User talk:Dbfirs/archive 1

Welcome!

Hello, Dbfirs, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page
• Help pages
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• How to write a great article
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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome! 

The above is the "welcome template." I noticed you reverting some vandalism on Bermuda Triangle; thanks for helping out with Wikipedia. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:39,

Fighting vandalism

I notice that you've been reverting a lof of vandalistic edits. In addition to that, you can help by leaving appropriate warnings on the talk pages of the vandals. This way, the persistant ones will get blocked. For a list of appropriate warnings, check out the WP:UTTM page. Corpx 23:55, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Your warning to IP 31.50.175.153 may not be seen by the right person because it is a dynamically assigned public address by "31.50.175 - btcentralplus.com - United Kingdom - BT Public Internet Service". Bit of a surprise for me since I have never edited any wiki page in my life. But for the time of my logged in session I have the miscreant's IP address. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.50.175.153 (talk) 12:05, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that warning to IP addresses can be pointless, but sometimes they are read by the miscreant. Sorry the message came to you. To avoid this happening again, you could WP:create an account. Dbfirs 14:14, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Perpendicular axes

I've redirected your new article to the existing Perpendicular axes rule. Please try and expand the existing one further. --Steve _(Slf67) ^talk 01:31, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I was editing the parallel axis theorem, and was surprised to notice that the perpendicular axis theorem seemed not to be in Wikipedia, but I should have done an efficient search! I will have a go at expanding the existing article later. Dbfirs 11:10, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Random changes to Sierra Leone and related articles

I have noticed that user Sittaconde, together with two unregistered editors, have been making apparently random changes to the population figures, and to some geographical and biographical data of this country. I investigated population figures elsewhere on the web and concluded that some of the changes entered by these users could not possibly represent reality unless there are regular mass migrations and re-counts in Sierra Leone. One difficulty is that several less-reliable websites give contradictory estimates of population. I have left several messages on the relevant talk pages, but have not received any response at all. They continue to make unusual and unexplained edits, some of which have been reverted by other users. Am I allowed to restore the attestable 2004 census population data where appropriate? dbfirs 22:35, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Trapezoid

having looked into it I think you are right, I had a maths teacher who used trapezoid to no "quadrilateral with no parallel sides", but I cannot find and references to it. -- Q Chris (talk) 16:19, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

He (or she) was probably using the 1851 definition. Originally both trapezium and trapezoid meant a general quadrilateral with no speacial properties i.e. nothing equal, but in the USA the word trapezoid came to be applied to the ones with one pair of parallel sides, and in the UK it was the trapezium word which was used with this meaning. French seems to have the same usage as your maths teacher, but all the modern British and Commonwealth usages I can find (I've collected the best twenty which include implied definitions) use trapezoid either as a synonym of British trapezium or referring to a solid which has some trapezium-shaped faces. I would be interested to know if you come across any modern usage (as apposed to copies of out-of-date dictionaries) which support your maths teacher. I expect there will be the odd one or two, but I haven't found any.

• On a related matter, did your maths teacher regard a parallelogram and a rhombus etc as special cases of trapeziums? (possibly you called them trapezia at that time?)
  dbfirs 19:10, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I think he would have done. I think his usage was probably out of date at the time. I my o-level maths in 1980, and the teacher was coming up to retirement, so it is quite possible that what he was teaching was already well out of date. -- Q Chris (talk) 19:48, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Colony of British Columbia

I'm going to assume good faith here. Did you revert back to vandalism by accident? - TheMightyQuill (talk) 17:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I was using popups to revert the edit by 70.71.224.36 - but something must have gone wrong with the process because Cluebot got there before me and the popup reverted the correction instead. Popups don't usually do that. Could it be because of my slow internet connection? How can I check that the popup has correctly reverted (without reading through the whole article)? dbfirs 17:54, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

(later) I see now what happened. There were two edits by 70.71.224.36 and I should have read more carefully and looked at the history. Is it a waste of time reverting vandalism, because the bots do the job automatically? dbfirs 18:03, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the bots miss a lot of it, and sometimes take a long time. Then again, if it's a huge blanking or filled with profanity, they usually catch it pretty quick. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 23:40, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion of the Dingo

I'm confused about this deletion. Here is a person with references from leading snowboarding magazines. He is the largest personality in snowboarding. Announces every major event. Why not allow me to build on the article rather than just delete. Please advise. Thundata (talk) 18:43, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I was not involved with this deletion. I just happened to notice that the article was in danger of deletion, so I left a message on your talk page. As I said there, "The Dingo" is probably borderline on Wikipedia's notability criteria, so you needed to provide independent references to establish notability. (I don't know whether you had time to do this, but a {{hangon}} might have delayed deletion.) The fact that the article was written by his publicity agent, and contained links to The Dingo's own self-publicity web-page meant that administrators did not take it seriously. It is always better if articles are created by independent editors, with thorough research. You may wish to read the guidelines which have been left by other editors on your talk page. Best wishes. dbfirs 19:05, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Lemba

I wasn't the first to edit Lemba, as it turns out; Lincspoacher had already edited it here, so that makes three! I'll leave it to you to amalgamate them. I think where I put mine is the best place, but otherwise I don't mind how you edit it.
P.S. You were lucky your message reached me, as I don't have a static IP. If you want to reply you can reply here. 83.70.237.60 (talk) 10:35, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Colours

You have set them up incompetently, and they turn all the entries below blue or orange! Johnbod (talk) 17:16, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I realised that things were going wrong as soon as I displayed the page after my comment. I then corrected my error, but had two edit conflicts before I could put things right. Apologies for the problems I've caused! I'm puzzled about why the problem hasn't shown up before, but I'll remove my colours until I learn what went wrong. Best wishes. Dbfirs 17:26, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

(later) I've checked all other pages where my coloured signature appears and there was no affect on the rest of the page, so I think the problem must be an interaction with other coloured signatures (there was an orange one higher up that page). Does anyone know of a bug with colours, or had I missed a cancelling command? Dbfirs (talk) 18:26, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Theory of Hitler´s escape

Let me know if/how you would like some help cleaning up this article. The biggest issue I see is referencing, so if you find any let me know and I'll go to work with citations. Otherwise I'm better at formatting and copyediting, but one foot in front of the other :-). -FrankTobia (talk) 20:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I am hoping that someone with reasonable knowledge of Germany in & after WW2 will improve the article. I haven't read any of the theories in detail, and History is not my subject, so I don't really feel qualified to re-write the complete article (which is what it needs). www.hitlersescape.com would give a start, but there are lots of other websites, though I haven't found many Google Books references yet. Dbfirs 20:52, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Touching 240

Wold you please consider removing your comment about using the fingers to test for live 240V at Ref Desk?? Too many people have been injured or killed that way. It is too easy to do it while the feet or other hand are gounded, with fatal current passing through the heart. Thanks. Edison (talk) 19:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, point taken. I did put in warnings, but I agree it was thoughtless of me to include the suggestion because there will always be someone who will try it out. Thanks for the guidance. Dbfirs 21:11, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Oxford Wikimania 2010 and Wikimedia UK v2.0 Notice

Hi,

As a regularly contributing UK Wikipedian, we were wondering if you wanted to contribute to the Oxford bid to host the 2010 Wikimania conference. Please see here for details of how to get involved, we need all the help we can get if we are to put in a compelling bid.

We are also in the process of forming a new UK Wikimedia chapter to replace the soon to be folded old one. If you are interested in helping shape our plans, showing your support or becoming a future member or board member, please head over to the Wikimedia UK v2.0 page and let us know. We plan on holding an election in the next month to find the initial board, who will oversee the process of founding the company and accepting membership applications. They will then call an AGM to formally elect a new board who after obtaining charitable status will start the fund raising, promotion and active support for the UK Wikimedian community for which the chapter is being founded.

You may also wish to attend the next London meet-up at which both of these issues will be discussed. If you can't attend this meetup, you may want to watch Wikipedia:Meetup, for updates on future meets.

We look forward to hearing from you soon, and we send our apologies for this automated intrusion onto your talk page!

Addbot (talk) 21:23, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Reverting vandalism

Hi, can you please remember to leave an appropriate warning on the talk pages of vandals, this helps build a case to have them blocked from editing. Thanks. ^Alex J _Fox (Talk) (Contribs) 19:21, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I usually do this when appropriate, though in the case of anonymous multiple-user IP addresses, there doesn't seem to be much point. But thanks, I see you have done this for me in the last case of vandalism. Dbfirs 19:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

No problem, we all need to do our bit! ^Alex J _Fox (Talk) (Contribs) 20:00, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Despite what I said above, I've just reported anonymous user:66.192.59.10 and they have been blocked, so you are right about building a case, but this user was a regular vandal, and fairly obviously the same person each time. Dbfirs 20:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Squirrels drying mushrooms

I made a mistake. It is American Red Squirrels that dry mushrooms. I moved the statement to that article. There are two citations, an episode of Ray Mears' Extreme Survival called "The Rockies" and a photograph. Edward (talk) 22:02, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for checking. I thought that the photo looked like an American red, but I wasn't 100% sure. I watch English reds every day, and they are very resourceful creatures, so it wouldn't surprise me if they occasionally eat mushrooms. Dbfirs 22:09, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Push-bike

Wikipedia requires that citations are provided for assertions made. The assertion in question was not sourced, and I am not personally aware of that information being true, so I felt it appropriate to remove it. I have lived in the UK for my entire life and have never heard the term (in fact, coincidentally I had to look it up only recently). As you point out, that does not mean that it isn't used here, but in general, citations are required. Feel free to replace it, however, because I don't really care that much.

As an aside, Internet IP locator tools are in general, highly innaccurate. I do not live in, or near, Manchester.

Azimuth (talk) 15:11, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Replied here [1]. Cited OED 2004 usages. IP does usually determine country. Dbfirs 17:02, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Difference between equal and congruent

Hello. I realized that you have commented on me replacing "equal" with "congruent". "Equal" means the same exact thing. Picture a parallelogram, with vertices labeled A, B, C, and D (clockwise, starting with the top-left vertex). You're given that quadrilateral ABCD IS indeed a parallelogram. Angles A and C are opposite angles. Are they congruent? Yes. ("Congruent" means the same length, size, or measure.) Are they equal? No. Angle A is not the SAME THING as angle C. Let's try an example. Picture two congruent segments, segment AB and segment BC. Obviously, point B is the vertex is the included angle. Angle ABC is not 180 degrees (point B is not a midpoint). Segment AB is CONGRUENT to segment BC. Let's say I draw a perpendicular line through segment AB. We'll call the line "D". If segment AB were to be equal to segment BC (that is, if segment AB were to be the same exact thing as segment BC), then line D would be perpendicular to both segment AB AND segment BC. But you're given that angle B is not 180 degrees - the two segments are not parallel. Is segment BC perpendicular to line D? It can't be. "Equal" and "congruent" are somewhat different. If I am 6 feet tall and you are 6 feet tall, then you are congruent to me. Do I equal you? No. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.147.182 (talk) 21:44, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, point taken. I should have said "equal in length". My aim was to keep the language simple for readers (who are likely to be unsophisticated if they are reading these basic articles), and to follow Euclid's usage. Equal does not mean "identical", and is regularly used to mean "equal in size". I think you are reading more into the word than common usage merits, but I do see the point you are making. However, you do misunderstand the word congruent. We are certainly not congruent, even if we do happen to be equal in height. See Congruence_(geometry). Dbfirs 11:02, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

"Congruent"

I'd be happy to share why I changed "equals" to "congruent".

My definition of "equal" is "the same thing". 3+5=8, because the value of the sum of 3 and 5 is equal to 8.

My definition of "congruent" is "the same size and shape". You do not claim that two triangles are equal unless they are the EXACT SAME thing, the EXACT SAME triangle. The only triangle that triangle ABC is equal to is itself. The same thing applies to segments. Segment AB is congruent to segment BC if the measure of segment AB = the measure of segment BC. HOWEVER, segment AB is not the exact same thing as segment BC.

"Equal" and "congruent" are used interchangeably by lazy Americans (I live in the United States), though in Geometry, the two words are somewhat different.

