From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,f948976d12c7ee33 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-06-22 22:54:06 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn14feed!worldnet.att.net!204.127.198.203!attbi_feed3!attbi_feed4!attbi.com!sccrnsc01.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3EF695F3.7020703@attbi.com> From: "Robert I. Eachus" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Boeing and Dreamliner References: <3EF5B10E.40804@noplace.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.62.164.137 X-Complaints-To: abuse@attbi.com X-Trace: sccrnsc01 1056347640 24.62.164.137 (Mon, 23 Jun 2003 05:54:00 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 05:54:00 GMT Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 05:54:00 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:39583 Date: 2003-06-23T05:54:00+00:00 List-Id: John R. Strohm wrote: > Richard Feynman's freshman lectures on physics, and his WONDERFUL little > book "QED" (quantum electrodynamics for the man in the street) come > immediately to mind. The fundamental test of whether one really understands > the topic is whether one CAN prepare a "freshman lecture" (or a "man in the > street" book or article) on it. Your point is well taken, but the Feyman lectures are a bad example. Yes, they are readable and understandable, and anyone with a PhD in Physics who hasn't read them should remedy that mistake. But when Feynman originally gave the course, the Freshman were soon outnumbered by the rest of the Physics Faculty, grad students, TAs for the course, and some guest faculty from other schools. Freshman can learn from them, but grad students and PhDs find there is so much more information in there. Another similar example is the recent proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. The proof was published in a book, and is readable. But you have to have a pretty thorough grounding in half a dozen areas of math to understand all the implications and asides. (I caught maybe 10%.)