немного чепухи фейнмана
Sep. 2nd, 2024 01:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avvaНедавно опубликовали письмо Ричарда Фейнмана, написанное в 1947 году бывшему однокурснику Теодору Уэлтону. Кроме подробных объяснений его физических занятий в то время оно содержит пару страниц философских рассуждений о физике и математике, которые сам Фейнман предваряет замечанием "теперь я хотел бы добавить немного чепухи" (a little hooey).
Отрывок из письма: "I find physics is a wonderful subject. We know so very much and then subsume it into so very few equations that we can say we know very little (except these equations - Eg. Dirac, Maxwell, Schrod). Then we think we have the physical picture with which to interpret the equations. But there are so very few equations that I have found that many physical pictures can give the same equations. So I am spending my time in study – in seeing how may new viewpoints I can take of what is known. Of course, the hope is that a slight modification of one of the pictures will straighten out some of the present troubles.
I dislike all this talk of there not being a picture possible, but we only need know how to go about calculating any phenomena. True we only *need* calculate. But a picture is certainly a *convenience* & one is not doing anything wrong in making one up. It may prove to be entirely haywire while the equations are nearly right – yet for a while it helps. The power of mathematics is terrifying – and too many physicists finding they have the correct equations without understanding them have been so terrified they give up trying to understand them. I want to go back & try to understand them. What do I mean by understanding? Nothing deep or accurate —just to be able to see some of the qualitative consequences of the equations by some method other than solving them in detail."
Отрывок из письма: "I find physics is a wonderful subject. We know so very much and then subsume it into so very few equations that we can say we know very little (except these equations - Eg. Dirac, Maxwell, Schrod). Then we think we have the physical picture with which to interpret the equations. But there are so very few equations that I have found that many physical pictures can give the same equations. So I am spending my time in study – in seeing how may new viewpoints I can take of what is known. Of course, the hope is that a slight modification of one of the pictures will straighten out some of the present troubles.
I dislike all this talk of there not being a picture possible, but we only need know how to go about calculating any phenomena. True we only *need* calculate. But a picture is certainly a *convenience* & one is not doing anything wrong in making one up. It may prove to be entirely haywire while the equations are nearly right – yet for a while it helps. The power of mathematics is terrifying – and too many physicists finding they have the correct equations without understanding them have been so terrified they give up trying to understand them. I want to go back & try to understand them. What do I mean by understanding? Nothing deep or accurate —just to be able to see some of the qualitative consequences of the equations by some method other than solving them in detail."
no subject
Date: 2024-09-02 04:00 am (UTC)