[plt-scheme] Re: Why "lambda"?

From: Shriram Krishnamurthi (sk at cs.brown.edu)
Date: Sun May 31 16:19:27 EDT 2009

In college, I once tried reading a physics textbook that had been
brought over from China by a Chinese friend.  I had relatively little
trouble with it, because even though all the prose was in some kind of
Chinese, all the equations were in "English"....

2009/5/31 YC <yinso.chen at gmail.com>:
>
> On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 11:41 AM, Jos Koot <jos.koot at telefonica.net> wrote:
>>
>> That does not sound like a sound idea. Learning programming, or maths or
>> music is like learning a language. The alphabet is part of it. If you don't
>> master the alphabet, you can'r read communications of others.
>>
>> There is a (small) possibility you only want to understand the essentials
>> without being disturbed by a new language (cq alphabet). But if the subject
>> catches you and you want to read more about it, ignorance of the language
>> gives you no access to other literature.
>>
>> We are even lucky compared to Chinese people, I think. May be we should
>> use Chinese characters in our maths too. A very rich set of new symbols!
>>
>
> Yes the symbol matters.  I would love to see someone experiment with using
> Chinese characters and see what happens.  It's just abstractions right?
> Then one should have no issue picking up the following two equations with
> equal ease.
>
> 能 = 量光^2
>
> E = MC^2
>
> At least physics equations' choice of symbols often have direct meanings,
> which aids understanding.  Math symbols often appeared arbitrary.
>
>
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