First Blog

  What made Einstein so great? The best answer is nobody knows. However, there are conditions under which he learned. First, he had a home tutor who was mathematically and physics trained. This person probably insisted the young Albert think deeply about what he was learning and how to explain it thoroughly. This put Albert into a mode of internalizing everything he learned, and learning how to explain it. This is simply not taught in schools these days, but if you look at notables such as Richard Feynman, his father taught him to think similarly. Even Isaac Newton once said, “I think about a problem constantly until I can see clean through it.” The lesson learned here is that one key to understanding is to contain the entirety of your subject all within the mind. You’ll note, all his life he was concerned with the very foundations of physics by way of understanding and explanation. Next, we come to the man himself. He was obviously highly intelligent, and having learned to think

 Often, I'm asked by people major in physics, a horrific choice for many. So, I cooked up the main reasons, though some by seem a little absurd, though correct for some.   You really want to understand physical reality and understand how the models explain it. You have problems with the physical world compared with the spiritual world. That is, your beliefs are challenged. You absolutely love physics and feel there is no other subject for you. You ultimately want to study the origins of the universe and wish to understand all the theories extant. You get a scholarship in physics. Your parents give you three choices of what to major in, physics, physics, and physics. You do physics because you want others to think you’re smart. Finally, you doubt your intelligence and want to take on a difficult subject simply to master it, and thereby prove to yourself your intelligence. P.S. I was a physics major, but changed to math in grad school. I never felt I understood physics. 

Given are two answers. A. Here’s the standard answer to your question. Study hard, learn much, do problems, and then you will understand. Then study harder.  B. Here’s an alternative answer. Do what wisdom does when understanding is delayed. Example. Infinity. It is safe to say no one really understands infinity. BUT, what most of us* do is learn the rules of infinity and work within them. Over and over again. Eventually, you are accustomed to all the rules, and this becomes your understanding. Your alternative is to learn the rules of the subject you have trouble with. Learn to work with them. Review and do dozens upon dozens of problems. By and by, you will be accustomed to them; you will have facility with them, and this will convert to your understanding. I know this sounds a bit cynical, but it does work. Please note, this alternative is not a shortcut. Both take much time and work. This is how most people understand God, who like infinity, is beyond comprehension. ---------------

Often I get questions about math. Some tell me they like math but just can't solve the problems. What I always say is this. Life is solving problems. If you can’t solve problems, your life will be one speed bump after another, one crisis after another, one brick wall after another. Learn how to solve problems. First you learn at home from toys and your parents. However, school is the first place you learn this formally. Others are experience, reading, management, parenting, teaching, hunting, sports, carpentry, and many more. All teach applicable lessons for life's problem solving. As John Daly on What's My Line , would say about everyone. "My line is problem solving." Now a word about math... All that said, you may like math, but you cannot say you’ve learned it unless you can solve related problems. Otherwise, it would be self-deception.

Think of a book as a crutch. In your learning, you want to eventually throw the crutches away. Thus, in learning you want to be an alternate container of the book. To manage your learning, you must first learn about how you learn. This is very individual, and so how to do it depends on how you learn. This I don’t know, but I can offer some tips. 1.      Don’t forget you forget. So, material review is important. 2.      You only know something when it is fully contained in your mind and it all makes sense. Let no detail be missing. 3.      You must organize and manage your learning to times when YOU are receptive to learning. That means, you’re not tired, distracted, stressed, or depressed. 4.      You must not try to learn too fast. If you’re slow go slow, and don’t deprecate the feeling you are slow. Some learn slower but deeper, and this is very ok. 5.      Review what you’ve learned when you are doing other things - if only to prove to yourself of your progress. 6.     

