Musk's first principle refers to the first principle in physics, which is defined in Wikipedia as follows:
In physics, if a calculation starts directly from the established physical laws and does not make assumptions such as empirical models and fitting parameters, it is called starting from first principles or starting from scratch.
Google's first principle recommended answer article first principle: the cornerstone of true knowledge is explained as follows: first principle is a founding suggestion or guarantee. T exists independently. We can't deduce the basic principle from any other proposition or hypothesis.
Simply put, the first principle is the most basic fact, and we can't deduce the first principle through other theorems and assumptions.
Musk interprets it this way:
What he said probably means that people are always used to thinking by analogy based on traditional or past experience, and rarely think based on first principles. They will say that someone has always done it, or no one has done it, so they must not do it. But this is actually a ridiculous way of thinking. You must start from the most basic fact, that is, the "first principle" in physics. You should start with the basic principles and see if the result is feasible. This result may be the same as what people did before, but it may not be the same.
Musk also gave a very vivid example, that is, how he used first principles to solve the problem of high cost of rocket batteries of space exploration technology companies.
In the past, the cost of human battery pack was $600/kWh, and people thought that the price would not fall. But thinking from the first principle, we will think about what batteries are made of, and what are the spot market prices of these substances? The material composition of the battery is decomposed into cobalt, nickel, aluminum, carbon, some polymers and a steel can. If we buy these materials at the London Metal Exchange, how much will it cost? The result is $80 per kWh. So you just need to find a clever way to assemble them into battery units, and you will have a battery that is much cheaper than everyone thinks.
The following is a video of Musk explaining the first principle: the first principle method explained by Elon Musk.
Personally, I think the first principle seems to be similar to my understanding of cattle, looking at the essence through phenomena and the underlying logic. Everyone is saying that understanding the world and analyzing problems should not be based only on experience and tradition, but should return to the most basic principles and facts and make their own judgments. Also, understanding the most basic knowledge in a field is actually the most important. For example, the principle of muscle augmentation, the result of muscle augmentation is that muscle fibers become thicker, and the process simplification is to destroy muscle fibers through strength training and restore the excess heat caused by nutritional supplement after training through rest. Therefore, muscle training is simply to eat more, practice more and rest more. But why is the reason so simple that there are not many people around us who have good fitness effects? Most people come into contact with articles about fitness, which can be said to be varied, but they are irrelevant. Many articles written in eight ways about the word fennel have given us a lot of useless knowledge. What is the significance of various details carving training videos shared by the "Great God" of science and technology for novices? On the contrary, it will make us feel that we have no talent and fall into depression that we can't gain muscle. Another example is whether you can eat protein powder, eat protein powder and hurt your kidney. What is protein powder? It is protein, fat, carbohydrate and some trace elements. The reason for eating it is that you don't take protein as a supplement in your daily diet. Does it hurt the kidney? First of all, the relationship between kidney and protein is that the kidney will metabolize digested protein and excrete it in the form of urine. In addition, a moderate amount of protein, such as 2g/ body weight, will not lead to kidney overload in healthy people. These examples show that common sense, meta-knowledge, basic elements and basic facts play an important role in our understanding, analysis and judgment of information.
First principle: the cornerstone of true knowledge