记得有位博主提出“hand waving”的翻译问题。今天我有空，稍微说两句，待方家批评指正。

“hand waving”除了直白的“挥手”之意外，其引申或喻意中英词典竟无收录。其基本意思为“试图解释或说服而使用的无实质性的言词、论据、姿势或动作等”（insubstantial words, arguments, gestures, or actions used in an attempt to explain or persuade；Insubstantial words or actions intended to convince or impress）。

但该词在不同学科领域中意义略有差异，某些情况下可酌情译为“粗暴断言、略而不证、蒙混过关、虚晃一招、大而化之、华而不实”等。

下面是某博主提供的例句：

--Some supplementary hand waving is needed to calculate a dissipative effect such as conductance.

--In the mathematical world hand waving has a bad reputation.

--Drawing useful pictures or providing a real explanation is not hand waving.

--See Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics for the seminal work on hand waving. (我不是故意黑Jackson的）

下面是Wikipedia对该词条提供的解释：

注意后面的中文为机器翻译，仅为不愿意阅读英文或有困难者参考，本人不想花时间校正。

This article is about the idiomatic term. For the everyday human gesture, see Wave (gesture).

Hand-waving (with various spellings) is a pejorative label for attempting to be seen as effective – in word, reasoning, or deed – while actually doing nothing effective or substantial.[1] It is most often applied to debate techniques that involve fallacies, misdirection and the glossing over of details.[2] It is also used academically to indicate unproven claims and skipped steps in proofs (sometimes intentionally, especially in instructional materials), with some specific meanings in particular fields, including literary criticism and speculative fiction, mathematics and logic, and science and engineering. The term can additionally be used in work situations, when attempts are made to display productivity or assure accountability without actually resulting in them. The term can also be used as a self-admission of, and suggestion to defer discussion about, an allegedly unimportant weakness in one's own argument's evidence, to forestall an opponent dwelling on it. In debate competition, certain cases of this form of hand-waving may be explicitly permitted.

挥手（与不同的拼法）是企图被视为一个贬义词，推理有效–标签，或行为–而实际上做了什么有效的或实质性的。[ 1 ]这是最常应用的辩论技巧，涉及的谬论，误导和粉饰的细节。[ 2 ]是也用学术来表示未经证实的说法，跳过步骤证明（有时是故意的，特别是在教学材料），在特定领域的特定含义，包括文学批评和投机的小说，数学和逻辑，和科学与工程。在工作环境中，当试图展示生产力或保证问责而不实际造成他们的情况时，该术语可用于工作环境中。这个词也可以作为一种自我接纳，建议推迟讨论，在自己的论点的证据一个据称是无关紧要的缺点，为了防止对手停留在这。在辩论赛中，某些情况下，这种形式的手挥舞可能是明确允许的。

Hand-waving is an idiomatic metaphor, derived in part from the use of excessive gesticulation, perceived as unproductive, distracting or nervous, in communication or other effort.[citation needed] The term also evokes the sleight-of-hand distraction techniques of stage magic,[2] and suggests that the speaker or writer seems to believe that if they, figuratively speaking, simply wave their hands just so that no one will notice or speak up about the holes in the reasoning.[2] This implication of misleading intent has been reinforced by the pop-culture influence of the Star Wars franchise, in which mystically powerful hand-waving is fictionally used for mind control, and some uses of the term in public discourse are explicit Star Wars references.[3]

手势是一个地道的隐喻，从过多的手势的使用，视为无效，分心或紧张，通信或其他努力。[引文需要]这个术语也唤起舞台魔术手牵张技术手法，[ 2 ]，表明说话人或作者似乎认为，如果他们，打个比方说，简单的挥手就这样没有人会注意到或者说在推理的孔。[ 2 ]这暗示误导意图被星球大战的流行文化的影响增强，在这神秘强大的手势是一种用于精神控制，和公共话语的一些使用的术语是显式的星球大战的参考依据CES。[ 3 ]

Actual hand-waving motions may be used either by a speaker to indicate a desire to avoid going into details,[1] or by critics to indicate that they believe the proponent of an argument is engaging in a verbal hand-wave inappropriately.[2]

The New Hacker's Dictionary (a.k.a. The Jargon File) observes:

