Physicists and the English language

Science is a creative activity, and a physicist describing his own research is like a composer conducting his own symphony. Though plenty of purposive activity is involved, the primary motivation is emotional. Essentially, he is yelling “Eureka!”. Yet it is not enough to have the creative urge: it is also necessary to know the techniques for expressing it. Language is considerably older than the uses to which the physicist is now putting it, and his own revisions of it have been only superficial. Some critical examination of its peculiarities is therefore in order.

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