[r-t] Peal lengths [was Anything Goes vs Peals Mean Something]

[Don Morrison]

On Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 4:52 PM, Mark Davies <mark at snowtiger.net> wrote:
> What I am trying to say is that the decision to adopt 5000 and above for
> Major, and stick with 5040 for Triples and below, has an elegance and a
> rightness to it. Bringing everything down to 5000 is just too reductionist,
> and would lose our beloved factorial, rightly respected through the ages.

How is the two length "system" (I'm personally inclined to use a ruder
noun) more elegant than a one length system of everything is 5,040?
That you could, as you appear to be, arguing that the two-length
arrangement is more elegant I'm really having trouble getting my head
around.

I can see, in the sense that rational people can disagree, that given
the history and where we are now someone might think, as you do, that
the two length system is better than making everything be 5,000 or up.
But if we drop the history and could go back and re-write it I really
can't conceive of a perspective from which the two-lengher would then
have been arguably more elegant than saying a peal is 5,040 or longer,
period. (Which, of course, I believe that no one is arguing for at
this late date, and for good reasons; that you implied you thought I
was saying someone was so arguing I also find a bit perplexing.)

> Does no-one other than me see the beauty of this two-length system?

I sure don't.



-- 
Don Morrison <dfm at ringing.org>
"When I learned to program it was the documentation that you
could fit in your back pocket, and the computer you needed
a forklift to move."  -- Jeff Del Papa, personal communication