[seqfan] Re: extending A179192 (periods of 1/n)

[Richard Mathar]

Excerpt of http://list.seqfan.eu/pipermail/seqfan/2010-November/006471.html

dmn> From: Douglas McNeil
dmn> Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:06:42 +0800
dmn> To: Sequence Fanatics Discussion list <seqfan at list.seqfan.eu>
dmn> 
dmn> (1) Terminology question: isn't it a little awkward to use period not
dmn> for the length of what's repeated but for the content of what's
dmn> repeated?  I would've called this the repetend, but that term is

I am using "period" for the contents of what is repeated, and "length"
with  the count of items in that period. I am not a native speaker,
neither a mathematician, so that may be abuse of terminology.

So a year has a period of 365 days (the period "contains/comprises" the days)
and the length of the period is 365.

In almost all cases that I've seen, there was no need to stick to this
explicitly because the contents of use was obvious; so it seems that
"period" is often used for "length of the period" to compress/tighten
sentences, not in a normative sense.

RJM