Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 May 9

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May 9

French King/Duke of Aquitaine

Was it impossible for the Ducal titles of Aquitaine to coexist with the title of King of France? I noticed rulers of Aquitaine after the beginning of the Hundred Years' War, be it either the Plantaganet Kings of England, who claim to be the rightful kings of France, or the Valois kings, they used the title themself but grant them to relatives. And when it wasn't in the hand of a relative, it was still not a title that the kings used. So, I am guessing Aquitaine could only exist as a fief. Example of this include Richard II of England was never Duke and Henry IV gave up his right to Aquitaine after becoming king of England in 1399. --Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 05:19, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

The Duke of Aquitaine was legally a vassal of the King of France, as was the Duke of Normandy, and since the Plantagenet English kings tended to hold both territories they were in the awkward position of being someone else's vassal in the largest and richest and most powerful sections of their little empire. In practise the King of France usually couldn't do much about this because he couldn't enforce his own power outside the Ile-de-France. Normandy was brought under direct royal control in 1204 and afterwards it was one of the royal titles; the English recognized this in the Treaty of Paris (1259), but still claimed Aquitaine; when the French tried to take that too, the Hundred Years' War began. In 1360 the war briefly ended with the Treaty of Brétigny, and now the English could hold Aquitaine without being vassals of France, but that wasn't good enough for either side; the French kings started granting it to their heirs, and the English of course claimed the rest of France too. When England lost the war they also lost Aquitaine (though I suppose the various subsequent English claims to the French throne included Aquitaine). So, it's not that it was impossible for the Duchy of Aquitaine to coexist with the King of France, it's just that they chose to grant it to their heirs; it was probably a way of sticking it to the English, that is, it wasn't just a French royal title, they claimed so much control over it that they could freely grant it to someone else. They didn't need to do that with Normandy because it was already firmly under French control. Similarly there's no reason the Prince of Wales couldn't be one of the British royal titles, except that they just chose not to do it that way. (Incidentally, your spymaster is still Duke of Normany, as ruler of the Channel Islands, even though Normandy proper wasn't claimed after the thirteenth century.) Adam Bishop (talk) 13:36, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Its a little more complicated if you go back a bit farther; back in Merovingian times, Aquitaine was alternately a kingdom and a duchy, and had varying relationships with other states in the area of West Francia. The land that would form the core of the Kingdom of France was Neustria, which did not include Aquitaine as among its territories.

In fact, much of what we think of as France either de facto (Aquitaine, Normandy, Provence) or de jure (Basse-Navarre, Burgundy, Brittany, Savoy) were independent from the French Kingdom until comparitively recently. this map shows the situation at the late 12th century, when Philip II Augustus expanded the Royal Desmesne; and yet the green parts of that map, while oweing fealty to Philip, essentially ran their own affairs. During this time, the relationship between the King of France and most of his vassals was not unlike that between the Holy Roman Emporer and his vassals. France really only became a centralized state in the 1400's... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:23, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Nothing to do with the old or new Coke

What are classical rabbis? I see them mentioned here and there (capitalized differently too), but can't find a definition, not even in Rabbi. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:12, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe Rabbis of the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods? Some context would help. AnonMoos (talk) 08:26, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

For example:

"The majority view of classical rabbis was that the commandments will still be applicable and in force during the messianic era.",

"...the classical rabbis were worried that Jews using artificial milk...",

"The classical rabbis downplayed the military and nationalistic dimensions of Hanukkah...",

"The fear of apostasy was behind most of the classical rabbis' regulation of the slave trade.". Clarityfiend (talk) 23:02, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if they're referring to Orthodox rabbis? — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 21:17, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Muslim achievements

Has any significant achievement from the last two centuries been made by a muslim? I'm looking for anything that heavily and positively influenced the rest of the world--a book, a painting, a scientific discovery, a philosophical idea, anything. After googling "muslim nobel prize winners" and similar search terms, the answer seems to be a "no", but I want to ask here before jumping to conclusions. --99.237.234.104 (talk) 07:48, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

In other circumstances Abdus Salam could have been considered a Muslim Nobel Prize winner in sciences -- however, the Pakistani government and most publicly-influential Muslim religious leaders are extremely anxious to classify his religious grouping as not being "real" Muslims at all... AnonMoos (talk) 08:17, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Ali. Float like a bumblebee, sting like a, uh. Shit. 79.122.54.77 (talk) 10:43, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Muhammad Yunus. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 12:37, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

