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The Feynman technique can be used to learn absolutely anything.
It was devised by the Nobel laureate Richard Feynman.
The idea is that when you can teach something in the simplest way possible, you will master it.
Physicist Richard Feynman believed that simplicity was the key to learning.
*The idea is to make things simple enough for anyone to understand. Hill Street Studio (Getty Images)
PEGASUS REPORTERS, LAGOS | DECEMBER 16, 2021
Feynman worked on the Manhattan Project when he was only 20 years old. He went on to win the Nobel Prize in 1965 for his work in quantum electrodynamics, along with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga.
Feynman always believed that truth lies in simplicity and that things are easier to learn and retain when they’re simpler.
When your knowledge of something is full of complex explanations and terms taken from textbooks, you’re less likely to grasp it. He’s famously quoted as having said: “You must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool”
The goal of learning is to understand the world better. But more often than not, the way we learn doesn’t help us to achieve this.
You end up just memorizing something exactly as it’s written in a book or as the teacher explained it to you, so it doesn’t take long for this knowledge to disappear.
And this is where the Feynman technique comes into its own. The idea is to make things simple enough for anyone to understand. In doing this, you can acquire a deep understanding of the topic you’re studying.
The Feynman technique has four steps:
- Choose a topic and start studying it: Feynman’s technique isn’t limited to mathematics or physics. You can apply it to anything.
- Explain the topic to a child: This step allows you to establish if you’ve learned what you studied or if you just thought you had. Explain the concept in your own words as if you were trying to teach it to a child. When you try to break things down into simple ideas with plainer vocabulary, you’ll realize whether or not your knowledge of the subject is sufficient. This makes it easy to identify any gaps in your knowledge.
- Go back to the study material when you get stuck: Only when you can explain the subject in simple terms will you have understood it. This means that the knowledge will stick with you and not disappear like when you try and memorize something. Review your notes and study material for anything that you still don’t understand. Try and explain it to yourself in an easy way. If it’s too difficult or you have to use terms from a textbook, then you still haven’t got it.
- Organize and review: Until you can deliver a simple, natural explanation, you can’t stop. Go back to steps two and three as many times as you need. It probably won’t take as long as you think.
Read original article on Business Insider España
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