Date: Sat, 23 Sep 1995 21:15:05 +0100
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: direction, dimension
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Reply-to: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Message-id: <01HVOZIQF5UK000ZB4@FIPORT.FUNET.FI>
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 1646
Lines: 38

Iain:
> jorge@phyast.pitt.edu writes:
> > Yes, well, what are the two dimensions of a circle, for example?
> > I could understand a gismu that meant "x1 is x2-dimensional", but
> > I don't think that it makes any sense to say that there are exactly
> > two (or three) things that are the dimensions of some object.
> > Could you list those two or three things for a given object?
> Given
> cimde   x1 (property - ka) is a dimension of space/object x2
>         according to rules/model x3
> clani   x1 is long in dimension/direction x2 (default longest dimension)
>         by measurement standard x3
> perhaps they are things like {lo ka [se] clani/ganra/condi}.
 
My reservation about this is that {lo se clani be koa} is not merely
koa's longest dimension, but also the dimension in which koa is long
in. For example, for people, their longest dimension is the vertical
one, but people can still be short - so would {da se clani koa} be
true if koa is short?
 
Assuming we are resigned to working within the constraints established
by the existing gismu and their definitions (and to my regret, we seem
to be), then the following lujvo could serve:
 
torcla    x1 has extent in longest dimension x2 of x3 units
jakganra  x1 has extent in median dimension x2 of x3 units
cinltsu   x1 has extent in shortest dimension x2 of x3 units
 
dizgaltu  x1 has extent in vertical dimension x2 of x3 units
zulpritu  x1 has extent in lateral dimension x2 of x3 units
cratrixe  x1 has extent in transverse dimension x2 of x3 units
 
In this case the dimensions are {se torcla, se jakganra, se cinltsu}
and {se dizgaltu, se zulpritu, se cratrixe}.
 
---
And