Split Thread Conspiracy theories about unconventional usage of notation

[JayUtah]

Look. I will not debate semantics, sophistry and non sequitur logical fallacies with the poster concerned.

This is none of that. You are alleging fact that is wrong. People are holding you to it. Stop whining about being corrected.

 

[JayUtah]

I am glad to see that you have now done some homework having a couple of weeks ago swore blind to the entire world that you had never come across this in your entire life and nor had you known anyone who had.

Your strawiest man to date. He said your usage of ′ to represent either hours or minutes, and ″ to represent either minutes or seconds is contradicted by his experience, which is similar to yours. He's not saying he's never heard of primes notation to represent time.

Despite your ongoing attempts to suggest otherwise, you're not the smartest person in the room.

 

[wollery]

As I stated:

An ex- who has a maths PhD advises me of the following:

"I may be able to help. Primes use apostrophes to represent different units such as ‘ and “ and ‘“ and “” (without spaces in between) used for hours, minutes, seconds and so on…"

Any chance we could see the entire exchange? Because this seems to be an out of context snippet.

Note, he also (in this snippet) doesn't actually say that ' can be used for hours and " for minutes.

He is contemporaneous to myself (went to school in South Wales; London Physics & Philosophy, Masters Statistics & Maths PhD Warwick, PGCE Mathematics).

I'm also roughly contemporaneous to you - I went to school in Middlesex, Astrophysics degree at Queen Mary London, PGCE Science and Maths at IoE London, PhD Astrophysics at LJMU and worked as a professional astronomer specialising in measuring the change of angles over time.

I have used prime notation for many years in a professional scientific capacity.

I never said it was formal but it is a recognised standard as it can be found in dictionaries of mathematics.

I'm afraid we're going to need a citation for that.

 

[JayUtah]

I never said it was formal but it is a recognised standard...

You've provided no evidence of this. When confronted with countermanding evidence, you ignore it, straw-man it, or make up stuff.

...as it can be found in dictionaries of mathematics.

Cite to an actual "dictionary of mathematics" that establishes that ′ can be used to mean either hours or minutes of time, depending on context, and that ″ can be used for minutes or seconds of time, depending on context.

An ex- who has a maths PhD advises me of the following:

Today's new made-up story.

"I may be able to help. Primes use apostrophes to represent different units such as ‘ and “ and ‘“ and “” (without spaces in between) used for hours, minutes, seconds and so on…"

No, this didn't happen. No one with an actual mathematics background would say "primes use apostrophes." Apostrophes are ever only informal substitutes for the proper typography and nomenclature. Nor would he use reverse primes (i.e., ‶ instead of ″) for notating primes cuts, because those symbols have different meanings. The only proper notation for cuts is the forward primes. Again keep in mind you're talking to people for whom the proper use of units and notation is both second-nature and foundational. We can tell when you're lying.

So the fact you personally never heard of it should not lead you to the logical fallacy that nobody has.

You are literally the only person claiming or believing that ′ can mean either hours or minutes, and that ″ can mean either minutes or seconds, according to context. Despite multiple, insistent requests, you can supply no evidence that anyone besides yourself believes this or uses the notation that way.

 

[JayUtah]

You cannot find any supporting example because you're simply wrong. You are stubbornly defiant but reality disagrees with you.

The world seems to be full of people who desperately want to be seen as some kind of authority. These aren't the same as people who just want to be given credit for the knowledge can demonstrate, such as myself when speaking about such things as law. I've encountered many people who are self-taught in science and engineering, and they are impressively proficient even while lacking experience. But these people, if being honest, know and own their limits while retaining the respect and admiration of professional practitioners.

But then there are people whose desire for admiration crosses over into narcissism. They believe that what little and incorrect knowledge they possess is enough for all situations, and should prevail. And when they run out of that, they just make stuff up. In so doing, they create for themselves a world in which they are the hero. This fabrication works well enough in some situations that they normalize to just straight-up lying when it comes to what they know and how they know it. Or rather, straight-up lying about things that really are either true or false, and not just opinions or controversies. It fooled the afternoon coffee klatch, so why wouldn't it work everywhere? These are the people who turn to conspiracy theories in order to nourish the illusion that because they have found a means to criticize the mainstream, they're smarter than average. These are the people who will never admit error, because that's tantamount to admitting there exists a larger, more real world in which they may not be the hero, savior, or teacher.

