4 ms·

I really wish articles about physics or mathematics, especially ones aimed at non-experts like this one, would include the English name or pronunciation of symb

I really wish articles about physics or mathematics, especially ones aimed at non-experts like this one, would include the English name or pronunciation of symbols and terms. Not all of us know Greek or advanced mathematics and I need something to say in my head as I read along. How do you say J/ψ meson?

archgoon 4y ago
Jay-sigh
bgirard 4y ago
It would become redundant very quickly I think. Reading stories about quantum computing feels this way. The first 3 paragraph include the same 'qubits can exists as a 0, 1 or a superposition' over simplification followed by a single paragraph of explanation of the new discovery. IMO it's much easier for you to answer your specific question with an easy search than it is for article authors to anticipate every question and keep answering it in every article.
- BobbyJo 4y ago
  Someone use GPT to automatically annotate articles with domain specific knowledge so that I can highlight words/sentences/symbols/formulae/etc. and have it explain it to me.
  - bgirard 4y ago
    There was a news site that did something like that, I don't recall which. It was incredibly distracting and I think they started annotating ads in their popovers as well.
    - BobbyJo 4y ago
      This is why it's have to be a separate lyer from the page itself. Otherwise it would become yet more add real estate.
  - gtop3 4y ago
    This feels like the type of thing I want human expertise on. GPT can be too inaccurate for something like this. I'd also be concerned it was trained on writings from people that misunderstand the science. There's already tons of expert written and reviewed content designed to teach science. Go buy any textbook on the subject. You can usually get them very cheaply if you don't mind older editions. Libraries will also have these types of books you can checkout for free. Once you've exhausted information found in textbooks you can start actually reading the scholarly journals these pop-sci articles are written about. Once you've read enough scholarly journals, you might have your own questions that aren't answered yet. Then, you can conduct your own science...... Books are great for looking up quick tidbits of information too. Chapter titles and indexes are great for jumping to relevant information.
    - BobbyJo 4y ago
      I'm not a physicist, so keeping around a good deal of reading material (not to mention seeking out a good explanation) to understand the odd reference or two seems horribly cumbersome. Google is way lower friction, but even that requires some manual sorting through. Seems like exactly the thing a good language model would be great at. If they can't do that, where the stakes are low and the task is exactly the domain of LLMs, then I don't see how they'd be useful for anything.
      - gtop3 4y ago
        I'm optimizing for accuracy and depth of understanding. Your optimizing for lower friction. I think I'm optimizing for the correct variables.
- stronglikedan 4y ago
  You'd just have to define the pronunciation once per article, like we do with acronyms.
  - squeaky-clean 4y ago
    Don't know why you're downvoted, this is exactly what they're asking for. You don't have to explain the details of the J/ψ meson, just the first time you write it in the article put "J/ψ meson (J/Psi meson) For the qubit example, they're not asking for the article to always describe what a qubit is, just if you're going to only write it as "α|0⟩ + β|1⟩" it would be helpful to put (qubit quantum state) the first time you do so in the article.
- Teever 4y ago
  In the /r/SpaceX subreddit there is an acronym bot that will scan articles or posts for acronyms and make a post that explains the acronyms that it found. Such content doesn't need to be right in the beginning of an article, it could be linked to or at the bottom of the page.
  - bgirard 4y ago
    That's a good example. I found it handy when I was new to the subreddit and it's easily ignored at the bottom of the thread.
garyrob 4y ago
[flagged]
- Groxx 4y ago
  Message boards are currently being inundated by low-effort, low-value, "yeah Google surfaces that Wikipedia page too, much faster, and has for years" drive-by advertisements for a paid service. It's not really surprising that people aren't excited about that.
  - garyrob 4y ago
    OK. My guess was that the person I was responding to didn't know that for $20/mo they could get all the answers they want to questions like the one they were asking (even if not always perfect), and do so immediately and effortlessly, and so pointing it out could be useful to them. I say that because I know that if I was unaware of the cost/benefits and somebody told me that, that might have motivated me to try it, and it might make a big difference to me. Someone could have added to my productivity and helped my stress level by pointing it out. In any case, I don't think I'll post about the cost/benefit of ChatGPT on HN again! Thanks for the explanation. I appreciate your taking the time to give it rather than just voting me down. It was kind of you.
    - mort96 4y ago
      They weren't asking a question. They were critiquing the article. And the criticism is perfectly valid. Shilling for an OpenAI subscription is wholly unnecessary here.
    - Groxx 4y ago
      To be clear, I (and I suspect many others) do appreciate the "this is from chatgpt [and therefore may not be correct]" notes. Because posting it without that and without verification is what some are doing, and that's just plain malicious karma farming. Yours isn't that. But personally I'd like it better if it weren't used period, outside "ai is useful / produces trash" discussions where its output is directly relevant. If I want a machine's answer, I know how to get it, but I'm here for discussion with humans.
giardini 4y ago
The J is pronounced as an English "J" ("jay"). ψ – psi – pronounced "psaai" (as in "top side") or "saai" (as in "side"). from "Pronunciation of the Greek alphabet in English": https://jakubmarian.com/pronunciation-of-the-greek-alphabet-in-english/ https://jakubmarian.com/pronunciation-of-the-greek-alphabet-...
- mLuby 4y ago
  Interesting link, though I question some of those: taw & p'saai—it's not p'sai'onics right? And I wonder how useful symbols like æ ə ʌ are to people asking how to pronounce Greek.
  - eindiran 4y ago
    There is an international, widely-recognized standard alphabet for precisely specifying the pronunciation of things in arbitrary languages, and you are unsure of why it would be useful for people trying to figure out how to pronounce something? Visit the wiki page for each IPA symbol and there will be recordings and examples and you can learn how to read it instead of complaining that people are using the correct tool for the job. The real problem with the linked page is that it is only using IPA half the time...
    - vba616 4y ago
      >There is an international, widely-recognized standard alphabet for precisely specifying the pronunciation of things in arbitrary languages So...why don't we spell all languages with that alphabet? Think of the increase in efficiency! My doctor has signs and other notices that you should arrive 15 minutes before your appointment. I asked "why don't you just make all the appointments 15 minutes earlier?"
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
oneshtein 4y ago
Play the audiofile here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet#Letter_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet#Letter_names
meindnoch 4y ago
On macOS: select letter "ψ" → right-click → "Look Up" → it is pronounced "psi"
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  The real scourge is articles that use embedded images for the greek symbols or other equations.
otikik 4y ago
You can always retaliate by using the wrong name on purpose: the Jason meson, the Fork meson. It will drive them crazy.
Affric 4y ago
The point of hypertext and the web is that those definitions and footnotes should be built into the document. In a magazine it would be in a definition box at the side using some sort of grid layout.
- raattgift 4y ago
  > definitions ... should be built into the document I agree. Scientific research should be for everyone, including people who would like reliable text-to-speech versions of definitions. I invite you (and the author of the comment you replied to) to take up any of the four suggestions at the bottom of https://info.arxiv.org/about/accessibility.html https://info.arxiv.org/about/accessibility.html

