Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!ihnp4!ihlpf!nevin1 From: nevin1@ihlpf.ATT.COM (00704a-Liber) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Universal Programming Languge (was: Universal OS) Message-ID: <4723@ihlpf.ATT.COM> Date: 12 May 88 00:44:53 GMT References: <769@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> <76700017@uiucdcsp> <843@actnyc.UUCP> <3558@psuvax1.psu.edu> <4039@killer.UUCP> Reply-To: nevin1@ihlpf.UUCP (00704a-Liber,N.J.) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois Lines: 82 In article <4039@killer.UUCP> loci@killer.UUCP (loci!clb) writes: >Computers are mathematical, and operate best on these problem, >much less well on poetry, literature, ... This is a common fallacy, that computers are inherently mathematical. Mathematics is simply one way of abstracting what a computer does. All computers do is some electonic signal manipulations. Anything else we say about them is an abstraction or model of what they do. >This isn't right. I have any number of books dealing with >mathematical subjects (physics, astronomy, economics, etc.) >and they are written in mathematics. The English merely >introduces sections. To demonstrate that, get an English >professor to read it and explain to you what it says. In >all probability, it might as well be written in Martian. This isn't right, either. A number of professionally videotaped courses in these subjects are done using actors who usually understand next to nothing about mathematics, yet I could learn more from these tapes than from most of my teachers in college. If you believe that these subjects are written in 'mathematics', then I propose an experiment for you. Find some advanced physics topic that you don't know, buy a book about it that is written in a foreign language that you don't know, and try to learn the topic. Then come back to the net and explain why you couldn't learn it. In order to understand the things you call 'mathematical subjects', you need both mathematics *and* English. An analogy to this is buying a newspaper and reading a caption of a picture they forgot to print or seeing a picture without the caption. Neither of these circumstances tells the whole story; you need BOTH the picture and the caption. BTW, I learned mathematics (specifically calculus) from physics, not the other way around. In my calculus class, we learned how to solve integrals; in physics, we learn how to set them up and what they meant. >The "fascination" is the usefulness in describing real-world >processes. Operations in mathematics aren't used just to >make something complicated: they are used because they model >natural events and problems in a way that simplifies their >understanding. Formal logic is less real-world, more like >an effort on the part of people to model the world in their >terms. From formal logic (and computablility) branch of mathematics come the theoretical description of what we call a computer. Does this mean that computers are less real-world? :-) >The problem most people have with mathematics is the same as >anything else: it is unfamiliar and thus intimidating. If >you're looking for something simple, then you find something >with little power. To do complex problem, you've got to roll >up your sleeves and work at it. Not because the method is >hard, but because the world is complex. I got a pretty good score on the last two Putnam exams I took (especially for someone who was never a math major); I think this qualifies me as being familiar with mathematics. To solve a complex problem, you have to break it up into smaller, more manageable problems. Whether I use mathematics or another tool, this depends entirely on the problem. >One more thing. Notation is a problem with mathematics because >the ASCII character set is too simple (small) to allow >the expression of mathematical operations in a natural way. >Just try to get tensor calculus to squeeze into ASCII. Yes, but since mathematical notation is extensible, you can NEVER have enough symbols to allow the expression of mathematical operations in a natural way. Mathematics is a very powerful *formal* language. Until someone can show otherwise (by implementing the language of mathematics), I maintain that it is not a good language for writing computer programs in. -- _ __ NEVIN J. LIBER ..!ihnp4!ihlpf!nevin1 (312) 510-6194 ' ) ) "The secret compartment of my ring I fill / / _ , __o ____ with an Underdog super-energy pill." / (_