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December 5

how to use NPN transistor

How do I use one 1250metersdeep (talk) 18:04, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Do you know the use of a BJT transistor but want to know when one would specifically use the NPN type instead of the PNP type? Perhaps the table of modes in the section Bipolar junction transistor § Regions of operation will give you the information you need.  --Lambiam 08:05, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks 1250metersdeep (talk) 13:50, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

December 6

Do any dashcams exist that livestream drives onto Twitch, YouTube and other livestream video apps?

As a Dasher for Doordash, I'd like to have strangers watch me drive deliveries live in real-time. I wonder about whether there's a Dashcam around that allows livestreaming onto any site / apps that allow users to watch anyone's livestreams. I would also like to make some of the obscure music that I play through my car's Bluetooth speakers known to the wider world.

If there isn't such a thing as a livestreaming dashcam, how come and what would it take to innovate a fully-working livestreaming dashcam in the first place? --2600:8803:1D13:7100:B55B:B71:F6ED:7780 (talk) 12:40, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

If you have a phone or something you could probably try to figure something out by taping it with the camera looking out and then starting a livestream. I’m not too sure about any actual dash cams so I would wait for another user to respond 1250metersdeep (talk) 13:53, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

You can use one of many streaming cams. You would have to use your phone (or similar device) as a mobile hotspot, tethering the cam to the phone for internet access. This assumes you have unlimited data on your phone. The headache will be that the cam will likely lose internet connection every time you leave the car to make a delivery. If it is a good cam, it will re-attach itself automatically and begin streaming again. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 17:14, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

If you're not already aware, the sort of thing you're looking to do is often referred to as IRL (in real life) streaming and those who do IRL streams often use a collection of gear consolidated in the form of a backpack for easy wearability and transport. In looking for how to accomplish your specific goals I'd look into researching the backpack setups people have posted in various places. Amstrad00 (talk) 17:44, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I suggest also that you consider the copyright and licencing implications of re-broadcasting other people's music, and how any intentions to monetise your streaming (or not) might interact with them {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 18:06, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

December 7

Mac window behavior

Recently in MacOS, when I drag a window laterally by its title bar, sometimes it blows up to nearly fill the screen. Why? —Tamfang (talk) 23:23, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Presumably the window has a maximized state and you're switching to that state. Perhaps your mouse movement is being misunderstood as a touchscreen swiping gesture, if such a maximize gesture exists on the OS, and perhaps you can switch gestures off in the settings. Another possibility is that your mouse has a fault (low battery or a broken button) and is sending double-click messages sometimes, making the window maximize in response to a double-click on its title bar, if those are understood by the OS as maximize. Do you find the title bar slips from your grasp sometimes, as well? That would imply a mouse hardware fault.  Card Zero  (talk) 00:13, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

The double-click hypothesis is at least worth testing next time it happens. —Tamfang (talk) 22:04, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Nope, double-clicking merely expanded the window further. —Tamfang (talk) 04:47, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Are you using a trackpad? Touching it with several fingers can alter the meaning of a gesture.  --Lambiam 18:52, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for trying, but no. —Tamfang (talk) 04:48, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm not giving enough weight to the possibility that MacOS is intentionally being annoying without any special provocation. Could it be this, automatic window sizing caused by Tiling, a feature that enables quick snapping and resizing of windows? But by the sound of it this should cause windows, when dragged near screen edges, to go fully fullscreen, not just (if I understand your report correctly) kind of sorta bigger. Still, it's a recent and evidently annoying change to window behavior when windows are dragged, so the circumstantial evidence is strong. Try turning off Tiling?  Card Zero  (talk) 07:27, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Plausible. I have now done so. —Tamfang (talk) 23:45, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

December 8

What was the first computer game with normal audio, audio that is not chiptune/tracker/midi/fm synthesis?

What was the first computer game with normal audio, audio that is not chiptune/tracker/midi/fm synthesis? 2804:1B3:9700:1E44:2188:5975:E245:4C47 (talk) 17:08, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

So are you excluding all the digital to analog conversion methods? Some early computer systems allowed analog cassette tapes to play audio under computer control. I assume these included music. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:00, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I scanned two books on the history of video games and both note that the first "real" sound in video games was Rally-X. They use the clarification that it was the first to use digital-to-analog to turn digitially recorded sounds into analog sound. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 17:25, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Tell us what those books are! The fact should be in the article, it would sit nicely after "one of the first games with bonus stages and continuously-playing background music". What are you citing, please?  Card Zero  (talk) 14:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Please define "normal audio." In general terms, all sounds for arcade games or computer games since around 1976 were produced through some sort of digital audio using sound chips, which includes the terms the OP used such as MIDI, FM synthesis, etc. This includes digitally sampled analogue sounds reproduced with digital technology. Are you asking whether a computer game was developed using analogue hardware using vacuum tubes? Alternate histories suggest themselves, as if bored techies working the night-time shift on the LEO Mk. III had been able to interface with the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer via a Fuzzball router and been able to play a beta version of Rogue with full menacing throbbing audio: "The Xeroc strikes!" Wob-wob-wob. All your base are belong to us. MinorProphet (talk) 19:08, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

December 9

Windows Diagnostic Memory tool

How long would you expect it to take to do 96GB RAM? I heard an hour per 8GB—sound reasonable? SerialNumber54129 18:33, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

That guy was a fucking idiot. Took less than two hours. SerialNumber54129 11:09, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

This conversation makes no sense. Care to elaborate, @Serial Number 54129? TheTechie@enwiki (she/they | talk) 04:43, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

@TheTechie: Serial Number 54129 asked how long it would take to run Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool on a pc with 96GB RAM. They heard it took an hour per 8GB, so that would be 12 hours for 96GB. Then they say that they tried it and that it took less than 2 hours. Polygnotus (talk) 15:39, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Polygnotus . I admit I was somewhat brusque about my informant  :) SerialNumber54129^{A New Face in Hell} 16:49, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

December 10

Youtube videos switching in the middle to Chinese people doing ordinary things

I see that others are encountering the same problem.[1] Has anybody come up with a fix yet? Clarityfiend (talk) 05:26, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

To avoid videos with crocheting Chinese ladies and such – if that's not your thing – make sure the video is from the original channel and not some pirated and hacked video. The name of the channel (such as Eyewitness News ABC7NY, Jimmy Kimmel Live, ESPN MBL, ...) is given below the title of the video. Pirated videos come from an unfamiliar channel; other than that, everything looks the same as the legit video.  --Lambiam 07:35, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Aaah, thanks. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:54, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

December 11

Quote marks will not appear until I type a second one

Hello all. I have a seemingly one-off, weird and annoying issue. I am using an HP laptop computer:

OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Home

System Model HP Spectre x360 Convertible

Version 10.0.19045

Build 19045

Every time I type a quote mark on this computer (or an apostrophe using the same keyboard key without shifting) nothing happens. It is only when I invoke the character key a second time (in a row, without moving the cursor) that anything happens, which is that, only then, TWO quote marks appear. I then I have to delete one of them. Same thing for apostrophes, though I use quotes far more frequently. This happens anywhere I attempt to type the character, including when I placed this one " right now. Please note that the key is not gummed up or anything, it always works to place the two after I type the character the second time. Any ideas? --68.129.153.226 (talk) 17:23, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

When did this start happening? Has it always been like this? If not, what changed? Be honest. MinorProphet (talk) 20:29, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

My 13-year old Mac Mini has stopped working. (I have already purchased a new computer, arriving in about two weeks.) I thus borrowed this HP from my sister a week ago, whereupon I discovered this issue. I thus have no idea of the timeline of the problem.--68.129.153.226 (talk) 21:07, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

What happens if you type a single ' or ", followed by some other character, like a letter?

It sounds like you're in some strange mode which is attempting to interpret various multi-keystroke sequences. Those can be perfectly ordinary — for example, as you may know, on a Mac you can type Option-U to get a bare umlaut, which when you then type a letter like A or U combines with it to form Ä or Ü. But obviously these " and ' sequences you're encountering are bizarre and unwanted! (I've never heard of combining sequences starting with " or ', either.)

My guess is that these sequences are defined for the convenience of typists in some language other than English. I would go to the relevant control panel — perhaps "Keyboard", although under Windows I'm not sure — and make sure you've got English specified as your language, with no funny extra options specified. —scs (talk) 22:10, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Per the below, it sounds like you might well see different behavior depending on whether you type the " or ' followed by a vowel like A or U, versus a consonant like B or S. —scs (talk) 22:16, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes you're right. When you're on the international keyboard (or other non-English one) if you type a quote and then a vowel you get an umlaut. With this keyboard layout the first time you press a quote key it will not type it, and you have to press it twice to type a quote.

On Windows 10, on the bottom right, to the left of the date and time, there is an area where you can click to change the keyboard layout. For the international keyboard it is "ENG INTL". If you click it you can change to the normal keyboard, "ENG" or "ENG US" or whatever you prefer. ―Panamitsu (talk) 22:23, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

See dead key. I suppose your system is configured to see ' and " as dead keys, producing no direct output, but combining with the next character you type to create a letter with acute accent or two dots. I haven't used Windows since XP days, but I suppose that if the following character doesn't accept those diacritics, the ' or " is inserted after all. Try switching to a different keyboard layout. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:37, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Have you tried a "+space sequence? I've seen such behavior of a keyboard in Windows when working in a language with diacritic letters. It simulates old typewriter - hit a diacritic symbol first, which gets printed with no carriage move, then hit a letter, which gets printed at the same place and then a carriage advances to a next position. Following this mode you hit a diacritic + space sequence to get a diacritic symbol alone. --CiaPan (talk) 15:38, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, 68.129.153.226, we're all agog to know whether any of our suggestions have worked. Be honest. MinorProphet (talk) 17:35, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

I am on Windows 10 on Dell laptop. I have experienced this behavior and I suspect it started after some OS update.

But note that, when you wish to include anything in double/single quote, you must continue to type as usual. The double/single quote becomes visible only after you type any following character (not just single/double quote).

You may be already aware of it, but I thought if you don't know, it will be less frustrating experience once you know how it works. manya (talk) 06:04, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

December 13

Where can I find a thesis of recently released Gemini 2.0?

For Gemini 1.5, I find its thesis.

What about recently released Gemini 2.0? HarryOrange (talk) 21:53, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Here?  --Lambiam 21:55, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

OK That's Gemini 2.0 release information. HarryOrange (talk) 16:52, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

December 15

Questions About New Laptop Computer

My old laptop computer developed problems with the power, so that it wouldn't start when connected to regular line current. It would start when connected to high-amperage current in an electronics store, but that wasn't useful, and it was time to replace it after five years. I now have some questions about problems with a new laptop computer. The new laptop computer is an HP running Windows 11. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:43, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Cursor Jumping Randomly

Sometimes when I am typing in a Word document or editing Wikipedia in a source window, I discover that the cursor isn't where I think it should be. The cursor has jumped to somewhere else on the screen, apparently randomly. I have to do a Ctrl-Z to undo what I typed in the wrong place, and then move the cursor back to where I want it. If this is caused by line noise, how do I minimize the impact? How likely is that a new mouse would resolve the problem? Are there any settings that I should diddle with? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:43, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

First thing I would do is give the mouse and mousepad a good clean and disconnect and reconnect it. Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:14, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Possibly due to your hand brushing the trackpad while typing. If you have a mouse, you could experiment with disabling the trackpad: how to disable touchpad on hp laptop. Or even just try turning it off while typing. This erratic caret jumping used to happen to me a lot, too, when my laptop was new, until I found the key to disable the trackpad.

The term caret or insertion point is useful to exclude the mouse cursor (the pointer) from searches.  Card Zero  (talk) 12:54, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, User:Card Zero. I disabled the touchpad. For users who always use a mouse, the touchpad is a complication. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:06, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I now have a possibly useless question. The documentation referred to an option that disables the touchpad when there is a mouse, but the only option that I found in the settings is the option that always disables the touchpad. I would like to specify that the touchpad is disabled when there is a mouse, and enable it if there is no mouse. This makes very little difference because I will always use a mouse. Is it possible that that option isn't available on my computer? This isn't important. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:38, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Network File Sharing

With the old laptop, I had set up network file sharing, so that the laptop computer could view and edit files in shared folders on my desktop computer, a Dell, also running Windows 11, if they were both within range of my wireless router (and the desktop computer always is). The desktop computer could also access files in shared folders on the laptop, if the laptop was I have tried to set up network file sharing with the new laptop computer. I tried calling the technical support offered by the electronics chain that I bought the computers from, and I made seven calls to them, none of which worked, and I have concluded that their technical support people don't know what they are doing, and, worse, don't know the limits of their knowledge. Does anyone have advice on a book that will tell me how to set up network file sharing with Windows 11, that has neither too little nor too much information for a retired database engineer? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:43, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon Did you try this? TheTechie@enwiki (she/they | talk) 20:21, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

User:TheTechie - Thank you. That describes the basics, and describes what I had done successfully with the previous laptop computer. I need either a much greater level of detail, or a troubleshooting guide, or something like that. That was helpful in that it doesn't point out anything that I am doing wrong. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:31, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

December 19

Scanning all available streams

Hello there. I'm have a question: How to scan all available online streams from a specified server and port given? For example, I've found a Wowza Streaming Engine server at 115.79.46.164 and port 1935. I want to know which website or software can help me to find all active streams on this server. Thanks for reading. Ccv2020 (talk) 14:22, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

nmap -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 17:02, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

December 5

Birds with white cheeks

• 
  Silver-eared Mesia
• 
  White-cheeked Starling
• 
  Great Tit
• 
  White-cheeked Bushtit
• 
  White-cheeked Bullfinch
• 
  White-cheeked Bulbul

What is the evolutionary advantage - or purpose - of white "cheeks" on these disparate birds? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:54, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

In great tits, the immaculateness of the black border of white cheek patches predicted social status and reproductive success, but there was no clear evidence that it played a role in mate choice (Ferns and Hinsley 2004).

Bird Coloration, Volume 2 (p. 186)

Alansplodge (talk) 15:47, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Here's recent a review article about what's known about the genetics of bird color patterning. We know a lot less about this topic than about the genetics of patterning in insect wings. It strikes me that all birds follow that same general pattern scheme, with only the colors varying. So in a bird that is all one color, the scheme is there, but not apparent. As for the face, there are many selection pressures that could be occurring–or that might have occurred in the past–to be tested. First, if the pattern is found only in males, there's a good chance it is sexually selected (some trait is getting sexually selected for, but the face color might just be genetically or developmentally tied to it and just along for the ride). In some species, fights between males drive selection, and drawing one's opponents to peck somewhere other than the eyes would be strongly selected for. If female choice is strong, then costly-to-maintain signals are selected for. But there is also selection for confusing predators (such as about the size and position of the eyes), and for confusing prey. Finally, the feathers near the beak get a lot more wear and tear, so need to get replaced more often. Skipping adding color might make this process faster and/or cheaper. All this is guesswork on my part so make of it what you will. Abductive (reasoning) 19:09, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Time dilation

I can't seem to get a straight answer: How many parts per trillion between Earth's most time travelly places+where are they? (1 answer for all points a "stationary" non-"antigraviting" (i.e. helicopter/airship) human could be that exist now (i.e. Mammoth Cave/the Chunnel/2 WTC's temporary roof but not the much higher place the permanent roof's planned to be or 10ft below the deepest ice dig a human could put their body. Humans could theoretically go 10ft lower but not as is), 1 answer for if under liquids also doesn't count Mariana Trench=sea level)

Some ppl say everywhere on an equipotential surface has the same speed of time from the 2 dilations canceling out. So Everest+Mariana should be extremest? Or the Kidd Creek Mine if under liquids doesn't count. I haven't been able to reproduce cancellation with the formulae or calculators though. Some gravitational dilation calculators want distance to center which is NOT geopotential (Chimborazo's furthest, Arctic seabed closest, or North Pole if has to touch air), some want g-force???. It's not g-force unless that calculator only works for the surfaces of spheres. Earth's gravitational dilation's strongest at the base of the gravity well where you'd be weightless. Google AI dumbass can be made to say both ellipsoid+geoid for the equal dilation surfaces. Some human who might know says it's the geoid. Some probably different human I don't remember says it's only equipotential on one of rotating vs inertial reference frame. How the hell can it depend on reference frame? Clocks can't both be later than each other when they reunite (very slowly to infintesimalize kinematic dilation from the trip). Some clock pair has to be most disparate when they reunite. Maybe it can still depend in some way without violating this logic? Presumably Cayambe's the place with the most kinematic time dilation? Furthest point of Earth's surface from the axis. Presumably axis points avoid more kinematic time dilation than any other points of the planet? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:20, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Although the Earth can be considered a rotating sphere, I think the effect of its rotation on gravitational time dilation is small. Using the formula at Gravitational time dilation § Outside a non-rotating sphere, I compute that the fractional difference is about 1.1 × 10⁻¹⁶ per metre height difference (above sea level). The fractional difference of time dilation by the velocity difference between the poles and the equator is about 1.2 × 10⁻¹², so this will beat gravitational time dilation.  --Lambiam 02:41, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

How is Rainbow considered as application ?

How is Rainbow considered as application ? Source

I believe Rainbow is just a Rainbow, not a something to use. HarryOrange (talk) 22:42, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

The Okapi Framework has an app named "Rainbow", which we describe by, "Rainbow — a toolbox to launch a large variety of localization tasks." (Other than this I know nothing about Okapi and its app.)  --Lambiam 01:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

The link to the article about rainbows has been in the "applications" section from the start, in this edit, where the applications listed were Rainbow, Cosmic microwave radiation, Laser, and Laser fusion. The first two of those are phenomena, not technologies, so it's certainly unclear how to apply equations to them - with what end in mind? Subsequently Radio wave, Gravitational lens, and Black-body radiation joined the list. Although radio waves are phenomena there are many technological things we might seek to do with them, and in the course of trying to make things work we might need numbers that come from an equation. In other cases the application might simply be to obtain numbers, to study a phenomenon like radiation. But I agree, I can't imagine in what way we could even investigate a rainbow with these equations, and so I don't understand how it's an "application". I think it might be a reference to this Feynman lecture. Near the bottom is a discussion of rainbows:

“While I’m on this subject I want to talk about whether it will ever be possible to imagine beauty that we can’t see. It is an interesting question. When we look at a rainbow, it looks beautiful to us. Everybody says, “Ooh, a rainbow.” (You see how scientific I am. I am afraid to say something is beautiful unless I have an experimental way of defining it.) But how would we describe a rainbow if we were blind? We are blind when we measure the infrared reflection coefficient of sodium chloride, or ...”

Then

“On the other hand, even if we cannot see beauty in particular measured results, we can already claim to see a certain beauty in the equations which describe general physical laws. For example, in the wave equation (20.9), there’s something nice about the regularity of the appearance of the x, the y, the z, and the t. And this nice symmetry in appearance of the x, y, z, and t suggests to the mind still a greater beauty which has to do with the four dimensions, the possibility that space has four-dimensional symmetry, the possibility of analyzing that and the developments of the special theory of relativity. So there is plenty of intellectual beauty associated with the equations.”

