Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 October 20

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October 20

Organization

I want to know 2 organizations which against using of drug, specifically on marijuana.174.20.58.67 (talk) 05:26, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Partnership for a druge free america and D.A.R.E are 2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.167.165.2 (talk) 05:40, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for responding really fast and they are really what i was looking for.174.20.58.67 (talk) 05:44, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

on the article ' P. Rajagopalachari '

Who was the publisher of the book ( FLASHING AYYANGAR - The Life and Times of P. Rajagopalachari,1864-1927 )cited for further reading with the life-sketch titled ' P. Rajagopalachari ' ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yayaathy (talk • contribs) 09:15, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

what do Christians wear to church?

I attended Mormon sacrament meetings as a child and was taught that men should wear suits and ties and that women should wear dresses to church. I assumed that most other denominations had similar expectations... that one should "nice clothes" to church. Of course, I stopped practicing many years ago, and never gave the topic further thought.

However, I'm now looking at various pictures and videos online, and I'm seeing that a lot of these born-again/evangelical/Pentecostal types show up for services wearing what we would have termed "street clothes." What about Catholic services? Mainline protestants? Eastern Orthodox? What are you generally expected to wear?--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 15:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Most churches I have attended prefer males to wear a button up shirt and slacks. A good portion would wear suits and ties. They would not kick you out for wearing street clothes, but some people might assume you were poor or unfamiliar with attending church. Of course, this varies greatly from church to church, even within one denomination. My experiences would apply to Baptist churches in the Midwest US. Googlemeister (talk) 15:28, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Raised evangelical, convert Orthodox. I grew up wearing "nice things" to church and this was normal in my North American Protestant church. There was definitely a "casualizing" of what I and others wore to church (a generally more casual attitude) up until I started attending Orthodox Christian services about 10 years ago. I would say Orthodox are more likely to wear "nice clothes" still (button up shirt, dress pant, even suits, modest clothing for women) in my experience in the Orthodox parishes I've been in. 198.161.238.19 (talk) 15:35, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

As you've noticed, dress expectations vary widely from church to church. At more 'traditional' evangelical churches, people still dress up a bit for church. At my mainline church, we wear what we'd wear to a professional job: not suit and tie, but button-up shirt and slacks. The new evangelical churches cultivating a hipper image often have a much more casual dress code, like what you'd wear to a pop concert or high school- jeans are okay, but not sweatpants. As for dresses, it seems to me that far fewer women are wearing dresses at all, to church or work, except on the most formal occasions. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 15:40, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

For theological reasons, the only "strict" dress code is that for Roman Catholics and some other relatively conservative groups, women must wear a head covering. As a practical matter, churches in the southern US tend to have much more relaxed dress standards than the northern churches have, with "dress casual" being the norm in Florida, while most of the northeast still expects jacket and tie for men (other than in the summer for non-airconditioned churches). I tend to think "practical" is a substantial reasoning for this. Collect (talk) 16:53, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

OR here, but in no Roman Catholic church I've ever seen have women been required to wear a head covering. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:01, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Same here (in Malaysia or at least the church I attended it was fairly rare [1]). See also Christian headcovering which notes it's only common among Traditionalist Catholics and in cultures where it's sitll common to wear a hat. Nil Einne (talk) 19:41, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

It's all about respect. My memories go back to when it was more or less the norm for men to wear hats, which HAD to be removed in church. Women did not always wear hats outside, but they HAD to cover their heads in church, even if only with a handkerchief. I never understood why the rule was women must and men must not. But it's all relaxed now to a great degree; it's still OK for a woman to wear a hat, but there's no requirement anymore; I think men who wear head covering in church would still be frowned upon. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:04, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

It comes from one of St. Paul's "issues" – "For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of man... If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice—nor do the churches of God." 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 WikiDao ☯ (talk) 21:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

One factor, I think, is that churches in the Calvinist line tend to be opposed to display of any sort, hence naturally gravitate toward drab clothing. Looie496 (talk) 17:22, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

For Christian naturists clothing is not a problem. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 19:26, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

It might, in Minnesota in mid-winter.

The old tradition or stereotype was that everyone would bathe on Saturday night and wear their "Sunday best" to church, to be relatively clean and proper before God. Then Monday was washday and the full set of clothes for a week would get washed (except those worn on Monday). Regarding the head-covering, the Christian approach of men removing their hats seems to be in direct and perhaps deliberate contravention to the Jewish approach of always wearing a head covering (i.e. a yarmulke), in the temple especially. Oddly, in both cases it's for ostensibly the same reason: humbling yourself before God. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:51, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I can definitely say that in Asia's largest Catholic nation (the Philippines), a lot of people go to Mass wearing just a nice shirt (button-down or even a T-shirt), jeans and sneakers, regardless of social status. While older Catholics tend to dress more conservatively (normally slacks and leather shoes along with a more formal shirt), younger ones, myself included, do not. However, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines has guidelines on what to wear during Mass: for example, it is inappropriate to wear flip-flops, shorts (of any kind. except for children), tank tops, spaghetti straps, sleeveless shirts and miniskirts while attending Mass or in a church. The same guidelines are by and large also being followed by adherents of the Philippine Independent Church, the "local" Catholic Church.

Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons and members of the Iglesia ni Cristo dress conservatively: men are expected to wear button-downs, slacks and leather shoes, while women are expected to wear dresses. --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 04:46, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

There's a lot of variety about this, as people are saying, depending on many factors that have been mentioned. I think most people who attend a traditional Christian church regularly do put on fairly modest, conservative clothes, clean and in good order if they can, as a sign of respect. But may I also point out that the Bible makes it really clear that Christians are not supposed to treat anyone who comes to their church in poor clothing any differently than people who come to their church in rich clothing? See the first nine verses of the second chapter of the Book of James, in this external link. Christians don't always follow this teaching, of course, but they're supposed to.  – OhioStandard (talk) 07:04, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

At my Church of England church in London, 40 years ago it was suit and tie for the men and formal dress with a hat for ladies. Now most people manage smart-casual clothing, a few men still go for a collar and tie and only a few (mostly elderly) ladies wear a hat. Some are distinctly scruffy. My Jehova's Witness neighbours however, still go out in their "Sunday best". Alansplodge (talk) 11:58, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Following up on my tradition comments earlier, I know that some churches essentially offer both a "traditional" service and then a "modern" service, the latter being casual attire and more "modern" music instead of "Rock of Ages" and so on. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:03, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Really? At least in Roman Catholic churches, that would be strongly discouraged (which is not to say it never happens) as splitting the community of the parish and placing more emphasis on the trappings than on the service itself. In my experience, it's more usual that a church will have some services more geared to swaying and clapping, others geared more to traditional hymns, but not in the same week: there is an expectation that people will attend both sorts, even if they prefer only one sort. Is this not common practice in other denominations? 86.163.212.182 (talk) 13:25, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

In (evangelical) churches I've been a part of, multiple services were seen as a way of making the most of the facilities -- two or more "separate" congregations, or, growing in attendance without needing a bigger building. Such services are also part of the "seeker-friendly" or "seeker-sensitive" movement (I think these terms have fallen out of favour) to make church less "intimidating" -- with the casual clothing and music, etc. To many evangelicals, Sunday-morning worship is just a convention, why not do it on Wednesday evenings and the "old people" can have their Sunday-morning hymns? Ecclesiology and views on worship/sacraments are also quite different in my experience (as an Orthodox Christian convert). 198.161.238.19 (talk) 13:46, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm talking Protestant churches. Maybe the Catholics feel like they have enough participants that they don't need to try to reach out. Many Protestant churches take a more flexible approach. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:56, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

If it is indeed the case that evangelical churches (for example) commonly have separate services for different communities in the same church, whereas Catholic churches tend not to, it seems less likely be about reaching out/not reaching out, and more likely to be about how they view the service. The Catholic view of the most common service, the one we are discussing here, is that the Catholic Mass is a sacrament, something sacred. When Catholics receive communion, it is supposed to be about entering into communion with God and the community (the Church). As such, the service is supposed to be treated with reverence, and the communal nature is important. Children might leave the body of the church for the Liturgy of the Word to have a 'Children's Liturgy', but they are expected to return before the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and once they are receiving communion, they are expected to remain in the body of the church for the whole Mass. If something is that central, and that sacred, to a religion, it would be ridiculous to treat it with less reverence or disregard an important aspect in an attempt to tempt people in: you don't tempt people to join a religion by pretending important parts of the religion aren't important to the religion. In contrast, evangelical churches don't tend to regard the service as something sacred in and of itself, and so don't need to show special reverence to it. They don't view any recreation of the Last Supper as some mytical act of communion, and so they are happy splitting into smaller communities to celebrate it in different ways. 86.163.212.182 (talk) 13:23, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Catholic churches are kind of variable depending on the inhabitants of the parish, and the time of day or the day of the week. I've never been to a mass that fully rocked it up, the hippest they try to get is upbeat folksy-acoustic. And there is the usual choir and organ mass for people who like that. You probably wouldn't see any acoustic guitars in St. Peter's, but in some random parish in Canada, sure, why not. And I never dressed up for church...well maybe for Christmas (but never Easter!), and for special occasions like confirmation and graduations. My parents never let me wear a hat, but jeans and a t-shirt were fine. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:41, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Like Adam, my Catholic church is just fine with jeans and a t-shirt. Basically as long as you are modestly dressed (no tiny halter tops or miniskirts or what-have-you), nobody cares what you are wearing. I have gone to church in everything from jeans and a hoodie to a flouncy summer sundress, and nobody bats an eye. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that it's a fairly new church (built about 15 years ago) and largely populated by young families and students. At my grandparents' First United Church, where the average age is around 80 or 85, there is much more of an expectation to dress up! Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 08:27, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

When I was a wee lad I wore dress pants and a button down shirt to church; now I go with jeans, tennis shoes and a polo shirt. At my church, it really depends on what kind of church it is. The aforementioned one has parishioners who wear suits, dress pants and formal clothing for women like jackets, blazers and dress shoes. On the other hand, most show up in jeans and a polo shirt. Depends on the atmosphere, whether it might be "high" music like an organ or "low" music, ie a contemporary band with guitars, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.183.188.227 (talk) 23:31, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Is there only a finite amount of songs?