You're really asking "has a Muslim does anything the western World considers a significant achievement", you imperialist dog! Okay, well, seriously, what about things that are extremely significant for the Muslim world? Muhammad Yunus is one, Muhammad Iqbal, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Naguib Mahfouz (he won a Nobel Prize, by the way), Mustafa Kemal Ataturk...the list can go on and on if we put enough thought into it. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:43, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

This is indeed a loaded question. Notable people do not always advertise their religious beliefs. There are many lists here on notable people from countries where the majority of the population is Muslim. List of Turkish philosophers and scientists is but one of these. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:21, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

You may, in this context, be interested in the writings of Ziauddin Sardar who has analysed many misconceptions inherent in the "Western" view of Islam. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:32, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Aha, I remembered who I was thinking of originally - Sayyid Qutb. You might not want to argue that he positively influenced the world, at least from a western perspective, but his influence is certainly significant. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:22, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not much of a list, is it? Two dictators; the founding father of a state that has been in such perpetual crisis that it has been seriously argued by some of its own intellectuals that it would have been better for its citizens if it had not created in the first place (and half of them - the Bangladeshis - have actually quit the country); the intellectual inspiration behind Islamist terrorism; and two writers who haven't really changed anything outside the Muslim world, even if their works are admired (and one of them received serious death threats from fellow Muslims). Muhammad Yunus is the most positive name supplied, but microcredit existed in Ireland in the 1700s and credit unions started in Germany in 1852, so basically he repackaged old Western ideas (he got his PhD in the United States), and gave them a trendy ethnic face that appealed to guilt-ridden PC white Western liberals. I note that his wikipedia biography peddles the myth that microfinance was an original Asian idea, but as the subject articles make clear, it wasn't. Alex Middleton (talk) 02:37, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I suspect the answer is that no, there has not been one single Muslim in the last few hundred years who has had an impact outside the Islamic world that is both substantial and positive. If I'm wrong, give me a name. If I'm right, friends of the Muslim world should reflect on that reality and work out what needs to be done to fix it (in the Middle Ages the Islamic world did produce people who made a substantial and positive influence on the wider world, so it could happen again), rather than go into denial and smear people who point out an inconvenient truth with false accusations of bigotry. Even if there are one or a few names, the contribution of the Islamic world to the rest of the world in recent centuries has been wretchedly small. Alex Middleton (talk) 02:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I really cant remember his name but there was a Pakistani guy, who i presume was Muslim, who wrote a highly controversial book. He was something to do with the UK as well as he was awarded a prize and a lot of Muslim people didn't like that. :)

Salman Rushdie, who is British/Indian not Pakistani. And his life story doesn't reflect positively on Islam. Alex Middleton (talk) 02:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Did the recent Euromillions lottery have a positive expectation?

The Euromillions draw on friday had a record number of rollovers - the unclaimed winnings from previous draws added to the current prize pot. Did it have a positive expectation - in other words, was the sum of the value of the prizes greater than the sum of the cost of all the lottery tickets purchased? In Britain a ticket costs £1.50. I am only willing to buy a lottery ticket if there is a positive expectation, but it is difficult to estimate in advance. If this record rollover did not have such an expectation, then it probably never will. 84.13.54.183 (talk) 08:50, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Lottery prizes (by the very definition of lottery) are accrued from the sale of tickets, and are always considerably less than the money taken in sales because the sales points, government and other beneficiaries take a large portion of the money. No serious gambler goes in for lotteries as the chances of getting any return are extremely small. (That's why they are called "idiot tax".)--86.25.195.237 (talk) 09:50, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm asking about that particular draw on Friday, not the qualities of lotteries in general. 84.13.54.183 (talk) 10:34, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

You are correct that rollovers do, in theory, offer a possibility of a positive expectation. I think this page would have the information you need to calculate it, were it working (which it isn't). I'll check it again in a bit... --Tango (talk) 13:04, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

That site is back up, but doesn't have the necessary information. I can't find the details anywhere. (You need total number of tickets bought and total prize fund.) --Tango (talk) 14:04, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Muslim Pakistani Philosopher Hammad Yousuf presented a new thoughts about the creation of universe and also presented new philosophical thoughts. http://metaexistence.org

