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from the inconsistent-consistencies-!=-consistent-inconsistencies dept.
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"WLIHE QTAUUNM CMPIOTUNG IS PEISOD FOR SGIFANCIIT GWORTH AND AEVNADCMNET, THE EGRENEMT IDSRTUNY IS CRRULNETY FARENETMGD AND LCAKS A CMOMON CMUIATCHIMNOS FARWEORMK" -IEEE
One person’s trapped ion is another’s electrostatically defined quantum dot. I'm talking about qubits, by the way—the quantum-computing equivalent of the bits in regular computers. But if you don't quite follow, don't worry: you're far from being alone.
"Confusions exist on what quantum computing or a quantum computer means," says Hidetoshi Nishimori, a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology who specializes in quantum computing.
[...] The snappily titled IEEE P7130 Standard for Quantum Computing Definitions Project will corral experts and define the most important terms in the field so that everybody is reading from the same page.
As this is a nascent field, addressing fragmented terminology now makes excellent sense — there are a limited number of papers in the field at the moment, compared to what is envisioned for the future. Compare that to other professions where archaic terminology continues. What something was known as back-in-the-day continues to today because it would be too much work, now, to embrace a new, consistent taxonomy. Especially the medical profession and its terms for various parts of the human anatomy. What profession, if any, has successfully redefined its nomenclature as is envisioned here?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday August 25 2017, @03:50AM (1 child)
Just out of curiosity, why is medical terminology singled out here? If anything, most anatomical terminology is incredibly descriptive, following standard patterns for prefixes and suffixes. And standard terms like "superior" or "anterior" or "lateral" mostly require knowledge of a few axes around the various systems. The main flaws tend to occur in certain systems where things are oriented around what were once thought to be the "major" structures, but now our understanding of function has changed somewhat. But those aren't generally huge issues. And the only other flaws tend to be buried in some of the etymology for terms, but that's mostly in the roots (not the prefixes and suffixes that doctors actually know the meaning of), so unless you're a Latin and Greek expert, you won't notice those either.
Exactly what's the proposal for a "new, consistent taxonomy" for human anatomy? The medical profession HAS tried alternatives in the past couple centuries. For example, naming things after the discoverer. That's great at first, because it differentiates the mumbo jumbo of Greek and Latin and associates it with a story and a person... but that only works well until you need to memorize hundreds of body parts and conditions and diseases named after people, after which you might actually prefer a more descriptive term, even if it's a complex phrase of four Greek terms that accurately locate the condition and its cause. Or, the medical profession has tried just numbering stuff, but again, that just gets unwieldy when you need to remember that proteins 3, 17, and 31 are the important ones for X, but 5, 12, and 47 are the important ones for Y.
To me, most anatomical terminology seems perfectly straightforward, and it's additive, in the sense that once you know the major systems and structures, additional terms can often help you to imagine where a particular thing (like a minor blood vessel or whatever) is located. What's the alternative?
I don't see anything in the links that actually makes clear what all is going on here, but from the limited description from the project seems to imply it's not so much about "redefining" so much as clarifying inconsistent terminology and also providing technical guidance on terminology usage (e.g., all those damn CS people who don't really understand quantum physics terms on a rigorous level or whatever).
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday August 25 2017, @04:41PM
Medical terminology has made progress in standardization of medical terms. For instance, even though everyone is different, they (doctors, I suppose?) have managed to agree on the definition of the foot [wikipedia.org] since 1959.
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