So, OK. But it's tenuous, and would be better removed or explained.  Card Zero  (talk) 05:15, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

The disambiguation page for Rainbow treats the various uses of the word equitably without over indulgence in any isolated usage such as the artistic to the unfair extent of shunning the physical reality that the electromagnetic wave understanding of light is the physicist's most applicable tool and that for this its equations are fundamental. Philvoids (talk) 11:47, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

OK? But this question is about Electromagnetic_wave_equation#Applications (which is easily missed, since it's hidden under the word "source"). Should that really list "rainbow" as an "application"?  Card Zero  (talk) 12:37, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree not, and others in the 'Applications' list are also inappropriate ('black hole'?). Perhaps a further list of 'Phenomenon' (or similar) should be created? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 13:20, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

That's Black-body radiation, but yeah.  Card Zero  (talk) 15:03, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

That stuff was added on Feb 9, 2006,[2] by a user who's no longer active. But if their email is available, someone could try sending them a note. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:42, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

December 6

Geodesics for Massive and Massless Particles

In general relativity, do massive and massless particles follow the same geodesic? Why or why not? Malypaet (talk) 23:19, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

According to the Einstein field equations, the worldline traced by a particle not subject to external, non-gravitational forces is a geodesic. Each particle follows its own worldline. Two particles that share their worldline are at all times at the same location and so have identical velocities.  --Lambiam 08:46, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

A massless particle must follow a null geodesic and massive particle must follow a time-like geodesic (in my limited understanding). catslash (talk) 22:20, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

So a massive particle with a velocity infinitely close to that of a photon (under the influence of a massive object) will have a geodesic infinitely close to that of the photon, right? Or is there another explanation and which one? Malypaet (talk) 22:11, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I believe that is correct (perhaps there is an expert to hand who could confirm this?). catslash (talk) 23:42, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

In some frame of reference, the massive particle is at rest and so its spacetime interval along its geodesic is as spacelike time-like as can be (and thereby as non-null-like as can be for a non-tachyonic particle). So it depends on the point of view of the observer. Simplifying the case to special relativity and considering a particle traveling with speed $v$ in the x-direction, the spacetime interval $\Delta {s}$ between two events separated by a time $\Delta t$ is given by:

$(\Delta s)^{2}=(\Delta ct)^{2}-(\Delta x)^{2}=(\Delta ct)^{2}-(\Delta vt)^{2}=(c^{2}-v^{2})(\Delta t)^{2}.$

In frames of reference in which $v$ approaches $c,$ the interval can become arbitrarily small, making it experimentally indistinguishable from that of a massless particle.  --Lambiam 07:40, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@User:Lambian, could you re-read the spacetime interval section? I reckon that if there exists a frame of reference in which an interval is purely a time difference, then it is time-like, and if there exists a frame of reference in which the interval is purely a difference in location, then it is space-like. catslash (talk) 10:14, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I used the wrong term, now corrected.  --Lambiam 07:30, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

December 7

Source

The articles Radium dial and Radium Girls blithely speak of the element as though infinitesimal quantities of pure metal were employed, whereas the iron law of economics dictate that some partially processed yellowcake with a minuscule (and difficult to extract) percentage of some radium salt would be the raw material. Does someone have this information? Doug butler (talk) 22:02, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

The paint, marketed as Undark, was a powdery mixture of radium sulfate, zinc sulfide and phosphor.^[3] The young women had to mix this powder with water and glue before it could be applied. The radium-226 percentage had to be high enough to produce sufficient luminosity. For its pernicious effect, its chemical form is immaterial.  --Lambiam 23:19, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

the chemical form is mostly immaterial. Radium sulfate is insoluble enough that it's unable to get a hold in the physiology and so has only minimum effects. 176.0.131.138 (talk) 09:45, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Because radium is not an actinide it can be easily separated from the other elements. So the economic pressure is not to give away something to a customer what you can sell to another customer. 176.0.131.138 (talk) 09:52, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

December 8

Unit questions

1. How widely is the metric system used in the Philippines? Do people there use metric for both short and long distances? Is centimeter a widely used unit in the Philippines? Does Philippines use metric mass and volume units almost exclusively?
2. How widely is the metric system in former British colonies in Africa (Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho)? Are there still some applications for which some people might use imperial units?
3. How widely is the metric system used in Caribbean island countries? Do these countries use imperial system widely?
4. Is there any application that commonly uses fractions with metric units?
5. Can exact one-third of a meter be measured in most devices, as its decimal representation contains just repeating threes? --40bus (talk) 20:56, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

It's worth pointing out that item 5 is one reason the English System is preferable, because feet, yards and miles, as well as acres, are easily divided by 3. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:19, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

This Australian, having now worked with the metric system for two thirds of his longish life, has never screamed "I wish this unit was divisible by three!" HiLo48 (talk) 06:58, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Is there any metric unit, other than units of time, which is easily divisible by 3? --40bus (talk) 06:14, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

1 metre is easily divided by 3. A third of a metre is 1/3 meter. Do you mean 1/3 meter cannot be precisely written in decimal form? Just use fractions. problem solved. 2001:8003:429D:4100:186E:C147:C792:1055 (talk) 09:25, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

The Metric system article lists the basic units. For several of them, division by 3 doesn't seem like it would be all that useful. Temperature, for example. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:28, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

1. Have you read Metrication? The article says The Philippines first adopted the metric system in 1860 because of the Spanish Colonial government; imperial units were introduced by the American Colonial government; however, the metric system was made the official system of measurement in 1906 through Act No. 1519, s. 1906. US customary units still in use for body measurements and small products while the metric system is used for larger measurements; e.g. floor area, highway length, tonnage. Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:30, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

December 9

I'm collecting examples of a purely "physical property of a physical property" (of a body).

By (purely) physical property, I mean any measured property whose measurement depends on (purely) physical [dimensions usually measured by physical] units. A few examples of physical properties include: momentum, energy, electric charge, magnetic charge, velocity, and the like (actually the elementary particles carry plenty of purely physical properties).

However, by purely (physical property), I mean that it's not also a mathematical or geometric property, i.e. excluding: numeric value (size) of a physical property, density of energy ("density" is also a mathematical concept - e.g. in density of primes), center of mass ("center" is also a geometric concept), and the like. But I do consider velocity to be a purely physical property, because its description invloves (e.g.) the temporal dimension (which actually "flows" - whereas the way time "flows" can't be described by any mathematical equation. Anyway this "flow" is another issue I don't want to discuss in this thread).

So, for finding a purely "physical property of a physical property" (of a body), I've thought about one example so far: the physical units dimensions of any physical property.

I'll be glad for any additional examples. 2A06:C701:746D:AE00:ACFC:490:74C3:660 (talk) 11:22, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

The physical units in which physical quantities are expressed (such as erg, eV, foe, joule, therm) are somewhat arbitrary social constructions. The dimension of a physical quantity is a much more purely physical property. It is a point in an abstract vector space. One may argue that there is some arbitrariness in the choice of the basis of this space. The SI standard uses time (${\mathsf {T}}$), length (${\mathsf {L}}$), mass (${\mathsf {M}}$), electric current (${\mathsf {I}}$), absolute temperature (${\mathsf {\Theta }}$), amount of substance (${\mathsf {N}}$) and luminous intensity (${\mathsf {J}}$) as the basis, but other choices for the base physical dimensions span the same vector space.  --Lambiam 12:42, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I really meant "dimensions" of a physical property, thank you. 2A06:C701:746D:AE00:ACFC:490:74C3:660 (talk) 14:24, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

December 10

Proton decay and cosmic expansion

A friend's physicist father opined that the phantom energy causing more and more rapid cosmic expansion will never be as strong as the attraction of the strong force, so protons will not be ripped apart in the big rip. Be that as it may, if the phantom energy is counter to the strong force, however weakly, wouldn't protons, consisting of quarks held together by the strong force, have an increased rate of decay in the far future? I have heard that the theories that protons do undergo decay at all have not yet been supported by experiments, though. Rich (talk) 13:41, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

We have to suppose quite a few things to get to the question: suppose there is some form of proton decay, suppose there is phantom energy, and suppose that the phantom energy reaches some plateau before getting to an energy scale high enough to create a quark-gluon plasma. Would protons then decay at a faster rate? I don't think that's necessarily the case. Proton decay is not the same kind of process as making a quark-gluon plasma. I believe the answer depends on what kinds of operators lead to the hypothetical proton decay. --Amble (talk) 22:49, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, nice clarification of the issues. You've thought through the issues more clearly and knowledgeably than I did. That's a valuable answer. But having said that, is there more information available about current speculations and theoretical work by physicists concerning proton decay interacts with cosmic expansion? I can't be the only one wondering about it and many of the people wondering about it would be physicists.Rich (talk) 07:30, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

The nearest paper I came across is [4], but there "proton decay" actually means p⁺ → n + e⁺ + ν and not p⁺ → e⁺ + 2γ. --Amble (talk) 20:22, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

December 13

What is the most iconic tornado photo

Request for opinions
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
What photo of a tornado would you say is the most iconic? I'm researching the history of tornado photography for an eventual article on it and I've seen several specific tornadoes pop up over and over again, particularly the Elie, Manitoba F5 and the "dead man walking" shot of the Jarrel, Texas F5. Which would be considered more iconic? ApteryxRainWing🐉 | Roar with me!!! | My contributions 17:21, 13 December 2024 (UTC) At the top of this page is a bullet point stating "We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate": this reads to me like a request for subjective opinions. Perhaps you would like to consider what quantifiable and referenceable metric would answer what you want to know? Presumably you also want only real tornadoes considered? Otherwise some might nominate the the twister from The Wizard of Oz, or from more recent tornado-related movies – Sharknado, anyone? :-). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 18:07, 13 December 2024 (UTC) "Swegle Studios" has a couple of YouTube videos dedicated to the backstories of famous tornado photos and video; you might find them useful in your research. Photos, Videos. Matt Deres (talk) 18:40, 13 December 2024 (UTC) I googled "most iconic tornado photo" and a bunch of different possibilities popped up. I don't see how you could say that any given photo is the "most iconic". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:57, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

December 15

help to identify File:Possible Polygala myrtifolia in New South Wales Australia.jpg

possible w:Polygala myrtifolia in New South Wales Australia

Did I get species right? Thanks. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 06:56, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

related: https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikispecies:Village_Pump#help_to_identify_species Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 06:57, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I can't detect any visible differences between the plant in this photo and the ones illustrated in the species and the genus articles. However, the latter makes it clear that Polygala is a large genus, and is cultivated, with hybrids, so it's possible that this one could be a close relative that differs in ways not visible here, such as in the bark or roots. That may or may not matter for your purposes. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 10:11, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

How to address changes to taxonomy

Hi all, I am a biology student brand new to wiki editing who is interested in cleaning up small articles/stubs for less known taxa. One that I've encountered is a mushroom that occurs in the pacific northwest (Fomitopsis ochracea). The article mentions that this fungus is occasionally mistaken for another fungus, Fomitopsis pinicola.

However, the issue I've run into is that F. pinicola used to be considered a single species found around the world, but relatively recently was split into a few different species. The original name was given to the one that occurs in Europe, and the one in the pacific northwest (and thus could be mistaken for F. ochracea) was given the name Fomitopsis mounceae.

The wiki page says

Historically, this fungus has been misidentified as F. pinicola. When both species are immature, they can look very similar, but can be distinguished by lighting a match next to the surface of the fungus.[1] F. pinicola will boil and melt in heat, while F. ochracea will not.[1]

Since the source says pinicola (as likely do most/all other sources of this info given the change was so recent), and since technically it's true that they used to be mistaken for it... what would be the most appropriate way to modernize that section?

My questions are: Should I replace F. pinicola with F. mounceae? Or is that wrong because the source doesn't refer to it by that name? Would it be better to write something like (now known as/considered F. mounceae) next to the first mention of the species? Or is that a poor choice because it implies all the members of F. pinicola were renamed F. mounceae?

Any advice on how to go about updating this section is incredibly appreciated
TheCoccomycesGang (talk) 10:21, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

First, take these sorts of questions to the relevant Wikiproject, in this case Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fungi. I am not as familiar with the consensus at WP:FUNGI, but it seems like they defer to Species Fungorium/Index Fungorium and Mycobank to decide. Those sources presently seem to consider Fomitopsis pinicola a good species. Also, be careful about "replacing", there are rules to ensure the continuity of the article history. By the way, there is a hilarious but unencyclopedic/copyvio recipe appended to the Fomitopsis mounceae article. Abductive (reasoning) 11:09, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips, I didn't know about projects so I'll go read up on that. And thanks for the warnings about replacing things. I've been reading a lot of help pages, but I'm still in the process of learning the all conventions and what mechanics break if you do things the wrong way.

I actually saw the recipe ages ago before I made my account and completely forgot about it... it was one of many things that prompted me to get into wiki editing. TheCoccomycesGang (talk) 23:12, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Does stopping masturbation lead to sperm DNA damage?

I'm looking for information on the potential link between the frequency of ejaculation (specifically through masturbation) and sperm DNA damage. I've come across some conflicting information and would appreciate it if someone could point me towards reliable scientific studies or reviews that address this topic.

Specifically, I'm interested in whether prolonged periods of abstinence from ejaculation might have any negative effects on sperm DNA integrity. Any insights or links to relevant research would be greatly appreciated. HarryOrange (talk) 17:08, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Only males may abstain from sperm-releasing Masturbation that serves to flush the genital tract of old sperm that in any case will eventually dissipate. No causal relationship between masturbation and any form of mental or physical disorder has been found but abstinence may be thought or taught^{1 2 3} to increase the chance of wanted conception during subsequent intercourse. Philvoids (talk) 00:51, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

There's many rumors about that topic. One is that not ejaculating frequently increases the risk of developing prostate cancer. Abductive (reasoning) 01:02, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Nothing really conclusive but there's some evidence that short periods are associated with lower DNA fragmentation, see

• Du, Chengchao; Li, Yi; Yin, Chongyang; Luo, Xuefeng; Pan, Xiangcheng (10 January 2024). "Association of abstinence time with semen quality and fertility outcomes: a systematic review and dose–response meta‐analysis". Andrology. 12 (6): 1224–1235. doi:10.1111/andr.13583. ISSN 2047-2919.
• Hanson, Brent M.; Aston, Kenneth I.; Jenkins, Tim G.; Carrell, Douglas T.; Hotaling, James M. (16 November 2017). "The impact of ejaculatory abstinence on semen analysis parameters: a systematic review". Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics. 35 (2): 213. doi:10.1007/s10815-017-1086-0. ISSN 2047-2919. PMC 5845044. PMID 29143943.
• Ayad, Bashir M.; Horst, Gerhard Van der; Plessis, Stefan S. Du; Carrell, Douglas T.; Hotaling, James M. (14 October 2017). "Revisiting The Relationship between The Ejaculatory Abstinence Period and Semen Characteristics". International Journal of Fertility & Sterility. 11 (4): 238. doi:10.22074/ijfs.2018.5192. ISSN 2047-2919. PMC 5641453. PMID 29043697.

for example. Alpha3031 (t • c) 02:12, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Mature sperm cells do not have DNA repair capability.^[5] Inevitably, as sperm cells get older, they will naturally and unavoidably be subject to more and more DNA damage. Obviously, freshly produced spermatozoa will, on average, have less DNA damage. It is reasonable to assume that the expected amount of damage is proportional to the age of the cells, which is consistent with what studies appear to find. Also, obviously, the more the damage is to a spermatozoon fertilizing an oocyte, the larger the likelihood that the DNA repair in the resulting zygote, which does have DNA repair capability, will be incomplete. The studies I've looked at did not allow me to assess how much this is of practical significance.  --Lambiam 09:40, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

December 16

Abelian sandpile model

Thanks to those who answered my last question, I think it should be added to a disambiguation page. If anyone wants to help me write that, reach out.

A sandpile seems disorganized and inert, but these are critically self-organizing. Do the frequency and size of disturbances on sand dunes and snowy peaks follow power law distribution? Gongula Spring (talk) 01:18, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be at the Math Desk? Abductive (reasoning) 05:12, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

If the question is not about the model mentioned in the heading but about the physical properties of sand dunes and snowy peaks, this here is the right section of the Reference desk.  --Lambiam 08:51, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I await a non-mathematical answer. Abductive (reasoning) 09:23, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

It depends is probably a fairly reasonable non-mathematical answer for these kinds of systems. For sand dunes anyway, sometimes avalanche frequency is irregular and the size distribution follows a power law, and sometimes it's close to periodic and the avalanches span the whole system. It seems there are multiple regimes, and these kinds of systems switch between them. Sean.hoyland (talk) 09:35, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi, this is an interesting and somewhat open question! A lot of work is done on these models but much less on careful analyses of real dunes. I did find this dissertation that is freely accessible and describes some physical experiments and how well they fit various models. The general answer seems to be that the power law models are highly idealized, and determining the degree to which any real system's behavior is predicted by the model ahead of time is very difficult. Update: This is one of the earlier important works on the topic and it does include discussion of how well the model fits experiments.SemanticMantis (talk) 17:21, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Polar night

Are there any common or scientific names for types of polar night? The types that I use are:

• polar night - meaning a day when sun's altitude remains below horizon entire day (there is no daylight at solar noon, only civil twilight), occurring poleward from 67°24′ north or south
• civil polar night - meaning a day when sun's altitude remains below -6° entire day (there is no civil twilight at solar noon, only nautical twilight), occurring poleward from 72°34′ north or south
• nautical polar night - meaning a day when sun's altitude remains below -12° entire day (there is no nautical twilight at solar noon, only astronomical twilight), occurring poleward from 78°34′ north or south
• astronomical polar night - meaning a day when sun's altitude remains below -18° entire day (there is no astronomical twilight at solar noon, only night), occurring poleward from 84°34′ north or south

These names were changed on Polar night article, and I wnat to know whether these named I listed are in use in any scientific papers, or in common language. (And I posted that question here and not in language desk because I think that this is not related to language very tightly.) --40bus (talk) 18:56, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Some definitions at The Polar Night (1996) from the Aurora Research Institute. Alansplodge (talk) 22:55, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

These seem to be generalizable as: X polar night is a period, lasting not less than 24 hours, during which the sun remains below the horizon and there is no X twilight. The specific definitions depend then on the specific definitions of civil/nautical/astronomical twilight. These can be defined with a subjective observational standard or with an (originally experimentally determined) objective standard.  --Lambiam 10:36, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I as a former amateur astronomer have never previously thought about the question of Polar twilight and night nomenclatures, but immediately and completely understood what the (previously unencountered) terms used in the query must mean without having to read the attached descriptions. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 16:34, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

December 17

differential equations with complex coefficients

In an intro ODE class one basically studies the equation ${\dot {x}}=Ax$ where x is a real vector and A is a real matrix. A typically has complex eigenvalues, giving a periodic or oscillating solution to the equation. That is very important in physics, which has various sorts of harmonic oscillators everywhere. If A and x are complex instead of real, mathematically the ODE theory works out about the same way. I don't know what happens with PDE's since I haven't really studied them.

My question is whether the complex case is important in physics the way the real case is. Can one arrive at it through straightforward coordinate transformations? Do the complex eigenvalues "output" from one equation find their way into the "input" of some other equation? Does the distance metric matter? I.e. in math and old-fashioned physics we use the Euclidean metric, but in realtivity one uses the Minkowski metric, so I'm wondering if that leads to complex numbers. This is all motivated partly by wondering where all the complex numbers in quantum mechanics come from. Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:0:0:0:DA2D (talk) 22:54, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps I don't understand what you are getting at but simple harmonic motion is xdot=j*w*x where w is angular frequency and j is i Greglocock (talk) 00:35, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

If PDEs count, the Schrödinger equation and the Dirac equation are examples of differential equations in the complex domain. A linear differential equation of the form ${\dot {x}}=Ax$ on the complex vector space $\mathbb {C} ^{n}$ can be turned into one on the real vector space $\mathbb {R} ^{2n}$. For a very simple example, using $n=1,$ the equation ${\begin{bmatrix}{\dot {z}}\end{bmatrix}}={\begin{bmatrix}i\end{bmatrix}}{\begin{bmatrix}z\end{bmatrix}}$ can be replaced by

${\begin{bmatrix}{\dot {x}}\\{\dot {y}}\end{bmatrix}}={\begin{bmatrix}0&-1\\1&0\end{bmatrix}}{\begin{bmatrix}x\\y\end{bmatrix}}.$

 --Lambiam 01:11, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be at the Math Desk? It almost seems like the IP could be trolling, given the same question just above. Abductive (reasoning) 14:49, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

The question whether the complex case is important in physics the way the real case is, is not a maths issue. IMO the Science section is the best choice. I do not see another post that asks the same or even a related question.  --Lambiam 21:51, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Just as above, I await a non-mathematical answer to this question. Abductive (reasoning) 07:01, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks all. Greglocock, your SHO example is 1-dimensional but of course you can have a periodic oscillator (such as a planetary orbit) in any orientation in space, you can have damped or forced harmonic oscillators, etc. Those are all described by the same matrix equation. The periodic case means that the matrix eigenvalues are purely imaginary. The damped and forced cases are where there is a real part that is negative or positive respectively. Abductive, of course plenty of science questions (say about how to calculate an electron's trajectory using Maxwell's equations) will have mathematical answers, and the science desk is clearly still the right place for them, as they are things you would study in science class rather than math class. Lambiam, thanks, yes, PDE's are fine, and of course quantum mechanics uses complex PDE's. What I was hoping to see was a situation where you start out with real-valued DEs in some complicated system, and then through some coupling or something, you end up with complex-valued DEs due to real matrices having complex eigenvalues. Also I think the Minkowski metric can be treated like the Euclidean one where the time coordinate is imaginary. But I don't know how this really works, and Wikipedia's articles about such topics always make me first want to go learn more math (Lie algebras in this case). Maybe someday. 2601:644:8581:75B0:0:0:0:DA2D (talk) 07:25, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

December 18

Why don't all mast radiators have top hats?

