phrases as "women's intuition"-- where some individuals seem possessed
of an ability to understand certain things almost instinctively, or "without
conscious use of reasoning," a la Webster.
In terms of physics, I think there is a *feel* that a person can develop
about how things behave so that when you encounter a new problem you
already have an idea about how it will turn out. This may seem like
intuition, or intuitive understanding, but I think it is as much a matter of
having seen enough experiments or worked enough problems that you know
how the next experiment or problem will turn out. It may be that some
people are just naturally gifted in this, what is called "physical
intuition," but
I think it is something that can be learned.
John Wheeler has said that you shouldn't do a calculation until you know
what the answer will be. In other words, you need to understand the way
things work, independent of calculating an answer.
One of the goals of an introductory physics course should be to help
students *see* for themselves how the phyiscal world works, and not just
memorize equations that supposedly describe how it works. That is, help
them develop a "physical intuition." I remember from grad school that the
ones who were given the hardest time on prelims were those who would give
a mathematical answer rather than a physical answer to questions.
Any other thoughts?
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kyle forinash 812-941-2390
forinas@indiana.edu
Natural Science Division
Indiana University Southeast
New Albany, IN 47150
http://Physics.ius.indiana.edu/
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