Re:The pitfalls of jargon and the damage it does to mathematics
by Someone on Tuesday May 24, 2011 @02:12PM
(#2580908)
I am guessing that any mathematician will understand "immersed surfaces in 4-manifolds"?
I think you are guessing wrong. A 4-manifold, that I can more or less understand (and that is about as far as one can get, as there are several slightly different definitions in common use), but immersed surfaces in manifolds? And I do not think that is because I haven't done abstract math since graduating. One can graduate in mathematics without encountering any manifold, for example by focussing more on applied fields such as discrete math, analysis, or statistics.
I do not think that that abstract is necessarily bad, though. It seems to mention sufficiently many terms to sell it to the target audience of, say, 100 people world-wide. If you do not know any of these, you should read something more basic.
I think you are guessing wrong. A 4-manifold, that I can more or less understand (and that is about as far as one can get, as there are several slightly different definitions in common use), but immersed surfaces in manifolds? And I do not think that is because I haven't done abstract math since graduating. One can graduate in mathematics without encountering any manifold, for example by focussing more on applied fields such as discrete math, analysis, or statistics.
I do not think that that abstract is necessarily bad, though. It seems to mention sufficiently many terms to sell it to the target audience of, say, 100 people world-wide. If you do not know any of these, you should read something more basic.