I'm trying to make Wikipedia more accurate (since it has been accused of having false information). I used to take Geometry, and you know how many more times they used the word "congruent" rather than "equal"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.147.182 (talk) 03:23, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, in the UK, we don't use congruent when we mean equal in length. By "they", I assume that you mean schools in the USA. It is important that Wikipedia is understood by all readers, and is not biased towards the usage in one country. The word congruent is NOT more accurate than "equal in length", it is just less clear to the general reader. Dbfirs 08:00, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Dbfirs. This matter of equal versus congruent is a real pain. I'm with you! I altered every occurrence of congruent that was applied to angles or sides in the article Triangle, with associated rewording where necessary, back in December 2007. I explained why in an edit summary, and also rather fully in talk. But there, and also at Congruence (geometry) and some other places where I made changes, imprecision crept in again like rust or entropy, with subsequent barely explained or completely unexplained edits. That's the way of Wikipedia. (See talkpages for those articles, where no one bothered to answer the points I made.)

This is not a UK versus US matter; it is a traditional versus sloppy modern thing.

Euclid did not use a separate word equivalent to congruent; he used isos, ("equal") or anisos ("unequal"). (Too lazy to input the proper Greek: where I am it's late at night.) It is a stupid, misleading, and utterly unnecessary distraction to speak of congruent angles (or sides). After all, we also want to be able to say that angles are greater or lesser, as Euclid does; or unequal, as Euclid does. Those make no sense next to talk of congruence, which itself is never an ordinal quantitative matter (like the relations <, =, and >), but one of isometry or isomorphism.

If I had the energy I would fix all this in the articles, but I have grown pessimistic. If you want to fix them, call on me for support, OK?

Meanwhile, your anonymous interlocutor above is deeply wrong about a few things. Equality of angles A and B does not entail that A and B are numerically identical, so that they must occur at the very same location, between the very same rays (or lines). I hope that our anonymous friend has the excuse of being young! :)

All best wishes to you.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 12:53, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your support. I also presumed that our anonymous editor was someone who had just learnt the word and had been taught that it was somehow "better" than "equal", but, in my opinion, the edits made the articles harder to follow. I thought we had reached a compromise on "equal in length" for sides, but user:Youmils03 (who is probably the same anon.) has been changing back again. I don't know whether anyone actually reads the basic articles to find out information, but I will change them back to simple English when I have time. Best wishes, Dbfirs 07:55, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Fine, D. See my addition at Talk:Triangle, answering yours. I agree with your conjecture concerning the identity of our anonymous and user:Youmils03. It is heuristically well-founded, based on certain evident congruences!

I hope we can do some work on this together. I have just recently fixed a few things in articles that give essentially Euclidean treatments of plane figures, angles, and so on. But in fact the discussion ought to centralised: at Congruence (geometry), Angle, or a relevant project page.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 09:22, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Congruent AGAIN

Hello.

I saw the discussion between you and your persistent friend. I am indeed youmils03, though I usually get too lazy to log into my account lol.

Yes, I did agree on "equal in length". Next to it, I put "congruent" in parenthesis. Is that ok? I'm trying to get viewers to understand that "congruent" (at least in the U.S." means "the same size and shape". Two segments cannot be EQUAL unless they are the EXACT SAME THING.

I have outlined this for you twice in the past, but because you are so persistent, you may remove "congruent". But do not just put "equal"; but "equal in length". If I'm 6 feet and you're 6 feet, I'm congruent (equal in length) to you. I'm not EQUAL to you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.147.182 (talk) 02:21, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

182, youmils03, or whatever your name is, if you want to get rigorous about identity you can start with your own. You show contempt for us if you sometimes "get too lazy to log in", therefore disguising the fact that there is only one editor who thinks as you do about this.

I and others will resist your unsourced editing. We know that in certain modern usage congruent can be applied to angles, sides, and the like: but if that usage is used consistently the word angle means something quite different from what it means in Euclidean or neo-Euclidean terminology. In the modern usage that you apply selectively and without respect for consistency, tradition, or arguments from other editors, triangles do not have angles. Every angle, in the system that speaks of "congruent angles", has parts that are rays; but since triangles with finite-lengthed sides do not have parts that are rays, triangles do not have angles! You also misrepresent the usage in question as the American usage. It is no such thing. Look for example at the mathworld articles angle (note the definition carefully), right angle, equilateral triangle, and then isosceles triangle ("This property is equivalent to two angles of the triangle being equal"). None of those articles uses the word congruent even once.

A little learning is a dangerous thing; and so is misguided zeal in amending articles that many others have worked on with great care.

I suggest you take up your sophomoric program of reform at Talk:angle. (When you do that, I shall also deftly refute your simplistic analogy involving persons and their heights.) Until matters are systematically resolved there or in some other appropriately general forum, you are behaving like a vandal, and I for one will treat you as such.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 03:11, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I had already pointed out to this editor (in their anonymous guise) that their understanding of the word congruent was flawed, and had pointed them to the Wikipedia article, but understanding seems to be prevented by preconception. Dbfirs 09:00, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

discuss the lower bound of TSP length

How to explain length lower bound = sqrt(N/2) ?

Suppose there are N stations in a square and a station named j. Suppose the shortest tour is known. A mover stands on j marchs forward N/2 stations according to tour and paints them into red. A mover stands on j marchs backward N/2 stations according to tour and paints them into blue.

Thus the neighjbors of j have half possibility in color red.

Let j's next station on the shortest tour is named k. So k is red.

So distance(j,k) = distance(j, some red neighbor) >= distance(j, nearest red neighbor)

So distance(j,k) >= distance(j, nearest red neighbor) =0.5/sqrt(N/2)=0.707/sqrt(N)

So whole tour length >= 0.707/sqrt(N)*N=sqrt(N/2)

Lingwanjae (talk) 15:46, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, you've convinced me. Probably better to write as 0.7071sqrt(N) for easy comparison with other results. Dbfirs 20:39, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Rectangle image

Hey, Dbfirs. Sorry for not getting back to you earlier. I edited the image to your request: link.–Sidious1701_{(talk • email)} 21:00, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that's great. Dbfirs 21:15, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Ireland naming question

You are receiving this message because you have previously posted at a Ireland naming related discussion. Per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ireland article names#Back-up procedure, a procedure has been developed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration, and the project is now taking statements. Before creating or replying to a statement please consider the statement process, the problems and current statements. GnevinAWB (talk) 17:56, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Regular polygon

Hi, you are concerned that the regular polygon article does not discuss the general properties of star polygons. This is because they should be discussed in the article on star polygons, and not anywhere else. As far as I am concerned you may feel free to add your remarks to that article – and make any other improvements you can, it needs it. -- Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:32, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I was concerned that the article on regular polygons makes a claim about star polygons that appears on first reading to be false (though I agree that to those with a full understanding of the way in which star polygons are defined, there is no problem). Dbfirs 21:38, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The Segbwemas

Hello Dbfirs,

I found these two maps of Eastern Province and Southern Province Segbwemas. You may have already found them for yourself by now, but in case not ...

Hamamelis (talk) 20:22, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

No, I hadn't found them, though I suspected that there might be two. Thanks for checking. The one in Eastern Province is the more notable, being the 24th largest town in the country in the 2004 census, but we could add a separate article (or a note, perhaps?) about the village in Southern province. What do you think? Dbfirs 01:27, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Since the southerly one is just, as you put it, a 'village' (perhaps named in homage to the easterly 'town') a note should be enough to avoid the sort of confusion that has already occured. Then if someone is ambitious enough to start a new article about the village, more power. Hamamelis (talk) 08:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I've added a note. I don't know the size of the southerly Segbwema, just that it is not in the published list of the biggest 80 towns, and so it had a population of less than 3000 in the 2004 census. I suppose it could be classed as a small town? Dbfirs 08:16, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I changed 'small town' to 'smaller town', but otherwise I think your note is just right. Calling them both 'towns' keeps it simple. Thanks, Hamamelis (talk) 09:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't think there is agreement in England over the distinction between village and town, so probably even less distinction in Sierra Leone. (I've never been to the country, though I know people who have lived there.) Dbfirs 17:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Re: Pyramid

Nice job on the vandalism fighting. Keep up the good work buddy! :) --A3RO (mailbox) 09:34, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Re: Talk:Kongo language

I left there a response for you about the Portugese word zebra, whether it derives from the Kongo language or not.--Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk) 21:58, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

On the pressure of one's peers

I noticed that you have the following box on your page:

This user does not smoke.

I had always assumed that the characteristics of being British and being a non–smoker were mutually exclusive due to the enormous influence of ambient culture. The only way that I can reconcile the two properties is to guess that you were a smoker in most of your earlier life but have quit smoking recently as a result of some strong counter–motivation.Lestrade (talk) 16:58, 13 December 2009 (UTC)Lestrade

Actually, no, I have never smoked, but you are partially correct because my father smoked quite heavily, and wished that he didn't need to do so, so I observed the addiction early in life. Dbfirs 17:08, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Mountain in a river

Is that mountain still in a river? If so, could you tell me where? I love strange mapping errors like that, and that one sounds quite odd! Pfly (talk) 15:46, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Baugh Fell is still in the middle of the Clough River. On a world-scale, this is a minor hill and a very small river, but Baugh Fell just qualifies as a mountain by British definitions. The true summit is at British Grid SD740916 (54° 19′ 11.16″ N, 2° 24′ 1.6″ W). On Google Maps Earth it is marked at its southernmost extremity, where the Clough River forms the boundary between the slopes of Baugh Fell and those of Rise Hill. I haven't tried reporting this recently. Perhaps I should try again? Dbfirs 16:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

... Sorry, it was Google Earth, not Google Maps. Perhaps we don't expect accuracy on Google Earth? Dbfirs 16:45, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Pen guns

Greetings, Dbfirs! Thanks for your response to my Ref Desk query. I added some clarification of my own. The context was indeed skimpy, as I figured Ref Desk regulars are rather familiar with my turf, knowing that my Holocaust archive work involves deciphering texts about Third Reich armaments, inter alia. The item in question appears to have been a manufactured model rather than an improvised firearm, but I want to straighten out those two articles before I leave this topic, and can't do so based on the partial knowledge I have at present. -- Deborahjay (talk) 17:08, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your clarification. I wasn't aware of your area of research, otherwise I wouldn't have suggested the possible confusion. I'm sorry I can't help you with the firearm enquiry, but I hope that someone else can. Dbfirs 23:00, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

seasons

Why do you keep changing back information on the length of the days in the seasons. There is no debate that winter (dec 21-mar 20) has the same day lenghts on average as fall (sep 22-dec 20) and spring mar (21-june 20) has the same day lengths as summer (june 21-sept. 20). Having it the other way furhthers misconceptions about summer days being longer than spring, and winter days shorter than fall, when in fact summer is tied with spring and winter is tied with fall. Even if you see season change over dates as different, these are the ASTRONOMICAL dates, which are the scientific ones, the ones that actually matter. Crd721 (talk) 12:38, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree fully with your point about day length. Where we differ is on the pseudo-science of astronomically defined seasons. There is absolutely no reason why winter should begin at the solstice, in fact, without temperature lag, the solstice would be the middle of winter. It just so happens that, in parts of the USA, the temperature lag is about six and a half weeks, or just half a season, and in these areas (only) it is logical to regard winter as starting on the December solstice. Most of the rest of the world has a different definition, as you will see if you read the articles on the seasons. My edits were attempts to present a neutral point of view which includes both the USA seasons and those elsewhere in the world. It would be wrong to make a claim in the lead which is then contradicted lower down the article. I'm happy to discuss a better compromise because I was not entirely happy with my own wording. Dbfirs 12:53, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your reply to my query, which I only read today; your suggestion essentially accomplishes what I was seeking.

God bless,

88.189.248.66 (talk) 20:19, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

• Vacuum cannot be proper vacuum. There must be a medium to hold the dark energy and there exists an isometric medium consisting of photons which are holding the dark energy as photons are the smallest elementary particle in term of energy as well as mass.

If we cannot create a perfect vacuum, then we cannot conclude that an electro magnetic radiation can propagate without a medium.

