Re: Purpose of and rationale behind Go Markers U+2686 to U+2689

I don't know the answer to this. But I suspect that that the source
was from one of the collection of fonts associated with the STIX
project research that led to the collection of mathematical symbols
additions noted in L2/01-067 (superseded by L2/01-142), as well
as the earlier mathematical symbols proposals with the bulk of
the symbols that were added to Unicode 3.2.

Given that context, it is, indeed, most likely that the symbols were
associated with some publication(s) in game theory, rather than
with professional Go notations per se. See, for example,
Mathematical Go: Chilling Gets the Last Point:

http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Go-Chilling-Gets-Point/dp/1568810326

I don't see black/white circles with dots in the bit of that publication
scanned on Amazon, but it does use a black circle with a delta
symbol as part of the game notation for discussion, as well as
black and white circles with numbers, denoting sequences of stone
placements.

But to know for sure, you would probably have to get confirmation
of original sources from Barbara Beeton and/or Patrick Ion,
who collected together symbol candidates from a multitude
of print sources back in the 1998 - 2001 time frame.

--Ken

On 3/9/2016 1:17 PM, Ori Avtalion wrote:
> Unicode includes the following symbols as "Go Markers":
> * U+2686 ⚆ WHITE CIRCLE WITH DOT RIGHT
> * U+2687 ⚇ WHITE CIRCLE WITH TWO DOTS
> * U+2688 ⚈ BLACK CIRCLE WITH WHITE DOT RIGHT
> * U+2689 ⚉ BLACK CIRCLE WITH TWO WHITE DOTS
>
> It is unclear what they are for. I hope someone could explain.
>
> 1) I could not find any Go notation that uses dots inside the stones.
> 2) Why are there no symbols for white/black stones without dots?
> 3) An earlier proposal [1] suggested additional symbols:
> * GRAY CIRCLE WITH GRAY DOT RIGHT
> * GRAY CIRCLE WITH GRAY TWO DOTS
> * GRAY FILLED CIRCLE WITH WHITE DOT RIGHT
> * GRAY FILLED CIRCLE WITH WHITE TWO DOTS
> what was their purpose? Any why are Go Markers proposed as
> "Mathematical symbols"? Are they meant for mathematical research of
> the game of Go and not for actual notation?
>
> [1] http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2001/01067-n2318-mathadd4.pdf
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
>
Received on Wed Mar 09 2016 - 16:53:55 CST