

Ten Hundred Words of Science - msaint
http://tenhundredwordsofscience.tumblr.com/

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chaosmatic
It's an interesting idea, certainly. But reading the descriptions I can't help
but feel that these ideas could be more easily explained using a less
restricted vocabulary and still be accessible.

Jargon can make an explanation more eloquent as it does not have to be filled
with contrived collections of less suitable words. If the jargon is explained
before it is used it still can be readily understood.

~~~
furyofantares
If you haven't seen it before you should search YouTube for Feynman Fun to
Imagine. I am extremely impressed with how accessible his explanations are,
and I would have loved to see what he could have done with the given
restriction. Probably not as well as he did without it but probably better
than most could do with it.

edit:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pYRn5j7oI&list=PLC351CC566C...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pYRn5j7oI&list=PLC351CC566C21C884)

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smnrchrds
I can't view the page. Is it inspired by this:
[http://xkcd.com/1133/](http://xkcd.com/1133/)

~~~
kbenson
That's exactly what it says. It's favicon is also an xkcd drawing.

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frozenport
I don't feel that any of these ideas are complex. For example, explain the
meaning of nonsymetric permitivity when we are talking about phaser solutions.
Maybe even rvalues in C++ :-)

~~~
schoen
When we tell a computer how to do something, we write a set of orders for the
computer in a way that the computer can read. These orders can ask the
computer to remember things, like numbers and names and places and so on. We
can ask the computer to set up spots where it will remember things for us, and
each such spot will have its own name. When we write down a thing for the
computer to figure out, and the computer goes on to actually figure out what
we are talking about, the thing can turn out to be either of two types. It can
be the name of a place to store things, or it can be a thing to be stored
(like a number or word or letter or a few of any of these). If it is a place
to store things (which we can call a "left hand type of thing"), we could ask
the computer to store other things in that place. If it is a thing that can be
stored (which we can call a "right hand type of thing"), we could ask the
computer to store it somewhere.

The reason why we use the names "left hand" and "right hand" in this way is
that we can write orders for the computer like

cat should become two times two

In this case, the word "cat" appeared on the left hand side of the order,
before "should become" (or "gets"), while the words "two times two" appeared
on the right hand side of the order, after "should become". This makes sense
because in this order we use "cat" as a name of a place to store things, while
"two times two" (which turns out to be the number four) is a number that could
be stored so that it can be used later on. Here, we would call "cat" a left
hand type of thing, and "two times two" a right hand type of thing.

In some orders for the computer, the way to talk about where to store things
is much more confusing (like we could say something like "right after this
place", "right before this place", "ten spots after this place"), but still,
if something works out to point to a place where you can store facts, then
that thing is a left hand type of thing.

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lifthrasiir
I always liked the fact that the word "thousand" itself is not among thousand
most common English words.

~~~
gjm11
The same is true of, e.g., "one" and "two".

According to the frequency list at www.wordfrequency.info (the free top-5000
one; for more than that you need to pay them), the only numbers below 1000 for
which all the words making up _n_ are among the _n_ most common English words
are 800..808.

Proof: the ranks of numbers 1..9 are 50,79,134,250,299,425,735,743,1163; the
ranks of 10..19 are 840,4318,3246,X,X,3019,X,X,X,X (where X means "bigger than
5000"); the ranks of 10,20,...,90 are 840,2103,2855,3767,3064,X,X,X,X; the
rank of "hundred" is 621.

So: all number-words have rank >= 50 so nothing below 50 is "good". Anything
from 20 to 99 has rank >= 2000 because of "twenty" etc., so nothing below 100
is "good". For the same reason nothing below 2000 whose tens digit isn't 0 or
1 is "good".

Nothing from 100 to 620 is "good" because of "hundred". Nor any higher 6xx, as
above; nor 700..720 because of "seven"; nor higher 7xx, as above. The small
8xx are as stated; higher 8xx are no good as usual; no 9xx is good because of
"nine".

This word list actually puts "thousand" in position 650, which makes lots of
1xxx numbers good: the little Common Lisp program that actually gave me the
results above says it's these: 1000 1001 1002 1003 1004 1005 1006 1007 1008
1010 1100 1101 1102 1103 1104 1105 1106 1107 1108 1110 1200 1201 1202 1203
1204 1205 1206 1207 1208 1209 1210 1300 1301 1302 1303 1304 1305 1306 1307
1308 1309 1310 1400 1401 1402 1403 1404 1405 1406 1407 1408 1409 1410 1500
1501 1502 1503 1504 1505 1506 1507 1508 1509 1510 1600 1601 1602 1603 1604
1605 1606 1607 1608 1609 1610 1700 1701 1702 1703 1704 1705 1706 1707 1708
1709 1710 1800 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809 1810 1900 1901
1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910.

Of course all large enough numbers are "good". I can't tell where "large
enough" starts because that wordlist doesn't go far enough to include even
"thirteen" or "sixty". Perhaps somewhere around 10000 onwards?

