Tag Archives: language
The gap between language and quantum mechanics
Physics World has a fantastic article about the problem with using a language invented, in Terry Pratchett’s words, “to tell other monkeys where the ripe fruit is”, to describe the peculiar but very much real possibilities created by the rules … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture, Scicomm
Tagged Embassytown, faith, Higgs boson, language, quantum computing, quantum entanglement, Quantum mechanics, quantum superposition, Werner Heisenberg
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Climate change, like quantum physics, will strain language
One of the defining features of quantum mechanics is that it shows up human language, and thought supported by that language, to be insufficient and limited. Many of the most popular languages of the world, including Tamil, Hindi and English, … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Science
Tagged causality, chaos theory, climate change, emergent phenomena, language, logograms, quantum entanglement, superposition
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Writing itself is fantasy
The symbols may have been laid down on paper or the screen in whatever order but when we read, we read the words one at a time, one after another – linearly. Writing, especially of fiction, is an act of … Continue reading
Posted in Culture
Tagged Ariekei, Arrival, China Miéville, Dune, Embassytown, Flatland, Frank Herbert, Harry Potter, heptapods, Higgs boson, higher dimensions, hypersphere, language, linguistics, nonlinear storytelling, nonlinearity, Orson Scott Card, sphericity, three dimensions, time, varelse
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The unclosed clause and other things about commas
The Baffler carried a fantastic critique of The New Yorker‘s use of commas by Kyle Paoletta on August 23. Excerpt: The magazine’s paper subscription slips have long carried a tagline: “The best writing, anywhere.” It follows that the source of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged comma, dependent clauses, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, grammar, James Salter, language, Mary Norris, Punctuation, semantics, Solar Bones, syntactics, The New Yorker
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Caution: This piece contains a lot of mentions of the word ‘jargon’.
When writing one of my first pieces for The Hindu, I remember being called out for using a lot of jargon. While the accusation itself may have been justified, the word my supervisor chose as an example of the problem … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged denial, didactic, jargon, journalism, language, science writing, scientific temper
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Problems associated with studying the brain
Paul Broca announced in 1861 that the region of the brain now named after him was the “seat of speech”. Through a seminal study, researchers Nancy Kanwisher and Evelina Fedorenko from MIT announced on October 11, 2012, that Broca’s area … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Broca's area, cognitive function, functional magnetic resonance imaging, language, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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An experiment in propositional calculus
Q: Are truths simply objective reasons whose truth-values may or may not be verifiable? A: This question seems to possess a native paradox, but that simply arises from a logical error in the semantics: we can’t address unverifiable statements as … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged A.J. Ayer, language, Ludwig Wittgenstein, propositional calculus, semantics, tautology, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Truth and Logic
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