January 2014 - mathfun@mailman.xmission.com

[math-fun] lojban
by Warren D Smith 21 Jan '14

21 Jan '14

> I feel truly sorry for the poor kids. > ? --? Gene >>Apparently Robin L. Powell is bringing up his 2 twin girl children as >>first-language lojban >>speakers.? This is the first such experiment for lojban (it has been >>done for Esperanto many times)? and so far it seems to be working, I >>think they are nearing age 3. --yah, is this child abuse? Well, certainly children are subjected to far worse all the time and in many cases it is claimed to be uplifting, not abuse. It would be interesting to know what the 1st-language esperanto kids (now many grown up) themselves think. I've never heard of any attempt to find out besides mere spotty anecdotal evidence. E.g. the most famous such Esperantan child was the many-billionaire George Soros. Another was Nobel laureate (medicine) Daniel Bovet. Judging by those two, it doesn't necessarily hurt them. Lojban is pretty unusual though. It is conceivable 1st-language lojban speakers will be "new kinds of thinkers" and be able easily to go mentally where normal people cannot. Also possible they'll end up mentally damaged. Soros: "It was a very useful language, because wherever you went, you found someone to speak with." But it seems Soros did not learn it as his first language, that was Hungarian. He did learn it from his father growing up. Also, at age 80, apparently Soros is no longer fluent in Esperanto. My grandfather (first language: Russian) actually was unable to converse in Russian in his old age, he'd literally forgotten his mother tongue after living 70 years in the USA. US census data on language use: http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acs-22.pdf does not even mention Esperanto et al although perhaps their underlying data set includes info on it and many other languages which this report also does not mention(?).

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Re: [math-fun] lojban
by Adam P. Goucher 21 Jan '14

21 Jan '14

Seconded. Sincerely, Adam P. Goucher > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Eugene Salamin > Sent: 01/21/14 04:06 PM > To: math-fun > Subject: Re: [math-fun] lojban > > I feel truly sorry for the poor kids. > > -- Gene > > > >________________________________ > > From: Warren D Smith <warren.wds(a)gmail.com> > >To: math-fun <math-fun(a)mailman.xmission.com> > >Sent: Monday, January 20, 2014 4:48 PM > >Subject: [math-fun] lojban > > > > > >Apparently Robin L. Powell is bringing up his 2 twin girl children as > >first-language lojban > >speakers. This is the first such experiment for lojban (it has been > >done for Esperanto many times) and so far it seems to be working, I > >think they are nearing age 3. > > > >-- > >Warren D. Smith > >http://RangeVoting.org > > > > > _______________________________________________ > math-fun mailing list > math-fun(a)mailman.xmission.com > http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun

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[math-fun] lojban
by Warren D Smith 21 Jan '14

21 Jan '14

Apparently Robin L. Powell is bringing up his 2 twin girl children as first-language lojban speakers. This is the first such experiment for lojban (it has been done for Esperanto many times) and so far it seems to be working, I think they are nearing age 3. -- Warren D. Smith http://RangeVoting.org

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Re: [math-fun] Navier Stokes Clay $1M prize problem solved?
by rcs＠xmission.com 20 Jan '14

20 Jan '14

<The mailing list software auto-discarded this. No explanation. --Rich> Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2014 21:32:38 -0500 Subject: Re: Navier Stokes Clay $1M prize problem solved? From: Igor Rivin <igor.rivin(a)gmail.com> To: Warren Smith <warren.wds(a)gmail.com> Check out this MSE discussion, it has some indications of bogosity: http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/634890/has-prof-otelbaev-shown-exis… On Jan 12, 2014, at 6:47 PM, Igor Rivin <igor.rivin(a)gmail.com> wrote: I hope he has it right, but it sounds a little fishy. I guess we will know in a couple of weeks/months. On Jan 12, 2014, at 3:22 PM, Warren D Smith <warren.wds(a)gmail.com> wrote: It seems Muhtarbay Otelbaev is age about 71, and wrote at least 80 papers reviewed in Zentralblatt, mostly 1970-1985. Most (?) were in Russian language, but some in English. Judging merely from the titles of those previous papers, he has high expertise in the right kinds of areas.

