I'm one-third confused

[mollyringle]

Okay, tell me if my instincts are right here

Comments

[mariole]

> Doesn't your genealogy have to come in halves and quarters and eighths and so on?

Yeah. It's that 2-parent thing. Gilgamesh was 2/3 a diety, but it was silly back then and it's silly now.

[mollyringle]

Hehe. Well, this novel does have paranormal aspects, but I don't think they're going quite that far.

[mongo]

Well if you want to go poetic (and abandon the math all together).

If you had a step-parent for whatever reason, you could have 3 parents and while it would have no effect on your genetic background, it would definitely affect your cultural one.

It's a reach at best, or pretentious so it should probably go on the list anyway.

[mollyringle]

Hm, that's true. It depends how you define your heritage, I suppose.

[sea0tter12]

Well, I suppose if you want to get technical, there is probably some multiple of grandparents and great-grandparents, where, if you divided by three, the numbers would work. Therefore, there is probably a way to be one-third something, just not likely ;)

[sea0tter12]

Or, if you figure in that some of the grandparents are 1/2 whatever or 1/4 whatever, there is probably a way to do it. I'm just too tired to think too hard about it :)

[mollyringle]

As far as I can tell, it's possible to get a number very close to 33.3333%, but probably never exactly one-third, because the fractions' denominators always have to be logs of two. (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc.) And I don't think those ever hit anything divisible by 3. But then, a list that goes to infinity could include a lot that escapes me right now. :)

[second_banana]

I'm with seaOtter12. It's probably possible, but I'd certainly add it the list of things your characters should never say because it takes your readers waaaaay out of the story. And anything that does that is bad news bears.

[mollyringle]

*nod* If we get a writing lesson out of it, at least, then it was worth the effort of thinking it over.

[ekatarina]

Lineage deals only with logs of 2. So with far enough back and some rounding it would work, but, really, for all intents and purposes, no, it doesn't make sense.

Ekatarina

[mollyringle]

That's what I came to as well. Only works if you round it a bit. But I can see how people would, since saying "21 64ths" is a bit silly. :)