Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson

40 Beelzebub Tells How People Learned and Again Forgot About the Fundamental Cosmic Law of Heptaparaparshinokh

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“After a great deal of, as they still sometimes say, ‘drying of saliva,’ they finally decided, in order that no one should be offended and at the same time in order to have also this branch in their science, to unite into one both of these theories which had reached them from ancient times and which had nothing in common with each other. And a little later when one of them, named Gaidoropoolo, thought out a very long ‘mathematical’ explanation of this misunderstanding, namely, why in one theory there is mentioned the division of the octave into seven ‘whole sounds,’ while in the other, into only five ‘whole sounds,’ and why and how such an important contradiction had occurred, then these mathematical explanations of his entirely pacified all the corresponding representatives of contemporary civilization so that now, with a quiet conscience, they produce all their wiseacring concerning vibrations on the basis of the ‘mathematical explanations’ of this obliging Gaidoropoolo.

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“Now, that is to say, this same obliging Gaidoropoolo, in a certain way known to himself, calculated the number of vibrations of all the Chinese seven whole notes and began to explain that in the Chinese ‘seven-toned octave’ those whole notes called ‘mi’ and ‘si’ are not whole notes at all but only half notes, since the number of vibrations which they have almost coincides with the number of vibrations of those Greek half notes which according to the division of the Greek octave are found just between the Chinese whole notes ‘mi’ and ‘fa and between ‘si’ and ‘do.’

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“He made the further supposition that it was obviously convenient for the Chinese to have the restorial of the voice, that is, the ‘center of gravity’ of the voice also on these half notes, and therefore they divided their octave not into five whole notes like the Greeks, but into seven, and so on in this way.

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“After this explanation of Mr. Gaidoropoolo, as I have already told you, all the other contemporary scientists of new formation were completely pacified, having stuck a label also on this branch of their official science.