Date: 07 Feb 97 03:34:26 EST
From: Chris Burford <100423.2040-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: M-I: Viraj's argument


Viraj presented a highly technical argument with precisely 
delineated logical steps. The delineation of these steps has the
merit of helping the reader follow exactly and consider at which 
numbered point, he/she is not able to take the next step.
But it has the disadvantage of not allowing people to tune in 
intuitively and more fuzzily to aspects of the argument they 
recognise as a bridge to clarifying other aspects.

And when Viraj starts talking about 23.94798215 (Marx)
the problem is not that those of us from high-tech countries are 
looking down on someone we regard as a peasant from a much older
culture but, speaking for myself, I am first glazing over and then
panicking.

His preceding argument about the greatly increased role for time-keeping
with the rise of commodity production and the transition from the 
apprenticeship system of craftwork to the manufacturer employing 
hourly wage labour, is intelligible enough, but then Viraj moves
on to technical astronomical terms without any sign of mercy that this
is an interdisciplinary list.

>>
In a timeless world how can the Guild Master tell the journey man he must be at
work at such and such a time. Sunrise and sun set can not be the markers,
because between winter and summer, the length of the day varied sharply. The
workers had to be mustered to come and go to work at definite times. For
this they could have their bells or horns, but how can you regulate that to
be done at the set instances, regularly and uniformly today, tomorrow and
the day after. It becomes absolutely NECESSARY now to find devices which
represent duration.
But one devise would indicate one duration and another some other duration.
So the question arises what is duration? And how do you STANDARDISE
duration. Duration can not be visualised unless the whole day is quantified.
The duration becomes some part of the day. In this situation if the day is
represented by a certain quantity, dividing that quantity into a number of
equal parts makes it possible to bring some uniformity to the concept of
duration.

8. He gets hold of a geometric axiom used in astonomy, for rough
calculations -used as 24 Right Ascencion. (Not hours).

But its actual value 23.94798215 (Marx).

9. Now the bourgeois have no use for a number that can not be symmetrically
divided. He does not care a damn about the real interconnections to nature.
All he wants is a number which has radial symmetry where time can be
represented by a rotatory devise. So he takes 24 Hours - R.A., and throws
23.94798215 (Marx), the real interconnection to nature, in the dust heap.
<<


Viraj does not explain the status of the term "(Marx)" and whether we 
are to assume that it is something connected with Karl Marx, something
named in honour of Karl Marx, by Viraj alone, or more widely accepted
among those sharing his technical expertise, or something
named after that great astronomer Heinrich Marx, whom I am embarrased
to say I never knew existed.

 As for the inexact number
to 8 decimal places later in the article there are other numbers that 
appear to go to many decimal places, and presumably 
could very likely go to 12 or 24 decimal places.

What I am familiar with is the argument that various cultures 
have used various number systems and they have different merits or 
practical relevance often related to the organisation of the culture.

They can also be analysed in terms of the ease of subdividing according
to different base numbers. 10 can be subdivided neatly only into 2 and 
5. 12 can be subdivided into 2 3 4 and 6 and would arguably be easier.
It may explain why some commodities have often been sold in dozens and
why the year in Christendom ended up with 12 months despite the fact that
roughly the ratio of lunar cycles to solar cycles is 13, while on the
other hand the Romans started off with a calendar of 10 months. At least
this gave four seasons. And the clock has two lots of 12 hours.

Many precisely measured constants are in fact imprecise. I do not 
think Viraj is succesful in arguing that it is a peculiarly bourgeois
deed that made 24 hours in the day out of a ratio that more 
precisely should he appears to argue have been 23.94798215.

Indeed the interplay of approximations may have been useful in earlier
cultures, viz the importance of the lunar cycle and how it interacts with
the solar cycle in deciding annual festival days in the Christian 
culture. It may not have been a disaster that Easter was sometimes early
and sometimes late.

Viraj also does not seem to take on board that these un-neat measurements
are inherently un-neat. The orbit of the planets around the sun
is not *perfectly* regular. We live in a non-linear rather than a 
linear universe. The phenomena known as chaos theory show how
patterns often exist that are self-replicated in an apparently 
uniform pattern which to surperficial approximation may be regarded
as regular, but actually there are tiny irregularities and under
certain conditions they may shift into a qualitatively quite 
different pattern.

Thus the heart beat, although normally supposed to be regular, is not in
fact regular even at rest. I leave other subscribers to panic at 
this point as they absorb this techical information, which I will 
back up if required.

These comments therefore are not to nit-pick Viraj's argument 
eclectically. I continue to believe that the approach to science
that Marx and Engels emphasised with what has been called 
dialectical materialism, has in a number of respects been validated 
as a close approximation to phenomena that can nowadays much 
more easily be demonstrated with the aid of computers as existing 
in a universe in which many of the interactions are non-linear, 
contrary to the linear exercises familiar in schools until only
recently. (eg straight line graphs of time = distance / speed.)
A straight ruler was the second basic tool after a pencil in these 
indispensible institutes of the bourgeois ideological state apparatus. 


Chris Burford
London.  



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