Dr Feynman Page

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“You might ask why we cannot teach physics by just giving the basic laws on page one and then showing how they work in all possible circumstances., as we do in Euclidean geometry, where we state the axioms and then make all sorts of deductions. We cannot do it in this way for two reasons. First we do not yet know all the basic laws : there is an expanding frontier of ignorance. Second the correct statement of the laws of physics involves some very unfamiliar ideas which require advanced mathematics for their description. Therefore one needs a considerable amount of preparatory training even even to learn what the words mean. No. it is not possible to do it that way. We can only do it piece by piece.

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 Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation, because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet. Therefore, things must be learned only to be unlearned again or, more likely, to be corrected.

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 The principle of science, the definition, almost, is the following : The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific truth. But what is the source of knowledge? Where do the laws that are to be tested come from? Experiment, itself, helps to produce these laws, in the sense it gives us hints. But also needed is imagination to create fromm the hints the great generalizations- to guess at the wonderful, simple, but very strange patterns beneath them all, and then to experiment to check again whether we have made the right guess. This imagining process is so difficult that there is a division of labour in physics : Theoretical physicists who imagine, deduce and guess at new laws, but do not experiment; and then Experimental physicists who experiment, imagine, deduce and guess.

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 We first find the wrong ones and then we find the right ones. Now how can an experiment be wrong? In a trivial way, something may be wrong with apparatus but this can be sorted out by checking back and forth. How results can be wrong? Only by being inaccurate.

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Now what should we teach first? The correct unfamiliar law which is difficult to learn or the incorrect simple law which is easy to learn?”                                                                                      (From lectures on Physics Vol.1)