[Haskell-cafe] Denotational semantics for the lay man.

Hello All, I've recently had the opportunity to explain in prose what denotational semantics are to a person unfamiliar with it. I was trying to get across the concept of distilling the essence out of some problem domain. I wasn't able to get the idea across so I'm looking for some simple ways to explain it. Does anyone know of a way to explain what's the meaning and objective of "distilling the essence" without introducing more jargon. One thing that comes to mind is how Newton's equations for gravity were a distillation of the essence of the way things fall. Thanks in advance, David -- David Sankel Sankel Software www.sankelsoftware.com