Our mast radiator article describes a device called a "top hat" which increases the range for mast radiators that can't be built tall enough.

So, why would you bother building a mast radiator without a top hat? Couldn't you just build it shorter with the top hat, and save steel? Marnanel (talk) 15:00, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

The main source cited in our article states, "Top loading is less desirable than increased tower height but is useful where towers must be electrically short due to either extremely low carrier frequencies or to aeronautical limitations. Top loading increases the base resistance and lowers the capacitive base reactance, thus reducing the Q and improving the bandwidth of towers less than 90° high."^[6] If "reducing the Q" is an undesirable effect, this is a trade-off design issue in which height seems to be favoured if circumstances permit.  --Lambiam 21:41, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Name of our solar system

Is our star system officially called "Sol", or is that just something that came from science fiction and then became ubiquitous? 146.90.140.99 (talk) 22:06, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

It's called the Solar System, and its star is called Sol, from Latin via French. Hence terms like "solstice", which means "sun stands still" in its apparent annual "sine wave" shaped path through the sky. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:31, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Let's say to that claim. The star is indeed called Sol if you're speaking Latin, but in English it's the Sun (or sun). Of course words like "solar" and "solstice" derive from the Latin name, but using "Sol" to mean "the Sun" does seem to be something from science fiction. --142.112.149.206 (talk) 06:04, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

"Sol" is occasionally used to mean the Sun by astronomers. I feel like it is used in contexts where it is necessary to distinguish our experience with the Sun here on Earth, such as sunsets, from more "sterile" aspects of the Sun one might experience off the Earth. Abductive (reasoning) 08:56, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Being an astronomer myself, I don't think I've ever heard anyone use "Sol" outside of a science fiction context. --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:06, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Mountains

Why there are no mountains on Earth with a height above 10,000 m? As the death zone is about at 8,000 m, and above 19,000 m, there is an Armstrong limit, where water boils at normal human body temperature, it is good that there are no more mountains higher than 8,000 km than just 14, but if there were hundreds of mountains above 9,000 m, then these were bad to climb. If there were different limits for death zone and Armstrong limit, would then there be possible to have higher mountains? I have just thought that, it is not a homework? --40bus (talk) 22:29, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

There are mountains elsewhere in the solar system that are over 20km high. Given that some of those are on airless worlds, I don't think the air pressure has any bearing on it. 146.90.140.99 (talk) 22:57, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Multiple sources from web searching suggest the theoretical maximum height for mountains on Earth is around 15,000 m – the limiting factor is Isostasy; the higher (therefore more voluminous) a mountain is, the more its weight causes the crust beneath it to sink. The actual heights of mountains are a trade-off between how fast tectonic movements can raise them versus isostatic sinking and how quickly they are eroded, and tectonic movements do not last for ever. See also Orogeny. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 00:25, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

December 6

Is there anything that would prevent peforming Weil Descent on binary curves of large characteristics ?

The ghs attack involve creating an hyperlliptic curve cover for a given binary curve. The reason the attack fails most of the time is the resulting genus grows exponentially relative to the curve’s degree.

We don’t hear about the attack on finite fields of large characteristics since such curves are already secure by being prime. However, I notice a few protocol relies on the discrete logarithm security on curves with 400/500 bits modulus resulting from extension fields of characteristics that are 200/245bits long.

Since the degree is most of the time equal to 3 or 2, is there anything that would prevent creating suitable hyperelliptic cover for such curves in practice ? 2A01:E0A:401:A7C0:28FE:E0C4:2F97:8E08 (talk) 12:09, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

December 7

Mathematical operation navigation templates

RDBury is right, this discussion belongs at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
If anyone with some mathematical expertise is interested, I'd appreciate some additional input at Talk:Exponentiation#funny table at end. The question is whether our articles on various mathematical operations could use a navigational template (aka "{{Navbox}}"). Our Exponentiation article tried to use {{Mathematical expressions}} for this purpose, but it doesn't really work. I've created {{Mathematical operations}} as a potential alternative, but the categorization and presentation I've created is probably naïve. (The whole effort may or not be worth it at all.) —scs (talk) 00:36, 7 December 2024 (UTC) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics is a better forum for this kind of thing, since it's focused on Wikipedia's mathematical articles. --RDBury (talk) 04:07, 7 December 2024 (UTC) @RDBury: Excellent point. Thanks. —scs (talk) 13:49, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

December 8

For each positive integer $n$, which primes $p$ are still primes in the ring $Z[e^{\frac {\pi i}{n}}]$?

For each positive integer $n$, which primes $p$ are still primes in the ring $Z[e^{\frac {\pi i}{n}}]$? When $n=1$, $Z[e^{\frac {\pi i}{n}}]$ is the original integer ring, when $n=2$, $Z[e^{\frac {\pi i}{n}}]$ is the ring of Gaussian integers, when $n=3$, $Z[e^{\frac {\pi i}{n}}]$ is the ring of Eisenstein integers, and the primes in the Gaussian integers are the primes $p\equiv 3\mod 4$, and the primes in the Eisenstein integers are the primes $p\equiv 2\mod 3$, but how about larger $n$? 218.187.66.163 (talk) 04:50, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

A minuscule contribution: for $n=4,$ the natural Gaussian primes $3$ and $7$ are composite:

• $3=(1-\omega -\omega ^{2})(1+\omega ^{2}+\omega ^{3}).$
• $7=(2-\omega +2\omega ^{2})(2-2\omega ^{2}-\omega ^{3}).$

So $11$ is the least remaining candidate.  --Lambiam 09:00, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

It is actually easy to see that $7$ is composite, since $2$ is a perfect square:

$2=i(1-i)^{2}=\omega ^{2}(1-\omega ^{2})^{2}.$

Hence, writing ${\sqrt {2}}$ by abuse of notation for $\omega (1-\omega ^{2}),$ we have:

${\begin{alignedat}{2}7&=(3+{\sqrt {2}})(3-{\sqrt {2}})\\&=(2{\sqrt {2}}+1)(2{\sqrt {2}}-1)\\&=(5+3{\sqrt {2}})(5-3{\sqrt {2}})\\&=(4{\sqrt {2}}+5)(4{\sqrt {2}}-5).\end{alignedat}}$

More in general, any natural number that can be written in the form $|2a^{2}-b^{2}|,a,b\in \mathbb {N} ,$ is not prime in $\mathbb {Z} [e^{\pi i/4}].$ This also rules out the Gaussian primes $23,$ $31,$ $47,$ $71$ and $79.$  --Lambiam 11:50, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

So which primes $p$ are still primes in the ring $Z[e^{\frac {\pi i}{4}}]$? How about $Z[e^{\frac {\pi i}{5}}]$ and $Z[e^{\frac {\pi i}{6}}]$? 220.132.216.52 (talk) 06:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

As I wrote, this is only a minuscule contribution. We do not do research on command; in fact, we are actually not supposed to do any original research here.  --Lambiam 09:23, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Moreover, $-2$ is also a perfect square. (As in the Gaussian integers, the additive inverse of a square is again a square.) So natural numbers of the form $2a^{2}+b^{2}$ are also composite. This further rules out $11,$ $19,$ $43,$ $59,$ $67$ and $83.$ A direct proof that, e.g., $11$ is composite: $11=(1+\omega ^{2}+3\omega ^{3})(1-3\omega -\omega ^{2}).$ There are no remaining candidates below $100$ and I can in fact not find any larger ones either. This raises the conjecture:

Every prime number can be written in one of the three forms $a^{2}+b^{2},$ $2a^{2}+b^{2}$ and $|2a^{2}-b^{2}|.$

Is this a known theorem? If true, no number in $\mathbb {Z} [e^{\pi i/4}]$ is a natural prime. (Note that countless composite numbers cannot be written in any of these forms; to mention just a few: $15,1155,2491.$)  --Lambiam 11:46, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I'll state things a little more generally, in the cyclotomic field $\mathbb {Q} [e^{2\pi i/n}]$. (Your n is twice mine.) A prime q factors as $q=(q_{1}\cdots q_{r})^{e_{r}}$, where each $q_{i}$ is a prime ideal of the same degree $f$, which is the least positive integer such that $q^{f}\equiv 1{\pmod {n}}$. (We have assumed that q does not divide n, because if it did, then it would ramify and not be prime. Also note that we have to use ideals, because the cyclotomic ring is not a UFD.) In particular, $q$ stays prime if and only if $q$ generates the group of units modulo $n$. When n is a power of two times an odd composite, the group of units is not cyclic, and so the answer is never. When n is a prime or twice a prime, the answer is when q is a primitive root mod n. If n is 4 times a power of two times a prime, the answer is never. Tito Omburo (talk) 11:08, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

For your $n$, $n=3$ and $n=6$ are the same, as well as $n=5$ and $n=10$, this is why I use $e^{\frac {\pi i}{n}}$ instead of $e^{\frac {2\pi i}{n}}$. 61.229.100.34 (talk) 20:58, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, what is the class number of the cyclotomic field $Q[e^{\frac {\pi i}{n}}]$? Let $\gamma (n)$ be the class number of the cyclotomic field $Q[e^{\frac {\pi i}{n}}]$, I only know that:

• $\gamma (n)=1$ for $n=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,24,25,27,30,33,35,42,45$ (is there any other such $n$)?
• If $m$ divides $n$, then $\gamma (m)$ also divides $\gamma (n)$, thus we can let $\varphi (n)=\prod _{d|n}\gamma (n)^{\mu (n/d)}$
• For prime $p$, $p$ divides $\varphi (p)$ if and only if $p$ is Bernoulli irregular prime
• For prime $p$, $p$ divides $\varphi (2p)$ if and only if $p$ is Euler irregular prime
• $\varphi (n)=1$ for $n=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,24,25,27,30,33,35,42,45$ (is there any other such $n$)?
• $\varphi (n)$ is prime for $n=23,26,28,32,36,37,38,39,40,43,46,49,51,53,54,63,64,66,69,75,81,96,105,118,128,...$ (are there infinitely many such $n$?)

Is there an algorithm to calculate $\gamma (n)$ quickly? 61.229.100.34 (talk) 21:14, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Can we say anything special about every pair of functions f,g, satisfying f(g(x))=f(x) for every x?

Especially, is there an accepted term for such a pair?

Here are three simple examples, for two functions f,g, satisfying the above, and defined for every natural number:

Example #1:

f is constant.

Example #2:

f(x)=g(x), and is the smallest even number, not greater than x.

Example #3:

f(x)=1 if x is even, otherwise f(x)=2.

g(x)=x+2.

2A06:C701:746D:AE00:ACFC:490:74C3:660 (talk) 09:31, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

One way to consider such a pair is dynamically. If you consider the dynamical system $x\mapsto g(x)$, then the condition can be stated as "$f$ is constant on $g$-orbits". More precisely, let $D$ be the domain of $f,g$, which is also the codomain of $g$. Define an equivalence relation on $D$ by $x\sim y$ if $g^{a}(x)=g^{b}(y)$ for some positive integers $a,b$. Then $f$ is simply a function on the set of equivalence classes $D/\sim$ (=space of orbits). In ergodic theory, such a function $f$ is thought of as an "observable" or "function of state", being the mathematical analog of a thermodynamic observable such as temperature. Tito Omburo (talk) 11:52, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

After you've mentioned temprature, could you explain what are f,g, as far as temprature is concerned? Additionally, could you give another useful example from physics for such a pair of functions? 2A06:C701:746D:AE00:ACFC:490:74C3:660 (talk) 19:49, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

This equation is just the definition of function g. For instance if function f has the inverse function f⁻¹ then we have g(x)=x. Ruslik_Zero 20:23, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

If f is the temperature, and g is the evolution of an ensemble of particles in thermal equilibrium (taken at a single time, say one second later), then because temperature is a function of state, one has $f(x)=f(g(x))$ for all ensembles x. Another example from physics is when $g$ is a Hamiltonian evolution. Then the functions $f$ with this property (subject to smoothness) are those that (Poisson) commute with the Hamiltonian, i.e. "constants of the motion". Tito Omburo (talk) 20:33, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Thx. 2A06:C701:746D:AE00:ACFC:490:74C3:660 (talk) 10:43, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Let $f$ be a function from $X$ to $Y$ and $g$ a function from $X$ to $X.$ Using the notation for function composition, the property under discussion can concisely be expressed as $f\circ g=f.$ An equivalent but verbose way of saying the same is that the preimage of any set $B\subseteq Y$ under $f$ is closed under the application of $g.$  --Lambiam 08:54, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Thx. 2A06:C701:746D:AE00:ACFC:490:74C3:660 (talk) 10:43, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

IEEE Xplore paper claim to acheive exponentiation inversion suitable for pairing in polynomial time. Is it untrustworthy ?

I just found https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6530387. Given the multiplicative group factorization in the underlying finite field of a target bn curve, they claim to acheive exponentiation inversion suitable for pairing inversion in seconds on a 32 bits cpu.

On 1 side, the paper is supposed to be peer reviewed by the iee Xplore journal and they give examples on 100 bits. On the other side, in addition to the claim, their algorithm 2 and 3 are very implicit, and as an untrained student, I fail to understand how to implement them, though I fail to understand things like performing a Weil descent.

Is the paper untrustworthy, or would it be possible to get code that can be run ? 2A01:E0A:401:A7C0:152B:F56C:F8A8:D203 (talk) 18:53, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

About the paper, I agree to share the paper privately 2A01:E0A:401:A7C0:152B:F56C:F8A8:D203 (talk) 18:54, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

December 9

If the Mersenne number 2^p-1 is prime, then must it be the smallest Mersenne prime == 1 mod p?

If the Mersenne number 2^p-1 is prime, then must it be the smallest Mersenne prime == 1 mod p? (i.e. there is no prime q < p such that 2^q-1 is also a Mersenne prime == 1 mod p) If p is prime (no matter 2^p-1 is prime or not), 2^p-1 is always == 1 mod p. However, there are primes p such that there is a prime q < p such that 2^q-1 is also a Mersenne prime == 1 mod p:

• 2^19-1 is Mersenne prime == 1 mod 73 (p=73, q=19)
• 2^31-1 is Mersenne prime == 1 mod 151 (p=151, q=31)
• 2^61-1 is Mersenne prime == 1 mod 151 (p=151, q=61)
• 2^17-1 is Mersenne prime == 1 mod 257 (p=257, q=17)
• 2^31-1 is Mersenne prime == 1 mod 331 (p=331, q=31)
• 2^61-1 is Mersenne prime == 1 mod 331 (p=331, q=61)
• 2^127-1 is Mersenne prime == 1 mod 337 (p=337, q=127)
• 2^89-1 is Mersenne prime == 1 mod 353 (p=353, q=89)
• 2^89-1 is Mersenne prime == 1 mod 397 (p=397, q=89)

but for these primes p, 2^p-1 is not prime, and my question is: Is there a prime p such that 2^p-1 is a prime and there is a prime q < p such that 2^q-1 is also a Mersenne prime == 1 mod p?

• If 2^11-1 is prime, then this is true, since 2^11-1 is == 1 mod 31 and 2^31-1 is prime, but 2^11-1 is not prime
• If 2^23-1 or 2^67-1 is prime, then this is true, since 2^23-1 and 2^67-1 are == 1 mod 89 and 2^89-1 is prime, but 2^23-1 and 2^67-1 are not primes
• If 2^29-1 or 2^43-1 or 2^71-1 or 2^113-1 is prime, then this is true, since 2^29-1 and 2^43-1 and 2^71-1 and 2^113-1 are == 1 mod 127 and 2^127-1 is prime, but 2^29-1 and 2^43-1 and 2^71-1 and 2^113-1 are not primes
• If 2^191-1 or 2^571-1 or 2^761-1 or 2^1901-1 is prime, then this is true, since 2^191-1 and 2^571-1 and 2^761-1 and 2^1901-1 are == 1 mod 2281 and 2^2281-1 is prime, but 2^191-1 and 2^571-1 and 2^761-1 and 2^1901-1 are not primes
• If 2^1609-1 is prime, then this is true, since 2^1609-1 is == 1 mod 3217 and 2^3217-1 is prime, but 2^1609-1 is not prime

Another question: For any prime p, is there always a Mersenne prime == 1 mod p? 220.132.216.52 (talk) 19:03, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Neither question is easy. For the first, relations $2^{q-1}\equiv 1{\pmod {p}}$ would imply that the integer 2 is not a primitive root mod p, and that its order divides $q-1$ for the prime q. This is a sufficiently infrequent occurrence that it seems likely that all Mersenne numbers could be ruled out statistically, but not enough is known about their distribution. For the second, it is not even known if there are infinitely many Mersenne primes. Tito Omburo (talk) 19:23, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I found that: 2^9689-1 is the smallest Mersenne prime == 1 mod 29, 2^44497-1 is the smallest Mersenne prime == 1 mod 37, 2^756839-1 is the smallest Mersenne prime == 1 mod 47, 2^57885161-1 is the smallest Mersenne prime == 1 mod 59, 2^4423-1 is the smallest Mersenne prime == 1 mod 67, 2^9941-1 is the smallest Mersenne prime == 1 mod 71, 2^3217-1 is the smallest Mersenne prime == 1 mod 97, 2^21701-1 is the smallest Mersenne prime == 1 mod 101, and none of the 52 known Mersenne primes are == 1 mod these primes p < 1024: 79, 83, 103, 173, 193, 197, 199, 227, 239, 277, 307, 313, 317, 349, 359, 367, 373, 383, 389, 409, 419, 431, 443, 461, 463, 467, 479, 487, 503, 509, 523, 547, 563, 587, 599, 613, 647, 653, 659, 661, 677, 709, 727, 733, 739, 743, 751, 757, 769, 773, 797, 809, 821, 823, 827, 829, 839, 853, 857, 859, 863, 887, 907, 911, 919, 929, 937, 941, 947, 971, 977, 983, 991, 1013, 1019, 1021 220.132.216.52 (talk) 20:51, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Also,

• 2^19937-1 is Mersenne prime == 1 mod 2^16+1
• 2^521-1 is Mersenne prime == 1 mod 2^13-1
• 2^3021377-1 is Mersenne prime == 1 mod 2^17-1
• 2^2281-1 is Mersenne prime == 1 mod 2^19-1
• 2^21701-1 is Mersenne prime == 1 mod 2^31-1
• 2^19937-1 is Mersenne prime == 1 mod 2^89-1
• 2^86243-1 is Mersenne prime == 1 mod 2^107-1

but none of these primes p has 2^p-1 is known to be prime, the status of 2^(2^89-1)-1 and 2^(2^107-1)-1 are still unknown (see double Mersenne number), but if at least one of them is prime, then will disprove this conjecture (none of the 52 known Mersenne primes are == 1 mod 2^61-1 or 2^127-1), I think that this conjecture may be as hard as the New Mersenne conjecture. 220.132.216.52 (talk) 20:55, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, for the primes p < 10000, there is a prime q < p such that 2^q-1 is also a Mersenne prime == 1 mod p only for p = 73, 151, 257, 331, 337, 353, 397, 683, 1321, 1613, 2113, 2731, 4289, 4561, 5113, 5419, 6361, 8191, 9649 (this sequence is not in OEIS), however, none of these primes p have 2^p-1 prime. 220.132.216.52 (talk) 02:23, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

December 10

More on the above conjecture

Above I posed:

Conjecture. Every prime number can be written in one of the three forms $a^{2}+b^{2},$ $2a^{2}+b^{2}$ and $|2a^{2}-b^{2}|.$

If true, it implies no natural prime is a prime in the ring $\mathbb {Z} [e^{\pi i/4}]$.

