From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/2972 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eduardo Dubuc Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: terminology Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 20:17:36 -0300 (ART) Message-ID: References: <43B048D4.8020601@cs.stanford.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1241019015 6677 80.91.229.2 (29 Apr 2009 15:30:15 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:30:15 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca (Categories) Original-X-From: rrosebru@mta.ca Sat Dec 31 10:27:33 2005 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 10:27:33 -0400 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.52) id 1EshYU-0007hu-EX for categories-list@mta.ca; Sat, 31 Dec 2005 10:17:58 -0400 In-Reply-To: <43B048D4.8020601@cs.stanford.edu> from "Vaughan Pratt" at Dec 26, 2005 11:47:32 AM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL2] Original-Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk X-Keywords: X-UID: 47 Original-Lines: 49 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:2972 Archived-At: We should not put everything in the same bag !! "strange," "charm," "beauty" and even "quark" itself are beautiful and poetic names to refer to objects or concepts which precisely we do not want to associate any precise meaning in everyday language, and on the other hand, the objects or concepts are introduced whith those names. "prone/supine" are all the contrary, they intent to reflect in everyday language just one aspect of an existing concept which has many, and more important, they are used in place of a well stablished name. all this has nothing to do with "young field" as opposed to "mature subject" silly names (if any) in physics would be as bad as in any other subject do not confuse things, I found the "Scott is sober" an exelent example of humor that does not undermine respect for the field. Another exelent example that comes to my mind is M. Barr's "The point of the empty set" edubuc > > Without taking sides on the prone/supine terminology question, I do have > a strong reaction to the Benabou/May/Dubuc concern that respect for a > field is undermined by its adoption of frivolous terminology. > > This may be a valid concern for a young field like category theory, but > for a more mature subject such as physics, a more relevant concern is > the undermining of the ability to poke fun at oneself by the fear of not > being taken seriously. > > Has the adoption of frivolous nomenclature for quarks ("strange," > "charm," "beauty" and even "quark" itself) diminished in any way the > world's respect for quarks and their investigators? > > And what of computational topology? Should we turn a blind eye to > whether Scott is sober, and substitute a more genteel euphemism for his > bottom? > > Vaughan Pratt > >