 In the cemetery of blunders and mistakes grows the garden of all our knowledge. LEARNING IN LIFE.  Do you want to learn?  Do you want to achieve?  Do you want to know?  Go to school, say the educators. Sometimes schools feed information and learning; sometimes schools teach how to learn. The how is what you need, and these are the most important ways to learn.         First, we learn from reading books or being taught in the classroom. We learn by solving given problems. Practice and repetition, this is the role and scope of all school teaching. Occasionally, inspiration occurs.           Second, we learn from examples and experience. Seeing many examples, some working and some not, and knowing why helps. These build our knowledge and intuition of reality.  Knowledge is a pathway to solving problems, while intuition provides a pathway to innovation.  More simply, we learn by doing.   Attending the school of hard knocks  is an expression of

You want to learn?  You want to achieve?  You want to know?  Go to school, say the educators. Sometimes schools feed information and learning; sometimes schools teach how to learn. The how is what you need, and these are most important ways to learn.         First, we learn from reading books or being taught in the classroom. We learn by solving given problems. Practice and repetition, this is the role and scope of all school teaching. Occasionally, inspiration occurs.           Second we learn from examples and experience. Seeing many examples, some working and some not, and knowing why helps. These build our knowledge and intuition of reality.  Knowledge is a pathway to solving problems, while intuition provides a pathway to innovation.  More simply, we learn by doing.  Attending the school of hard knocks is an expression of this.         Third, we learn from mistakes*.  Make no mistake about it; this is a key way we learn.  How many times have you and I learned this or that of

Learning is the task of schools and us all.  Yet, learning has its own components: memory, understanding, application. The first step, memory, precludes all others.  A person with no memory of the “something” can never learn much about anything. From memory, a student has a chance of understanding through various mechanisms, not the least important of which is analogy through previously understood concepts.  Thus, understanding and learning are bootstrapping processes. But now comes the most important stage of learning, and that is applications or better known as problem-solving.  We  conclude… The greatest learning engine is problem-solving.  Give a lecture and only a fraction learn. Call for a group involvement and more learn.  Ask them to solve a problem, and all learn. Not solving a problem is a key learning experience.  It exposes gaps in understanding. It points to needs.  It is an essential component of growth. How many times has the teacher heard this, “I understa

Learning is the goal of schools.  Yet, learning has its own components: memory, understanding, application.  The first step, memory, precludes all others.   A person with no memory of the “something” can never learn much about it. From memory, a student has a chance of understanding through various mechanisms, not the least important of which is analogy through previously understood concepts.   Thus, understanding is a bootstrapping process. But now comes the most important stage of learning, and that is problem-solving.   We   conclude… The greatest learning engine is problem-solving.  Give a lecture and only a fraction remember. Call for a group discussion and more remember.  Ask them to solve a problem, and all remember - and learn.

Keep your brain working .  It is your best asset. Use it every day.   ·        Read a book. ·        Challenge a colleague. ·        Know your investments. ·        Understand your profession. ·        Talk to your kids. ·        Learn something you don't know. Examples. Do you know how to cook? (Experience) Do you know how your microwave works? (Requires a little physics) Do you know how IP addresses work? (It's not hard.) Do you know what Artifical Intelligence means?  (It's easier than you think.) Do you know why those big jets take off? (Simple ideas when you understand pressure) Do you know what love is? (Difficult, if possible) Do you understand when earthquakes will occur? (Nobody does) Do you know why the stock market goes up or down? (Ditto) Do you know how to teach? (Just plain difficult)

Theories allow logic to be grafted to nonsense. The teacher who does not listen graduates a class that will ask no questions. Learning is a deliberate Q&A event. You can’t learn without asking questions and then discovering answers. Centuries ago, the people hunted witches. Now the witches hunt people. Both are wrong. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debt .  The current US national debt is about $21T.  The current total debt of all Americans, including credit cards and mortgages is $13.3T.  The current non-financial corporate business debt securities and liability is about $6.1T.*  Basically, this means total US debt of consumers and corporations is slightly less than the national debt. *https://fred.stlouisfed.org/tags/series?t=corporate%3Bdebt -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A. “Hate has a taste all its own that fills your throat and chokes you.” --- The Perry Mason Show B. “There are a great many people who are more clever than intelligent.” --- Bruno J. Zwolinski C. For some schools, excellence is always on summer vacation. D. The loyalty paradox:   Uncommon loyalty favors neither good nor evil, neither the scared nor the profane, neither love nor hate.   E. Fundamentally, learning is as nonlinear as are the differences between students. If all were linear, teaching would be easy. F. Cosmologists are the ultimate optimists, believing a complete knowledge of the universe is at hand.   Yet each problem resolved reveals another with double the difficulty.