Whoops. My bad. AdbMonkey (talk) 18:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Are there only a limited amount of songs that can be created? I know it would be a awful lot, and no one could possibly really do it, but I was just wondering. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AdbMonkey (talk • contribs) 18:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's not a completely well-defined question (what, for example, makes two songs the same?) but basically, if you assume that there's some finite bound to the length of a song (say, the time remaining to whatever religious or scientific version of the Apocalypse that you believe in), and some discrete level of closeness inside of which two songs are "the same", then yes, there are only finitely many songs that can ever be created. --Trovatore (talk) 18:14, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah, ok, Trovatore! I knew it! Ok, yeah, there was something fishy there. So OF COURSE, if there's no limit to the song length then even just one song could go on forever, right? Aha! Otherwise, even if a song was confined to just 4 minutes, I would think there would still be a maybe infinite number of songs, right? Assuming there was no limitations on what is considered an instrument, right? Like the sound of pebbles dropping, or the sound a breath makes, or the noise an ambulance siren makes, or the sound of a bee, etc... I mean wen you take all of that into consideration, because there are so many ways you can be creative with 'noise' then the amount, would you say, is infinite? The posibilites are endless, right? I mean, sure, lots of those would be terrible songs, but still... AdbMonkey (talk) 18:24, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Very very large? Yes. Infinite? Probably not. There is a big difference between unfathomably large and infinite. It's very hard to think in verrrrry large numbers (e.g. a Googolplex, which is so large that there isn't enough informational space in the universe to write out all of its zeroes). But they're not at all the same thing as "infinite", which is a concept which may or may not exist in nature at all. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:40, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

You may also enjoy Borges' short story, The Library of Babel, which imagines something similar, though with text. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Just to illustrate a bit. How many different songs "confined to just 4 minutes" (or less) could be recorded on CD? The Red Book (audio Compact Disc standard) defines "2-channel signed 16-bit Linear PCM sampled at 44,100 Hz", which gives us 1,411,200 bits/s. For AdbMonkey's 4 minute (or shorter) song frame, that gives us 338,688,000 bits per song. The number of possible combinations for these 338,688,000 bits is 2 ^338,688,000 (2 to the power of 338,688,000), a number so large I don't know how much space or kB or time it would take to spell it out, digit by digit. Yet it's a finite number.---Sluzzelin talk 19:03, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

It is also a ridiculous calculation based on the notion that a single different bit in the 333,688,000 bits makes a song "different". Cuddlyable3 (talk) 19:18, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that it is ridiculous to limit the distinction between two songs to the difference in their crude digital encodings. Two songs, distinct in their analog form, may encode into identical files. -- ToE^T 01:00, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

It depends what you mean by 'crude'. Most properly (comparing between different sampling rates is rather difficult considering the downsampling problem) conducted ABX tests show people can't tell the difference between 48kHz and 96kHz or even 24 bit and 16 bit even with the best equipement and whatever sample you throw at them. I think plenty of people are still waiting for all these golden ears who can allegedly hear the difference I'm not aware if there has ever been evidence of even one person... But anyway even if the difference between 48kHz and 96kHz and 16 bit and 24 bit are audible, it seems unlikely to me from the difficulty finding any differences between them that you'll find any differences by going higher. And of course even if you don't accept these as the limits to human hearing, there are obviously some limits, and whether a song can be considered 'distinct' when no one can tell the difference without extra equipment is questionable IMHO. Nil Einne (talk) 02:15, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The answers by Sluzzelin and Nil Einne both throw psychoacoustics and digital encodings at the OP while neglecting any consideration of harmony, rhythm, lyrics or their meaning. These are essential to the value of a song. The comment "crude" by ToE^T may express the understandable distaste of a cultivated person for that kind of technical soullessness. The OP asks about the range of songs sung by humans (though it could be by birds), not the possible range of synthesized noises. To regard the former as having a countable limit is a kind of blasphemy against human creativity, comparable to the way that mathematically solving chess would ruin its enjoyment. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:04, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be missing the point. We're establishing the upper bounds for the number of songs of a defined length no matter how generous you are, such as WikiDao's point below on 4'3". Given that human perception is limited, it seems that there must be an upper bound for the number of things that can be defined as different songs in human terms. Wolly things like harmony, rhytm, lyrics are irrelevant as is cultural elitism, since they simply further limit the number of songs. They can't expand the number of songs beyond what humans can possibly hear. As the question was whether there is a finite number of songs, the precise number doesn't matter, but establishing whether there is possibly a limit to the number of songs of a defined length does, and the answer in human terms is arguably yes (although we haven't yet considered multichannels). I agree BTW that the number of things which would be considered different songs is much less but as I've said that's an irrelevant issue. Of course as Trovatore was the first to reply and first to point out, defined length is obviously an important thing, if you allow songs of an infinite length then it would seem likely there would be an infinite number of songs. P.S. Substitute 'songs' with 'sounds' if you really can't stand to talk about them in an abstract sense. Nil Einne (talk) 15:05, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

It is a privilege to have witnessed the wolly insight posted above that is highlighted in red by me; let us meditate upon it as an aesthetic epiphany that warns us against the elitist folly of singing songs. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 19:00, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

A very notable bit of fiction on this subject is Melancholy Elephants, a short story by Spider Robinson. --Anonymous, 19:48 UTC, October 20/10.

