Alpha Bravo Alegbraic: A Spoken Chess Notation Optimized for Listener Comprehension

Most Recent Update November 8, 2013
NACN 2.0

A Spoken Chess Notation 

Optimized for Listener Comprehension

Ranks and Files of the Chessboard

Narrated Algebraic Chess Notation (NACN) encodes algebraic chess notation letters a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h for chessboard files as spoken English words. In NACN, files of the chessboard are encoded for narration (speaking aloud) as:

Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel

Ranks of the chess board numbered 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 are encoded as the English spoken words:

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight

In NACN we use the standard algebraic chess notation of the ranks and files of the chessboard, encoded by the IRSA/ICAO spelling alphabet.

NACN Chessboard

The International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet (IRSA) is also known as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) spelling alphabet. 

IRSA/ICAO encoding is the most widely used spoken spelling alphabet. Airline pilots, air traffic controllers, civil aviation pilots are proficient in the use of this spoken spelling alphabet. 

Moreover, IRSA/ICAO is optimized for communication.  

Decades of tests and usage have shown that IRSA/ICAO provides a most accurate means of spoken alphabet communication over noisy audio transmission channels.   

For detailed information on the IRSA and ICAO spoken spelling alphabets, and their variants check out this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet

Chess Pieces

The standard English names of the chess pieces can be used in narration with excellent clarity.  Narrations making use of standard piece names: King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, Rook, and Pawn are unlikely to be misunderstood by chess players.

Chess Moves in Narration 

SIDE BAR:
First we observe that chess moves when spoken aloud consist of grammatical sentences. When narrating chess moves, observe the grammatical rules, think of moves as full sentences. However, chess notation and NACN encodes a move in such a way that it may not look like a full sentence. However, NACN moves and algebraic chess notation moves should decode into full sentences.

For example:  

1. e2-e4  in algebraic notation decodes as the sentence: 

"On move one white moves his pawn on the square e2 to the square e4."
or
" White's first move is pawn on e2 to e4."

END SIDEBAR

Chess Moves in NACN

TAKES Tango

The term "takes" as in:  "d1 knight takes bishop on e3" or simply "Knight d1 takes on e3" or Nd1 x e3 can be narrated using IRSA "Tango" for takes.

NACN for the above two sentences would be:

"Knight Delta One, Tango, Bishop Echo Three."

or

"Knight Delta One, Tango, Echo Three."

Here we use the standard practice of capitalizing the first letter of each code word. Notice that algebraic notation for Knight is N, but NACN for Knight is the spoken word "Knight." 

The use of commas and periods in NACN are important guides to the narration.  Commas are observed by the narrator in his narration of the moves. The slight pauses indicated by commas are very important in accurate verbal communication. 

Moves are numbered as usual in algebraic chess notation. The spoken move number would  "move ten"  or "White move ten" or "Black move ten"

Special Moves and Terms: 

Tango, Castles Kilo, Castles Quebec, November Papa 

CASTLES Castles

NACN for the move castles kingside or O-O, is "Castles Kilo"
and "castles queenside or O-O-O" is narrated as "Castles Quebec"

Here Quebec is the phonetic code word for the letter Q, and is pronounced as KEH-BECK. This follows the IRSA/ICAO standard spoken spelling alphabet for the letter Q as does Kilo for the letter K.

Pawn promotion:

Pawn promotion consists of a move and a piece name like "f7-f8 Queen."
NACN for pawn promotion is:

"Foxtrot Seven, Foxtrot Eight, Queen." or 
"Pawn Foxtrot Seven,  Foxtrot Eight, Queen."


and 

Pawn promotion via capture, e.g.  f7 x g8 Queen would be NACN encoded as  "Foxtrot Seven, Tango, Golf Eight, Queen."

The word "to" is sometimes used in casual conversation to narrate a move like e2 - e4.   It's probably better to not use "to" in narration because it sounds exactly like the number 2 or "two." 

