Message-Id: <199509281108.HAA04298@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Thu, 28 Sep 1995 11:34:08 MET
Reply-To: Goran Topic <topic@STUDENT.MATH.HR>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Goran Topic <topic@STUDENT.MATH.HR>
Subject:      Many things, catching up
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR

coi rodo .i mi ze'a na'e tcidu lei me do

I don't know the answers to many of these things, just want to give you
all some stuff to ponder about...

1) About directions:
There is only one possible relatively culturally neutral way of
specifying left/right. I leave it to physicists to explain. As I
remember, it involves radioactivity and electricity, with magnetic field
as a go-between. I think. That's what I know that it can be explained.
From there it shouldn't be too hard to construe a similar argument
showing cw and ccw. Should it? Bet it would make a killer lujvo.

A bit off topic: Even this might fail zo'o: Imagine we make contact with
an alien race, only by radio. Step by step, they learn our language. We
try to explain what we look like. OK, we got an oval central part,
and five major appendices: two for locomotion, two for handling things
(one of each on each side of body, regarded in direction which is not
gravity vector, nor direction of usual motion) and one to protect our
most vulnerable parts on the top (the spot most remote from the ground
in usual active position): intellect and sensory organs, located forward
(in direction of motion)... In the chest we have lungs, etc, etc, and
heart, and it is tilted to the left. What is left? Ugh. Physicists start
explaining how when you take electrons and direct them in a certain way,
you get a field of force that declines (is it the right word?) some
other particles (it's probably about alpha waves, they're the less
ambiguous of the two that do react to magnetic fields) in a certain way,
and if you direct the electrons the other way the other particles go the
other way. So, then, depending on whether you chase the electrons up or
down, de particles go left or right, or some such, I don't feel like
doing the actual calculation now. OK, now, they've explained it to the
aliens, and they say that in our culture it's customary to take the
new acquaintance's right handling member with your own and shake it
slightly in a short interval of time, and that that gesture signifies good
will. Now, they have excellent brains and they got in the first try
everything we told them. Then, a meeting in open space is arranged: one of
our astronauts and one of them meet up there, and the alien gives his
left hand. Do you take it? Read on, the answer is at the end of the
letter...

2) About dimensions:
Mathematically speaking, there are several things that get the name, and sorry
if my terminology sounds a bit nonstandard, it's probably because it is:
  a) as in "dimension of the space V": number of base vectors (dim V)
  b) "dimensions of an object": any arbitrary vectors forming a base in
     which the object can be represented.
So, mu'a, the ball has one dimension-in-sense-a), it is 3.
It has 3 dimensions-in-sense-b) REGARDED TOGETHER.
It has infinite number of POSSIBLE vectors that COULD go in its base.
So, you can't say that there exist exactly three vectors (or properties,
more generally) that are dimensions of lo balci. The cleanest solution I
could see was proposed, and I don't know how it went exactly, but
something along the lines of li ci cu klani la'e loi cimde be lo'e balci
(if I got the klani arguments right. Did I? .uanai)

3) About sumti and quoting: zo'onaizo'o
I didn't say zo mi sumti was wrong. I just said that at the time I didn't
feel it was OK. Now I don't know... You think: If lonu klama cu selbri,
only then I accept mi sumti. If you must say zo klama selbri, I'd stick
with zo mi sumti. Don't know. Maybe not.

4) About "The weather is hot":
I propose "lo glare ca tcima" as an alternative to the very good "glare
zei tcima" or "glare tcima". "lo tcima cu glare" I interpret more as
"the climate is hot", "the weather generally in <default> area is hot",
like, "Mexico is hot", and I have small but really inconsequential and
outright dumb oubts even about that (the air can be hot, my stove can be
hot, love can't be hot if you're not speaking in metaphors, preciseness
can't be hot at all; can weather be hot? ... ... Sorry. It's half past
two in the morning and my fingers lost control of my head.)

5) About tinsa:
What is actually x2? Picture a dozen steel bars of about a quarter inch
radius, glued on a piece of cloth parallel to each other (the more or
less incorrectly described za'e hemicilindrically saggable object). Is
x2 the direction parallel with the bars or perpendicular to the cloth?

6) About sagging:
The best thing to describe sagging is really the set of points that is
not disturbed. In the above example, it would be lo sirji, in the rubber
sheet type of sag (nothing very hemispherical about it, I'm afraid) it
would be lo mokca.

8) About jboterymri:
Didn't manage to read all the stuff yet. Sorry.

7) About Chinese Whispers:
.ausaiju'o

1) About the alien:
ni'o .iicaidai ko na jgari le xance be le goi ko'a fange .imaubo tu'e ko
na pencu ko'a .ijonai do .e ko'a .e lei marce pe do'o cu spoja tu'o .i ko'a
ba'e dutmai

4) About my fingers:
xu .ianai mi ciska lesi'o lei degji be mi ca ba'o jitro le stedu be mi

co'o mi'e. goran.
--
GAT/CS/O d?@ H s:-@ !g p1(2)@ !au(0?) a- w+(+++) (!)v-@(+) C++(++++)
UU/H(+) P++>++++ L(>+) !3 E>++ N+ K(+) W--(---) M-- !V(--) -po+ Y(+)
t+@(+++) !5 !j R+@ G-@(J++) tv+(++) b++@ D++ B? e+* u@ h!$ f?(+) r--
!n(+@) y+. GeekCode v2.1, modifications left to reader to puzzle out