[Magdalen] State Funeral

[Simon Kershaw]

And being a little pedantic (who, me?) a "peal" is getting on for 3 
hours of ringing, consisting of 5000 or so changes -- so each bell 
sounding 5000 times. If it's less than that it isn't a peal.

Why 5000? Because ringers try to ring as many different permutations of 
the order of bells as possible. On 2 bells there are only two patterns: 
a followed by b, or b followed by a; on 3 bells there are 6 -- abc, bac, 
bca, cba, cab, acb; on 4 there are 24 (= 4x3x2x1 = 4 factorial or 4!); 
on 5 there are 120 combinations (= 5x4x3x2x1 = 5!); on 6 it's 720 (= 
6!); on 7 it's 5040 (= 7!). Ringers call this number the "extent" on 
that number of bells.

On 7 or fewer bells a peal is 5040 changes, and on 8 or more bills this 
is rounded to 5000.

The time taken to ring an extent goes up rather quickly: on tower bells 
(as opposed to handbells) from a few seconds on 2 bells, and a few 10s 
of seconds on 3 or 4, to two or three minutes on 5, say 20 minutes on 6, 
and getting on for three hours on 7. This is the largest "extent" that 
is practicable to ring.

After that you're into silly numbers: nearly 24 hours on 8 (which has in 
fact been done two or three times in history), then getting on for 9 
days on 9 bells, three months on 10, three years on 11, and 30 years or 
so on 12. You are way into the realms of impossibility after that, given 
that ringers insist that the same people ring the same bells all the 
time without outside assistance.

simon

On 2018-12-06 21:28, Sally wrote:
> In hearty agreement on the bells, David! And reminder to self, no
> matter how freezing it may be, make sure to hear this somewhere in the
> UK over the next few weeks.

>> On 05 Dec 2018, at 20:54, cantor03--- via Magdalen 
>> <magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

>> The perfect finishing touch was the peal (change ringing) from the 
>> main Gloria inExcelsis Tower.  What a glorious way to leave such a 
>> service!  I was remindedof having breakfast at the Wessex Hotel dining 
>> room in Winchester overlookingthe Cathedral Close during their Sunday 
>> peal.  A good peal is unforgettable.
>> Some neighbors don't like peals, but they can get over it.



-- 
Simon Kershaw
simon at kershaw.org.uk
St Ives, Cambridgeshire