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It would really suck to have the global language of science change to Chinese though. And Beijing strikes me as the sort of place to suddenly require all their

by mjfl 8y ago

It would really suck to have the global language of science change to Chinese though. And Beijing strikes me as the sort of place to suddenly require all their scientists to publish in Chinese one day, once they felt they had sufficient leverage.

DoctorOetker 8y ago
Back when I was studying physics, in the university library of the exact science campus I found a couple of shelves full of identical thick volumes in the physics section. Curious what they were I took one out and I forgot the exact name but I think it was Chinese Physics B / Acta Physica Sinica (overseas edition), which is basically the english translation of a selection of the local Acta Physica Sinica. Browsing the articles and actually reading the ones that seemed interesting, I can confirm these were of high quality. Apparently they cover all branches of physics, including fundamental particles but notably excluding nuclear physics. Before that moment I had a very Western-centric view of exact sciences, but quickly realized that this is merely an illusion: whenever we search and find articles we search in our own language, and since then I have encountered countless references of theorems and discoveries and observations which were also discovered abroad, but due to different communication language the concepts have typically different scientist/mathematician names attached to them. What you describe is partially true but partially it was always the case or at least for quite a long time now. Not just science in chinese, but also of course in russian, probably the dominant language in india too etc...
- DoctorOetker 8y ago
  I forgot to mention this also has a strong parallel with a different phenomenon in within society: a lot of the people who think education is useless, even though they actually use many of the skills, think so because it is easy to pretend one learnt something on their own (which is kind of true) once others (teachers, authors of books etc.) have invested the time and effort to explain the subject. It's easy to pretend or believe you have no one to thank for such a simple thing as being able to read and write!

by mjfl 8y ago

DoctorOetker 8y ago

Back when I was studying physics, in the university library of the exact science campus I found a couple of shelves full of identical thick volumes in the physics section. Curious what they were I took one out and I forgot the exact name but I think it was Chinese Physics B / Acta Physica Sinica (overseas edition), which is basically the english translation of a selection of the local Acta Physica Sinica. Browsing the articles and actually reading the ones that seemed interesting, I can confirm these were of high quality. Apparently they cover all branches of physics, including fundamental particles but notably excluding nuclear physics. Before that moment I had a very Western-centric view of exact sciences, but quickly realized that this is merely an illusion: whenever we search and find articles we search in our own language, and since then I have encountered countless references of theorems and discoveries and observations which were also discovered abroad, but due to different communication language the concepts have typically different scientist/mathematician names attached to them. What you describe is partially true but partially it was always the case or at least for quite a long time now. Not just science in chinese, but also of course in russian, probably the dominant language in india too etc...

DoctorOetker 8y ago
I forgot to mention this also has a strong parallel with a different phenomenon in within society: a lot of the people who think education is useless, even though they actually use many of the skills, think so because it is easy to pretend one learnt something on their own (which is kind of true) once others (teachers, authors of books etc.) have invested the time and effort to explain the subject. It's easy to pretend or believe you have no one to thank for such a simple thing as being able to read and write!