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Constitutional Characters. A systematic set of names for Major and Minor pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Mark Thompson wrote on Fri, Dec 12, 2003 01:33 PM UTC:

Orthogonal is used in the study of Latin Squares to mean two Latin Squares
like the following:
1 2 3 4
2 1 4 3
3 4 1 2
4 3 2 1
and
1 2 3 4
3 4 1 2
4 3 2 1
2 1 4 3
which are orthogonal because when you combine the symbols in each cell,
all possible ordered pairs result:
11 22 33 44
23 13 41 32
34 43 12 21
42 31 24 13
Sets of orthogonal Latin Squares are useful in the design of scientific
experiments, or for generating 'magic' squares.

Anyway, this is a technical usage of the word orthogonal that may be
grounded in the 'at right angles' meaning, but if so I think it's very
tenuous. So I feel it gives more aid and comfort to those of us who
believe drafting orthogonal to use the way we do in rule descriptions is
okay.