More reasonably, there is a much lower limt (using the basis of presumed copyright infringement for use of a six word title and same tempo being basically automatic plagiarism). Names do not count -- with the same tempo "Mary with the light brown hair" would be a clear infringement on "Jeannie with the light brown hair." In many cases, even fewer words would be clear plagiarism, but we look for an upper bound. There are about 10,000 common English words - so 10 to the 24th is the max number of six word sequences using them. With under 100 common stress/tempo patterns, that gives an upper bound of 10 to the 26th total English songs -- most of which would make zero sense. A change of one note in even four bars would not qualify as "original work" to be sure, so the idea that one bit is "different" in a computer file would not work. Collect (talk) 19:20, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Responding to Cuddlyabl3 and Collect: I read it as a theoretical question, not a practical one. I don't know how copyrightable "the sound of pebbles dropping, or the sound a breath makes, or the noise an ambulance siren makes, or the sound of a bee, etc." are. Nor do I know how finely adjusted ears (or other acoustic sensors) AdbMonkey would be accepting. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:23, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

If John Cage's composition 4′33″ counts as a "song" then I think it is safe to say that the number of possible "songs" is, for all intents and purposes, infinite. But it is really just going to depend on what you define "song" to be. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 19:35, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

For all practical and realistic human purposes, it's effectively infinite, because no matter how many songs get written, there will always be new ones getting written. It's not like we'll ever get to the end of all the tunes that could ever possibly be written. We don't need to do any sort of numerical analysis to know this in our bones. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:55, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Even under that interpretation, I think that's questionable since it's not certain we're going to last forever. It's not even clear if our universe will. Nil Einne (talk) 21:19, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've qualified my post by adding some adjectives. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 00:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how the qualification changes anything. Practically and realisticly, once humans are no more, we can't be producing more songs, so you end up with an finite number of songs. That finite number may be large, but it's not infinite. As several people have mentioned, there is a key difference between a very large number and a infinite number. (Although the number of songs humans are ever going to produce is I suspect much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much smaller then the numbers that have been thrown about. Nil Einne (talk) 02:15, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Which is pretty much my point. Taking into account all the music that's ever been composed by humankind or ever will be composed by humankind, we've still hardly begun to scratch the surface of the set of all possible songs. What remains to be composed is, for all practical and realistic human purposes, infinite; we will never compose it all, no matter how long humans may be around for. Do you agree that you've been agreeing with me all along? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 04:00, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

No, you're confusing a large number with infinite. And your number isn't even very large relatively speaking. Just because you're unable to pratically and realisticly comprehend such large numbers at all, doesn't mean most other humans can't. Nil Einne (talk) 15:05, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Nil, the question was "Are there only a limited amount of songs that can be created?" not "Will humans create every possible song before there are no more humans to create songs?". The limit on the number of songs that can be created depends on what can be counted as a "song", which the OP did not clearly define. So the question is not answerable much more meaningfully than it already has been. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 04:20, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I actually agree JackofOz's point is largely irrelevant that was my point. It's clearly a silly way of looking at things, and adds nothing to what has already been said, since humans are only ever going to create a finite number of songs so there's no way you can claim humans are going to create an infinite number of songs as JackofOz is claiming. It's true the question of what's a song wasn't defined but as has been explained above, it seems resonable since this question is in human terms, to limit different songs to where humans can possibly tell the difference and for a defined length, it seems resonable to presume there is a finite number of 'songs' or 'sounds' or whatever you want to call them. Nil Einne (talk) 15:05, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

That is a total misrepresentation of what I have said, apparently occasioned by your total misunderstanding of what I have said. Nowhere did I say anything like "humans are going to create an infinite number of songs". I have said exactly the reverse of that. The number of songs that could conceivably, hypothetically be written is so vast that humans will NEVER write them all. The number might be mathematically finite, but it is so huge that for all practical and realistic purposes it may as well be infinite. There's only so many ways I can say this. But if you continue to misinterpret what I'm saying, I'll just have to keep on finding new ways of saying it. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:03, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the point is that the OP is referring to infinity as described at the intro to infinity and he wants to know whether the number of possible songs is infinite or very large. The answer is that, for most reasonable definitions of "song", it is not infinite. The concept of infinity is difficult enough to deal with without talking about such things as "infinite for practical human purposes". Everyone agrees that the number of songs is very large but can you say that, "for practical and realistic human purposes, there are more songs than Graham's number"? Zain Ebrahim (talk) 11:12, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking of them as represented by grains of sand on a large beach. If, every time a song gets written, a single grain of sand is removed, will there ever come a time when there's no more beach and no more grains of sand left? (Assume no new grains of sand arrive throughout the process and none get taken away by other means.) Well, taken to its mathematical extreme, given enough time and assuming the human race lasts that long, there will eventually be a time when the beach is all gone. That's obvious. But for all practical human purposes, they can go on writing songs and removing a grain at a time for as long as they like, and there will never be a shortage of grains of sand. That's what I'm saying. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:02, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Whoa. So backup. There. Might. Not. Even. Be an infinity? And to prove that would be like having to prove there's a God or something? Like that hard? I did not know that. An I always though infinity was as real as the air we breathe. AdbMonkey (talk) 04:57, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok and Sluzzelin, you're saying that there's only so many possibilites a CD can record for a second of music with regards to the light, I think. The process that holds the music on the CD, there are only so many possibilites when it comes down to recording it. That is really cool. I never thought about that. But do you know if the smae thing applies to a sheet of music, or if you didn't use music? I'm sorry if this is getting too technical, I was just wondering if humans are really in a sense somewhat limited to the amounts of songs they can make. I guess it could kind of make one sad if its true.

