alt Hacker News>> Specifically, I focused on the equivalence principle—a key axiom that Einstein formulated through thought experiments grounded in his physical intuition.
It's weird because the equivalence principle is very unintuitive. Aristotle's Mechanics does not have it. It took almost two thousand years to discover inertia that is the most simple version of the equivalence principle. Einstein understood the idea of the the equivalence principle because he had a physics degree, not because he feel that in real life.
Moreover, if you ever have to study or teach Quantum Mechanics, physical intuition gets in the way. A lot of properties contradict the physical intuition but after a while you get use to them. If we continue with Einstein, the photoelectric effect does not aperar in real life.
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That’s funny, when I first learned about the equivalence principle, my first thought was “of course!” I have always found it to be very intuitive. The great leap is being able to frame it that way.
> If we continue with Einstein, the photoelectric effect does not aperar in real life.
Of course it does. How do you think your phone camera works?