He understood explanations as a surgeon understands knives. He had a set of practical tests, heuristics, that he applied when reaching a judgment about a new idea in physics: for example, did it explain something unrelated to the original problem. He would challenge a young theorist: What can you explain that you didn’t set out to explain? He knew that why? is a question without an end and that our knowledge of things is inextricable from the language we use. The words and analogies from which we build our explanations are culpably linked with the things explained. Explanans and explanandum
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