I love hearing this guy talk.
If you really want to figure out magnetism, he can still teach you at the Amazon link

"We don't know how magnets work, okay? now beat it kid, you're bothering me"

Text book example of how to avoid a question.

I just re-watched this after seeing it a year or so ago. It never gets old.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Monday, June 29th, 2009 4:41am PDT - promote requested by marinara.

I've never seen him so grumpy or snarky before?? He must have had a bad sleep or something.

This is basically what the problem is with the internet. Amateurs asking Why and not getting an answer they can package so ignorance fills the gaps. Sort of like 9/11 conspiracy theories and the like.

If you're asking "Fucking Magnets, how do they work?" in the first place, there is probably some mystery explanation already in your head to explain it. If it's a real question, you can surely google up something to read about that. Whether or not you get good information depends on how much time you put into studying the question. If it's a rhetorical question, you're wasting the time of whoever you've asked by expecting them to take it seriously.

Another good example of this is any discussion with a creationist about evolution. They've heard just enough from pseudo-scientific creationist arguments to know some minor points about evolution, but this comes with misconceptions, flawed arguments, and logical fallacies. When you try to educate these people, you swiftly learn that any attempt to do so is a waste of time and energy. If they really wanted to know they would study for answers, but what they want instead is to shout down the people with the actual knowledge.

I think what Mr. Feynman is saying here is that if you expect to get a good answer to your question, you should study enough so that he won't have to "dumb down" his answer to satisfy you. If you're actually curious about the answer and want to understand it, you'd oblige.