Keisuke Jimmy Juge
- Physics is mainly about thinking … as opposed to knowing. It is useful to 'know' many ideas, but students ought to learn how to think than to know, say, what the formula is to calculate the total resistance in a particular electrical circuit is, for (a random) example.
- Many difficult problems in physics have been solved already. It is not useful to simply memorize the solution that the whole world already knows or can look up on Wikipedia (which seems to be the source for random information these days …)
The idea is to teach how one gets to those solutions, so that upon encountering a new one has learned the skills to solve that new problem. This takes a lot of creativity and skills (not to mention hard work) that do not necessarily come from knowing many things but from having successfully trained the mind to 'think'. - Physics classes should be viewed as an opportunity to train your mind because the course material is usually oriented towards learning problem-solving skills rather than building up a large data base in one's brain (which, of course, is useful too).
Keisuke Jimmy Juge
Associate Professor
Physics
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