Wait but Why?

Questions I ask myself when learning borrowed from physicist Richard Feynman.

American physicist Richard Feynman (1918–1988) is one of the most brilliant people in history I mythologize. Feynman worked on the atomic bomb in the Manhattan Project, assisted in the dissection of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, and paved the frontier in the field of quantum mechanics that won him the Nobel Prize in Physics ’65 on quantum electrodynamics.

He became well known for teaching an enormously popular series of physics lectures at Caltech¹, and publishing many funny, best-selling essays and memoirs. His amusing life experiences and quirky humor shines in Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, which gave me great chuckles — you’ll never absentmindedly respond to milk or lemon in your tea again!

As much as Feynman was a legendary scientist, he was a gifted communicator known as “The Great Explainer” with a knack for explaining complicated technical phenomena in everyman terms. Who knew the two talents can go together?

Although I finished my graduate studies this year, these are my three takeaways from the brilliant physicist that can be applied across a lifetime of learning.

1. Can I explain this to a 5-year-old?

Ask yourself this the next time you learn a new concept or prepare for a presentation or exam. While the method may seem intuitive, it is precisely its simplicity that lures us.

Feynman was known for pestering his colleagues and students to relay complex, dense ideas in simple, plain ways. Thinking like a child is a powerful tool to test your grasp on a topic.

Where you find yourself stumbling, you identify where there is room for improvement on your understanding and communication. Go back to the books and references to simplify. Use analogies and visuals to help break down and digest new material using a different context.

2. Wait, but why?

While growing up in New York, Feynman spent summer family vacations in the Catskills where his father shaped Feynman’s curiosity by teaching the difference between learning hard facts to understanding something. While walking in the woods and observing bird behavior, Feynman’s father said,

“You can know the name of the bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You’ll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing — that’s what counts.”

An attitude of curiosity and love for finding out the deep principle of the thing keeps your mind strong to think for yourself. Curiosity provides greater gratitude and opportunity to experience discovery and hidden joy.

3. Isn’t it obvious?

I noticed that sometimes when a professor asks a basic question on a reading or subject, the logical behavior should be that more students will raise their hands to answer. On the contrary, the quieter students become. This is actually rational because of loss aversion and our fear of being wrong. According to Feynman,

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”

It is easy to neglect the obvious questions and be too afraid to admit it in the classroom or workplace under the false assumption you’re the only one who doesn’t know. Avoid a mindset of arrogance and that your — insert your fancy university degree — intelligence excuses you from learning and answering simple questions.

I often express in interviews, “I know I’m not the smartest person in the room, and I’m not afraid to ask for help from those often times more senior than me.”