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The Genetics of Alphabet Soup : 3 - Accuracy Now, imagine this sentence bit… “A cat…” We’ll copy it… “A cat…” “A cat…” Everything looks fine. But what if I messed up ? “A cat…” “A cot…” Both are real words, one is wrong – how would one know which ? So we try something very different. Instead of a single sentence between the two lines, we’ll use two. Then we’ll give each letter a numerical value corresponding to its position in the alphabet… 1
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18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 a b c d e f g h I j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Then add up what we get… _______________________ __________________________ A c a t 1 3 1 20 A c a t 1 3 1 20 A c a t 1 3 1 20 A c o t 1 3 15 20 _______________________ __________________________ 2 6 2 40 2 6 16 40 The “o” in cot does stand out, but you have many separate values to remember. So let’s try something different – more lifelike. We’ll use the same letters up top, but the opposite letters on the bottom, such that an “a” up top will be matched with a “z” on the bottom, like this: 1
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18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 a b c d e f g h I j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z z y x w v u t s r q p o n m l k j I h g f e d c b a Then we’ll add up the two sentences and see what happens… _______________________ __________________________ A c a t 1 3 1 20 A c a t 1 3 1 20 Z x z g 26 24 26 7 Z x l g 26 24 12 7 _______________________ (A c o t)_______________ 27 27 27 27 27 27 13 27 As you can see, this system allows you a simple comparison with a simple answer “YES” or “NO”; that is, does this column add up to the number “27” ? If “YES” you go on to the next; if “NO” you are sure that one is wrong. The question is, “ Which side is wrong ?”. In other words, "Is it the original or the copy that is errant...?" We’ll go back to that bowl of soup.
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