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Split Thread Conspiracy theories about unconventional usage of notation

Vixen said:
We know M/S Estonia sank within 35". Hard to see how that can be seen as depth of water or seconds.
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Given that you have also, for example, claimed that port and starboard are perpendicular to each other, I don't see why you claiming that the ship sank in 35 seconds would be so unlikely.
 
The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Reopened Part V

Mojo said:
It's hard to see how it can be minutes, given that 35 minutes is expressed as 35', not 35".
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Correct. When primes were used to indicate a time duration, the hour was given by the letter ‘h’ just as when primes are used for degree subdivision the degree is given by the superscript circle, °. A single prime is minutes; double prime is seconds—in all cases. It doesn’t change arbitrarily according to “context.” This is how we know 4′ 33″ doesn’t indicate four hours and thirty-three minutes, which is not impossible for a musical composition.
 
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Vixen said:
It can be 20 seconds. Think of it this way (hopefully, we'll get there in the end!)

Feet = '

Inches= "

Minutes = '

Seconds = "

OR, alternatively:

Hours = '

Minutes = "

As long as the context is clear I don't see the problem. We know M/S Estonia sank within 35". Hard to see how that can be seen as depth of water or seconds.

Happy Christmas, All. Keep smiling!
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No, Vixen. There's no "OR, alternatively...".

This has been explained to you several times already.

If you choose - for reasons only known to yourself, because literally nobody discussing science/engineering concepts uses it - to use the prime system to notate time units, then the unit for minutes of time is - AND IS ONLY - the single prime ('). The double prime ('') is not, and has never ever been in the entire history of human communication, used (correctly) to notate minutes of time.

This whole fiasco is truly a microcosm of your analysis in this thread. You repeatedly continue to insist that black is white, long after it's been explained in detail that white is white and black is black. It makes reasonable debate next to impossible.
 
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Vixen said:
It can be 20 seconds. Think of it this way (hopefully, we'll get there in the end!)

Feet = '

Inches= "

Minutes = '

Seconds = "

OR, alternatively: Hours = ' Minutes = "
As long as the context is clear I don't see the problem. We know M/S Estonia sank within 35". Hard to see how that can be seen as depth of water or seconds.

Happy Christmas, All. Keep smiling!
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Er, no. How about this reference, quoted by, oh yes, you?


Vixen said:
https://slideplayer.com/slide/7348086/
Why base 60? The Babylonians divided the day into 24 hours, each hour into 60 minutes, each minute into 60 seconds. This has survived for 4000 years! – Notations for sexagesimal numbers, e.g., 5 hours, 25 minutes, 30 seconds include 5h 25' 30" the ‘sexagesimal fraction’ 5 25 / 60 30 / 3600 5; 25, 30. – the number 5; 25, 30 - in sexagesimal form - can be expressed as a base 10 fraction: 5 4 / 10 2 / 100 5 / 1000 – i.e. 5.425 in decimal notation.
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ETA: Obviously, the sexagesimal system can be used for anything with a base-60, so not just an hour (= 60 minutes) but also a minute (= 60 seconds).
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5h 25' 30"; 5 hours, 25 minutes, 30 seconds. At no point is there an example using " to indicate minutes.
 
GlennB said:
It was a higher figure, but still cooler than even a candle flame.
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I searched, the claim was 700 degrees. I do some seam welding at work with a basic arc welding machine that can melt steel, and I don't work in a lab.
 
Vixen said:
I was quoting other posters.
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What poster were you quoting when you said that the Estonia sank in 35 minutes without a trace?

No-one has claimed it sank without a trace. That's a frankly bizarre accusation to make.

Much like your accusation that people made callous jokes about the victims of the Estonia disaster.
 
Vixen said:
I was trying to put it into context to help you understand. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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How does writing 35 minutes as 0.35" put anything into context to make anything understandable?

Does 0.35" mean 0.35 seconds? 0.35 minutes? If you're still using " as a notation for minutes (which it isn't) then 0.35" would be 21 seconds.

Do you even know what you're rambling about?
 
Vixen said:
It can be 20 seconds. Think of it this way (hopefully, we'll get there in the end!)

Feet = '

Inches= "

Minutes = '

Seconds = "

OR, alternatively: Hours = ' Minutes = "
Click to expand...
And who uses this alternative system where a single prime is used to indicated hours of time and a double prime is used to indicate minutes of time? :confused:
 
Vixen said:
It can be 20 seconds. Think of it this way (hopefully, we'll get there in the end!)

Feet = '

Inches= "

Minutes = '

Seconds = "

OR, alternatively:

Hours = '

Minutes = "

As long as the context is clear I don't see the problem. We know M/S Estonia sank within 35". Hard to see how that can be seen as depth of water or seconds.

