Languages
Interests Pt. 2
Last week’s post was originally supposed
to be the introduction to this post, but, I realized that I had enough to say
for it to warrant its own post. So now I’m writing the sequel outside with
biting flies dive-bombing me every couple of minutes. It’s beautiful so they
won’t drive me away. Wasps might however. So I’ll see if I stay out here.
STEM Is Interesting
Despite my frustration that science,
technology, engineering, and math (aka STEM) fields recently are generally
prioritized over all other fields of study, especially the arts, I genuinely
enjoy learning about STEM. The Vlogbrothers are two brothers on youtube that
have created an educational channel on called Crash Course, that explains the
basics of a bunch of subjects*. They have series on history, psychology, and
literature, astronomy, physics, and computer science, as well as many others. Currently,
I’m watching the computer science series where one host is explaining how
computers are able to do basic computations that together allow me to google
something, play a game, or type this blog post. I really appreciate that they
explain the vocabulary terms that go along with computer science like what an
or-gate is, or what algorithm means exactly. Otherwise I’d feel as though I’m
trying to listen to a video in Portuguese, which I do not speak.
Growing Up Listening
Since my dad is an accountant, I’ve
grown up hearing him talk business math a lot. Many people would assume I’m not
interested in what he does since I prefer English. However, the truth is when
he is excited about what he’s doing it’s contagious. So I would say I’m fairly
good at conversational business math. This doesn’t mean I could do what he does
without training. I just can normally understand what he says.
English Speak
When I talk to people about English, they
generally understand what I’m saying except maybe a word or phrase like zeugma,
when a word can have two meanings simultaneously in the same sentence, or onomatopoeia,
when an author uses a word like boom or screech. In that way, English, History, or Psychology
use different dialects of English. According to the National Science Foundation
dialects are, “ways of talking that set them apart from
others,” and are “not just accents (the way words are pronounced) but also
grammar, vocabulary, syntax and common expressions,” (1). Contrastively, when I
talk to my boyfriend, who loves math and physics, although the words coming out
of his mouth are supposed to be English, it can feel like there’s a language
barrier between us.
Math As Language
Interestingly enough there are actually a significant number
of people who believe that Math is its own language (in which case I should
have been capitalizing math throughout this entire post)(2). Originally, I
thought this was an overstatement, but I began to understand the case for math
being its own language. In fact, I think art, physics, chemistry, engineering,
etc. could all be their own language, in one sense or another. Two different
definitions of language are “a body of words and the systems for
their use common to a people who are of the same community …” or a, “system of
linguistic signs or symbols considered in the abstract,” (3). The second one is
easy to prove STEM fields and Art both use many symbols “considered in the
abstract.” For the first one, they definitely have their own vocabulary and who
hasn’t heard people refer to the “scientific community,” or the “artistic
community”?
I’m Not Fluent in Physics
Therefore
it isn’t surprising that when my boyfriend tries to explain what he did today,
I don’t understand what he is saying. After leaning back on pillows, reading
his particle physics book, not moving for several hours at a time, completely
silent, he lowers his book and sits up. For the past couple of hours (minimum)
the most movement he’s made is his toes absentmindedly wiggling back and forth.
But now his hands and arms move more than some people move all day. I can
almost see the greek letters, parentheses, plus and minus signs whirling behind
his eyes as he tries to figure out how in the world he’s going to explain what
he just read. Sometimes he’s able to translate the greek letters, vectors, and
Hilbert spaces** into English so I can follow him. But inevitably sometimes he
looses me and I start paying more attention to the fact that he just changed
facial expressions three times in the past three seconds. His voice is louder
then softer for a moment before saying homeomorphism*** again and at least I
recognize that word by now. But Mandarin characters might as well be coming out
of his mouth because I still don’t speak physics.
Overcoming the Language Barrier
That doesn’t mean I give up though. Given the way he gets so
excited it has to be pretty cool, whatever it is. When I finally do understand,
sometimes I’m feeling like I just got off a merry-go-round and I can’t tell
what is what anymore, it is neat. Maybe it’s more like hanging upside down.
Because I’m not used to looking at the world this way, my head becomes
overwhelmed rather easily and I have no idea how he can spend hours staying like
this. But it is an interesting perspective. So I’ll keep trying to learn how to
speak math and physics.****
Notes:
*Disclaimer:
I am I am not getting paid for this; I just think it’s cool.
**Disclaimer:
As I am trying to convey, I don’t speak physics or math. I’m barely kind-of-conversational.
So these are just words that my boyfriend has used. I tried to make sure that
they were those related to particle physics, but I don’t know if it’s even
possible to have more than one Hilbert space. Despite the fact that he’s
probably explained what a Hilbert space is multiple times, to me it just sounds
like a guy named Hilbert has a section of a house that’s his, but that’s
definitely not correct.
***I’m like
90% sure that that one definitely doesn’t belong in a hypothetical scenario
about particle physics, but *shrugs* what am I going to do? It’s like a game of
“one of these things is not like the others,” with college level physics,
instead of Sesame Street.
****And take
that flies! You didn’t scare me away.
Sources:
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