The use of the word "to" will be addressed in detail in NACN 2.1

Pawn Captures en passant: November Papa

The pawn move  "White pawn on e5 captures black pawn en passant on d5 and moves to d6 on white's tenth move." can be written simply in algebraic notation as "10. e x d6 e.p."  One and only one e-pawn can legally move to d6 via e.p. capture, so the notation is unambiguous, though cryptic.  Notice that, the only way for the e5 pawn to get to d6 on this move is to capture en passant.  

Strictly speaking, you don't even need the "e.p." for this move, it can simply be written as e5 x d6 or e x d6. 

Probably it's best to use the move notation and e.p. to be clear that we want the reader to understand that a capture en passant took place, and not a typo.

NACN encodes the move e x d6 e.p. as: "Echo, Tango, Delta Six."  
or "Echo Five Pawn, Tango, Delta Six"   or "Echo, Tango, Delta Six, November Papa."

Rendering en of e.p. phonetically as "n" encoded as November, and "p" of e.p. as Papa.   

So "en passant" is encoded as  "November Papa." 

It's usually ok to just go ahead and say "en passant."

If the audio communication channel is unusually noisy, then "November Papa" is necessary.

Check, Checkmate, Draw, Resigns

Check in NACN: 
The move Q e2 check is encoded:
"Queen Echo Two, Check."

Checkmate in NACN:
The move Q f3-f7 checkmate is encoded:

"Queen Foxtrot Three, Foxtrot Seven, Mate," or 
"Foxtrot Three, Foxtrot Seven, Mate." 

The move resigns is encoded as 

"Zulu" or "White Zulu" or "Black Zulu" 

as the last move of a game in which white or black resigns.


Draw outcome and kinds of draw

A draw outcome of a game can occur in six ways. 

They are NACN encoded as: 

1. Draw agreed: "Draw Alpha" 

2. Draw by stalemate: "Draw Sierra" 
3. Draw by perpetual check: "Draw Papa"

4. Draw by three fold repetition: "Draw Romeo" 

5. Draw by fifty non-pawn moves:  "Draw Five Zero" 

6. Draw by insufficient material: "Draw India"  

Or simply, "Draw" can be used if the type of draw is obvious or unimportant. 

EXAMPLE:

The standard algebraic notation chess moves:

1. e4 e5, 2. Nf3 Nc6, 3. Bb5 a6

encoded in Narrated Algebraic Chess Notation (NACN) become the spoken phrases

>

1. Echo Four, Echo Five.  
2. Knight Foxtrot Three, Knight Charlie Six.
3. Bishop Bravo Five, Alpha Six.



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Why is Global Averaged Temperature a Non-Thermodynamic Construction?

draft Updated October 27, 2013

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts."
-Richard P. Feynman

Some Common Misconceptions in the Meaning and Uses of Temperature and Heat

First, temperature itself is not a measurement of heat. 

Second, volume averaged temperature is not a measure of volume averaged heat. 

Third, the atmosphere and ocean are not systems in thermodynamic states of equilibrium. 

Fourth, the construction of an average temperature from a collection of disparate non-equilibrium thermodynamic systems gives a quantity that does not obey the laws of thermodynamics. 

The global average temperature as a non-thermodynamic construction.

A constructed quantity like global average temperature, is termed an "exterior quantity."   That is, "global average temperature," is not part of the physical theory of thermodynamics.  Global average temperature is exterior to the physics of thermodynamics and has no meaning expressible as a thermodynamic variable. 

Another feature of the theory of thermodynamics is that time is not a variable in the theory. It simply does not appear.

 So, a different, non-thermodynamic theory is needed to give global average temperature meaning. One approach is to model the real atmosphere as a collection of coupled thermodynamic systems each one of which has a well defined thermodynamic state. Seems reasonable. But such made-up systems need not behave like the real atmosphere. That is, model predictions will diverge from new data over time and not accurately predict future behavior. More on this later.

So what is heat anyway?  

