A Simple Question
Orne Batmagoo
the answer might be of general interest to readers of rec.games.go as well:
> 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.[1]
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.
--
[1] I have just learned, from another contributor to the computer-go mailing
list, that "Korschelt's first name was Otto. Source is The Go player's almanac
p. 109 under the Honinbo Shuho entry."
--
Rich Brown
Scot McDermid
>The following question came up on the computer-go mailing list, but I
thought
>the answer might be of general interest to readers of rec.games.go as well:
>
>> 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?
>
Here is a simple "modern" answer:
If you get a little sloppy about using case consistently...
and I type the uppercase "i" as follows: I
doesn't it look an awful lot
like a lower case "L" as follows l
I can't see the difference. Can you see the difference? :-)
T Mark Hall
<r...@darkstar.uwsa.edu> writes
>The following question came up on the computer-go mailing list, but I thought
>the answer might be of general interest to readers of rec.games.go as well:
>
>> 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?
>
(Carles E Tuttle, Japan 1965, SBN 8048 0572-5) gives his name as Oscar
as does John Fairbairn's Names Dictionary.
--
T Mark Hall
Andrew Grant
inconsistent, giving both Otto and Oscar (misspelt). See p. 41, column 1,
for example. However, the source for Oskar is someone who actually knew him.
(Unfortunately, I can't remember who.)
Orne Batmagoo wrote in message <7akqbu$oji$1...@news.doit.wisc.edu>...
>--
>[1] I have just learned, from another contributor to the computer-go
mailing
>list, that "Korschelt's first name was Otto. Source is The Go player's
almanac
>p. 109 under the Honinbo Shuho entry."
>
>--
>Rich Brown
Mike Vaughn
<a...@honinbo.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> >Rich Brown
In the foreword of the translation of Korschelt published by Tuttle (1963), the
first name is given as Oscar (sp?) with the source given as a Dr. Kurt Meissner
of Hamburg, author of 'Deutsche in Japan 1639-1960". However, this author gives
Korschelt's role as a agronomist, while the author of a story in the May 1963
Go Monthly Review (perhaps someone else can look up this story) gives his
occupation as engineer -- working in the Engineering Department on railroads.
But only his first initial was given in the German edition of his book,
apparently.
jan van rongen
Mike Vaughn wrote:
HI Mike.
There is not much in the May 1963 Go Review about Korschelt. There is a brief
discussion about Arthur Smith's book on Go. "Naturally his book is not free of
errors. This may also be said about Korschelt whom Smith often refers to in his
book". Then there is this footnote about Korschelt:
"Korschelt was a German Engineer who came to Japan at the invitation of the Japanese
Government in the early part of the Meiji era (1867-1911). He worked at the
Engineering Department of the Government as engineer on railways. He studied Go
under Shuho Murase (1838-1886, 18th Hon-In-Bo) and after his return home Korschelt
wrote several books on Go."
That's all. But interesting how much this differs from other sources.
And then there was a reference to Leibnitz in the original post. Nobody reacted to
that, but is there anybody out there who knows a bit more about it? It is completely
new to me, and, quite frankly, I do not think it is true.
--
----------------------------------------------
Jan van Rongen,
President Dutch Go Association.
http://www.euronet.nl/users/cl628517
with a biography and large games collection of
Cho Chikun.
----------------------------------------------
Mike Vaughn
<cl62...@euronet.nl> wrote:
> Mike Vaughn wrote:
[deletions to appease mailer, but thanks to Rich Brown, whose posting
initiated this thread]
This much was repeated in the introduction to the Korschelt translation,
and I suspect
that the May 1963 Go Review article was the basis for the entry in the Go
Players'
Almanac (p. 109) cited by Rich Brown (except that the name 'Otto' was
presumably not
in the Go Review.) In fact, Korschelt is referred to as 'Oscar' (sp?) earlier in
the Go Players' Almanac (p. 41) in the article 'A Brief History of Modern Go' by
John Power.
> And then there was a reference to Leibnitz in the original post. Nobody
reacted to
> that, but is there anybody out there who knows a bit more about it? It is
completely
> new to me, and, quite frankly, I do not think it is true.
I missed the reference, but it seems unlikely to me also.
begg...@gaertner.de
: 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 I remember it correctly this is true. I think I saw it some years ago
at the famous Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbuettel.
Joachim
--
Gaertner Datensysteme GbR 38114 Braunschweig
Joachim Beggerow Hamburger Str. 273a
Tel. (0531) 2 33 5555 Fax (0531) 2 33 5556
Xlink-PoP --- System- und Netzwerk-Administration
Steve Fawthrop
> 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.
