Re: Wane and Wane-etter

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 00:05:49 GMT


Keith "Red Menace" Knellist wonders:
> are there any celestial events that coincide with wanes

A very good question. Personally I believe so, and last time I heard Stellar Expertly (which is to say, Stevemartinesque) opinion may even have agreed with me, but I wouldn't like to say this was definitive. Probably something to do with exotic properties of one-or-other Southpath planets, is what I reckon at any rate.

> For example, is the Moon visibly brighter at
> some point during a wane and, if it is, who can tell?

One would imagine it might well be somewhat brighter at the midpoint of each wane, but it may indeed be hard to tell. The Buseri doubtless study such things, and maybe have magic to help them. An obvious technique is to compare her brightness with the most similar object to hand, which I presume is Shargash (having stellar magnitude numbers for all these would be nice).

> On the 8/1 bug, one would expect trouble simply because 7x7 years = 1 wane,

Actually, 9x6. I always thought there was something fundamentally the matter with the universe...

> nd 7x7 wanes should equal something dramatic (maybe a wane-etter?).

Well, we're only getting on for 7, not for 49 wanes! But I agree, you'd tend to think that something spectacular would happen -- like, oooo, the Hero Wars, for example? ;-) This is probably often predicted either to be the end of the 'Nathic' phase, and the start of the Zaytenaran -- or perhaps more likely, the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning... (You know, all the White Moon guff -- but not just what the 'White Moonies' (hazia-smoking, sandal-wearing, flower-picking no-good layabouts...) tell you, this is at bottom a core Lunar belief.)

> It seems to me that the Lunars should be wanting a (5week) longer
> year to make things neater.

Not sure I follow. A 47 week year? The only think 47 rings a bell with in Peloria is the Deneron Council, which I doubt is what you mean, and I don't see any connection otherwise, anyway.

C,
A.


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