Wikipedia

About the text Dr. Richard Feynman was a famous American physicist who studied matter and energy. 'The Making of a Scientist' is a memoir by Feynman about his interactions with his father and how he became a scientist. Gist of the memoir The author explains that he learned from his father the traits that made him a good scientist, as indicated by the title of the piece. Feynman discusses in detail how his father ‘educated’ him and how it motivated him for the rest of his life. What his father gave him were ‘lovely, interesting discussions’ that caught his imagination as a child to such a degree that Feynman always looked forward to those kind of discussions. Feynman's father started by introducing his little son to patterns. It was possible that he was teaching him maths -something even more important than patterns. Thus Feynman started to learn about the world and how interesting it was. For him, to know something is to know why it does something. The message Feynman tries to convey by the example of the dinosaur is that when you read something you must translate it to something else so that you truly understand it. His choice of words like "magnitude" and "consequence" is deliberate and reflect the deep meaning of these words. Similarly, in the case of a bird when it does something, namely pecks at its feathers. To know the bird would be to know why it pecks, and his father explores Feynman's tentative answer with him before offering his explanation.