Dunbar's Number

You are probably vaguely aware that Dunbar’s Number is 150. It’s the maximum number of people that we can socially interact with, not the number of our close friends — that’s much smaller.

It’s the maximum number of people where peer pressure will keep the group intact. The maximum size of a group that we can describe as ‘us’ rather than ‘them’.

If an organisation has more than 150 members, it needs a managerial structure.

The basic fighting unit of the Roman army — the maniple — had around 130 to 150 soldiers.

A British Army company has around 150 soldiers.

And there are many more such examples. Dunbar correlates this to the size of the neocortex. Even if we wanted to have groups larger than 150, we aren’t adequately equipped.

There are a couple of other examples, but I don’t think they are related to the neocortex.

I remember in a physics lesson in school, that we were introduced to the idea that Adam and Eve were 150 feet tall. I really don’t know if this was apocryphal or not, but the idea was easily disproven: their bones would not have been strong enough.

And in another peculiar piece of early theology, the question was: how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

And yes, someone worked it out. It was 150.

So now you know.

The Seven Colours of the Rainbow

Newton originally said there were five colours in the rainbow, but later revised this upwards to seven. I don’t know about you, but I find it very difficult to see the differences between blue, indigo and violet.

So why the revision upwards?

Newton had a finger in many pies; he was into alchemy, which was then a mainstream science, and religion. He tried to reconstruct Solomon’s Temple from the details in the Bible.

Now, I don’t quite follow why 10 is a perfect number, but to people like Newton it was. As part of this ‘perfection’, there were the trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. If their number is removed from 10, we get seven. So all God’s creations, if they are to be perfect, much contain seven parts.

So, the rainbow has to have seven colours.

And no, I don’t really follow the theology either.

Translation III

The translation of scientific papers and the like is pretty straightforward, if rather formulaic. But I think there is a major step change in the level of difficulty when it comes to literature. Getting the right tone, understanding the subtle nuances of meaning and symbolism must be really taxing, and would need a deep understanding of both languages and their literature. The translator really has to get into the author’s head, to fully understand him or her, before attempting a translation if the work is to be faithfully reproduced.

In part, this must be because English has so many words; there are about 500,000 of them — more than in German and French combined. It’s partly a result of English being a mixture with ancient germanic roots, to which was added some viking and lots of Norman French; and to which lots of words were appropriated from other languages, and from the colonial exploits.

Not all english words are in current use; coney was replaced by rabbit, and tharmes by intestines or guts or bowels. Reflecting its ‘mixed-race’ origins, English often has synonyms or near-synonyms for many things, and sometimes the shades of meaning are subtle. Jack and Jill took a ‘pail’ to get the water, not a ‘bucket’, yet a pail is a bucket. And while you might measure garden manure in bucketfuls, you couldn’t really measure it in pailfuls — it just wouldn’t be ‘right’. (It’s curious, too, that Jack and Jill’s well was on top of a hill, not at the bottom, the obvious place.)

Not all translators stuck rigidly to the idea of an accurate, faithful to the author translation. Sir Richard Burton’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was as much his own work as Omar’s. Burton, too, revised his ideas several times, adding more verses, and changing previous ones substantially. A comparison with a literal translation shows just how inventive he could be.

There’s another interesting take on translation. Orphan Pamuk writes in Turkish, though I gather that he understands English. The primary translation of his (recent) works is into English; great care is taken to get this as accurate to his text, idioms, meanings etc as possible. This english translation is then used for further (re)translations, rather than going directly from the Turkish.



PS For a more extensive treatment of translation (and a translation) have a look at:

Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything: Amazon.co.uk: David Bellos: Books