tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Apr 25 08:59:10 2001
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Re: nger tobHa'meH (was Re: KLBC: Qov qeqmeH mu'tlheghmey)
- From: Marc Ruehlaender <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: nger tobHa'meH (was Re: KLBC: Qov qeqmeH mu'tlheghmey)
- Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 10:58:51 CDT
- In-reply-to: Your message of Tue, 24 Apr 2001 20:08:55 -0500
[email protected] said:
> More importantly, though, {tob} doesn't necessarily refer to a
> rigorous mathematical proof. It's quite likely that it works in
> pretty much the same way as the English word "prove", which I don't
> think is quite as singlemindedly logical as you're trying to make it
> out to be. In fact, an early and sometimes still-used meaning of the
> term is as a synonym for "test".
my understanding of the difference between {tob} and {Daj}:
if you want to determine whether a substance "is a metal",
the most uncontroversial test would be to see whether it has
a zero (metal) or non-zero (isolator) resistance at zero temperature.
if one could devise a method to actually get down to 0K, one
could then {tob} whether a substance is a metal or not: the
result of the experiment would be conclusive.
what is done in real life though, is that the resistance is
measured at a range of low temperatures and if there is no
tendency for it to reach a finite value, one assumes that in
the zero Kelvin limit, the resistance is zero. This test is
inconclusive - there's always room for doubt.
now that I've written this, I realize, I could have explained it
without physics :)
{tob} = result of test is without doubt
{Daj} = result of test may be wrong
[email protected] said:
> First, the rover {-Ha'} "undo" doesn't have to mean that something is
> literally undone that was originally done. Sometimes it just implies
> a simple opposite, or even an action done wrongly, which is why one of
> its appropriate translations is "mis-".
now, with respect to {nger tobHa'}, I really don't know what
the logical "opposite" of {tob} is, given the sense I ascribe it
(see above). (unless maybe you consider it to be {Daj})
However, one can "disprove" or "un-prove" {tobHa'} a theory,
if it has been "mis-proven" {tobHa'} or merely {toblaw'}
rather than {tobchu'}...
do I make sense to anyone?
Marc Ruehlaender
aka HomDoq
[email protected]