If someone starts a sentence with "Clearly..." or "Obviously..." or "It is self-evident that...", it is a good bet he is about to handwave (alternatively, use of these constructions in a sarcastic tone before a paraphrase of someone else's argument suggests that it is a handwave). The theory behind this term is that if you wave your hands at the right moment, the listener may be sufficiently distracted to not notice that what you have said is bogus [i.e., incorrect]. Failing that, if a listener does object, you might try to dismiss the objection with a wave of your hand.[2]

实际的手势动作可由议长表示希望避免进入细节，[ 1 ]或批评者表示，他们相信一个论点的支持者是从事口头手波不当。[ 2 ]

新黑客字典（又名行话文件）观察：

如果有人开始一句“显然…”或“显然…”或“不言而喻，…”，这是一个很好的赌注，他即将HandWave（或者，用这些建筑用讽刺的口吻在转述别人的说法认为它是handwave）。这个术语背后的理论是，如果你在正确的时刻挥动你的双手，听者可能会被充分分散注意力，而不是注意你所说的是假的。如果一个听众不反对，你可能会试图用你的手的一个波来排除这种反对意见。

By extension, handwaving is used in literary, film and other media criticism of speculative fiction to refer to a plot device (e.g., a scientific discovery, a political development, or rules governing the behavior of a fictional creature) that is left unexplained or sloppily explained because it is convenient to the story, with the implication that the writer is aware of the logical weakness but hopes the audience will not notice or will suspend disbelief regarding such a macguffin, deus ex machina, continuity error or plot hole.

推而广之，发射用于文学、科幻小说电影和其他媒体的批评，指情节的设备（例如，一个科学发现，政治发展，或规则的一个虚构的生物的行为），原因不明或草率的解释，因为它是方便的故事，暗示着作家意识到了逻辑的弱点但希望观众不会注意到或将暂停对于这样一个麦高芬怀疑，deus ex machina，连续性错误或情节漏洞。

In mathematics, and theory-dominated disciplines in which mathematics plays a major role, hand-waving refers to the following behavior, which is expected from students (and can be used to advance instruction), but which is considered intolerable and inexcusable among professionals.[10] In this context, hand-waving is not merely a pedagogical paradigm or rhetorical device. Rather, it represents a formal logical fallacy, wherein a conclusion (which may be uncontested) is ascribed to follow from a demonstrably unreliable source of argumentation. The important distinction from the benign and informal interpretation of "proof by hand-waving" in science and engineering (see below), is that the validity or falsehood of any proposals or hypotheses, though asserted and claimed to be true, are never called into question; instead, a diagnosis of mathematical hand-waving is effectively a professional attack, intended to undermine the legitimacy of a speaker who has attempted to assert a proposition, without necessarily having the power to prove it, at least not without appealing to authority or consulting notes or references.

在数学和理论为主的学科，数学中起主要作用，手势是指下列行为，预计从学生（可用于推进指令），但这是无法容忍和不可饶恕的专业人士。[ 10 ]在这样的背景下，挥手不仅仅是一种教学范式或修辞。相反，它代表的是一种形式逻辑谬误，其中一个结论（可无）是归因于遵循一个明显不可靠来源的论证。在科学和工程（见下文）的“手挥舞”的“证明”的重要区别是，任何建议或假设，虽然断言和声称是真实的，是从来没有所谓的问题；相反，一个诊断的数学手挥舞是有效的专业攻击，旨在破坏的合法性谁一直试图断言一个命题，而不必有权证明它，至少不是没有吸引力的权威或咨询说明或引用。

Hand-waving arguments in engineering and other applied sciences often include order-of-magnitude estimates and dimensional analysis, especially in the use of Fermi problems in physics and engineering education. However, competent, well-intentioned researchers and professors also rely on explicitly declared hand-waving when, given a limited time, a large result must be shown and minor technical details cannot be given much attention—e.g., "it can be shown that z is an even number", as an intermediary step in reaching a conclusion.

Back-of-the-envelope calculations are approximate ways to get an answer by over-simplification, and are comparable to hand-waving in this sense.

在工程和其他应用科学的手挥舞着的参数通常包括数量级的估计和尺寸的分析，特别是在物理和工程教育中的费米问题的使用。然而，主管，善意的研究人员和教授也依靠明确宣布挥手时，给定一个有限的时间，一个大的结果必须表现和细微的技术细节，不能给予太多的attention-e.g.，“它可以证明Z是偶数”，在得出结论的一个中间步骤。

返回的包络线计算是近似的方法得到一个答案，通过过度简化，并在这个意义上的手挥舞着媲美。

Hand-waving - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia