RE: VMs: Operators

["Mike Stannett" <m.stannett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

--- Larry Roux <LRoux@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> 3) Repeated words.  While languages do allow words
> to be repeated (ie "she is very very pretty" or
> "vous vous..") we see this too often in the Voy.
> Some words are repeated 3 or 4 times consequetively.


There is another context in which words can appear repeatedly - in
mathematical texts prior to the introduction of algebraic
demonstrations. For example, a 'rhetorical' recipe for computing the
volume of a cube might say "multiply the length, the length and the
length". So repeats could indicate words that are used to designate
generic dimensions; this would allow lots of words to be repeated,
e.g. any phrase of the kind "multiply WORD, WORD and WORD" would serve
equally well for the cube volume, provided it is somehow indicated
that WORD designates the length in question (as in e.g. a diagram with
a line labelled "ab").

There are also arguments against the idea that repeats are motivated
by rhetorical mathematics. These might include:

 * the 4-repeat word - early mathematicians typically thought of
multiplication as something to do with computing areas (2 terms) or
volumes (3 terms). Since they had no 4-dimensional concepts to hand,
they wouldn't often multiply four numbers.

 * it's hard to believe that a mathematical text to do wouldn't have
accompanying diagrams (but maybe that's just my modern outlook). If
the existing diagrams *are* mathematical, then they're presumably
encoded in some way (e.g. "what matters in a botanical drawing is the
number of leaves, rather than the plant itself"), as it's hard to see
them as mathematical illustrations as they stand.


Mike Stannett
------------------------------------------
Sheffield University Computer Science Dept
Regent Court, 211 Portobello Street
Sheffield S1 4DP, United Kingdom
FAX: ++44 (0)114 222-1810


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