The Feynman Notebook Method

The Feynman Notebook Method

Let's imagine that Feynman's list of twelve problems looked something like this:

1. How can we measure the probability that a lump of uranium might explode too soon?
2. How can I accurately keep track of time in my head?
3. How can we design a large-scale computing system using only basic equipment?
4. How can I write a sentence in perfect handwritten Chinese script?
5. What is the unifying principle underlying light, radio, magnetism, and electricity?
6. How can I sustain a two-handed polyrhythm on the drums?
7. What are the most effective ways of teaching introductory physics concepts?
8. What is the smallest working machine that can be constructed?
9. How can I compute the emission of light from an excited atom?
10. What was the root cause of the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster?
11. How could the discoveries of nuclear physics be used to promote peace instead of war?
12. How can I keep doing important research with all the fame brought by the Nobel Prize? (Tiago Forte, ForteLabs.)

Now, these are some pretty juicy questions (chances are, Feynman also kept a more mundane list of questions like are Guiana and Guyana the same place? And why does the toilet keep making that noise?)

To keep himself actively involved in the learning process and to improve his comprehension, Feynman kept a master notebook in which he listed the topics he lacked knowledge about. He believed that putting ideas down in black and white, and in one's own words, would help build clarity, direction, and memory. Such a notebook primarily serves an organizing function and keeps many loose threads together. It is a repository of what has already been achieved, but also a collection of things still under review, and how they may connect to one another.

James Gleick wrote in his biography, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman:

"In preparing for his oral qualifying examination, a rite of passage for every graduate student, he chose not to study the outlines of known physics. Instead, he went up to MIT, where he could be alone, and opened a fresh notebook. On the title page he wrote: NOTEBOOK OF THINGS I DON'T KNOW ABOUT. For the first but not last time he reorganized his knowledge. He worked for weeks at disassembling each branch of physics, oiling the parts, and putting them back together, looking all the while for the raw edges and inconsistencies. He tried to find the essential kernels of each subject. When he was done he had a notebook of which he was especially proud. It was not much use in preparing for the examination, as it turned out."

The most important part of using Feynman's notebook method is to explain the material to yourself as though you were teaching it to another student similar to you. Feynman was praised as an exemplary communicator, but this probably stemmed from the fact that he was so good at communicating his ideas to himself first. The more clearly and thoroughly you can elucidate an idea to yourself, the better you can understand it, and the more easily you will be able to share that understanding with others.

There is something powerful about translating your mental activities into something concrete that you can see. Your notebook will become a symbol for your learning, but also a way to track and monitor that learning and inspire you when you're feeling aimless or stuck on a challenge. The more you work on your book, the more you are inspired to keep working on it and to keep investing your mental energy and effort into it.

When you were a child and attended school, you worked your way through a pre-formed curriculum. As an adult, your learning will have to be self-driven for the most part, and one of the greatest things you will have to learn is how to manage, organize, and motivate your own learning. The list of twelve questions is a great way to spark interest and begin a few fascinating fires. But at some point, you will need to continue to put fuel on that fire so that it keeps burning.

Imagine that your self-learning vacillates between wide-eyed curiosity and joy, and deep, disciplined work. You ask the question in open-ended wonder, and then you get stuck into the real work required to understand things you don't yet understand, and master things that are difficult for you. Then, you relax, pull back a little, and let the unconscious mind do its work—soon, you are filled up again with inspiration and curiosity, and the process begins anew. "You keep on learning and learning," says Feynman, "and pretty soon you learn something no one has learned before."

Exactly how should you put your notebook together? Well, that's up to you. The notebook is there to serve a purpose, so what it looks like will depend heavily on what that purpose is. What you want to do is treat your inquiries and processes with the greatest respect. Take time and care with them. If you have a spontaneous question, write it down. Give yourself enough time to ponder it, and write down the answers or any "leads" you have to potential answers. If you encounter a problem, note that down too. Liberally use bullet points, mind maps, and diagrams to simplify, connect, and explain. Remember, as you teach yourself, you learn.

