Richard Feynman — "I don't think there's any such thing as a 'best' way to do anything. There's jus…"
I don't think there's any such thing as a 'best' way to do anything. There's just what works.
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More from Richard Feynman
"It's a great thing to be able to say, 'I don't know.'"
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About Richard Feynman (1918-1988)
American theoretical physicist who shared the 1965 Nobel for QED, developed Feynman diagrams, and wrote the Feynman Lectures on Physics. Closely associated with Julian Schwinger (co-Nobelist for QED) and Murray Gell-Mann (Caltech rival and Eightfold-Way physicist). For an intellectual contrast, see Deepak Chopra, physician and quantum-mysticism author — Feynman's Caltech 'cargo cult science' commencement address is the precise template for what he saw as misuse of physics terminology — Chopra-style appropriation of quantum vocabulary for metaphysical claims is the canonical example of what Feynman called 'fooling yourself'.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
No single method is universally superior — the right approach is whatever actually produces results in a given situation. This rejects rigid dogma in favor of pragmatic effectiveness. If something works, that's its justification. If it doesn't, discard it regardless of how elegant or orthodox it seems. Results are the only honest measure of a method's worth.
Relevance to Richard Feynman
Feynman built his career on unorthodox problem-solving — he famously developed his own idiosyncratic path integrals and diagrammatic methods in quantum electrodynamics rather than following established formalisms. He distrusted authority, mocked credentialism, and judged ideas purely on whether they predicted real experimental outcomes. His Caltech lectures prioritized understanding over convention, and his Challenger investigation used a glass of ice water where others used reports.
The era
Feynman worked through postwar American science, an era of rapid institutionalization where government funding, peer hierarchy, and formal methodology became dominant. Cold War research culture pressured conformity to established frameworks. Against this backdrop, Feynman's pragmatic anti-dogmatism was genuinely countercultural — physics was splitting into factions over interpretation and formalism, and his insistence on empirical results over methodological purity cut through that noise.
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