[r-t] Re: Decisions

[Robin Woolley]

I crave the indulgence of list members as I intend to reply to Richard's
(and others) postings one by one.

Reply to Richard Smith, 2nd January.

Richard states he believes it possible to prove any given extension is
either finite or infinite. This, as he points out would be fairly (!!) time
consuming. Recall that, for 6 bells, the limit of possible extensions is
900.

Richard says "I'm not convinced by the need for this as it is implied by
the rest of the decisions". Well, this is all very well for those who can
remember the interpretation of the decisions when you come to create an
extension, but for 'bears of very little brain' like me, any aide-memoire is
useful. Remember, the art of teaching, preaching, etc., is said to be 'tell
'em what you're going to tell 'em, tell 'em and then tell 'em what you've
told 'em.' Question: does anyone fail a research degree for being too
explicit?

As regards preferring an extension from Major to Royal over a
hypothetical extension that works on 4n bells. Yes and No.

No - because it's theoretically satisfying, in some sense.

Yes -  let's look at my standard example. We know that Roker gives two
(terminating) extensions at royal 1BC/7HI and 1CD/1FG and an indefinite one
to stages 4n using the path 4FG/7HI. However, this latter is 'effectively
finite' since stage 16 gives a short course method as does, I believe, stage
28. This leaves us with the situation where, although 4FG/7HI is
indefinitely extendible, it will never be rung at any higher stage than the
'next lowest' - let's call this the infimum - on tower bells and I don't
suppose it'll be rung to 20 in hand. (There's a challenge for some of you!).
Since Roker is only a ten, then they might have some claim to ring 'their
own' method in their own tower. By the way, look at RW88/569. Tony Smith
never states that Roker-10 cannot be rung, he just gives the maximus
construction He does NOT explicitly say that the 10 bell versions cannot be
rung.

Richard: "..I don't believe that states anywhere that an extension on fewer
bells (your (i)) is preferable to an indefinite extension." No, it doesn't,
but it there is no implication in the statement that the situation in Roker
above is the correct one.

Richard: "And I don't believe that in 1995 the CC decisions said that" I
only comment that, if your assertion is correct, why is it that this element
of the decision, originally introduced in 1989 as (D)E4(b) has been altered
so frequently? You only alter thins when they are not doing what you wanted
them to. It was change, for example, in 1992 and I suggest that the
interpretation of the (D)E4(b) is inconsistent with the advice paper.

Richard: "I'm not convinced that there couldn't be a situation where one of
the intermediate modes produced a "better" extension". Isn't this appealing
to aesthetics? After all, the original '53 report said "The committee's
conclusions are based on the theory that correct relationship of
place-positions in the extension with those in the parent is the "first
principle" in method extension, which can be ascertained impersonally..."
After all one man's 'better' extension is not the next man's. I suppose a
good example of this is London Minor and Major. Some may think the two are
nicely related, others may say not at all.

Finally, Richard: "I think the reworking the decisions in terms of modes has
helped to clarify and unify the old decisions without making
major changes to them.  To my mind, this is a good thing." Maybe, but
consider the previous (G)A2(b)(i) and ..(d)(i), both of which refer to
Static extensions and can be conflated as "Wherever the parent has a place
made immediately above/below the path of the treble, this characteristic
must be retained in all extensions." This has, in (G)B7, had "above/below"
replace by "adjacent" and made to apply to all extensions. I argued that,
giving the original meaning of the two separate decisions elements, this new
(G)B7 must mean, say, the extension used by Lincolnshire-8 to 10 would no
longer be allowed. pabs said "that wasn't the intention" - but you might
have ended up with it In short, in a form of words has one meaning and the
for of words is extended to more cases, then it must still have the same
meaning.

Tomorrow, or the next day, I'll reply to Richard's of 3rd inst. - when I've
looked up Cromer!

Best wishes

Robin.