Ways we learn. You want to learn?  You want to achieve?  You want to know?  Go to school, say the educators.  But there are other important ways to learn.        First, we learn from reading books or being taught in the classroom. We learn by solving given problems. Practice and repetition, this is the role and scope of all school teaching. Occasionally, inspiration occurs.           Second we learn from examples and experience. Seeing many examples, some working and some not, and knowing why helps. These build our knowledge and intuition of reality.  Knowledge is a pathway to solving problems, while intuition provides a pathway to innovation.  More simply, we learn by doing.  Attending the school of hard knocks is an expression of this.         Third, we learn from mistakes*.  Make no mistake about it; this is a key way we learn.  How many times have you and I learned this or that of what *not* to do, or what doesn’t work.  However, this is the latest in actual academic re

Morale I. Sometimes the lack of morale you see all around is a reflection of the lack of morale you have personally. II. Your sense of morale can be more infectious to your mind than any disease to your body.  Consider the maxim, "Healthy mind, healthy body." Fun...   We live in the fun environment.  Learning should be fun, educators tell us.  This is not often the case.  Learning is hard work. But when accompanied by a sense of achievement, understanding, and enhanced personal power, it is most satisfying. Reflections... I am always just 18, full of hope, full of what could be, and eager to pursue many things all at the same time.  I love to read biographies of great persons, with interest even now piqued, particularly when these heroes were young. I look to what they did do, and compare with what I’ve done.  I make a few notes. a.    Many developed a true mission in life, though not always from the beginning. b.    Many were raised in an environment of high expectations. c

The art of memory is ancient.  Why?  Because it was needed.  Indeed, the ancient world strummed along rather well without the use of paper. Imagine a world without paper, if you can.  There would be no textbooks, no notes, no crib sheets, no reminders.  None of those modern artifacts of our daily lives would be there to assist us.  Today, we rely 100% on paper, electronic or from wood pulp. Even into relatively modern times, students relied on their memory to recall long citations from the literature or even math.  Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the US, who was raised with hardly a book in his house, developed his memory to prodigious levels.  He was a surveyor in his early days - to make a living.  This came long before he studied law.  For his survey work he needed basic math skills. These included knowledge of the right triangle, oblique angles and triangles, azimuth, angles, bearing, bearing intersections, distance intersections, coordinate geometry, law of s

We are talking about the future of education on this planet.  It may be worth a few moments' consideration. ------------ Can Online Education Work?  Well, can it?  We are discussing here the future of education on this planet.  Here are a few notes about online learning that may be of interest.  I know the faculty is generally dead-against it, but it is coming , maybe like a plague, maybe like salvation. 'Tis a juggernaut.   It is incumbent upon schools and colleges to make it work.  Administrators think of dollars, faculty think of self-interest.  Compromise is needed. -------------- Online education is here, and it is here to stay.  Many issues, particularly costs, mandate continuance of this new venue.  I'm for it, make no doubt.  But we must be at least a little critical.  So, I mention a few factors, mostly technical with the title, "What is wrong with online education?"  Here are a few factors that speak against the purely online format, bare an

Three Simple Words Remember these from our school days, reading, writing, and arithmetic, the basic three R’s? They encapsulate much of our school subjects, and are among the very important things we have learned. More generally, they point a way we classify important ideas and directions in a simple and memorable way. It is the way we work; it is who we are. Let’s generalize. Nowadays, with our incredibly complex lives which include just plain living, politics, education, workplace, and more, we need simplicity to keep everything straight, as it were “all in our heads at the same time.” We need simple rules for complex subjects, partly because there are so many of them. The Questions . How do we, as a people, transmit, contain, understand, remember, and reflect upon, information and ideas? How do we understand the drivers of ongoing initiatives? How do we relate to a subject? How do we express the rules of the game, our game? The Answers . In part... We place our ideas, our