WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en



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usb of an ordinary person

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by studying hard would get to be able to

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imagine these things like i imagine of

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course

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i was an ordinary person who studied

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hard there's no miracle people

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it just happens they got interested in

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this thing

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and they learned all this stuff

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they're just people

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there's no talent a special

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miracle

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ability to understand quantum mechanics

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or a miracle ability

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to imagine electromagnetic fields that

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comes

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without practice and reading and

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learning and study so if you say you

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take an ordinary person who's willing to

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devote a great deal of time and study

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and work and thinking and mathematics

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and timeline then he's become a

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scientist

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[Music]

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well when i'm actually doing my own

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things and i'm working in the high you

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know the deep and esoteric stuff

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that i worry about

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i don't think i can describe

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very well

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because what it's like first of all it's

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like asking a centipede which light

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comes after which it happens quickly and

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i'm not exactly sure what flashes and

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stuff go in the head but i know it's a

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crazy mixture of partial equations

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partial solving in the equation then

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having some sort of picture of what's

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happening that the equation is saying is

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happening but they're not that well

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separated as the words i'm using

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and it's a kind of a nut nutty

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thing it's very hard to describe and i

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don't know that it does any good to

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describe it

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and i that is something that struck me

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that's

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very curious i suspect

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that what goes on in every man's head

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might be very very different

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the actual imagery or semi-imagery which

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comes

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and then when we're talking to each

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other at these high and complicated

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levels and we think we're

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speaking very well and we're

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communicating

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but what we're really doing is having

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some kind of big translation scheme

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going on for translating what this

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fellow says into our images

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which are very different i found that

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out because at the very earl lowest

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level

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i won't go into the details but i got

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interested in

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well i was doing some experiments and i

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was trying to figure out something about

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our time sense

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and so what i would do is i would count

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trying to count

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to a minute

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actually say i'd count to 48 it then it

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would be one minute so i'd calibrate

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myself and i would count a minute and 48

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i think i was count seconds but it's

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close enough

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and then it turns out if you repeat that

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you can do very accurately when you get

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to 48 or 47 or 49 not far off you're

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very close to a minute

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and and i would try to find out what

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affected that time sense and whether i

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could do anything at the same time as i

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was counting

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and i found that i could

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do many things i could uh

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there were some things that not for

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example i had great difficulty but i was

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in the high university i had to get my

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laundry ready

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and i was putting the socks out and i

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had to make a list how many socks and it

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was something like six or eight socks

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and i couldn't count them because the

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counting machine was you being used and

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i couldn't count them until i found out

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i could put them in a pattern and

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recognize the number

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and so i learned a way after practicing

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by which i could go down on lines of

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type and newspapers and see them in

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groups three three three one that's a

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group of ten three three three one

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without saying the numbers just seeing

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the groupings and could therefore count

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the lines of type i practiced

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in the newspaper the same time i was

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counting internally the seconds and so i

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would come

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i could do this fantastic trick of

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saying 48 that's a one minute and there

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are 67 lines of type you see

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it was quite wonderful

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and i

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discovered

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many things i could read

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while i was uh no i

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excuse me yes

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yes i could read perfectly all right

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while i was counting

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and get an idea of what it was about but

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i couldn't speak i couldn't say anything

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because of course i was sort of when i

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count i sort of spoke to myself inside i

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would say one two three sort of in the

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head

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well i went down to the

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breakfast

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and there was uh

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john tukey was a mathematician down at

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princeton at the same time and we had

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many discussions and i was telling him

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about these experiments and what i could

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do and he says that's absurd he says

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he says i don't see why you would have

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any difficulty talking whatsoever and i

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can't possibly believe that you could

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read

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so i couldn't believe all this but we

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calibrated him it was 52 for him to get

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to 60 seconds or whatever i don't

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remember the numbers now

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and then he'd say all right he said what

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do you want me to say barry had a little

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lamb i can speak about anything blah

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blah blah blah blah blah 52 it's a

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minute he was right

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and i couldn't possibly do that and he

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wanted me to read because he couldn't

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believe it

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and then we compared notes and it turned