Many theoretical physicists sit down with a pen and paper and literally talk themselves through a problem, saying out loud things like, "Right, so why am I having difficulty with this step here? Okay, let's slow down and take it from the top. What assumptions am I making? There are these three things I don't know. Okay. Let's pause a moment and see if I can figure out a little more about at least one of these things before I proceed... Damn, the same thing keeps happening. How can I figure out why? I'll try XYZ next and if that doesn't work, then..." They are slowing down and deliberating through the mental process that all of us must go through to acquire deeper insight and understanding. They take nothing for granted. And they keep a record for everything.

You might like to build in some leeway for reflecting on the learning process itself. What is helping and what isn't? Organizing some kind of filing system for your ideas is not just an excuse to buy new stationery—it could literally be a precursor to how you mentally arrange and organize your arguments, experiments, and theories. A big skill is to be alert to what isn't working. Are you routinely discovering that you can't put into words a particular idea? Feynman would say that this is evidence that you don't really understand it, or that you are making a few unexamined assumptions. Great! The method is working—focus on those assumptions and you cannot help but learn.

Other approaches you can incorporate:

• Keep a glossary of terms at the back of the book. Every time you encounter a word that you don't know the meaning of, look it up and find examples of how it's used. Then write a definition for it in your glossary in your own words. If you're lucky, one new word will keep leading to another!

• Have a system of symbols or color codes to help you see at a glance how material is organized. For areas of uncertainty or challenge, for example, you could use the color red or underline with a dashed line. Or you could get in the habit of drawing long vertical lines in the margins to mark areas of special importance. Whatever you decide, just keep it consistent.

• Get used to creating summaries. At the end of every thinking or learning session, try to condense what you have covered in a single paragraph, image, or diagram. Be very clear about causal links. You want to feel that if someone were to stop you in the streets and ask where you were in your endeavors, you could tell them immediately, simply, and with only a few sentences. If you don't feel like that—keep focusing on the areas that still seem unclear.

• Occasionally close the book and try to recall what you've read or written. This not only strengthens memory, but it forces your brain to engage with the material more directly. Blind spots will be a lot more obvious to you. What do you keep forgetting/overlooking and why? Could it be that there is an area of poor understanding? Focus on that.

• Prime yourself. Before just diving into something new, pause to ask yourself a few questions so that as you read, you are doing so actively and giving your mind a chance to filter, interpret, and collate. Before you take in any new material, orient yourself—who created it and why? Why are you reading it? How does it fit in with everything else you know? Note questions and prompts in the margin as you read, or even jot down counterarguments—as though you were literally talking to the text!

• Make your learning personal. There's no use trying to replicate a nice-looking journal style that belongs to someone else dealing with some other kind of problem. Your notebook is for you and should reflect your learning process, not someone else's. Use techniques, symbols, images, and organizing principles that make sense to you. Sometimes, the best methods are the ones you devise from scratch—no others will fit you better!

• Finally, don't get discouraged if you feel overwhelmed by the amount of material, confused about how to organize it, or disheartened by how difficult it is. Learning is hard. Even intelligent people have to push themselves through periods of frustration, confusion, and fatigue. If it were easy to understand, you would have done so already, right? Don't take the difficulty of a task as proof that you shouldn't attempt it. Just keep asking questions. "What am I not understanding right now? How can I rephrase this in another way? Who can teach me this in a way I'll understand? Where can I find an example?"

Summary

• To think like a scientist, a person needs intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation comes from our own valuation of what's important and meaningful, and a personal sense of satisfaction that comes with defining our own means and ends.
• Be honest and realistic with yourself about what genuinely inspires and motivates you. Evaluate your motivations and goals, reconnect to your passion in life, and consider the greater good you'd like to serve.
• Get into the habit of asking questions, and get comfortable with not knowing. Create your own "curiosity engine" by keeping a journal with your twelve favorite problems written in it. Always seek their solutions in everyday life. With a list of problems/questions, you give yourself a tool with which to face new challenges, and you bring your stress down and your feeling of control and mastery up. You increase your chances of making important connections and solving problems.
• Don't be afraid to relax into the unintuitive, unconscious, or unexpected ways that new ideas and insights might arrive. Stay curious about what seems strange, unusual, or unexplained.
• To keep himself actively involved in the learning process and to improve his comprehension, Feynman kept a master notebook in which he listed the topics he lacked knowledge about. This kept him organized and focused.
• The most important part of Feynman's notebook method is to explain the material to yourself as though you were teaching it to another student similar to you. Your ideal notebook will depend on the function you want it to serve.