>
> --
> [1] I have just learned, from another contributor to the computer-go mailing
> list, that "Korschelt's first name was Otto. Source is The Go player's almanac
> p. 109 under the Honinbo Shuho entry."
>
> --
> Rich Brown
This reference to Liebnitz sounds familiar but I cannot recall from where. It
seems to me that, somewhere in the deep recesses of by mind, I have a recollection
of reading that this is, in fact, true. Maybe one day I will recall when and where
I have hear it before. However, to contradict those who seems skeptical, I am
inclined to agress that he did know about the game.
Steve
--
__________________________________________________________________
Stephen G. Fawthrop Ph.D. Database Administration Team Lead
Mayo Foundation Laboratory and Pathology Systems
Hilton C74F
200 S.W. 2nd St 507-266-0171
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Minnesota 55905 fawthro...@mayo.edu
__________________________________________________________________
Views expressed in the above message are my own and do not
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__________________________________________________________________
Please remove 'neverland' from the return address before replying
__________________________________________________________________
Steve Coughlan
>
>And then there was a reference to Leibnitz in the original post. Nobody
reacted to
>that, but is there anybody out there who knows a bit more about it? It
is completely
>new to me, and, quite frankly, I do not think it is true.
>----------------------------------------------
>Jan van Rongen,
It sounded unlikely to me, as well, so I decided to look on the web for
a listing of Leibniz's complete works - unsuccessfully, I have to say.
But oddly enough, one of the searches (Leibniz near game) took me to a
bunch of pages about Herman Hesse's Glass Bead game, a not-infrequent
topic of discussion here. The reference to Leibniz spoke about him
being familiar with and mentioning in writing the I Ching. Given that,
maybe he could have been familiar with go as well. Not via Marco Polo,
though, who is now pretty widely thought not really to have visited
China, I understand. (It seems likely you'd mention the Great Wall, or
foot binding, if you'd lived in China for years when he claimed to
have).
Steve Coughlan
Halifax
Andre Engels
> The reference to Leibniz spoke about him being familiar with and
> mentioning in writing the I Ching. Given that, maybe he could have
> been familiar with go as well. Not via Marco Polo, though, who is
> now pretty widely thought not really to have visited China, I
> understand.
Certainly not 'pretty widely thought'. There is indeed a historian who
has this theory, but still the very great majority of historians DO
believe that Marco Polo went where he claimed he went.
> (It seems likely you'd mention the Great Wall, or foot binding, if
> you'd lived in China for years when he claimed to have).
The Great Wall was not as conspicuous as it is nowadays, as I lately
read during Mongol times large part of it were still earthen, not stone
walls. It could also be connected by Marco Polo with the walls that were
said to hold back the tribes of Gog and Magog, or a removal by
Rustichello.
The footbinding may have been missed because he was more among the
Mongol than the Chinese people. Also remark that this omission is also
in the work by Odorico, who visited China fifty years later (he also did
not mention the Great Wall, but that is understandable because he was
never in those quarters).
--
Andre Engels, eng...@win.tue.nl, ICQ #6260644
http://www.win.tue.nl/cs/fm/engels/index_en.html
The joy of computers is that they allow people to repeat their mistakes
much more efficiently than would otherwise be possible. -- anonymous
jan van rongen
I'd hate to let this thread die without getting more clarity on this.
Leibnitz lived from 1646-1716, so
any connection to Marco Polo is unlikely. Jaap Blom once wrote a (quite
definitive) article about the earliest European pulications about Go in the
Go World. I know I have it somewhere but I cannot find it now.
So questions:-
(1) who knows more about the AGA or BGA journal mention of Leibnitz?
(2) who knows more about Leibnitz's treatise 'on certain games' ?
(3) when was the earliest mention of Go in European literature (according to
Jaap Blom)?
--
----------------------------------------------
Jan van Rongen,
Andrew Grant
Leibniz, about two thirds of the way down the right hand column on page 54.
It implies that Leibniz knew about go but gives no details.
Andrew Grant.
jan van rongen wrote in message <36D46CA8...@euronet.nl>...
Theo van Ees
in Latin in a scientific periodical 'Miscellanea Berolinensia' in
1710. The title was translated 'Notes on some games'. Jaap Blom wrote
an article about it (in Dutch) in the Dutch Go Journal, 1982, vol. 19,
no. 4, febr., p. 48-51. At the moment I have no time to translate this
article. According to Jaap Leibnitz uses known other sources like
Ricci / Trigault and Hyde. It is possible that he also used an up till
now unknown source, as his article is accompanied by a print of 2
persons playing go and one watching. This print is the oldest print
known to me with go-players in an European publication.