This is dangerous. Especially in the past few years we've seen how widespread and grave can be the effects of just a few lies told by people with delusions of grandeur and a stubborn resolve to stick to those delusions. Therefore I believe we skeptics have a duty to oppose this. The desire of people to opine, to debate, and to pretend to teach—but from a position of vanity instead of knowledge, curiosity, or genuine concern—does not justify publishing wanton falsehood and misinformation. Holding people properly accountable for the allegations of fact they make, and enforcing the expectation of intellectual honesty, is important whether the controversy is over ″ or the sinking of a passenger ferry. The question is not the consequence or scope of the lie, but whether we as a society will suffer liars as a matter of principle.

No, we don't to stop people from having and debating opinions, from asking questions, or from questioning authority. We just want people to do it honestly. Advocates for honesty and integrity should be examples of it.

 

[Myriad]

It seems pretty clear to me that the case at hand hinges on a distorted memory of being taught the potential ambiguity of time intervals written using a colon separator.

What's the runtime of this feature film? 2:15. What's the runtime of this cat video on YouTube? 2:15. Considering context, the former probably means 135 minutes, and the latter probably means 135 seconds.

That's precisely the kind of flexibility/ambiguity and context-dependency Vixen is falsely claiming exists for prime-notated time intervals. It's just Mandela Effect, folks.

4'33" can only mean 273 seconds and so avoids the ambiguity. If it had been titled 4:33 that could mean 273 minutes. (Or possibly, the time of day when it was supposed to be performed.) That's probably why Cage chose the less common notation.

 

[JayUtah]

It seems pretty clear to me that the case at hand hinges on a distorted memory of being taught the potential ambiguity of time intervals written using a colon separator.

Still a problem informally, but fixed formally in ISO 8601. You can use colon-separated time values in science and engineering, provided they conform to the standard. You just shouldn't, when you can be less ambiguous by using more straightforward and standardized notation. SI and EES have perfectly good units, labels, and symbols that remove all ambiguity.

4'33" can only mean 273 seconds and so avoids the ambiguity.

Precisely correct. The system works only because the meanings of ′ and ″ do not change. Vixen admits this is true for feet and inches, but then invents a nonsensical tale of context and vernacular that applies only to time.

 

[JayUtah]

Nor would he use reverse primes (i.e., ‶ instead of ″) for notating primes cuts, because those symbols have different meanings. The only proper notation for cuts is the forward primes.

To be fair, I'm seeing different glyphs for the symbols in the original quote depending on which computer I use. I'll assume what were rendered as backticks and backquotes on one computer were not intended. They show up as reverse primes on Safari on MacOS, but as single quotes (inverted commas) and straight quotations on Firefox. (And this is why we use proper primes symbols instead of "apostrophes.")

 

[P.J. Denyer]

WRT Middlesex, it was abolished as an administrative country by the London Government Act 1963 with effect from the beginning of April 65, and it's magistracy was abolished in the Administration of Justice Act 1964.

 

[Mojo]

My first school was in Hampton, Mddx and then all the way up to grammar school. It did change to Greater London at some point but Middlesex still exists. (For those across the pond, the '-sex' refers to the old anglo-saxon '-saexe' and also refers to its short sheath sword c.o.a. [alas, nothing to do with transgender]). I did edit the MCC out but it seems Mojo wants to talk about postcodes.

Nope, I was talking about dates.

 

[LondonJohn]

My first school was in Hampton, Mddx and then all the way up to grammar school. It did change to Greater London at some point but Middlesex still exists. (For those across the pond, the '-sex' refers to the old anglo-saxon '-saexe' and also refers to its short sheath sword c.o.a. [alas, nothing to do with transgender]). I did edit the MCC out but it seems Mojo wants to talk about postcodes.

The correct abbreviated form of Middlesex is Middx. Not Mddx. Another example of the painstaking research and accuracy for which you’re so justifiably proud of yourself.

 

[JayUtah]

I have used prime notation for many years in a professional scientific capacity.

Let's emphasize "scientific." Mathematicians rarely use physical units. People trained in actual sciences would be better authorities on how to properly notate physical units. The prime symbol is used widely in mathematics, but not to indicate units.

 

[MBDK]

Let's start with the questions you posed.

• Are you seriously trying to browbeat me into "admitting" as you call it, a tautology?

First of all, that is an odd sentence, as it raises even more questions. Are you trying to say that I called it a tautology? Are you trying to say that the word admitting is what I call...well...admitting? Or is there some other intention that has not been clearly related?