Oh yeah, does anyone know if I can, in the edit text box, go back and post under the person I want to reply too? That way I can be closer to what they are saying? Thanks again if you know. AdbMonkey (talk) 05:06, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Infinity is a useful concept, but it often just means something like "start counting and never stop." But it may be the case that you always have to stop, if only for practical reasons. If the universe has a finite amount of entities in it, and exists for a finite amount of time (an open question), it does seem to imply that there may be no real-world manifestations of infinity. Zeno's paradox has a nice example of this: it assumes that between any two points in space is a third point. But physics tells us there are lower-limits to the amount of space that can be meaningfully spoken about (e.g. Planck length). It happens to be extremely small. But the fact that there is a lower-bound on space means that the intervals between any two points are not infinite in reality. Even with just the counting explanation, eventually you will die, or your "counting machine" will fail, or the universe itself will run out of energy that can be used for counting as it slowly grinds to a halt in a very, very long time). None of this means that we can't use the concept of infinity usefully, just that this is a separate thing from actually having it exist as something in the world. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:15, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean like this? That's an excellent question, and the answer is "yes"! We even have a policy/instructions page about how to do it right so everyone understands who and what you're replying to when there are lots of people participating in a discussion. You can find it here. We didn't really make up the rules ourselves, though: we borrowed them from earlier multi-user forums on the internet. Best,  – OhioStandard (talk) 07:21, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to post again. I just wanted to make sure I understand. It seems like there could be a finite number of songs, but it depends on the definition of a song. Yeah, ok, well if we were pretty liberal and gave even the loosest definiton of the word song to mean just a note here and there (like a French spoken word song, with little music) then would we have a limited amount? Is there anyway to figure out all the combination of songs in the world, (say a song sorting out program existed) for a 4 minute song (since we're not sure if there is an infinity). Obviously, as some have pointed out, we won't really be able to know by making these songs, but I would really like to know if even music is bound to only a certain number of possibilities. That might not clarify it, but I'm sure this question had to have been asked before. I just thought there was a definite answer. But, it looks like it all depends on what you take into consideration. Thanks for trying, though. AdbMonkey (talk) 05:24, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

If I may do some silly math. Let's limit the differences between notes to semitones, only use the 7 1⁄3 octaves of a piano plus rests, play four notes per second, limit songs to five minutes, and don't care if a given song sounds good. Then, we would have 89^(5*60*4) different songs, which is absurdly large. Even if we limit our songs to ten seconds, we have about the same number of songs as the number of atoms in the universe. Now, if we care about songs sounding good, we can require that all notes must follow some kind of chord, which will give us a much more reasonable number. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 06:10, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Ten trillion green bottles ... Gandalf61 (talk) 07:42, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

No, no, amount of songs not amount of song. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:09, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Perfect song for those boring intergalactic voyages. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 13:35, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article about Musical plagiarism that illustrates with examples pairs of songs whose alleged differencies were weighed in Law. The rate of release of commercial song recordings is a number than can be estimated and then be reduced to account for recordings that are cover versions of existing songs. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 11:08, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

As with, "Ah, my Lord / (doo lang, doo lang, doo lang) / My sweet Lord / (doo lang, doo lang, doo lang) ..." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:59, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually I have another consideration. My comment above was solely concerning 'songs' or 'sounds' or human terms. But I'm starting to think you could derive a more fundamental limit. Wouldn't there be a limit to the frequency of sound where the energy of the sound wave is so high or the wavelength is correspondingly so low the molecules in the air which make up the sound wave basically have to fuse together (something may happen well before that)? Something similar relating to the amount of energy for a maximum loudness I presume. And wouldn't there be a limit to the detectable by anything difference between frequencies and loudness levels, related to the Shannon–Hartley theorem? In other words, even if you expand your definition of songs beyond human hearing, it seems to me you probably will hit a finite limit even if it's a lot larger then what we've already established is a number so very large. Nil Einne (talk) 15:49, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Nil Einne, why restrict the calculation to just one planet Earth? More remarkable noises are heard from the planet between Saturn and Neptune. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 19:17, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Of course! The little green men play "songs" using colours of light and radio waves. It still remains true that the number of distinct songs is mathematically finite because, once the difference between two "different songs" is small, we intuitively and legally define them to be the same song. Dbfirs 20:46, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Well I never said anything about earth. In fact I only ever talked about humans. And as I mentioned now, I'm not even restricting myself to what humans can hear but fundamental physical limits. Nil Einne (talk) 03:06, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• I have not caught up yet with what has been discussed on this question since yesterday, so I don't know if something like this point has been covered yet. But consider the Linguistic competence article: it is commonly taken for granted in Linguistics that the number of possible grammatical sentences is "infinite" (with "grammatical" implying a "less infinite" number than all possible combinations of all possible words). This same notion may apply to song lyrics, too, I suppose. But there is still then the question of what counts as music, unless that has been dealt with above already. I still think the answer, as unsatisfying as it may be to the OP, is that the number of possible songs that could be created is very, very large and probably for most purposes should just be considered "infinite". WikiDao ☯ (talk) 00:34, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't know much about linguistics but I presume that's referring to sentences of infinite length and yes I presume you can have grammatically correct sentences of an infinite length. Perhaps a key point I haven't emphasised enough. If you're referring to infinite length then yeah probably you can say you can have an infinite number. If you're talking about a finite length, and this was something I was thinking of earlier, presuming we're referring to a defined character set then it's trivial to show the number of possible combinations is finite. For example a sentence of up to i.e 1000 characters and let's say 26*2 letters + space (or no character i.e. sentence ended) + 27 punctuation characters would have 27^1000 possible raw combinations and way fewer grammatically correct or meaningful in English sentences. Nil Einne (talk) 03:06, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I remembered (from my smattering of education in Linguistics) the point about "infinite grammatical sentences" when I was thinking about this question. The point is roughly expressed in our Linguistic competence article:

"Therefore, grammatical competence defines an innate knowledge of rules rather than knowledge of items or relations. It is regarded to be innate because one apparently does not have to be trained to develop it and will still be able to apply it in an infinite number of unheard examples."

