Letter: Face value

Face value

Sir: The erudite response of R N Robinson (letter, 30 November), challenges me to relate the two units of beauty, the millihelen (mH), and the parthenon (P).

Presumably the millihelen has units of (ships)-1, while the parthenon is presumably dimensionless. We can assume, I think, that Athena would not have allowed her temple to be equated with the beauty of a mere mortal, and would have reduced the value of the helen by the factor pi () perhaps.

So I humbly offer the Elgin Constant, E, (or perhaps the Mercouri Constant, to please our friends in Athens) as the connecting factor.

We would then find that

E x x 103mH = P

E would have the value of 1, and units of (ships). The parthenon would then equal 3,142 millihelens. Will this suffice?

IAN C DODSWORTH

Oxford