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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=gwern0@gmail.com
href="mailto:gwern0@gmail.com">Gwern Branwen</A> </DIV></DIV></DIV>
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style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none">On
Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 11:07 AM, Gerry Quinn <gerry@bindweed.com>
wrote:<BR>> > From a naturalistic perspective, the numbers shouldn’t have
any significance<BR>> > that we would understand in the story: they should
encode the contents<BR>> > and/or date of storage, serial numbers
etc.<BR><BR>> It has been a while, but wasn't there just one sequence of
numbers<BR>> which made up a Seal of Pas? If the sequence doesn't change,
then none<BR>> of those 3 suggestions would work (serial numbers which don't
change<BR>> are not useful; it's unlikely that every single chamber would
have<BR>> been sealed at the same time (especially since a datestamp that
big<BR>> ought to be accurate down to really small units like nanoseconds)
or<BR>> would have the same contents).</DIV></DIV>
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style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none">We
are only told the sequence on one such seal. I think we are to infer that
all the seals are different. Silk later finds the dust from a broken seal
of a cabinet that had contained human embryos, but he does not encounter, or at
least doesn’t notice, any other intact seals.</DIV></DIV>
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style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none">The
seal had about 36 digits. I just interpret it as the equivalent of a
barcode; we don’t know what information was on it but we can guess what *kind*
of information was there.</DIV></DIV>
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Gerry Quinn</DIV></DIV>
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