Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 March 5

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March 5

Delphic oracle

Our article on the Delphic oracle says:

“The usual theory has been that the Pythia delivered oracles in a frenzied state induced by vapors rising from a chasm in the rock, and that she spoke gibberish which priests interpreted as the enigmatic prophecies preserved in Greek literature.”

But also:

“The idea that the Pythia spoke gibberish which was interpreted by the priests and turned into poetic iambic pentameter has been challenged by scholars such as Joseph Fontenrose and Lisa Maurizio, who argue that the ancient sources uniformly represent the Pythia speaking intelligibly, and giving prophecies in her own voice”

I’m confused. If all the ancient sources say unanimously that the priestess spoke intelligibly, why does anyone believe she spoke gibberish? If they don’t say the priestess spoke intelligibly, what are Fontenrose and Maurizio talking about? Also, do historians know if the oracle generally gave straight answers, or deliberately ambiguous ones? Our list of oracular statements from Delphi seems to have a combination of both. --Bowlhover (talk) 01:19, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Modern historians disagree with ancient historians. There is nothing straight or deliberately ambiguous about the oracles. Unbeknownth to the oracles, they were under the influence mind-affecting gases and not divine oracles.
Sleigh (talk) 09:12, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I've been under the influence of mind-affecting substances too. Most people who are drunk or high on drugs can speak intelligibly (though not always intelligently); they can also choose to speak gibberish. I don't see why breathing gases implies the priestess was talking gibberish. --Bowlhover (talk) 10:16, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, though the Pythia would be far from the only person to express sacred truths through speaking in tongues. Religious and psychological motivations aside, it would also make practical sense to do this. Someone receiving a prophecy directly would be liable to ask for further direction or clarification (especially given some of the ambiguous statements on our list). As psychic charlatans of today can attest, it's always helpful to be able to say that the diviner/spirit is not communicating now and to pay up and move along. And of course, good theatre has never once been bad for business. Matt Deres (talk) 16:47, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Nicholas II

When,if ever, was Nicholas II not effectively governing Russia, and if this was ever the case, who governed in his place?2602:306:C541:CC60:B58B:19BB:85C:5CBD (talk) 02:04, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article, unsurprisingly titled Nicholas II of Russia, which covers much of his life. Nicholas left day-to-day governance of the country when he went to personally lead Russia's troops in World War I. When he left, his wife Alexandra was left in charge of the regency. --Jayron32 13:07, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, the outstanding point was during World War I, when according to our Nicholas II of Russia article; "In the aftermath of The Great Retreat and the loss of the Kingdom of Poland, Nicholas assumed the role of commander-in-chief after dismissing his cousin, Nikolay Nikolayevich, in September 1915. This was a mistake, as he came to be personally associated with the continuing losses at the front. He was also away at the remote HQ at Mogilev, far from the direct governance of the empire, and when revolution broke out in Petrograd he was unable to halt it". However, his whole reign was a catalogue of errors of judgement and failure to follow moderate advice. In his wartime absence, the government was in the hands of the toothless Duma and the Tsaritsa, herself under the influence of Rasputin until his assassination by army officers. A briefer overview of his reign is here. Alansplodge (talk) 13:21, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Was Heidegger a Seminarian?

I have heard that Martin Heidegger started his academic career with a few semesters in seminary, perhaps even studying with the Jesuits. Can anyone confirm this? Do you know where he studied theology? Worldinfrontofthetech (talk) 02:21, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Apparently he entered the Jesuit seminary in Tisis (a subdivision of Feldkirch) on September 30, 1909, and was dismissed from there again on October 13, fourteen days later, without having received the minor orders. He had left because of health problems. Soon after, still in 1909, he started the archiepiscopal priest seminary Collegium Borromaeum in Freiburg, and studied theology (and philosophy) at the University of Freiburg until 1911, when he abandoned theology, and added mathematics, history, and natural sciences to his studies of philosophy. (See for example Religiöse Erfahrung in der Phänomenologie des frühen Heidegger by Mario Fischer, Peter and Paul Matussek's psychoanalytic approach, or German Wikipedia's featured article on Heidegger). ---Sluzzelin talk 10:22, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

• According to this source, Heidegger was a boozy beggar. μηδείς (talk) 18:13, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Oh come on, everyone knows that classic. How about a less well-known Heideggerian song about the question of being, as asked about, questioned, and to be found out? ---Sluzzelin talk 18:40, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Chinese military no longer called PLA?

