Nik: Remove dead Special:Contact link

2026-06-14T02:24:48Z

Remove dead Special:Contact link

← Older revision		Revision as of 2026-06-14T02:24:48
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	== Still looking ==		== Still looking ==

	To be clear: I still haven't found the ''specific'' blog post I originally read — the one that used friction as its worked example~~. If you know it, [[Special:Contact\|let me know]]~~. The Feynman material above is the most likely origin of the idea, but it isn't the exact text, and the friction-as-teaching-example framing may have been some educator's own retelling.		To be clear: I still haven't found the ''specific'' blog post I originally read — the one that used friction as its worked example. The Feynman material above is the most likely origin of the idea, but it isn't the exact text, and the friction-as-teaching-example framing may have been some educator's own retelling. If you know the post, I'd love a pointer.

	== See Also ==		== See Also ==

Nik: Expand: add likely original source (Feynman — "knowing the name vs. knowing the thing"), verbatim cited bird/thrush quote, friction-as-asperities context, and related principles; keep personal story and the unfound-blog-post note

2026-06-14T02:24:09Z

Expand: add likely original source (Feynman — "knowing the name vs. knowing the thing"), verbatim cited bird/thrush quote, friction-as-asperities context, and related principles; keep personal story and the unfound-blog-post note

← Older revision		Revision as of 2026-06-14T02:24:09
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	For the life of me, I cannot find this blog post anywhere.		For the life of me, I cannot find this blog post anywhere.

			== The likely original idea: Richard Feynman ==

			I never tracked down the exact blog post, but the idea behind it almost certainly traces back to the physicist '''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman Richard Feynman]''', who told two stories that, taken together, are basically the post I remember.

			=== "The difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something" ===

			In his memoir ''What Do You Care What Other People Think?'', Feynman recounts how his father taught him about a bird. When another kid challenged him for not knowing it was a "brown-throated thrush," Feynman explained that his father had already told him the bird's name in several languages — and that this was precisely the point:

			<blockquote>
			"You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You'll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing — that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something."
			<br />— Richard P. Feynman, ''What Do You Care What Other People Think?'' (1988)
			</blockquote>

			The name is a label humans agreed on; it carries no information about the thing itself. Learn the thing first; the label is just a handle you attach afterward.

			=== Friction, the asperity model ===

			The friction example fits the same physicist's worldview. In ''[https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_12.html The Feynman Lectures on Physics]'' (Vol. I, Ch. 12), friction between sliding solids is explained microscopically: even surfaces that look smooth are covered in tiny irregularities (in materials science these are called '''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperity_(materials_science) asperities]'''). As the surfaces slide, these little peaks catch, deform, and break against each other, draining energy from the motion and turning it into heat.

			That is exactly the "tiny bumps bumping into each other and making heat" story — told ''before'' the word "friction" is ever introduced. The car-brake comparison is the same mechanism scaled up: the brake pad's irregularities grind against the rotor, the motion is converted to heat, and the car slows.

			== The general principle ==

			State the principle plainly: '''teach the concept, then name it.''' A name introduced too early becomes an empty box — the child (or adult) can recite the word without it pointing at anything they actually understand. Worse, having the word can ''feel'' like understanding, which stops the questions that would have produced real understanding.

			This connects to a few neighbouring ideas:
			* '''Feynman's test for real teaching:''' "Without using the new word which you have just learned, try to rephrase what you have just learned in your own language." If you can't, you learned a label, not a concept.
			* '''The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman_Technique Feynman Technique]''' (the study method named after him) runs the same loop in reverse for the learner: explain an idea in plain words as if to a child, find the spots where you fall back on jargon, and go re-learn those.
			* In language and curriculum design this shows up as the argument that '''specialized vocabulary should wait until it is needed''' — terminology is most useful once there is already a concept for it to name.

			I've applied the same complaint elsewhere on this wiki — see [[STƏYWƏTE:N̓ pronunciation]], where a Musqueam place-name was attached to a school for years with no explanation of what it meant or how to say it: the word arrived long before the concept, which produces mystique and confusion rather than understanding.

			== Still looking ==

			To be clear: I still haven't found the ''specific'' blog post I originally read — the one that used friction as its worked example. If you know it, [[Special:Contact\|let me know]]. The Feynman material above is the most likely origin of the idea, but it isn't the exact text, and the friction-as-teaching-example framing may have been some educator's own retelling.

			== See Also ==
			* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman Richard Feynman (Wikipedia)]
			* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman_Technique The Feynman Technique (Wikipedia)]
			* [https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_12.html The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. I, Ch. 12 — Characteristics of Force]
			* [[STƏYWƏTE:N̓ pronunciation]]

	[[Category:Cannot Find on Google]]		[[Category:Cannot Find on Google]]
			[[Category:Linguistics]]

Nik: Created: friction-as-concept-before-word blog post (lost to Google)

2026-05-02T16:39:28Z

Created: friction-as-concept-before-word blog post (lost to Google)

New page

__NOTOC__

I read this — I think it was a blog post — about the correct way to introduce topics to children. The idea: introduce the ''concept'' first, then the ''word'' for it.

The example used was '''friction'''.

You tell the child: when you rub a piece of wood against another piece of wood and then let go, the top piece stops. Why doesn't it just keep sliding forever? Because there are tiny little bumps on the wood on top and tiny little bumps on the wood on the bottom, and they bump into each other. If you keep rubbing, those bumps even create heat. This is the same thing that happens when brakes stop a car.

''Now'' — after the child understands what's going on — you tell them: there's a word for this, and the word is '''friction'''.

The general principle: introduce the concept, ''then'' introduce the word. Not the other way around.

For the life of me, I cannot find this blog post anywhere.

[[Category:Cannot Find on Google]]

Introducing Concepts Before Words (Friction Example) - Revision history

Nik: Remove dead Special:Contact link

Nik: Expand: add likely original source (Feynman — "knowing the name vs. knowing the thing"), verbatim cited bird/thrush quote, friction-as-asperities context, and related principles; keep personal story and the unfound-blog-post note

Nik: Created: friction-as-concept-before-word blog post (lost to Google)