I: if you get hold of two magnets and you push them you can feel this pushing between them.
turn around the other way in it and they slam together.
now what is it the feeling between those two magnets?
R:what do you mean what's the feeling between two magnets?
I: there is something there.
I mean that the sensation is that there's something there when you push these two magnets together?
R: listen to my question what is the meaning would you say that there's there's a feeling.
of course you feel it now.
what do you want to know.
I: what I want to know is what's going on between these two bits of these two bits of metals
R: they repel each other and.
I: well then what does that but what does that mean or why are they doing that or how are they doing it?.
I'm not saying I think that's a perfectly reasonable question because reason.
R: It is an excellent question okay put the problem that you're asking you see when you ask why something happens.
how does a person answer why something happens.
for example aunt Minnie is in hospital why.
because she slipped she went out and she slipped on the ice and broke her hip that satisfies it people.
it satisfy but it wouldn't satisfy someone who came from another planet knew nothing about things.
you first should understand why when you break your hip do you go to the hospital.
how do you get to the hospital with the when hip is broken.
well because her husband seeing that she had the hip broken and call the hospital up and send somebody to get her.
all that is understood by people and.
when you explain a WHY you have to be in some framework that you allow something to be true.
otherwise you're perpetually asking why.
So, what Feyman implied, whatever the WHY it can only be true within a Framework.
In the rest of the video Feyman answered the question raised by the Interviewer, why magnet attracts in one way and repel in another with the implication of a need of a FRAMEWORK.
Discuss??
Views??
nb: I think is was Skepdick who direct me to the above video
[Feyman] why did the husband call up the hospital.
because husband is interested in his wife's welfare.
not always some husbands aren't interested in their wives when they're drunk and they're angry and.
so you begin to get a very interesting understanding of the world and all its complications in order to if you try to follow anything up you go deeper and deeper in various directions.
for example you go why did she slip on the ice.
well ice is slippery everybody knows that no problem.
but Jay asked why is ice slippery.
that's kind of curious ice is extremely slippery it's very interesting.
you say how does it work.
you couldn't you see so you can either say I'm satisfied that you've answered me ice is slippery that explains it or you could go out and say why is ice slippery and.
then you're involved with something because there aren't many things as slippery as ice.
it's very hard to get greasy stuff but that's sort of wet too slimy but a solid that's so slippery.
because it is in the case of ice that when you stand on it they say momentarily the pressure melts the ice a little bit so you got a sort of instantaneous water surface on which you're slipping.
why on ice are not on other things because ice expands when water expands when it freezes so the pressure tries to undo the expansion and melts it is capable of melting but other substances cracked when they're freezing and when you push images to satisfied to be solid.
why does water expand when it freezes and other substance don't expand when they freeze.
all right I'm not answering your question but I'm telling you how difficult the WHY question is.
you have to know what it is that you're permitted to understand and allow to be understood and known and what it is you're not.
you'll notice in this example that the more I ask why it gets interesting afterwards my idea that the deeper a thing is the more interested in it and.
we could even go further and say why did she fall down when she slipped that has to do with grabbing involved in all the planets and everything else never mind it goes on and on.
now when you ask for example why two magnets repel there are many different levels it depends on whether you're a student of physics or an ordinary person that doesn't know anything or not.
if you're somebody who doesn't know anything at all about all I can say is that there's a magnetic force that makes them repel.
when that you're feeling that force.
you see but that's very strange because I don't feel kind of force like that in other circumstances.
when you turn them the other way they attract.
there's a very ‘analogous’ [?] electrical force which is the same kind of a question and you say that's also very weird.
but you're not at all disturbed by the fact that when you put your hand on the chair it pushes you back.
but we found out by looking at it that that's the same force as a matter of fact the electrical force not magnetic exactly a night chase but it's the same electrical repulsion x' that are involved in keeping your finger away from the chair.
because everything's made out of its electrical forces in minor in microscopic details there's other forces involved but does this service connected to electrical forces.
it turns out that the magnetic and the electric force with which I wish to explain these things.
this this repulsion in the first place is what ultimately is the deeper thing that we have to start where we can start with to explain many other things that looked like they were everybody would just accept them.
you know you can't put your hand through the chair that's taken for granted.
but that you can't put your hand through the chair when looked at more closely why that involves these same repulsive forces that appear in magnets.
The Situation's then have to explain is why and magnets it goes over a bigger distance than an ordinarily and.
there it has to do with the fact that in iron all the electrons are spinning in the same direction now you all get lined up and they magnify the effect of the force until it's large enough at a distance that you can feel it.
but it's a force which is present all the time and very common and is in a basic force of almost.
I mean I can go a little further back if I would more technical.
but in an early level I have just got that to tell you that's going to be one of the things you'll just have to take as an element in the world the existence of magnetic repulsion or electrical electrical attraction magnetic attraction.
I can't explain that attraction in terms of anything else that's familiar to you.
for example if we say the magnets attract like as if they were connected by rubber bands I would be cheating you.
because they're not connected by rubber bands I should be in trouble.
you soon asked me about the nature of the bands.
and secondly if we were curious enough you ask me why rubber bands tend to pull back together again and I would end up explaining that in terms of electrical forces which are the very things that I'm trying to use the rubber bands to explain so I have cheated very badly you see.
so I'm not going to be able to give you an answer to why magnets attract each other except to tell you that they do.
and to tell you that that's one of the elements in the world of the different kinds of forces there are electrical forces magnetic forces of gravitational forces and others and those are some of the parts
if you were student I could go further I could tell you that the magnetic forces are related to the electrical forces very intimately.
that our relationship between the gravity forces and electrical forces remains unknown and so on.
but I really can't do a good job any job of explaining magnetic force in terms of something else that you're more familiar with because I don't understand it in terms of anything else that you're more familiar with you.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Tue Mar 05, 2024 3:58 am
when you explain a WHY you have to be in some framework that you allow something to be true.
otherwise you're perpetually asking why.
The way to escape the infinite regress of perpetual "Why?" and avoid descending into the abyss is to do a U-turn.
How do you do that? With a question about the question: Why are you asking "Why?"?
Suppose the answer is X. Suppose you learn all there is to know about X. What happens next?
People always seem to forget that a "Why?" question can have at least two answers: mechanism or agency.