This site[1] claims that: "Btw, the Chinese military have officially changed its name to just China Armed Forces a few years back." Is there any truth to this? Our article on the People's Liberation Army and Google searches seems to disagree with this claim. WinterWall (talk) 02:24, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

The official news agencies still use People’s Liberation Army (人民解放军) see, for example, http://news.xinhuanet.com/ziliao/2002-01/25/content_254352.htm DOR (HK) (talk) 03:37, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

So does the MOD [2] "The armed forces of the People's Republic of China (PRC) are composed of the People's Liberation Army (PLA)...." although from the OPs comment, may be they already knew this. Nil Einne (talk) 17:58, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

History 2

Is there a relatively complete site which details the political and geographical history of the world by country?2602:306:C541:CC60:B58B:19BB:85C:5CBD (talk) 02:40, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 14 Adar 5775 03:52, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

What's geographical history? You mean history of political bounderies?
Sleigh (talk) 09:00, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

We have History of … articles for most countries, for example, History of the United States — LongHairedFop (talk) 10:50, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

We also have Category:Territorial evolution which has many articles dealing with geographic and political boundary changes. --Jayron32 12:59, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Tight clothes

I was wondering since unclothed genitalia is illegal, is a visible cameltoe or blatant bulge in public illegal as well? If not, why not? Go getttttaa (talk) 18:21, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

In what jurisdiction? 140.254.136.149 (talk) 18:47, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I believe the word you're searching for, as an aside, is moose knuckles which is the male version of the camel toe. --Jayron32 18:50, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

'Moose Knuckles is ballsy and playful with a “no holds barred” kind of attitude.' Plus that logo.... Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 14 Adar 5775 19:00, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, jurisdiction is important. Women can legally go topless in NY for instance, but those who try usually get so many looks that they cover-up. It's also not advisable in this weather. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 14 Adar 5775 19:00, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

There are laws and then there are social pressures. If someone wears inappropriate clothing at any given venue, they are liable to be humiliated for it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:50, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Generally in most jurisdiction around the world, a visible cameltoe or blatant bulge in public is legal as long as there are no explicit legislations against it. However you can still be arrested for "disturbing the peace". 175.45.116.65 (talk) 23:23, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Ridicule works better. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:25, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

MEDIEVAL TRADE OF FOOD ?

In medieval Europe, trade was common between nations/kingdoms, and all sorts of commodities were exchanged... But when it came to crops and food (Wheat, oat, rye, barley, fish, meat and even vegetables etc.), was this common to be traded between nations/kingdoms ???

Reasons I am unsure is:

1) They didn't have the same luxury as we have today of freezing meat and other food that would otherwise rot. I am aware they had salt-barrels for meat at least, but travel-distances and times were often long, be it by ship or caravans etc. Many types of food would surely not last, and instead rot. Grain (or is it more correct to say crops?) could probably last longer I should think, so maybe that would be an exception?

2) Food during those times was obviously more scarce than today and I wonder if it wouldn't be in the best interest of most kingdoms to keep the trading of food more locally and within their own borders to feed their own, rather than exporting it, even if the pay was good.

3) I should like to think that every community at least tried to be self-sufficient and that most food made its way to local markets to be distributed among locals, rather than making its way onto merchant-ships and caravans.

