Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 December 13

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

December 13

Low/Mid/High

Are there universally accepted values for low/mid/high divisions in numbers? For example, if someone said (high 50s). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.251.74.65 (talk) 03:31, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

No. 03:34, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Dunno I would say there is almost universally accepted agreement that 55 is in the mid 50s, 51 is in the low 50s and 59 is in the high 50s provided we aren't talking about situations when the decimal point arises. Further then that though, I agree the answer is no Nil Einne (talk) 04:06, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

There's no ISO standard on it yet that know of :) I would have said high 50's was 57, 58 or 59, but it might include more on either side when one says 'about'. And a man describing themselves would include 57 in the mid 50's. Dmcq (talk) 11:11, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

This is something I've often wondered about, and in my opinion has no definitive answer until someone comes up with some really solid source, but I think the difficulty lies partly in the facts that 10 isn't neatly divisible by 3, and (alternately) you run into a boundary problem if you just divide by 2 (high vs low with no mid—where's 55?). Mid-50's would (in my own mind) include 54, 55 and 56. High 50's would include 58 and 59, and low 50's would include 50, 51 and 52. The question is where do you place 53 and 57? (Personally, I'd probably make 53 low 50's and 57 high 50's). A secondary question in some contexts and ranges might be how you treat 60 (say if that's the top of your scale). But I can't give you any sources and there has to be some general convention (or conventions) among those who publish weather forecasts and stock reports every day for newspapers, broadcasts, business and government. That, however, was the original question, I think. ;-) The National Weather Service must have some sort of guide for those who write their public, non-technical forecasts. —— Shakescene (talk) 14:35, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

People using those terms are being intentionally vague - if they meant "57.4372 or higher" they'd say that. The ranges also doubtless overlap. Trying to nail down definite values on intentionally vague terms is really a futile exercise. SteveBaker (talk) 02:33, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Wrapping time

how can time be wrapped ?

thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.197.245.100 (talk) 14:13, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

You may want to check out spacetime, but it doesn't have the picture I thought I once saw there. Perhaps you can try to find a link in that article. I can talk you through the picture I'm thinking about, though -- imagine the mesh grid at the top of the spacetime article being rolled sort of like a scroll. Theoretically speaking (that is, even if it's not entirely true and conforming to the rules of physics, at least you'll understand what time wrapping would look like), if you'd attach the two edges of your scroll so that you have a continuous cylinder of spacetime, or better yet, allow the two edges to overlap, as though you roll that mesh-grid like you would a roll of wrapping paper, that might be what wrapped time would look like. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 14:36, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

A clock for Christmas? Just regular wrapping paper should work as for other gifts.  :-)) Astronaut (talk) 16:50, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Or when the time comes to end principle photography, when the director says, "That's a wrap!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

There are some theories out there that say that if the universe were to end in a big crunch - followed by another big bang - that history would repeat itself exactly, over and over again forever. In effect, time would wrap around back to zero again. (Is that what this question means?) Those aren't very fashionable amongst physicists right now, but I don't think we can prove that it's impossible. SteveBaker (talk) 17:41, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Another theory is that you would get a completely different universe. That would give us a sense of what George Carlin called "vuja de" - "the feeling that this has never happened before." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:38, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

That's true too - and I have to say that it seems unlikely you'd get time to repeat perfectly. The whole Big-Crunch thing is kinda out of favor also. But some people have suggested it - I merely report that fact. SteveBaker (talk) 04:11, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Some people have tried to bottle time, but with similarly depressing results. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Whatever you do, don't mess around with Jim. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:43, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Is this a reference to giving someone "the gift of time"? If so, it's a metaphor... --Tango (talk) 21:03, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Jump to the left, step to the right, put your hands on your hips, and bring your knees in tight. Let's do the Time Wrap again! Clarityfiend (talk) 23:51, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Is the last word a typo? If so, one answer would be "Hammer time". --Dweller (talk) 13:08, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Big letter at the beginning of a document

I'm doing a project for school (I have to make a "Mediæval Almanack"), and in my research, I have seen many medieval documents have a large, decorated, squarish first letter. What is this called, and how can I reproduce it in Word? THX --Richard —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.230.211.192 (talk) 16:16, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

ou can do it quite easily in Wikipedia markup! SteveBaker (talk) 17:36, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The page on initials is worth reading and may have what you seek (and is too detailed for me to excerpt here). See also Illuminated_manuscript#Gallery, though the terms used on that page ("decorated initial" and "illuminated capital") don't appear to be authoritative. -- Deborahjay (talk) 16:23, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) It's called an "initial". Word 2007, which prefers the term "drop cap", can insert them into documents - you can do this by going to the Insert tab. If you want them to be decorated, though, you'll have to do it by hand, or find an image from Word's clip art collection. You could also search Commons, a repository of freely licensed media that is run by the same folks that run Wikipedia. Xenon54 / talk / 16:25, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

What about in Works 9,0? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.230.211.192 (talk) 16:29, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Works does not have this feature. You probably would need to make an image of the letter in a graphics editing program (e.g. MS Paint at the bare minimum) and insert it as a graphic. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:23, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Or use OpenOffice Writer, which does have this feature (and also calls it "drop caps", it's under Formatting->Paragraph) and is free. I don't know of any way in which Works is better than OpenOffice. --Tango (talk) 21:08, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The unshortened spelling is dropped capital, which neither appears in the corresponding Wikipedia article (confusingly called initial) nor redirects to it. But this term just refers to the use of a large initial letter in the manner described, not necessarily a decorated one -- it could be in the ordinary typeface of the document. You see this in modern books at the start of a chapter sometimes. According to the Wikipedia article, the kind that's decorated with pictures is called a historiated initial. --Anonymous, 21:50 UTC, December 13, 2009.

Doing it by hand is actually how it worked even after the invention of printing. They just left a big space for someone to draw an initial. And even in the Middle Ages when everything was done by hand, the illuminated initial was often done by a specialist. Sometimes there are manuscripts where all the text is there, but it never made it to the illuminator, so there is a blank space. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:38, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Need Help In Pakistan Affairs

Can anyone tell about the efforts of renaissance of the muslim rule in the subcontinent? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Afaq hunts (talk • contribs) 18:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC)