Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 January 4

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January 4

Leveraged Buyout (LBO)

My understanding of an LBO is that an investment bank raises debt on ITS OWN balance sheet and invests it as equity in the acquired firm. the terms of the debt however require the acquired company's cashflows to be used for repayment of the debt which is TAKEN BY THE INVESTMENT BANK. therefore no debt exists on the acquired company's balance sheet. can anyone please clarify with a source.Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.88.34.195 (talk) 05:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe that sort of practice you are describing, that is a larger firm taking out debt to acquire a smaller profitable firm, and counting on the smaller firm outperforming the debt in order to justify the merger, is basically what fucked the newspaper industry in the U.S. There's been a lot of arguements made that the changing media climate has killed the "small town paper", but I am pretty sure if you look at the numbers, truly independent small town papers are still surviving OK, in that they are profitable, just not as profitable in the past. The papers that are getting shut down are those which were acquired by huge media conglomerates like The McClatchy Company. McClatchy tried to consolidate the newspaper industry by acquiring huge numbers of papers from small-to-medium sized markets; they often leveraged their acquisition of these newspapers with debt which was not repayable based on the diminishing (but not negligible) profits made by those papers. I don't have print sources at my fingers now, but I have seen and heard several TV and radio reports which make the case that, based on the numbers, many of these papers which have since been shut down by groups like McClatchy and The Tribune Company would still be in operation had they not been bought out. In other words, the papers would have been self-sufficient, but not profitibale to justify the leverage that was used to purchase them. Supposedly, consolidation leads to decreased cost due to reduction in duplication of services, but in this case, it seems quite likely that consolidation actually was less profitable to the industry than had it not happened. --Jayron32 05:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Surely the problem there is simply that the newspapers were overvalued. Had they realised the profits were going to reduce they wouldn't have paid as much for them and then would have been able to service the debt. Levering increases risk, so the slightly lower than expected profits had a massively increased effect (causing the companies to go under). It's not the profits diminishing that caused the problems, but the profits being lower than expected. --Tango (talk) 15:07, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

True, but the end result is undeniably that it was the buyouts that led to the closing of the newspapers, not their lack of profitability in general. --Jayron32 18:49, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Did you read our article, Leveraged buyout? Comet Tuttle (talk) 06:05, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes I've read the article, but there is no clear answer to my stated question.

LBOs can have a variety of structures, but they normally are financed in significant part through loans that are to be repaid by the target firm and, if secured, are secured by the target firm's assets. So, no, it typically is not the case that there is no debt on the acquired company's balance sheet. Also, it is not necessarily the case that there is any equity investment by an investment bank. John M Baker (talk) 13:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Interactive fiction

I am looking for an interactive fiction book which I read years ago involving Sherlock Holmes. In the book, one can solve the mystery with occassional help from Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. The reader is provided choices at the end of each page so that he can make his/her own decisions. I tried searching the net but couldn't find the name of the book. Does someone know anything about it.-Shahab (talk) 06:14, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds broadly like either a Choose Your Own Adventure book or a knock off. There are over 200 official releases at List of Choose Your Own Adventure books, including 185 in the main series, and several in offshoot series. We have Wikipedia articles on several dozen of these, but it is hard to tell from the title alone if any of these may have had Holmes and Watson as protagonists. At least its a start! --Jayron32 06:47, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Gamebook.org (which lists a number of gamebooks) show that many Holmes related books were available in English, French and Spanish including these three [1] [2] [3]. You might like to dig around that site further to see if you can find any books you remember. Nanonic (talk) 11:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Why is Chess popular geographically in some areas but not others?

Just saw the headline about the Norwegian superkid, congrats to him. It made me wonder - perhaps this is selection bias, but I really do feel that Chess success at the highest levels is disproportionately dominated by people from Russia, ex-Soviet countries, and Scandinavia. Even if we confine our geographic borders to places traditionally considered "Western" and thereby omit China, Japan, and India (who maintain excellence in other boardgames), there still seem to be distinct pockets of Chess Awesomeness for lack of a better word. I've skimmed the Chess article and didn't see anything immediately obvious about the historical development of intense Chess participation in particular cultures/nations. Can someone shed some light on this for me? 218.25.32.210 (talk) 06:46, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The U.S. has had its share of Chess grandmasters. Consider Bobby Fischer and Joshua Waitzkin. Fischer didn't go farther in Chess mainly due to his unmanagable personality rather than chess skill. Additionally, countries like Japan may not play "western" chess as much, but they certainly have their own versions which are similar, and thus they may be more likely to play a game like Shogi, which is a very similar game, than Western chess. Category:Chess grandmasters has its share of eastern europeans, but also has many people from other western countries. --Jayron32 06:52, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Chess was reasonably popular among Russian intellectuals before the Bolshevik revolution, but not really more so than in comparable groups in other European countries at the time. Soviet thinkers, beginning with Lenin, felt that chess was ideologically compatible with socialism, improved the mind, and taught thinking that helped people with other modern activities like maths and engineering. So the Soviet Chess School was established, chess became part of the core school curriculum, and successful chess players were celebrated and rewarded (in the way that sports stars are today). This thinking was reflected in the greater sov-blok, which explains the relative chess power of eastern european and central asian countries. This article has a bit more. I'd guess that the soviet thinking was copied in turn in China and India, but I don't have a reference for that. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:41, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm coming rather late to this discussion, and the above posts have said most of it, but behind the Russian chess school was, as far as I have read, a lot of money. Their motive was to prove the intellectual dominance of their philosophy and way of life. They took great pride in winning and retaining the world title for many decades, interrupted here and there by a freak genius like Bobby Fischer, who for his part took a similar pride in snatching the crown from them. He said "this little thing between me and Spassky" is no less than "the free world against the lying, cheating, hypocritical Russians" and "a microcosm of the whole world political situation." [4]

When the Soviet Union fell apart, the money dried up, relatively speaking, and so, to an extent, did the chess stars. China is now on the rise, and if you follow the news, this should not surprise you. The difference between the Soviets and modern China is that, whereas the Soviets pumped money into building a chess culture, the Chinese government focuses only on selecting promising juniors, and training them to exhaustion, to produce champions. The result is a society that is spawning more than a few grandmasters, but where it can still be hard to find your local chess club. The game has yet to take off at the grassroots level, while they have champions at the top vying for supremacy (although I think they may be some way from a world title). This is social engineering of a precision that I think has not been seen before in history. You may find Chess in China to be of interest. It's been emotional (talk) 17:26, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

meat, trial, manufacturer, 1906-1910

In his book À travers l'Afrique published by Fayard, in Paris, 1910, the French soldier Baratier wrote : « Pendant six mois nous allions toucher journellement 300 gr de ce conglomérat de viande rougeâtre coupé de filaments graisseux. À cette époque nous pouvions encore avoir l'illusion que le corned beef était du bœuf ! Depuis le fameux procès intenté à l'usine américaine, je me suis souvent demandé de quoi nous avions vécu et pour quelle proportion dans ces 54 kg, tous ceux qui se trouvaient à la colonne avaient droit au titre d'anthropophages sans le savoir ! »

He was speaking about a "famous trial" against a USA corned beef manufacturer. I think this trial became after the parution of The Jungle of Upton Sinclair, thus between 1906 and 1910. I am searching references about this trial but do not find. Can you help me please ? Many thanks in advance. --Égoïté (talk) 06:53, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I think that this was the "Beef Court", a military commission of enquiry held in 1899, covered in United States Army beef scandal. Warofdreams talk 10:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Fantastic ! Thank you very much ! --Égoïté (talk) 11:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I used this to create an article on the WP fr: fr:Scandale de la viande bovine dans l'armée des États-Unis but I need always information about a special trial against a precise manufacturer (" le fameux procès intenté à l'usine américaine"). So if you have an idea… Happy to read you again, --Égoïté (talk) 23:34, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Marshall Plan

How did Ireland get into the picture? Being a non-combatant, I can't imagine it suffered any significant wartime damage. I could see strengthening Turkey, another neutral, to stave off the Red Menace, but Ireland? Clarityfiend (talk) 07:12, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Germany bombed Dublin a few times, possibly by accident. This certainly wasn't as significant as their purposeful bombing of Belfast, which was part of the UK and certainly a combatant. There seems to be some literature on the subject, such as "Ireland and the Marshall Plan, 1947-57" by Bernadette Whelan, if you can find that. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, Ireland probably fell victim to blockades intended for the UK. --Tango (talk) 15:36, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Ireland was in a very poor way, there was the Anglo-Irish trade war before the war, then the war, then afterwards Britain had to pay back loans to the US and had rationing and charged imports from Ireland, meat from New Zealand which was part of the Commonwealth and been allied in the war became cheaper than meat from Ireland. The money went everywhere including Germany. Dmcq (talk) 16:40, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The genius of the Marshall Plan was that it was availible to all parts of Europe, even to the defeated nations of Germany and Italy. One of the problems with the end of WWI was the "screw the losers" mentality of the victors. There was an attitude of punitive retribution against Germany for starting and ultimately losing the Great War, and the act of isolating Germany economically and punishing them for the war was one of the prime causes of creating the atmosphere that would allow for the rise of Nazi power. Where the Marshall plan differed was an honest attempt to rebuild ALL of Europe, not just say France and England, with the recognition that an economically and socially stable Germany would actually be better for world security. The same could be said for all nations in Europe, even those that were officially "neutral" during the war. The Marshall Plan was not just about rebuilding the war torn areas, but about providing economic stability to every nation to reduce the likelyhood of future wars. Ireland, especially during most of first 3/4ths of the 20th century, was a poor and violent place, and I am sure that the Marshall Plan money was intended to stabilize it just as it was for the rest of Europe. --Jayron32 20:20, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, well. Britain finally paid off the loans from the US for the war in 2006. At the same time they were giving money to Germany they were dismantling its industry and took control of Germanys patents and methods. Dmcq (talk) 00:21, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Where can find a list of nations by gender income gap?

Where can find a list of nations by gender income gap? I would prefer the format be in ratio form eg 100:77 dollar earned by men relative to equivalent for women.

--Gary123 (talk) 08:52, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Did you try Income gender gap? I'd think that would be a pretty obvious first step. It leads immediately to a UN source from 2005, too. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Economics Prize + John Forbes Nash, Jr.

How could there be legitimate dispute regarding the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences given to John Forbes Nash, Jr. (portrayed in A Beautiful Mind) for his anti-semitic leanings if the prize is for "those who ... shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind"? Seems to me that, if politics is really left out of it, and Adolph Hitler had contributed something other than death and destruction, that he should have won a prize too in whatever realm he contributed. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:47, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

1. Do you mean to ask "could there be?" or do you mean to imply there was a controversy surrounding Nash?
2. The will itself further delineated that the prizes are to be based (roughly) on the greatest advancement in each field - the "on mankind" bit is just a flowery way of describing them all - and not necessarily the net benefit.
3. Moreover, the Nobel in Economics is technically NOT an official Nobel award, as apportioned in Nobel's will; that is stated pretty clearly at the top of the article.
4. Godwin's Law aside, there is a disgustingly enormous difference between Hitler and "leanings," especially for a man who spent his life delusional. It's also worth mentioning that in the 50s, when Nash was particularly active, anti-semitism wasn't as unpopular as it is today.

~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Amory -- I'm sort of surprised that a seasoned editor as yourself would have misinterpreted my question (then again, perhaps I wasn't clear). Each of your points target either an irrelevant issue or one that makes my question stronger:

1. Nash's article indicates that there was some controversy -- you can search for "anti-semitic" in his article to find it.
2. My point was that the greatest achievement in any particular field is blind to the greatest achiever's political or religious (or anti-politica/anti-religious) leanings
3. The article on the Economics Prize sort of suggests, if it does not state explicitly, that it was established with all of the rules and regulations (as close as it could have) similar to the actual, bona-fide Nobel Prizes. The easiest and simplest rule to follow (and certainly easier than getting the Royal Swedes to give it out for a multimillion dollar price) would be to give it to those who make the greatest contribution in economics.
4. Your assertion reinforces my question. I am not questioning Nash receipt of the prize -- rather, I am questioning why his anti-semitism created controversy, because the prize is awarded based on merit of contribution, not, as I said above, based on political or religious leanings. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 00:28, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Nash's article just mentions that he made some anti-semitic remarks, and that they were left out of the movie. The Nobel article mentions it briefly, although if you actually read the sources it is a gross misinterpretation. The controversy surrounding Nash's prize was overwhelmingly focused on the idea of giving the Economics prize for game theory, with his mental history a fading second. His anti-semitism is barely even discussed (in fact, I hope to later re-read those chapters because my quick skimming just now didn't see any mention of it). Anyway, I think we're in agreement here mostly. Theoretically, the prize should be just based on a laureate's achievements, but it would be ignorant and irresponsible of the committee to turn a blind eye to other aspects of their life. Winning is considered an endorsement, so any controversy usually causes controversy. This tends to happen more often with the Peace Prize (for obvious reasons), but looking at Tookie, who was nominated (clearly didn't win), it seems relatively clear they were willing to take everything in as part of a whole picture (possibly utilitarian, as I mention above). It is, after all, a committee. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Ignoring my complete ignorance of this particular case...I agree entirely that awards should be awarded on the merit of what is being assessed (and not other things), but life is more political and complicated than that. By giving an award it is (in the eyes of many) tantamount to approving of that person and their ideas (relevant and irrelevant). The fact that this isn't what an awarding party are trying to say is largely irrelevant, what matters is how their decision is received...The awarding party has to consider the implications of their being associated with that individual. Does it tarnish their 'image' more to reward or ignore a specific (worthy) individual? Think of how others would view that award if it were to be given to Hitler (as in your example)? Do you think that it wouldn't lead to people questioning whether they approve of his views? 194.221.133.226 (talk) 14:58, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

There was a celebrated dispute in the late 1940's between two democratic leftists, George Orwell and Murray Kempton, over whether the Bollingen Prize should be awarded to Ezra Pound, a giant in 20th-century poetry with vehement anti-Semitic and pro-Fascist sympathies (see Pisan Cantos), who had broadcast in wartime against the Allied war effort from Fascist-ruled Italy. (Pound narrowly escaped being tried for treason by being declared insane and confined for many years to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C.) Orwell decried letting politics interfere with artistic decisions, while Kempton asserted that moral criteria were relevant to the Bollingen Prize. ¶ Shortly before his death, Pound had a cordial but rather strange visit at his Italian home from Allen Ginsberg, a major American poet of Jewish origin who followed an idiosyncratic variation of Buddhism. —— Shakescene (talk) 22:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Cnut the Great in Flandern

A cry for help. I am from Denmark and trying to find out, when/if Cnut was in Flandern and when in Holland/Nijmegen. his daughter Gunhilde (later also called Kunigunde as Cnut's mother) was married to Conrad II's son, Henry, and that was in Nijmegen. In which church??? But the wedding took place after Cnut's death, so he did not participate. But did he go to Nijmegen??? I think he was in Flandern at a time, because it is said in some un/or/reliable source, that "he walked from Flandern to Rome." A long walk in my opinion, and I presume, he sailed some of the way, but don't know. All comments/answers on these questions to me, please: <email adress redacted> - thank you. Jan Eskildsen87.57.196.132 (talk) 13:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

According to this book, the marriage was celebrated at the royal palace - perhaps this was at a royal chapel there. Cnut died in Shaftesbury, so he did not travel to Nijmegen on this occasion. This book covers Cnut's trip to Rome. The only detail comes from an Encomium, not a very reliable source. It states that he travelled via Flanders, Gaul and Italy, and visited St-Omer. If this is true, then he might plausibly have visited Nijmegen, but unless there are sources not covered by that book, there is no way of knowing. Warofdreams talk 16:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Social class

Please help me on some queries about social class.

1. some examples of typical Lower middle class occupation?
2. does an inspector belong to lower middle class or working class?
3. does an elementary school teacher belong to lower middle class or working class? --Qoklp (talk) 17:43, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Just to point out that there is also an article on Working class. Bus stop (talk) 18:05, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Lower middle class occupations tend to be White-collar worker, which means generally office jobs. I assume you are talking about the US, in which case an Inspector's position, and therefore wage and class can vary between law enforcement agencies. An elementary school teacher would be lower middle class, due to the level of education required and wage. Chaosandwalls (talk) 18:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Teaching is graduate-entry in most places, which means it is definitely a middle class occupation. I would think a middle-to-high ranking police officer would be middle class, but the isn't a precise definition of the term. Background can be more important than occupation is determining class (more so in the UK than the US, I think) - if your parents are middle class then you'll probably be middle class, even if you have a less well-paid job. --Tango (talk) 18:46, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

There are really no sharp lines between classes; it is something of a continuum. Particularly between lower middle class and working class, it is difficult to know where to draw the line. Analytically, the clearest criteria for defining socioeconomic classes were those outlined by Marx: People who are dependent on selling their labor power to earn a living belong to the proletariat, or the working class broadly defined. (By this definition, most people are structurally working class.) People whose income comes mainly from investments, by contrast, belong to the bourgeoisie. There are of course gray areas, mainly consisting of entrepreneurial professionals, such as most lawyers and doctors, or the owners of small businesses (the petit bourgeoisie) who live from a combination of investment and labor. These Marxian criteria are out of fashion, but once you move away from them, it all becomes rather fuzzy and subjective. Marco polo (talk) 21:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Many Americans would consider "lower middle class" and "working class" to be the same thing, especially as Americans tend to think of their country as having three classes (poor, middle class and rich) as opposed to four (poor, working, middle and rich). Rather than use these fuzzy terms, social scientists often talk about people in income "quintiles," that is, the poorest 20%, the next-poorest 20%, the middle 20%, the second-richest 20% and the richest 20%. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:52, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd second that. In America, middle class means "people with jobs" to most people; i.e. if you "work for a living", regardless of whether you are a manual laborer or office worker or doctor or lawyer, you'd be considered "middle class". In America, the attitude is that neither the poor class is the class that doesn't work, or only does so sporadically, while the rich don't work because they do not have to. That leaves just about everyone else middle class. It's been said before, "In America, everyone is middle class"... --Jayron32 04:58, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

1) 1:07 A humble captain's daughter occupies a station in the lower middle class Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:24, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The point being that W H Smith was tell it not in Gilead TRADE, and therefore lower-middle class himself. Cf Iolanthe - "Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes, bow ye tradesmen, bow ye masses". Gilbert, as a lawyer, was upper-middle. :) Tevildo (talk)

ritual video

In a video entitled BARACKA there is a scene about 14 minutes in of two groups of men all with black hair (some with gray and one or two partly bald) and lean, tanned bodies, a red flower behind the left ear, wearing no shirt (or it may be the black, white and red cloth down around their waists), black coolot slacks and bare feet siting in a half circle in about ten rows (which splits into two quarter circles which then face each other) doing a sort of monkey chatter ritual with their hands level and then above their heads and moving from left to right, with their chatter leader distinguished only by age and command and three white stripe marks on his face (one in the center and two down the cheeks) in the courtyard of what looks like an ancient Hindu temple. What is this ritual and where can I find more information about it and the participants? 71.100.1.76 (talk) 20:05, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

this scene? Kecak.—eric 21:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, amazing. Thanks. 71.100.1.76 (talk) 21:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

John H. Johnson's wife

Is John H Johnson's wife black or white. Since on Google image shows John H Johnson's wife as white.--69.226.43.41 (talk) 21:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you have link to such a photograph? According to several bios, the only info on a wife I can find is a 1941 marriage to Eunice Walker. I have seen no images of Eunice Walker, so I don't know if a) she is the woman you are seeing b) she was his only wife or c) if the woman you are seeing is his wife... --Jayron32 21:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