A photon cannot be mass less. Its rest mass is assumed to be zero as it is so small that it cannot be weighed. Its momentum can be observed as it is not so negligible.

A photon cannot travel from the source of an electro magnetic radiation to another to carry out the energy. Photons only transfer the energy from one point to another as per the basic rule of the transverse wave as an electro magnetic wave is a special kind of transverse wave.

Vibration is the only way to transfer energy from one point to another. Different mode of vibration produces different kind of energy. So if we try to construct the T.O.E. equation, then we have to find out the equation of different mode of vibrations.

A string is hypothetical as we cannot explain that by which matter it is made of. What there exists in any elementary particle to produce the mass, charge etc. is a medium of high dense photons. The photons absorb energy from different rays of different frequencies. As there exists a magnetic moment in every elementary particle, the photons cannot escape from the particles. The continuous energy state change (as it absorbs energy from a ray having a definite frequency or of its multiple integral) of the photons produces a definite mode of vibration. As a result the mass and charges (in some cases) of the particles are produced.

A black hole is continuously expanding and the proper vacuum only exists in the active gravitational field of it because the gravity of a black hole is so intense that it attracts even the particles of negligible masses, like photons.

The Big Bang is a cyclic process and it could occur from any black hole irrespective of its size or energy. The time period can be different but any black hole can end up with a Big Bang.

I, Soumya Roy, to whom you've answered before, am definite to prove all those things stated above. But I cannot do it alone without your help because of insufficient equipments and proper laboratory. I'm definite if we prove all those things no one can stop us from winning the Nobel. These things cannot be proved yet because no one has ever think these in this point of view. Please try to help me. Contact me in this number : +919800706005. Please contact me as early as possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.194.162.85 (talk) 13:15, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I can't afford to make telephone calls to India, nor do I have access to any equipment or laboratory, but I wish you luck with your Nobel prize. Dbfirs 14:05, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

That's all right. But can you tell me that whether my thinking could be right or not? If you think it could be right,then can you forward this to any person who could help me in these things? One more thing,if I get a Nobel for this,then I won't forget to mention your name,I promise. You can email to me in soumyaroy.rocks@gmail.com. Please help me as I could not achieve it without your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.194.161.233 (talk) 05:12, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

If you can explain how a photon is a particle when it is observed in transit, but a wave when it is not, then I think you deserve your Nobel prize without my help. I have doubts about the truth of some of your claims, so I am not the best person to help you. Are you claiming that all elementary particles are made up of photons? Dbfirs 07:47, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I think so as many research works of many scientists leads my thinking to this. I give you one example. When a ray of high intensity passes through a high magnetic field, it produces a particle and an anti-particle (charged or neutral). Now,how can it be possible to produce a definite mass from a definite frequency and magnetic moment? You definitely know that all of the elementary particles have definite magnetic moment. That's why the photons get densiled and produce a definite mass and charges in some case. It cannot be proved yet as no one tried to find out the cause of producing charge or the mass in an elementary particle. As the charge is one kind of an energy then it must have converted from another form to this. This point is the main basis of my thinking. I can give you another interesting equation though I'm not quite sure that whether it could be right or not. A photon's energy is measured by the equation, E=hv. But if we converted this amount of energy into mass by considering it a particle,then the equation turns into this type. hv=mc2. Now what does the 'm' stands for? It must be the corresponding mass of a photon. You could find that it is of a range of (10)to the power (-57). That's why it is impossible to detect the mass of a photon. It's a promise to you if I could be able to prove these things,then I'll definitely contact you and will take your name in front of the whole world as you are the only one who took interest in my thinking. Thanks for your support. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nthng is imp (talk • contribs) 12:27, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Please reply me. Do you think what I'm thinking is wrong? "Nthng is imp" is my user id. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.227.114.57 (talk) 10:50, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

So what is keeping you from logging in most of the time?   — Jeff G.  ツ 17:32, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not interested in a Nobel prize, so I've stopped following the posts of Soumya Roy. Dbfirs 22:27, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Sierra Leone and Bangla

Okay, sounds good enough. Ratibgreat (talk) 09:26, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

If you find any other reference to this "official language", we could reassess its validity. Dbfirs 09:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Deletion nomination of File talk:Grade slope.png

blanked page

Hi Dbfirs, this is a message from an automated bot, regarding File talk:Grade slope.png. You blanked the page and, since you are its sole author, FrescoBot has interpreted it as a request for deletion of the page and asked administrators to satisfy the requests per speedy deletion criterion G7. Next time you want a page that you've created deleted, you can explicitly request the deletion by inserting the text {{db-author}}. If you didn't want the page deleted, please remove the {{db-author}} tag from the page and undo your blanking or put some content in the page. Admins are able to recover deleted pages. Please do not contact the bot operator for issues not related with bot's behaviour. To opt out of these bot messages, add {{bots|deny=FrescoBot}} somewhere on your talk page. -- FrescoBot (msg) 21:59, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I have marked you as a reviewer

I have added the "reviewers" property to your user account. This property is related to the Pending changes system that is currently being tried. This system loosens page protection by allowing anonymous users to make "pending" changes which don't become "live" until they're "reviewed". However, logged-in users always see the very latest version of each page with no delay. A good explanation of the system is given in this image. The system is only being used for pages that would otherwise be protected from editing.

If there are "pending" (unreviewed) edits for a page, they will be apparent in a page's history screen; you do not have to go looking for them. There is, however, a list of all articles with changes awaiting review at Special:OldReviewedPages. Because there are so few pages in the trial so far, the latter list is almost always empty. The list of all pages in the pending review system is at Special:StablePages.

To use the system, you can simply edit the page as you normally would, but you should also mark the latest revision as "reviewed" if you have looked at it to ensure it isn't problematic. Edits should generally be accepted if you wouldn't undo them in normal editing: they don't have obvious vandalism, personal attacks, etc. If an edit is problematic, you can fix it by editing or undoing it, just like normal. You are permitted to mark your own changes as reviewed.

The "reviewers" property does not obligate you to do any additional work, and if you like you can simply ignore it. The expectation is that many users will have this property, so that they can review pending revisions in the course of normal editing. However, if you explicitly want to decline the "reviewer" property, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:33, 18 June 2010 (UTC) — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:02, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, this sounds a sensible system as an alternative to full protection. Dbfirs 15:43, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Waitby

Hi. I'm not the owner of Waitby school website, I'm not really sure why I got a copyright message. This is the waitby school page [2] I wrote the text in the article using info from that page and other sources which are referenced. It's not clear to me why the bot thinks it's a copyright violation.Sf5xeplus (talk) 14:21, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Now I've read it properly, I can't see what the bot picked up that it thought was copied. It's not worth worrying about - bots sometimes do strange things, so just ignore it. I'm looking forward to your Smardale article. Dbfirs 20:50, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help

Your response to my Reference Desk question about the size of various civil services was the most useful. Many thanks! DOR (HK) (talk) 06:22, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm glad to be of help. Sorry I went off-topic before I eventually found a useful link. Dbfirs 07:14, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Sock puppets galore

Hey Dbfirs, you just beat me to it at Praveen Kochar. I appreciate your help--with one new user name and two IPs, editing that article and a couple of lists, they slip through easily. Anyway, please have a look at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Astrologist praveen; if you know how to properly add that new name and the IPs, please go ahead and clean up my amateurish addition. Thanks for keeping an eye out! Drmies (talk) 15:51, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

He's a very determined self-publicist, isn't he? I'm not an expert on sockpuppets, so thanks for adding the info. Dbfirs 16:06, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Praveen Kochar

In case you were not aware a page being speedy deleted is not a criteria for speedy deleting it again, it should be deleted (and s tagged) under the appropriate criteria (in this case possibly A7 or G11). A page having previously been deleted after a discussion is a criteria for speedy deletion (G4 - with certain important caveats) but this only applies after a discussion so not after a previous speedy or prod deletion. Sorry if you already knew this but the reason you gave on this page made it look like you may not. Dpmuk (talk) 16:34, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I should have said "self-publicity by a sockpuppet"! I'll read the criteria and change to a valid reason. As you correctly guessed, I'm not familiar with these procedures. ( ... later ...) The article has now been deleted before I could correct the reason, but thanks anyway. Dbfirs 16:39, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Yep, I left it tagged as it was as it did make it perfectly clear why it should be deleted - I just wanted to make sure you knew for future reference. Cheers. Dpmuk (talk) 17:28, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Celts

Neither do I, but I already gave you the facts, Ireland is the official and accepted name for the Republic, Ireland/Republic/Éire is a Celtic nation, so what exactly is the problem here and how is it inappropiate, as this is the country we are talking about?Sheodred (talk) 10:18, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I thought that I had made it plain (also) that Ireland can refer to either the historic nation (the whole island, as it does here) or to the sovereign state. The map clearly shows that the Celtic nation is the whole island which currently consists of the sovereign Irish state, and part of another sovereign state. I would also point out that my Celtic ancestry is Cumbrian, so I have no axe to grind on Irish issues. I regard all inhabitants of the island and historic nation of Ireland as fellow-celts (at least in part), regardless of their current political affiliations. Dbfirs 10:31, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The above is part of a discussion on the Celts at Sheodred's talk page . The misunderstandings have been amicably resolved by removing the flags. Dbfirs 10:40, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Ability to understand accents

Thanks for your response on ref desk, interesting. A comment from a total stranger got me to stick my fingers in my ears (not too far and not all at once!). I know you didn't say that I should do that which is you deserve some kind of jedi mind control award. Anyway there was a bump I was hitherto unaware of. I normally avoid anything more than a quick scratch in there so I would probably never have noticed it, gonna get booked in for doc/hearing test and see how that goes. Thanks for the education! --BlackberryPicking (talk) 18:37, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Well Done!

A very manly man, just like you!

You have been awarded the Manliness Award for helping to construct a great encyclopedia.

Keep up the great work!

A Very Manly Man (talk) 07:56, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, though I don't recognise myself in the picture! Dbfirs 08:01, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

"pyramid"

A better def. is at Wolfram Mathworld site: "A pyramid is a polyhedron with one face (known as the "base") a polygon and all the other faces triangles meeting at a common polygon vertex (known as the "apex")"--tho' it might be added that the vertex is opposite the base. Even on our just-revised version for Wiki there's an awkwardness of allowing that the base can, but need not, be a triangle. The Wiki term "single", like "common" in Wolfram, is not grammatically necessary, but is an intensive, like "really", for rhetorical emphasis, rather like underlining.Alethe (talk) 08:22, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I realised that you were using single as an intensifier. Do you think we ought to change to something closer to the Wolfram version? If so, then perhaps we could draft a new definition on the article's talk page to have it refined before substituting in the article. Dbfirs 16:13, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Regular polygons

The article states 10,000 is a myriagon and 1,000,000 is a megagon, but what is a 100,000 side shape?--90.217.236.77 (talk) 19:12, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

The best suggestion I can devise is a lakhagon, but this is not standard usage and should not be added to the Wiktionary article unless you can find an appropriate citation. Dbfirs 08:37, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!

... and many thanks for adding the references in the first place! ;-) Calimo (talk) 08:23, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

... ... and thanks for requesting them. I see fashion for dividing the year into four "seasons" delimited by the equinoxes and solstices as more astrological than astronomical, but some people seem to think that astronomers have decreed it. Dbfirs 08:45, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Ngombe throwing-knife's shape

Hi Db, I was wondering - could help me find the best word for describing the geometrical shape for part of this African throwing-knife? (pictured at Ngombe Throwing Knife 2) - specifically, the stemmed blade projecting to the left of the nexus of the main blade. At your convenience (no rush). Your help is very much appreciated. Hamamelis (talk) 00:51, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm struggling to find a simple way to describe the shape. It's like a long hexagon but with the long sides curved slightly concave. Perhaps someone else can think of a simple description? Dbfirs 07:45, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for 'struggling'. I'll try something along the lines you have used. I was hoping there might have been a specific name just for it - but doubted it because it's such an odd shape; I thought if anyone would know it might be you. Thanks once more, Hamamelis (talk) 21:14, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Gallon - OR Noticeboard

I have requested the view of others regarding the use of "primary" and "secondary" on the OR noticeboard (Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard#Gallon). Martinvl (talk) 16:19, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The latest references actually use the terms "primary" and "supplementary". Perhaps we should keep to those words. Dbfirs 16:36, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Questioning copyright

I believe that the information I posted about the U.S. Grading System of seedless raisins, while perhaps a very small component in regards to the entire raisin topic, should still be considered pertinent to focus of the article, namely, furthering the overall information available on the delicious dehydrated fruits. The information was not copied directly, was formatted to a more wikified format, and was also properly cited.

