Hey LessWrong, I found you years ago but made an account only now. After reading the HPMOR series I bought the Feynman Lectures on Physics, but never made much headway. I am giving it a proper go again though, and feel like I am making more steady progress than the last time I tried.
One thing I am running into time and again is that while Feynman is amazing at guiding the reader through discovering the physical laws on their own, it is still a static textbook. Being a huge fan of everything Bret Victor, I wondered: has anyone attempted to make these lectures interactive in some way? What would the lectures look like in an age where simple simulations can visualise how parameters in physical laws are related? In an age where readers can use their 3d printers to print an experiment setup at home and follow along? Would love to discuss with people currently going through the lectures themselves what tools they are creating to help their own learning process.
I am currently just taking notes while reading, but at some point am planning to at least create some interactive simulations of the experiments described. I find that even if those do not add any value, the process of making them helps understanding the concept immensely.
I’m not going through the lectures myself (at least not in a systematic way), but I do spend a lot of time thinking about physics concepts and trying to imagine them in more geometric, conceptual ways. I am interested in making visualizations based on my insights, however I haven’t had time to make them yet. I’d love talking about ideas on how to do this though!
I’d say my understanding of physics is really highschool+ level, so I am actively learning as I go (I studied AI and have some maths background from it but that’s about it). I have collected a few references of maths/physics visualisations as a starting point, though most of them touch on programming more than phyiscs per se. What would be a good format for talking about these ideas, i.e. what works best for you?
> however I haven’t had time to make them yet Yes this will probably be an issue for me too, but reaching out here on LW is the first step towards actually committing to it :)
I think the problem with visualization content is that is very time-intensive to make (let alone the difficulty.) You should look at the manim library written in python from which 3blue1brown made his videos of Linear Algebra.
Looking more into manim is on my list, I have been following 3b1b for years ( he had the best explanation of quaternions and partial differential equations by far ). Theres actually a community split-off established recently, which should be more user-friendly. Thanks for reconfirming that as a valuable resource.
And yes, making visualisations is time-consuming. I think the effort put into writing your own tools-for-learning pays off in big ways however. Going through the Lectures without them is also time-intensive. I don’t need to work my way through them fast anyways ;) My goal in making them would be to aid my learning first, and share my findings second (+ iterate with feedback) I guess.
As a side thought: One of the things I always sensed from this forum is a deep affinity for different ways of understanding things. So, not surprisingly, many converge and are enthralled by Bret Victor, though there are many (Nielsen, Matuschak, the web you linked, 3blue1brown, Jonathan Blow.)
So I think that exploring different mediums can be and end on itself rather than just making visualizations to understand a given subject (I get a sense of that from your comment, and I hope you explore it further!)
Cheers for the encouragement! I share your intuition, it is what prompted me to post here.
A quick sitewide search showed that Bret Victor’s name has come up before in discussion on LW, but not as much as I would expect. Anyway I had totally missed Matuschak out of that list, so on the growing list of references he goes :)
I have heard of Bret Victor behavior but in addition to watching a talk of him I didn’t really found a way to deeper engage with his work. Do you have recommendations about how to best dive into his work?
this essay on how to explore a concept/problem from multiple angles, focusing on how neglected visuals are in that process
this poster which summarizes his ongoing research in this area. I think its a powerful vision. Google Dynamicland if you want to find more of his recent work
That is correct, which is a crying shame. There’s some videos to be found of people who were invited to visit at some point, but yeah there’s very little to be found :(
Hey LessWrong, I found you years ago but made an account only now. After reading the HPMOR series I bought the Feynman Lectures on Physics, but never made much headway. I am giving it a proper go again though, and feel like I am making more steady progress than the last time I tried.
One thing I am running into time and again is that while Feynman is amazing at guiding the reader through discovering the physical laws on their own, it is still a static textbook. Being a huge fan of everything Bret Victor, I wondered: has anyone attempted to make these lectures interactive in some way? What would the lectures look like in an age where simple simulations can visualise how parameters in physical laws are related? In an age where readers can use their 3d printers to print an experiment setup at home and follow along? Would love to discuss with people currently going through the lectures themselves what tools they are creating to help their own learning process.
I am currently just taking notes while reading, but at some point am planning to at least create some interactive simulations of the experiments described. I find that even if those do not add any value, the process of making them helps understanding the concept immensely.
I’m not going through the lectures myself (at least not in a systematic way), but I do spend a lot of time thinking about physics concepts and trying to imagine them in more geometric, conceptual ways. I am interested in making visualizations based on my insights, however I haven’t had time to make them yet. I’d love talking about ideas on how to do this though!
Lovely, thanks for replying!
I’d say my understanding of physics is really highschool+ level, so I am actively learning as I go (I studied AI and have some maths background from it but that’s about it). I have collected a few references of maths/physics visualisations as a starting point, though most of them touch on programming more than phyiscs per se. What would be a good format for talking about these ideas, i.e. what works best for you?
> however I haven’t had time to make them yet
Yes this will probably be an issue for me too, but reaching out here on LW is the first step towards actually committing to it :)
Welcome!
I think the problem with visualization content is that is very time-intensive to make (let alone the difficulty.) You should look at the manim library written in python from which 3blue1brown made his videos of Linear Algebra.
Hey eigen, nice of you to say “hallo”
Looking more into manim is on my list, I have been following 3b1b for years ( he had the best explanation of quaternions and partial differential equations by far ). Theres actually a community split-off established recently, which should be more user-friendly. Thanks for reconfirming that as a valuable resource.
And yes, making visualisations is time-consuming. I think the effort put into writing your own tools-for-learning pays off in big ways however. Going through the Lectures without them is also time-intensive. I don’t need to work my way through them fast anyways ;) My goal in making them would be to aid my learning first, and share my findings second (+ iterate with feedback) I guess.
Here’s another one of the list, perhaps a bit more doable: https://seeing-theory.brown.edu/
As a side thought: One of the things I always sensed from this forum is a deep affinity for different ways of understanding things. So, not surprisingly, many converge and are enthralled by Bret Victor, though there are many (Nielsen, Matuschak, the web you linked, 3blue1brown, Jonathan Blow.)
So I think that exploring different mediums can be and end on itself rather than just making visualizations to understand a given subject (I get a sense of that from your comment, and I hope you explore it further!)
Cheers for the encouragement! I share your intuition, it is what prompted me to post here. A quick sitewide search showed that Bret Victor’s name has come up before in discussion on LW, but not as much as I would expect. Anyway I had totally missed Matuschak out of that list, so on the growing list of references he goes :)
I have heard of Bret Victor behavior but in addition to watching a talk of him I didn’t really found a way to deeper engage with his work. Do you have recommendations about how to best dive into his work?
Hi, there’s two things I can recommend.
this essay on how to explore a concept/problem from multiple angles, focusing on how neglected visuals are in that process
this poster which summarizes his ongoing research in this area. I think its a powerful vision. Google Dynamicland if you want to find more of his recent work
That sounds that unless one can visit dynamicland it’s currently not possible to be really exposed to his work?
That is correct, which is a crying shame. There’s some videos to be found of people who were invited to visit at some point, but yeah there’s very little to be found :(
You can just DM me :)