Those questions need no answer, as my next paragraph will render them moot, but I just wanted to point out the confusion your syntax provided.

Regardless, my intent is to determine your capacity for honesty, comprehension, and logical discourse. My direct questions to you regarding port and starboard inside a hull were brought about by your own comments.

Specifically:

No, we were talking about a physical ship, not directions. In any case port and starboard are separated by the hull so n'er the twain shall meet, let alone be perpendicular to each other.

and

I am a chartered professional and not given to dishonesty of any form.

And there were many others where you professed the ability to admit to mistakes you make, and THOSE proclamations are the very basis for the existence of this thread, because you continue to provide evidence to the contrary. In my case, you cannot even answer a direct question that you know shows an error on your part, and thus contradicts your "not given to dishonesty of any form" statement. You further compound that contradiction in another part of your last post to me, which will be discussed in just a little bit. Now, back to your recent questions.

• Are you really wasting time and bandwidth trying to force me to 'admit that error'?

You appear to be wasting much more, by stubbornly refusing to acknowledge your obvious missteps. I am just trying to find a reason to continue to invest my own time and effort into this thread. If you are so far beyond reason that you will argue the facts of this post, I may consider further responses and/or investments in following this thread to be more of a circus sideshow than a skeptical discussion.

• Do you often hurl calumnies at people you don't know just because they don't bend to your will?

Of course not. I save that ability for my good friends, and do it just for my own self-amusement. The fact that you refer to this as some sort of test of wills, just increases my concern for your well-being.

• Do you think that is nice?

Slander? No. Concern for your well-being? Yes.


Now, for the compounding of the contradiction discussion I promised. You wrote:

Please get into context. I made a quip that port was on one side and starboard on the other 'and ne'er the twain shall meet'. Some wag came along and said they met in the middle and that they were joined by the hull.

Actually, what you wrote is as follows (entire unedited comment by you, and a repost of a comment of yours above):

No, we were talking about a physical ship, not directions. In any case port and starboard are separated by the hull so n'er the twain shall meet, let alone be perpendicular to each other.

The ONLY response (other than my questions) that spoke of the hull in regard to port and starboard since your post is this one:

Port and starboard don't refer to the outer sufaces of the hull. They are directions relative to the orientation of the vessel, analagous to left and right for (eg) a human.

The shape of the vessel doesn't affect them, in the same way that holding your arms up at 45 degrees, to form a 'v'-shape doesn't effect left and right.

HTH.

So, no one else mentioned the hull joining post and starboard. And it was YOU who wrote "port and starboard are separated by the hull" (which is definitively incorrect). Thus your comment stating otherwise ("Some wag came along and said they met in the middle and that they were joined by the hull") is a lie, and hence - the compounding contradiction I mentioned.

Now perhaps, YOU meant to say "keel", rather than "hull", as that would be closer to reality, but still not completely correct. And FYI, claiming they don't meet is an A Priori Argument fallacy, as your claim (that only YOUR interpretation is of importance) can just as easily be discounted by the fact that common knowledge and rhetoric also use dividing lines as meeting junctions, such as state lines, walls/floors, etc.

 

[jimbob]

Let's emphasize "scientific." Mathematicians rarely use physical units. People trained in actual sciences would be better authorities on how to properly notate physical units. The prime symbol is used widely in mathematics, but not to indicate units.

Yup

Maybe
I should have qualified my request with, "beyond unevidenced anecdote"

Also I'm struggling to think of a less relevant qualification than a doctorate in maths. And that includes not only engineering or scientific qualifications, but also English literature qualifications.

 

[JayUtah]

Also I'm struggling to think of a less relevant qualification than a doctorate in maths.

It depends on where one's research dove deeply. The primes notation is based on the notion that ′ is the first division, or cut. ″ is the second cut, the second division, or the cut-of-the-cut. ‴ is the third division, the cut-of-the-cut-of-the-cut, and so forth. But did you ever wonder why those symbols were chosen? It's because the forward primes were once symbols for arithmetic division in some notations. Before a horizontal bar, or ÷, or the solidus /, denominators of ratios were indicated by forward primes. That's why "divide this n ways successively" is represented still today(ish) by n repetitions of the forward prime.

