The Limits of Language

The ultimate origin of the difficulty lies in the fact (or philosophical principle) that we are compelled to use the words of common language when we wish to describe a phenomenon, not by logical or mathematical analysis, but by a picture appealing to the imagination. Common language has grown by everyday experience and can never surpass these limits. Classical physics has restricted itself to the use of concepts of this kind; by analysing visible motions it has developed two ways of representing them by elementary processes; moving particles and waves. There is no other way of giving a pictorial description of motions—we have to apply it even in the region of atomic processes, where classical physics breaks down.

Notes:

Language grows out of experience, but we have not experienced the alien phenomena of much of physics.

Folksonomies: physics communication language

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Quantum mechanics (0.863559): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Mathematics (0.842280): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Logic (0.841875): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Concepts in metaphysics (0.751246): dbpedia
Philosophy of science (0.736187): dbpedia | freebase
Concepts (0.718719): dbpedia
Calculus (0.683211): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc

 Atomic physics
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  Born , Max (1989-06-01), Atomic physics, Dover Pubns, Retrieved on 2012-01-24
  • Source Material [books.google.com]
  • Folksonomies: science