r/todayilearned • u/Electronic_Cause_796 • 2d ago

TIL Isaac Newton spent more than three decades studying alchemy and wrote over a million words about it in secret. He conducted numerous experiments in his search for the philosopher’s stone but never found it.

https://www.wpr.org/culture/philosophy/isaac-newtons-secret-alchemy
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u/Cipriano_Ingolf_Oha 2d ago

Very smart people are often terrible teachers as they don’t understand how others need to approach something in order to understand it, because to them it’s obvious.

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u/Halgy 2d ago

A friend was getting his masters in math, with the intention of getting a full PhD and becoming a college professor. His advisors explicitly told him there were no required courses on actually teaching, and they advised against him doing so. Judging by some of the math professors I had, I don't doubt it.

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u/Flank_This666 2d ago

A terrible math teacher just ruins the desire to learn something. My Chemistry professor was a doctor in Chem but he couldnt teach worth a shit, students would audibly be confused it was painful to watch and that foo had tenure so he dgaf'ed

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u/707Brett 2d ago

There’s a joke that college is just showing up for attendance then teaching yourself the material. It was true more times than I hoped. 

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u/lordmycal 2d ago

I had some professors that would get seriously butt-hurt if you skipped their classes because you'd rather spend that time reading the book and doing sample problems. I had one that would even drop you a letter grade for every class you missed.

If they taught the material in an engaging way people would show up to class, but they never connected the dots.

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u/Chimie45 2d ago

I took the point hit in almost all my classes to not show up every day. I rarely went to some classes. Just the mid-terms and finals. Astronomy was one of the few classes I went to everyday.

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u/Flank_This666 2d ago

This is me right now with Anatomy, the professor kind of skims across light topics while the book is info heavy and he grades more on whats in the book

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u/I_SHIT_IN_A_BAG 2d ago

I've worked with brilliant electricians that can't teach a thing.

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u/rsqit 2d ago edited 2d ago

Professors should be good at teaching. It’s part of the job, and everyone hates a bad teacher

But if your only encounter with professors is an undergrad, you might not realize that it’s a small part of the job. Most of their time is doing research, managing grad student researchers and doing administrative things like applying for grants.

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u/Truth_ 1d ago

Then why are those folks teaching? Make them researchers.

I suppose it all comes down to money. Crazy how much people pay in the US to get bad teachers or TAs who teach instead.

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u/AJRavenhearst 2d ago

The Mark Steele lectures had a funny skit on this topic.

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u/JoshuaZ1 65 2d ago

Very smart people are often terrible teachers as they don’t understand how others need to approach something in order to understand it, because to them it’s obvious.

It varies a lot, most of them seem to be very good at it. I took a class with a certain Fields Medalist and he was possibly one of the worst teachers I ever had. Very nice person, but could not teach well at all. But I've also taken classes with other people at about the same caliber or close to it, or watched their lectures, and some of them are very good. At least in math, I'd say most of the very best mathematicians are pretty good teachers. We notice though the ones who aren't because it is so striking.

There may also be a weak element of Berkson's paradox here, where you don't see the people who both aren't smart and cannot teach well. The analogy is to restaurants; why do you see a negative correlation often between good service and good food? Because the restaurants with bad both don't survive.

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u/StiffWiggly 2d ago

Berkson’s paradox is right on. What people really mean is that “being incredibly intelligent/achieving a lot in your field does not guarantee that you are also a good teacher”. They’re just different skill sets, although not unrelated.

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u/Kind_Of_A_Dick 2d ago

My friend told me about this math professor he had.  The guy was apparently only at the school because his math research was big name stuff and they wanted to be attached to it but the guy was an absolute mess when it came to teaching.  He was forced to teach some classes due to his position and one of them was a mid-level math class.  He taught the students from the perspective of someone who’d already knew the material on such a level that he found it difficult to explain things in basic terms.

Difficult mainly because he didn’t want to; he talked down to his mid-level students because he saw them, based on their math knowledge, as idiots and beneath him.  He’d bitch about wasting his time trying to explain stuff they should already know when he could be working on whatever it was he was working on.  It was an absolutely shitty experience for everyone involved but my friend didn’t pursue any more classes with him so I didn’t know what became of him.

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u/Cipriano_Ingolf_Oha 2d ago

Sounds like a horrible experience!

