Re:Lisp as the Maxwell Equations of Software (2012)
by db48x on Friday February 13, 2015 @12:20AM
(#9043019)
Exactly the same is true of Maxwell's equations. The four we use today are different than the 20 he originally came up with; most of that reduction comes from vectorizing them, and they gain a lot of clarity by using vector-calculus operations such as gradient and curl.
Together these changes brush the computational complexities under the rug, and leave only the descriptive power of the laws:
* "the gradient of the electric field is proportional to the amount of electric charge"
* "the curl of an electric field is always zero"
* "the gradient of a magnetic field is always zero"
* "the curl of a magnetic field is proportional to the size of the electric current plus the amount of change in the electric field with respect to time".
Together these changes brush the computational complexities under the rug, and leave only the descriptive power of the laws:
* "the gradient of the electric field is proportional to the amount of electric charge"
* "the curl of an electric field is always zero"
* "the gradient of a magnetic field is always zero"
* "the curl of a magnetic field is proportional to the size of the electric current plus the amount of change in the electric field with respect to time".