間違いやすい用語や表現 – solve

動詞「solve」は、数学的な議論においてよく誤用されます。その多くの場合には、「solve」は「解明する」の誤訳になっていると思われます。「解明する」を「solve」と訳すことが適切な場合もありますが、「解明する」は比較的広い意味で用いられ、「solve」と訳すことができない場合もあります。
一般に、「solve」が意味する操作の対象となりうるものは、例えば、問題、謎、方程式、積分など、解くことを必要とされるもののみです。それらを解くことによって得られるものは「solve」の対象となりえないのです。つまり、そのようなものを表す名詞が「solve」の直接目的語となってはいけません。特に、数学的な議論においては、導出や解析などの結果となるものに対して「solve」を用いるのは誤りです。

以下の例文を見てみましょう。

(1) [誤] As proven above, this equation has two solutions. Below, we solve both of
(1) [誤] these solutions explicitly.
(1) [正] As proven above, this equation has two solutions. Below, we derive both of
(1) [正] these solutions explicitly.
(1) [正] As proven above, this equation has two solutions. Below, we derive explicit
(1) [正] expressions for both of these solutions.
(1) [正] As proven above, this equation has two solutions. Below, we obtain explicit
(1) [正] expressions for both of these solutions.
(1) [正] As proven above, this equation has two solutions. Below, we explicitly solve
(1) [正] thisequation and obtain both of these solutions.
(2) [誤] We have solved the energy spectrum.
(2) [正] We have obtained the energy spectrum.
(2) [正] We have constructed the energy spectrum.
(2) [正] We have derived the energy spectrum.
(2) [正] We have solved for the energy spectrum.
(3) [誤] In the following, we solve the time evolution of this system.
(3) [正] In the following, we obtain the time evolution of this system.
(3) [正] In the following, we derive the time evolution of this system.
(3) [正] In the following, we solve the equation of motion for this system.
(3) [正] In the following, we solve for the time evolution of this system.
(4) [誤] In this work, we numerically solved the steady state behavior of the above
(4) [誤] model.
(4) [正] In this work, we numerically investigated the steady state behavior of the
(4) [正] above model.
(4) [正] In this work, we numerically investigated the above model and elucidated its
(4) [正] steady state behavior.
(4) [正] In this work, we carried out numerical simulations of the above model and
(4) [正] elucidated its steady state behavior.