Latin, the Enlightenment, and science
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From: DKleinecke on 28 Dec 2009 21:09 On Dec 28, 12:50 am, garabik-news-2005...(a)kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk wrote: > In sci.lang Peter T. Daniels <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > > > On Dec 27, 7:50 pm, Peter Moylan <gro.nalyomp(a)retep> wrote: > >> On 28/12/09 08:23, Peter T. Daniels wrote: > > >> > On Dec 27, 3:50 pm, garabik-news-2005...(a)kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk > >> > wrote: > >> >> Blame aioe - they won't let me to post followups to more than 3 groups. > > >> > Then use a decent newsreader like google groups! > > >> This must be a meaning of "decent" that I've never met before. > > > It lets you post to five groups ... and it always has the complete > > thread available. > > My news*reader* (tin) is perfect, it lets me enter and diplay unicode > characters without a hitch, it can post to whatever groups you can, > I can use my favourite editor, I can read news from any computer (that > has ssh client installed), etc... > but ever since all the news*servers* in our network bitrotted, I > am left with free ones, and some of them, like aioe, limit follow-ups > (not posting) to 3 groups... Of course, I could pay for a commercial > server, but it is just not worth the (tiny amount of) money for me... > since I seldom cross-post and cross-follow-up. > > > None of the newsgroup-snobs has yet produced a single reason to switch > > away. > > Exactly - I have no reason to switch away from tin, and only a very tiny > reasons to switch from aioe. If the google groups werea news*server* (it > is not! It offers no NNTP accesss, then, by definition, it is just a www > interface, not a newsserver), I might reconsider. > > -- > ----------------------------------------------------------- > | Radovan Garabíkhttp://kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk/~garabik/| > | __..--^^^--..__ garabik @ kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk | > ----------------------------------------------------------- > Antivirus alert: file .signature infected by signature virus. > Hi! I'm a signature virus! Copy me into your signature file to help me spread! You might consider the ability to upload entire files to a group an advantage of Google groups.
From: DKleinecke on 28 Dec 2009 21:24 On Dec 28, 1:04 am, garabik-news-2005...(a)kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk wrote: > In sci.lang Peter T. Daniels <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > > > > > Is "continent" a technical term in geography? > > Dunno. It is, however, widely used. > > > Was "planet" a technical term in astronomy? > > Yes. Not formally defined (except by enumeration), though. > > > (Apparently it is now.) > > ...except of extrasolar planets, which by this definition are not > planets... > > To which extent does a terminology make a part of the language of > science? And what about informal, but widely used terminology? It is an > open question for which I have no answer. > > However, let's not leave out mathematics: many interesting fields, rings > and groups are defined by enumeration of their members, operations and > rules (see Boolean algebra for a simple one). Heck, even natural numbers > are defined by their "enumeration" in a sense (Peano axioms). > > -- > ----------------------------------------------------------- > | Radovan Garabíkhttp://kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk/~garabik/| > | __..--^^^--..__ garabik @ kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk | > ----------------------------------------------------------- > Antivirus alert: file .signature infected by signature virus. > Hi! I'm a signature virus! Copy me into your signature file to help me spread! Lets focus on just one point. How do you define a group if you attempt an absolute definition? There is no canonical representation of a group (unlike integers). You can produce realizations of the group axioms and you can define isomorphism between realizations. And you can observe that groups can be isomorphic to themselves ( automorphic in the jargon) often in many different ways. I don't think the situation is any better for rings. I am unsure about fields. It might be possible to relate the finite fields back to the integers - I have never seen a discussion of the matter - I think it doesn't interest anybody.