Websites that do stock market predictions using Collective Intelligence

This section of the article Collective_intelligence#Stock_Market_Predictions_using_Collective_Intelligence says there are websites that do this, but I have not been able to find any despite searching. I'm intrigued by the idea and would like to see some practical examples for stock markets and other markets. Can anyone point out any such websites please? 84.13.54.183 (talk) 10:39, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Intrade is one example. John M Baker (talk) 14:22, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

HSX is a prediction site that uses a stock market metaphor to price movies that have not come out yet, and predicts how much money they're going to make on their opening weekend in America and then the subsequent 3 weeks. Tempshill (talk) 15:03, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

The symbolic significance of the 5th. of May in Chaucerian times

Once long ago when I was studying Chaucer the teacher said something about the significance of the 5th. May to people in Chaucerian times. Something relating to nature I think - might be the time when everything is in leaf again after the winter. Can anyone remind me of what it was please, and what its name was? I have not found anything on Wikipedia. 84.13.54.183 (talk) 10:44, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure you didn't mishear the First of May? This was traditionally called May Day in England. The article gives a lot of information about the pre-Christian festivities, which continued in rural parts of England: some of which are still practised to this day. --TammyMoet (talk) 12:15, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure it was the 5th. of May. 84.13.54.183 (talk) 15:26, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

That may well have been what was said, but I suspect TammyMoet is still correct in pointing you to May Day. The only thing 5 May has going for it: there was a tradition that set the date of the Crucifixion as 25 March AD 29. That traditional date results in 5 May being the day of the Resurrection. And of course it's not a big step to generalize from the rebirth of Christ to the rebirth of nature. But it's May Day/Beltane that had all the celebrations and significance. - Nunh-huh 00:51, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

25 March to 5 May would be 41 or 42 days, but the Resurrection supposedly happened on the 3rd day after the Crucifixion. -- JackofOz (talk) 02:24, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

True enough, Resurrection day + 40 days --> Ascension - Nunh-huh 02:33, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

In Britain we are very aware of the 1st. of May. The teacher would not have confused the 1st. with the 5th. 78.146.19.83 (talk) 23:12, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

The hazard rates for popular activities

Many modern activities that people choose to do have a risk of an accident or bad outcome of some kind. Drinking alcohol - risk of alcoholism. Gambling - risk of gambling addiction. Skiing - risk of broken limb etc. Driving - risk of accident (driving is a choice behaviour because you could get a job/home combination within walking distance or use public transport). Eating junk food - health problems. Smoking - health problems. Recreational drug use - health and psychological problems. Is there a table anywhere that compares the hazard rate for various popular elective activities such as the above please? 84.13.54.183 (talk) 11:11, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Not answering the question, but I dispute that all people "could get a job/home combination within walking distance or using public transport", certainly not an affordable option for everyone in every location. Tempshill (talk) 15:05, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Its your choice to live in that location. I thought someone would say that. 84.13.54.183 (talk) 15:29, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Affluent city folk have more choices than, say, poor rural farmhands. Enjoy your affluence, you free-marketeer. Tempshill (talk) 16:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

The poor rural farmhand could move to a city, though. I think that's the point the OP is making. Someone with no skills might not be able to get a good job in a city, but (outside of recessions) they could probably find something. So, it is a choice. The risk is from driving is generally considered acceptable in light of the benefits of being able live and work in places you like, though. (The risk to the environment is generally considered more significant than the direct risk to the person in the car.) --Tango (talk) 15:23, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I may be wrong, but I believe many farmers walk to work! DOR (HK) (talk) 05:52, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

French passes

Did Captain Kidd ever give the French passes he captured to Lord Bellomont? There seems to be no mention of it in the article... Wikiert ^{T S C} 11:54, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Paintings in the White House 2

As I had quick and accurate answers to my former question on this Reference desk, I recidivism with 3 other ones :

• Is the new portrait in the Cabinet Room the portrait of Harry Truman ? The official painting portrait ?
• Name and author of the new large painting in the Oval Office private dining room ?
• Name and author of the old painting in the Oval Office private dining room ?

