On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 12:11 AM, Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: > On Tue, 08 Oct 2013 18:16:01 +0530, Ravi Sahni wrote: > >>> So in that sense, computers are Turing Machines. Anything a physical >>> computing device can compute, a Turing Machine could too. The converse >>> is not true though: a Turing Machine with infinite tape can compute >>> things where a real physical device would run out of memory, although >>> it might take longer than anyone is willing to wait. >> >> Thanks Sir the detailed explanation. You are offering me many thoughts >> inside few words so I will need some time to meditate upon the same. >> >> Presently Sir, I wish to ask single question: What you mean "wave our >> hands"?? > > It is an idiom very common in Australia. (It may not be well known in the > rest of the English-speaking world.) It means to figuratively flap one's > hands around in the air while skipping over technical details or > complications. For example, we often talk about "hand-wavy estimates" for > how long a job will take: "my hand-wavy estimate is it will take two > days" is little better than a guess.
A derivative of the term has gone mainstream, too: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HandWave The term is commonly used when moving to a higher level of abstraction - we all know a computer doesn't have a soul, can't "feel", and is ultimately just executing code and crunching numbers, but we handwave that (eg) the computer "thought" that this program was a risk, and that's why it quarantined it. When you're trying to explain to some user that he can't email .EXE files around, it's easier to take the slightly-inaccurate but simple explanation, hence the handwaves. ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
