Frank Oppenheimer, Exploratorium
The Exploratorium Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 1, April/May 1982
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| When a language first develops, there is often a word for every shade of meaning and a specific meaning for every word. Over a long period of time, however, most words become ambiguous and their meaning can be extracted with precision only from the context of the conversation or the shared experiences of those who are talking to each other. Jargon differs from the general language in that each word has a specific meaning that cannot be changed by the context or the experience of the talker or listener; as a result, jargon cannot be used to communicate anything that is totally new to them. | a specific name, and every action whether “luffing” or “falling off” means a specific procedure that would take minutes rather than seconds to describe in English. A less obvious virtue of jargon is that it can help one think. This attribute is especially important in physics and in mathematics. I still remember being delighted and astonished during my high school physics course at how much thinking mileage one got out of restricting the use of the word “pressure” to mean force on one unit of area. The pressure of the atmosphere, for example, is about fifteen pounds on a one-inch square whether that square is on your body or on the wall, on the ceiling or on the floor. | ||
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| In ordinary language, “pressure” and “force” can be used very loosely. One can talk about the force of habit or the pressure of work. But in physics jargon “pressure” always means a force on a unit of area and “force” means something that will cause a change in the velocity of an object. Once having learned this jargon, it is very easy to think through, and therefore to understand, how a liquid can be used to multiply a force with a hydraulic jack or car lift. If I push on the liquid by pushing on a piston whose area is one square inch with a force of fifteen pounds (that is 15 pounds per | |||
| Jargon has many uses. For example, it can speed up communication. This is certainly an advantage when sailing a small craft since so many crises occur that must be dealt with speedily. When a rock suddenly looms ahead, one can cry, “Man the jib, I’m coming about.” “About” can mean many things in English, but not in the jargon of sailing. In sailing jargon, every part of the boat - even the scuppers, which are merely holes in the gunwhales - has |
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