archgoon 4y ago

Jay-sigh

bgirard 4y ago

It would become redundant very quickly I think. Reading stories about quantum computing feels this way. The first 3 paragraph include the same 'qubits can exists as a 0, 1 or a superposition' over simplification followed by a single paragraph of explanation of the new discovery. IMO it's much easier for you to answer your specific question with an easy search than it is for article authors to anticipate every question and keep answering it in every article.

BobbyJo 4y ago
Someone use GPT to automatically annotate articles with domain specific knowledge so that I can highlight words/sentences/symbols/formulae/etc. and have it explain it to me.
- bgirard 4y ago
  There was a news site that did something like that, I don't recall which. It was incredibly distracting and I think they started annotating ads in their popovers as well.
  - BobbyJo 4y ago
    This is why it's have to be a separate lyer from the page itself. Otherwise it would become yet more add real estate.
- gtop3 4y ago
  This feels like the type of thing I want human expertise on. GPT can be too inaccurate for something like this. I'd also be concerned it was trained on writings from people that misunderstand the science. There's already tons of expert written and reviewed content designed to teach science. Go buy any textbook on the subject. You can usually get them very cheaply if you don't mind older editions. Libraries will also have these types of books you can checkout for free. Once you've exhausted information found in textbooks you can start actually reading the scholarly journals these pop-sci articles are written about. Once you've read enough scholarly journals, you might have your own questions that aren't answered yet. Then, you can conduct your own science...... Books are great for looking up quick tidbits of information too. Chapter titles and indexes are great for jumping to relevant information.
  - BobbyJo 4y ago
    I'm not a physicist, so keeping around a good deal of reading material (not to mention seeking out a good explanation) to understand the odd reference or two seems horribly cumbersome. Google is way lower friction, but even that requires some manual sorting through. Seems like exactly the thing a good language model would be great at. If they can't do that, where the stakes are low and the task is exactly the domain of LLMs, then I don't see how they'd be useful for anything.
    - gtop3 4y ago
      I'm optimizing for accuracy and depth of understanding. Your optimizing for lower friction. I think I'm optimizing for the correct variables.
stronglikedan 4y ago
You'd just have to define the pronunciation once per article, like we do with acronyms.
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  Don't know why you're downvoted, this is exactly what they're asking for. You don't have to explain the details of the J/ψ meson, just the first time you write it in the article put "J/ψ meson (J/Psi meson) For the qubit example, they're not asking for the article to always describe what a qubit is, just if you're going to only write it as "α|0⟩ + β|1⟩" it would be helpful to put (qubit quantum state) the first time you do so in the article.
Teever 4y ago
In the /r/SpaceX subreddit there is an acronym bot that will scan articles or posts for acronyms and make a post that explains the acronyms that it found. Such content doesn't need to be right in the beginning of an article, it could be linked to or at the bottom of the page.
- bgirard 4y ago
  That's a good example. I found it handy when I was new to the subreddit and it's easily ignored at the bottom of the thread.