That's not considering sentences of infinite length, just those of "average" length that are "grammatical".

This is really a question about "countability" though and perhaps we should consult the Math desk on it. But, there is an analogy to be made between songs and sentences, I think. Neither songs nor sentences permit a purely "random" assortment of their elements – words and phrases in a sentence, notes and chords and lyrics etc. in a song. These elements have to be "combined" in the right way to result in a "countable" sentence or song.

We need some way to decide what elements a song consists of, how many such atomic elements exist, and then what rules govern the correct arrangement of elements into a song. Then we just Combinatorically compute a numerical answer to this question! (Or, and I guess this is really the question, is that "number" really just some subtle mathematical variety of "infinite"...?). WikiDao ☯ (talk) 04:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, if we allow sentences and songs of infinite length, or if we allow for the creation of an infinite number of new symbols to create new words, or infinitesimal intervals between notes (undetectable to human ears), then both the number of sentences and the number of songs is genuinely infinite, but using fixed notes and fixed letters of the alphabet, together with any reasonable limit on length, reduces the number to one which is very large, but much less than Graham's number or even a googleplex. If we allow sentences or songs of infinite length, then the number of each is $\aleph _{0}$ (aleph-null; countable infinity), and if we allow creation of infinitesimal intervals and symbol variations then the number is a higher $\aleph$ (an uncountable infinity, the cardinality of the continuum), or possibly even $\beth _{2}$ (the number of subsets of the real numbers). Dbfirs 09:35, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Minor correction - you don't need to allow songs with infinite length; you only need to allow songs of finite length but without an upper bound i.e. without a maximum limit on length or duration. So there are $\aleph _{0}$ different songs of the Ten Green Bottles type (one starts "Ten green bottles ..."; the next starts "Eleven green bottles ..." etc.) but each individual song has a finite length. Gandalf61 (talk) 10:07, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, agreed. That's what I meant by any reasonable limit on length. Sorry I wasn't clear. Dbfirs 10:37, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

So, if we do have an upper bound on song length (say it is the length of the longest song so far to have existed), and if we say that there is some non-infinitesimal granularity to whatever we care to count as "song-elements", then "the number of possible songs that can be created" is indeed finite, right? And I think that may be the answer the OP was looking for...? WikiDao ☯ (talk) 14:50, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, and it was the first answer given by Trovatore. This, together with the restrictions imposed by "tunefulness" in western culture also explains why we often think that a new song sounds familiar, and why Steve Race was often asked to provide evidence of similar note sequences to defend claims of plagiarism. Dbfirs 00:46, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

And the OP likes it, too. (Well done, folks, and regards to Trovatore!:) WikiDao ☯ (talk) 12:56, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Food subsidies in the American market

So if I understand correctly, the Farm Act in the 20's during the depression led the government to demand that 75% of the agriculture be backed by the U.S. government to protect it. But how exactly does that work? I thought farms were always struggling to stay afloat? Does the government just give them money based n the number of bushels produced or something? How do farmers feel about the subsidies? Would they be upset if there were no subsides? Would the food economy in America collapse if that Act was repealed? I'm just wondering because charities like CARE International have turned down monetized food donations the U.S. and the US is the only government that participates in monetized food aid. So since these orgs claim that it actually hurts the local markets of places like Somalia, by forcing th charities to resell the food into the market, but only to those that can afford it and not the actual hungry, why does the US continue to do it? If the US switched to a more European policy would that be better for everyone, or would someone still be hurting?

Sorry, I know this is a mouthful of questions. If anyone has even an inkling of light to shed on this topic, I would be grateful. I have not understood this or years, from when I first heard about Coldplay's plea to stop consumers from buying Starbuck's. Thanks again, if you have any info. AdbMonkey (talk) 18:11, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Our article Agricultural subsidy contains information on this topic. Looie496 (talk) 18:51, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

More specifically, look at Agricultural policy of the United States. The United States is certainly not the only country to subsidize agricultural production either. Many European nations are perhaps even more supportive of their farmer's than the U.S. is (see Common Agricultural Policy), so saying "switching to a European system" doesn't really make much sense: not only are there different European systems, many of them are even more supportive than the U.S. system. Buddy431 (talk) 02:18, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

One book that I would recommend on this topic is The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy. It focuses mostly on textiles, but includes a fair amount about U.S. agricultural policy, especially in cotton farming, but also in general. If I recall, there are several forms that the support takes.

One thing the government does is insures against crop failure. If a big storm comes through and wipes out your corn crop, Uncle Sam will pay you at least a portion of the expected value of the crop.

A second form of support is that the government guarantees farmer's a certain price for their crop. This takes a lot of volatility our of the market (for the farmers); if the market price is below the guaranteed price, the government sends the farmers a check for the difference. In practice, the guaranteed price is above the market price most of the time for many crops. This encourages farmers to grow crops that they might not have otherwise, but can also lead to the production of only a few chief cash crops (i.e. corn and soybeans). See Monoculture.

Third, the government will in many cases enact protective tariffs on food imports. This effectively raises the market price of foods within the United States. This is also good for U.S. farmers, and very bad for foreign farmers who might want to import food. It also sucks for U.S. consumers (paying what, twice the market price of sugar so that a few sugar beet farmers in Minnesota can be competitive: [2]). It also sucks for U.S. farmers who want to sell their crops overseas; they generally need to sell at an above-world-market-rate to turn a profit.