From: DKleinecke on 28 Dec 2009 21:32 On Dec 28, 2:11 am, chazwin <chazwy...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > On Dec 26, 10:10 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > > > > > On Dec 26, 4:20 pm, chazwin <chazwy...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > > On Dec 24, 5:43 pm, Mahipal7638 <mahipal7...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > On Dec 24, 8:58 am, Andrew Usher <k_over_hb...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > > > > The use of Latin in the sciences and other learned fields basically > > > > > ceased in the 18th and 19th centuries. I have long wondered why people > > > > > accepted the use of national languages exclusively in this endeavor > > > > > where international understanding is more imperative than any other. > > > > > It is true, that the use of Latin by 1700 had already passed almost > > > > > everywhere else, but its last remaining use should still have been > > > > > enough to support it, given that Latin was the one language that every > > > > > educated man in the Western world knew, and that Latin, having such a > > > > > long tradition of use, was at least suitable for scientific and > > > > > technical purposes as any other language at the time. > > > > > > And so, some explanations suggest themselves. The first is that the > > > > > predominant advocates and defenders of Latin, from the Renaissance to > > > > > now, are from the humanities; and so once Latin had disappeared from > > > > > live literary use, their support was no longer important. The second > > > > > is to blame it on the French: they abandoned Latin earlier than anyone > > > > > else, and are well-known to have an inflated view of the greatness of > > > > > their own language. But that does not seem to explain how it happened > > > > > everywhere else: had they wanted to emulate the French, they would > > > > > have started writing in French, and if they had wanted to oppose them, > > > > > they should have re-emphasised the role of Latin. > > > > > > Now, of course, I can't propose the revival of Latin for these > > > > > purposes: English has virtually replaced it as the international > > > > > scientific language. But it look a long time during which dealing with > > > > > many different languages was a considerable problem, and it seems as > > > > > though this should have been avoided. > > > > > > Andrew Usher > > > > > Science, enlightened or not, is Language independent, Language > > > > indifferent, Latin or otherwise. > > > > All thinking is language dependant. > > > Does making art not count as thinking? > > > > > One can arbitrarily translate scientific thought, it's not poetry, > > > > from one Language to another. > > > > So naive. > > > It's an axiom of modern linguistics (and it has never been disproved) > > that anything that can be said in any one language can also be said in > > any other language -- you may need to introduce new vocabulary to > > cover new concepts and realia (but the concepts can be explained with > > paraphrases, just as is done in both philosophy and science), but > > that's a trivial matter. > > Another axiom of modern linguistics that that there never is any > complete translation between two instances of the same statement. This > is true even across the same language. If you copy and paste this > posting to another forum, another person will react to it in a > different way and take a different meaning from it. Even the same person will read his/her own statements differently at different times often enough to make the principle apply to this case also. An interesting experiment is to write down all you can remember about some especially vivid dream ( immediately upon waking up, of course ). put the dream narrative away for a while, six months maybe, and then read it again. It will sound utterly alien.
From: Brian M. Scott on 28 Dec 2009 21:42 On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:05:09 -0800 (PST), DKleinecke <dkleinecke(a)gmail.com> wrote in <news:e1f26d37-f0bf-4a6d-9aa3-9f3ee47a6f08(a)o28g2000yqh.googlegroups.com> in sci.math,sci.physics,sci.lang,alt.usage.english,alt.philosophy: > On Dec 27, 10:53�pm, "benli...(a)ihug.co.nz" <benli...(a)ihug.co.nz> > wrote: [...] >> ... I am more than ever at a loss to understand how any >> linguist can maintain with a straight face that dh/th >> are in "complementary distribution". > It offends them that there are no minial pairs. Tthere are, and they know it: <thigh> ~ <thy>, and for many people <either> ~ <ether>. They dispose of these on other grounds. Brian
From: DKleinecke on 28 Dec 2009 21:49
On Dec 28, 9:32 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...(a)rudhar.eu> wrote: > Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:20:29 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels" > <gramma...(a)verizon.net>: in sci.lang: > > >I would assume they are /'pyur@r 'fyuriy en'd(y)uriN 'friyd@m fyuw n(y) > >uw bruw/. > > If <purer> is not /pyuwr@r/ but /pyur@r/, why is <freedom> /friyd@m/ > and not /frid@m/? > -- > Ruud Harmsen,http://rudhar.com According to my (non-standard) theory all the /yu/ are phonemically / ew/ and therefore /pewr@r/ is exactly parallel to /friyd@m/ |