garyrob 4y ago

[flagged]

Groxx 4y ago
Message boards are currently being inundated by low-effort, low-value, "yeah Google surfaces that Wikipedia page too, much faster, and has for years" drive-by advertisements for a paid service. It's not really surprising that people aren't excited about that.
- garyrob 4y ago
  OK. My guess was that the person I was responding to didn't know that for $20/mo they could get all the answers they want to questions like the one they were asking (even if not always perfect), and do so immediately and effortlessly, and so pointing it out could be useful to them. I say that because I know that if I was unaware of the cost/benefits and somebody told me that, that might have motivated me to try it, and it might make a big difference to me. Someone could have added to my productivity and helped my stress level by pointing it out. In any case, I don't think I'll post about the cost/benefit of ChatGPT on HN again! Thanks for the explanation. I appreciate your taking the time to give it rather than just voting me down. It was kind of you.
  - mort96 4y ago
    They weren't asking a question. They were critiquing the article. And the criticism is perfectly valid. Shilling for an OpenAI subscription is wholly unnecessary here.
  - Groxx 4y ago
    To be clear, I (and I suspect many others) do appreciate the "this is from chatgpt [and therefore may not be correct]" notes. Because posting it without that and without verification is what some are doing, and that's just plain malicious karma farming. Yours isn't that. But personally I'd like it better if it weren't used period, outside "ai is useful / produces trash" discussions where its output is directly relevant. If I want a machine's answer, I know how to get it, but I'm here for discussion with humans.

giardini 4y ago

The J is pronounced as an English "J" ("jay"). ψ – psi – pronounced "psaai" (as in "top side") or "saai" (as in "side"). from "Pronunciation of the Greek alphabet in English": https://jakubmarian.com/pronunciation-of-the-greek-alphabet-in-english/ https://jakubmarian.com/pronunciation-of-the-greek-alphabet-...

mLuby 4y ago
Interesting link, though I question some of those: taw & p'saai—it's not p'sai'onics right? And I wonder how useful symbols like æ ə ʌ are to people asking how to pronounce Greek.
- eindiran 4y ago
  There is an international, widely-recognized standard alphabet for precisely specifying the pronunciation of things in arbitrary languages, and you are unsure of why it would be useful for people trying to figure out how to pronounce something? Visit the wiki page for each IPA symbol and there will be recordings and examples and you can learn how to read it instead of complaining that people are using the correct tool for the job. The real problem with the linked page is that it is only using IPA half the time...
  - vba616 4y ago
    >There is an international, widely-recognized standard alphabet for precisely specifying the pronunciation of things in arbitrary languages So...why don't we spell all languages with that alphabet? Think of the increase in efficiency! My doctor has signs and other notices that you should arrive 15 minutes before your appointment. I asked "why don't you just make all the appointments 15 minutes earlier?"
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

oneshtein 4y ago

Play the audiofile here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet#Letter_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet#Letter_names

meindnoch 4y ago

On macOS: select letter "ψ" → right-click → "Look Up" → it is pronounced "psi"

squeaky-clean 4y ago
The real scourge is articles that use embedded images for the greek symbols or other equations.

otikik 4y ago

You can always retaliate by using the wrong name on purpose: the Jason meson, the Fork meson. It will drive them crazy.

Affric 4y ago

The point of hypertext and the web is that those definitions and footnotes should be built into the document. In a magazine it would be in a definition box at the side using some sort of grid layout.

raattgift 4y ago
> definitions ... should be built into the document I agree. Scientific research should be for everyone, including people who would like reliable text-to-speech versions of definitions. I invite you (and the author of the comment you replied to) to take up any of the four suggestions at the bottom of https://info.arxiv.org/about/accessibility.html https://info.arxiv.org/about/accessibility.html