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Re: A simple question.
Mingming Jiang <mjiang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Is there some standard of computer go?
> Such as: Usually people use A B C D E F G H (??????) J K L M N O P Q R S T
> to denote horizontal axis of the board, why no " I " appear?
The reason for this convention is purely historical and arbitrary. One of
the pioneer popularizers of the game in the West was the German(Austrian?)
O. Korschelt, who learned the game around the 1900s or 1910s. He was a civil
engineer, building bridges and dams in Japan. I don't think anyone knows what
the O stands for.
Korschelt's diagrams were done that way, and it stuck.
As for why he felt the need, I think that I and J in the writing style, or in
the typographical style, of the German language of the time were too similar
for comfort, perhaps even identical. In certain contexts at least, I and J
_have_ been identical.
It is certainly true that in ancient times (when the Romans wrote Latin in this
alphabet) I and J were actually the same letter! And, many learned writers of
the nineteenth century liked to do things in Latin (or Greek), or in the manner
of the Romans or Greeks, to show you how smart they were. Classical. Classy.
It may even have been an engineer's convention. In various contexts, I have
seen diagrams numbered with the Roman numerals j, ij, iij, and iiij (not iv!)
for 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. This convention ultimately derives from the
calligraphy used by medieval monks (scribes) who illuminated manuscripts back
when nobody else could even read. And in Latin, I and J were the same letter
anyway. Mostly, those medieval documents were in Latin.
So, whatever Korschelt's reasons were, it was he who established this usage.
As long as we are on the subject of Austrians who played go, I once read in
an AGA Journal, or maybe it was a BGA Journal, that Leibniz (the other guy
besides Newton who discovered calculus) knew about go, and that he wrote a
treatise (in German) called "On Certain Games". I would dearly love to know
if this is true, and would be _really_ glad if somebody translated it into
English. I might even learn German myself, if I could get my hands on this.
Anybody out there who reads German think they could find this in a library?
I don't know the German title, unfortunately.
If Leibniz did know go, I have to wonder whether Marco Polo brought go back
to Europe from China along with the compass and spaghetti. Or, more likely,
it was Dutch sailors who had visited Japan, in Liebniz's lifetime. Anyway,
I have no trouble believing that a math junky like Liebniz would have been
attracted to go, and I'd _really_ like to know what he had to say on the
subject.
Rich Brown
P. S. -- I think I will post this to rec.games.go too.
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<DIV><FONT color=#000000 face=Arial size=2>Hi, there, </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 face=Arial size=2>Is there some standard of computer
go?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 face=Arial size=2>Such as: Usually people use A B
C D E F G H (??????) J K L M N O P Q R S T to denote horizontal axis of the
board, why no " I " appear? </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 face=Arial size=2>Thanks.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 face=Arial size=2>M. Jiang</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>