[alliance-iosk] Last message off topic

[Stefano.Costa@italtel.it]

Ramon van Handel wrote:

> >heh. A brief history of time was oversimplified in some cases and under
> >simplified in others ;-)
>
> I haven't read that book, but I always feel this kind of science-fiction
> weirdness when I read that kind of books.  I don't believe you can treat
> subjects like quantum physics without their mathematical formalism - the
> two belong together.  Without maths, you simply cannot understand the
> physics, because many implications are purely mathematical - such as the
> well-known Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which follows purely from the
> non-communtance of operators (space and momentum, in this case).

Well, from a purely theoretical point of view, you are correct: a mathematical
theory cannot be understood without mathematics itself. But you are making a
bold assumption: that you can't describe a mathematical model in a
non-mathematical way. This is simply false: ANY math formalism can be described
in a semi-formal language, and so "understood" by non-math people. The key is
the semantical meaning of "understood". You, chemistry scholar, attribute to
this word a full significance. Other people attributes a significance which is a
subset of yours, but still valid. If it is not valid, we can formally proof ( :)
) that the people who attributes a lesser significance to the word, cannot learn
anything about, which is blatantly FALSE.
Probably you don't remember the first book about computer you have read,
Ramon: was an introductory or scholar manual?
You *must* start from something *simple*.
Please don't forget.

Stefano



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