Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 16, No. 491.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
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[1] From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance) (43)
Subject: Re: 16.479 Kelvin's "if ye canna, ye dinna!" ?
[2] From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk> (18)
Subject: Kelvin's actual words
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 08:24:03 +0000
From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance)
Subject: Re: 16.479 Kelvin's "if ye canna, ye dinna!" ?
Willard,
My apolgies for not respecting any culturally-driven demands for alacrity
and not sending out a reply to spin out this thread a little further. I
have a question. What is the context in which you would like to quote the
words of Lord Kelvin, whose name is remembered by this school boy as
connected with the very deep freeze of absolute zero? I ask because, in
organisational design, practicioners and theorists invoke _functional_
models before say going on to produce an org chart. And I do think that
the mechanical-functional distinction has some salience in the worlds of
humanities computing and not just as a hardware-software divide. Can you
please provide more context for your invocation?
Thanks for provoking the thinking process and your indulgence with our
very very naive questions,
Francois
> Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 07:32:59 +0000
> From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk>
> >
> William Thompson, Lord Kelvin, is often quoted as having said, "Can ye make
> a model of it? For if ye can, ye understand it, and if ye canna, ye dinna!"
> Unfortunately I have not so far been able to locate a reliable source for
> these words. In the published Baltimore lectures on wave theory and
> molecular dynamics (1884), edited by R Kargon and P Achinstein, he does
> say, though less memorably, "I am never content until I have constructed a
> mechanical model of the subject I am studying. If I succeed in making one,
> I understand. Otherwise, I do not." I would be very grateful indeed to be
> able to quote the former in good scholarly conscience, with a reference.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Yours,
> WM
>
>
> Dr Willard McCarty | Senior Lecturer | Centre for Computing in the
> Humanities | King's College London | Strand | London WC2R 2LS || +44 (0)20
> 7848-2784 fax: -2980 || willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk
> www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/
>
-- Francois Lachance, Scholar-at-large, knows no "no exit" in a hypertext every cul-de-sac is an invitation to turn http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance/miles/five.htm--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 08:49:49 +0000 From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk> Subject: Kelvin's actual words
I have it on good authority, from a curator in the Hunterian Gallery, University of Glasgow (http://www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk/), that the shorter, more emphatic version of Kelvin's statement is not genuine. Apparently what we know of the man, how he spoke and thought, would alone make the emphatic statement implausible.
Readers of Humanist may recall I was looking for a similar statement from Marvin Minsky, which I have not found. (In his case, brashness is entirely plausible.) What I was wanting in both instances was a simple statement of the (partial) truth that we think by modelling.
Kelvin has curiously attracted some rather odd attention. See the "Kelvin is Lord" page, http://zapatopi.net/lordkelvin.html, which comes up as the first in a Google search for "Lord Kelvin".
Yours, WM
Dr Willard McCarty | Senior Lecturer | Centre for Computing in the Humanities | King's College London | Strand | London WC2R 2LS || +44 (0)20 7848-2784 fax: -2980 || willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/
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