Happy Christmas, All. Keep smiling!
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No...there is no "alternatively."
 
Susheel said:
No...there is no "alternatively."
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There very much is not. In fact, the whole value of the primes-as-cuts system is lost if you can arbitrarily redefine which is the first cut, second cut, and so forth. For angles and time, the symbol ″ (double-prime) meaning "second cut" (i.e., of an hour or of a degree) is baked into both the notation and the accompanying nomenclature. 35″ is "thirty-five seconds," or more completely, "thirty-five second-cuts from a degree" or "thirty-five second-cuts from an hour." For time and angles, double-prime is never anything but a second, because it is never anything but the second cut from the corresponding base unit. That's literally why the notation is two primes.

Yes, we all learned about the Babylonian sexagesimal number system in high school. That's old news. The fact that it's neither a base-10 (fingers and toes) or a base-2 (binary subdivisions) illustrates the problem the primes-as-cuts notation is meant to solve. Most modern science and engineering is done in decimal multiples and divisions for good reasons. But back when there was a plethora of units and derived quantities in common and long-historical usage, we needed a more carefully regulated notation.

The primes-as-cuts system starts with a base unit. The base unit is always symbolized by a properly identifying abbreviation, never by a prime. The commonly-employed subdivisions of each were notated according to the "first cut," or first subdivision, using a single prime ′. That unit is further subdivided--the "second cut"--and notated with the double prime ″. You can have a third cut, a fourth cut; indeed as many cuts as are helpful. The notation simply expands ad nauseam by adding more primes.

The notation is elegant enough. The underlying systems are the problem because the divisions are not uniform. Traditional English units often come from binary subdivisions of a base unit. But we don't use all the intermediate cuts. A gallon divides into four quarts, which divides further into two pints. So you can say "3 gal 2′ 1″" to mean "three gallons, two quarts, and 1 pint." Note how the abbreviation "gal" indicates gallons of volume--the base unit--and sets up the customary sequence of divisors for the cuts. Binary subdivisions are easy to obtain using a simple balance scale or two identical vessels for holding liquids. But why isn't the first cut of a gallon equal to half a gallon? You can have 16 ounces in a pound (mass). That's obviously derived by binary subdivision. But why don't we have names for the intermediate divisions of half-, quarter-, and eighth-pound? Probably just lost to history. But the point is that for each particular base unit, you need to know the traditional cuts. And that sequence of cuts is established by properly notating the base unit with its unambiguous symbol: 'h' for hours, 'º' for degrees, 'gal' for gallons, and so forth.

For time and angles we start with the Babylonian sextagesimal subdivisions because they have too much history behind them to let go. The base unit for time is the hour ('h'). The first cut is minutes (of time) and the second cut is--literally--seconds (of time). For angles, the base unit is a degree ('º'). The first cut is arcminutes. We properly use the prefix "arc" to distinguish from time measurement, but we have to concede it's often omitted when the context is unmistakably angle measurement. The second cut (double-prime) is arcseconds.

But at this point we depart from the Babylonians, at least as far as angles are concerned. The third cut of a degree is not a further 1/60 sexagesimal division. 2‴ is not 2/60 of an arcsecond. It's 2/3 of an arcsecond, because the divisor for the third cut of a degree is not 60, it's 3. Similarly the fourth cut of a degree is 1/4 of a "third of arc." We don't use these finer cuts anymore. Even when we use the DMS notation for angles, we just decimalize the seconds. But they exist and have definitions in the primes-as-cuts system.

Time cuts follow the DMS divisors from the base unit of hours ('h'). But that lasts only as long as the first two cuts. After that, there are no more traditional primes-as-cuts divisors for time. Scholars indeed stroke their beards over what geometric factors might lay beneath the correspondence between hours and degrees. But for our purposes it's just an accident.

Vixen alludes to "context," but she has the wrong idea about what that context controls. Context tells us what extent we're measuring, and therefore which base unit applies and what sequence of divisors to use to resolve the primes. Context can never redefine what the base unit is for some particular extent. Otherwise the system collapses. Context properly established, we sometimes omit the base unit if its value is zero and we don't therefore need the abbreviation to further expand the context. We don't need to properly title our musical composition 0h 4′ 33″, because we establish by other means that the context is time duration. What is meant thereafter by the primes is unassailably unambiguous.

Science has found a way to be even less ambiguous when measuring time, but that doesn't mean the older notation is imprecise or open to arbitrary reinterpretation. Vixen wants to argue that 35″ can mean "thirty-five minutes (of time)" in context--the context presumably being that of a ship sinking, which we would naturally reckon in minutes and just therefore "know" what the symbol was meant to convey from case to case.

That is simply as wrong as it can be.