When it came to those who dwelled further north, in semi-arctic regions, such as Vikings, the fact that growing crops was often difficult was perhaps one of the main reasons that they were so aggressive, I should think.. Raiding, sacking, pillaging, plundering and looking for new arable lands. For these people, it would perhaps be even more important than for others to be able to import food from others, if they were willing to part with it. 2A02:FE0:C711:5C41:5516:F9E7:4262:3D14 (talk) 18:55, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure where you would research this, but it would amount to the difference between a Staple food and a cash crop. Staples are foods that are grown locally for local consumption; cash crops are those grown for trade. At most points in history, I'm sure that at least some edible foodstuffs were traded over long distances, especially luxury items like spices. --Jayron32 20:07, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Medieval cuisine has a little information on this. Except for spices, there wasn't a lot of long distance food trade. --Mark viking (talk) 20:06, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Stockfish#Importance mentions dried fish being traded across Europe as early as the 9th century CE. The Vikings supplied much of Europe with fish for centuries. Dried fish has a "shelf life" of several years so long distance trade is entirely possible. Salt cod has been traded internationally since the beginning of the Grand Banks fisheries. Going further back there is ample evidence of widespread trade in olive oil and wine in the form of amphorae in the wrecks of cargo ships from the Roman Empire. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:40, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Anglo-Portuguese Alliance mentions some of the items traded between the countries. History of cheese also mentions it 'became a staple of long-distance commerce'. JMiall₰ 21:48, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Mark Kurlansky's books Cod and Salt are easy introductions to the topic. Immanuel Wallerstein's work has an excellent overview of medieval trade patterns. Don't forget that there was a trade in wine, from the Roman Empire. The Romans also traded in grain, olive oil, salt and garum. Sugar was a cash crop that gradually worked its way west from the eastern Mediterranean. A lot is written about the spice trade but it should be remember that "spices" included salt, alum and dyestuffs as well as pepper, ginger and the other aromatics. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:27, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks guys. You've been helpful. The article about "Medieval Cuisine" was particularly informative, even if it did not focus so much on medieval trade. 2A02:FE0:C711:5C41:40F5:404A:1E78:5E9 (talk) 10:10, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

According to Phoenicians and wine, the idea of trading it came almost immediately after the idea of drinking it. Not medieval, and not exactly food, but their influence (and new grapes) carried over to then. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:50, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

2A02:FE0:C711:5C41:5516:F9E7:4262:3D14 -- There was a certain amount of long-distance trade in foodstuffs that did not go bad quickly, but the bad roads and rudimentary land transport in the medieval period meant that food items usually could not be transported overland for any significant distance unless they could be sold at a high price. As late as the 1600s, it was not economically feasible to transport food into certain landlocked areas suffering food shortages in the quantities which would help ease the famine... AnonMoos (talk) 18:14, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Not feasible for the maritime republics, anyway. Might just be coincidence that the Republic of Venice lost their best of seven series to the Ottoman Empire over much of the 1600s. Caravans and caravanserai were pretty handy for landlubbers. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:17, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Where are the keys of a piano defined?

It's clear that there is some order on the 88 piano keys. If pressed, a key is supposed to strike a cord and generate a concrete frequency. If pressed harder, the sound has to be different. But, where do they defined what is the canonical sound a key x is expected to produce when pressed with force f at speed s?--Llaanngg (talk) 19:26, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Pianos need to be tuned to a specific pitch, usually so they can play with other instruments, and blend harmonically. It is, of course, arbitrary to pick which pitch to tune to, but the standard is called concert pitch, also called A440, which defines the A above middle C as exactly 440Hz frequency. Once you have set that key to the correct frequency, the OTHER keys are tuned relative to it using. Perfect harmonics would require just intonation as the tuning system; this is actually impossible to do correctly on a fixed-pitch instrument like a piano (well, strictly speaking you could tune to just intonation, but then your piano would only sound correct in one key; which would be highly impractical). To tune a fixed-pitch instrument like a piano correctly, the notes need to be "tempered" so that the circle of fifths actually matches up with the octave correctly. There are several kinds of musical temperaments to do that, but the most common in modern music is equal temperament. To sum up this from a practical point of view, this is how that works: 1) the A above middle C is tuned to 440 Hz. 2) The other notes are tuned to equal temperament, which sets the ratio between neighboring semitones (i.e. neighboring keys) to exactly the 12th root of 2 (about 1.05946). You can thus define the next semitone up from the A=440 Hz note, which would be A# = 466.16 Hz (440 * 1.05946), the next key would be B = 493.88 Hz (466.16 * 1.05946) and so on. --Jayron32 19:49, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I interpreted the OP's question to be about volume, not pitch, in which case . . .

