The California Alphabet

California has a lot of things. It has energy crises, a governor so bad that he had to be recalled, people taking a cyanide trip to the other side of comet Hale-Bopp, movie superstars that try to outglitter the Milky Way but fail, and so forth. Now in this latest development in their three-ring circus that they call a Recall Election, California now has its own alphabet.

In kindergarten and early grade school, we learn the alphabet. We sing, "ABCDEFG…" That is the way we have always recognized the alphabet as being in order. But not in California any more. Due to the desire to randomize the candidates, the people running this Recall Election have invented their own alphabet. This means if you are a child in California, you now sing not "ABCDEFG…" but "RWQOJMV…" The entire California alphabet, in fact, reads:

RWQOJMVAHBSGZXNTCIEKUPDYFL

This has some interesting consequences. For example, if you look in an ordinary dictionary to try to find the first and last words, the first word is a and the last word is zymurgy (science of fermentation), or perhaps zyzzogeton (a leaf hopper) if you have an unabridged. But not in California. No, if you look in a California dictionary, you will find the first word to be rorqual, which is a variety of whale. Next comes row, as in rowdy, which is an apt way to describe this election. What's the last word? It is llano, an Argentine plain, just barely beating out llama, the animal.

So many of us are used to the ABC alphabet that we are unaware of some of the other alphabets around. For example, this very keyboard I am typing on generates the QWERTY alphabet:

QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM

Pangrams are sentences containing each letter of the alphabet. A 26-letter pangram contains each letter once and only once, and is scarce. But if you find them, you can use them as an alphabet:

SQUDGYFEZBLANKJIMPCRWTHVOX (Squdgy fez, blank jimp crwth vox!)
CWMFJORDBANKGLYPHSVEXTQUIZ (Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz.)
TVQUIZDRAGNYMPHBLEWJFKSCOX (TV quiz drag nymph blew JFK's cox.)

Or you can reverse the alphabet:

ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA

or take the odd letters first, then the even ones:

ACEGIKMOQSUWYBDFHJLNPRTVXZ

or take them by frequency of usage in English- get something like (not sure of the middle letters):

ETAOINSHRDLCUMPGWYFBVKJXQZ

So now we have 7 different ways of ordering the letters.

Actually what they are doing in California is using the RWQ alphabet for District 1, then they shift the R to the end for District 2:

WQOJMVAHBSGZXNTCIEKUPDYFLR

and then send the W to the end for District 3:

QOJMVAHBSGZXNTCIEKUPDYFLRW

And so forth.

In any case, this thing in California looks like a mess. Talk about confusing ballots! A punch-the-pregnant-chad ballot with 80 candidates, much more complicated than any in Florida in 2000. I hope it works out OK.

My Third Birthday

Tonight as I was returning from an astronomy meeting I saw the full moon out. Two days from now is my birthday, and I knew that I was born just after a full moon. It was a reminder that today is my third birthday. Not of regular years, but of metonic cycles. The sun and the moon have separate motions in the sky, and we find that there is 11 days of a moon left over after 12 moons to make a full calendar year. That's too bad. Otherwise one could tell the day of the month from the lunar phase. Even after two years, the phase of the moon and the end of the year don't correspond. Not after 3, 4, or 5 years does it correspond, because the sun and moon have periods that have nothing to do with each other. They are worse than irrational, in that we can't even compute beyond about 4-6 decimal places.

But they come really close after 19 years. The link above says that 19 years is only hours removed from being 235 moons. Therefore, lunar phases will repeat approximately after 19 years. This means that since there was a new moon on 1972 July 11, for example, there will be another one on 1991 July 11, 19 years and 235 moons later.

So what is my age in metonic cycles? It is 3. It is also 57 years, or 705 moons. So since the moon was full when I was born, it is full now - it is like a birth moon for me. I wonder if my mother saw the full moon when she was pregnant, and knew she had to go to the hospital - I was coming. It is also interesting that 57 and 705 both have a 5 and a 7 in them. I was a full grown adult on my first birthday in 1965; I was working as a janitor then during the summer while earning a degree at the University of Rochester. At two cycles, I was working as an operations research analyst, constructing models of such things as maintenance and warehousing. It was the Orwellian year 1984. Now it is 2003, and a third cycle has passed. It is interesting to see how the world has changed during these periods. I have things that I could have only dreamed of having in 1984, let alone 1965 or 1946, namely cell phones, PDAs, and a computer in a small piece of luggage many times more powerful than any computer in 1984, even mainframes. The next cycle will be in 2022, when I am 76 years or 912 moons old. If I am still blogging then, I will comment on my reaching the age of 4.

If I were Governor of California

Well, now they are in. Over 100 candidates (the link requires that you fill in certain data) have filed for the recall election to replace Gray Davis as Governor of California. This is democracy in action. You don't have to choose between two candidates. You can choose from among a hundred of them. And it is not that hard to have filed for candidacy. All you need is 65 friends and $3,500, and, of course, be a resident of California. If you are on a third party ticket, you may just get by with 150 friends and $0.

Some of the candidates are interesting. Many play the same old banal lines, that they will cut the budget, that they will put good government back into California, and so forth. One of the more interesting ones said, "If I'm supposed to run for this office, please let there be some sign. At that very instant, this giant comet streaks across the sky and the comet is as bright as can be for five seconds OK, thank you, I got the message." This one would need some education. Comets don't streak across the sky. If he really wanted a comet to tell him to run for office, he should run for President in 2004. In 2004 a really bright comet is supposed to arrive (Comet NEAT).

One candidate is 100 years old. She will be 104 when her term ends. Two candidates are running because they believe that marijuana laws should be eased or eliminated. One of these is a disabled Vietnam veteran who has been jailed on marijuana charges. Several candidates say there should not be a recall, and at least one says he should not be the next governor. So there are some candidates that shoot themselves in the foot.

What would I say if I were running for governor of California? Here is what I would say: "The foremost problems in California are balancing the budget and straightening out the economy. But another problem is looming for California that affects both the budget and economy, and we had a precursor of it in 2000. There is going to be a natural gas shortage in California, and indeed in our entire nation. I would take steps right now to prepare for this crisis - encourage conservation, seek alternative sources of energy, especially hydrogen generated by sunlight, and encourage industry to reduce their dependence on natural gas. By taking these steps early, a huge energy crisis will be prevented or eased, one that could turn whoever is elected into the next Gray Davis."