Some mistake, surely? An English rainbow has seven colours, not six. Hence
the mnemonic taught to all school children "Richard of York gave battle in
vain". (V for violet rather than purple).
R
On 11/30/06, J T Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
My apologies, and I seem to be pushing the evelope of original intent for
the FRIAM list, but I find this sort of "anthropology of numbers" topic an
interesting problem that converges on interesting questions in how we
design, say, databases or UIs that are applicable anywhere, anytime.
So for what it's worth....
-tj
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] < [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Nov 30, 2006 5:55 PM
Subject: [MEA] Fwd:The yin and yang of numbers across cultures
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>From the Chronicle of Higher Ed's Magazine and Journal Reader.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
A glance at the current issue of the Bulletin of Science, Technology &
Society: The yin and yang of numbers across cultures
In Japanese culture, a rainbow is considered to consist of seven
colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and purple. A rainbow
has
one less color in the West, as Americans and Europeans tend not to count
indigo. However, because a rainbow is actually a continuous spectrum, both
perceptions are wrong, notes Yutaka Nishiyama, a professor at Osaka
University of Economics, in Japan. He says those distinct viewpoints
reflect a Japanese preference for odd numbers and Western favoritism
toward
even numbers.
Mr. Nishiyama provides numerous other examples to suggest an East-West
difference in the preference for odd or even numbers. According to a
Japanese proverb, for example, three heads are better than two, "whereas
in
English, two are better than one." In a study of number-related words in
English and Japanese, he found additional evidence. "It appears," he
writes, "that the Japanese language has a cultural setting that favors the
odd numbers 3 and 5, whereas English has a cultural setting that favors
the
even numbers 2, 4, and 6."
The author looks at historical clues in attempting to explain why
different
cultures may have a preference for one form of numbers over the other. The
ancient Greeks, he says, regarded odd numbers as good. So did the ancient
Chinese. The latter utilized yin-yang thought, which is based on the idea
of alternating opposites. For instance, yang is generally considered to be
masculine, and yin to be feminine. He emphasizes, however, that the
concept
is meant to be interpreted as a system of opposites and of "infinite
change," not as "a case of one being superior or inferior to the other."
So
a man is yang in relation to a woman, but yin in relation to his parents.
Only in modern times, he says, has yang come to be understood as "good and
superior" in relation to yin.
He concludes that the ancient preference for odd numbers probably faded in
the West with the arrival of modern mathematics, "as represented by
Newton." As he explains it, modern mathematics values rationality, and
"seems to have abandoned the ideas of ancient Chinese yin-yang thought and
ancient Greek philosophy, in which odd numbers were male and even numbers
female. When counting numbers, odd numbers were incomplete, in-between
numbers, whereas even numbers were certainly more rational." Thus, "in
contrast to the East, where odd numbers are positive and good, in the
West,
odd numbers are incomplete and superfluous."
The article, "A Study of Odd- and Even-Number Cultures," is temporarily
available free through Sage Publications.
http://bst.sagepub.com/cgi
<http://bst.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/6/479>
/content/abstract/26/6/479
<http://bst.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/6/479>
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--
==========================================
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
www.analyticjournalism.com
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
http://www.jtjohnson.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the
existing model obsolete."
-- Buckminster Fuller
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
