Another Short History of Linguistics (31)

We can regard science as a language that express the universe by mathematics. Later I will explain that without the outside pressure, until now the pictogram language doesn’t develop an expression of math.

Zeno's paradoxes is still an argument about the mathematic expression of a line.

According: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno's_paradoxes, one of the paradox is:

“In the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, Achilles is in a footrace with the tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise a head start of 100 metres, for example. If we suppose that each racer starts running at some constant speed (one very fast and one very slow), then after some finite time, Achilles will have run 100 metres, bringing him to the tortoise's starting point. During this time, the tortoise has run a much shorter distance, say, 10 metres. It will then take Achilles some further time to run that distance, by which time the tortoise will have advanced farther; and then more time still to reach this third point, while the tortoise moves ahead. Thus, whenever Achilles reaches somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has farther to go. Therefore, because there are an infinite number of points Achilles must reach where the tortoise has already been, he can never overtake the tortoise.”

Also it is but a mistake, but within several hundreds of years, no one can explain why there is a certain point on a line that could not be reached by mathematic expression? If the mathematics wanted to express the universe, the first thing is if it is continuous, or we may say that a divergence expression tool could not express the universe. Zeno's paradoxes was a rhetorical question about the broken point of a line. It had threaten the philosophers just because it may smashed the whole expression system of mathematics. It is lucky, later philosopher found the solution. And the most valuable thing is the argument of both side that enriched the mathematics and the born of limit theory even the born of differential calculus.

Beside the mathematic expression, for overcome the pictogram language, the linguists desperately looking for the metaphysic logic for alphabet language and ignoring the certain physics expressing. That made the language some time had only grammar without expressing, until Chomsky, we have seen so many linguists working hard on this area. They believe that once get the truth of metaphysic logic, without any rote, one can have as much vocabulary as necessary. But the funny thing is their metaphysic logic (grammar) has to be expressed physically. In this way for the last two thousand years the linguists of alphabet language ignoring how to simplify the vocabulary.