Science 2.0

One person's opinion ...

You will never read math like English. I'm a Ph.D., I've had this discussion with many other graduates and post-graduates. Math is different from English (or any other natural language).

In my circles of math, programming and education there is even a phrase "Read like Math" as opposed to "Read like a comic book". Math is its own language, and it is dense. When interpreted into English a single equation can become several paragraphs. Learning to read and visualize an equation is possible, but always necessary.

Simple equations are easy, but if there's real content, it's hard. You need to ask what you're trying to accomplish, really.

If you want to learn stuff, you need to do it. You can learn about it by reading about it, but you can only learn to do it by doing it (under guidance or with hints).

See also:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=672067

http://www.scientificblogging.com/carl_wieman/why_not_try_scientific_approach_science_education

EDIT: added reference:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?MathForProgrammers

Quoting from the this last:

I'm not certain that reading like prose is a benefit.

When algebra was first invented, people didn't use
variables, operators or other notation. They just
wrote things out in natural language. Here is an
example from Al-Khwarizmi's famous book:

If the instance be, 'ten and thing to be multiplied
by thing less ten,' then this is the same as 'if it
were said thing and ten…

> I've never heard of influential people in quantum mechanics trying to get a journal shut down because it published something critical of many worlds.

You're making a poor choice by using 'many worlds', which is as much/more about philosophy as it is about physics. But if you're looking for blacklisting, banning, etc, here's an example for you, specifically from influential people in quantum mechanics: Arxiv blacklists topics/people all the time. http://www.scientificblogging.com/quantum_diaries_survivor/does_arxiv_blacklist_authors_help_finding_out http://www.archivefreedom.org/ http://archivefreedom.org/freedom/Cyberia.html

> We could, I dunno, hack their email to try and see if they try to suppress dissenting opinions?

If what's been brought to light consists of anything more than angry muttering I'd like to see it. Personally I'd say the anger is more than justified, although it was stupid to bring it out of the bar and into public record.

> Well, actually we can't, since they deleted the data (oops, I mean lost it accidentally, they never acted on the emails in which they said they would delete it)...

It's my understanding that the 'lost' data is (a) available from original sources, since it was a compilation of weather station data; (b) still fully available in 'cleaned-up'/scrubbed form (e.g. deleting data that was duplicated from multiple sources), (c) not the data referred to in the hacked emails (it was about other emails, no?).

If you're determined to find…

Here is a recent research result suggesting a possible mechanism of action for DHA (a component of fish oil) lowering the risk of onset for Alzheimers. It's not clear that it would be useful in a case of extreme dementia but DHA increases the level of a brain protein, LR11 (also known as SorLA), that helps clear the brain of amyloid precursor protein(APP), essential for production of the brain-gumming beta-amyloid plaque that clogs the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease.

http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/52/14299

http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20071226/fish-oil-prevents-alzheimers-plaques

http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/lr11_and_why_fish_oil_prevents_alzheimers