I'm actually somewhat perplexed as to the actual change you made, did you just move the section down? Because when I compared the latest version with the previous version, it still showed the raisin grading. (Please forgive me if the answer is obvious, I'm still fairly new here)

GreenGibbon (talk) 17:03, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Apologies for questioning copyright. I thought afterwards (too late) that it probably didn't apply here. As well as moving the section down, I removed what I thought were bits that seemed to refer back to a previous paragraph of the quoted document. I'm not convinced that US gradings are of major importance, but the article currently lacks detail, so any additional information is welcome. I wasn't doubting the accuracy of your addition, and my opinion here doesn't count for any more than yours or anyone else's. Keep up the good editing work. Best wishes from across the pond. Dbfirs 22:18, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Dbfirs

Hi Dbfirs,

Thanks you for removing the controversial comments on Vikram Varma profile.

As you can see from the Wikileaks report, Fiona's daughter Scarlett was murdered and some elements in the local Government did everything to cover it up and harrass the mother of the victim. If you read the BBC links below and Channel 4 movie you will see what really happened. At least 3 of her children are below 10 years.

Just wanted to thank you for fixing such errors on Wikipedia.

Thanks again, Gurgaon User

```` — Preceding unsigned comment added by GurgaonUser (talk • contribs) 14:20, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

The paragraph that I removed was not relevant to the topic of the article, and clearly contravened Wikipedia policy on biographies of living persons. There is some advice there about how to go about protecting innocent people against controversial comments posted on Wikipedia. Dbfirs 22:05, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Edit to gradient

Dear Dbfirs! Thanks you for quick removing of my “Unexplained removal of formatting”. I cannot explain the reason too. I ask you to see and return text of removing “Note”. Best regards, Alexandr--94.27.78.115 (talk) 12:05, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you the same editor as 46.119.41.116? I'm not sure which note you intended to add, but please feel free to add it again. Dbfirs 17:50, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

I am the same editor. Thanks you for quick reply. I ask you to see and comment “Note”. Best regards, Alexandr-- --188.163.30.39 (talk) 19:50, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Alexandr. You certainly move around! The note seems to be in the wrong place, and, I must admit that I don't understand it, unless, perhaps, you are referring to the controversy over contravariance, where there is already a note, but it is a very long time since I knew anything about vector fields. The gradient of a scalar field is certainly a vector field. Dbfirs 20:38, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear Dbfirs!

Thanks you for your comments. “The gradient of a scalar field is certainly a vector field” is only an assumption. This classical representation in textbooks are wrong. Look please

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Geometry-Applications-Transformation-Mathematics/dp/0387976639/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320784477&sr=1-3-fkmr0 pp.14-17 (English) or free book http://www.newlibrary.ru/download/dubrovin_b_a___novikov_s_p___fomenko_a_t_/sovremennaja_geometrija_(metody_i_prilozhenija).html p. 30 (Russian )

Authors of this textbook – authoritative mathematicians: http://www.mathnet.ru/php/person.phtml?&personid=8368&option_lang=eng http://www.mathnet.ru/php/person.phtml?option_lang=eng&personid=4537 http://www.mathnet.ru/php/person.phtml?option_lang=eng&personid=21899 I can present other and newer arguments on Web-pages. Best regards, Alexandr --94.27.85.225 (talk) 13:06, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear Alexandr, :Wikipedia presents the majority viewpoint, but if there is disagreement amongst mathematicians, then this also should be mentioned. Unfortunately, I don't read Russian, and I don't have access to the book you linked to, so I am unable to check your claim. If you have evidence that the Wikipedia article is incorrect, then I suggest that you present your arguments either on the talk page of the article, or ask a question on the Mathematics Reference Desk. In this way, you will get replies from mathematicians much more highly qualified than I am. Dbfirs 19:55, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear Dbfirs!

Thanks for your position of true scientist: “if there is disagreement amongst mathematicians, then this also should be mentioned”. This your claim should become the general rule of all Wikipedia!

Best regards, Alexandr--188.163.26.116 (talk) 18:43, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear Dbfirs!

I hope, that you support editing of this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Helmholtz_decomposition#Helmholtz_decomposition_is_wrong Alexandr--188.163.41.229 (talk) 18:13, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Dear Alexandr,

I suggest that a footnote about covectors would be adequate, since the majority of textbooks ignore the distinction between a true vector field and a pseudovector field. The distinction is significant only under co-ordinate transformation, so it can be ignored most of the time. Can you provide a reference to a treatment of Helmholtz decomposition in a standard text where this distinction is mentioned? You might get better replies from the experts at Mathematics Reference Desk. You might also wish to create an account. Doing so is free, requires no personal information, and provides several benefits such as the ability to create articles. If you edit without a username, your IP address is used to identify you instead, and you seem to use many different IP addresses. Dbfirs 09:11, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Dear Dbfirs!

As you can see your offer has appeared very useful and I hope on your comment here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics#Helmholtz_decomposition_is_wrong --Alexandr (talk) 18:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Table on National Day Page

Excellent work, you got there about two hours before me. If that is your first table then doubly well done. best to you and a Happy New Year. Richard Avery (talk) 12:16, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I was rather hoping that no-one else was working on the same conversion, so I left messages about my progress. Since completing the table, I discovered that there is a much cleverer table at List of national independence days and I could have copied that format. Best wishes for 2012 from the north to the south. Dbfirs 22:18, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Dent Fault

Article creation - you're welcome! I've a number of intended articles on my list which I haven't got around to yet. Done with faults for the while - I'm in a seismically quiet period - focussing presently on geological groups, which should keep me going for a while! cheers Geopersona (talk) 16:07, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, thanks again. I'm not a geologist, so I don't have expertise in the area, I just live in it! I'll try to add a bit more info when I find some. Dbfirs 16:29, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Buoyancy

You were right first time, of course, about the vandalism at Talk:Buoyancy#I removed the "scale" example. The section title looks just like an edit summary so it's easy to think it was legit. I've dropped a Template:uw-tpv1 on the IP's talk page to let them know that we don't refactor other editors' comments. Cheers, --RexxS (talk) 16:36, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. As you guessed, I reverted in haste, then noticed that it was a talk page, not the main article, so wondered if the IP was Pinktulip (the original editor) not logged in, then decided that it wasn't. Thanks for your work on the article. Dbfirs 16:52, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Apology

I don't normally edit other editors' comments on yet another editor's Talkpage, but when I found the comment (was it Bypass Ratios?) in the very first topic on the page, off-topic, and then I noticed that it was out-of-sequence, as well, I thought, I'll just insert a header to create a separate topic, and then I'll leave a note. That was this morning (US, CST). I got sidetracked reading your fascinating correspondence, and, obviously, you found it for yourself, before I wrote this message.

I find that, for the most part, intelligent, highly-educated editors (at least relative to myself) attract intelligent, often educational, usually entertaining traffic to their Talkpage[s]. I particularly like the Manly Man, and the Nobel-aspirant, and will definitely research mountain-in-river and red squirrels (we nuts need to be aware).

Glad you found it, sorry for taking liberties, but, no harm, no foul, at least in a pick-up game. I hope you understand that I didn't write it, I only found it and set it apart from the comment it was run together with. (dangling preposition, but I'm getting tired now, and it's too hard to rephrase on this handheld device: I'm typing with my thumb on a tiny little qwerty keyboard!) I applaud your vigilance per apostrophes, and hope I haven't crossed swords with you, by over-using hyphens and parens (I don't know when I've used so many:I don't know what's come over me!).

   Regards,
      the Ragityman

69.171.178.72 (talk) 20:48, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

That's OK. I realised you were being helpful, but I couldn't remember what the original comment was about in the first place, so I decided to remove it rather than move it to chronological order. I've no objection to the use of prepositions with which to end a sentence, though some people find this difficult to put up with. Dbfirs 22:28, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

The foot

Hi Dbfirs,

I saw the posting as well and decided to ignore it. The only people who read Talk Pages are editors so he is talking to the wrong people. Martinvl (talk) 08:07, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I probably should have ignored it myself. Feeding trolls isn't profitable. Thanks for all your work on the article. Dbfirs 08:31, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Mid-day

Right. I'll back off. I couldn't find "mid-day" in any dictionary, but as American and British English spelling differences says, "Many dictionaries do not point out such differences" (in hyphenation). I'm more attuned than many Americans are to hyphenation differences in British English (such as counter-attack), but it's a long learning curve in some cases. Thanks for bringing it to my attention and for doing so in a kind way. Cheers! Chris the speller <sup>yack</sup> 14:14, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Not to cause trouble, but you might like to know that SOED, 5th edition (which has more than 600,000 words, phrases, and definitions) does not offer a hyphenated option for "midday", and the 6th edition has dropped hyphens for 16,000 other words. I'm getting the feeling that "mid-day" is an obsolete form. I am a fairly resourceful person, but a trip to my library, and a search of its online database, showed that the full OED is not available; I would have to cough up $295 per year to access it. The vast majority of Americans have no access to it at all. In a similar case, I hope you have no objection to my fixing "un-named". If you have any other thoughts on this, I would be glad to hear them. Chris the speller <sup>yack</sup> 21:03, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I support your extensive work on correcting mis-hyphenation, but mid-day is more a matter of style than of spelling (on this side of the pond, anyway). You are correct that the OED has no separate entry for mid-day, but eleven of the twenty-five cites have the hyphen (from 1225 to 1995 and including Donne and Milton), so I base my (outdated?) support for the hyphen on these, and also on the use of the hyphen by Shakespeare, Dickens, Kipling, Yeats, Theodore Roosevelt, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, Sir Walter Scott, Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy, Orwell, David Hulme, Herman Melville (in Moby Dick), Stephen Leacock, the US Congress papers, Virginia Woolf and many others. In general, British English is more likely to retain the hyphen when there is a repeated letter, but there doesn't seem to be any rule, and the fashion is changing. I was taught to put a hyphen in "to-day" but this has become rare in the last 50 years. Best wishes, and keep up the good work! Dbfirs 21:42, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't changing hyphenation in quotations by any of those lovely folks, but I hear you, and I will not pursue "mid-day" further; there are more clear-cut mishyphenations to work on. If you see me trashing any other hyphens that are dear to people on your side of the pond, let me know. Your well-developed sense of such usage is probably more dependable than many dictionaries. Thanks for your thoughts, and happy editing! Chris the speller <sup>yack</sup> 22:37, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

You are misleading about the "summer vacation"

The information you put in is wrong and not based. I'm from Israel. See the information I put the above to be true about most. Thank you for understanding. 79.177.230.175 (talk) 20:18, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I was just restoring information provided by another editor. Certain anonymous editors have been entering incorrect information into the articles on holidays and academic term. I know nothing about education in Israel, so I'm happy to leave that section for you to maintain if you have knowledge of the subject. If you could provide a reference for your information, this would help to improve the article. Dbfirs 20:46, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Do not restore the versions. Israel information on false and misleading! Come in and do the Hebrew Wikipedia with Google Translate. You encyclopedia not a dictatorship I try to fix you and you are restoring a false things 79.177.230.175 (talk) 08:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

It was not I who restored a previous version, but an anonymous editor (68.64.227.196) who seems to be trying to annoy genuine editors and refuses to discuss changes. Please feel free to change the article again. I will do this for you if you can find a website for me that confirms your information. Dbfirs 09:01, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

The Hebrew Wikipedia is the correct web that confirms the information: http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%94%D7%97%D7%95%D7%A4%D7%A9_%D7%94%D7%92%D7%93%D7%95%D7%9C 79.177.230.175 (talk) 09:59, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Wikipedia does not recognise another article in the project as a source suitable for using as a reference because each article should use primary sources where possible. I've made an alteration to the article to avoid specific dates that apply only to one year (I think you need to edit the Hebrew Wikipedia in a similar way). Dbfirs 10:08, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Hebrew Wikipedia is based on the Israeli Ministry of Education and its return. Believe me, the information I put it exactly right, returns to it. 79.177.230.175 (talk) 10:19, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not based on the beliefs of anonymous editors, or even on those of named editors, but on reliable sources. Please provide these. Dbfirs 12:59, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Janet Periodic table

Hi! I wanted to tell you that I'm a strong believer in the merits of the Janet Periodic table, and I understand it's more prominent in consideration in the UK. I've contributed to a discussion of it in Talk:Charles Janet and I wondered if you have any thoughts about the relative merits of the 2 tables. Is it being given any consideration as to merit the UK? Thank you.WFPM (talk) 00:12, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Your user page

