>
> > (Then again, the ratio of var births to clone births is also
> > given as "1 in 4" somewhere else, and there is unlikely to be
> > a biological mechanism to produce this exact ratio.)
> > Anyway, I got to thinking that this was similar to one
> > child in four of heterozygotic parents having a recessive trait,
> > and started speculating how one could produce a genetic mechanism
> > to produce this ratio. No luck...
>
> There's a much simpler way to do this. Just fiddle with the ratio of sperm
> carrying the X and the Y chromosome.
But this won't get you an exact ratio! Note that the two
kinds of sperm do behave differently. If this is the system used
on Stratos--it's not clear how much the Founders changed things.
> > Maybe this is just a case where Brin throws in numbers
> > which sound good, without anything behind them. (I keep wondering
> > if the 18 letters of the liturgical alphabet used in one of the
> > Books of Lysos have anything to do with the 18 particles produced
> > by considering the 6 families of quarks (u,d,c,s,t,b) and the 3
> > particles in each kind (quark, muon and neutrino)....)
> >
>
> Ah, David, it doesnot go that way. The quarks are
>
> u c t
> d s b
>
>
> Associated with this is the lepton, neutrino family. I'll write this out,
> due to the lack of symbols:
>
> electron muon tau
> electron neutrino muon neutrino tau neutrino
>
So there is a correspondence, where u and d go with electrons,
c and s go with muons, and t and b go with taus? Sorry, I must have
remembered it wrong.
---David
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