The absolute-value bars are not necessary. A number that can be written in the form $-(2a^{2}-b^{2})$ is also expressible in the form $+(2a^{2}-b^{2}).$

It turns out (experimentally; no proof) that a number that can be written in two of these forms can also be written in the third form. The conjecture is not strongly related to the concept of primality, as can be seen in this reformulation:

Conjecture. A natural number that cannot be written in any one of the three forms $a^{2}+b^{2},$ $2a^{2}+b^{2}$ and $2a^{2}-b^{2}$ is composite.

The first few numbers that cannot be written in any one of these three forms are

$15,$ $21,$ $30,$ $35,$ $39,$ $42,$ $55,$ $60,$ $69,$ $70,$ $77,$ $78,$ $84,$ $87,$ $91,$ $93,$ $95.$

They are indeed all composite, but why this should be so is a mystery to me. What do $2310=2\times 3\times 5\times 7\times 11,$ $5893=71\times 83$ and $7429=17\times 19\times 23,$ which appear later in the list, have in common? I see no pattern.

It seems furthermore that the primorials, starting with $5\#=30,$ make the list. (Checked up to $37\!\#=7420738134810.$)  --Lambiam 19:23, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Quick note, for those like me who are curious how numbers of the form $-(2a^{2}-b^{2})$ can be written into a form of $2a^{2}-b^{2}$, note that $2a^{2}-b^{2}=(2a+b)^{2}-2(a+b)^{2}$, and so $2a^{2}-b^{2}=-p\Rightarrow p=2(a+b)^{2}-(2a+b)^{2}$. GalacticShoe (talk) 02:20, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

A prime is expressible as the sum of two squares if and only if it is congruent to $1\!\!\!{\pmod {4}}$, as per Fermat's theorem on sums of two squares. A prime is expressible of the form $2a^{2}+b^{2}$ if and only if it is congruent to $1,3\!\!{\pmod {8}}$, as per OEIS:A002479. And a prime is expressible of the form $2a^{2}-b^{2}$ if and only if it is congruent to $1,7\!\!{\pmod {8}}$, as per OEIS:A035251. Between these congruences, all primes are covered. GalacticShoe (talk) 05:59, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

More generally, a number is not expressible as:

1. $a^{2}+b^{2}$ if it has a prime factor congruent to $3\!\!\!{\pmod {4}}$ that is raised to an odd power (equivalently, $3,7\!\!{\pmod {8}}$.)
2. $2a^{2}+b^{2}$ if it has a prime factor congruent to $5,7\!\!{\pmod {8}}$ that is raised to an odd power
3. $2a^{2}-b^{2}$ if it has a prime factor congruent to $3,5\!\!{\pmod {8}}$ that is raised to an odd power

It is easy to see why expressibility as any two of these forms leads to the third form holding, and also we can see why it's difficult to see a pattern in numbers that are expressible in none of these forms, in particular we get somewhat-convoluted requirements on exponents of primes in the factorization satisfying congruences modulo 8. GalacticShoe (talk) 06:17, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Is any of this covered in some Wikipedia article?  --Lambiam 10:06, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

All primes? 2 is not covered! 176.0.133.82 (talk) 08:00, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

$2$ can be written in all three forms: $2=1^{2}+1^{2}=2\cdot 1^{2}+0^{2}=2\cdot 1^{2}-0^{2}.$  --Lambiam 09:38, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't say it's not covered by the conjecture. I say it's not covered by the discussed classes of remainders. 176.0.133.82 (talk) 14:54, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Odd prime, my bad. GalacticShoe (talk) 16:38, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Assume p is 3 mod 4. Suppose that (2|p)=1. Then $x^{4}+1\equiv (x^{2}+\lambda x+1)(x^{2}-\lambda x+1){\pmod {p}}$ where $\lambda ^{2}-2\equiv 0$. Because the cyclotomic ideal $(p,\zeta ^{2}+\lambda \zeta +1)$ has norm $p^{2}$ and is stable under the Galois action $\zeta \mapsto 1/\zeta$ it is generated by a single element $a\zeta ^{2}+b\zeta +a$, of norm $(2a^{2}-b^{2})^{2}$.

If (2|p)=-1, then the relevant ideal is stable under $\zeta \mapsto -1/\zeta$ and so is generated by $a\zeta ^{2}+b\zeta -a$, of norm $(2a^{2}+b^{2})^{2}$. Tito Omburo (talk) 14:43, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

December 11

Unique normal ultrafilter

So I'm supposed to know the answer to this, I suppose, but I don't seem to :-)

"Everyone knows" that, in $L[U]$, Gödel's constructible universe relative to an ultrafilter $U$ on some measurable cardinal $\kappa$, there is only a single normal ultrafilter, namely $U$ itself. See for example John R. Steel's monograph here, at Theorem 1.7.

So I guess that must mean that the product measure $U\times U$, meaning you fix some identification between $\kappa \times \kappa$ and $\kappa$ and then say a set has measure 1 if measure 1 many of its vertical sections have measure 1, must not be normal. (Unless it's somehow just equal to $U$ but I don't think it is.)

But is there some direct way to see that? Say, a continuous function $f:\kappa \to \kappa$ with $\forall \alpha f(\alpha )<\alpha$ such that the set of fixed points of $f$ is not in the ultrafilter no singleton has a preimage under $f$ that's in the ultrafilter? I haven't been able to come up with it. --Trovatore (talk) 06:01, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

December 15

What is the cause of this paradox?

I recently completed a calculus term, in which one of the last units involving how much one aspect of an object was changing in relation to time at a certain point, given the rate of change of another aspect. Many specific questions could be analyzed as a right triangle with one leg (the x) remaining constant and the other leg (the y) growing at a specified rate. When it came time to solve for the value of the dz/dt (the rate of the hypotenuse’s growth with respect to time) at a certain point, it ended up as less than the provided dy/dt. Here’s an illustration:

The x is the distance from me to a tower. This remains constant.

The y is the distance from the tower to a flying bird.

The dy/dt is the speed at which the bird is flying from the tower.

The z is my distance from the bird.

In this illustration, the distance between me and the bird is increasing at a slower rate than the speed at which the bird itself is flying. What is the cause of this paradox? Primal Groudon (talk) 19:43, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I do not see any paradox here. Ruslik_Zero 20:30, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

If the bird is between you and the tower (0 ≤ y < x), the distance between you and the bird is even decreasing: dz/dt < 0. By the time it flies right overhead (y = x), the distance is momentarily stationary: dz/dt = 0. After that, it increases: dz/dt > 0. This rate of increase will asymptotically approach dy/dt from below as the bird flies off into an infinite distance.  --Lambiam 00:34, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I think the issue here is that even though the rate of change of z is less than the rate of change of y, z never actually becomes less than y. You can see this graphically, for example, by comparing the graphs of y=x and y=√(x²+1). The second graph is always above the first graph, but the slope of the first graph is x/√(x²+1), which is always less than 1, the slope of the first graph. But this is typical behavior when a graph has an asymptote. As a simpler example, the slope of 1/x is negative, but the value never goes below 0 (at least for x>0). Similarly, the slope of x+1/x is always less than 1, but the value of x+1/x is always greater than x (again, for x>0). The graph of y=√(x²+1) is one branch of a hyperbola having y=x as an asymptote, and this looks very much like the x>0 part of y=x+1/x. In general the difference in rates of change can imply that that two quantities get closer and closer to each other, but this does not mean they ever become equal. This phenomenon is, perhaps, counterintuitive for many people, but the math says it can happen anyway. I don't know if this rises to the level of a paradox, but I can see that it might be concerning for some. --RDBury (talk) 09:39, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

For x > 0, the graph of y=√(x²+1) looks even more like that of y=x+1/(2x). For example, when x = 5, √(x²+1) = √26 ≈ 5.09902 is approximated much more closely by 5.1 than by 5.2.  --Lambiam 18:35, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

December 5

BAA

BAA ambiguous meaning in context of aviation in UK, could you please check the discussion here 🙏 Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 07:30, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

@Gryllida This is the humanities reference desk. Do you have a question on humanities? Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:15, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 10:20, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Gryllida, next time, I would suggest copying the question you want answered from Wikinews, rather than expecting people here to work out what you want to know.

As Wikinews has sources, I suggest checking them, e.g. The Guardian says BAA, which runs six UK airports, so in 2010 BAA [plc] was a company that ran six UK airports. TSventon (talk) 21:47, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Did you try BAA (disambiguation)? —Tamfang (talk) 20:55, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

UK politics/senate

Hi, is this factually accurate link Thanks. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 07:59, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

See above. Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:15, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 10:21, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Scipion-Virginie Hébert (1793-1830)

Block evasion
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The only daughter of Jacques-René Hébert was a repubblican, bonapartist, or royalist? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.56.174.231 (talk) 11:06, 5 December 2024 (UTC) This brief biography in French says that she was adopted as a one-year-old by an old associate of her father called Jacques Marquet who educated her with the aim of her becoming a schoolmistress. She maried a Protestant pastor called Léon Née (1784-1856) and both became leading figures in the pré-Réveil (we have an article on the Réveil which was an 1814 Protestant revival in France and Switzerland). They had five children, three of whom died early. She was later the vice-president of a society that gave Bibles to newly married couples. No mention of politics, but it seems that her interests were on a higher plane. Alansplodge (talk) 18:02, 5 December 2024 (UTC) can you if there are sources about her political ideas? 193.207.166.191 (talk) 18:20, 5 December 2024 (UTC) There are none. You can build hypotheses based on the facts that a) her father, Jacques-René Hébert was a promoter of the Cult of Reason, yet considering Jesus Christ a Sans-culotte (Jacques Hébert#Dechristianization, une religion sans base, fille d'aucune foi, ne procédant d'aucune révélation ) b) it is known that when she was two years old around her beside Jacques Marquet: "The child is surrounded by his uncle, Jacques Goupil, an invalid officer, Pierre Theuvenot, a ironmonger of the rue du Temple (section of Reunion), by Jean-Baptiste Gaignot, employed in the national domains, of the Guillaume Tell section, of Pierre-François Coignard, employee of the National Treasury, living in rue Denis, of his neighbour Joseph Barat, of Pierre François Joseph Guérin, printer in the rue du Temple, all sans-culottes friends of the family – the Revolution visibly offered many places in the New administrations, social advancement", c) she became an assistant teacher. --Askedonty (talk) 01:13, 6 December 2024 (UTC) Note that the Sans-culottes were not keen on any branch of Christianity, see Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution, so it seems unlikely that she would have followed her parents' political path. Protestants in France were a small minority that had been persecuted under successive monarchs before the Revolution. Alansplodge (talk) 10:23, 6 December 2024 (UTC) The author of this related blog is the opinion that Jacques Marquet himself might have been, at least, leaning toward protestantism. And the circumstances that are related are certainly convincing. --Askedonty (talk) 14:16, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

December 6

Provenance of some sculptures

There are a bunch of reliefs worked into the wall of the garden (rear) side of the former Casa Storck, now Frederic Storck and Cecilia Cuțescu-Storck Museum, in Bucharest. I can't tell whether they are older pieces collected by Frederic Storck (he certainly collected a number of such pieces; some are in the museum) or his own work, or a mix of the two. Clearly for some of these, if they are his own work they would have been imitative of older styles, but he was enough of a chameleon at times that I would not rule that out. (I had originally presumed they were all his, but I'm having second thoughts.) Wondering if anyone might know something more solid than I do; there is nothing in particular about this I've been easily able to find, except that they seem to date back at least very close to the origin of the building (1910s).

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
  Several more here

Jmabel | Talk 04:20, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Given my uncertainty, I've put these in a new commons:Category:Unidentified works in the Frederic and Cecilia Cuțescu Storck Museum that does not imply authorship by Frederic Storck. - Jmabel | Talk 04:28, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

No one with an idea on any of these? - Jmabel | Talk 19:13, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Georges Jacques Danton

Block evasion.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Are there any sites with the full biographies of their two sons Antoine (1790-1858) and François Georges (1792-1848)? An article in French can be found here. You'll need to access it through a library. Their basic biographical details are also available on various genealogy sites, but I expect you're looking for more than just that. Xuxl (talk) 16:02, 6 December 2024 (UTC) Can you search for others? Thank you. 87.5.237.18 (talk) 16:08, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

December 7

Why did Pippi Longstocking end up never getting married in her adulthood?

AKA her actress, Inger Nilsson. A lot of suitors would admire famous actresses and trample on each other to have a chance to court them, so a lot of actors and actresses end up getting married, but how come Pippi's actress never got married nor had kids after growing into an adult? --2600:100A:B032:25F0:1D7A:CC5D:1FC2:21E2 (talk) 06:17, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Do you know for certain that she wasn't/isn't married and/or has children? If so, from what source?

Some actors do not choose to make their private life public, so perhaps she was/is and does, and if not, many people (including my elderly single self) are simply not interested in getting married and/or having children. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 11:37, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

She's still among the living, so maybe you could find a way to contact her, and ask her that nosy question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:24, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

If she really could "lift her horse one-handed", I suspect even male fellow equestrians would be very wary suitors. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:35, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

As an adult, she has chosen to keep her private life private.^[7] So be it. --136.56.165.118 (talk) 19:48, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I suspect that famous actresses actually try to avoid suitors that admire famous actresses. They don't want to marry someone who is in love with a fake public persona created by the PR department of a studio. Not only actors and actresses, but also a lot of bakers, chemists, dentists, engineers and so on do end up getting married. Being famous does not help.  --Lambiam 13:05, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I imagine she particularly would not welcome suitors who admired her as a preteen. —Tamfang (talk) 20:47, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

December 8

Petosiris of Arabia

The rendering of פטסרי as Petosiris seems to take inspiration from the far-flung. Is this the same name? If osiris is Osiris, what's the pt pt? Temerarius (talk) 22:49, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

The source to which this is cited has throughout Peṭosriris. However, the transcription of Briquel-Chatonnet has pṭsry. Roche states the name means « qu’Osiris a donné ».^[8]  --Lambiam 18:33, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I may be mistaken, but wouldn't « qu’Osiris a donné » require פת?

Temerarius (talk) 03:39, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

December 9

Tribes and inceldom

One common saying in incel subcultures is that women are "programmed" to only have relationships with the 20% top men. This appears to be consistent (o at least not contradicted by) this phrase in the polygamy article: "More recent genetic data has clarified that, in most regions throughout history, a smaller proportion of men contributed to human genetic history compared to women."

Then again, while I've heard of modern tribes with weird marriage practices (for example the Wodaabe or the Trobriand people) I've never heard of tribes where 70% of men die virgins. Is there any tribe/society where something like that happens? (I realize that modern tribes are by definition different to Paleolithic tribes)90.77.114.87 (talk) 13:51, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

From what I've read in the past, it seems that hunter-gatherer cultures over the last 50,000 years ago probably tended to be mildly polygynous -- that is, certain men, due to their personalities and demonstrated skills, managed to attract more than one woman at a time into a relationship with them. (Usually a small number -- some men having large numbers of wives is associated more with agricultural civilizations, and women there could often have less freedom of choice than women in hunter-gatherer groups.) Everybody of both sexes is likely to be most attracted to high-status individuals, but under hunter-gatherer conditions, women also need help with child-rearing, which factors into their mating strategies. AnonMoos (talk) 14:19, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

P.S. Under the classic anthropological band-tribe-chiefdom-state classification system (on Wikipedia, covered in the vaguely named Sociopolitical typology article), most historical hunter-gatherer cultures were "bands", while the Wodaabe and Trobriand people sound more like "tribes". AnonMoos (talk) 14:26, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Worth remembering, though: who has "sanctioned" relationships is not necessarily equivalent to who actually has sex. - Jmabel | Talk 19:15, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

It has been said (in mammals at least) that each 5% difference in mass for males means that their harem (zoology) has one more female. The sexual dimorphism#Humans article says that human males are 15% heavier that the females (previously I had heard 20%), suggesting that the harem-holder has three mates (or 4, if the 20% is correct). But this does not mean that 75% of human males never had sex. Firstly, holding a harem is a dangerous, short term job if other animals are any guide, with the harem master regularly killed or overthrown. Secondly, in current polygynous human cultures and in polygynous animals, there is a huge amount of cheating. Evidence from animals shows that when females cheat, they are statistically more likely to produce offspring from that mating than from a mating with their main male. Abductive (reasoning) 11:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

It's doubtful that there were commonly "harems" at any stage of human evolution which is very relevant to modern human behavior. Gorillas have moderate harems of often around 3 or 4 females (as opposed to elephant seals, which commonly have a harem size in the thirties). Robust Australopithecines may have been similar, but modern humans are not descended from them. What we know about attested hunter-gatherer societies strongly suggests that during the last 50,000 years or so (since Behavioral modernity) the majority of men who had wives had one wife, but some exceptional men were able to attract 2 or 3 women at a time into relationships. Men having large numbers of wives (real harems) wasn't too feasible until the rise of social stratification which occurred with the development of agriculture. AnonMoos (talk) 16:50, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

How do we know that? Because the same evidence is that prior to 50,000 years ago, humans did have harems. Abductive (reasoning) 20:22, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Where can we find this evidence?  --Lambiam 08:31, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

A Recent Shift from Polygyny to Monogamy in Humans Is Suggested by the Analysis of Worldwide Y-Chromosome Diversity. Abductive (reasoning) 14:53, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Scattering in US elections

What does scattering mean in the context of US elections? Examples: 1944 United_States presidential election in California#Results 1886 United States House of Representatives elections#Mississippi. Searching mostly produces Electron scattering, which is not the same thing at all! Is there (or should there be) an article or section that could be linked? Cavrdg (talk) 14:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

If you click on the source for Frederick G. Berry in the 1886 election, then on Scattering on the following page, it says it's for those with "No Party Affiliation". Clarityfiend (talk) 14:44, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Presumably from the phrase "a scattering of votes" (i.e. for other candidates than those listed)... AnonMoos (talk) 15:52, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I suspect that the intended word is "smattering". Cullen328 (talk) 09:12, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

December 11

Shopping carts

Where were the first shopping carts introduced?

• shopping cart and Sylvan Goldman say the Humpty Dumpty chain
• Piggly Wiggly says the Piggly Wiggly chain and quotes the Harvard Business Review

Both articles agree it was in 1937 in Oklaholma. I believe that Humpty Dumpty is more likely, but some high quality sources would be useful. TSventon (talk) 11:55, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

It seems to be a matter of some dispute, but Guide to the Telescoping Shopping Cart Collection, 1946-1983, 2000 by the Smithsonian Institution has the complex details of the dispute between Sylvan Goldman [of Humpty Dumpty] and Orla Watson. No mention of Piggly Wiggly, but our article on Watson notes that in 1946, he donated the first models of his cart to 10 grocery stores in Kansas City.

The Illustrated History of American Military Commissaries (p. 205) has both Watson and Goldman introducing their carts in 1947 (this may refer to carts that telescope into each other for storage, a feature apparently lacking in Goldman's first model).

Scalable Innovation: A Guide for Inventors, Entrepreneurs, and IP Professionals says that Goldman's first cart was introduced to Humpty Dumty in 1937.

