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Admit your Brain lock

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Siwastaja:

--- Quote from: IanB on April 05, 2024, 06:48:03 pm ---
--- Quote from: Zero999 on April 05, 2024, 06:32:58 pm ---I agree about learning like that and can cope to some degree, especially with print, but stood no chance with handwriting. I still don't see the point in make it more difficult than necessary.

--- End quote ---

Well, we have the unfortunate situation that the Roman alphabet does quickly run out of letters if you want them to be intuitive (thus we may use V for voltage, L for length, A for area, C for capacitance, N for number of turns, and so on). And we have the convention in algebra that adjacent symbols are multiplied. So if we tried to use \$ang\$ for angular velocity, it could be confused with \$a \times n \times g\$. We could try to use v or V, but that is already taken for voltage. Maybe A, but that's often area. Hence history settled on Greek letter omega (\$\omega\$). It wasn't done to confuse, it was done to avoid confusion.

--- End quote ---

And just like in programming, you add over the top of the old, until your code becomes mess, and needs to be refactored. But even just suggesting this is disgrace.

Motor control theory for example is full of what totally looks like obfuscation, even if it's originally unintentional. Think about concept of "electromotive force", which is often shown with ANY of these symbols:

E


EMF (which could be confused to being E*M*F)
U
V
u
v

And guess what - it isn't a force at all, which is made more confusing by the fact that force is a related concept (e.g. in a linear motor, very directly).

But "electromotive force" already has a modern name: all you had to do is to call it voltage and use either U or V, the two most common symbols for voltage. And when you are trying to grasp motor control theory in whole, having such basic concept as fucking VOLTAGE obfuscated to some magical "new concept" is going to be a huge time sink. Same can be said about stuff like flux linkage. Linkage what? Flux linking something to something..?

There is A LOT to be improved in how we COMMUNICATE scientific concepts.

IanB:

--- Quote from: Siwastaja on April 05, 2024, 06:56:48 pm ---Motor control theory for example is full of what totally looks like obfuscation, even if it's originally unintentional. Think about concept of "electromotive force", which is often shown with ANY of these symbols:

E


EMF (which could be confused to being E*M*F)
U
V
u
v

And guess what - it isn't a force at all, which is made more confusing by the fact that force is a related concept (e.g. in a linear motor, very directly).

But "electromotive force" already has a modern name: all you had to do is to call it voltage and use either U or V, the two most common symbols for voltage. And when you are trying to grasp motor control theory in whole, having such basic concept as fucking VOLTAGE obfuscated to some magical "new concept" is going to be a huge time sink. Same can be said about stuff like flux linkage. Linkage what? Flux linking something to something..?

There is A LOT to be improved in how we COMMUNICATE scientific concepts.

--- End quote ---

Not gonna disagree.

Zero999:

--- Quote from: tggzzz on April 05, 2024, 06:35:25 pm ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on April 05, 2024, 06:24:03 pm ---If you have the same issue as Zero999 (not registering the difference between symbols), then I'm afraid the problem is at your end (even though it isn't your fault). It is similar for a color blind not being able to work in a paint shop. And I'm not trying to make fun here. Somebody I know works at a hardware store but due to color blindness, this person can't work at the paint department. However the person can't tell the world to discard every color a color blind person can't see.

--- End quote ---

Precisely.

It is a great shame for someone to have their ambitions dashed when they find their chosen career depends on normal colour vision. I've heard of aspiring pilots discovering that rather late in the day. I feel for them - but if they railed against the "colour elite" I would thing they were twats.

--- End quote ---
It's not quite the same. Fortunately we have computers which can be programmed with plain old ASCII, so lots of this is unnecessary. It's just a shame to have to be subjected to it during education. I see it as a form of hazing.

DiodeDipShit:
Which Witch is which? Which troubled those witches in Salem? 
     Here Yee.... Hear Yea? Yes You, come here, here me !   
         Coke or Pepsi? Pass the Mirror. 
              Where is the ware on your wear?   My Underwear.  Where?
Regional Dialects play havoc with foreign language. eh. Oui oui.
Opinions matter, what's it matter? Matter of fact, Dark Matter matters.
Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?    No, I poop fine.   I meant mustard.  Sorry, I only speak French.
I order you !  Aye Aye Captain.  Then an eye for an eye?  Alas, Aye sailor.    Aye Yai Yai  ! ! !
This court is out of order !  Orderly, order for takeout.  Is that and order?
B, B, R, O, Y, G, B, V, G, W   
You can't say that !     O I B C'N U   ....... next Tuesday


 

Circlotron:

--- Quote from: nctnico on April 05, 2024, 06:51:34 pm ---There are some different conventions indeed. In the world of physics E can be used for Voltage and Energy. In the world of electricity E and P can be used for power. Typically the units used in a formula give a hint about what is what. I don't recall formulas where people use random symbols if there is a domain specific convention.

--- End quote ---
E is for EMF I would expect. But is EMF rigorously defined as the same thing as voltage? If so, why are there two terms for the same thing?

Edit - already covered by Siwastaja above.

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