There are some photos here [5] [6] [7]. She recently died (she the other refs) so I would guess this is the wife he's referring to. To me I would say she would probably still be considered black and therefore likely consider herself black but my understanding of US cultural standards may not be that good. Nil Einne (talk) 11:00, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Questions like this are difficult if not impossible to answer, because different individuals and different cultures have different definitions (or possibly none) as to what "black" and "white" mean. For example, many people who would be categorised as "black" in current US culture would not be so categorised in current UK culture, which incidentally would categorise the large majority of the World's population as neither. Since we cannot know for sure what your, or any other questioner's, definitions are, we cannot give answers that are necessarily meaningful to you/them. The best we could do, sometimes, would be to confirm (if published evidence existed) whether or not a particular named person, or (if the circumstances are favourable) the majority opinion of a particular culture at a particular date, considered themselves or a third party to be "black/white/whatever." You might also, perhaps, bear in mind that many people consider such questions unimportant, and undue interest in them a little suspicious and distasteful. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 03:06, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

anyone recognize this movie?

I have only a vague memory of it, so this question may be pointless, but anyway: years ago I saw an American Movie on TV, either from the late 40s or 50s, b/w, set in some vaguely military bureaucracy (possibly the allied administration in Germany). One of the protagonists, some James-Stewart-ish lady killer, in one scene finds himself alone with one of the Deborah-Kerr-ish typists in some office with an awful lot of filing cabinets in it. He starts making passes at her most insistently and manages to drive her into a corner. To avoid being kissed, the typist starts reciting some poem. I saw the movie dubbed in German, and I believe in that version she recited Schiller's "Die Glocke." At some point I started wondering which schoolmarmy poem she actually recited in the original version (Paul Revere's Ride? O Captain, my Captain?) but by then I couldn't remember anything else about that movie, or what it was called...--77.186.222.63 (talk) 21:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Good guess there! It seems that the film was A Foreign Affair and the poem was indeed "Paul Revere's Ride"—see here (click on "Read full synopsis"). The "Deborah-Kerr-ish typist", however, was the desirable Jean Arthur; how could you forget that? Deor (talk) 22:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

thank you so much, you just solved a qusetion that's been haunting me for years! As for Paul Revere, I guess no other American poem has been so often forcibly memorized in schools, ever ("Die Glocke" is the German equivalent, or possibly the "Zauberlehrling"). --77.186.222.63 (talk) 23:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC) Also, I do in fact remember Marlene Dietrich singing "The Ruins of Berlin", I just had no idea it was the same movie. --77.186.222.63 (talk) 23:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

DAN BROWN NOVEL HINDU THOUGHT EXERCISE

I think it was Susan Fletcher in DIGITAL FORTRESS. I don't quiet remember, but the Protagonist of the novel was using a cognative tool where you 'IMAGINE KNOWING ALREADY' the answer or outcome to a problem. And then it comes to you. Dan Brown did reference the hindu term in the novel. I'm currently imagining knowing already. I imagine that you'll give me the heads up. Cheers, --i am the kwisatz haderach (talk) 22:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I imagine this questions has been answered.DOR (HK) (talk) 07:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

::Ok!, I'll follow the wiki-question rules and ask the words flat, 'What was the hindi word describing this already-knowing-state-of-mind? --i am the kwisatz haderach (talk) 23:49, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like positive thinking or creative visualization to me. I know that's not in Hindi, but may it link to what you're after? Or maybe "Wisdom (Prajñā • Paññā)" from Noble Eightfold Path but that's Buddhist. nb. are you sure its not actually a Sanskrit word?--220.101.28.25 (talk) 04:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, Dan Brown isn't exactly famous for being accurate and meticulous in his research, either. I can imagine him finding a word he wanted to use and go: "Hmm, so this is Buddhist. Or was it Hindu? Meh, who cares, Iraq, Iran, it's all the same, ain't it?". TomorrowTime (talk) 10:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Kwisatz, whatever you want done imagine that it's Dune already.Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:18, 6 January 2010 (UTC)