Again though, Uncle Sam comes to the rescue. Remember the guaranteed price floor? Farmers get a check to make up the difference between what he actually gets for the crop and what the (inflated) U.S. rate is. This is what really hurts foreign farmers; U.S. farmers are able to sell food on the world market at what would be a loss to them. This can push down world prices, making it harder for local farmers to make a living in places that the U.S. sells food to. Buddy431 (talk) 02:38, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

This has had the further effect that, as local farmers cannot compete against subsidized U.S. imports, they abandon farming or shift from the farming of food staples to the farming of more lucrative cash crops, with the result that the country becomes dependent on food imports, which can have a dire impact on its trade balance, public health, and on its economic, financial, and political stability. Marco polo (talk) 14:45, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

It's still cheaper to buy normally-produced crops here in the USA, vs. "organic" crops. And we outsource everything else, but if you think we're screwed now, just wait until our food supply gets outsourced. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:53, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

It's unlikely that the U.S. will ever import food in significant quantity. One of the United States' greatest natural resource is indeed the arable land. Even as it has moved into an industrial and postindustrial economy, it is still cost efficient to grow its own food, rather than import it from somewhere else. One of the driving forces of "outsourcing" is labor costs. I'm having trouble finding quantitative breakdowns of cost, but in agriculture, the cost of land is usually a more important factor than the cost of labor. It is undoubtedly true that if it weren't for agricultural subsidies, the U.S. Would produce a lot less food than it currently does. Some marginal farmland would be left fallow, and the land that is farmed would not be farmed as intensively. However, it's also true that it would still produce a lot of food. When the landowner asks the question "is it more profitable to farm this land than to do anything else with it", the answer for much of the land in the U.S. is "yes". There's lots of good farming soil, and so much land that there aren't other profitable uses for all of it. If you can make more money by farming the land than by letting it sit fallow, and if you cannot put the land to any more profitable use, then a rational landowner will use it for agriculture (or rent it or sell it to someone who will). One of the tenets of capitalism is that people are rational, that they do act in their own self interest. This isn't always true, but it is often enough. Buddy431 (talk) 19:08, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The US is self-sufficient in most food staples, but for things like bananas and pineapples, we import heavily. Googlemeister (talk) 20:06, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Another good book that addresses this topic, among others, is "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. It mostly talks about corn subsidies and how corn (and products derived from corn) ends up flooding the market. Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 08:34, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Average major Disaster / Event to article creation time

Not sure if this is measurable in Wikipedia or not but was wondering...How 'quick' is the time between a major disaster/news event occuring and the wikipedia article becoming? (E.g. for 9/11 how long from the first-plane hitting to the article being created?) I'm guessing pretty darn quick but wondered if anyone had 'run the numbers' so to speak. I guess disaster wise i'm thinking international news-worthy unexpected events...e.g. 9/11, 7/7 bombings in London, Madrid Bombings, even stuff like Death of Michael Jackson. ny156uk (talk) 20:11, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia didn't exist on 9/11 as far as I know, but the general rule is that an article appears within an hour after a major news story hits the web. Acceptable articles can't be created until published sources exist. Looie496 (talk) 22:10, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

According to the article 7 July 2005 London bombings, the event took place from 8:50am to 9:47am (GMT). According to the history, the article's first revision was created at 10:18 (UTC). -=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=-

For another data point from this year: The 2010 Haiti earthquake occurred at 21:53 (UTC). The article was created 40 minutes later. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:03, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash occured at 6:41 UTC and the article was created at 9:12 UTC. Timbouctou 23:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

You're saying wikipedia didn't exist without consulting the wikipedia article on wikipedia? In fact it did exist (dates given in article of course), and the attacks were one of catalysts for the formation of Wikipedia:In the news. However the history that far back is somewhat screwed up. You may also be interested in Meta:Sep11wiki Nil Einne (talk) 01:59, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it certainly did exist back then. Actually, Wikipedia almost became a 9/11 memorial site. There were (or there were going to be) articles for everyone who died in the attacks, which would have completely overwhelmed the other few thousand articles that existed at the time; thankfully someone moved them all to a separate wiki. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:34, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

It took a long time after the event to create the wikipedia article for the San Fransisco earthquake of 1906, the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the Destruction of Pompeii in AD79. Googlemeister (talk) 13:32, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Our response time for the K-T extinction was even worse. DuncanHill (talk) 00:13, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

... and we were about 13,730,000,000 years late with our article on the Big bang. Dbfirs 09:13, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

