handwaver meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

handwaver

noun

Etymology By surface analysis, handwave + -er, or, by surface analysis, hand + waver.

› Someone who engages in handwaving.

Uncommon One who speaks or writes sweepingly, glossing over details, often including important details.

Take his predictions about our technological and business-development timelines with a grain of salt, because he's an inveterate handwaver.
It is easy to lose sight of the fact that the oversimplified model that is eddy diffusion must be used with care and with a great deal of auxiliary physical insight. Well-educated handwavers often produce more useful results than the people who concentrate on the mathematical and computational aspects of the problem. The ideal is a suitable combination of the two. One way to become well-educated is to study various limiting cases that can be solved analytically. Indeed, these solutions can take us surprisingly far into many problems, sometimes rivalling what can be done with a computer. The substance of this article is a summary of the available solutions, and a critical compilation of eddy coefficients for the atmospheres of the Earth and a few other objects.1975, Donald M. Hunten, “Vertical transport in atmospheres”, in B.M. McCormac, editor, Atmospheres of Earth and the Planets: Proceedings of the Summer Advanced Study Institute, Held at the University of Liège, Belgium, July 29―August 9, 1974 (Astrophysics and Space Science Library), volume 51: Proceedings, D. Reidel, →DOI, →ISBN, page 59:

1 more example

It is quite inconceivable that any handwaver could ever have dreamt up the use of a pendulum to measure dissolved carbon concentrations!1995, Institute of Physics, editors, Twentieth Century Physics, 2nd edition, volume 3, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 1523:

Uncommon One who raises their hand a lot.

A gifted pupil might sometimes need to be coached privately about avoiding presenting themself as a handwaver.
The very intelligent pupil soon becomes bored by the repetition and sits aloof and inattentive, or he becomes a "handwaver" and thus draws upon himself unwarranted and sometimes open rebuke by his classmates.1954, Henry J. Warman, Geography: Backgrounds, Techniques, and Prospects [teaching manual], Worcester, Massachusetts, USA: Edwards Brothers, page 55: