From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 1014db,1042f393323e22da X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,1042f393323e22da X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,1042f393323e22da X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public From: jsa@alexandria.organon.com (Jon S Anthony) Subject: Re: Off topic response to an off topic message--> was:Re: Software Engineering and Dreamers Date: 1997/06/05 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 246359187 Distribution: world Followup-To: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.ada Organization: PSI Public Usenet Link Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-06-05T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <5n45ou$cio@squire.cen.brad.ac.uk> cgrussel@bradford.ac.uk (Vibrating Bum-Faced Goats) writes: > What I'm trying to say here is that it could be argued (by me amongst > others) that the relationships between objects and phenomena exist > anyway. Mathematics is the ongoing creation of a extraordinarily rich and > diverse language which enables us to express those relationships. A > mathematician is creating a tool for scientists and engineers alike. It > may require a mathematician to make use of that tool at times but, at > it's very core, tool creation is what I believe to be the essence of maths. Spoken like an engineer. I don't think many scientists would actually say this sort of thing. Go read G.H.Hardy's _A Mathematician's Apology_. Considering that (in my experience anyway), the (vast) majority of mathematicians hold basically the views expressed there, you will immediately see what a "hornet's nest" you have just kicked. > I don't see it as being different from any other language in that it You're still kicking... > Distant unknown planets do not crash into their sun because no one there > has *discovered* the inverse square law. That relationship continues > to exist in a form unexpressable to the local inhabitants. So - how do you feel about the "Copenhagen interpretation" of QM? Bohr's notion of "complimentarity"? Just curious... /Jon -- Jon Anthony Organon Motives, Inc. Belmont, MA 02178 617.484.3383 jsa@organon.com