Hi, I doubt that you wanted the text of this edit on your user page, so I've reverted it. It's a good idea to watchlist your user page in case something like that happens again. Graham87 01:29, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reversion. I did have my user page on my watchlist, but somehow I'd missed reverting that edit. Best wishes. Dbfirs 07:32, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Halfway

Hello, Dbfirs. You have new messages at Chris the speller's talk page.
Message added 13:14, 28 August 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

isotropicstructures.com

I take your point about over using a single source. I will reference a variety of sources in the future, Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Melissa Bennett (talk • contribs) 18:02, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Pendulum (mathematics)

My feeling about Pendulum (mathematics) is that your version is a bit better but it might not be worth fighting him over a few adjectives. He's angry about his equation being excluded from Pendulum. He's also officious and intransigent, and if he keeps it up he'll get blocked, but it won't be over the current issue. In a month or two he might be gone or occupied with other wars, you could revert it then. --Chetvorno<sup>TALK</sup> 20:36, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, that's good advice. I'll withdraw from the current argument. Dbfirs 20:40, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

half and quarter cousins

hi dbfirs! next sunday on my Genealogy for Baby Boomers blog (if you google g4bb, you'll get there)...i conclude a 3-parter on exactly what relationship "quarter cousin" refers to. as you said on the talk section of wiki's cousin page..An informal system common in the UK is to refer to second cousins as "half cousins", and third cousins as "quarter cousins"...i have found this terminology used occasionally in the US as well...it is usually difficult to know what is meant by "quarter cousin" because it's being used by people to describe an actual relative, and as such there is no reason to give it a genealogical definition...i have tentatively concluded that "quarter cousin" ...as well as "half cousin," which shouldn't be confused with "half first cousin," "half second cousin," "half third cousin," etc...is used just as you said, but with one crucial caveat...i believe you are using "second cousin" in the common, altho not genealogically standard, sense of "first cousin once removed"...that is, "your parent's first cousin."....also, you use "third cousin" to mean "your parent's first cousin's child," which standard genealogy labels a "second cousin." would you agree that this is true? or do you mean that just as your "cousin" is your grandfather's grandson (altho not your sibling)...that your "half cousin" is your great grandfather's great grandson (altho not your cousin or your sibling)...and your "quarter cousin" is your great great grandfather's great great grandson (altho not your half cousin, cousin, or sibling)? thanx! 74.79.159.148 (talk) 17:38, 7 October 2012 (UTC)stolf

The local usage here is the latter (half cousins are the children of full cousins, and quarter cousins have great great grandparents in common, i.e. grandparents who are cousins). Half-siblings are rare here, so there is little confusion. I had a friend at school who was "double half cousin, being related through two different lines. I'll have a look at your blog. Dbfirs 20:58, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

R. Gopinathan

Good call! Thanks for catching it.  -- WikHead (talk) 07:15, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

There have been further edits to Gopinathan Ramachandra, and if the anon 210.48.222.13 is the same as Zordcore89 then perhaps I was wrong and total deletion was intended? Perhaps there are no references available to establish notability. Dbfirs 07:23, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

I still think you were right though. I didn't realise the content existed twice until you mentioned it in your summary. Regardless of notability, we should only have one live copy.  -- WikHead (talk) 07:32, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, further developments and references added, so the redirect was intended. Thanks. Dbfirs 07:37, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

That's right... and everything currently appears to be working the way it should, thanks to you.  -- WikHead (talk) 07:43, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Except that the originator of the article (possibly also the subject) cannot make up his mind whether he wants the article or not! I'm as confused as he is! Possibly English is not his first language and he doesn't understand the message on his talk page? Dbfirs 07:46, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

LOL, I know, I'm watching that foolishness myself. I guess it's best to wait this one out... the reviewing admin will probably see the orphan redirect and delete that as well.  -- WikHead (talk) 07:50, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if the originator is Gopinathan Ramachandra himself. I'll wait and see what happens. Dbfirs 07:56, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Isochronous (horology)

I was hoping that on expert in horology would step in a create that article. Clearly it would be notable and I suspect that the history would make for a nice sized article. For now I found a section in an artgicle on this and made a redirect there. The problem is that these pages are showing up as having links that need disambiguation. So they should point somewhere else. So while the old target mentioned this, it was still a dabpage that required readers to dig to find out why they got there. Not the best place given that most of that is about other areas. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:50, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I see what you mean, but the page previously linked contained an adequate explanation of the word. It was not really a disambiguation page. -- I think it was wrongly labelled because of a move long ago. If we get a good article, then I agree that the link should go there. Dbfirs 21:01, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 4

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited List of Renaissance figures, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Rafael (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Thanks DPL bot (yes, I know you can't read this reply!). In my rush, I'd accidentally deleted the wrong part. The correct link, of course, was to Raphael which is not a disambiguation. I've made the correction. Dbfirs 12:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Howevers

Now that I look back at my edit summary in the Sun article concerning the word "on", I see that you must have really struck a chord that upset me a wee bit about the overuse of "However". I know you were a Teacher, and perhaps you are used to instructing people, so I will forgive you for your editing comment. It would have sufficed to say: "Eliminated one However". I retaliated in my following edit about the word "on"; however, I wish I hadn't, and I apologize. I guess old habits are hard for both of us to leave behind. P.S. Please don't put the word 'on' back in the article; it really doesn't belong there. :) Cheers Pocketthis (talk) 00:23, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

That's OK, I wasn't going to put it back, and I took your edit comment as a joke. We are just differing over minor points of style that are not worth arguing over when Wikipedia has much more serious grammatical errors to correct. I support your campaign over miles, by the way. Dbfirs 00:37, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks. I just made another edit in that section concerning a sentence I couldn't understand no matter how many times I read it...lol.

Perhaps it's the American English vs the English English that has me confused. Maybe you should peek at it, and if it's fine great. If I screwed up the message being relayed I'm sure you'll fix it; however, I do believe it is improved now. Tell me what you think when you have time. Thanks again. Pocketthis (talk) 00:57, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes you've removed the possible ambiguity arising from interpreting "attenuating" as a gerund. Each variety of English uses some constructions and contractions (and spellings) that seem odd to users of other varieties, and sometimes the attempt to use concise encyclopaedic language introduces unintended ambiguities, as had happened there. Dbfirs 08:19, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for taking the time to look at it and reply. See you in the threads. Pocketthis (talk) 21:12, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Spring page

I think I see the "tradition" context. I was interpreting that you were stating that the equinox happened per tradition, which of course is false, since it's an astronomical event that happens regardless of the presence of humans, and occurs sometime between March 19 and 21 depending on the comparison of the astronomical day/year to the Gregorian calendar. You seemed to mean that taking this event as the beginning of spring is the tradition in question. Sorry if I seemed terse. (BTW, my maternal grandmother was a WWII bride from London, which I mention after having seen your user page.) Mapsax (talk) 14:27, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

The traditions that I was thinking of were that of the Christian Church in fixing the date of Easter, especially the Gregorian calendar which was designed to restore the equinox to March 21st and to keep it there (as near as possible), and that of regarding the 21st as the start of spring regardless of the equinox. I didn't revert your edit because I realised that my addition of "traditional" was open to misinterpretation. We'll agree to leave it as a range of dates if that's OK with you. Best wishes from across the pond. Dbfirs 15:48, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

OK, I see. Perhaps it's worth mentioning separately, so there can be a distinction between the true astronomical equinox and the approximate fixed one. "Religious reckoning" section? A complete separate section might be unnecessary, but I'm thinking of something of the like. Mapsax (talk) 01:26, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't want to start another edit war, but perhaps something on the lines of the paragraph in Autumn:

The equinoxes might be expected to be in the middle of their respective seasons, but temperature lag (caused by the thermal latency of the ground and sea) means that seasons appear later than dates calculated from a purely astronomical perspective. The actual lag varies with region. Some cultures regard the vernal equinox as "mid-spring", others with a longer lag treat the equinox (or the traditional date of 21 March) as the start of spring.

I'm not sure where I would put it, because the structure is different in the spring article, so I'll leave it for now. Dbfirs 08:22, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that seems to be a regression to me. I see two points that need to be clarified:

• Some places recognize the equinox as the start of spring, others don't;
• The astronomical equinox is independent of any fixed date/time but ones derived from it are not.

Sorry to belabor this, but I'm glad that it's being hashed out here and not in the article itself. Mapsax (talk) 10:49, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

That's OK. If you don't like it, I won't put it in. The article is reasonably clear as it stands, and I don't think long details of the history of the date of the equinox belong there. I agree with your two points. I note that some people in the UK are celebrating today (the real equinox) as their "first day of spring" (though it is snowing here), and others believe the "start" is not until tomorrow. I noticed the start of spring in February, but it seems to have reverted to winter. British weather is never predictable! This time last year we had summer temperatures! Dbfirs 09:23, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Theoremata

Hi, I wanted to follow up on your recent comment, but not derail that thread. Do you have a link for declension of "theorema"? I had a look around and couldn't easily ascertain what gender/declension it is. Thanks, SemanticMantis (talk) 17:06, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Wiktionary (see wikt:theorema#Latin entry) marks it as third declension, but I regret that my Latin is very rusty, so I can't give you an authoritative answer unless I remember where my Latin dictionary has been hidden. It's not Classical Latin, of course. (We both spotted the strange plural at the same time!) Dbfirs 17:33, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Ah, thanks! I didn't know wiktionary had such latin coverage, and the latin dictionaries I checked online didn't have it at all... SemanticMantis (talk) 17:45, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

There are one or two genuine Latin experts on Wiktionary, so it is usually reliable. There is also a Latin Wiktionary(in Latin) if you like that sort of thing. Late Latin words are probably missing from my Latin dictionary, too, even if I could find it. Dbfirs 17:55, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Asian raisin

Saw your question about ethnic varieties of raisins. I don't know if this'll help, but I've seen references to a variety called Black Monukka. Chango369w (talk) 15:49, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Monukka was the only variety that I found, and I don't know whether it's green or black or both. I thought I'd leave the addition to someone who has seen the varieties, but thanks for the link. Dbfirs 15:53, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry!

Sorry for accidentally reverting your edits on the Slope article. Your edit summary along with the removal of content threw me off. Wasn't until I looked at what you were removing that I realised what your edit summary was referring to. Anyways, keep up the good work! --Hdt83 <sup>Talk</sup> 07:20, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

That's OK. My fault -- I should have provided a more helpful edit summary. I often revert first and look later. We all get impatient with vandalism. I'm surprised this bit remained for so long, but it was the middle of the night here when it was placed. Dbfirs 07:28, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Replied

I have replied to your post here. Thanks. 2602:304:59B8:1B69:3DFE:8698:6402:748A (talk) 20:49, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Constantinesco torque converter

I can see why it isn't immediately obvious that there is a connection between centres of percussion and the Constantinesco (automobile), but that's why I put in a "see also" entry - so people who wouldn't have guessed that there was one would know to look and see that something similar was involved in that car's torque converter. Ideally, I would have linked directly to an article on that, but there isn't one. Rather than reverting or putting in further clarification in the main article, I have started a request for suggestions on its talk page, at Talk:Center_of_percussion#Constantinesco_torque_converter. Perhaps you might like to have a look at the clarification there, and then put in a suitable link of your own. PMLawrence (talk) 10:15, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Apologies if I was hasty in removing the link, but the article didn't mention centre of percussion. Having read more about the transmission system elsewhere, I still can't find a reference to a centre of percussion, but I can see why the concept would be important in the design. Do you have plans to create an article on the Constantinesco torque converter, with an explanation of how centre of percussion is relevant? If so, I would strongly support a link to this article. Dbfirs 14:52, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

See my response on the article's talk page.PMLawrence (talk) 01:23, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of User:PMLawrence/Constantinesco torque converter

