Maggiore diveniva la complessità della fisica trattata

[oloap]

Hello everyone,
I'm filling in a form to gain access to a competition;
One of the things I have to describe is my university activities, exams, seminars, courses and so on.
How can I state in english the following sentence:"Maggiore diveniva la complessità degli argomenti trattati, più complessi divenivano gli strumenti matematici adottati".
Thanks in advance
Very nice forum (if "very nice" is allowed in this case)
Cool forum

 

[baldpate]

To think this is what you intend:

As the complexity of the topics increased, so did the complexity of the mathematical tools used.

I haven't bothered translating trattati - it is implicit that these increasingly complex topics are being dealt with

 

[oloap]

Hello Baldpate,
Yes you are right when you say trattati is implicit in this case and even in italian it can be omitted: Maggiore diveniva la complessità della fisica, più compl....
Thanks for your help
Is it correct to say: the more complex the physics became the more did the mathematical tools ?
Just for curiosity, I really like the way you put it in english, I would never be able to find such a natural way to express it.
Thanks a lot

 

[baldpate]

Is it correct to say: the more complex the physics became, the more did the mathematical tools ?

Interesting! It doesn't really work, and I think this is because in your sentence are attempting to use the single 'dummy' verb "did" to replace "complex became" - that is, a verb-complement + verb.

It would, however, be perfectly OK to say it explicitly in this form : "the more complex the physics became, the more complex became the mathematical tools".

You could also perhaps get away with "the more complex the physics became, the more so also did the mathematical tools" (where "so also" stands for "complex" and "did" stands for "became"), but in my opinion this is now verging on the obscure - not to mention the torturous .

If you look back at the sentence I wrote, you can perhaps see that "did" is replacing only a repetion of the verb "increased".

 

[Einstein]

I almost agree but maybe we could reduce it slightly:

"as the physics became more complex, so too did the mathematical tools".

Do you think that works, Baldpate?

PS: If you'll forgive the correction, tortuous, not torturous.

 

[baldpate]

I almost agree but maybe we could reduce it slightly:

"as the physics became more complex, so too did the mathematical tools".

Do you think that works, Baldpate? [absolutely, yes!]

PS: If you'll forgive the correction, tortuous, not torturous.
[Oh God! - did I really write torturous? tortuous was of course what I meant! Not only do I forgive the correction, I applaud it!]

And I was only the other day reading about this very pair in a book about 'tricky sound-alike words' - I think I'm beginning to suffer from age-related brain degeneration .

 

[oloap]

Thanks to you all,
I still don't know which one will choose among the options suggested but for sure now I know what to write.
Still thanks
have a good day!