Maybe the complete works of Leibnitz are translated in English
somewhere. I found a French translation however.
Jaap Blom wrote extensively about the oldest European go literature in
Go world, 1982, no. 27, spring, p. 50-56. Matteo Ricci wrote the
oldest known go-publication in 1610 in Italian. His manuscript 'On the
entrance of the Company of Jesus and Christianity into China' was
translated in Latin by Trigault and published in 1615.
I looked up the indexes of the AGJ and the BGJ, but couldn't find
Leibnitz. So his name didn't show up in the title. It is not unlikely
that his name was mentioned in one of the numerous articles, but I
wasn't able to find it.
Below are the title descriptions of the Leibnitz items I found:
Leibnitz, G.W. von
Opera omnia, nunc primum collecta, in classes distributa,
præsationibus & indicibus exornata, studio ludovici dutens : tomus
quintus, continens opera philologica / Gothofredi Guillelmi Leibnitii.
- Genevæ : apud Fratres de Tournes, 1768. - p. ?
Go: p. 204-205.
Contains the article: 'Annotatio de quibusdam ludis : inprimis de ludo
quodam sinico, differentiaque scachici et latrunculorum, et novo
genere ludi navalis' on p. 203-205.
Leibnitz, G.W. von
Annotatio de quibusdam ludis : inprimis de ludo quodam sinico,
differentiaque scachici et latrunculorum, et novo genere ludi navalis
/ Godefridi Guilielmi Leibnitii. - Miscellanea Berolinensia, 1710. -
p. 22-26.
Go: p. 25-26.
With illustration, probably the oldest in Europe, of go players.
[Translation in Dutch of the go part by Jaap Blom on seperate leaf.]
Leibnitz, G.W. von
Note sur quelques jeux et principalement sur le jeu chinois, sur la
différence du jeu d'échecs a celui des petits voleurs (ou
lantruncules), et sur une nouvelle espèce de jeu naval / de
Godefroi-Guillaume Leibnitz, traduit par Camille Théodore Frédéric
Alliey. - Le Palamède, revue mensuelle des échecs et autres jeux,
1847. - 2. série, tome 7, p. 487-490.
Go: p.489-490.
jan van rongen <cl62...@euronet.nl> wrote:
>I'd hate to let this thread die without getting more clarity on this.
>Leibnitz lived from 1646-1716, so
>any connection to Marco Polo is unlikely. Jaap Blom once wrote a (quite
>definitive) article about the earliest European pulications about Go in the
>Go World. I know I have it somewhere but I cannot find it now.
Orne Batmagoo
> Leibnitz wrote indeed something on the game of go. He wrote an article
> in Latin in a scientific periodical 'Miscellanea Berolinensia' in
> 1710. The title was translated 'Notes on some games'. Jaap Blom wrote
> an article about it (in Dutch) in the Dutch Go Journal, 1982, vol. 19,
> no. 4, febr., p. 48-51.
[Excellent bibliography deleted.]
Sincere thanks to Theo van Ees for his informative posting.
Now I will either have to learn Dutch, or dust off my 35-year-old Latin books.
Unless the French version is easier to find... In that case, I can probably
find a starving student somewhere who will translate it for food.
Please, if anybody translates Leibnitz's go publication into English, I would
like to know about it.
--
Rich Brown
Orne Batmagoo
writes:
> What Leibnitz teatise?
Theo van Ees was kind enough to have provided us with an excellent
bibliography. Theo's article has expired on my server and was not
archived by dejanews, so I have taken the liberty (ObGo) of reproducing
it in its entirety below.
> If you wish I'll translate that for you, no matter if its German or Latin.
> However, I am most curious what it has to do with the game of Go.
Your offer is a most generous one! (By the way, thanks for writing Jago,
the very robust Java client for the go servers.)
Apparently Leibnitz did know about go, and wrote about it, in Latin it seems.
Here is Theo's bibliography, article <7b4j14$m...@news3.euro.net>:
From e...@euronet.nl Thu Feb 25 22:32:49 1999
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From: e...@euronet.nl (Theo van Ees)
Newsgroups: rec.games.go
Subject: Re: Did Leibnitz know about Go?
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Leibnitz wrote indeed something on the game of go. He wrote an article
in Latin in a scientific periodical 'Miscellanea Berolinensia' in
1710. The title was translated 'Notes on some games'. Jaap Blom wrote
an article about it (in Dutch) in the Dutch Go Journal, 1982, vol. 19,
--
Orne Batmagoo
Theo van Ees
with photocopies.
I have the copies of the Latin article and the 19th century translation in
French.
Just send me an email
Theo van Ees