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soreff comments on Rationality Quotes March 2013 - Less Wrong
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Maxwell's equations fit in roughly 40 characters.
But the context necessary to interpret what all of the symbols mean and match them to real-world phenomena doesn't. That takes up something like a textbook in electrical engineering.
If Maxwell's equations were sent back to 1850, they would give useful information absent being sent with a textbook in electrical engineering (because there were people who had that knowledge already). Likewise, you don't have to send a description of modern culture with every tweet, because it's common information to the sender and recipient, and only the contents of the tweet provide new information.
Actually, I think it'd take more than 140 characters to write out Maxell's equations in 1850 notation. Vector notation was developed by Heaviside towards the end of that century, when Maxell's equations were already known.
If you use the right notation, even fewer than that.