On or about 11-16-09 14:40, Dallas Hinton allegedly uttered "Physio...
 1B." to
James Bradley:

 AH>             A single colon is often used to indicate a
 AH> mathematical ratio... so I think it makes sense in this
 AH> context.  But why the double colon?  :-)

 JB> 1/2::2/4
 JB> S::N ratio

 JB> A single colon doesn't say the same, does it? (Shoot, I can see this
 JB> drifting toward English_Tutor, too! B-)

 DH> For the benefit of the more mathematically challenged among us, the
 DH> double colon is defined as meaning an artihmetic mean. The symbol
 DH> is read as "averaged with" and would used in print like
 DH> this 3 :: 11 = 7 (in other words, 3 + 11 = 14 divided by 2
 DH> = 7, the mean of 3 and 11)

How about that. I was taught "proportional to", as in my first
example. Thanks
for the heads-up!


... I support the metric system - every inch of it.
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