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Re: [math-fun] drag reduction via air bubbles
by Henry Baker 20 Jan '14

20 Jan '14

I believe that this technology may be used in some torpedoes. The Russians have apparently taken this idea to the limit with a torpedo that has a small rocket engine pointed _fowards_ (!) The idea is to generate enough gas ahead of the torpedo so that the torpedo is more-or-less travelling through the gas instead of the water. Such torpedoes can apparently reach very high speeds. There have been rumors that the Kursk was testing such a torpedo when one exploded while still inside & the sub sank: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_submarine_Kursk_(K-141) At 02:03 PM 1/18/2014, Warren D Smith wrote: >It has been found that by making your boat have a rough surface made >of "ultra hydrophobic" substance, drag can be reduced versus a usual >smooth surface. >Air bubbles are trapped in valleys on the surface and so instead of >water obeying usual "no slip condition" at solid surface, they contact >an air bubble surface instead. >The air acts kind of like a lubricant between the boat and the water. > >Sounds like a very promising idea.

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[math-fun] lojban
by Warren D Smith 19 Jan '14

19 Jan '14

One possibility for the future is that some highly logical language like lojban will be employed by computer systems like "google translate." (Actually GT presently is unaware of lojban's existence.) See, if the developers of such systems had brains, then they would proceed by the "gcc principle" -- translating language X into a canonical form (such as lojban) then translate to language Y. The work to build N languages into the system would then be 2N. As opposed to the bad design of translating X to Y, which would be (N-1)*N work to build it -- much larger. This also would aid human-computer communication -- the computer could hope to understand what a human lojban speaker is saying, whereas that is very difficult for English and simply is not going to happen anytime soon. Investigating... Wikipedia claims "Nick Nicholas, an Australian linguist, was the first fluent Lojban speaker." A December 1996 web post claimed at that time he was the only one in the world. Lojban was developed during 1987-1997 (building on "loglan" invented 1955). The definition of Lojban was published in a book then frozen during 1997-2002. As of 2013 there are probably fewer than 100 fluent Lojban speakers and perhaps 1000 non-fluent ones. NN wrote book "Lojban For Beginners" coauthored by Robin Turner. Online book by him & Jack Cowan: http://www.academia.edu/1278376/What_Is_Lojban QUOTES: "Lojban is designed to be used by people in communication with each other, and possibly in the future with computers... Lojban has an unambiguous grammar. Lojban has phonetic spelling, and sounds can be divided into words in only one way. Lojban is simple compared to natural languages; it is easy to learn. Lojban’s 1350 root words can be easily combined to form a vocabulary of millions of words. Lojban is regular; the rules of the language don’t have exceptions. Lojban attempts to remove restrictions on creative and clear thought and communication." "There are also linguists interested in Lojban’s potential as an intermediate language in computer-aided translation of natural languages; and Lojban is of interest as a potential stepping-stone for students learning other languages." "Because there are no idioms to shorten expressions, a Lojban text can be longer than the corresponding colloquial English text. The unambiguous linguistic structures that result are a major benefit that makes this worthwhile" (That last does not sound good. Really vocabulary in both human and computer languages should be designed according to principles of the Huffman code; more-used words and expressions being shorter...) "Lojban is actually much simpler than natural languages. It is only slightly more complex in its grammar than the current generation of computer languages (such as C++ and Perl)" "Because Lojban’s grammar is simple, it is easier to learn than other languages. Using flashcard-like techniques, a working vocabulary including the complete set of 1350 root words can take 8-12 weeks of study at 1 hour per day. It is by no means uncommon for people who embark on learning Lojban to be able to write grammatical Lojban within a few days, and to hold at least a limited conversation within a few weeks. Natural languages, especially English, take several years to learn to a comparable level of skill." "Lojban has an unambiguous grammar (proven by computer analysis of a formal grammar), pronunciation, and morphology (word forms). In practice this means that the person who reads or hears a Lojban sentence is never in doubt as to what words it contains or what roles they play in the sentence." "Lojban is culturally fully neutral. Its vocabulary was built algorithmically using today’s six most widely spoken languages: Chinese,Hindi, English, Russian, Spanish, and Arabic."

