Re: [Rockhounds] Communicating and Conducting Science

Re: [Rockhounds] Communicating and Conducting Science

I wrote:

“or as stated by Dr. Ralph B. Peck:
“If you can’t reduce a difficult engineering problem to
just one 8 1⁄2 x 11-inch sheet of paper, you will probably
never understand it."

From “Ralph B. Peck: Engineer Educator A Man of Judgement at:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150221014758/http://www.ngi.no/upload/6661/NGI%20Publ%20207%20%20Ralph%20B%20Peck%20-%20Engineer%20-%20Educator%20-%20A%20Man%20of%20Judgement.pdf
“

J Bryan Krämer replied:

“Number two reminds me of the Elevator talk
principal: if you cannot condense a difficult idea
down to a elevator talk then you don't understand
it. Author was some big name Physicist. Apparently
not Einstein or Fermi. Anyway I'd like to see a
mathematician do that for the Riemann Problem, I
read a whole book on it and still don't get what
it's about.”

Even the best of matheticians have the same problem
with understanding what their fellow matheticians write.

Go see:

The biggest mystery in mathematics: Shinichi
Mochizuki and the impenetrable proof by Davide
Castelvecchi, Nature News, Oct. 7, 2015
http://www.nature.com/news/the-biggest-mystery-in-mathematics-shinichi-mochizuki-and-the-impenetrable-proof-1.18509?WT.mc_id=SFB_NNEWS_1508_RHBox
http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/1.18509!/menu/main/topColumns/topLeftColumn/pdf/526178a%20corrected.pdf

"A Japanese mathematician claims to have solved
one of the most important problems in his
field. The trouble is, hardly anyone can work
out whether he's right."


Yours,

Paul H.