Oct 7 2011
You don’t “understand” until you’ve answered the question
In my science-related endeavours, there’s been one thing that has been absolutely true. I might think I understand, but I won’t, not really, not until I’m actually able to answer the question. Back in school, I’d listen to my teacher who was speaking in front and I’d think to myself, “Ok, I understand that”, and then zone out and read a different book instead. I found out very quickly that I was wrong. After half an hour, she would tell us to pull out our exercise books and do some questions. That’s when you’d see me looking back at the textbook, trying to figure things out.
That little bit extra…
In physics, and in math especially, you require an extra skill besides just “understanding” to fully understand something. In debating, I never faced this problem. When I joined debating in my undergraduate days, it was a simple process of listening to something in a debate and understanding it. And using that understanding, you could pretty much explain and debate the next time. But the sciences require an extra skill. The skill to know if the answer is reasonable.
This is an odd thing to say, but I’m sure it’s true. When you take up law or economics or political science (themes debated heavily in varsity tournaments), you’re bound by reality. There are no moments when you would ever think of a person being able to float, or walk through a brick wall. The hard sciences are slightly different. In order to understand the universe, we have to look at it on a different scale, either very big (physics and cosmology) or very small (biology, physics and chemistry). It’s beyond a human to properly understand those concepts so we do it the only way we can. We cheat.
How do we cheat?
We cheat by not imagining everything at once. We forget the magnetic fields and the sunlight and whether there’s a brick wall in our way and just look at the muscles moving in a person’s leg. Does it matter if he’s walking off a cliff? Nope. We cheat by thinking of tiny atoms where you can apply “energy” to it and it will move faster and faster, without ever asking, “what energy is this”? We cheat by making things so abstract, that they lose their link to reality. So what happens is a situation where you make up a question about a boy running 200 meters in 5 seconds. Impossible, I know, but there you go.
And this is why answering questions are so important. It lets you practice questions and get a feel of their limits. What numbers are reasonable? How should the calculations look half-way through? What are those numbers you’re calculating?
I don’t have to calculate! That’s what my calculator is for!
In this day and age, we have powerful calculators and computers to do the dirty work for us. When I say “calculating”, I don’t mean adding and subtracting. Calculating is about understanding the numbers you’ve put on the paper and knowing what they represent. If you don’t know what the numbers mean, you’ll never be able to use them at the right place and in the right way to make meaning out of things.
Taking that previous example of a boy running 200 meters in 5 seconds. That’s a real question I did. In the middle of my calculations I had the number 200 and 5 and I was supposed to calculate speed. So I divided 200/5 and got the answer as 40. 40 meters per second. Ok, no big deal right? Then suddenly I looked back at the question and realized what I was calculating. This wasn’t a car or airplane moving at high speeds. This was a simple boy. And somehow he was moving over 200 meters in 5 seconds! 40 m/s! That’s crazy. And most of the time I wouldn’t even realize what I was calculating because it’s been abstracted so much. I later found out I messed up a step and it was supposed to be 200 meters over 80 seconds. Much more reasonable.
Answering the question
So what happens once you’ve “answered the question”? It means that you took the question, understood the meaning of it, were able to extract the relevant numbers, and use them appropriately in the calculation of the answer. This SHOULD mean that you truly understand. Congratulations.
Hold on…
Wait a second, now that I think about it, it applies in life too. There are so many concepts and quotes that are spouted all the time. But we never follow them even when we “understand” them. Worse, we don’t follow them even when we know them to be true.
Life lessons you’ve heard before:
- Be good to your parents
- It’s easier to take care of things on time (Don’t wait till the last minute)
- Love what you have
- There is nothing to hold you back, except yourself (Be confident)
- Know what you want
- Sometimes you have to say no (Be assertive)
- Ask questions
- Your health is your life (Take care of your health!!!)
- If you never act, you will never know (Take risks sometimes)
- It doesn’t matter how much you know unless you can explain it (Learn to speak well)
Unfortunately, a lot of these things we only know intellectually. We think we understand them, but we don’t really. It’s only when, one day long after you first heard it, something big happens to you and you go, “Oh wow, my mom was right”. That’s the moment you really understand the importance of that life lesson. But some people will forget it again afterwards. They’ll have a brief flash of understanding, then they’ll just forget again. It’s only when you apply it that you can truly be counted as having learnt the lesson.
So don’t just listen to all that excellent advice your parents have given you. They love you, you know? “Answer the question” and apply these life lessons.
Then, and only then, will you “understand” life.
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