• 
  Cabinet Room, April 27, 2009. In the background, Washington and Enseinhower portraits.
• 
  Cabinet Room, May 1 , 2009. On the right, the Enseinhower portrait have been removed. The new one seems to be a Truman portrait.
• 
  In the Oval Office Private Dining room, a new painting replaces an old one which is now on the opposite wall.
• 
  The new painting stored with others paintings and photograhs in the private study before being hung up in the next dining room.
• 
  The painting which have changed of wall in the Dining Room.

Thanks for your help. TCY (talk) 16:22, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

That's Truman, not sure if it's the official portrait. By the way, I don't think English is your first language, but I salute you for a very interesting use of the word recidivism (though not a correct use). Tempshill (talk) 16:54, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

You're right, my first language is French. I believed the word recidivism was the same meaning of the french récidiver or recidivisme : doing voluntarily something for a second time, most of the time the word have a meaning of doing something bad for the second time (here use as a joke). TCY (talk) 21:29, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, recidivism is also a noun, and in English it generally means "returning to commit a crime after being punished for it" Like robbing banks after getting out of jail for robbing banks before. But carry on with your art ID. Its been an interesting line of questions. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

What different ways can money be created in finance?

The money supply article says that money is created when banks lend money and only keep a fractional of that amount on deposit. Yet, when a company issues shares, does that not create money also? If the company has $1million of assets, and it sells shares worth $500000, has it not it created more money? The company still has $1M of assets, but now it has an additional $500000 in cash also. This may not affect the nation's money supply, but from the companies point of view it has got another half million for free. What other ways can financiers create 'money for nothing'? 84.13.54.183 (talk) 17:27, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

No, unfortunately the "Store of wealth" criterion is satisfied, but the "unit of account" and - more importantly to issues of monetary base - the "medium of exchange" (or "means of payment") criteria aren't. So the newly issued financial assets have to be converted into the traditional definition of "money" (cash or deposits) before they can be used as money.NByz (talk) 20:31, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I also meant to mention that there is a cost of equity, which represents the required expected dividend yield of equity offering. Investors will demand this expected return to compensate for both risk and uncertainty. This rears its head as - on the equity side - a capital raiser has to offer more and more shares (yield more and more control of the company) to get the same amount of cash. A clever company will issue equity (stocks), bonds (debt) and hybrid instruments (warrants, options, convertible securities) such that their cost of equity = their cost of debt = their cost of hybrid securities.NByz (talk) 20:48, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Unlike the other kinds of companies described by NByz, retail money market funds may be considered to create money this way, since they do meet the unit of account and medium of exchange tests. The Fed includes their shares in the M2 measure of money.

Money is also created by the sale of travelers' checks (and these are included in the narrower M1 measure). Travelers' checks amount to an interest-free loan to the issuer, which then is able to invest those funds. Repurchase agreements were included in the broad M3 measure, back when the Fed maintained it. John M Baker (talk) 04:11, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Price of a cow?

Are there any economic models or indices that measure wealth is terms of how many heads of livestock somebody owns? Or on the relative value of a large domesticated mammal in relation to other things in life? (I know in the past, and probably still today in some cultures, this was the way to measure how much a person is worth.)--Sonjaaa (talk) 18:00, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Not heard of cow ones - The Economist do a Big Mac Index and also a Starbucks Latte Index. I guess the big mac one has at least a bit of 'cow' in it! You might want to search around on google for purchasing power indexes, as doubtlessly more exist. ny156uk (talk) 18:25, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

There's also this page List of unusual units of measurement but I can't see any reference to cows/cattle or even beef. ny156uk (talk) 18:33, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

There's the You have two cows joke... -- AnonMoos (talk) 19:11, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Hah. Well usually the value of any financial asset (a cow can be considered one; it produces a 'return') is the present value of it's expected payments. So you can think of a ow as having an annual yield equal to [Value of Milk Produced] - [Value of feedstock + opportunity cost of land +c any additional inputs] and a final yield of [Value of Meat produced]. The farmer would discount these payments at his or her 'opportunity cost of capital' (how much each dollar of capital is worth to him, by year).

