I've seen this interview with Feynman before, it is very good. I've also seen the Insane Clown Posse video that mentions that they don't know how magnets work, and observed the backlash against them, that their video celebrates ignorance and so forth. My take is that those criticizing ICP are the ignorant anti-science ones.<p>I don't know how many physics or calculus classes ICP has taken, but let's assume the lyricist has a PhD in Physics. It's not an unreasonable assumption, to presume knowledge rather than ignorance.<p>I understand Maxwell's equations. I know what a dipole is and what flux is. Just this modest knowledge by itself is well beyond the educational attainment level of most ICP critics. This becomes rapidly clear when one attempts to discuss physics with them. That is not surprising, but it is surprising how many will criticize another for being ignorant when it is themselves who are ignorant. Maxwell's equations describe some relationships, but they do not tell us what magnetic fields really are. What is a magnetic field? No one really knows. We can describe with these equations what effects they produce and how magnetic and electric forces are interlinked. But what is really causing this stuff? What is it made of?<p>As Feynman says in the video, in iron you can line up the atoms so electrons spin in the same direction and thus so many induced small magnetic forces are aligned in one direction and thus amplified to the point they are noticeable, but what are these magnetic fields made of?<p>Nothing apparently, since they can propagate through a vacuum. But matter itself is made of bundles of these same e-m fields. In wave packets, they pretend to be something we like to call particles, which can travel through a vacuum as well but which don't really exist since they are made of waves which are nothing but vibrations. In the end there is nothing traveling through nothingness and all is nothing and no one knows anything. To those who understand physics, ICP comes across as pretty wise and observant. As Feynman says, "It is a very good question."