Talk:Pythagorean comma

message: An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, :Image:MUSICAL SCALES WITH PYTHAGOREAN COMMA.svg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted.  Hyacinth (talk) 00:59, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image:MUSICAL SCALES WITH PYTHAGOREAN COMMA.svg listed for deletion 

message: I have added audio examples to the article. Hyacinth (talk) 22:41, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested audio

message: Totally useless for anyone not already a complete expert in music theory. First section needs an entire rewrite.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.112.40.182 (talk) 09:48, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: To understand this material, it is necessary to spend some time reading separate articles. Otherwise, we fall in to the well-known wikipedia difficulty of trying to say everything in one article. I believe it to be the consensus of Wikipedia users that it's better to have well-factored, multiple, shorter articles and to flip between them in your browser tabs rather than being compelled to scroll through everything in one massive article. The entry price to this article is, after all, understanding that tunings are mathematical systems, and if you understand that and have enough math to make thinking about Pythagorean tuning a profitable pastime, the article is actually pretty easy to follow. JacquesDelaguerre (talk) 07:18, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good way to put it, Jaxdelaguerre. Isn't this the point of hyperlinks are, after all? I understand this page quite well, but then I already understand the pages linked to pretty well. In contrast, I can't make heads or tails of Hessian matrix. But it would be awkward, and unnecessary, for that page to start out explaining matrix algebra (or whatever it is about). Now I'm wondering, is there a Wikipedia guideline or essay on this topic? Pfly (talk) 07:38, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Math pages can indeed be pretty obscure, however, hyperlinks (as you noted above) allow the reader to wander around the topic space and to self-educate. The Wikipedia page "Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual/Building a Stronger Encyclopedia/Better Articles: A Systematic Approach" lightly covers in an introductory fashion a lot of Wikipedia design patterns. Perhaps good factoring and a bias towards clarity and simplicity are the most important design patterns for Wikipedia authors. - JacquesDelaguerre (talk) 16:00, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  fwiw the intro has improved since my first comment, the first para is much more approachable and the reference in the second to fifths and octaves is helpful.195.112.40.182 (talk) 10:55, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is the absolute worst 

message: Following the above discussion, we have the MIDI file as accurate as possible using the current method. As stated here, a Pythagorean comma = 23.460010 cents. At 23.461914 cents, the interval represented in the MIDI file is not accurate to six decimal places. This is an example of false precision. I have again corrected this error. Burninthruthesky (talk) 07:39, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure I understand the matter. But for the best of my understanding, we take the ratio r = 312/219 and express it in cents, which means 1200 \log_2  r. If so, then my calculation gives 23.4600103... cents. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 09:00, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, I agree with your calculation, and I don't think the correct value is really in dispute. The dispute centres around the linked MIDI file which, for various technical reasons, has previously not played the correct interval. Now it is as correct as possible (in fact it is "23.461914 cents") there is a dispute over whether the article should describe the file to that level of precision. Burninthruthesky (talk) 09:11, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah... Then, this is not a question to a mathematician. If you want the reader to know only that the file is nearly correct, then the answer is "no". If you also want the reader to know the small incorrectness of this file (beyond acoustic recognition), then the answer is "yes, but 23.462 would be enough". Boris Tsirelson (talk) 09:28, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that seems reasonable. Currently the article body says "approximately 23.46 cents". This is consistent with both the MIDI file and the mathematically correct value. Burninthruthesky (talk) 09:45, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: "Approximately 23.46 cents" sounds ok to me. My understanding is that thousandths of a cent are well below the differences that humans can perceive. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:54, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: A difference of about 1.44 cents was just heard. The JND for pitch may be as high as 10 cents. More important may be the precision of MIDI files. Hyacinth (talk) 00:46, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

text: I have reverted this incorrect edit. It is not an "estimate". We know precisely what the interval of a Pythagorean comma should be, and the data in the MIDI file is as accurate as it can be. The inaccuracy in this case is 0.0019 cents. I see no support here for referring to that in the article. Burninthruthesky (talk) 06:57, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  MIDI errors (2)