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[math-fun] Proofs that computers cannot have a sense of humour
by Adam P. Goucher 19 Jan '14

19 Jan '14

Theorem: It is impossible for a computer to have a sense of humour. Proof 1: Note that computers cannot determine whether general Diophantine equations have solutions. For a general Diophantine equation given by D(x_1, ..., x_n) = 0, consider the following sentence J: J = "Why is 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 min{8 + D(x_1, ..., x_n)^2 | x_1, ..., x_n in Z} 9." Then J is humorous if and only if D(x_1, ..., x_n) = 0 has a solution. Proof 2: It is undecidable to determine whether a group with presentation P is the trivial group. Now apply the same proof to the following sentence K: "What's purple and has presentation P? The trivial grape." Then K is humorous if and only if P is a presentation for {e}. Sincerely, Adam P. Goucher

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[math-fun] drag reduction via air bubbles
by Warren D Smith 18 Jan '14

18 Jan '14

It has been found that by making your boat have a rough surface made of "ultra hydrophobic" substance, drag can be reduced versus a usual smooth surface. Air bubbles are trapped in valleys on the surface and so instead of water obeying usual "no slip condition" at solid surface, they contact an air bubble surface instead. The air acts kind of like a lubricant between the boat and the water. Sounds like a very promising idea.

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Re: [math-fun] lojban
by Warren D Smith 18 Jan '14

18 Jan '14

It seems an amazing number of mathematicians have created artificial languages. Not to be outdone by Newton, G.W.Leibniz made one too. Others included Bertrand Russell and Janos Bolyai. Possibly some more who my or may not have been famous mathematicians (perhaps only their names coincided). Newton's had something to do with John Wilkins (1614-1672) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkins one of the founders of the Royal Society and a friend of Newton's, who constructed and published "philosopher's language." In most languages, words are just random sequence of syllables. There is no connection between the syllables and the meaning. Wilkins was going to change that. In his system, the syllable-sequence told you a great deal about the meaning, so if you heard a new word, you'd know immediately what it meant (or pretty close). It worked via a giant decision-tree classifying everything. E.g. animal or vegetable? Mammal or reptile? Large or small mammal? (I just made those up, but you see the idea.) You walk down the decision tree from the root to reach your word. Each step, you utter a syllable describing which tree-child you are going to. When you hit a tree leaf, that is a thing ("elephant") and you have the word for it. Sounded like a nifty idea, but it never caught on. It was a pain to memorize the giant decision tree and many actual things could have been described by many paths, not just one, in the tree, and which one was "correct" was arbitrary. Plus maybe we humans are pre-wired to *like* random syllable sequences. Plus, I think it would be annoying to read (say) a geology book and a hell of a lot of words all begin the same. Other artificial languages include Laadan, the feminist language designed to save us from male language domination; musical-tone languages; Aeo, the all-vowel language; Dritok, the language made entirely of chipmunk sounds; and a language with only "positive words" to encourage positive thinking. 500-1000 artificial languages have been made. Almost all entirely ignored. Opinions on lojban differ with some claiming it is way easier to learn that real languages (plus better), while others contend trying to construct lojban sentences "is like doing long division in your head" and that very few can do it at reasonable speed and correctness rate. -- Warren D. Smith http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking "endorse" as 1st step)

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Re: [math-fun] Flow of time
by Dan Asimov 18 Jan '14

18 Jan '14

----- This reminds me of a variant of Einstein's explanation of relativity that I heard many years ago: If an old decrepit man sits holding an attractive young woman's hand for ten minutes, to the old man it seems like a minute and to the young woman it seems like an hour. (Sexist, yes, and heterocentric, so adapt it as you will; I'm relaying the version that I heard.) It could be that this version is due to (Isaac) Asimov. Dan, does this ring any bells? ----- Due to . . . whom? --Dan Daniel Asimov Visiting Scholar Department of Mathematics University of California Berkeley, California

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