The Feynman’s Technique of learning things!

Richard P. Feynman was the rockstar of the physics world. From being a lead scientist in the manhattan project to a genius lock picker, Richard Feynman was a master of all trades. He was a ladies man, a bongo player, an artist, a writer, and much more. But above all, he was accepted as the best teacher in physics. The way he used to explain the intricacies and complex theories of physics could make even a 5-year-old understand at least the meaning of quantum physics.

Once Feynman, in an interview, was asked to reveal his secret. He was asked to reveal how he is able to achieve so much and understand things that other scientists couldn’t to which he simply replied “I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something ”. Well, this is a very deep answer and hence it intrigued many people to learn his technique of understanding things. These techniques came to be known as the “Feynman Technique” and the best thing about this is that it can be applied to almost everything. Almost anything you want to learn could be made possible with the help of Feynman’s technique. I know you might be dying to know those techniques so let's understand them one by one.

Feynman's technique is a four-step process and below I have briefly touched upon how these steps can be brought into execution.

1. Choose a concept you want to learn about

“All the time you’re saying to yourself, ‘I could do that, but I won’t,’ — which is just another way of saying that you can’t.” ― Richard P. Feynman

When you decide what you have to learn, you have already made 50% of the journey. This first step is plain simple. Pick any skill that you need to master and proceed to the next step.

2. Pretend you are teaching it to a student in grade 6

“I’m smart enough to know that I’m dumb.” ― Richard Feynman

Now in this step, you don't really have to find a grade 6 student or a kid. You can simply guide or tutor someone who is new in starting their journey in the same skill as you. Suppose you are learning guitar for 2 months now, you can teach whatever you have learned so far to a friend who is just beginning to learn guitar. As per Feynman, teaching doesn’t mean that you have to master that skill, teaching is the process of learning things to their depths and sharing whatever you have learned. Another alternate to this could be creating blogposts or even youtube videos of whatever you have learned.

3. Identify gaps in your explanation. Go back to the source material, to better understand it.

“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent, and original manner possible.” ― Richard Feynmann

Once you share things or teach others, you’ll find that there are some gaps in your learning. Now your job is to get to the roots of the problem and understand how things really work and where are your concepts lagging. Once you are able to find the gaps, you must fill them immediately.

4. Review and simplify

“I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding, they learn by some other way — by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!” ― Richard Feynman

The last and final step is to simplify whatever you have learned and then pass it on to the others.

I hope you enjoyed reading the blog and I wish you all the best in your journey ahead.