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Radiolab recently released an episode that started with Richard Feynman’s first lecture in his Introduction to Physics 101 class at CalTech. He starts the lecture by posing a question then answering it:
If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms — little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.
— Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume I, Chapter 1, Section 2
He gives a brilliant synopsis for rebuilding physics through the atomic hypothesis — that all things are made of atoms. Society would rebuild iPhones, the internet, and the atomic bomb. But how much longer would it take to rebuild a physical art like jiu jitsu?
