Feynman’s Certitude
Feynman was a brilliant and one of the most curious physicist I ever heard about. Breaking the stereotype of scientists who are usually painted as brains in a jar, he lived an adventurous life chasing exciting things that life has to offer such as playing bongo and tinkering with electronic parts of an old radio while leaving some room to think about quantum computing in the early 1980s.
But he also loved simple stuff… like counting numbers, let me explain.
During his time as a graduate of Princeton, He came across a psychology paper that claimed the time sense in the brain is controlled by iron. Triggered by this paper which he categorized as baloney, Feynman took things into his own hands and started testing his time sense by keeping track of a minute in his mind.
He started counting by saying to himself 1,2,3,4…. in his head. When he got to 60, only 48 seconds were up. This was not particularly a problem, as the goal is to consistently track the time. Which he did by predicting approximately 48 seconds every time he counted to 60 in his head. He found out that trying to sit around and predict a minute or any amount of time without counting in his head yielded poor and inconsistent results.
He did this over and over again while doing other chores. In time he found he can do certain types of activities such as writing simple statements and regular reading. However, he could not talk out loud while counting. When he told this to his fellow Princeton graduate, John Turkey (a renowned mathematician best known for FFT algorithm) Turkey was puzzled how Feynman could not talk while he was keeping track of time in his mind and how he could read. So they both took part in the experiment and demonstrated their abilities to read and talk while tracking time.
Much to Feynman’s surprise, Turkey was able to talk while he was tracking time but he could not read. After a short investigation, they both found out that while Feynman was saying the numbers out loud in his head, Turkey was visualizing a tape with a number moving from 1,2,3,4…so on. This is why Feynman could not talk as he was already engaging the voice in his head while Turkey could not read as his visual system is occupied.
I found this realization most informative.
To me, this is one of the best examples that demonstrates why we process information and experience the world in fascinatingly different ways. We may think we are taking in the same information but we end up processing or understanding it in a completely different way, our own way. This is why I think it’s critical to communicate your ideas in multiple forms and reiterate them until you are fairly sure everyone is on the same page. You might be confident that something is simple and obvious but it may be something else entirely to someone else.
Reference:
https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/3591/
What Do You Care What Other People Think? - Richard Feynman
