source file: m1470.txt
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 09:15:57 -0700 (PDT)

Subject: Sauveur's cycle of 301.

From: John Chalmers <non12@deltanet.com>

Paul: Sauver chose 301 allegedly as the base-10 log of 2 is 0.30103.....
Hence, 301 tones to the octave. Later French physicists rounded this
to 300 tones. This tuning is named after Savart, a physicist, but I
don't if he actually developed the system. Both the 301 and 301 system
are sometimes called Savarts, the latter rationalized Savarts.

Pikler had an article on this in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of
America in the 60's.

BTW, Yasser used the cycle of 600 (centitones), Ellis invented Cents.
Pikler is a very good source for various logarithmic measures.

The late composer and electronic music pioneer proposed the cycle if
1728 tones/octave (12 cubed) in base-12 notation, though I don't know
if the idea is original with him. I came up with some not altogether
serious suggestions in bases 8, 16, 20, etc. and put them in a past
issue of XH.

--John