Re: CHAT: SLIGHTLY CHAT: Calendars et al. (Was: Opinions on English)

On Mon, 18 Sep 2000, Roger Mills wrote:

> Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> >That's true.  Hmm.  The main reason I haven't devised a calendar system
> >to go along with Chevraqis is that I'm terrified that my boyfriend the
> >physics major will come along, do some heavy-duty celestial mechanics
> >calculations, get a size for the moons (several really small ones, which
> >the Qenaren consider "moving stars" and a "moon" that they recognize as
> >"something different") and planet, density, etc. and tell me my calendar
> >is completely off. >
>         Does your boyfriend regard conlang/culture/planet creation as
> utterly frivolous and/or weird?  If not, turn him loose on the subject.  I
Absolutely not.  He's at least as much a sf/f freak as I am, just
slightly less well read because I read way faster.  I *have* been meaning
to ask him to set up conculture's solar system but he's taking a
grad-level course on general relativity plus statistical mechanics plus
other stuff  I don't even understand...in short, he has no time.  I'll
turn him loose someday.  ;-)  We're looking for grad schools we can
attend together.

> for one could use his services.  One of our colleagues here has a site (URL
> on request) where you can sort-of  plug in numbers and get an answer , but
> it assumes you understand the math and terminology at least a little.  I
> don't, and get strange answers, like 60% of Earth gravity. No no no.
URL requested?  If I don't understand the terminology I can hunt almost
any physics major at Cornell and learn.  Connections are great.

> >And I haven't the faintest clue how to calculate tides for a system with
> >several moons.
>         As our mothers sometimes say:  Because.
Well, I've ended up with words for day and night.  The word for "star" is
also the word for "seed" because in the creation myth a goddess "sowed
the stars."  And so on.  Astronomically-derived terminology is
inevitable, but I'm being cagey and vague about specifics, like how long
a day is.

YHL