gedanken
/g*-dahn'kn/ Ungrounded; impractical; not well-thought-out; untried; untested.
"Gedanken" is a German word for "thought". A thought experiment is one you carry
out in your head. In physics, the term "gedanken experiment" is used to refer to
an experiment that is impractical to carry out, but useful to consider because
it can be reasoned about theoretically. (A classic gedanken experiment of
relativity theory involves thinking about a man in an elevator accelerating
through space.) Gedanken experiments are very useful in physics, but must be
used with care. It's too easy to idealise away some important aspect of the real
world in constructing the "apparatus".
Among hackers, accordingly, the word has a pejorative connotation. It is
typically used of a project, especially one in artificial intelligence research,
that is written up in grand detail (typically as a Ph.D. thesis) without ever
being implemented to any great extent. Such a project is usually perpetrated by
people who aren't very good hackers or find programming distasteful or are just
in a hurry. A "gedanken thesis" is usually marked by an obvious lack of
intuition about what is programmable and what is not, and about what does and
does not constitute a clear specification of an algorithm. See also AI-complete,
DWIM.
Nearby terms:
GECOM « GECOS « Gedanken « gedanken » geef »
geek » geek out
|
