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Discussion: Math: The Language of Science?
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ShadMoarif |
Math: The Language of Science?
Oct 17 2009, 12:31 AM EDT
Math has been touted as a language of science which cannot be contested. However, to claim the status of a language, a few conditions need apply. For one thing a language can be read easily, seamlessly, and invokes comprehension as it is read. It is decodable. That means the black squiggles one sees on a page (and calls print) can be decoded into sounds, and the sounds, being speech-sounds, evoke meaning. To decode in this manner is basically "to read". It can also be encoded. We can take meaning, reconvert it back into speech-sounds, then encode those speech-sounds back into those black squiggles on a page. That is what writing is all about. Can we do that with Math? Anybody can "read" math few can understand it. That's because the sounds that mathematical symbols create in our heads are not familiar speech sounds. They invoke neither images (as of a tree when when one reads "tree"), nor the continuous flow of meaning. How then does it qualify as a language except in its most primitive form? Yet, paradoxically it is among the most advanced forms of language. An obvious contradiction in terms. Alphabetic languages uses auditory mediation (or phonics) to facilitate the creation of meaning when print is converted to speech sounds. In fact, if it is the phonical element of spoken and written languag that facilitates comprehension of the written and the spoken word. In math, this phonical element plays a hollow, mechanical role. You can sound out "pi" (as "pie") and visualize nothing. It is an abstract concept and remains abstract (and often utterly meaningless to most) . And yet pi has meaning (to those who know it) and even an image (to those who understand where it comes from). My conclusion therefore, is that, there subsists, within the language of math, something that could function as the equivalent of auditory mediation (or phonics). Do you find this valuable? |
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