Day Six; transliteration can be dangerous or amusing; is transliterate the correct word for this? What is the word for substituting word for word rather than letter by letter?
In my advanced years, I am attempting to learn other languages. I find that translating word by word is but a small, and sometimes incorrect, part of this. Even learning sentence structure is insufficient. Learning a language is more than the syntax.
During my brief stint teaching physics and engineering, I tried to impress on my students that mathematics is the language of those(and probably other) subjects. As with any language, the syntax is a necessary but insufficient part of learning mathematics.
Most of our understanding of the world is through mathematics. Whether it be quantum physics, climatology or politics, math is the language. One would never think of understanding quantum physics without it.
“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.” — W. Edwards Deming
Too often we… enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. John F. Kennedy