In a high volume, monetary capitalist system, we would use "dollars" as our unit of account to convert these values from one good to another (to account for changes in relative prices), but in a pre-currency economy, you'd have to use some other thing that was universally trade-able.NByz (talk) 20:36, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, if cow ownership produces any additional social benefits (social stature in the community, leadership etc.) you'd have to value those effects by using some sort of "willingness-to-pay" or "willingness-to-accept" measure. How much would the farmer be willing to pay (using either dollars or the unit of account above) to get them, or how much would he be willing to accept to have them taken away. These sorts of experiments are tough to do if we're talking about a historical society. But some clever regression analysis of other things known about that society might produce some estimates.NByz (talk) 20:39, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

NByz -- They aren't hard to do. We have a commodity market that figures out those numbers every day. I'll admit that all the externalities (good and bad) aren't necessarily accounted for, but it's certainly better than academic guesses. Also, the "return" on a cow, reduced to present value, ought to be the price of the cow. Shadowjams (talk) 21:50, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you just want to know the price of a cow? Right now [1] live feeder cattle (that is cattle for human beef consumption) trade for about $1 USD / 1 lb (0.45 kg). If you figure a ready for slaughter cow is about 1,100 lb (500 kg) (this is going to change a lot and I have no idea if this is a very accurate #), then it's easy math. Obviously there are a lot of costs involved too. Shadowjams (talk) 21:46, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

The last bit in parenthesis makes me feel like the OP is most interested in the value of a cow in a pre-currency (or poorly integrated, regional) economy.NByz (talk) 22:00, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps as with the father of Mma Precious Ramotswe, characters of the Tswana people of Botswana in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith, for a recent literary source. Otherwise, possibly the Sami people (a.k.a. Lapps) have a wealth calculation involved with their reindeer herds. -- Deborahjay (talk) 16:30, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Bassoon Music

It occurs to me that I don't really know any bassoon music, although I have enjoyed what I have heard of them. For example, the bassoon section of The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra is one of the few sections I enjoy (apart from the original Purcell theme).

Could anyone recommend some particularly good bassoon music? This could be something solely or mostly performed by bassoons, or something with particularly good bassoon bits. 80.41.71.69 (talk) 21:18, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Unless you have seen it already, our article on bassoon has a section listing the major works, from Vivaldi and Telemann to Richard Strauss and John Williams. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:40, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

A recent question on the Ref. Desk alluded to the bassoon trios of Julius Weissenborn; in Classical music one of the best known bassoon "bits" is the solo in Stravinsky's Firebird, or Firebird Suite; one of my particular favorites is the bassoon section in the orchestral version of Charles Ives's Variations on America. - Nunh-huh 21:50, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

The Stravinsky ballet with the famous bassoon part is The Rite of Spring, which has a phenomenally high bassoon solo at the beginning. Also see Category:Compositions for bassoon. Graham87 10:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Fed funds

Fed. Funds are overnight loans from the federal resere to banks. Does that mean that a startup bank, if it meets the regulations, can use Fed Funds as funding.--24.4.54.96 (talk) 23:53, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Yep! There would be minimum capital requirements, including depositary base and "Tier one" capital (money you, or other investors, put in) requirements and you would need to be a Bank holding company. I'm trying to find some specific numbers... I'll bet these[2] guys would know.NByz (talk) 00:14, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

That characterization of Tier 1 capital I think is a little simplistic, and fed window funding isn't limited to BHCs (bank holding companies). But Fed funds might (i'm unsure) be limited to federally chartered banks. As a practical matter though, almost every bank will have FDIC insurance (federal banks are required to have it, and the vast majority of state banks do have it), which might (again, I'm unclear) grant fed window access. Shadowjams (talk) 10:28, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Trinity vs Hindu polytheism

What form of Hinduism has a conception of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva most analogous to the Christian Trinity? NeonMerlin 23:59, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Many Christians would maintain that triads of gods as found in various mythological systems are not generally very closely analogous to the Christian Trinity at all... AnonMoos (talk) 18:07, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

To answer the question the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu is really only important in the Smarta school of Hinduism. Vishnavas, Shaivas, and Shaktissee Vishnu (or an avatar of Vishnu), Shiva, or one of the forms of Shakti as a the true Godhead (actually I'm simplifying the Shakti view here). The Smarta view of the trinity is not really like that in Christianity's mythological system, because Smarta see all aspects of the trinity as emanating from the universal Brahman, (they are Saguna brahman). -- Q Chris (talk) 08:28, 11 May 2009 (UTC)