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Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. This is a notice to inform you that a tag has been placed on User:PMLawrence/Constantinesco torque converter requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an article with no content whatsoever, or whose contents consist only of external links, a "See also" section, book references, category tags, template tags, interwiki links, images, a rephrasing of the title, or an attempt to contact the subject of the article. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, you can place a request here. PMLawrence (talk) 10:18, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

That's OK. If it's not wanted, just delete it. No need to tag it. Dbfirs 06:12, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

June 2013

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Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 21:33, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification. I was merely reverting the previous edit, but some extraneous text appeared from nowhere (it seems to have been copied from the middle of the article). I've removed it. I'd be interested to know how it got there. (Yes, I know you are a bot and can't reply.) Dbfirs 21:40, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

* Scientific investigations at Loch Ness

Good evening:

Please allow me to share an article with you. Maybe you will find it interesting:

http://www.naturapop.com/home/scientific-investigations-at-loch-ness — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.2.207.74 (talk) 01:44, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Marc ( Neutron gammma gamma )

Sorry by confusion, I'm from Barcelona (Spain), I'm using Google translator. Neutron gamma gamma, is only a neutron model not based on 3 quarks. But it has a precise mathematical support for size,energy, mass and consistent with all experimental observations.

In fact, neutron gamma gamma, is a son of wikipedia, the first solid data base of human labor. If this article is not appropriate in this area, sorry.

Thank you very much.

MARCOS BUIRA PARDO (talk) 16:05, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

It might be wise to first write the article in Spanish and try it on the Spanish Wikipedia. Google translate is not suitable for Wikipedia articles in English. Perhaps the best place for alternative theories is our article on the Neutron, but can you provide any references? Dbfirs 16:16, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much.MARCOS BUIRA PARDO (talk) 15:46, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

How can a turn be a period?

How can a turn be a period?

I am going to answer this with a few questions. What happens to the earth on its axis in one day? Or, what happens to the earth in one year?

My problem was not the keeping of period, but the circular argument with the word rotation. Because the rest of the change you did depended on that change and because I did not have a good improvement at the time (late at night) to what I said, I decided to revert it. I think the current statement is much better because it got rid of both problems of we both stated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Reddwarf2956 (talk • contribs) 02:09, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

That's fine. I'm glad we can agree on a compromise. I don't understand the relevance your questions, but that doesn't matter. The answers, by the way, are that it makes approximately a full turn (depending on your frame of reference), and in an average year it makes 365.2425 turns relative to the sun, by convention of the Gregorian calendar, or 365.24219 turns by measurement. Dbfirs 07:23, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

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Link now corrected. Dbfirs 14:50, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Hilbertian angles?

Hiya. I am the person who would like to add the information to the congruence (geometry) page. Thank-you for responding to my talk. It has been a long, long, long time since I studied Hilbert spaces and for sure I don't remember Hilbert angles. I can add "in Euclidean geometry", but I don't know if that solves the "problem" with Hilbertian angles. Or we can add something about Hilbertian angles in a section called Generalization since I would think (but do not know) that this distinction is from higher mathematics.

Also,

• I would think (but again, do not know) that two angles are equal if they are congruent and their signed measure is equal, i.e. they are the same size and measured in the same direction. For example, I think π is congruent to -π, but these angles are not equal (although I agree that we use the word "equal" all the time if we are looking at pictures of angles that do not indicate direction such as the angles of a polygon).
• And although not mathematical, I think it is important to define congruence of line segments, angles, circles and geometric figures simply because it makes it easier to write sentences, e.g. we don't have to write "the angles are the same size, the sides are of equal length, ...".

Thanks again. Lfahlberg (talk) 20:01, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Apologies, I wasn't intending to suggest anything deep about angles or Hilbert spaces, just to emphasise that there are different ways to define the concept of angle, as described in our article on Angle. If angle is defined simply as a measure of turn, then simple equality is all that is required (as in Euclid). This is the usual approach at elementary level in the UK. In the USA, it seems to be usual to use Hilbert's definition of angle as a set of points (including the delimiting rays), and in this definition the concept of congruence is valid. For clarity of communication world-wide, I think it is safest to use "equal in measure" for angles, since this has the same meaning however you define an angle. Using two extra words does make the sentences longer, but the purpose of sentences is clear communication. Dbfirs 20:24, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

This part here is discussion... How interesting. I have been putting off writing the MK (Macedonian) wikipedia article on angles because -for the life of me- I could not think of an adequate way to define angle for the reader who would be looking up the article. I definitely did not know that there were different definitions. In my personal opinion, I think the term congruence should not be defined on anything but closed figures with at least two vertices since it is just another word the kiddies have to learn, but this is not the way it is in the literature. My experience has been that ALL elementary school teachers and most secondary school teachers say "the angles are equal" when they mean "the angles are of equal measure", because at this age level and in the context of geometric objects "angle direction" has no meaning. In fact, most only use the word "congruent" when speaking of closed figures with at least two vertices. The ONLY use of the word "congruent" for line segments, angles, circles,... (as far as I can see in any country) has been to save sentence length or to be "mathematical" - hence my personal opinion in opposition. BTW: Although I am US born and schooled, I have lived and for over 35 years have taught engineering mathematics in FYR Macedonia. In order not to appear biased towards USA, I make every effort to check UK and other definitions. I was just explaining the use of the word "congruent" as found in the literature since I believe this to be an obligation of wikipedia.

This part here is suggestion... With respect to angles, I think we agree that neither the term congruence nor equal is good and that "equal in measure" is the best. However, we must help the people reading the article who will find the word "congruent" used as I have stated (even in UK articles). So my suggestion for the wikipedia article is:

---

In elementary geometry the word congruent is often used as follows. "congruence". Math Open Reference. 2009. Retrieved September 2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help) The word equal is often used in place of congruent for these objects.

• Two line segments are congruent if they have the same length.
• Two angles are congruent if they have the same measure (and no direction is indicated).
• Two circles are congruent if they have the same diameter.

In this sense, two plane figures are congruent if their corresponding characteristics are "equal" or two plane figures are congruent if their corresponding sides, interior angles and diagonals are "congruent" and their perimeters and areas are equal.

---

What do you think? Lfahlberg (talk) 07:51, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

The use of the word "congruent" for angles was new to me until I read Wikipedia, despite having taught Mathematics for many years. It doesn't appear in UK text books at any level (are you sure you found it?), and is likely to be misunderstood here because congruence is taught in the Euclidian tradition, not the Hilbertian way. "Equal" is a shorter word that is widely understood, but seems to be objected to by teachers in the USA. "Equal in measure" means the same on both sides of the Atlantic. I'm happy with your impartial viewpoint and suggested compromise. British schoolchildren are likely to see American websites, so need to be aware that Americans talk about congruent angles. My only comments would be that if all corresponding sides and angles are equal (or congruent in American usage), then there is no need to also specify that diagonals, perimeters and areas must also be equal, just to observe that they automatically will be equal as a consequence of congruence of the shapes. Also I don't think you need add the caveat about direction for either lengths or angles, since negative distances and angles are not used in Euclidean geometry. Dbfirs 08:51, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

---

---

Probably you are bored with this conversation. If so, no worries about replying. I think we have found a good compromise.

1. It actually was new to me also, but I am ancient (1954). Even in US, we were taught e.g. "alternate angles of a transversal are equal"; I do not remember the word congruent being used.
2. Perhaps in the very first line we should add Euclidean and not just geometry. I will remove the caveat about "indicated direction" anyway as it is confusing for the intended audience (and of course you are correct that if included for angles, it should be included for line segments).
3. On the other hand, I really want to note that two figures are congruent means that all of their corresponding measures are equal since this is the only reason we really care about congruent figures. How about:

In this sense, two plane figures are congruent implies that all of their corresponding characteristics are "congruent" or "equal" including not just their corresponding sides and angles, but also their corresponding diagonals, perimeters and areas.

BTW: It seems to me that you need both definitions to actually understand the idea of angle. Even in geometry in order to "see" an angle, you need a common vertex and two sides made of rays or line segments and in order to understand the meaning of angle, you need to know that it is a measure of turn about the vertex between the two sides. In order to check that two angles are equal or congruent, you need to (a) translate between the vertices, then (b) rotate until the sides coincide in order to (c) see that their measure of turn is equal. The english wikipedia page on angles is much, much too long for me to read. ARGH. (Pages on advanced mathematics are SO much easier to work on :))

RE: Articles with congruent angles in UK. No, no educational sites at all, but an engineering site: http://www.diracdelta.co.uk/science/source/c/o/congruent%20angles/source.html#.Umy0PPmsjTp (i had been looking up the diracdelta function for my kid) and a video http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xeak51_learn-about-congruent-angles_tech (and here I was more interested in the term "linear pairs").

Lfahlberg (talk) 10:38, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that phrasing for the implications of congruence sounds good. Hilbert's definition of an angle involves infinite rays that meet at the vertex so that true mathematical congruence is possible. I'm happy with your modifications to the article. Dbfirs 16:31, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

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Thanks DPL bot. I'll correct the links. Dbfirs 13:59, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Reverting vandalism

Hey there, thanks for reverting this vandalism. Especially when it's obvious vandalism such as this, please supply the user with a warning so proper action can be taken by automated programs and other patrollers. I recommend using twinkle as it will expedite this process. Thanks! — MusikAnimal <sup>talk</sup> 19:24, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your further revert and warning to the vandal. When I get a decent internet connection, I will take your advice to use TWINKLE. I usually do warn vandals if they are persistent, but warnings to unregistered editors are often read by someone else on the same IP address. In this case, it was a newly-created account, so I should have issued a warning. Dbfirs 19:28, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Please warn

Please remember to warn users after reverting their vandalism like this. In this case I've warned, but in the future, please warn :) -Newyorkadam (talk) 19:13, 8 March 2014 (UTC)Newyorkadam

Thank you. Dbfirs 19:17, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers#Kilowatt-hour

I'm contacting everyone who has commented but who hasn't taken an explicit Support or Oppose position (or if you did, I missed it). In the interest of bringing this discussion to resolution, it might be helpful if you could do that. Thanks. EEng (talk) 12:59, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I've added my support. Dbfirs 11:39, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

August 2014

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Thanks, BracketBot. I was so confused by the behaviour of Template:H:IPA that I forgot the closing bracket. Template:H:IPA does not allow a non-rhotic ɔ: (as in Yorkshire) and I can't understand why not. Dbfirs 23:50, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

It does, but the non-rhotic /ɔː/ is written /ɔːr/. Also, you can't use the fullwidth colon : instead of the IPA triangular colon ː. The former is correct only in X-SAMPA and similar alphabets, not IPA. Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 09:55, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I realise that now. It seemed strange that the same symbol can represent different vowels. Dbfirs 13:15, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

That's how RP is normally transcribed. We have to write /ɔr/ for the "rhotic /ɔː/" only because Help:IPA for English wants to represent all major standard accents in one transcription system. Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 16:41, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

My accent

I'm moving the discussion here per WP:Not a forum (somebody would do that anyway.) Actually, it was just my signature, which can be customised here. Yes, I'm trying to talk like that, but sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don't (especially when I'm angry and/or tired.) Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 09:50, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Explaining physics to non-physicists

Greetings: Thank you for your answers at the RD. I'll check those articles and see if I can understand something. But generally speaking I think physicists who popularize science for our benefit do not always do a great job. They should not leave us staring blankly with our mouth open while they tell us the story as they usually do. They should tell us the story (or the various stories) and in the same breath tell us the problems with and the holes in the story. Not leave us wondering: "Could that be the whole story? Is there nothing more to it? Or am I plain stupid and just don't get it?". That will give us confidence that at some qualitative very elementary level we're able to get a faint glimpse of what the hell it is they're doing the whole day long. Just to give you another example (don't feel you have to address it, it's just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about): I once watched a program about the multiverse presented by physicist Brian Greene. In it it was stated (if I understood correctly) that normally we can have no experimental proof of the existence of parallel universes but from time to time, maybe, just maybe, a particle may leak from a parallel universe to ours and that could be detected experimentally say in accelerator. Of course the immediate question that popped into my head was: if a particle can leak into our universe then a particle can leak out of our universe so the two occurrences could tend to cancel each other, couldn't they? What would we detect? I tried to ask Brian Greene this question (which he should have addressed of himself in his program anyway I think since it is something that is bound to occur naturally to most people) but I never got an answer. To this day I don't know if this is a reasonable question or if there's something I just didn't get. Contact Basemetal here 10:47, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

