Claire was the one who suggested that our Westsail 32 be named "E Galois" and I thought it was an excellent idea!A very short explanation:
I was able to trace back to Evariste Galois some ideas I had used in my work as a physicist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.A lot longer explanation:
Some years ago I discovered, in my work at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, that one could use group theory to calculate probabilities in some physics problems. I soon discovered that this had been done a few times before, but that there was no general agreement concerning the meaning of such probabilities. I eventually became convinced that one could interpret a sentence that Evariste Galois had writen in a famous letter on the evening before his fatal duel, sentence that to our knowledge no one had succeeded in interpreting, as meaning that one could use group theory to analyse and quantify ambiguities that result from incomplete descriptions of physical systems. I did not succeed, even though I tried, in communicating these ideas before we retired and went cruising. But I thought that it would be appropriate under the circunstances to follow Claire's suggestion and to name our Westsail 32: "E Galois".A postscriptum:
Having sold "E Galois", we have quit full time cruising. This will give me time to explore further the implications of applying group theory to analyze ambiguities in incomplete description of physical systems and attempt to communicate these ideas.More:
September 20, 2003: I have finally decided to submit a paper to the quant-ph archives! only time will tell if I had a good idea.
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