Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 10/01/2008 11:56 AM: > Is catching/throwing a ball math? A robot would do these things using math. > But we don't, and we don't prove the result. We just check out the result > against reality. So why call it math?
I would not call that math. > Or if you wouldn't call it math, how > does it differ from writing a program, which also produces a > result/product/effect. We may not treat that result as a mathematical > object. As with catching/throwing a ball, we often just check it out against > the reality of its use. It differs from math because there is no way to achieve a compilation failure (or a run-time failure in the case of dynamic languages) for throwing a ball. I.e. there is no correct (especially syntactically correct) way to throw a ball. Likewise, there is no incorrect way to throw a ball. But there are [in]correct programs. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
