Re: A question of semantics

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Nick Maclaren <nmm1@C...> wrote:

>     2) The concept of "with probability one", as in statistics.  I
> have had to try to get this across to people with science degrees
> and little knowledge of mathematical probability and have had major
> difficulty.  They often just CAN'T break out of the mindset of
> discrete mathematics.
I don't quite see the problem with "probability one".  It's
just a way of saying "with 100% certainty", a concept that
should be understandable even outside of mathematics.

On the other hand, many people have trouble with applying or
manipulating non-trivial probabilites, e.g. "if one test has
a probability of 25% for outcome A, then the probability to
get an outcome A in four tests is 100%".  ;-)



>     3) Wavefunction collapse in quantum mechanics, in such a way
> as to make the two-slit experiment a natural consequence.  Einstein
> had trouble with this one :-)
Ouch!  That one takes years by default.  =P  I think it
would help the learning curve if teachers were clearer about
the fact that an observation will not only yield an eigen-
value of the observable's operator, but actually snap the
wave function into the corresponding eigenstate.  Then the
two-slit experiment becomes clearer.  (Of course, the notion
that |a+b|^2 is not the same as |a|^2 + |b|^2 for complex
numbers needs to be understood first!)



> The fact
> that mathematics uses the same words shouldn't confuse us into
> thinking that they have the same semantics.
It still does, often enough.  =P



-- Christian Thalmann

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