The parallel universe theory is just a rather fanciful attempt (in my opinion) to explain why the universe seems to be "designed" for stars and planets to form, with constants "just right". I suppose it's good science to look for evidence, but if one of Brian Greene's particles suddenly appears, how can we possibly know where it came from? It all sounds like magic to me, but, if you haven't already done so, you might like to read our article Multiverse where there are good arguments both for and against the theory. Just as interesting is the article on parallel universes in fiction and this is where I first met the concept (actually in John Wyndham's "Seeds of Time", more years ago than I care to admit). Dbfirs 16:03, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Centrifugal Force

DBfirs, You made this edit,

The child (if unaware of Newton's laws and inertial frames) is experiencing inertial centrifugal force transmitted along the string, just as, when holding the weight stationary in a vertical position, the child experiences the weight transmitted along the rope, not some "reactive gravity force"

and then removed it again. Your edit was absolutely correct, so why did you remove it? It's exactly what Roche says, but it does not appear anywhere in the wikipedia article. There seems to be a reticence to acknowledge that the inertial force causes the stretching. 94.173.45.184 (talk) 13:09, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

You removed the comment to which my edit was a reply. We were discussing the "reactive centrifugal force" not the inertial version which is perceived as real in a rotating frame. Dbfirs 13:13, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

My apologies. Yes I did remove the comment at the request of Martin Hogbin, so as not to cloud his poll. Nevertheless, your statement was perfectly correct. The issue is about the connection between the "reactive centrifugal force" and the "inertial centrifugal force". The inertial force acting on the object causes the attached rope to stretch. The tension in the stretched rope then causes the centripetal force to act on the object. The inertial force and the centripetal force both act on the object, while the object exerts the "reactive centrifugal force" on the rope. But "reactive centrifugal force" is not an appropriate name, because it is the initiator of the process. It's an action rather than a reaction, and neither is the concept unrelated to the inertial centrifugal force. That's why the sub-topic should be treated under 'constraint situations' in a single centrifugal force article. You seem to believe that the inertial force can only be viewed from the point of view of the rotating frame, yet on the other hand, you know that it stretches the rope irrespective of what frame of reference we are in. Do you not see the contradiction? The inertial force is relative to the centre of rotation, caused by rotation, and independent of any rotating frame of reference. The rotating frame of reference is the joker in the pack. Have you never seen centrifugal force derived in polar coordinates relative to an inertial frame of reference? 94.173.45.184 (talk) 14:39, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I disagree with your analysis. In an inertial frame it is the tension in the rope that accelerates the object — there is no "inertial force", and I have never seen centrifugal force "derived" in any co-ordinate system — Cartesian, polar or intrinsic, though I have worked with all three. You seem to be confusing a real reaction with a fictitious force. Dbfirs 15:52, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

What causes the tension in the rope in the first place if it's not an inertial force? You even said yourself in the comment that you removed, that there is an inertial centrifugal force transmitted along the string. As regards centrifugal force in polar coordinates in the absence of a rotating frame, have a look at this link http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/37968/centrifugal-force-and-polar-coordinates The person who is asking the questions obviously never did the course, because he wants to know why rotating frames are not mentioned. It's because they are not necessary. 94.173.45.184 (talk) 18:11, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

I think we are misunderstanding each other somewhere. I'll read your link when I have time and get back to you. Personally, I use a rotating frame just for a quick answer, never for a detailed analysis. Dbfirs 20:08, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to two interpretations of the Lagrangian. I see that you've made some big changes to the article, but I haven't time to study them just now. Dbfirs 09:28, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Science#different_units_used_in_blood_pressure_measurement

Hi. I've hidden your most recent contribution to the above question at the Reference Desk, because the assumption that you made (that the questioner's blood pressure figure was for systolic blood pressure) is not supported by anything in the question. In particular, if the figure provided by the doctor is actually for the diastolic blood pressure then there is a severe medical problem. The questioner should check this with his doctor. We cannot make assumptions for him, particularly if this might lead the questioner to conclude that there is no medical problem when there is one. The most we can do is direct the questioner to the appropriate figures in the blood pressure article, and let him make his own decisions. RomanSpa (talk) 13:19, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

That's OK. I was wondering whether to remove my reply completely, since we don't want it to be taken as medical advice. Dbfirs 14:03, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Invitation

	You've been invited to be part of WikiProject Cosmology
	Hello. Your contributions to Wikipedia have been analyzed and it seems like you'd have some interest in a new project. I hope you can contribute to it by expanding the main page and later start editing the articles in its scope. Make sure to check out the Talk page for more information! Cheers Tetra quark (talk) 19:52, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the invitation. I've an interest in the project, and I'm happy to help out, but I've no expertise in the topics. Dbfirs 23:19, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for joining us! It is ok, it isn't necessary to be an expert or anything. If you want to help us out, leave a few messages in the project talk page. The latest message has no replies yet :c Tetra quark <sup>(don't be shy)</sup> 23:25, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

American and British English pronunciation differences

Hi! As you might have noted I'm working through the article above. I check the pronunciations with dictionaries (mainly American: Random House (at dictionary.com) & Merriam-Webster, British: ODE (at oxforddictionaries.com), Collins & occasionally (since I can't find it online) OED). If I find some systematic difference for a word between the British & American entries, I add it. I noted your revert on the word "woof". I do not only want Wikipedia to be verifiable, I also want it to be true. So, policies aside, are you sure? ;) -St.nerol (talk) 17:52, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I'm impressed by your efforts to verify the entries in the article, and fully support what you are doing. I was puzzled by the addition of woof because the OED (full second edition) has only /wʊf/ for the dog bark pronunciation, but perhaps you were thinking of the thread meaning (weft), in which case /wuːf/ is the more common British pronunciation. Do Americans make this distinction? In the UK, "warp and weft" is the usual usage, so one very seldom hears this sense of woof. Dbfirs 22:02, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! It seems like the most common American pronunciation is /wʊf/ for all senses. I meant to add something like "woof (fabric)", but probably missed the last part. --St.nerol (talk) 00:36, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Even for the fabric sense, both American Heritage and Merriam-Webster on-line give both pronunciations in America, though I agree that Americans probably more often use the short vowel. In the UK, this sense of the word is rare, restricted to specialist usage where the older pronunciation is often retained. For the last hundred years "weft" has overtaken "woof" in this sense in the UK. I doubt whether most people on this side of the pond would be aware of the distinction in pronunciations. Dbfirs 08:11, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Metric Systems

Hello, I am sorry; I had read that SI units don't have plurals as per Physics NCERT class 11. I always doubt on our textbooks. Sorry for this Vandalism. --aGastya 13:47, 13 February 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by AgastyaC (talk • contribs)

That's OK, no harm done. It's the abbreviations that don't have plurals. We didn't regard your edits as vandalism. Your first edit was correct and has been retained. Dbfirs 13:57, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Name of the Satellite

Hello, I hope you recall our discussion about satellites and technologies, any idea what could be the name of the satellite you defined? -- (SuperGirlsVibrator (talk) 20:00, 26 February 2015 (UTC))

Have you changed your user name yet again? Dbfirs 21:58, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Ammm, my soul/spirit did, not me

You didn't tell me the Satellite name?-- (SuperGirlsVibrator (talk) 20:00, 27 February 2015 (UTC))

See List of satellites in geosynchronous orbit. Dbfirs 14:58, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you -- (SuperGirlsVibrator (talk) 18:20, 28 February 2015 (UTC))

Resolved

[3]

Hello, thought this might be of interest to you. Regards. -- Mr. Prophet (talk) 18:41, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Your recent "Metre" edits

Thanks, Dbfirs, for teaching me the difference between "traveled" and "travelled"; and changing "millionths" to "millionth" - I had it right the first time!

You mention in your wiki bio you are retired from teaching "ICT": just curious, what is ICT? Something computer technology? I will look for your reply here.

Regards, IiKkEe (talk) 11:43, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your edits to the article. I think we have it about right now. The spelling seems to be British elsewhere in the article, otherwise I would have left the American spelling. "ICT" is "Information and Communications Technology" — a fancy British name for what started out as "Computer Studies" when I first taught it, and is now just called "Computing". Governments like to meddle with both the name of the subject and the content of courses. Dbfirs 12:03, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your thanks; and your kind and co-operative spirit. I fiddled with the Lead a bit more since your reply: I hope you approve.

Not knowing the extent of any interest you might have in the biological sciences, I would like to mention that I have spent most of my WP time editing the Leads to several articles with an aim toward simplicity and clarity: my target audience is the first year high school student, with no plans for taking advanced placement courses, who wants a plain English overview of the subject. For fun if you wish to devote the time you might consider taking a look at the Leads for "Introduction to genetics", "Magnesium", "Caffeine", "Atom", Leptin", "Ghrelin", "Platelet", and "John Dalton", not for technical accuracy, but for readability, and edit anything you think could be said more clearly.

Again with regards, IiKkEe (talk) 13:15, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi

Hey..Sorry for insisting yesterday...It was my first time...I'm not aware of any of this rules and regulations or anything...Anyway, teach me more about this 2pi = [sin(360/n)](n)...is this genuine or I missed something?.. I just notice this principle from somewhere else w/o direct formula so I made one or maybe someone already did and I just didn't know..hehe .. This is really my first time in this things and I'm really interested to know and contribute more in this wiki things if ever...Hope to hear from you more..^_^..Godbless

Marwin2015 (talk) 04:41, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Marwin2015. Your method is perfectly valid. It's just that it relies on the sine function which has its own approximations. The place to put it, I think, will be under the polygonal approximation from which it comes. We'll see what others think on the talk page. Dbfirs 08:23, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Cool mate. Thanks for the confirmation. In the mean time, I'll check the web on how to properly edit an article. ^_^ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marwin2015 (talk • contribs) 10:31, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I think the best place to discuss your formula is the talk page Talk:Approximations of pi. Dbfirs 17:40, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Pls clarify

Would you mind clarifying this? What part is "not so?"LeadSongDog come howl! 16:00, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

The second part. It's true that the climatic seasons lag behind the astronomical markers of equinox and solstice as mid-season (i.e. they lag behind insolation), but they tend, in many oceanic areas and in all of the southern hemisphere, to be ahead of the "traditional" (sometimes claimed to be astronomical) start-of-season markers. The year article is probably not the best place to set out such details, and we already have a link to the season article where they are explained. Dbfirs 17:00, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

ok, thank you. LeadSongDog come howl! 02:57, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Tablespoon

A question about this [4], isn't Australia the only country in the world today that uses the convention of 1 tablespoon being equal to 4 teaspoon? LK (talk) 11:09, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it's the only one today as far as I know, but I recall this measure being common here in England sixty years ago. Australia didn't invent it. My tablespoons are still 20ml or 25ml. The internet wasn't around then. Dbfirs 12:20, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, no dispute about the past. But isn't it then accurate to say that Australia is unusual in that they are currently the only country where 4 tsp = 1 Tbsp ? LK (talk) 10:22, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

I didn't see it as unusual because they are just retaining the old definition. I'm not sure whether other countries do the same, but Australia might be the only one that has enshrined it in legislation. Dbfirs 21:42, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Unlink

I mainly wanted to seperate the observable universe from the Universe as much as possible. Linking the "universe" in its name would imply that the observable universe is a type of Universe, when they are actually entirely separate concepts. Though, I guess it's fine if ya think it's not a big deal. --Are you freaking kidding me (talk) 15:48, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

They are very closely linked concepts, and even more closely linked as physical entities. There are no "types of universe", only the space-time in which we live (IMHO). (Prove otherwise if you can!) I agree that it's not a big deal whether it's linked or not. Dbfirs 15:55, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