Make of that what you will. Alansplodge (talk) 13:30, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Absolutely. I remember that the power lift arrangement mentioned in the Smithsonian's link was still an object of analysis for would-be inventors in the mid-sixties, and possibly later, even though the soon to be ubiquituous checkout counter conveyor belt was very much ready making it unnecessary. Couldn't help curiously but think about those when learning about Bredt's rule at school later, see my user page, but it's true "Bredt" sounded rather like "Bread" in my imagination. --Askedonty (talk) 15:33, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

On Newspapers.com (pay site), I'm seeing shopping carts referenced in Portland, Oregon in 1935 or earlier, and occasionally illustrated, at a store called the Public Market; and as far as the term itself is concerned, it goes back to at least the 1850s. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

But perhaps referring to a cart brought by the shopper to carry goods home with, rather than one provided by the storekeeper for use in-store? Alansplodge (talk) 16:14, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

@Alansplodge, Askedonty, and Baseball Bugs: thank you for your help, it seems that the Harvard Business Review is mistaken and the Piggly Wiggly chain did not introduce the first shopping baskets, which answers my question. The shopping cart article references a paper by Catherine Grandclément, which shows that several companies were selling early shopping carts in 1937, so crediting Sylvan Goldman alone is not the whole story. TSventon (talk) 17:22, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Lilacs/flowers re: Allies in Europe WWII

At 53:20 in Dunkirk (1958 film), British soldiers talk about [paraphrasing] 'flowers on the way into Belgium, raspberries on the way out', and specifically reference lilacs. I imagine this was very clear to 1958 audiences, but what is the significance of lilacs? Is it/was it a symbol of Belgium? Valereee (talk) 21:40, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I think it's just that the BEF entered Belgium in the Spring, which is lilac time. DuncanHill (talk) 22:04, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

There are contemporary reports of the streets being strewn with lilac blossom. See here "Today the troops crossed the frontier along roads strewn with flowers. Belgian girls, wildly enthusiastic, plucked lilac from the wayside and scattered it along the road to be torn and twisted by the mighty wheels of the mechanised forces." DuncanHill (talk) 22:26, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Ah! That would explain it, thanks! Valereee (talk) 16:14, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

December 12

The USA adding a new state

If my understanding is correct, the following numbers are valid at present: (a) number of Senators = 100; (b) number of Representatives = 435; (c) number of electors in the Electoral College = 538. If the USA were to add a new state, what would happen to these numbers? Thank you. 32.209.69.24 (talk) 06:30, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

The number of senators would increase by 2, and the number of representatives would probably increase by at least 1. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:23, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Thus, to answer the final question, the minimum number of Electors would be 3… more if the new state has more Representatives (based on population). Blueboar (talk) 13:54, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

In the short term, there would be extra people in congress. The 86th United States Congress had 437 representatives, because Alaska and Hawaii were granted one upon entry regardless of the apportionment rules. Things were smoothed down to 435 at the next census, two congresses later. --Golbez (talk) 14:58, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Let me re-phrase my question. (a) The number of Senators is always 2 per State, correct? (b) The number of Representatives is what? Is it "capped" at 435 ... or does it increase a little bit? (c) The number of Electors (per State) is simply a function of "a" + "b" (per State), correct? Thanks. 32.209.69.24 (talk) 21:12, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

As I understand it, it is indeed capped at 435, though Golbez brings up a point I hadn't taken into account -- apparently it can go up temporarily when states are added, until the next reapportionment. --Trovatore (talk) 21:21, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I suggest that (b) would probably depend on whether the hypothetical new state was made up of territory previously part of one or more existing states, or territory not previously part of any existing state. And I suspect that the eventual result would not depend on any pre-calculable formula, but on cut-throat horsetrading between the two main parties and other interested bodies. {The poster formerly nown as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 21:21, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Nope, it's capped at 435. See Reapportionment Act of 1929. (I had thought it was fixed in the Constitution itself, but apparently not.) --Trovatore (talk) 21:23, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Oh, one other refinement. The formula you've given for number of electors is correct, for states. But it leaves out the District of Columbia, which gets as many electors as it would get if it were a state, but never less more than those apportioned to the smallest state. In practice that means DC gets three electors. That's why the total is 538 instead of 535. --Trovatore (talk) 21:58, 12 December 2024 (UTC) Oops; I remembered the bit about the smallest state wrong. It's actually never more than the smallest state. Doesn't matter in practice; still works out to 3 electors for the foreseeable future, either way, because DC would get 3 electors if it were a state, and the least populous state gets 3. --Trovatore (talk) 23:23, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

December 13

economics: coffee prices question

in news report "On Tuesday, the price for Arabica beans, which account for most global production, topped $3.44 a pound (0.45kg), having jumped more than 80% this year. " [9] how do they measure it? some other report mention it is a commodity price set for trading like gold silver etc. what is the original data source for this report? i checked a few other news stories and did not find any clarification about this point, they just know something that i don't. thank you in advance for your help. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 01:32, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Gryllida, they seem to be talking about the "Coffee C" contract in the List of traded commodities. The price seems to have peaked and then fallen a day later

• explanation here
• I googled "coffee c futures price chart" and the first link was uk.investing.com which I can't link here
• if you have detailed questions about futures contracts they will probably go over my head. TSventon (talk) 01:54, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

thanks. i see the chart which you cannot link here. why did it peak and then drop shortly after? Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 04:08, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Financial markets tend to have periods of increase followed by periods of decrease (bull and bear markets), see market trend for background. TSventon (talk) 04:55, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

source for an order of precedence for abbotts

Hi friends. The article for Ramsey Abbey in the UK refers to an "order of precedence for abbots in Parliament". (Sourced to an encyclopedia, which uses the wording "The abbot had a seat in Parliament and ranked next after Glastonbury and St. Alban's"). Did a ranking/order of precedence exist and if yes where can it be found? Presumably this would predate the dissolution of monasteries in england. Thanks.70.67.193.176 (talk) 06:49, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

The abbots called to parliament were called "Mitred Abbots" although not all were entitled to wear a mitre. Our Mitre article has much the same information as you quote, and I suspect the same citations. The only other reference I could find, also from an encyclopedia;

Of the abbots, the abbot of Glastonbury had the precedence till A.D. 1154, when Pope Adrian IV, an Englishman, from the affection he entertained for the place of his education, assigned this precedence to the abbot of St. Alban's. In consequence, Glastonbury ranked next after him, and Reading had the third place.

A Church Dictionary: A Practical Manual of Reference for Clergymen and Students (p. 2)

Alansplodge (talk) 21:47, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Sources differ on the order. There is a list published in 1842 of 26 abbots as "generally ... reckoned" in order here

The Church History of Britain Volume 2 (p.182) TSventon (talk) 22:15, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Are the proposed Trump tariffs a regressive tax in disguise?

I'm wondering if there has been analysis of this. The US government gets the tariff money(?) and biggest chunk will be on manufactured goods from China. Those in turn are primarily consumer goods, which means that the tariff is something like a sales tax, a type of tax well known to be regressive. Obviously there are leaks in the description above, so one would have to crunch a bunch of numbers to find out for sure. But that's what economists do, right? Has anyone weighed in on this issue? Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:0:0:0:327E (talk) 08:58, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

There have been many public comments about how this is a tax on American consumers. It's only "in disguise" to those who don't understand how tariffs work. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:34, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll see what I can find. Do you remember if the revenue collected is supposed to be enough for the government to care about? I.e. enough to supposedly offset the inevitable tax cuts for people like Elon Musk? 2601:644:8581:75B0:0:0:0:327E (talk) 22:36, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Import duties are extremely recessive in that (a) they are charged at the same rate for any given level of income; and (b) those with less income tend to purchase far more imported goods than those with more income (define “more” and “less” any way you wish). Fiscally, they border on insignificant, running an average of 1.4% of federal revenue since 1962 (or, 0.2% of GDP), compared to 47.1% (8.0%) for individual income tax and 9.9% (1.7%) for corporate tax receipts.DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 22:52, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Curious about your point (b); why would this be? It seems to me that as my income has risen I have probably bought more stuff from abroad, at least directly. It could well be that I've bought less indirectly, but I'm not sure why that would be. --Trovatore (talk) 00:02, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

More like, those with less income spend a larger fraction of their income on imported goods, instead of services. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:48, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Trovatore, most daily use items are imported: toothbrushes, combs, kitchenware, shopping bags. Most durable goods are imported: phones, TVs, cars, furniture, sporting goods, clothes. These items are more likely to be imported because it is MUCH cheaper / more profitable to make them abroad. Wander through Target, Sam's Club, or Wal-Mart and you'll be hard pressed to find "Made in America" goods. But, in a hand-crafted shop, where prices have to reflect the cost of living HERE, rather than in Bangladesh, prices soar. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 19:13, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Um, sure, but surely it's a fairly rare person of any income level who spends a significant portion of his/her income on artisanal goods. --Trovatore (talk) 06:03, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

PiusImpavidus, Every income strata (in America) spends far more on services than on goods. Services tend to be more of a repeated purchase: laundry (vs. washing machine), Uber (vs. car), rent (vs. purchase), internet (vs. books), etc. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 19:17, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Ron A. Dunn: Australian arachnologist

For Ronald Albert Dunn (Q109827858) I have given names of "Ron. A.", an address in 1958 of 60 Mimosa Road, Carnegie, Victoria, Australia S.E. 9 (he was also in Carnegie in 1948) and an uncited death date of 25 June 1972.

He was an Australian arachnologist with the honorifics AAA AAIS.

Can anyone find the full given names, and a source or the death date, please? What did the honorifics stand for? Do we know how he earned his living? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:54, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing Have you tried ancestry.com? For a start

A scan of the 1954 Carnegie electoral roll has

• Dunn, Ronald Albert, 60 Mimosa Road, S.E. 9, accountant
• Dunn, Gladys Harriet I, 60 Mimosa Road, S.E. 9, home duties

I can't check newspapers.com, but The Age apparently had a report about Ronald Albert Dunn on 27 Jun 1972 TSventon (talk) 14:49, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't have access to the former, but that's great. AAA seems to be (member of the) Association of Accountants of Australia: [10]. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:18, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

I accessed Ancestry.com via the Wikipedia Library, so you should have access. Newspapers.com is also available via the library if you register, which I haven't. An editor with a Newspapers.com account would be able to make a clipping which anyone could access online.

I agree AAA is probably the Australian Society of Accountants, a predecessor of CPA Australia. They merged in 1953 (source) so the information would have been outdated in 1958. AAIS could be Associate [of the] Amalgamated Institute of Secretaries (source Who's Who in Australia, Volume 16, 1959 Abbreviations page 9). TSventon (talk) 16:48, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Last time I tried, Ancestry wasn't working for WP-Lib users. Thank you again. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:50, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

There is a phabricator problem about loading a second page of results. My workaround is to try to add more information to the search to get more relevant results on the first page of results. TSventon (talk) 21:03, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Or perhaps someone at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request could help? Alansplodge (talk) 12:35, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

They already have at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request#The Age (Melbourne) 27 June 1972. TSventon (talk) 12:42, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Given his specialty, I suggest the honorific stands for "Aaaaaaaaagh It's (a) Spider!" Chuntuk (talk) 12:33, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

December 15

Schisms and Byzantine Roman self-perception

Did the three schisms between Rome and Constantinople tarnish Rome's reputation to the degree that it affected the Byzantine self-perception as the "Roman Empire" and as "Romans"? Including Constantinople's vision of succession to the Roman Empire and its notion of Second Rome. Brandmeister^talk 15:34, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Various maneuverings in the middle ages (including the infamous Fourth Crusade) certainly gave many Byzantines a negative view of western Catholics, so that toward the end some frankly preferred conquest by Muslims to a Christian alliance which would involve Byzantine religious and political subordination to the European West (see discussion at Loukas Notaras). But the Byzantines generally considered themselves to be the real Romans, and called themselves "Romaioi" much more often than they called themselves Greek (of course, "Byzantine" is a later retroactive term). AnonMoos (talk) 17:09, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I think these religious schisms had nothing to do with the secular political situation. In 330, before Christianity became an established religion that could experience schisms, Constantine the Great moved the capital of the unitary Roman Empire from Rome to the city of Byzantium and dubbed it the New Rome – later renamed to Constantinople. During the later periods in which the Western and Eastern Roman Empire were administered separately, this was not considered a political split but an expedient way of administering a large polity, of which Constantinople remained the capital. So when the Western wing of the Roman Empire fell to the Ostrogoths and even the later Exarchate of Ravenna disappeared, the Roman Empire, now only administered by the Constantinopolitan court, continued in an unbroken succession from the Roman Kingdom and subsequent Republic.  --Lambiam 10:48, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

In Ottoman Turkish, the term روم (Rum), ultimately derived from Latin Roma, was used to designate the Byzantine Empire, or, as a geographic term, its former lands. Fun fact: After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmet the Conqueror and his successors claimed the title of Caesar of Rome, with the Ottoman Empire being the successor of the Byzantine Empire. IMO this claim has merit; Mehmet II was the first ruler of yet another dynasty, but rather than replacing the existing Byzantine administrative apparatus, he simply continued its use for the empire he had become the ruler of. If you recognize the claim, the Republic of Turkey is today's successor of the Roman Kingdom.  --Lambiam 12:01, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

The Ottomans basically continued the Byzantine tax-collection system, for a while. AnonMoos (talk) 23:13, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Foreign Presidents/Heads of State CURRENTLY Buried in the USA

How many foreign presidents are CURRENTLY buried in the USA? (I am aware of previous burials that have since been repatriated) For example, In Woodlawn Cemetery in Miami, FL, there are two Cuban presidents and a Nicaraguan president.

Are there any other foreign presidents, heads of state, that are buried in the USA? Exeter6 (talk) 17:54, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

As far as I know, all 4 of the presidents of the Republic of Texas are buried in Texas, which is currently in the US. Blueboar (talk) 18:04, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Andrés Domingo y Morales del Castillo was President of Cuba in 1954-55 and died in Miami. Not sure where he's buried though.

Also Anselmo Alliegro y Milá (President of Cuba for a few hours on January 1, 1959) similarly went to Florida and died there.

And Arnulfo Arias, ousted as President of Panama in the 1968 Panamanian coup d'état, died in Florida (a pattern emerging here...)

Alansplodge (talk) 19:28, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

For ease of reference, the Woodlawn Cemetery in question is Caballero Rivero Woodlawn Park North Cemetery and Mausoleum, housing:

1. Gerardo Machado, president of Cuba from 1925 to 1933
2. Carlos Prío Socarrás, president of Cuba from 1948 to 1952
3. Anastasio Somoza Debayle, president of Nicaragua from 1967 to 1972, and from 1974 to 1979 (not to be confused with his father Anastasio Somoza García and brother Luis Somoza Debayle, both former presidents of Nicaragua, buried together in Nicaragua)

GalacticShoe (talk) 20:09, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Searching Findagrave could be fruitful. Machado's entry:[11] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:45, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Polish prime minister and famous musician Ignacy Paderewski had his grave in the United States until 1992. AnonMoos (talk) 07:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I guess not current, though... AnonMoos (talk) 01:12, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

You can find some with the following Wikidata query: [12]. Some notable examples are Liliʻuokalani, Pierre Nord Alexis, Dương Văn Minh, Lon Nol, Bruno Carranza, Victoriano Huerta, and Mykola Livytskyi. Note that Alexander Kerensky died in the US but was buried in the UK. Unfortunately, the query also returns others who were presidents, governors, etc. of other than sovereign states. --Amble (talk) 19:09, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I suppose we should also consider Jefferson Davis as a debatable case. And Peter II of Yugoslavia was initially buried in the USA but later reburied in Serbia. He seems to have been the only European monarch who was at one point buried in the USA. --Amble (talk) 00:13, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Manuel Quezon was initially buried at Arlington. DuncanHill (talk) 00:20, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

And of course I should rather think that most monarchs of Hawaii are buried in the USA. DuncanHill (talk) 00:27, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

If burial was the custom there. (I'd guess it was, but I certainly don't know.) --142.112.149.206 (talk) 02:50, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Royal Mausoleum (Mauna ʻAla) answers that question with a definitive "yes, it was". Cullen328 (talk) 22:04, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Antanas Smetona was initially buried in Cleveland, but then reburied elsewhere in Ohio. --Amble (talk) 06:36, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

To be specific, All Souls Cemetery in Chardon according to Smetona's article. GalacticShoe (talk) 06:51, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

There are a number of Egyptian mummies in US museums (List of museums with Egyptian mummies in their collections), but I can't find any that are currently known to be the mummy of a pharaoh. The mummy of Ramesses I was formerly in the US, but was returned to Egypt in 2003. --Amble (talk) 22:47, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

December 17

Geographic extent of an English parish c. 1800

What would have been the typical extent (in square miles or square kilometers) of an English parish, circa 1800 or so? Let's say the median rather than the mean. With more interest in rural than urban parishes. -- Avocado (talk) 00:05, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

There were tensions involved in a unit based on the placement of churches being tasked to administer the poor law; that was why "civil parishes" were split off a little bit later... AnonMoos (talk) 01:11, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Avocado As a start the mean area of a parish in England and Wales in around 1832 seems to have been around 5.6 square miles.

Source The Edinburgh Encyclopædia Volume 8. It also has figures by county if you are interested.

• p.494 38,498,572 acres, i.e. 60,154 square miles
• p.497 10,674 parishes and parochial chapelries
• Average 3,607 acres, i.e. 5.64 square miles TSventon (talk) 02:33, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you -- that's a starting point, at least! -- Avocado (talk) 13:14, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

But regionally variable:

By the early nineteenth century the north-west of England, including the expanding cities of Manchester and Liverpool, had just over 150 parishes, each of them covering an average of almost 12,000 acres, whereas the more rural east of the country had more than 1,600 parishes, each with an average size of approximately 2,000 acres.

OCR A Level History: Britain 1603-1760

Alansplodge (talk) 21:46, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

On the contrary , in England , which contains 38,500,000 statute acres, the parishes or livings comprehend about 3,850 acres the average; and if similar allowance be made for those livings in cities and towns , perhaps about 4,000.

An Essay on the Revenues of the Church of England (1816) p. 165

The point about urban parishes distorting the overall average is supported by St Ethelburga's Bishopsgate for instance, that had a parish of only 3 acres (or two football pitches of 110 yards by 70 yards placed side by side). [13] Alansplodge (talk) 21:46, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Oh, that's great info -- ty! I can't seem to get a look at the content of the book. Does it say anything else about other regions? -- Avocado (talk) 23:24, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

The OCR book doesn't mention other regions. I have found where the figure of 10,674 came from: page 112 of the 1816 essay has a note that Preliminary Observations ( p . 13. and 15. ) to the Popu-lation Returns in 1811 ; where the Parishes and Parochial Chapelries are stated at 10,674 . The text of page 112 says that churches are contained in be-tween 10 , and 11,000 parishes † ; and probably after a due allowance for consolidations , & c . they constitute the Churches of about 10,000 Parochial Benefices, so the calculation on p.165 of the 1816 essay is based on around 10,000 parishes in England (and Wales) in 1800 (38,500,000 divided by 3,850). TSventon (talk) 01:40, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

The primary source is Abstract of the Answers and Returns Made Pursuant to an Act Passed in the Fifty-first Year of His Majesty King George III, Intituled, "An Act for Taking an Account of the Population of Great Britain, and of the Increase Or Diminution Thereof" : Preliminary Observations, Enumeration Abstract, Parish Register Abstract, 1811 and the table of parishes by county is on page xxix. TSventon (talk) 01:46, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! -- Avocado (talk) 17:19, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

When was the first bat mitzvah?

Bar and bat mitzvah has a short history section, all of which is about bar mitzvah. When was the first bat mitzvah? What is its history? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 01:52, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, I am more asking when the bat mitzvah ritual became part of common Jewish practice. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 01:53, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Parts from Google's translation of he:בת מצווה:

As early as the early 19th century, in the early days of Reform Judaism, confirmation ceremonies for boys and girls began to be held in which their knowledge of the religion was tested, similar to that practiced among Christians. It spread to the more liberal circles of German Jewry, and by the middle of the century had also begun to be widespread among the Orthodox bourgeoisie. Rabbi Jacob Etlinger of Altona was forced by the community's regulations to participate in such an event in 1867, and published the sermon he had prepared for the purpose later. He emphasized that he was obligated to do so by law, and that Judaism did not recognize that the principles of the religion should be adopted in such a public declaration, since it is binding from birth. However, as part of his attempt to stop the Reform, he supported a kind of parallel procedure that was intended to take place exclusively outside the synagogue.

The idea of confirmation was not always met with resistance, especially with regard to girls: the chief rabbi of the Central Consistory of French Jews, Shlomo Zalman Ullmann, permitted it for both sexes in 1843. In 1844, confirmation for young Jews was held for the first time in Verona, Italy. In the 1880s, Rabbi Zvi Hermann Adler agreed to the widespread introduction of the ceremony, after it had become increasingly common in synagogues, but refused to call it 'confirmation'. In 1901, Rabbi Eliyahu Bechor, cantor in Alexandria, permitted it for both boys and girls, inspired by what was happening in Italy. Other rabbis initially ordered a more conservative event.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the attitude towards the bat mitzvah party was reserved, because it was sometimes an attempt to imitate symbols drawn from the confirmation ceremony, and indeed there were rabbis, such as Rabbi Aharon Volkin, who forbade the custom on the grounds of gentile laws, or who treated it with suspicion, such as Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, who in a 1950s recantation forbade holding an event in the synagogue because it was "a matter of authority and a mere vanity...there is no point and no basis for considering it a matter of a mitzvah and a mitzvah meal". The Haredi community also expressed strong opposition to the celebration of the bat mitzvah due to its origins in Reform circles. In 1977, Rabbi Yehuda David Bleich referred to it as one of the "current problems in halakhah", noting that only a minority among the Orthodox celebrate it and that it had spread to them from among the Conservatives.

