History: Black Hole

Source of version: 1 (current)

(technical definition of a black hole in english: an object whose Schwarzschild radius exceeds is diameter. the Schwarzschild radius being the distance away from the object at which light can still escape.) ''cimni te junta'', or 'infinite gravity-field' {xekri kevna} (whyever not?) (Well, for starters, it's not black & it's not a hole. The terms of tanru must be literal. {fu'epe'a xekri kevna fu'o} borrows the English kenning, but Lojbanists might not feel the same way about this metaphor, conjuring as it does "The Black Hole of Calcutta" & all sorts of fairy tale hiddenness. But they might prefer a term that actually describes what it's talking about...) ''Who said the terms of tanru must be literal? Whoever they are they need to take a good read of the tanru chapter of the Book and stop spreading that bs.'' (Now, now. Chapter 2, Section 9 says: "In general, however, the meaning of a tanru is determined by the literal meaning of its components, and not by any connotations or figurative meanings." Too bad a lot of the examples which follow, violate this dictum.) ''Meanwhile, p. 275 states, while discussing the tanru "gerku zdani", that the relationship between gerku and zdani "can be as complicated as 'The other day gerku1 chased Socks, who is owned by Chelsea Clinton, who is the daughter of Bill Clinton, who lives in zdani1'. If that's valid, I am quite sure "xekri kevna" is just fine.'' Unless I have misunderstood the issue, I feel like in the "gerku zdani" the main thing described in the x1 place of the relation is really a lo zdani, and the modifier is really related to a lo gerku. Then okay, "xekri" is a valid modifier for "black hole", but "kevna" just __cannot__ apply for a black hole. A black hole is simply not a "lo kevna". #''A black hole is literally a hole in spacetime. le sizykevna cu mapti'' ** (I wish it were that simple. Modern physics is actually a system of mathematical metaphors which seem to describe the things that happen to us, pretty closely; but for all that, these are only metaphors. Then, of course, the term "black hole" was devised in order to allow us to __visualize__ the math. What's really there is quite beyond language...and certainly not a ''kevna be zo'e''.) *** You gave no reason why "kevna" is inapplicable, but you tried to distract us with irrelevancies. No physical phenomena is beyond language. And to imply that there is any system of concepts more real or accurate than the mathematical models used by physics is simply silly, requiring a non-empirical epistemology. --((xod)) #''Since a zdani1 can be a lo zdani, a le zdani, or even a la zdani, the same freedom must be applied to tanru.''(See ((balcukta)) debate, and I'll say it again: __((leka cimni zifre cu se jdima leka cimni se toljimpe))__ -- nitcion.) #''Lojban is clearly incomplete with cmavo that refer to spacetime but no gismu or lujvo for "((spacetime))". --xod'' ** ''caljoicabna'' or ''caljoitei'' ---- (This is a good example of the debate between ((hardliners)) and the "naturalists".) ''I may be a tavlykai ("naturalist"; "toffee-liner", whatever), but I think that calling a black hole a ''kevna'' is silly. It has to be, as mentioned above, a ''kevna be zo'e'' to be a kevna. What is it a hole in? The fabric of space? Show me a piece of this alleged fabric of space and I will believe that it really is a ''kevna''. Let's check the Ultimate Reference here:'' 9.6) sutra tavla fast-talker would not necessarily imply any trickery or deception, unlike the English idiom, and a 9.7) jikca toldi social butterfly must always be an insect with large brightly-colored wings, of the family Lepidoptera . ''I think that means a xekri kevna is a kevna. -- mi'e. ((kreig.daniyl.))''' ---- How about ''targalxe'' or ''majgalxe''? I think that people are giving up and trying to resort to highly metaphorical terms far too quickly. Further, they're letting themselves get wrapped up in converting "black hole" into Lojban, rather than converting the meaning. *And I think that people are falling back way too quickly on definitions when they lack the creativity to come up with a good metaphor. This ought to be the traditional hardline position, by the way -- intuitive brilliance is better than stodgy pedestrianism. The main problem with {xekri kevna} is that is borrowed unthinkingly from English, rather than reinvented within Lojban, as , say, somthing from {gusni}and {pinfu} (not really a suggestion).((pc)) ---- ''le ba'o tarci'' Cute, but there are other things which are ''ba'o tarci''. White dwarves (and their companion remenant, planetary nebulae), as well as neutron stars (and their subclass of pulsars), and possibly brown dwarves which were formed from normal stars by having enough mass sucked off from a companion star. See ((Astronomy)). --((Jay Kominek|jay)) ---- my latest idea, which turned out awfully big, is to encode the idea of "avoiding-speed beyond-light" -> rivbi ni sutra kei gusni bo bancu -> ''rivnilsutygu'ibancu''. unusable, except maybe to ''cei'' it to something more metaphorical. but a step in the right direction, IMO. cliva is probably better than rivbi, in fact, and has nicer rafsi, and we don't really need to mention the speed, so, we want to describe something which light can't leave: gusni na'e kakne se cliva (or some such similar tanru). --jay ---- In Russian, the expression translates as "frozen star", because in Russian "black hole" is a vulgarism. So: ''lektarci''. ---- ''zilvelxruti''