andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> In my opinion, someone without the math can understand
> the physics (pop biolog, etc.) only as well as a blind
> person can understand painting. There's a reason you
> have to put this stuff in math language to make it go.
Maybe, maybe not. Hawking, in A Brief History of Time_ (in which he speculated that TOE was near, argued that after there were no more major problems to solve in physics that physicists would then have a mor important problem to work on: making that knowledge available to non-scientists!
> That doeesn't mean ppopular translation out of math
> isn't possible for general interest purposes. Of
> course I have the bias of having made the commitmebt
> to lerarn the math at great personal cost, which I
> have now all forgotten -- the math, not the costs.
I've always regretted not taking at least two or three advanced courses (beyond calc), not to help me understand science or what-have-you but because it is so fascinating in itself.
Carrol