There is some
sayings that irritates me. Like, "this is a quantum leap" (Norwegian:
"Dette er et kvantesprang"). A quantum leap is the smallest possible
leap in nature, in everyday life a quantum leap is the same as a continuous increase, as it is extremely small. That can be remedied,
however, by thinking of the quantum leap as a leap in understanding.
Physics at the scale of atoms were poorly understood until the
concept of a quantum (the world is not continuous, but fundamentally
quantized).
And then there are
some that have no valid interpretation, some phrases that want me to
knock someone's teeth out: "Yes, that implies truth."
It is common to confuse the following
three words:
Correlation: Often when there is
sun and rain we see a rainbow.
Causation: If you hit me on the
head, I will feel pain.
Implication: If the moon is made
of cheese, then I am eating chocolate right now.
(Since the moon is not made of cheese,
the implication is true whether I am eating chocolate or not. Note
also that moon and chocolate have nothing to do with each other.)
See Wikipedia's three pages for a more
thorough explanation. Some may argue that implication is an abstract
model for causation, but let us avoid philosophy right now.
Back to business:
Instead of saying "X is true" some people say "X
implies truth" to sound more wise. (In Norwegian: "X
medfører riktighet"). This is completely bollocks! If you know
that X implies truth, then you know nothing at all about X.
ANYTHING implies truth! (Can you feel my frustration?) On the other
hand, if someone were to say "Truth implies X", then you
would know that X was true.
