The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less

Re:The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less by nlh on Friday May 17, 2013 @12:47PM (#5725425)

Interesting read and I like the concept, but I think the 4-letter rule added an arbitrary constraint that didn't necessarily make it easier to read or understand.

If the idea was "explain relativity simply" then it could have been done better -- word complexity (ie "reading level") is a better measure than outright word length.

If the idea was simply to see if it could be done with 4-letter words, well, mission accomplished :)

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Re:The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less by breadbox on Friday May 17, 2013 @01:07PM (#5725512)

It was in fact the latter.

(I was inspired in part by Douglas Hofstadter, who did something similar on a smaller scale in "Le Ton Beau de Marot".)

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Re:The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less by derekp7 on Friday May 17, 2013 @01:14PM (#5725550)

Sounds very similar to Guy Steel's "Growing a Language" talk. His constraint was to not use any word greater than one syllable unless it is defined by either one-syllable words, or other words that had been previously defined.

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Re:The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less by dpritchett on Friday May 17, 2013 @01:29PM (#5725652)

That really is a great talk! It's on Youtube too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ahvzDzKdB0

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Re:The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less by daviddaviddavid on Friday May 17, 2013 @01:25PM (#5725621)

Wow. I was sure this was inspired by George Boolos' great "Godel's Second Incompleteness Theorem Explained in Words of One Syllable".

http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Math/Milnikel/boolos-godel.pdf

I wonder if Hofstadter was inspired by Boolos?

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Re:The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less by breadbox on Friday May 17, 2013 @01:30PM (#5725660)

Actually, Hofstadter states that he was inspired by a magazine contest.

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Re:The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less by ArekDymalski on Friday May 17, 2013 @01:36PM (#5725696)

I think it would be easier to read without all these colloquial bits "like, you know, heck, get over it". Anyway it's impressive effort.

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Re:The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less by breadbox on Friday May 17, 2013 @03:11PM (#5726181)

Those bits are my favorite parts!

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Re:The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less by alexdowad on Saturday May 18, 2013 @01:30PM (#5729631)

Me too. This was absolutely hilarious. Kudos to breadbox!

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Re:The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less by heyitsnick on Friday May 17, 2013 @04:28PM (#5726542)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constrained_writing

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