[serniebanders]

I don't find the video fascinating, quite the opposite actually. Richard Feynman could have just explained the electrical force and left out the rest. When someone asks, `why does x work`, its a sign that they are curious and ready to explore and learn. Its an opportunity to teach and educate.

The whole video (to his credit, Richard did explain the concept well) focuses on how little the questioner know. It is a little belittling. If someone talked like that to me I'd have gone home and accepted the fact that I just would never understand electromagnetism and moved on.

A better approach instead of actually capitalizing on this curiosity and teaching the questioner, giving them just a bit more than the normally accepted answer so the curiosity lives on.

[aronpye]

I think in this example Feynman was using the question to illustrate the levels of complexity in answering a scientific question. If you watch his actual lectures, Feynman does break the concepts down in order to teach them.

Also, documentaries and popular science books tend to dumb down and over simplify theories to such an extent, such as by removing all mathematics, that they just become either wrong, inaccurate, or misleading. I think it was Einstein which said make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.