In order to measure changes in the heat energy in the atmosphere, one also needs a physical quantity called the local specific heat. Heat is a form of energy and changes in the quantity of heat energy in a region of the Earth's atmosphere are measured using the product C x T of the "specific heat density product" C of atmospheric air at a particular position (longitude, latitude, altitude) with the local changes in temperature T and other thermodynamic variables. This product must be evaluated for every sufficiently small volume V of air in the region of interest in order to calculate the changes in the total thermal energy (heat) in a region of the atmosphere. However, this is a simplification of the thermodynamics. For more details read on, skip over the details if you like.

__________________________________________

Strictly speaking, the definition and use of specific heat needs some further technical details. Read on for more technical thermodynamics details, or skip the next four paragraphs, if you want.

Specific heats Cp, Cv are usually given in units of Joules per Kevin per kilogram of gas at constant pressure Cp, or Joules per Kelvin per cubic meter at constant volume Cv, or Cn Joules per Kelvin per particle at constant number density per species.  

Mathematically, a thermodynamic state space is a topological manifold having a (local) differential structure. The coordinates of the manifold are the thermodynamic variables that appear in the equation of state of the system. The laws of thermodynamics are stated in terms of differentials associated with the local differential structure. 

How does thermodynamics account for changes in which the system gains or loses heat? 

In the theory of thermodynamics, some thermodynamic processes can be defined by curves in the state space of the system. The process starts at the initial state, at one end of the curve, and proceeds to the final state, the point at the other end of the curve. If the system remains in equilibrium states throughout the process, the process is represented by a continuous curve. For example, if a process takes place at constant pressure, then Cp is unchanged in the process, which makes easier the calculation of the amount of thermal energy lost or gained by the system, over the process. 

Further, in thermodynamics the amount of heat in a system is not a state function. That is, only the difference in heat output or input "Delta Q" for a given thermodynamic process start to finish is available.   There is no heat function Q(P,V,T,N,...) of the coordinates of the manifold. The amount of heat gained or lost, Delta Q, depends on the shape of the curve or path in state space connecting the initial and final states of the process. One way to describe this, is to recognized that the differential heat change dQ is not an exact differential.

So what is needed to calculate the amount of heat gained or lost in a process?

In order to obtain dQ one uses the equation dQ = T dS where T is the absolute temperature and S is the entropy of the system at each point in the state space of the system. Unlike Q, both S and T are state functions. 

Further, one needs the equation of state of the system. The equation of state defines a sub-manifold of equilibria embedded within the general abstract state space of the system. Thermodynamic processes of the system can be represented by curves on this sub-manifold. In order to compute the integral of dQ along such a curve one integrates TdS along the curve. One needs to know the entropy as a function of all state variables, S= S(P,V,T, N1, N2, N3, ...) restricted to the equation of state sub-manifold. 

Of course, in the real world not all processes can be described by such continuous curves in state space.  We will not discuss such such non-quasi-static processes here. 

In thermodynamics we have that S=0 when T=0, that is, at absolute zero temperature the entropy is zero.  This provides a "baseline reference" for the function S and the variable T.

Further, in a non-equilibrium system like the Earth's atmosphere and oceans, one needs to calculate the T dS integral for each sufficiently small volume (LTE volume) of the system and then sum the result over all such volumes. That is, one needs a state space integration and a physical volume integration to obtain net increases or decreases in heat content of the atmosphere and oceans.  

The job of getting an accurate measure of warming or cooling from thermodynamics is a rather complex task.  Usually simplifying assumptions must be made, in order to make progress.

To simplify our discussion we define a variable C, a volumetric specific heat summed over gas species. For example, if rho is the mass density of a gas species at a given pressure p, then our C would equal rho x Cp giving our C in units of Joules per Kelvin per cubic meter for a gas sample at pressure p. One needs to know the density of each species and its specific heat at constant pressure and sum over all species in the atmosphere to get our C for that atmospheric composition... 

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