well-tempered tuning and do-it-yourself: my report to the group

First, my regards and heartfelt thanks to Mr. C. C. Chang who referred me to his webpage below, which was immensely helpful. (I plan to buy his book because his webpage certainly helped with value beyond his asking price. (No relationship here, just gratitude.) If you'd like to tune your own piano, thoroughly read Chapter 2, in its entirety at Chang's URL below:
http://members.aol.com/chang8828/contents.htm

Back to the beginning

Happy birthday, Jag. Congrats on the tuning, too!

An interesting standpoint. Could you explain the difference between 'crackpot' and 'charlatan'?

Crackpotism is science with a screw loose. Charlatanism is the calculated marketing and sales of crackpot science to the gullible. The crackpot believes in his own ideas. The charlatan believes in any idea that will make people hand over their money.

Crackpots believe they have invented a perpetual motion machine. Charlatans believe they can convince you they have invented a perpetual motion machine, and sell you shares in the enterprise.

Regards,

Rick Clark

<< Charlatans believe they can convince you they have invented a perpetual motion machine, and sell you shares in the enterprise. >>

So what's the cost to buy in? Can you send a prospectus to me?

Fair enough, but are the terms mutually exclusive? For example, if someone were to peddle a load of arrant nonsense on the Internet, charging good money for said nonsense but *believing* it to be scientifically sound (despite all evidence to the contrary), would he be a crackpot, a charlatan or both?

snip

Huh?

A musical 'chord' does indeed take three (or more) notes. It's etymology comes from 'accord' because the notes go together.

A geometric 'chord' is a different animal (and word) entirely. It stems from the word 'cord' and signifies a line cutting across the side of a circle (like a taut cord) between TWO points, not three.

Their origins are unrelated.