On the other hand, as early as the beginning of the twentieth century, rabbis began to encourage holding a Bat Mitzvah party for a daughter, similar to a party that is customary for a son, with the aim of strengthening observance of the mitzvot among Jewish women.

 --Lambiam 11:23, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! Surprising how recent it is. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 21:51, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

December 18

Major feminist achievements prior to 18th century

What would be the most important feminist victories prior to the 18th and 19th centuries? I'm looking for specific laws or major changes (anywhere in the world), not just minor improvements in women's pursuit of equality. Something on the same scale and importantance as the women's suffrage. DuxCoverture (talk) 11:54, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any occuring without being foreseable a set of conditions such as the perspective of a minimal equal representation both in the judiciary and law enforcement. Those seem to be dependent on technological progress, maybe particularly law enforcement although the judiciary sometimes heavily relies on recording capabilities. Unfortunately Ancient Egypt is not very explicitly illustrating the genesis of its sociological dynamics. --Askedonty (talk) 16:25, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Before universal male suffrage became the norm in the 19th century, also male commoners did not pull significant political weight, at least in Western society, so any feminist "victories" before then can only have been minor improvements in women's rights in general.  --Lambiam 22:40, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Changes regarding divorce, property rights of women, protections against sexual assault or men's mistreatment of women could have have been significant, right? (Though I don't know what those changes were) 2601:644:907E:A70:9072:5C74:BC02:CB02 (talk) 06:09, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Intolerance by D. W. Griffith

Why did D. W. Griffith make the film Intolerance after making the very popular and racist film The Birth of a Nation? What did he want to convey? 174.160.82.127 (talk) 18:22, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

The lead of our article states that, in numerous interviews, Griffith made clear that the film was a rebuttal to his critics and he felt that they were, in fact, the intolerant ones.  --Lambiam 22:26, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Term for awkward near-similarity

Is there a term for the feeling produced when two things are nearly but not quite identical, and you wish they were either fully identical or clearly distinct? I think this would be reminiscent of the narcissism of small differences, but applied to things like design or aesthetics – or like a broader application of the uncanny valley (which is specific to imitation of humans). --71.126.56.235 (talk) 20:19, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

The uncanniness of the uncanny valley would be a specific subclass of this.  --Lambiam 22:29, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Yearbooks

Why yearbooks are often named after years that they concern? For example, a yearbook that concerns year 2024 and tells statistics about that year might be named 2025 Yearbook, with 2024 Yearbook instead concerning 2023? Which is the reason for that? --40bus (talk) 21:33, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

It is good for marketing, a 2025 yearbook sounds more up to date than a 2024 one. TSventon (talk) 21:45, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

One argument may be that it is the year of publication, being the 2025 edition of whatever.  --Lambiam 22:31, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

In the example of a high school yearbook, 2025 would be the year in which the 2024-2025 school year ended and the students graduated. Hence, "the Class of 2025" though the senior year started in 2024. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:42, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

The purpose of a yearbook is to highlight the past year activities, for example a 2025 yearbook is to highlight the activities of 2024. Stanleykswong (talk) 06:21, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

December 6

What is she saying (in Hebrew)?

The guy (Tzvi Yehezkeli, whose English is not too good) says in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDzWrFZszW0&t=1h12m54s (at 1:12:54): "We need his [Trump's] help to know our Judaism point (sic). You see sometimes you need the other to tell you where to go." Right then the lady (Caroline Glick) cuts him off with a saying (or a quote) in Hebrew which I couldn't catch. Can someone who speaks Hebrew figure out what she says? (The guy then agrees "בדיוק!"). 178.51.16.158 (talk) 01:52, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

אָ֭ז יֹאמְר֣וּ בַגּוֹיִ֑ם הִגְדִּ֥יל יְ֝הֹוָ֗ה

part of psalm 126:2. [14] trespassers william (talk) 03:14, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

the "Then they said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things" part. trespassers william (talk) 03:16, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

British Raj terminology

What terms would have been used by the British to identify an Indian person during the days of the British Raj? It's for an item I'm writing and in an ideal case, there'd be a term that today sounds dated and paternalistic, but maybe not horribly racist or offensive, as it's meant to highlight the age of the British speaker rather than insult Indians. What I'm going for is the kind of obviously dated stuff Mr. Burns sometimes uses on The Simpsons. Matt Deres (talk) 02:43, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Native. See for instance the opening sentences of Kim.  Card Zero  (talk) 07:23, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Coolie although some do not consider it offensive. See https://www.coolitude.shca.ed.ac.uk/word-%E2%80%98coolie%E2%80%99 196.50.199.218 (talk) 09:07, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Agree with Card Zero above, "native" was the generally used term. British officials sometimes adopted Indian clothing and customs and were said derisively to have "gone native".

"Coolie" was specifically a labourer and could be applied to Chinese workers as well.

An educated Indian who worked in the British administration was known as a babu (or earlier "baboo").

People of mixed British and Indian heritage were known as "Anglo-Indians", "Eurasians" or "Indo-Britons". Alansplodge (talk) 10:40, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

A more general term applied to anyone of first-degree mixed race (including Anglo-Indians) was "half-chat", meaning "Half-caste" or bi-racial. In some instances this could be intended perjoratively, but in, for example, the British army (where marriages between British soldiers and women from the countries they were posted to were commonplace), it was used purely descriptively, and was still current in the 1970s. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 13:13, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

About that Babu article ... should I change the Greek from papu to páppou? Then there's some Indian English going on in the phrasing of "the urban trend to call "babu" to girlfriends or boyfriends, or common-friends", in the "to call X to Y" construction and the term common-friends. Should I "correct" that, or leave it be? I guess it's still English, so maybe the usual "whoever got there first" rule applies, as well as the India-themed article context.  Card Zero  (talk) 11:37, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Another thing I noted is that it seems to read as if the Swahili word is cognate to the Indo-European examples, which is a bit oddly phrased for a wanderwort. I'm not entirely sure on how to rephrase it, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:12, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I've removed the entire passage. All those words from non-Indian languages are quite irrelevant to that article, and the claim that they are cognates is plain false, and all of it was of course unsourced. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:29, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Like Wakuran says - and I didn't know this excellent term wanderwort - they probably are really distant cognates, like mama, which usually means "mother" all over the world (or "breast", or "chew", or sometimes "father").  Card Zero  (talk) 12:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

They are actually not wanderwort cases but mama–papa words, a somewhat different category. Wanderwörter actually are related, via borrowing, which can often be historically tracked with some precision. Mama–papa words aren't related at all, but believed to be independently innovated in each language via parent–child interaction in early langauge acquisition. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:55, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Oh, OK. But it's like "no officer, I just happened to be passing the bank at the time and I wear this stocking on my head for fun, ask anyone." I remain suspicious.  Card Zero  (talk) 13:14, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

And how does Sally Brown's sweet babboo fit in? —Tamfang (talk) 21:14, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Very interesting; I always considered Coolie to be a pejorative for Chinese labourers, but it's clearly more broad than that. That could work - thank you! Matt Deres (talk) 16:03, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

In Sranantongo, kuli is a slur for Indo-Surinamese people. It is not used for Chinese Surinamese. Both ethnic groups were originally imported, under false promises, as indentured labourers.  --Lambiam 10:10, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I've seen the term "Hindoo" used in older literature. Its obviously related to the modern "Hindu", but from the context I don't think it was exactly equivalent, and I think referred more to race or ethnicity than religion. Iapetus (talk) 14:17, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Consider the term Hindustani applied to the macrolanguage that includes Urdu. — I faintly remember reading that a prominent writer of the Indian diaspora in Latin America was known there as el escritor hindú, which amused him because his ancestors were Muslim. —Tamfang (talk) 21:21, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Norwegian only has 4.4m speakers worldwide, and is on DuoLingo, but why does Kinyarwanda NOT show up on DuoLingo even though it has ~20m speakers?

How come DuoLingo gets to have Norwegian but not Kinyarwanda when there are over 10m more speakers of the Kinyarwanda language in the world than the Norwegian language?

And how can I / we get DuoLingo to add Kinyarwanda to their repertoire of available languages to train ourselves on? --2600:100A:B03B:6996:D13E:4CBE:EF0B:CD17 (talk) 23:22, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Norway is a rich, Western, European country with a big economic market and widespread digitalization. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:05, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

These are both questions for DuoLingo. There is a "contact us" button on their home page. Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:14, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Speakers of Bengali sometimes complain that it doesn't have enough worldwide cultural prominence for being one of the languages with the highest number of speakers (the "seventh most spoken language", according to our article), but it's mostly spoken in only two countries (Bangladesh and India), and is the main national language of only one of them (Bangladesh). The languages with more global prominence than Bengali are the national languages of powerful / wealthy nations, or are spoken across many countries. The factors mitigating against the global importance of Bengali operate even more strongly in the case of Kinyarwanda. Also, U.S. and European tourists are more likely to visit Norway than Rwanda... AnonMoos (talk) 00:15, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

English speaking visitors to Norway don't need to understand Norwegian. Norwegians almost all speak excellent English. HiLo48 (talk) 00:37, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

But according to Uti vår hage (Norwegian comedy sketch TV program) the Danes aren't quite so happy, even with their own language... MinorProphet (talk) 19:20, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

HiLo48 -- Even so, many people might want to avoid being the stereotypical English-only tourist in non-English-language country. AnonMoos (talk) 01:10, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

December 7

From German to English, please translate this catchy Pippi theme song?

Can someone translate the lyrics, please? Thanks in advance. --2600:100A:B03B:6996:D13E:4CBE:EF0B:CD17 (talk) 02:14, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Here you can read the lyrics in German and here what Google Translate makes of it.  --Lambiam 09:32, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

As a Swede, I must add that this is a translation from Swedish, with the rhytm slightly altered . [15], [16]. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:49, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Why do the lyrics have basic multiplication done incorrectly? --2600:100A:B051:1A2B:1962:BC0E:1BE6:A1A6 (talk) 20:34, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Because in-universe, Pippi is (in)famously depicted as having a horrible understanding of mathematics, she refers to the "multiplikationstabell" (multiplication table) as "pluttifikationstabell" ("muddlyplication table" or something)... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:14, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Pippi’s tendency to equate all school knowledge with “pluttification” (literally “fartification”) and her capacity to outsmart the teacher during her visit at school ridicules the quantification of knowledge and formal learning outside of any practical context.  Card Zero  (talk) 23:53, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I'd say that's a misunderstanding of the Swedish, fartification would be "pruttifikation" and "pluttifikation" would rather mean "tinyfication". As a noun, I guess "plutt" could also mean a small lump or chunk of something viscous, but it might be a somewhat strained interpretation. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 03:14, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

惑乱, thanks for your wonderful contributions. This here is a great explanation, and "muddlyplication" is a stroke of genius that's very hard to achieve in translations. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 15:15, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

What does the Greek varia indicate?

The character ` (Greek Varia) is represented by the Unicode codepoint U+1FEF.[17]. But what is it good for? BTW, it's not listed in the disambiguation page Varia. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 08:47, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

varia is a modern (?) transcription of βαρεῖα (bareia), the greek name for the grave accent (see also the odd redirect Bareia (accent)). --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:05, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

In Modern Greek referred to as βαρεία, also for use in other languages such as French. The original /b/ pronunciation already turned into a /v/ in Byzantine Greek.  --Lambiam 09:42, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence for this early transition is in the Cyrillic alphabet! —Tamfang (talk) 21:25, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

But of course - thanks, Wrongfilter! I now see that it's already in the disamb page.
That said, the current link to Greek_diacritics#Grave_accent_rule could probably be improved. Either to subsection Greek_diacritics#Accents or to Ancient Greek accent#Grave_accent or to Grave accent, but then the name “varia” should be added to the linked section.
Thanks also to Lambiam; i read your post after an edit conflict. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 09:59, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Okinawan and pitch accent?

Your article Okinawan language does not say a thing about pitch accent. Did you forget to mention it or does the language not have one? If the latter I would submit that pointing out the fact explicitly would make it clearer. There are Japanese dialects with no pitch accent. (For example the one spoken in Miyazaki). 178.51.16.158 (talk) 16:40, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

You ask "did you forget . . .", but the article has existed for over 20 years and has had (if I've got the maths right) over 300 contributors, so the absence of mention is suggestive.

On the other hand, web searching the question retrieves (for me) AI assertions (unreliable) that it does, but only a weak statement by a speaker that they think it does (not very convincing) and no positive human-written passage detailing it.

Our article on Ryukyuan languages (of which it is one) states (in more than one place) "Many Ryukyuan languages, like Standard Japanese and most Japanese dialects, have contrastive pitch accent" (or similar wording): of course, "many" implies "not all".

Overall, this seems to me to be inconclusive, and needing the input of a genuinely knowledgeable linguist. Anyone? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 18:00, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

"Okinawan is considered a lexical pitch accent language".^[18]  --Lambiam 23:33, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Featured articles that were deleted.

Hi. i was wondering if there are any featured articles that are not on the former featured article list since they were actually deleted. I see redirected ones but not deleted ones. Please let me know. Thank you. 50.100.44.204 (talk) 19:46, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure why this is on the language refdesk, but I remember spoo, which was originally a nice-looking page about the animal/foodstuff from the Babylon 5 universe. Jimbo famously hated it because it was poorly sourced (not sure it had any sources really), but I don't think he put his thumb on the scale, and it was later deleted by the regular process. It's been recreated as a disambig page. --Trovatore (talk) 19:55, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

December 8

Please translate from Korean to English, the lyrics to this beautiful-sounding song "Saranghaneun Iege"

What are the lines that the man sings, and that the woman sings? --2600:8803:1D13:7100:DF19:733C:C7D3:4BD4 (talk) 05:43, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

For a translation, see here. The two singers sing alternate lines of one running text; it is not a kind of dialogue between them.  --Lambiam 17:34, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

December 10

Ollning

I happened to come across this recent article on sv-WP. The word is also on Urban Dictionary [19] and Wiktionary [20].

Does this word exist in English or other languages? Or something close? Google translate on the sv-WP article suggests "woolling" or "wooling", but I don't know if that's valid. There's some logic in it, I'll say that. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:58, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

It's from ollon, Swedish for glans penis, calqued from Latin. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:26, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I knew that. But does a word for the act exist in for example English? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:15, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

An English hyponym is the verb dickslap.  --Lambiam 08:52, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

That is at least related, thanks. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:58, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

@Lambiam And thanks to you I just discovered Swaffelen. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:04, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Word for definition of requiring excellence

Is there a word for this type of problem. This is an example. A company wants excellent employees. They require that all applicants have a college degree with perfect grades. As a result, all applicants come from paper mill universities where you get a perfect grade just for paying for the course. Instead of getting excellence, the company gets worse employees than before imlpementing the rule that was intended to increase excellence. In general, I'm looking for a shorter way to say: The action you are implementing to get a good outcome will instead bring about the opposite. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 13:12, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

What's a word for an editorial comment disguised as a question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:30, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Backfire 196.50.199.218 (talk) 13:32, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Perverse incentive.  Card Zero  (talk) 13:37, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes. I got to that from Backfire, also Unintended_consequences#Perverse_results with many more examples of the type of thing I am trying to define. I will test it on a few people, but I feel that use of the word "perverse" will make it harder to understand than easier... a perverse result in itself. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 13:39, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

In general it could be an example of Goodhart's law or Campbell's law: when you make an indicator into a target, it stops being a useful target. More specifically, it could be an example of educational inflation or "credentialism", where educational degrees or credentials are used as a target that is particularly susceptible to being gamed. --Amble (talk) 17:58, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Another term that comes to mind (somewhat late!) is that the applicants are gaming the system, which redirects to letter and spirit of the law#Gaming the system. --142.112.149.206 (talk) 00:47, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

December 12

Italian surname question

What are some examples of Italian surnames ending in -i deriving from a notional singular in -io (and excluding -cio, -gio, -glio), like proverbi from proverbio? I know I've seen one or two but I can't recall them. 71.126.56.57 (talk) 04:17, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

A few pairs of a noun x-io coexisting with a surname X-i:

• acciaio – Acciai
• allodio – Allodi
• archibugio – Archibugi
• batocchio – Batocchi
• bottaio – Bottai

Although it is plausible that these surnames actually derive from the corresponding nouns, I don't know whether this is actually the case. Surnames may be subject to modification by the influence of a similar-sounding familiar word.  --Lambiam 08:12, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

December 13

Japanese

Are there any pure Japanese words in which ぴゅ (specifically the hiragana variant) is used? 120.148.158.178 (talk) 02:10, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

This list gives several examples of onomatopeia, mostly related to blowing winds and air. [21] 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 03:47, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

December 15

English hyphen

Does English ever use hyphen to separate parts of a closed compound word? Are the following ever used?

• New York–Boston-road
• South-Virginia
• RSS-feed
• 5-1-win
• Harry Potter-book

Neither Manual of Style nor article Hyphen mentions that, so is it used? --40bus (talk) 19:52, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I can think of situations where such expressions could be used, as a creative (perhaps journalistic) form of adjective, but it would feel a bit affected to do so: as if the writer was trying to draw attention to their writing. For example, if writing about a Germany v England football match and you knew your audience would understand the reference, you could say the match had a 5–1-win vibe throughout (the reference being this match in 2001). Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 20:04, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

My examples are nouns, not adjectives. In many other languages, this is normal way to use hyphen. --40bus (talk) 21:20, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Ah, OK; in English a noun would never be made in that way. Using a hyphen in that way would make it look like an adjective. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 21:51, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

In many other languages, a noun is like 5-1-win and an adjective is like 5-1-win-, with prefixed as 5-1-winvibe. And are there any place names written as closed compounds where second part is an independent word, not a suffix, as if South Korea and North Dakota were written as Southkorea and Northdakota respetively? --40bus (talk) 22:34, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Westlake might be an example of what you're looking for. GalacticShoe (talk) 22:54, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

But lake may be a suffix there. --40bus (talk) 22:57, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Personally, it seems strange to have lake be a suffix to north, but in any case what about Westchester and Eastchester? GalacticShoe (talk) 00:00, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand the question. Compound (linguistics) says that if it has a hyphen, it's a hyphenated compound. If it's a closed compound, it doesn't have a hyphen. Do you want a word that can be spelled both ways? Try dumbass and dumb-ass.

Your examples, if compounds, are all open compounds.

There's wild cat, also spelled wild-cat and wildcat. The hyphen may be present because a compound is being tentatively created, giving a historical progression like foot path → foot-path → footpath. Or it may indicate different grammatical usage, like drop out (verb) and drop-out (noun), also dropout.  Card Zero  (talk) 17:58, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Street names used to be, e.g. Smith-street, rather than Smith Street.

Why in English, street name suffixes are not written together with the main part, as in most other Germanic languages? For example, equivalent of Example Street in German is Beispielstraße, in Dutch, Voorbeeldstraat, and in Swedish Exempelgatan, all literally "Examplestreet". And in numbered streets, if names were written together, then 1st Street would be 1st street or with more "Germanic" style, 1. street. In lettered streets, A Street would become A-street. --40bus (talk) 21:54, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure. Lots of old place names are closed compounds, for instance the well known ox ford location, Oxford, and I think for the Saxons that included streets, such as Watlingestrate. So it's tempting to say that closed compounds went out of fashion through the influence of Norman French, which is the usual cause of non-Germanic aspects of English, but the Normans would have said rue, and somehow that didn't make it into English - yet they introduced the habit of keeping street a separate word? Maybe?  Card Zero  (talk) 07:06, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Years ago, here, I asked which of "instore", "in-store" or "in store" was the correct form. I don't remember getting a categorical answer. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:33, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2007_March_12#In_Store, and see also Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2010_May_12#Merging_of_expressions_into_single_words. DuncanHill (talk) 19:37, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

When were street names hyphenated? I'd like to see an example of that, I've never noticed it.  Card Zero  (talk) 06:28, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

At least until the 19th-century apparently - see examples from Oxford. Mikenorton (talk) 11:22, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Neat. I also found Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate, which in 1505 was Whitnourwhatnourgate.  Card Zero  (talk) 16:56, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Korean romanization question (by 40bus)

In Revised Romanization, are there ever situations where there is same vowel twice in a row? Does Korean have any such hiatuses? Would following made-up words be correct according to Korean phonotactics?

