Re:If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)
by jameshart on Friday July 23, 2021 @04:13PM
(#27935079)
Indeed. Feynman talked in ‘surely you’re joking..’ about his affection for MIT students in his fraternity setting one another puzzles, and he talked about the question of how trains go round corners being one he found particularly interesting. In fact he repeats it in this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7h4OtFDnYE
He doesn’t answer the question ‘how does a train stay on the track’ with ‘some trains don’t’; he doesn’t switch to talking about rollercoaster trains and insist that the way they stay on the track is with horizontal wheels. He finds the logical, geometrically satisfying answer quite delightful.
And in fact, in many cases the flanges which he says are just for safety and aren’t supposed to impact the track because otherwise they make a terrible sound… are expected to hit the track to help the train make it round particularly tight turns. Coming from New York and having ridden the subways you’d think Feynman would know there are some corners subway trains take where the flanges rub all the way round, and the lovely conical wheels aren’t what keeps the train on the track at all.
So I definitely find this a weird characterization of a Feynman-ish approach to this kind of problem. I think he’d probably have delighted in the geometric neatness of why circular or triangular manhole covers can’t fall down their holes, and been happy to ignore the practical fact of square ones for the sake of a good puzzle story.
He doesn’t answer the question ‘how does a train stay on the track’ with ‘some trains don’t’; he doesn’t switch to talking about rollercoaster trains and insist that the way they stay on the track is with horizontal wheels. He finds the logical, geometrically satisfying answer quite delightful.
And in fact, in many cases the flanges which he says are just for safety and aren’t supposed to impact the track because otherwise they make a terrible sound… are expected to hit the track to help the train make it round particularly tight turns. Coming from New York and having ridden the subways you’d think Feynman would know there are some corners subway trains take where the flanges rub all the way round, and the lovely conical wheels aren’t what keeps the train on the track at all.
So I definitely find this a weird characterization of a Feynman-ish approach to this kind of problem. I think he’d probably have delighted in the geometric neatness of why circular or triangular manhole covers can’t fall down their holes, and been happy to ignore the practical fact of square ones for the sake of a good puzzle story.