An old question, unsatisfactorily answered: Can everyone be good at physics/a physicist given enough effort and commitment ?

Everybody has their own strengths, which is what makes life interesting. So maybe everyone can be good at physics, but not everyone can be an Einstein?

Mr Tuite,

You are altering the question. It's not about being Einstein but physicist or good at physics.

While indeed all people have their own strengths, many can become many things but it is a much smaller percentage of this many who become physicists. Of course factors such as dislike of current paradigm's methods or statistical small inclination to study value-less non animate topics might also be the main reason for this small percentage. But this does not mean we can identify the reality with these

First, a full and comprehensive definition of the term "good at physics" should be given.

Boris Rozin That is a good point - what counts as being good at physics is rather subjective. Philippos Afxentiou As I said in the first part of my answer, my feeling is that everyone could be 'good' at physics given time, opportunity, inclination and enthusiasm. It reminds me of what Richard Feynman said (with perhaps uncharacteristic modesty) that he was just an ordinary guy, but worked hard and had lots of curiosity about the world around him. I disagree with the second point, that ease of working with abstractions is an inborn trait - on the contrary, as most teachers would probably agree, that is a skill that we can teach our pupils with time.

Mr Boris Rozin and Mr James Tuite,

"Being good with physics" refers to someone able to 1. understand the application of the "scientific method" to explain and understand phenomena at a competent level 2. able to apply principles to unknown circumstances from those his teacher taught 3. able to have a sense of the need, necessity and epistemological effectiveness of the specialized application of various concepts and scientific claims to different domains of physical science

About abstraction. From my self, i see i work very well with concepts. For example i a very bad at interior design.

But when i come to be presented with a conceptual summary of the idea (of Wabi Sabi interior design

for the first time I understood and got excited - internal communication took place when before there was blurry and far away notions.

I believe the same may happen to people who are not wired like me and try to comprehend physics,(of course might understand physics via other avenues i.e. a strong physical intuition or experimental sense or other lens) unless someone communicates physics to them via their default mode of cognitive working, which has to be assessed first, different categorizations or theories developed before that etc. And then again, they might still get a glimpse and not the essence, like i might with interior design. That's some thought, anyway.

You are right that everyone will have their own approach to the subject and their own way of thinking, but maybe that is productive. Can we say that there is a single 'essence' of physics when often it is exactly different ways of thinking that drives progress?

I would add, that besides a proper definition for "good" in something, it is also necessary to define "physics" for that matter. Both may vary to large extent.

Put it another way: I know quite many people bad in physics, which however do physics (theoretically or practically). An average human sufficiently motivated can become better in physics than many of them.

The notion of "good in physics" sometimes is understood as "largely accepted by physics academic society", which is completely wrong. The obstacles to accept somebody come from exactly this category of bad in physics but having scientific career, for which any new scientist makes competition.

On the other hand, there are people, which achieved great results in physics without proper education (e.g. Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk etc).

So, my answer is: "Probably yes (see the first paragraph)". Another question would be: "Is it worth it to become good at physics/a physicist given enough effort and commitment?" The answer to this question is up to each individual person.