Conversely the reverse primes ‵, ‶, ‷, etc. meant multiplication in the same ancient notation. This is alluded to in a footnote at Wikipedia, but it doesn't explain why. You have to realize that ′ and ‵are inverse operators in the early notational system that gave birth to using primes this way. That's why I was suspicious when our "mathematician" seemed to have reversed the symbols. Anyone who understands why we use primes notation today would understand that something like 64° 24‵ 14‶ is nonsensical. Reverse primes aren't simply substitutes for forward primes. They mean a different thing, the opposite of what's intended. I would expect that to be of more interest to a mathematics Ph.D. than to other experts.

Happily I've discovered that the pattern we see in the alleged excerpt is how Microsoft Outlook rewrites the glyphs when you type the excerpted passage, in an attempt to be typographically clever. Likely just an error of convenience. And that's why, when we are forced to write in ASCII-ish character sets, we generally just repeat the single quote ' (0x27) even though single forward and reverse primes can be generated in ISO/IEC 8859. For example, to indicate the third derivative of a function, we would write

f'''(x).

Typesetting programs such as LaTeX, which is generally familiar to any mathematics authors educated in the past 30 years, accepts this as input and usually generates the appropriate forward-triple-prime glyph ‴. We don't intermix the single and double straight quotes ' and ". But someone well enough versed in mathematics, and having had to spend a lot of time trying to work through getting the symbols to come out right in mathematics writing, is almost certain to notice what Outlook is doing to the intended character and understand that the resulting "apostrophes" won't convey the right notation.

 

[LondonJohn]

It depends on where one's research dove deeply. The primes notation is based on the notion that ′ is the first division, or cut. ″ is the second cut, the second division, or the cut-of-the-cut. ‴ is the third division, the cut-of-the-cut-of-the-cut, and so forth. But did you ever wonder why those symbols were chosen? It's because the forward primes were once symbols for arithmetic division in some notations. Before a horizontal bar, or ÷, or the solidus /, denominators of ratios were indicated by forward primes. That's why "divide this n ways successively" is represented still today(ish) by n repetitions of the forward prime.

Conversely the reverse primes ‵, ‶, ‷, etc. meant multiplication in the same ancient notation. This is alluded to in a footnote at Wikipedia, but it doesn't explain why. You have to realize that ′ and ‵are inverse operators in the early notational system that gave birth to using primes this way. That's why I was suspicious when our "mathematician" seemed to have reversed the symbols. Anyone who understands why we use primes notation today would understand that something like 64° 24‵ 14‶ is nonsensical. Reverse primes aren't simply substitutes for forward primes. They mean a different thing, the opposite of what's intended. I would expect that to be of more interest to a mathematics Ph.D. than to other experts.

Happily I've discovered that the pattern we see in the alleged excerpt is how Microsoft Outlook rewrites the glyphs when you type the excerpted passage, in an attempt to be typographically clever. Likely just an error of convenience. And that's why, when we are forced to write in ASCII-ish character sets, we generally just repeat the single quote ' (0x27) even though single forward and reverse primes can be generated in ISO/IEC 8859. For example, to indicate the third derivative of a function, we would write

f'''(x).

Typesetting programs such as LaTeX, which is generally familiar to any mathematics authors educated in the past 30 years, accepts this as input and usually generates the appropriate forward-triple-prime glyph ‴. We don't intermix the single and double straight quotes ' and ". But someone well enough versed in mathematics, and having had to spend a lot of time trying to work through getting the symbols to come out right in mathematics writing, is almost certain to notice what Outlook is doing to the intended character and understand that the resulting "apostrophes" won't convey the right notation.

All interesting stuff (and entirely correct, naturally). If one works in a field where primes are in common usage, it would of course be professionally appropriate to observe the conventions precisely. I have to admit that on the rare occasions where primes impinge on my work - pretty much solely wrt geo coordinates when discussing network topographies - I reach for the “easy” keyboard symbols rather than look for the correct ASCII codes.

Edited by sarge: 

edited to remove rule 12 violation

 

[JayUtah]

I have to admit that on the rare occasions where primes impinge on my work - pretty much solely wrt geo coordinates when discussing network topographies - I reach for the “easy” keyboard symbols rather than look for the correct ASCII codes.

