Somebody posted an open preview of the first part of the book, from HarperCollins websites, on the French forum JRRVF :
https://preview.aer.io/The_Nature_of_M ... ial=1&retail=1&emailcap=0

So the contents of this part :

Part One : Time and Ageing

I The Valian Year
II Valinorian Time-Divisions
III Of Time in Arda
IV Time-Scales
V Natural Youth and Growth of the Quendi
VI The Awaking of the Quendi
VVII The March of the Quendi
VIII Eldarin Traditions Concerning the “Awakening”
IX Time-Scales and Rates of Growth
X Difficulties in Chronology
XI Ageing of Elves
XII Concerning the Quendi in Their Mode of Life and Growth
(...)
XVI Note on the Youth and Growth of the Quendi
(...)
XVIII Elvish Ages & Númenórean

This is an odd thing. Tolkien's footnotes and my editorial endnotes have been stripped out, and the formatting of the main text is mangled. Hmm.

Aelfwine wrote:

This is an odd thing. Tolkien's footnotes and my editorial endnotes have been stripped out, and the formatting of the main text is mangled. Hmm.

Glad you said that because I stopped looking at it as soon as I saw the formatting. I would rather wait for the book as the editor and publisher wished us to see it.

Sec. II makes me laugh. In order to express the "actual value" of 1 Valian = ? second, Tolkien calculated 31556926/35831808 to 360 decimal places, and finally found the repeating decimal.
The accurate result is this: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=31556926%2F35831808 . Aelfwine, could you tell us if Tolkien's calculation is correct?

Tolkien's calculation matches this far: 0.8806958889710505258344764517, but then continues: ...576115.... The repetition he noticed is much further along, as well.

Even with the error, it's a pretty astonishing calculation, both as to means and motivation.

Aelfwine wrote:

Tolkien's calculation matches this far: 0.880695888971050525834476451, but then continues: ...7576115.... The repetition he noticed is much further along, as well.

Even with the error, it's a pretty astonishing calculation, both as to means and motivation.

The motivation alone is astonishing too, it speaks to the broader motivation of the Professor to have every detail worked out as most he could.
The Awakening of the Quendi preview has been quite fascinating as well.

Aelfwine wrote:

Tolkien's calculation matches this far: 0.8806958889710505258344764517, but then continues: ...576115.... The repetition he noticed is much further along, as well.

Even with the error, it's a pretty astonishing calculation, both as to means and motivation.

Thanks! It's surely amazing he's correct up to 28 digits, even amazing he persisted till the repeat decimal. It's a pity that the full result isn't included in this book.

I didn't think anyone would really care to know the whole thing! Even less so now, since there's an error in it. And as you've shown, you can do the (correct) calculation online if desired. (As it is, there will inevitably be comments about barrel-scraping and publishing Tolkien's laundry-lists, though I hope that anyone who actually bothers to read the texts will see that's not the case here.)

Haha, as one who has repeated all Tolkien's calculations in LOTR Appendix D (and noticed the error there), I surely won't miss this chance to repeat the Professor's work!

To be precise, I just learnt that the person who posted that on the JRRVF French forum is in fact Michael Devaux (editor of the texts on Elvish reincarnation) :)