2000-06-14 01:03:02+00 by Dan Lyke 1 comments
Ever heard someone rate beauty in "Helens"? That is, if Helen's face was enough to launch a thousand ships, then one milliHelen is enough beauty to launch a single ship. This is the Rushton scale, named after Cambridge mathematician W. A. H. Rushton, according to Robertson Davies in The Rebel Angels. Rushton appears to have done some vision studies , but it's searches like this that show up the extreme inadequacy of the web for interesting research.
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#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:30:05+00 by: ccoryell
I think there was a very nice article in the science fiction rag Analog in the early eighties about this. In some detail it describe the entire scale from pico-helens (enough beauty to float a toothpick and make some tissue paper smoke) to mega-helens (enough beauty to launch a complete carrier battle fleet and start global thermonuclear war). Remember that one Helen was beauty was sufficient to launch a thousand ships (greek triremes) and burn down a city (Troy).
I can probably still find it hidden away in a closet somewhere.
Carl C-M