Re: OT: the Monkey Year (wasRe: Religion and Holidays)

On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 05:36:46PM +0100, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> A constellation is basially a conical chunk of stars with the apex at Earth
> with an arbitrary space angle. It has the same sort of physical existence as
> has the piece of the Atlantic between degrees 23.5 and 31.9 North. Or as
> Oklahoma for that matter.
And the arcs used by Western astrologers have just the same sort of physical
existence, as well.  The fact that they have names associated with
constellations they don't contain is merely historical trivia.

> I must admit I fail to see how 36 connects to the #s of fingers and toes. The
> Gods be subtle.
Well, if it is the number of fingers out which counts, regardless of which
ones, then you can count to 10.

If the position of each finger on both hands is important as well, then
you can count to 1,024 (or 1,023 if both hands closed means 0 instead of 1).

In between those extremes, if it only the number of fingers out on a given
hand is important, but it matters which hand, then you can count to 36
(or 35 (55 base 6) if both hands closed means 0 instead of 1).

-Mark

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