From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Wed Oct 6 08:22:52 1993 Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 6 Oct 1993 12:25:10 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 6 Oct 1993 12:25:03 -0400 Message-Id: <199310061625.AA03704@eli.CS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 5474; Wed, 06 Oct 93 12:22:54 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 7879; Wed, 06 Oct 93 12:24:27 EDT Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 12:22:52 -0400 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: local units To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu In-Reply-To: <199310042142.AA03765@access.digex.net> from "Jorge Llambias" at Oct 4, 93 05:43:26 pm Status: RO X-Status: mi'e .djan. .i la xorxes. cusku di'e > > Countries that are fully SI-ified in daily life still > > talk of 90 degree angles, not $\pi / 2$ radian angles. > > And so do countries that have used the metric system from their birth, and > thus never had to be SI-ified :) Picky, picky, picky. Anyway, I think there are no such countries (or at least no such {natmi}, even if there are {gugde}): the metric system is less than 7 gigaseconds old, and as far as I know no new nations have been founded in that time. > > Alternatively, degrees need a really compelling lujvo. > > {jgarau} is perfect. No one will mistake it for {radno}, even if it could > include it. But its place structure is all wrong. The measurement gismu have the place structure "x1 is measured as x2 units (default 1)", so a {grake} is not a gram, but something which masses 1g. The relevant gismu place structures are: jganu: x1 is an angle with vertex x2 and lateral x3 gradu: x1 is a unit of scale x2 measuring property x3 None of these six places are relevant to the measurement-gismu pattern. The nearest analog to this pattern is "klani", with place structure x1 is measured/counted by quantifier x2 on scale x3 (Note that this is a very recent change from the old structure, which had x1 and x2 reversed.) I suppose that "jgalai" is acceptable for "degree" with place structure k1 k2, with k3 replaced by some sort of deep magic that eats up all the places of "jganu". > It may be interesting to actually use these units. How does {megsnidu} sound > for "fortnight"? Quite a bit too short, that's how it sounds. Here are the exact conversions, just for hack value: 1 kilosecond = 16 minutes 40 seconds 1 megasecond = 11 days 13 hours 46 minutes 40 seconds 1 gigasecond = 31 years 251 days 13 hours 34 minutes 51.52 seconds (assuming all years are 365.2422 days long exactly). These time units were used extensively in Joan Vinge's sf novel >The Outcasts of Heaven Belt<, set in a stellar system with inhabited asteroids but no habitable planets. -- John Cowan sharing account for now e'osai ko sarji la lojban.