As a former regular at WP:ITN and related pages, although this shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with wikipedia, I can say that the length of time depends on things like who it affects (unsurprisingly the English speaking world and the developed world means a greater chance of an article), what time of day it is (i.e. whether people are awake and likely to edit wikipedia), the size of the event and level of news coverage and of course some degree of 'randomness'. Things like any mass shooting or other prominent media event (like the balloon boy hoax although I see the article for that was only created after the balloon touched down) in the US tends to get articles quite fast. Relatively large events too of course. It's not uncommon 2 people create different articles and it takes a while for people to realise and for a merge, potentially in a few cases it may not be obvious that an earlier article existed. While perhaps not particularly relevant, move wars are also rather common. Of course, particularly in the past, these articles can sometimes be left in a mess after people start to forget about them, for example many of the 2004 Indian ocean tsunami article are still partly written like the event just happened, e.g. Effect of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake on Sri Lanka although I think those articles have improved since 2 years or so ago. BTW, the 2010 Canterbury earthquake was created within about 40 minutes [3] similar for the 2010 Haiti earthquake [4]. Nil Einne (talk) 16:24, 21 October 2010 (UTC) P.S. See the Haitan quake was already mentioned, ooops! Nil Einne (talk) 10:12, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Cheers everyone! ny156uk (talk) 20:46, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The article now titled 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami was created at 05:03 while the earthquake happened at 00:58. Another article "2004 Sumatra Earthquake" was created at 5:09 but merged already at 5:17. Possibly created too soon to have the older one show up in search results. A larger problem has been the need for reliable sources such as the Michael Jackson death announcement showed. Rmhermen (talk) 03:40, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes the lack of RS is a problem particularly when it comes to thinks like deaths (or alleged deaths we have annouced the deaths of people who didn't die as some may well know) of living people, as really as theoretical RS but arguably too soon. For example we tend to get a lot of people trying to put in death counts or other info late breaking info they just heard on TV (often just one channel). We tend to discourage this and try to direct them to wikinews but usually to no avail. About the earthquake, from the looks of it, and not surprisingly, the article was only created after the tsunamis had started to hit although before the extent of the devastion was remotely clear [5]. Oh and editing some articles of the sort we're discussing during peak interest can be rather difficult since you get ECs within a few short minutes. Nil Einne (talk) 09:56, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

2010 Baja California earthquake was created after 14 minutes with edit summary "created stub. our light fixtures just started swinging".[6] Another article was created after 11 minutes [7] but later redirected. Chris Benoit double murder and suicide#Wikipedia controversy is about an edit to another article [8] but came to mind. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:34, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Women with no right hand

My friend dreamt that I am dating a women with no right hand. Does this have meaning or just a dream? Thank you.Stevenhall77 (talk) 21:05, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Dreams come from our own subconscious, so it may well have some symbolic meaning in your friend's brain. Dreams do not predict the future, however, so it is unlikely to have any meaning that would be useful to you. It might mean something about how your friend sees you, but it doesn't mean anything about your love life. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 22:08, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Or it may have no symbolic meaning. Most or all of the theorists listed in our dream interpretation article were long on theories and short on evidence, and were way outside of the scientific method. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:17, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

As Fisher said, the dream can only have meaning to the one who dreamed it. And the "meaning" may simply be an amalgam of unrelated things that the subconscious mind has thrown together. "Meaning", in fact, is a bit overstating it. The dreams can "make sense" to the dreamer if he recognizes the images as relating to something that happened to him that day or recently. That's about the extent of a dream's "meaning". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

And this is dredging up from my distant memory, but there was something about an inventor from two or three hundred years ago, who was trying to develop perfectly round musket shot and couldn't figure out how to do it. He dreamed something about walking in the rain and lead falling down in a perfectly round shape, which he interpreted to mean that drops of molten lead falling into water would result in round shot - and it worked. If that story is true, it would be an example of the brain basically working on a problem "in background", and expressing the answer in pictures that made sense to the dreamer. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:39, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

That's an interesting story that I haven't heard before Bugs, do you have a link to more info on it?

It reminds me in turn of the famous anecdote about Kekulé and the Benzene ring:

"He said that he had discovered the ring shape of the benzene molecule after having a reverie or day-dream of a snake seizing its own tail (this is a common symbol in many ancient cultures known as the Ouroboros or Endless knot). This vision, he said, came to him after years of studying the nature of carbon-carbon bonds."

There certainly is a lot of "cognition" that goes on "in the background". And also of course not even all conscious thought is verbal; non-verbal symbols certainly do have meaning. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 02:34, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Yep, I've heard that one. The one I was thinking of is William Watts, the inventor of the shot tower. That article says nothing about the dream. Various googles indicate it was actually his wife that had the dream, and also that most everyone thinks the story is apocryphal, so there ya are. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:38, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand (ha!) are you seeing someone that your friend does not approve of? "Sinister" means both "evil" and "left-handed", which someone with no right hand would have to be. (Note that this answer comes with no warranty and is strictly my personal opinion as a casual observer, not a giver of professional or medical advice.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:42, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Just love those questions about a "friend" ;-) hydnjo (talk) 02:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Disclaimer - All of the following could be completely wrong, it's just guessing or entertainment. But my friend told me it might mean your friend can't hold her by the right hand, only by the wrong one, i.e. that there's something wrong about the way the two of them connect. He also suggested that she might not be "Miss Right" for him. Of course my other friend disagreed, and said it means your friend could be worried that she will be too needy, too dependent on him, or that she won't be able to give him a hand when he really needs it. Your friend might let it rest awhile, and then gently see what feelings come up, if any, when he thinks about the image, or if any other dreams about her follow. Freud might have suggested your friend try writing down as many words as he can as fast as he can for a couple of minutes when he imagines the image, and Jung might have suggested that he draw pictures about it. My own thought is that it's worth following up and trying to understand, or even talking over with a properly trained psycholgist if the relationship is at all serious. Your friend's mind created the image, you're friend's mind knows why, too, although he might not like to admit the reason. The mind doesn't always work logically, but it's usually pretty wise when it's trying to get your attention about something important. My two cents, anyway. Best,  – OhioStandard (talk) 07:59, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Oops; I see I didn't read the original question carefully enough about who dreamt what about whom. But you get the idea, I'm sure.  – OhioStandard (talk) 08:02, 21 October 2010 (UTC)