At 19:44 08/09/2003, Mark A Mandel wrote: >Brust has Dragaera so carefully and consistently laid out that I >wouldn't be surprised if he chose the 30-hour day specifically to make >the hours and the 172-day years both come out about equal to ours, so he I take it that "172" is actually 17^2 (17 squared)? >could use them without confusing his readers. Otherwise, why not use the >ubiquitous mystical number and give the day 17 or 34 hours? It's easy >for Brust to bring out the difference between the Dragaeran week and >ours: just make the Eastern week the same as ours, seven days, and have >Vlad remark on it [Yen18]. But the lengths of the day and year are the >same on both sides of the mountains, and how would Vlad know about our >world at all to express the contrast? -- Regards, Pete pgranzeau at cox.net