It's very tempting. ' and " are right there, begging to be used. But every field of science and engineering that I've practiced has been highly regulated. What might fly in an email or a chat post won't work in our actual recorded documentation. Luckily I have a staff of talented writers and editors who make sure our documents, drawings, and computation sheets are glyph-perfect for the regulators and auditors. But the consequence of working that way is realizing that the substitutions are actually the long way. If you are going to have to do it right anyway, do it right the first time. Slowly you just learn all the keyboard shortcuts or have your cut-and-paste cheat sheet handy. Thankfully not everyone suffers equally this way, so in many cases the substitutions are still easy and acceptable.

But of course the genesis of this entire thread was to do with a pathetic (in both the original and modern meaning of the word) attempt to appear erudite, learned, and loftily superior: “For notating time duration, laypeople write ‘min’ for minutes and ‘s’ for seconds; I, however, will show how clever and superior I am by eschewing such lay terminology and instead using primes to express units of time duration. See how clever I am?!”

Indeed, note the emphasis on the ongoing delusion, "None of you knew you could do this, but I did!"

Of course, things didn’t quite work out to plan. And thus began the full-on ludicrousness of this spin-off thread, which stands as a shining testament to hubris, nemesis, and a complete absence of catharsis.

In the past ten years or so I've lost all patience for armchair detectives. As a practitioner of a heavily- and necessarily-regulated profession, I accept the need to meet a very high bar and the scrutiny that comes with it. I've even accepted the agonizing responsibility of occasionally having to sit in judgment over my colleagues when a tragedy occurs. This is why I have zero patience for people who presume to hold powerful interests accountable, but do so only from a position of vanity and ignorance. They don't know what they're talking about, and they serve only to erode faith in those who do so that they themselves can pretend to be important.

I do a lot of science outreach and communication. A large part of my career has involved teaching the curious, so this is not about elitism. I would love for everyone to know everything about things they find interesting, regardless of diplomas or charters. Nor is this thread about little tick marks. This thread is about intellectual honesty where it counts the most. It's about knowing when you know what you're talking about, when you don't, and recognizing when your public comments are less about expanding human knowledge and wisdom and more about expanding one's own ego.

 

[junkshop]

For what it's worth, I have learned a lot from this debacle.

I now understand (moreso than I did before, at least) why certain symbols were used historically (and why they were used to denote measurements of apparently unrelated things), and why they are no longer considered standard notation.

Thank you.

 

[Mojo]

...and why they are no longer considered standard notation.

Because people educated in Middlesex used the same notation for different units, making the system unusable?

 

[Vixen]

It depends on where one's research dove deeply. The primes notation is based on the notion that ′ is the first division, or cut. ″ is the second cut, the second division, or the cut-of-the-cut. ‴ is the third division, the cut-of-the-cut-of-the-cut, and so forth. But did you ever wonder why those symbols were chosen? It's because the forward primes were once symbols for arithmetic division in some notations. Before a horizontal bar, or ÷, or the solidus /, denominators of ratios were indicated by forward primes. That's why "divide this n ways successively" is represented still today(ish) by n repetitions of the forward prime.

Conversely the reverse primes ‵, ‶, ‷, etc. meant multiplication in the same ancient notation. This is alluded to in a footnote at Wikipedia, but it doesn't explain why. You have to realize that ′ and ‵are inverse operators in the early notational system that gave birth to using primes this way. That's why I was suspicious when our "mathematician" seemed to have reversed the symbols. Anyone who understands why we use primes notation today would understand that something like 64° 24‵ 14‶ is nonsensical. Reverse primes aren't simply substitutes for forward primes. They mean a different thing, the opposite of what's intended. I would expect that to be of more interest to a mathematics Ph.D. than to other experts.

Happily I've discovered that the pattern we see in the alleged excerpt is how Microsoft Outlook rewrites the glyphs when you type the excerpted passage, in an attempt to be typographically clever. Likely just an error of convenience. And that's why, when we are forced to write in ASCII-ish character sets, we generally just repeat the single quote ' (0x27) even though single forward and reverse primes can be generated in ISO/IEC 8859. For example, to indicate the third derivative of a function, we would write

f'''(x).

Typesetting programs such as LaTeX, which is generally familiar to any mathematics authors educated in the past 30 years, accepts this as input and usually generates the appropriate forward-triple-prime glyph ‴. We don't intermix the single and double straight quotes ' and ". But someone well enough versed in mathematics, and having had to spend a lot of time trying to work through getting the symbols to come out right in mathematics writing, is almost certain to notice what Outlook is doing to the intended character and understand that the resulting "apostrophes" won't convey the right notation.

It was just the way the copy and paste from WhatsApp came out.