Re:Plain English: A simple guide on words to avoid in govern...
by inopinatus on Friday December 23, 2022 @10:54AM
(#34107131)
On the other hand, simplicity is a hallmark of brilliance.
"Feynman was a truly great teacher. He prided himself on being able to devise ways to explain even the most profound ideas to beginning students. Once, I said to him, 'Dick, explain to me, so that I can understand it, why spin one-half particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics.' Sizing up his audience perfectly, Feynman said, 'I'll prepare a freshman lecture on it.' But he came back a few days later to say, 'I couldn't do it. I couldn't reduce it to the freshman level. That means we don't really understand it.'"
— Goodstein & Goodstein, Feynman's Lost Lecture: The Motion of Planets Around the Sun (Norton, New York, 1996)
"Feynman was a truly great teacher. He prided himself on being able to devise ways to explain even the most profound ideas to beginning students. Once, I said to him, 'Dick, explain to me, so that I can understand it, why spin one-half particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics.' Sizing up his audience perfectly, Feynman said, 'I'll prepare a freshman lecture on it.' But he came back a few days later to say, 'I couldn't do it. I couldn't reduce it to the freshman level. That means we don't really understand it.'"
— Goodstein & Goodstein, Feynman's Lost Lecture: The Motion of Planets Around the Sun (Norton, New York, 1996)