... later ... Apologies. We already had a link lower down, so it made sense to remove that one. Sorry about reverting -- I should have read more carefully first. Dbfirs 20:32, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

My vocabulary question =

Thanks again for your answer, and for all the other replies - they're very useful. Can I also ask - what does "OP" mean? 212.105.160.248 (talk) 23:59, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

You're welcome. I enjoy researching the answers. "OP" is the "Original Poster", in other words, the person who asked the original question. Dbfirs 08:59, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Intuitive explanation of Binomial coefficients

Could you give an intutive explanation for Binomial coefficient?Eventhough the mentioned pdf gives an intuitive explanation I can't really get what they are trying to say.Could you help me.JUSTIN JOHNS (talk) 06:39, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

I often think in terms of tossing coins. For example, if you toss four three coins (or one coin four three times), then the list of possible outcomes is HHH, HHT, HTH, THH, HTT, THT, TTH, TTT

These eight outcomes can be grouped as ONE with three heads, THREE with two heads and a tail,

THREE with one head and two tails, and ONE with three tails.

These numbers: 1, 3, 3, 1 are binomial coefficients in the expansion of (1 + x)<sup>3</sup> (or (x + y)<sup>3</sup>)

Have you also looked at Pascal's Triangle? Dbfirs 08:35, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Okay thanks for this but I suppose that you should have mentioned three instead of four coins.Oh that's not a problem.To be frank I can't get why you mentioned the coins problem here eventhought it might be intuitive to others.Let's leave that.I've realised that binomial coefficients take k a's out of n as given here in this :answer.What now confuses me is how the equation for binomial coefficient came.Could you help me.JUSTIN JOHNS (talk) 09:38, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, yes, I was going to do four, but I was in a hurry so changed it to three. Which equation are you asking about? Do you mean the number of ways of picking k items from n written as factorials? Dbfirs 20:29, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes absolutely that equation.JUSTIN JOHNS (talk) 06:21, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

It's explained in our article Factorial#Applications, but perhaps an actual example might help. If you flip ten coins (n = 10) then there are 2 to the power of ten (= 1024) possible outcomes. If you want to calculate how many of these have three heads (k = 3), then you are finding the number of ways to pick 3 objects from ten. There are ten positions that the first head can appear, nine remaining for the second head, and eight remaining for the third head. Thus the number of permutations of 3 objects from ten is 10 times 9 times 8 which is 720. This can be written as 10! divided by 7! (i.e. n! divided by k!) because you only need the first three terms of 10! and dividing by 7! cancels out the remaining seven.

For our probability, we are not interested in the order in which these heads appear (imagine our three coins that landed on heads have a spot of paint on them -- one red, one green and one blue. There are six orders in which these identified heads could turn up: RGB, RBG, BRG, BGR, GRB and GBR so in our factorial calculation of 720 permutations, we have counted each arrangement six times. The number of combinations of three heads from ten coins is thus 720 divided by six, which gives 120, and the probability of three heads from ten is 120 divided by 1024. In terms of factorials, to take account of the number of arrangements of k objects, we divide by k! (3! = 6 above), so the formula for the binomial coefficient is n! divided by both (n minus k)! and by k!. I don't know whether this helps. Dbfirs 09:12, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your help.To be frank I couldn't get this answer at first read but after checking out this math website I could get what you really meant.For a novice this answer would scratch his head since he might get confused with the paint and coins.

It might be better to directly say that in x³ we could represent it as x1x2x3,x1x3x2,.........x3x2x1 where x1=x2=x3=x and since all of these 6 representations of x³ gives you the same xxx or x³ we divide it by 6 or 3! so the binomial coefficient of x³ be (3!/(3!)*(0!)).JUSTIN JOHNS (talk) 10:45, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good website. They explain the same thing using books on shelves. Dbfirs 13:12, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your cooperation and kindness.JUSTIN JOHNS (talk) 06:30, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Your answers to my computer questions

My last question got archived so I asked a new one (now archived) wth a link back to the archived question. I'd appreciate your having a look. I always manage to talk myself out of buying a new computer when it works fine for hours after I start it up, but each day brings worse problems which might actually be problems I can solve.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:17, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry about your computer problems. I've been following your saga, and I've now answered on the RefDesk. Dbfirs 21:21, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Were you signed in? I don't see any responses.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:35, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, got diverted -- just answering. Dbfirs 21:43, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

They tend to object if I don't ask a question on the reference desk, and until I have an actual question about how to use it or fix a problem, I'm not sure how to tell people this since the question was archived and I've already added to the details since then (and on Tuesday the old one gave me one last blue screen which I didn't see because the computer had already restarted). It's an HP and it was the cheaper of the two styles they had. AND it was on sale. So I got it for $267. The old one was $950 in 2008 but that included a monitor and an extended warranty. No one said anything to me about a warranty or anything, so I guess I'll discover everything once I open the box. I'm at a library now and hopefully the new computer will be safe in my trunk. I have lots to do today before I go home.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:44, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

And I described briefly what was wrong with the old computer. The man said it could be fixed. Given the deal I got on the new one, it just might be worth it.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:59, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I was going to suggest, as others have done, that you try booting your old computer from a flash drive to find out what the problem was. I'd be interested to know whether it was marginal sectors on your hard drive or malware. Congratulations on your bargain new computer -- they seem to be much more expensive in the UK, but I suppose it depends on specifications. Dbfirs 16:05, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Now that I can see the box, it's an HP 251-A126 with Windows 10 Home and McAfee antivirus. However, I'm still using the old computer. It worked fine today. I don't know whether it shut down but I haven't seen it do anything wrong. I decided not to update anything. I can't unplug the monitor from it (but this means I'll be able to switch back and forth without doing that and I can still use the old machine and maybe find out what happened), so until I make a trip to get a new cable for that, I can't use the new computer (though I did manage to turn it on, and its hard disk sure is quiet). The last time I got a new monitor, I wrecked the cable trying to plug it in (and this appears likely to happen again). I realize now I should have just left the cable plugged in and unplugged it from the defective monitor. Anyway, I took the computer and monitor to the store where I bought the computer (and the one yesterday), and they sold me a new cable which was not covered under warranty like the monitor was (I got the monitor shipped but don't even remember from where). I'll have to do the same thing again with just the computer and a new cable but I'll go to a store closer to home. That will be Tuesday.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:27, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

That model doesn't seem to be available now in the UK, but the last advert I can find has it priced at nearly £300 (over $400). It's a fairly basic model, but gets good reviews, as I expect you know. Does the old cable have some screws that anchor it in place? I hope your new computer works well when you get it connected. Dbfirs 23:44, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

The salesman said it was a good computer. I never look for reviews. I was happy with an HP. One big problem I hadn't counted on: there was a secure connection to the wire that plugs in. This one has a connection that is easy to pull out of the computer if I trip over the wire, which I did this morning, and the computer came unplugged. That is ridiculous and shouldn't be allowed. I'm going to take the computer to a store that sells the cables to connect to the monitor. The fact is I don't want to be disconnecting and reconnecting the cable from the monitor. If someone there can explain how to do it, maybe I can. But I can't see a spcific way to disconnect the cable, so at the very least I need a new one that I can connect to the new computer and to the monitor. On the other hand, how easy will that be? And if it's not, I need a new monitor. This one is four and a half years old and lasted longer than the first one I had.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:50, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

You were right about the screws. I disconnected it from the monitor end. I just didn't try hard enough to see if that's what loosened them. Still, there are two places to attach cables to the monitor. A second cable would make things a lot easier if I want to use the old computer. I still have to move the keyboard and mouse since I broke both of them, an d the Internet connection.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:51, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I thought I was going to have to connect the new computer myself this morning. First I turned it on, checked back, and found the screen telling me to do a startup repair. A different screen. This also involved a restore. Plus the screen went black and the computer beeped before I ever got the startup repair under way. But all is fine now. I tried working on the connection to the monitor on my old computer and it's not that I have arthritis, but I just have a hard time getting my hands to do that. They're not screws in the sense I can use a screwdriver, which would be so much better. Letting someone do the job for me is better because it won't get messed up. I actually appear to have two connections on the monitor, which would make it easier if I switched back and forth. And I could actually take the old computer somewhere.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:42, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Those screws can be very fiddly. Some have a slot so that you can use a screwdriver, but if they haven't, and someone has tightened them too much, they can be very difficult to loosen after many years. Thin pliers might help, but if you bend instead of turn they can do more harm than good. Dbfirs 18:51, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

I tried again with the old computer and may have gotten it to the point where I could pull it out, but I was too scared. The new cable only cost about $21 (the existing one was nearly twice that for some reason). The girl put it in for me and I tried working on the other end and she said I was doing it right. The monitor is still at home, but the computer is in the car and I'll take it in tonight and hook it up tomorrow. And then the fun begins. I noticed this same store repaired computers so I described my problems. The other person said Vista was no longer being updated. I don't know about that. But when I mentioned the beeping, the first girl said that sounded like the motherboard, they'd have to send it off somewhere, and it wouldn't be worth it.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:59, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, if you do have a fault on the motherboard, then it's probably not worth the repair charge. It's true that Vista is no longer being updated in the sense that Microsoft is no longer issuing new service packs, but that doesn't stop the computer working (I'm still using Vista to type this). There might still be the odd security patch available until the official "end of life" for Vista in April 2017. By then, I'll have tried installing Linux on this computer to see if I can get a bit more life out of it (if nothing else goes wrong before then). Dbfirs 21:23, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

The second place to plug in a monitor doesn't work, so there won't be any going back and forth. I succeeded in getting the monitor plugged in this morning, turned the computer on to make sure it worked, found out I had managed to unplug the computer minutes after I saw a green light when I plugged in the Internet (this may be a problem that requires solving, but we'll deal with it later), waited and waited and told it where I was, and then saw a message about updates. Since it said, "This might take a while", I went to the library where I know how everything works.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:20, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

That will probably just be the usual updates to Windows which normally take a while, but if you have a slow internet connection then they can take a very long time. Dbfirs 16:30, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Normally, I get these while I'm online. Going to the library and letting that take place while I'm gone is an option, and I now do my virus scans that way. For updates, I would click on a logo (or before I started having problems, it was automatic and I just saw the logo, and if I moused over it, it said what percentage of updates had been downloaded).— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:20, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Edit in progress Dentdale

You're right about the road - but I may just have got around to sorting it as the notice says edit in progress. Please do not edit whilst I am editing it - that's why I put the notice on there as it is bothering when you are trying to sort something with people editing half way through. Thank you. The joy of all things (talk) 20:02, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

By coincidence, I looked at the Dentdale article a few days ago and wondered why it was so sparse. I had difficulty finding the road number, so wanted to add it while I remembered, but I'll leave the article alone for you to complete the good work. I missed the "in use" heading and thought it was still just "under construction" as it had been earlier. Thank you for the improvements. Dbfirs 20:09, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Canadian Oxford Dictionary

Hi Dbfirs! You were once so kind to help me by pasting a few entries from Canadian Oxford Dictionary at the Ref Desk. I'd like to ask you for one more favour now. Could you please look up "cheap like borscht" and let me know what COD has to say about this expression? Thanks! — Kpalion<sup>(talk)</sup> 22:26, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

The second edition (2004) just has a brief note under the borscht entry: Phrases: "cheap like borscht (Canadian informal): extremely cheap.". It doesn't give any etymology, just "– origin Russian borshch" for the main entry. The Wiktionary etymology "A calque from Yiddish, as the beets used to make it were among the cheapest vegetables" doesn't seem to be taken from any source. Dbfirs 00:29, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! — Kpalion<sup>(talk)</sup> 14:53, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

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