• 구울 guul
• 으읍 eueup
• 시이마 siima

--40bus (talk) 19:57, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Sure, having the same vowel twice in a row is pretty common. The word 구울 is a real word that means "to be baked": see wikt:굽다. That's not really a question about Revised Romanization, though. --Amble (talk) 19:47, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

December 16

Ancient Greek letter rho and Latin letters rh

Question #1:

The initial letter rho of Ancient Greek (which always carried a rough breathing) was transcribed in Latin as 'rh', 'r' for the letter and 'h' for the rough breathing. It was not transcribed 'hr' which would be just as logical.

On the other hand, in the case of a rough breathing before a vowel the Latin 'h' which transcribes the rough breathing preceded the vowel: for example an alpha with a rough breathing would be transcribed in Latin as 'ha' not 'ah'.

How can that inconsistency in the way the rough breathing was transcribed in these two cases in Latin be explained?

Question #2:

There are also cases of 'rh' in Latin which do not transcribe a rho with a rough breathing. There are even cases of medial 'rh' which obviously could never transcribe an initial rho in Greek, for example 'arrha' ('pledge, deposit, down payment').

What are those 'rh'? Do they always occur after 'rr' or 'double r' (as in the example)? Are there 'rr' that are not followed by an 'h'? In other words is this 'h' simply a spelling device indicating some peculiarity of the pronunciation of the 'rr'? Or are 'r' and 'rh' (or possibly 'rr' and 'rrh') two different phonemes in Latin?

178.51.16.158 (talk) 02:01, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

A likely explanation for the inconsistency is that when such things were first devised by somebody, they weren't working to already-set rules, and went with the first idea that came to them, which might well have been inconsistent with similar things thought up by someone else, somewhere else, at some other time, that they didn't know about. This is a major difference between the evolutions of 'natural' languages and writing systems, and the creations of conlangs and their scripts (and also 'real' solo-constructed scripts such as Glagolitic).

Similar processes explain a lot of the frankly bonkers nomenclatures used in modern physics, etc., where someone makes up 'placeholder' names intending to replace them with something better, but never gets round to doing so, and others take them up. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 04:43, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

40bus -- Latin alphabet "rh" fit in with other digraphs used when transcribing Greek into Latin, namely "th", "ph", and "ch". The sequence "hr" would only make sense if a rho with a rough breathing meant a sequence of two sounds "h"+"r", which I highly doubt. As for medial doubled -rr-, it also had a rough breathing over one or both rhos in some orthographic practices, which is included in some transcriptions -- i.e. diarrhea -- and ignored in others. By the way, words beginning with upsilon generally had a rough breathing also. AnonMoos (talk) 06:59, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

A simple consistent rule is that the Latin ⟨h⟩ in transliterated Greek words immediately precedes a vowel or, exceptionally, another ⟨h⟩ digraph (as in chthonic and phthisis).

BTW, if a double rho is adorned with breathing marks, the first of the pair is marked with smooth breathing, as in διάῤῥοια.^[22]  --Lambiam 10:11, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

That's most standard. I was looking at Goodwin and Gluck's "Greek Grammar", and it seemed that they had rough breathings over both rhos in an intervocalic doubled rho, but on looking closer, the first one is actually a smooth breathing, as you describe... AnonMoos (talk) 10:44, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

According to Wiktionary, latin arrha is from Greek, originally from Semitic: wikt:arrha#Latin. So it still has to do with how Greek words were borrowed into Latin, not to do with native Latin phonetics. --Amble (talk) 15:35, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

English full stop

Can ordinal numbers in English be abbreviate with full stop, like 4. time (4th time) or 52. floor (52nd floor)? And does English ever abbreviate words with full stop to save space, similarly to many other languages, like in table columns, where e.g. Submitted Proposals -> Subm. Prop. would occur? There are some established full-stop abbreviations like US state abbreviations, but are there any temporary abbreviations which are used only when space is limited. And can full stops be used in dates like 16. December 2024? --40bus (talk) 21:58, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

In some situations words are abbreviated with full stops, but in my experience they are never used with numbers in the way you suggest. HiLo48 (talk) 22:36, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In British English, no to ordinal numbers (as far as I know), yes to abbreviations (for instance Asst. means Assistant in many titles, like this example), and yes for dates but only when fully numerical (today's date can be expressed as 16.12.24 - see this example from New Zealand, although a slash is more common, 16/12/24). Alansplodge (talk) 22:43, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

In some cases, Romance languages use ª , º abbreviations, but English has a whole series of special two-letter endings for the purpose: -st, -nd, -rd, -th... AnonMoos (talk) 01:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

In certain contexts a slight re-ordering may result in needing no ordinal indication at all: "Manhole 69", "Track 12", "Coitus 80" (all titles of J. G. Ballard short stories, by the way); "Floor 17", "Level 42", etc. This however might fall outside the scope of your query. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 03:16, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Afaiknew only German uses 4. for 4th. But see wikt:4. which says 4. is an abbreviation of vierte (=fourth), but also lists several other languages where it means 4th. 213.126.69.28 (talk) 13:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

So does Turkish. "4. denemede başardı..."^[23] means "She succeeded on the 4th try...".  --Lambiam 18:56, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

In addition to the Romance superscripts, U S English has a special one-letter ending, seen for example in 14 Cal. App. 3d 289, which expands as "Volume 14 of the report of the California Court of Appeal cases, third series, page 289. 2A02:C7C:F0FB:B100:35EE:833D:15C4:3462 (talk) 19:01, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

December 17

Some questions

1. Are there any words in English where yod-coalescense appears with a stressed vowel?
2. Are ranges of times in English-speaking countries ever presented as: 7-21, 12-18, with 24-hour clock? Would most English speakers understand "7-21" to be a range of clock times?
3. Why does English not say "Clock is five", but "It is five"? In most other Germanic languages, as well as in some Uralic languages, word "clock" appears in this expression, such as in German er ist fünf Uhr, Swedish Klockan är fem, Finnish Kello on viisi.
4. Do most English speakers say that it is "seven" when time is 7:59? I think that it is "seven" when hour number is 7.
5. Are there any words in English where ⟨t⟩ is pronounced in words ending in -quet?
6. Why has Hungarian never adopted Czech convention to use carons to denote postalveolar and palatal sounds?
7. Are there any Latinates in English that have letter K before A, O and U?
8. Can it and they be used as distal demonstrative pronouns in English?

(More to come) --40bus (talk) 06:32, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

3. Quick note that the German phrase given doesn't seem to directly use the meaning of "clock" (although of course noting the clock meaning of wikt:Uhr#German) GalacticShoe (talk) 08:12, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. Also compare Dutch “Het is vijf uur,” where uur can only be translated as hour(s), not clock. The German and Dutch phrases can be calqued into English as “It's five hours.” (Dutch and German normally don't use the plural of units of measurement.) PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:42, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

3. "It is five" or "It is five o'clock" would probably be in response to "What time is it?" If you responded "Clock is five", you would probably get some weird looks. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:59, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

4. If the time is 7:59, you wouldn't say it is "seven" - you would either give the exact time or else say "it's almost eight [o'clock]". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:59, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

5. Banquet I think everywhere, racquet in UK spelling, and sobriquet and tourniquet in American English pronunciation. GalacticShoe (talk) 08:11, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

6. You should ask the Hungarians that question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:05, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

3. Note that "it is five" is short for "it is five o'clock", itself shortened from "it is five of the clock".^[24]  --Lambiam 11:05, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Once again, the "why" questions aren't really answerable. There is almost certainly no underlying reason (no "why") that explains what happened. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:47, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

7. Kalends

Are there any Latinates in English that have letter K before A, O and U that were spelled with letter C in Latin (and possibly in French too)? --40bus (talk) 20:11, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Kale evolved from Northern Middle English cale, cal, and ultimately derives from Latin caulis. As for ko and ku, I can't really think of any common English words that start with them and are not obviously of non-Latinate origin (e.g. koala, kukri.) GalacticShoe (talk) 05:22, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

1. To quote our article Phonological history of English consonant clusters, "In certain English accents, yod-coalescence also occurs in stressed syllables, as in tune and dune". ColinFine (talk) 16:33, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

2. No it's not used like that in the UK. I imagine that most people would guess that 7-21 would mean 07:21 (21 minutes past 7 am). I think 07:00 - 21:00 would be understood however, but in normal speech one would use "7 am to 9 pm", in the UK at least.

Alansplodge (talk) 22:19, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Do English speakers ever refer an hour from 21:00 to 22:00 as "twenty-one"? Is there any English-speaking country where 24-hour clock predominates in writing, and 12-hour clock is used orally at most, but 24-hour clock is common orally too?

They may refer to 21:00 (9 pm) as "21 hours" or "twenty-one hours",^[25][26][27] but this means a time of the day, not a period lasting one hour. The one-hour period from 14:00 to 15:00 will most commonly be referred to as "from 2 to 3 pm" or "between 2 and 3 pm". Similarly, one may use "from 21 to 22 hours".^[28]  --Lambiam 11:38, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

A phrase such as "during the 5 o'clock hour" is sometimes used to denote the period from 5 o'clock until 6 o'clock. At least around where I live in NC.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:06, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

2. Not really no. 24 hour time is not in general use in the United States and is only vaguely familiar to most people. It is used in military and hospital contexts where people are expected to learn it. But it is not used for transportation timetables, broadcast announcements, or really any communications designed for the general public. An American adult can generally function perfectly well without being able to use or recognize 24 hour clock references. Eluchil404 (talk) 07:39, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

English H

1. Why English uses letter H in words such as bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah and Utah? In the first two, the ⟨ah⟩ is pronounced as a schwa, so the spelling without H would be more logical (as spelling with H would indicate a long [ɑː] sound). But why Utah has letter H, why it isn't just Uta?
2. Why English uses ⟨ph⟩ instead of ⟨f⟩ in many words to indicate Greco-Latin Φ/ph? Why is it philosophy, phone, photograph, -phobia and not filosofy, fone, fotograf, -fobia?

--40bus (talk) 20:33, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

(posting by banned user removed.)

In Portuguese, /s/ between two vowels becomes /z/, so spelling or "Brazil" with Z approximates the original word more closely. --40bus (talk) 20:54, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

1. Mitzvah is a transliteration from Hebrew.[29] Here's a theory on Utah.[30] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

2. Here is some info on the photo- prefix.[31] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

2. Blame the Romans for the "ph", see Why does “ph” make an “f” sound?. Added to that, English spelling is not phonetic but conservative and tends to preserve the original regardless of current pronunciation. Alansplodge (talk) 22:12, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

The Romans are to blame, according to that article, because, when the pronunciation changed from /p^h/ to /f/ and the spelling no longer matched the original pronunciation, they "decided not to change the way it is written in Latin". I wonder, who decided this, the Roman Emperor, or the Senate, or was a plebiscite held? Is it known when this decision was made?  --Lambiam 10:24, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Some languages have chosen to respell "ph" as "f" -- see https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fotografia and related Wiktionary entries -- but French, which has cultural ties to English, hasn't, nor has English. There's not really any central body in charge of spelling in the English-speaking world which could propose or enact such a change... AnonMoos (talk) 23:19, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

One slightly odd (IMO) example is the Cypriot city of Πάφος, which was traditionally (and internationally generally still is) transliterated as Paphos, but is locally transliterated as Pafos. Iapetus (talk) 09:54, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

That may have to do with Turkish orthography (Cyprus is bilingual, half Greek, half Turkish), which is rather consistently fonetik. An occurrence of ⟨ph⟩ in a Turkish word, as for example in şüphe, is pronounced as a [p] followed by a [h]. We also find, locally, the more phonetic Larnaka instead of the traditional Larnaca.^[32] and Kerinia for Κερύνεια instead of the transliteration Keryneia.^[33]  --Lambiam 11:12, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't really have anything to do with Turkish. It's just that virtually all common present-day transcription systems for Modern Greek proper names transcribe <φ> with <f>. In Cyprus, this goes both for the PCGN (1962) system formerly used by the British administration, and for the common ELOT system the country later switched to (aligned with usage in Greece). See Transliteration of Greek for some details. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:40, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Speaking of ph vs. f, it's surprising (to me) how pervasive is the belief that Hitler spelled his given name "Adolph" when every reference worth a damn tells us it's "Adolf". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:10, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that is weird. I think it might be the case that "Adolph" used to be a normal-ish, if not that common, name among English speakers, so it's kind of an Anglicization, like "Joseph Stalin". These days of course you hardly ever meet an Adolph (though I once knew an Adolfo). --Trovatore (talk) 21:19, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

1. While "mitzvah" is generally pronounced with a schwa in ordinary speech, this seems more like the general relaxation of vowels in conversational English. If I were pronouncing it as an isolated word (or phrase with bar or bat), the final a would probably sound more like the a in father. "ah" is a common way of writing that sound. Without the final h, I would tend to pronounce the a in Utah with the sound of a in cat. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:04, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I'd also expect a schwa in the Yiddish pronunciation; cf. בריאה ,הוצאה ,הנאָה ,משפּחה, which have [a] in their Hebrew etyma.  --Lambiam 22:21, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

What countries/languages use decimal separators for years?

I sometimes come across texts from various scientific fields where decimal separators are used for years, i.e. December 17 2,024 or 2 024. Does anyone know in what languages or countries this practice is common? The texts are in English but the authors are from around the world and likely write it that way because that's how it's done in their native language. --91.114.187.180 (talk) 21:02, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Our own Manual of Style states, "Do not add a comma to a four-digit year", giving June 2,015 as an example of an unacceptable date format. It is not hard to find examples where "2 024" occurs next to "2024" in one and the same text, so one needs to see this format used consistently before considering its use intentional. Conceivably, some piece of software that is too smart for its own good may see the year as a numeral and autoformat it as such. For the rest of this year, the wikitext {{formatnum:{{CURRENTYEAR}}}} will produce "2,024".  --Lambiam 10:13, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Continuing on Lambian's reply, a space separating the thousands column from the other three digits is recommended by SI and may similarly be a hypercorrection when used in years. Matt Deres (talk) 14:15, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

December 18

Pinyin

Is Hanyu Pinyin a writing system for Chinese of is it just a romanizations system? I have always thought it as a writing system for Chinese. Can it be said that e.g. "letter A is used in Chinese language". --40bus (talk) 22:30, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

As far as I know, it's not much used by native-language Chinese speakers to communicate with other Chinese speakers in connected sentences and paragraphs, because it lacks a number of the disambiguation cues which readers of Chinese characters are used to. Without explicit tone marking (diacritics or numbers) it can be rather ambiguous (see Yuen Ren Chao's clasic Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den). Even with tone marking, there can be some difficulties in understanding. Pinyin is used for many other purposes, though... AnonMoos (talk) 05:18, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

English-speaking countries

Are countries like India, Bangladesh, South Africa, Tonga, Ghana and Kenya, considered to to be English-speaking, as these countries do not have English as a majority native language, but it is used widely in administration. Why English has not become majority native language in South Africa like it has become in US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia? --40bus (talk) 22:35, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

The India article says that Hindi and English are the main languages, and there are 22 Languages with legal status in India, presumably due to the many localized languages. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:22, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Regarding South Africa, it's likely because in the other countries you contrast, Europeans, hence mostly preferrers of English over the indigenous languages, now greatly outnumber the indigenous speakers, whereas in South Africa first-language English speakers are around only 8–9% of the population, ranking around 4th to 6th, and outnumbered even by Afrikaans (evolved from Dutch), around 12% and 3rd. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 00:09, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

And why English is not official language in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Malaysia and Mauritius, despite having been British colonies? And I think that The "Big Six" English speaking countries are UK, Ireland, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but is South Africa the seventh? --40bus (talk) 06:36, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

40bus -- Braj Kachru developed the concept of "Three Circles of English" for just this purpose -- the countries you named are basically "Outer Circle" countries (though some are more outer than others). AnonMoos (talk) 04:35, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

The answer seems pretty clear: native speakers of European languages outside Europe are the where the descendants of European settlers became the majority of the population. The distinct case to mention here is Latin America, where most people are of both Indigenous and European descent, but where majority Indigenous-language areas are limited to Paraguay and subnational regions.

In areas with high linguistic diversity, whichever European language was introduced during colonization often becomes a lingua franca and means of leverage for the speakers of minority languages against those of the plurality language group (Hindi in India, Swahili in Kenya, Zulu in South Africa, Sinhala in Sri Lanka etc.) Remsense ‥ 论 05:04, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

December 5

Strange Experiences (1955-1962) made by which company

Strange Experiences was a series that ran from 1955-1962 however on IMDB it's not been confirmed which company produced the series so can any of you guys try and find out which company produced the series. Matthew John Drummond (talk) 17:12, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

"Mysterious tales introduced by Peter Williams, and produced by Derick Williams, that were screened on ATV London from the very first week it was broadcasting."^[34] (ATV London was part of the ITV network.) Look up Derick Williams on IMDb: [35].  --Lambiam 03:54, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

That doesn't answer the question. It names the individual producer and the distribution company, but not the production company, which may or may not be the same as the production distribution company. (For example, for Star Trek during at least part of its original run, NBC was the distribution company, Gene Roddenberry was the executive producer and other people were also producers, but the production company was Desilu. The question asks for the company corresponding to the latter. In the IMDB it would be under "company credits", but as Matthew said, it isn't.) --142.112.149.206 (talk) 03:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC) (edited later)

But Derick Williams' IMDb entry says "Headed his own production company in the 1950's", which is suggestive.

The Series' entry has a link "See production info at IMDbPro": I am not signed up to IMDBPro, but is the querant and has he followed this up? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 17:39, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

December 6

"The Boxer"

Starting ~0:36, that song features a raspy, low-pitched reed (?) instrument; what is it? Bassoon? The sources that I find only mention guitars and the piccolo trumpet (that's not it). -- 136.56.165.118 (talk) 19:01, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Our article mentions a bass harmonica, and judging from, e.g., this video I don't see any reason to doubt that. --Wrongfilter (talk) 19:18, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

That sounds like it; thanks! --136.56.165.118 (talk) 19:21, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Here is an interview with the fellow who played it on the record. --Wrongfilter (talk) 19:21, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks again! --136.56.165.118 (talk) 20:50, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

ITV 60 DVD episodes

I've been wanting to know what ITV episodes from which shows are on the ITV 60 DVD. Matthew John Drummond (talk) 19:59, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

This has a listing. Is that good enough? --Wrongfilter (talk) 20:19, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

December 9

A Jar of Cranberry Sauce; or, The Crime in Room 13

A Jar of Cranberry Sauce; or, The Crime in Room 13 may have been a silent film, but I cannot find any information about it or its plot. If anyone has any knowledge about this possibly non-existent film, I would be delighted to hear. Thank you in advance. Oleeveeya (talk) 13:00, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

It has an entry, with plot, in the IMDb, here, and a mention (in Polish) on Filmweb, here. Evidently one or more computer games have recently been based on it, or reports of it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 14:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Swiss TV listings magazines in the 1970s

Hello. What TV listings magazines existed in Switzerland in the 1970s? And are they archived anywhere online? List of magazines in Switzerland is no help, unfortunately. Thank you, --Viennese Waltz 15:30, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi Viennese Waltz! You may want to check with Sluzzelin, who is Swiss (if I remember correctly). Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 06:53, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

You may also check a library in Genf / Geneva. I believe that they are required to hold all publications, including ephemeral periodicals. Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 07:10, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

December 10

Set building articles for a musical

Note: I've written a similar, but different post over at Wikimedia Commons here: commons:Commons:Help_desk#How_to_effectively_use_search_-_example_given.

I'm helping to build the set for an amateur showing of Little Shop of Horrors (musical), set in the early 1960s in poor areas in an unnamed US city, centering around a flower shop. What Wikipedia articles or general information is there on unmaintained city design and material, flower shops, posters of the era, etc.?