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out that when he thought of counting

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what he did inside his head is when he

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counted was he saw a tape with numbers

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that when clink clink clink the tape

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would change with the numbers printed on

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it he could see

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was since it's sort of an optical system

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that he's using and not voice he could

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speak as much as he wanted but if he had

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to read then he couldn't look at his

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clock

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whereas for me it was the other way and

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that's where i discovered

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at least in this very simple operation

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of counting the great difference in what

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goes on in the head

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when people think they're doing the same

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thing

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and so it struck me therefore if that's

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already true at the most elementary

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level that when we learn the mathematics

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and the muscle functions and the

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exponentials and

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the electric fields and all these things

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that the imagery and method by which

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we're storing it all and the way we

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think about it

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could be it really if we could get into

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each other's heads entirely different

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and in fact why somebody sometimes has a

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great deal of difficulty understanding a

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point which you see as obvious

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and vice versa it may be because it's a

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little hard to translate what you just

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said into his particular framework and

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so on

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now i'm talking like a psychologist and

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you know i know nothing about this

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suppose

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that little things

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behaved very differently than anything

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that was big

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anything that you're familiar with

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because you see as the animal evolves

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and so on as brain evolves it gets used

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to handling the brain is designed

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for ordinary circumstances

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but if the

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gut particles and the deep inner

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workings were by some other rules and

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some other character they behaved

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differently they were very different

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than anything on a large scale

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then there would be some kind of

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difficulty in understanding and

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imagining reality

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and that difficulty we are in

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the behavior of things on a small scale

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is so fantastic it's so wonderfully

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different so marvelously different than

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anything that behaves on a large scale

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you say electrons act like waves no they

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don't exactly they act like particles no

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they don't exactly they act like a kind

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of a fog around the nucleus no they

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don't exactly

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and if you would like to get a clear

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sharp picture of an atom

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so that you can tell exactly how it's

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going to behave correctly i have a good

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image in other words a really good image

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of reality i don't know how to do it

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because that image has to be

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mathematical we have a mathematical

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expression strange mathematics i don't

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understand how it is but we can write

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mathematical expressions and calculate

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what the thing is going to do

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without actually being able to picture

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it it would be something like a computer

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that you put certain numbers in and you

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have the formula for at what time the

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car will arrive at different

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destinations and the thing does the

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arithmetic to figure out what time the

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car arrives at the different

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destinations but cannot picture the car

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it's just doing the arithmetic so we

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know how to do the arithmetic but we

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cannot picture

00:08:21.280 --> 00:08:23.599
the car no it's not a hundred percent

00:08:23.599 --> 00:08:24.720
because

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for certain approximate situations a

00:08:27.199 --> 00:08:28.879
certain kind of approximate picture

00:08:28.879 --> 00:08:30.879
works that is simply a fog

00:08:30.879 --> 00:08:32.479
around a nucleus that when you squeeze

00:08:32.479 --> 00:08:34.479
it it repels you is very good for

00:08:34.479 --> 00:08:37.440
understanding the stiffness of material

00:08:37.440 --> 00:08:39.519
that it's a wave which does this and

00:08:39.519 --> 00:08:40.880
that is very good for some other

00:08:40.880 --> 00:08:42.880
phenomena all right so when you're

00:08:42.880 --> 00:08:45.600
working with certain particular

00:08:45.600 --> 00:08:48.160
aspects of the behavior of atoms for

00:08:48.160 --> 00:08:49.360
instance when i was talking about

00:08:49.360 --> 00:08:50.880
temperature

00:08:50.880 --> 00:08:52.320
and so forth that they're just little

00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:54.000
balls it's good enough and it gives a

00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:56.000
very nice picture of temperature but if

00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:56.959
you ask

00:08:56.959 --> 00:08:58.800
more specific questions and you get down

00:08:58.800 --> 00:09:00.959
to questions like how is it

00:09:00.959 --> 00:09:03.440
that when you cool helium down even to

00:09:03.440 --> 00:09:05.120
absolute zero where there's not supposed

00:09:05.120 --> 00:09:07.600
to be any motion it's a perfect fluid

00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:09.040
that hasn't any viscosity has no

