Richard Feynman on how physics differs from mathematics.

I'm sorry, but didn't you cut Dr. Feynman's point short? I'm pretty sure there was a great punchline coming up regarding the physicist finally coming back to the mathematician to finally ask about that general "n" value. ..you basically left out the punchline..🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

I feel this is specifically a critique of modern, formalist mathematics, algebraic over geometrical methods, etc.

It is fascinating. I thought at one point he was about to say that mathematical generalisations could lead to ones ideas in physics ;I think it was about dimensions beyond 4). But then he didn’t and I was disappointed

This is manifested in the Trinomial Cube invented by Mario Montessori. It is a materialized abstraction of the (a + b + c) cubed formula. Did you know that if you materialize these abstract numbers into actual REAL parallelepipeds and cubes that it will make a large REAL actual cube? In school, we were taught that algebra and geometry are two separate studies.

In archival footage of Richard Feynman’s 1964 Messenger Lectures, the brilliance on stage is matched by the uniformity of the audience: a literal "sea of suits", row after row of white men in dark blazers and narrow ties. It looks less like a university and more like a closed boardroom. That visual silence, the near-total absence of women, is not just a historical curiosity; it is the starting point of a modern crisis. By casting the "golden age" of physics as an exclusively male domain, that era created a psychological and structural void that STEM is still trying to fill. You can draw a straight line from those empty seats in 1964 to today’s gender gap in engineering and physics. That moment helped cement a legacy in which women lacked not only invitations, but mentors and role models. We are still playing catch-up because, for decades, half the population was told, implicitly by that sea of suits, that they did not belong in the room where the universe was being explained.

Probably the last physicist who knew that: Model is not mechanism. Data-fitting is not proof. Wrong, even inverted, assumptions can yield excellent maths. Hence a century of woo, and counting …

Feynman is awesome, but I would have to criticize how physics can take an abstract idea, like the infinitesimal and then try to understand it in the real world, when there is no evidence the infinitesimal exists beyond the abstract.

Only a master can explain the difference so clearly

That’s very helpful. Thank you.

Mathematicians came up with Boolean logic and then computers were invented and it turned out that Boolean logic explained how computers worked. Mathematicians came up with imaginary numbers and then electric circuits were invented and it turned out that imaginary numbers explained how electric circuits worked. That mathematicians came up with formulas for n dimensions makes me wonder if someday we'll discover that n dimensions exist.

@AndresRubioM @TheDevilOps

Thank God! You posted something from an actual scientist who actually contributed something to science as opposed to that blowhard Sagan, or even worse, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

I think Feynman here simply teases and jokes about mathematicians. However, someone of his level knows better than anyone, and even some excellent mathematicians, how really interesting mathematics are not just abstract nonsense but have more to do with physics than he says here

Math is the clean rulebook, physics is the messy game where experiments change the score, and Feynman loved that reality always gets the last word.

This is what is wrong with physics today. Physics has been taken over by mathematicians. They don't care whether their axioms are valid in the real world. This is how you get string theory, multiverse and time travel. All per theories of modern mathematicians posing as physicists

Excellent explanation: we mathematicians are not slaves of physics of this universe; we can imagine infinite universes and infinite dimensions and understand its physics 😏🤭

No different than grammarian (mathematician) to a Shakespeare (physicist).

@grok is there a full video of this.

Generalized Generalizations

what a chad

@xdownloaderbot pls give me a link to download this video

I like that he clarified that businesses are only interested in the special case.

Mathematics is the appropriate language to talk about physics. 😡👍😂

And sometimes mathematicians will argue

where is the full video? do you have the source? Please share! thanks

We are all unconscious mathematicians ! If we wish a practical,grounded objectivity related life our mathematical intuitive mind is the first step towards knowledge of ourselves and the Universe we belong to!

yes :) You have to know where you go :) A calculator is good when you stop the time and motions .