Already, I've found and made use of Skid row, Distressing, and Visual merchandising. Cheers. LR.127 (talk) 20:18, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Here is a photo of a 1960s flower shop. For a few posters of that time you can look at the files in commons:Category:1960 posters of the United States through commons:Category:1964 posters of the United States.  --Lambiam 10:00, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

December 11

what is it, Ponyo

wp:deny
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
A Japanese movie made by Studio Ghibli. 2001:44C8:4703:D1CB:40FE:D654:BB6B:929E (talk) 09:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC) See Ponyo. Do you have a question? Shantavira|feed me 09:49, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

December 13

Small question about sourcing release dates

Hello, I apologize if this is the wrong spot to ask this. I'm currently doing the "suggested edits" from my own home page, to try and gain a bit more practical editing experience, and the first I got was Superhero film.

A lot of the "citation needed" templates seem to be concerning justifying the release dates of each work; right now, I'm looking e.g. at "The following year, the sequel titled Ultraman Zearth 2: Superhuman Big Battle - Light and Shadow premiered." from the "1978–1998: Rising popularity with Superman, Kamen Rider, Batman, and Ultraman Zearth" section, and I'm wondering what's the best practice to source this kind of thing.

I'm assuming that, per WP:IMDB, that website (which on my personal time would be the first source I look at for release dates) doesn't work because it's USERGENERATED; so, where else should I be looking?

Thank you for any help! NewBorders (talk) 17:55, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Two sources for the year 1997: Rotten Tomatoes, Apple TV+.  --Lambiam 18:57, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Hmm - I would normally be okay with Rotten Tomatoes, but WP:ROTTENTOMATOES does also state that "There is consensus that Rotten Tomatoes should not be used for biographical information, cast and crew data, or other film and television data, as it is sourced from user-generated and user-provided content with a lack of oversight and verification."

Should I just use Apple TV and be done with it, then? Or do you think RT, in this case, is fine despite the above? NewBorders (talk) 20:00, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Roku, not listed at WP:RSP, also has 1997.  --Lambiam 15:32, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks again for your help! I think I'll try using the two you mentioned that aren't at RSP, then.

Anyway, if editors looking at the page in the future find issue with these sources, they can always discuss on the talk page, or at WP:RSN. Or better yet, add more reliable sourcing. NewBorders (talk) 17:19, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

December 15

BBC Sunday-Night Play DVD

BBC Sunday-Night Play was a British tv series which air on the BBC Television from 1960-1963. A very short amount of the episodes have survived and I've been trying to find out if any of the surviving episodes have ever been released on DVD. Matthew John Drummond (talk) 14:34, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

In the cases (perhaps all of them) where the true answer is "no", it may be hard to demonstrate (though it's not logically impossible to prove a negative, it can be impractically difficult), but it would help to try to find answers if you could list the 15 plays in question, by using the references in the series' article to subtract the 123 listed 'lost' plays (Reference 4) from the list of all 138 of the plays (Reference 1). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 17:45, 16 December 2024 (UTC) 94.1.223.204 (talk) 17:45, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

regarding the comparative difficulty of Chopin's etudes

I'm curious: is Op.10 No.1 or Op.10 No.2 commonly considered to be harder?

(I always found Op.10 No.1 much harder, but this is probably because for me stretching beyond an octave hurts.) Double sharp (talk) 18:12, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Hard is a somewhat subjective judgement. For me, comparing these two is like comparing one kind of impossible with another. Oh, I can play the notes ok but my speed is ridiculously slow. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:22, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

‘Mr. Horowitz, which are the most difficult of the Chopin Etudes?’ — “Ah, all are terrible. [...] For me, the most difficult of all is the C Major, the first one, Op. 10, No. 1. [...] Also, I can’t do the A minor, Op. 10, No. 2. Richter told me he could never do it, either.”^[36]  --Lambiam 10:59, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

December 18

White flashes in the 90s music videos

Apparently in the 1990s and early 2000s there was an international trend of using repeated white flashes for artistic effect in music videos, particularly when shooting indoors, e.g. in Tarkan - Şımarık, Philipp Kirkorov - Ogon i voda, etc. (now seemingly less used). Is this effect mentioned/discussed somewhere? Brandmeister^talk 19:26, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Frog and Toad All Year audiobook

British actor Peter Sallis narrated an audio cassette tape titled Frog and Toad All Year which I believe was released in 1976 although being trying to find out if the audio cassette tape is available to buy anywhere. Matthew John Drummond (talk) 21:47, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

The audio CD version (sold together with the book) is listed on Amazon (see here). Whether this is the Sallis recording or a different narrator is not mentioned. Copies might crop up on e.g. Ebay or similar 2nd-hand vendors, but cassette tape eventually deteriorates so the playability of one made almost 50 years ago would be iffy. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 23:47, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

December 5

Encoding "rebassed" songs into 2.1 stereo

Why rebassed songs like this one involves replacing bass from original with a "new" one (essentially applying a highpass filter on original signal), instead of encoding the rebassed part into the LFE channel and keeping the original two channels intact (essentially making it a 2.1 stereo)? By 2.1 stereo, I mean 3 separate channels (first two are left and right channels respectively with the last one is dedicated LFE channel). 2001:448A:3070:D641:A0A3:AF2:596E:8A96 (talk) 00:28, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

The OP's example sound-only video is a remix called "rebassed" of a sound-only video popular a decade ago. The normal lossy audio coding on YouTube videos stands in the way of attempts to boost the dynamic ranges of loudness or frequency. The "rebassist" may hope to have increased the song's dramatic effect but I regret that on my audio system his manipulated low frequency tones intrude as unpleasant distortions. I don't see that this "rebassing" example was more than a poorly controlled re-coding of an analog mashup that fails the claim to make bass notes "much louder without any audible distortion". The OP can be correct in proposing that bass tones could be mixed with better control in the dedicated LFE (Low-frequency effects) channel of a 2.1 stereo system. However encoding and reproducing the dramatic result will likely go beyond the capabilities of both YouTube and my ordinary loudspeakers.

After a music recording is produced in a modern studio equipped to balance audio dynamics across the frequency range, a serious listener ("audiophile") can adjust the bass content using the Baxandall bass control (Baxandall, 1952, -6 dB/octave) built into many amplifiers or invest in a multi-band graphic equaliser. Neither action involves irrecoverable distortion or paying a 3rd party to re-record the source sound. Philvoids (talk) 16:31, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

@Philvoids: though YouTube does support 5.1 surround sound so theoretically, you can encode a 2.1 stereo as 5.1 surround (either encoding silence to center and rear channels, or a center part of center-extraction to center channel and a non-center counterpart of the aforementioned extraction to rear channels) if YouTube doesn't support 2.1 stereo (L/R w/ dedicated LFE). 2001:448A:3070:DCCD:D862:849B:9C69:6E43 (talk) 05:18, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Creating jersey images

I have a personal project for which I'd like to make images of jerseys and put player numbers on them. Basically what WP has on the page for any sports team. I only need the jersey and not pants, socks, etc. The project is for creating digital flashcards. For instance, if I were making a card for Michael Jordan, I'd grab my template of a basketball jersey, change the colors to the appropriate colors for the team, overlap a "23" on the jersey, and save that as an image to use on my flashcard. Optimally, I'd like to have different jersey templates for US sports (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, PWHL, NWSL). How can I do this most easily? As you probably suspected, I have no image manipulation experience. FWIW, I'm on a Mac. Thanks! †dismas†|^(talk) 20:53, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I wonder if Template:Basketball kit helps.

{{{title}}}

In theory you could use it (in a sandbox) to produce arbitrary jersey images and take screenshots of the results. But it's gone wrong here, evidently it wants some data from some kind of context. Well, it works fine in a sandbox, just not here.  Card Zero  (talk) 06:36, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

It did not work because of the indentation colons inside the template body. This should work:

Example

AFAIK there is no way to overlay the number 23.  --Lambiam 07:41, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I suppose there's no way to scale these up nicely, either. The number could potentially be added in an image editor (in Impact (typeface), most likely), if imprecise centering is acceptable. There's Category:Kit_and_uniform_templates for other sports.

Using subst: before the template name makes the SVG code visible upon editing, but I can't think of a lazy way to then scale the whole image up to something approaching fullscreen. (This is best done at the SVG stage rather than in a raster editor, to avoid jaggies or blurred edges. An alternative would be to save the svg and open it in Inkscape for scaling and further modification.)

Oh, what am I saying, it's not one SVG, it's CSS with several SVGs arranged within it. Maybe a screenshot followed by crappy raster upscaling is the best way, depending on tolerance for low quality in whatever this project is. Or ... there are upscaling algorithms suitable for simple images that maintain sharp edges, but I'm not sure what software allows their use. Imagemagick?

This whole thing might be a valid use for AI, if you can get it to behave itself.

OTOH the SVGs are on commons, of course: see Kit_body_basketball.svg and the categories that it belongs to (Sports_kit_templates is several levels up from there). And, organized separately in typical Commons style, SVG_association_football_kit_templates.  Card Zero  (talk) 09:20, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! I'll look into those options. The images don't have to be big. They're going on flashcards, so maybe a few hundred pixels per side. †dismas†|^(talk) 13:24, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't really know what a digital flashcard is. If this is for Anki (software), it seems that its flashcards are essentially webpages and would probably accept svg images, making pixel size irrelevant. (Or maybe not, its manual is vague, I can't find a list of supported image formats.)  Card Zero  (talk) 14:54, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes. It is for an Anki deck. And yes, SVG is supported. †dismas†|^(talk) 22:23, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Might there be licensing / trademark issues? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:46, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Not for a personal project.  --Lambiam 08:23, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not clear. I'm not recreating the uniforms exactly. Using my Michael Jordan example again, I'm just making a red basketball jersey with the number 23. That could be anyone's. Why would I run into any legal issues if it weren't for a personal project? †dismas†|^(talk) 22:26, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

We cannot provide legal advice. Trademark laws vary by jurisdiction. In Vermont, United States trademark law would apply.  --Lambiam 07:06, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

December 7

Australian companies

Are there any Australian multinational companies? None comes to mind. There are many American multinational companies, but are there any Australian ones? --40bus (talk) 10:12, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Googling "Australian multinational" suggests numerous companies. Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:18, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

BHP, Bailey Nelson, Boost Juice, Breville Group, CSL Limited, Canva, Commonwealth Bank, Donut King, Gloria Jean's Coffees, Harvey Norman, Incitec Pivot, Lendlease, MYOB (company), Macquarie Group, Ramsay Health Care, The Coffee Club, Westpac, Woolworths Group (Australia), Zambrero.  --Lambiam 22:52, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

December 8

What's the process regarding submitting a record-breaking joke to Guinness World Records?

I'd like for my mother's 600-Bitcoin joke to be submitted to Guinness World Records for the most expensive joke ever told to anyone in the world, because 600 Bitcoin is now worth >$60,000,000.

She told me in 2014 that she had invested 600 Bitcoin in 2011. Years later, getting desperate about figuring out a way out of my student loans, I asked her to cash out a little of her bitcoin investments in order to pay off my loans, and my siblings', because it appreciated so much. She didn't know what I was talking about. So I reminded her about her 600 bitcoin investment claim that she told me in 2014.

Then she said "I was only joking."

Now I wonder whether that was the most expensive joke anyone has ever made in recent history. If there were more expensive jokes than that, may I know about them? But if not, how do I submit that joke to GWR for being the most expensive joke ever? What criteria do jokes have to meet to be recorded on Guinness World Records? Thanks. --2600:100A:B037:56CA:C994:6FC:E8CE:B0CE (talk) 04:08, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't know what you're talking about. How is that an expensive joke? What's expensive about it, anyway? An expensive joke would be a joke that led to some expenditure. --Viennese Waltz 06:39, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

As it happens, I personally own the asteroids in the solar system, no joke. They contain quadrillions worth of gold. Reveal your identity, and I'll bestow all this wealth to you in my will.  --Lambiam 07:43, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Shipping and handling extra. Clarityfiend (talk) 14:30, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I think you'll find it's dwarfed by Russia's "joke" fine of Google to the tune of $20,600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. April foolski! Clarityfiend (talk) 14:29, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Chamberlain's joke turned out to be pretty expensive. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:23, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Question about the bust of Lenin in the Tallinn City Museum

In this photo I saw a bust of Lenin in the Tallinn City Museum, who know about its origin? -- Great Brightstar (talk) 06:14, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Tallinn City Museum know about its origin. Contact details are on their website. Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:43, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

A reasonably thorough Google search failed to find anything. They have a whole park full of old Soviet statuary at Maarjamäe Palace.

Our Soviet-era statues article says: Statues of prominent socialist figures - particularly of Lenin - were mass-produced and installed in villages, towns and cities across the Soviet Union.

Alansplodge (talk) 14:50, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

December 10

Photo of a family of four enjoying a meal

Is anything known about the members of the family in this photo? Mcljlm (talk) 04:21, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

They are (probably unrelated) photo models hired for this lifestyle photo shoot. Here you can see another photo from the same shoot.  --Lambiam 06:56, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. What suggests Lambiam they may not be related?

BTW would one of the other sections be more appropriate? I posted here as I wasn't sure which would be the best. Mcljlm (talk) 13:04, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

There is nothing to suggest they would be related; they are paid models. Just like "families" shown in movies are not actually related; they are actors. Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:16, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

For use in such posed photographs there are many agencies that offer well-prepared socially presentable WASP models of whatever ages you specify at short notice and at competitive prices. To add the requirement that the models are related in real life is unnecessary, would incur greater hiring expense and is therefore less than probably done here. The ostensible mother could in that case be complimented on her fresh appearance after gestating and birthing the two siblings. Shantaviraj mentions movie stardom where being born to an established star has for many, with some salient exceptions, proven to be more a burden than a boon on their career. Philvoids (talk) 15:59, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

They are models hired by one of the suppliers of stock images. Stanleykswong (talk) 06:51, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

December 11

If I ever opt to live in a group home for mental health clients, could my health insurance pay the rent and utilities?

What is it like for mental health clients to live in group homes? What is paid out-of-pocket? What is paid by insurance?

As a diagnosee of schizotypal personality disorder and other disorders, and being thought to still be on the Autistic Spectrum by some therapists despite a rediagnosis to the above disorder, is there a group home near or in Hutchinson, KS for anyone with my types of disorders?

Could my Medicaid KanCare Sunflower health insurance pay for all expenses associated with living in the group home?

I hope to no longer have to pay $450/month in rent and over $100/month in energy bills as well as $70/month in Cox internet at 1 GBPs if I move into a group home and have health insurance pay for it all.

I would only intend to live there until all of my debts are paid off and once I have substantial investments saved up, including dividend stocks so I can live off of a passive income that pays for basic living expenses in a normal residence again.

And lastly, what freedoms might I possibly be giving up if I were to ever move into a group home? Thanks. --2600:8803:1D13:7100:7CBD:B058:3248:4DA3 (talk) 04:47, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

The only people who could possibly answer this are KanCare Sunflower health insurance. Look at the terms of your agreement or ask them directly on their help line. Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:56, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

December 12

How to revert a company

I received an unsolicited email soliciting a contribution to an upcoming issue of a biomedical journal. My contribution, they assured me, coming from an eminent researcher like me, would greatly enhance the quality of said issue. This may well be true, but, since my knowledge of biomedical issues has largely been formed by doing research to answer questions at the Reference desk, this does not bode well for the quality of this issue, even with my eminent contribution. I don't want my name to be associated with low-quality journals, so I'll refrain from contributing.

The email states at the bottom, in fine greyish print,

BioMed Grid LLC, California, USA. If you do not wish to receive this email, revert us.

I indeed do not wish to receive this email and would like to unreceive it. But I can't figure out how to revert this company. Can anyone help me? (There are some more companies I'd also like to revert.)  --Lambiam 09:19, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I guess it means block them or tag it as spam. I assume you've read American Journal of Biomedical Science & Research. Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:03, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I believe it's just corporate talk for "email us back". See definition 14 in Wiktionary. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 20:09, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Definition 14 has the label intransitive, while the spotted use has a transitive sense.  --Lambiam 10:03, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I was about to add that it's Indian English - but the Wiktionary entry says it is now global. ColinFine (talk) 21:02, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

But is it? I'd never seen this before. Our article on the journal states that the publisher, Biomedgrid LLC, was first registered in California in 2018 by Sasidhar Vontethina and Sushma Manchikanti, both Indian (more specifically Telugu) names.  --Lambiam 08:58, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

December 13

LUFS meter vs. Audiosurf algorithm

What are similarities and differences between LUFS meter (especially momentary) and Audiosurf's audio analysis algorithm (when comes to how tracks are colored in particular way depending on the song intensity)? Considering the color (when "fancy coloring" mode is enabled) of momentary LUFS bar on my own multichannel peakmeter when fed with the same song as the video, lines up with the color of the blocks and the tracks on this video and/or this sometimes and at other times, it doesn't line up assuming they somehow sync with the video. 2001:448A:3070:DCCD:D862:849B:9C69:6E43 (talk) 03:43, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

The article about the Audiosurf game tells that the game engine analyzes an imported song to create and save its dynamics in an ASH file. Reverse engineering these files to extract the generating algorithms is research that is beyond anyone here. This is proprietary information that the game creator Dylan Fitterer may choose to withold. Already as you look for correlation between your objective LUFS detector and the game screen, bear in mind that where the object of Audiosurf is more to entertain than analytical logging, some degree of randomity may be deliberately included. Philvoids (talk) 16:32, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

December 15

Meta physics

about things beyond nature 105.113.11.194 (talk) 20:36, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

See Metaphysics? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:34, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Note that metaphysics is not about phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The usual term for these is "the supernatural".  --Lambiam 07:57, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

The word "meta" means “beyond” and “about”. The word “physics” means “nature”.  Therefore, metaphysics can be regarded as the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality and existence. Stanleykswong (talk) 06:45, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

December 16

My habit of feature requests scared a developer?

Reading these posts (this and this) on a thread about foo_enhanced_spectrum_analyzer in HydrogenAudio forum about my doings that "scared" off a developer of foo_enhanced_spectrum_analyzer and foo_loudness_peakmeter components for foobar2000 player and yet, the developer of a spectrum analyzer plugin for MusicBee did implement my feature requests into this plugin despite I've not have written fanon wiki pages about future version of CoolEdit Nostalgia (like I did this and this before). So, why would they? 2001:448A:3070:EA0F:F1A2:31A3:43A5:587B (talk) 18:22, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

What has this got to do with wikipedia or finding references for anything? Nanonic (talk) 19:34, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

@Nanonic: perhaps finding a reliable reference for what some bad habits when comes to feature requests that are likely to made software developers quit their job. 2001:448A:3070:EA0F:A59D:BE84:1D03:3CD (talk) 21:20, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Your questions are scaring off the Reference desk respondents.  --Lambiam 09:57, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Whatever drama you're involved with on that board, I suggest you keep it there and don't post about it here. --Viennese Waltz 10:02, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

December 17

Futures contract

I don't understand finance, so I thought I'd ask. If I buy a futures contract for say a ton of corn at a specific price, and I hold it until the delivery date, will someone literally deliver a ton of corn to me? Thanks. Therapyisgood (talk) 00:04, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

The contract is likely to read "FOB Kansas City," or something like that. You'll probably have to move it from whatever transportation it is on (train, ship) yourself. Or, arrange (pay for) delivery. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 01:38, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

At the delivery date, the current buyer will have become the proud owner of a ton of corn somewhere. The identity of the buyer of the contract almost always changes, so the seller drawing up the contract does not know the identity of the eventual buyer at the delivery date. Therefore, wherever the "somewhere" may be, you as the buyer can be reasonably sure it will not be delivered to your doorstep.  --Lambiam 09:54, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Oil futures have even been known to have a negative price, when the producers' local storage was full and demand was low. At that point the buyer of the contract is being paid to take it away. [37] --Amble (talk) 20:30, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Most futures contracts are cash-settled and there is no physical transfer of the underlying asset. Stanleykswong (talk) 06:31, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Which Political Bloggers are Former Programmers?

Such as Curtis Yarvin and Ruan Xiaohuan. Saedeer (talk) 13:45, 17 December 2024 (UTC)