Once we've established that the context is a time extent, the base unit is hours ('h') and the second-cut figures are 1/3600 of the base unit. This is immutable. Vixen is simply making stuff up in order to avoid having to admit an error. She's trying to say there's enough wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey in the notation to allow for her errant usage. There isn't. She is wrong, full stop.

Before we close, it's valuable to understand why we notate feet and inches as first and second cuts. Isn't the base unit of distance the foot in the English system? No, it's the yard. When the extent is distance, the base unit is the yard ('yd'). The first cut, ′, is feet (1/3 yd) and the second cut, ″, is inches (1/12 foot). And if you've read the Wikipedia page, you know there's a third cut of a yard, the ligne, or 1/12 of an inch (for certain values of "inch"). In modernish usage, American engineers forced to work in legacy designs simply decimalize the inch. American carpenters stick with the traditional binary subdivisions of an inch, expressed as fractions.

In America the foot has supplanted the yard as the practical base unit of distance measurement, and has its own abbreviation ('ft'). American surveying is done in decimal feet, and surveyors' tapes are so marked. But we don't change the primes-as-cuts notation, nor do we normalize to yards for long distances in feet. I own a piece of property whose legal description gives it as 75.4′ wide. We retain yards primarily for our inaptly-named football and for naval engagements.

The whole primes-as-cuts system was meant to encompass feet, gallons, degrees, hours, noggins, firkins, and so forth, with all the baggage of their historical derivations and compositions. It's higgledy-piggledy enough without trying to say that a second-cut may mean a "cask" in one case and a "hogshead" in another. That never happened.

But as usual we have to address the prospect of debating with someone who (a) is plainly underinformed and (b) will never admit even the tiniest error. Such a proponent can never arrive at the truth, and their motives are properly suspect. The intentions here are far from good; the proponent's evident intent is to pretend to be someone they are not and berate others for not gratifying that desire even when the facts disagree.
 
Mojo said:
Given that you have also, for example, claimed that port and starboard are perpendicular to each other, I don't see why you claiming that the ship sank in 35 seconds would be so unlikely.
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I have never claimed that port and starboard are perpendicular to each other. Why the need to make unmerited claims? Even a four-year-old knows they are opposite sides of the vessel.

As for the claim 35", 'might mean depth of water' this is quite misconceived.

Feet and inches primes operate on on a base-12 notation, just as geolocations and time assumes a base-60 one. Therefore thirty-five inches translates as 2'11". It is technically incorrect for the second primes to go above 11.

So, when you see 35" and the context is duration of time, then do assume they refer to minutes as a unit of time. Anything over 59" would then convert to 1' x". Where x = time in minutes.*


*As seconds are also base-60 in respect of minutes, it is also quite correct for John Cage to call his short piece of 'music' 4'33" meaning four minutes thirty-three seconds.

It is all to do with context.
 
"Originally Posted by Mojo View Post
Vixen has also had the HOFE listing at more than 90 seconds:"


If you look up this reference, this was a direct cut and paste from a published paper, which transposed degrees into pirmes.

Not sure why Mojo is so keen to tarnish me.
 
zooterkin said:
Er, no. How about this reference, quoted by, oh yes, you?





5h 25' 30"; 5 hours, 25 minutes, 30 seconds. At no point is there an example using " to indicate minutes.
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This has become a convention, thanks to everything being copied and pasted from site ot site on the internet, that now we are all governed by largely US standards and conventions.

One American poster elsewhere demands vehemently that I should use grammar as prescribed by Grammarly. :D:D:D


(As some might know, Grammarly is designed for students of English as a second language, and thus seeks to iron out the numerous irregularities to be found in English, in the belief that instead of a vocabulary of the estimated 27,000 words Shakespeare uses, one only needs about 3,000. That is super and a great idea for people for whom English is not their first language and who couldn't careless about Keats, Chaucer or Shakespeare. I will continue to apply my knowledge as I have been taught. [English is not even my mother tongue]).
 
JesseCuster said:
How does writing 35 minutes as 0.35" put anything into context to make anything understandable?

Does 0.35" mean 0.35 seconds? 0.35 minutes? If you're still using " as a notation for minutes (which it isn't) then 0.35" would be 21 seconds.

Do you even know what you're rambling about?
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Steve was puzzled as to the difference between " in feet and inches" and " in terms of time. He believes it only means height and depth. I added the 0 in front of the 35" to give him an idea that the first prime was in hours (hence to base-60). As it was under one hour, it didn't need to be stated. (As in when one writes 6" for six inches but no feet.) Alas, it was all in vain and seemed to cause even greater confusion and I must apologise as what I see as perfect logic others will have had a completely different education and see nowt but confusion and chaos. There is no shame in this. I sometimes had to ask for maths help from my more mathematical family in obtaining my professional qualifications.
 
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