> The student wasn't sure if the paragraph was wrong or if she'd misunderstood what Feynman was saying in it. So she asked him.
And he answered that question.
> I thought the point was that she wasn't supposed to 'believe' anyone.
I am presuming that her professor actually showed her why she was wrong, instead of asking her to take his word for it.
> And yes, of course the student was hoping that Feynman might have turned out to be right after all so that she could get some extra points on the test. So what?
You don't get it. Gauss's law is a very very elementary law (usually taught in high school). Her professor would have most definitely explained why he took off points from her exam. There are two explanations now as to why she included that PS: i) she didn't understand her professor's explanation, and hence also did not understand Gauss's law properly, ii) she was grade grubbing. I cannot sympathize with her for (i) since she most definitely did not make an effort to understand her professor's simple argument, yet she found the time to write a letter to Feynman. Also, W&M is a large research university with multiple physics professors and graduate students and it's unlikely that no one would have been able to help her with this. So she clearly didn't try hard enough to understand Gauss's law and that's not Feynman's fault. And I really cannot sympathize with her if it's case (ii).
a) Makes no difference to the argument. I'm not criticizing the student for writing to Feynman. I'm just saying that Feynman was absolutely right in his criticism, considering how elementary the subject matter is.
b) Also doesn't make any difference. I'm familiar enough with W&M to know that (i) it has a full-fledged graduate program and (ii) professors there collaborate extensively with JLab in both theory and experiment, though I admit that I don't know if that was the case when this student wrote the letter.
And he answered that question.
> I thought the point was that she wasn't supposed to 'believe' anyone.
I am presuming that her professor actually showed her why she was wrong, instead of asking her to take his word for it.
> And yes, of course the student was hoping that Feynman might have turned out to be right after all so that she could get some extra points on the test. So what?
You don't get it. Gauss's law is a very very elementary law (usually taught in high school). Her professor would have most definitely explained why he took off points from her exam. There are two explanations now as to why she included that PS: i) she didn't understand her professor's explanation, and hence also did not understand Gauss's law properly, ii) she was grade grubbing. I cannot sympathize with her for (i) since she most definitely did not make an effort to understand her professor's simple argument, yet she found the time to write a letter to Feynman. Also, W&M is a large research university with multiple physics professors and graduate students and it's unlikely that no one would have been able to help her with this. So she clearly didn't try hard enough to understand Gauss's law and that's not Feynman's fault. And I really cannot sympathize with her if it's case (ii).