00:09:09.040 --> 00:09:10.800
resistance flows perfectly and isn't

00:09:10.800 --> 00:09:12.800
freezing

00:09:12.800 --> 00:09:14.320
well if you want to get a picture of

00:09:14.320 --> 00:09:16.480
atoms that has all of that in it i can't

00:09:16.480 --> 00:09:19.360
do it you see but i can explain why the

00:09:19.360 --> 00:09:22.080
helium base as it does by taking my

00:09:22.080 --> 00:09:24.399
equations and sowing the consequences of

00:09:24.399 --> 00:09:26.800
them is that the healing will behave as

00:09:26.800 --> 00:09:29.200
it is observed today so we know we have

00:09:29.200 --> 00:09:31.680
the theory right but we haven't got the

00:09:31.680 --> 00:09:34.560
pictures that will go with the theory

00:09:34.560 --> 00:09:35.760
and is that

00:09:35.760 --> 00:09:37.279
because we're limited and haven't caught

00:09:37.279 --> 00:09:39.600
on to the right pictures

00:09:39.600 --> 00:09:42.240
or is that because there aren't any

00:09:42.240 --> 00:09:45.040
right pictures

00:09:45.040 --> 00:09:47.360
for people who have to make pictures out

00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:50.399
of things that are familiar to them well

00:09:50.399 --> 00:09:52.480
let's suppose it's the last one

00:09:52.480 --> 00:09:54.160
but there's no right pictures in terms

00:09:54.160 --> 00:09:56.320
of things that are familiar to that

00:09:56.320 --> 00:09:58.160
is it possible then

00:09:58.160 --> 00:10:00.640
to develop a familiarity

00:10:00.640 --> 00:10:02.320
with those things that are not familiar

00:10:02.320 --> 00:10:04.959
on hand by study

00:10:04.959 --> 00:10:06.480
by learning about the properties of

00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:07.839
atoms and quantum mechanics by

00:10:07.839 --> 00:10:10.160
practicing with the equations until it

00:10:10.160 --> 00:10:12.480
becomes a kind of second nature just

00:10:12.480 --> 00:10:14.320
like a second nature to know that if two

00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:15.920
balls came toward each other they'd

00:10:15.920 --> 00:10:18.399
smash into bits you don't say

00:10:18.399 --> 00:10:19.920
the two balls when they come toward each

00:10:19.920 --> 00:10:20.959
other

00:10:20.959 --> 00:10:22.560
turn blue

00:10:22.560 --> 00:10:24.800
you know what they do so the question is

00:10:24.800 --> 00:10:27.040
whether you could get to know

00:10:27.040 --> 00:10:28.320
what

00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:30.480
things do without

00:10:30.480 --> 00:10:32.240
better than we do today you know as the

00:10:32.240 --> 00:10:34.399
generations develop

00:10:34.399 --> 00:10:35.920
will they invent

00:10:35.920 --> 00:10:37.839
ways of teaching and where so that the

00:10:37.839 --> 00:10:39.680
new people

00:10:39.680 --> 00:10:41.680
will learn the tricky ways of looking at

00:10:41.680 --> 00:10:42.560
things

00:10:42.560 --> 00:10:45.120
and be so trained so well trained

00:10:45.120 --> 00:10:48.560
that they won't have our troubles

00:10:48.560 --> 00:10:51.920
with the adam picturing

00:10:51.920 --> 00:10:54.560
there's still a school of thought

00:10:54.560 --> 00:10:56.720
that cannot believe

00:10:56.720 --> 00:10:59.839
that the atomic behavior is so different

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than large-scale behavior i think that's

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a deep prejudice it's a prejudice from

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being so used to large-scale

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and they're always seeking

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to find to waiting

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for the day that we discover that

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underneath the quantum mechanics there's

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some mundane ordinary

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balls hitting or particles moving and so

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on i think they're going to be defeated

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i think nature's imagination is so much

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greater than man's

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she's never going to let us

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relax

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[Music]

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you