In short, nowhere canonically. The sound differs in loudness (but not frequency) depending on how hard the key is depressed, hence the instrument's full name – pianoforte or "soft-loud", but different pianos may well sound softer or louder even when the same forces are used, by design – one would not want the same volume from a piano played in one's front parlour as one would get from a piano on a concert hall stage!

However, any competent instrument maker will ensure that:

(a) different individual pianos of the same design or model will be very similar in their properties, and

(b) different keys on the same piano are consistent with each other (which probably means some smooth variation up and down the scales – it would be very difficult to render keys octaves apart identical in their properties.

The actual loudness that a given key produces when striking its strings depend on several factors, including the setup of the mechanism and the covering of the hammer. These can be adjusted not only by the maker, but also by the piano tuner. Again, any competent tuner will ensure consistency in a given instrument.

If these consistencies were not maintained, it would be impossible for any pianist to give an acceptable performance (barring renditions on pub pianos, which are notoriously poorly maintained, but in the specific context of drunken sing-a-longs this does not matter). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 19:57, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

AH, if you're talking about the ability to control loudness (rather than pitch), the correct term is "action", which is basically defined as to how an instrument responds to being struck. We have an article titled Action (piano) which covers the technical details of piano action; there's lots of places for adjustment there. Musicians will also speak of an instruments "action" by how it responds to handling. A keyboard may have a "good action" if the player is able to control dynamics well using how hard he plays. A keyboard with "bad action" would be one where it is difficult to control loudness. A well-tuned piano with good action means that the player has a lot of control over the loudness or softness of each note. --Jayron32 20:02, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

And just in passing, there's variation not only in pitches and actions, but in number of keys. Though 88 is the standard, Bösendorfer, for example, produces models with 92 and 97 keys (the additional keys being at the bass end). The manufacturers decide all of this; there's no agency to set standards or enforce compliance; it's the choices of the musicians who use the instruments that ultimately governs. - Nunh-huh 20:58, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Also in passing – sometime in the last several years I read a magazine article, roughly "Why you've never really heard the Moonlight Sonata". The score says to keep the sustain pedal on throughout, to make a harmonic mist of the fading notes; but today's instruments have a much longer sustain than those of Beethoven's time, so if you take the direction literally you get mud. —Tamfang (talk) 02:01, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

In Donald Tovey's notes to playing the Beethoven piano sonatas, he several times recommends simulating Beethoven's sustain pedal by holding down a handful of keys in the bass of the instrument without striking them. --ColinFine (talk) 17:12, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

In addition, how hard the hammer hits the strings affects the timbre of the note played, including what overtones of the fundamental frequency are present. I don't have a grand piano to check my memory from fifty years ago, but I seem to recall that some have a shift (soft) pedal that moves hammers to the right to strike only two of three strings for each note, each string having different harmonics, the leftmost string being of heavier material. Each piano design and string will produce a different timbre, but the fundamental frequency should be the same for each note. Dbfirs 13:30, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

That's the una corda pedal, which shifts the keyboard to the right so the hammer strikes only two strings. (The confusing name stems from the fact that in the older pianos on which the pedal first appeared, only one "una" string "cords" was struck. But pianos have changed a lot since then...) - Nunh-huh 21:12, 7 March 2015 (UTC)