Language of any kind has always been hard for me, as most languages aren’t intuitive and require your brain to be forced into learning often odd and unnecessary rules. My brain hates math, the only language I actually respect and a lot of science is built on complex math and non-intuitive nomenclature. I’ve been increasingly frustrated by it lately and just need to get this off my chest.
I’m a non-professional and have been studying physics for a long time - Quantum Color Dynamics of late - and almost everything I read and listen to requires my brain to constantly process almost every bit of information from non-intuitive nomenclature to personal made ones. It’s frustrating that the most challenging aspect of science (besides the complex math) isn’t the concepts (I honestly don’t find quantum mechanics to be weird) but rather the scientific community’s self-imposed nomenclature made of scientist names or hodgepodge of words.
Worst of all, I’ve only been able to process science like this as an adult because as a younger student, the subject matter seemed too hard because it was weighed down by both non-intuitive nomenclature and often teachers who barely understood the concepts they were teaching to the extent that they could translate that nomenclature beyond a book’s presentation (obviously my own learning experience).
Since I could remember I’ve loved science and wonder if I might have sought a career in physics, if not for frustrating hurdles like nomenclature, thrown on top of truly beautiful but complex subjects. At least I can enjoy it non-professionally - if only slowly, as I have to process its nomenclature.
Thank you. And with that, back to my particle zoo…
I remember doing medical terminology back in high school, which is this mashup of Greek, Latin and random names of people. Not quite the same thing as what you’re talking about since English does have some tidbits of Latin strewn about here and there, and it is at least based on actual languages that have a coherent structure.
But it’s just as arbitrary as the jargon around physics as regards what bits of each language get used for what. You’ll have Greek roots words with Latin suffixes and vice versa. There’s no consistency to how things are mashed up. That’s what makes it such a pain in the ass, imo.
Like, you’re trying to memorize the muscles of the body, and you have to do that while navigating that hodgepodge too. I suspect that’s not much different in terms of hassle.
However, the benefit of that kind of system is that it can be fairly universal. Pretty much everywhere in the world, an orbiculus oris is an orbiculus oris. So a nurse from India can mostly handle interacting with one from Germany, so long as they both were trained in the same jargon.
Afaik, that isn’t totally the case with physics. There’s some degree of the jargon that’s universal, but not enough to rely on it. And it draws from more languages, so you can’t even just focus on one or two and pick up what you need that way.
Tbh, it’s a pretty good argument for a “classical” education where Latin and/or Greek is taught to everyone at some point if they want to train in the sciences. You don’t even need fluency in them to get by, just enough to get a feel for how they work.
When I get frustrated with all the terms I always get reminded of imperial system of measurement Vs the metric and then wish physics would do something similar, not for the math in science obviously (though some of that needs attention too), but for the names of atomic, quantum and even cosmological objects/phenomena. I also realize how difficult that would be, given how much there’s still to discover and thus there’s still a lot of uncertainty - pun intended. Maybe some day it will all get standardized in a more intuitive way. Thanks for responding to my venting.
I’m a programmer (backend web dev, so 99% moving data around) that basically dropped out of school in 9th grade - parents decided to homeschool me because i was becoming a punk ass emo fuck and then never actually did anything to educate me. Thankfully i was curious as hell and passed the GED with flying colors, but i never learned the goddamn weird ass shapes and figures used in mathematics.
It’s hard as hell to google “what’s the thingy in math that looks like an E?” Oh, it’s just a loop…
Finding an algorithm to do what i need but only getting the mathematical notation sucks. Once I’ve deciphered it and turn it into code, it’s always really simple and makes intuitive sense, i just have trouble reading it in that format. Every so often wikipedia will show it in pseudocode, and i love the people that add that section so much.
A “how to read math for programmers” book would be amazing.
