Re: The Future of Young Adult Fiction?

On Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:15:52 -0700, Alma Hromic Deckert
Trying to explain quantum physics in terms of pure anglo-saxon comes
up with essays like "Uncleftish Beholding", which works fine as an
amusing curiosity and even goes a certain way towards giving a glimpse
into the theory of relativity but trying to use this language and this
vocabulary to actually hone a cohesive and working theory would
quickly sink under its own weight.

I don't think so.

Quantum mechanics and general relativity is explained more in
mathematics, than in normal words. My understanding of it does not
rely on words to any significant extent, nor is it easily expressed in
words. I find it no easier to explain in standard english than in
strict anglo saxon. I am pretty sure I could translate any portion of
Misner Thorne and Wheeler into the Anglo Saxon of "uncleftish
beholding", without any loss in intelligibility, and perhaps some
gain.

"For although light oftenest behaves as a wave, it can be looked
on as a mote, the *lightbit*. We have already said by the way
that a mote of stuff can behave not only as a chunk, but as a
wave. Down among the unclefts, things do not happen in steady
flowings, but in leaps between bestandings that are forbidden.
The knowledge-hunt of this is called *lump beholding*. "

This is clearer and more accurate than most explanations of quantum
physics in mere words that I have seen. Translating "science" to
"knowledge hunt" and "worldken" and "physics" to "beholding" conveys
important information that most readers are otherwise unlikely to
understand. Poul Anderson uses "worldken" for science, in the sense
of stuff that we know, and "knowledge hunt" for science in the sence
of the activity of science, the way we going about discovering things,
an important and useful distinction.


--
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We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald
.