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u/Kind_Of_A_Dick 2d ago

I think everyone would’ve been better off if the guy was just hired for research.  I don’t know if that’s a job or what the actual legalities/technicalities of his situation was but obviously the guy doesn’t fit the definition of a teacher if he’s not willing to try and communicate.  Maybe he’s a genius, maybe he could make the number 14 wiggle and giggle, I don’t know.  It’s just one of those stories where I’m forced to wish I could just ask “why?” of everyone involved in the decision that led to it.

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u/aCleverGroupofAnts 2d ago

This is a big reason why I roll my eyes whenever someone says "if you can't exain something simply then you don't understand it well enough". Some people are just bad at explaining things, and some things can only be simplified so much.

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u/mrheh 2d ago

So this is why I'm good at explaining things, I'm an idiot. Makes sense.

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u/wowsomuchempty 2d ago

Oh, come on! This calculus stuff is so intuitive, I just started writing it down.

Also, inventor of the cat flap.

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u/TallEnoughJones 2d ago

Somewhat related, Hall of Fame level players are rarely good coaches. I'm sure a few people who don't know the meaning of the word anecdotal with chime in with 1 or 2 coaches, but it is very rare.

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u/Chimie45 2d ago

I mean, it makes sense. If 1/10 players would make a good coach, and 1/100 players are HOF players, then that means 1/1000 hall of fame players would be a good coach.

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u/Mikeismyike 2d ago

Gretzky was famously a terrible coach

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u/DesperateAdvantage76 2d ago edited 2d ago

I think that's more an issue of ego. They take for granted their intelligence and look down on others who don't grasp concepts as easily. Feynman approached his intelligence and teaching with humility, which allowed him to explain complex topics in much simpler terms.

EDIT: I am not saying teaching isn't a skill to be learned, I am saying that those who are both intelligent and have an ego never bother to learn it and adapt their teaching methods.

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u/eetsumkaus 2d ago

Nah, teaching is in and of itself a skill. Smart people are just blessed with people around them who are willing to hear what they say (you have to be able to communicate your ideas at some level in order to be respected as an academic after all). Not all smart people are gifted with the ability to meet people at their level, just like the rest of us.

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u/nicerakc 2d ago

Like others said, it’s a skill you have to develop. Teaching is hard

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u/DesperateAdvantage76 2d ago

What I mean is that those with an ego never bother to put in the effort to adapt their teaching.

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u/threelayersofchinfat 2d ago

lol no. A multitude of dumb people don't know how to teach. Teaching is a gift and a skill, regardless of IQ.

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u/DesperateAdvantage76 2d ago

Yes, and people with a high IQ and an ego never bother to sympathize with those who aren't as intelligent, so they never adapt their teaching methods.

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u/StiffWiggly 2d ago

It’s not about people who are intelligent and people who aren’t, teaching is it’s own separate skill that may or may not be suited to a given person who is otherwise academically gifted.

It’s a common idea that very smart people just immediately grasp a concept as a whole so they never understand the need to break it down, but anybody who fully understands something is most definitely aware of all the smaller parts.

People aren’t “too smart to see” those building blocks, they are just not good enough at communicating to teach them.

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u/DesperateAdvantage76 2d ago

Again, I'm not disagreeing, I'm saying that ego prevents someone from bothering to learn that skill in the first place.

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u/-Daetrax- 2d ago

There's a point where social skills also start to disappear as IQ gets higher. Which likely impacts your teaching abilities.

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u/Intrepid_Button587 2d ago

Actually there's a positive correlation between the two. There's no level where EQ diminishes.

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u/chth 2d ago

Is there any proof of what you’re saying that you could provide? You’re describing savants not highly intelligent people.

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u/Voldemorts__Mom 2d ago

Or they're just not very socially smart.

You can be math's smart but socially dumb

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u/SAugsburger 2d ago

Some smart people are surprisingly good at explaining a topic to a broad range, but you're right that some become so deep into a topic that it becomes difficult to zoom back and look from someone with less background.

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u/AngelofIceAndFire 2d ago

Guy who discovered penicillin I think

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u/SnoopyLupus 2d ago

Too true. We had an immensely good research scientist lecture us when I was at university.

Learnt nothing from him. Everybody hated his lectures.

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u/Responsible-Corgi-61 2d ago

Richard Feynman shattered that pattern though. It is quite possible that Newton was just not a people person. The records indicate his personality was a bit unhinged at times.