Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 May 11

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May 11

Information About My Late Grandfather

I'm trying to get information about my late grandfather (my mother's father) and any information about, specifically, what he did in WW2. He seems to have been in the Royal Artillery and carried out an heroic action (under heavy fire) to get more ammunition for the guns in the position he was trying to hold in Burma during relentless attacks by the Japanese forces. I have information on that attack and even that he brought back more ammunition than was needed, but nothing more about him, except that he was a Regimental Sergeant Major, and his name was Steven Wells. I have lots of other information about his civilian life, of course, supplied by my mother, but we are trying to find out about what he did in the war, as he never talked about it when he got back, traumatised as he was. We are compiling a family history. Can anyone help?--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 02:34, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Hiya I sympathise with your plight, my late father was in Burma during the war and because of what he suffered there, he suffered PTSD for the rest of his life. He wouldn't tell us what happened, except that he saw his best friend crucified and used for bayonet practice by the enemy. I understand that, should I wish to find out more, I can go to the Burma Star Association and they will help. Try googling them and make contact. Hope this helps.--TammyMoet (talk) 10:42, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

distinguished conduct medal

When reading the above data base I was surprsied to see the names of recipients of the medal. I could not find mention of my grandfather pvte Francis Leslie Croft reg no 3546 53rd battalion He was awarded the medal at Fromelles in the action 19/20th July 1916. Would it be possible to have his name included to the list. I have a copy of the original citation as proof —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ckikkaxx (talk • contribs) 02:48, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you should get together with your cousin, 10 questions up, and decide who is going to be responsible for posting this question. Richard Avery (talk) 08:00, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

confusion about oxidation

please told me how loss of electron. loss of hydrogen and gain of oxygen for oxidation is same. i am confused because electron have negative charge and hydrogen having positive . then how loss of both causes oxidation —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rakeshknit (talk • contribs) 10:28, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

It is a bit like double entry bookkeeping, the electron comes from one part and put in another and overall they aren't created or destroyed. I think you're using the word oxidation like a complete money transaction whereas it is better to think of it as referring to only one part of an oxidation reduction reaction. This whole question would be better on the Science reference desk rather than the Miscellaneous desk. Dmcq (talk) 11:14, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

The movement of the electrons is the base definition. The movement of hydrogen (or oxygen) are used as substitutes, as they are easier to observe and often parallel the movement of electrons. A molecule losing hydrogen in a redox reaction will actually be losing electrons, and the hydrogen is merely "following" the electrons (and balancing out the charge). Hydrogen atoms moving without electrons would be protons, so would not be redox reactions, such as in many acid-base reactions.YobMod 11:30, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Number lines in other cultures

In the western world, we lay out the number line in a left to right fashion. That is, lower value numbers are on the left, and higher value numbers are on the right. I'm wondering what the number line looks like in other cultures, especially those which don't share our left-to-right top-to-bottom reading style. (I'm curious because a recent paper in Science Magazine has associated subtraction with the same parts of the brain which are involved with leftward eye movement. [1] I'm wondering if the "lower numbers=left" connection holds across cultures.) -- 128.104.112.117 (talk) 14:01, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Arabic numbers go left-to-right, even though the rest of the language goes right-to-left. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:15, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Probably because they're really Hindu numerals, adopted by the Arabs from from a culture that predominently wrote left to right, and adopted by "the West" from them. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 04:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

? The numerals goes right to left in "the West". Is that not because the numerals go right to left in the Arabic world? I think you're confusing numerals with the number line. 80.41.9.159 (talk) 05:36, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Wiki rather surprisingly doesn't seem to have an article on the mental number line, I'm sure it would make a good article, and I can't find anything definitive on your question on the web with a quick look, but I believe I've read that the number line direction does seem to be universal going from left to right quite independently of writing direction. Dmcq (talk) 16:42, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I just read a bit on google books from How the Brain Learns Mathematics By David A. Sousa where it says people with right to left reading also have a number line thsat goes from right to left. I'm a bit surprised. There is also a weiki article Number form where synasthethes can have lines that go all around the place. Dmcq (talk) 17:13, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Lower value numbers are on the right. Consider 'one thousand two hundred and thirty-four', written out also as 1234, the '4' is considerably lower than the 'one thousand'. In spoken and written language (in English), the number gets progressively more detailed (and therefore smaller) as it continues. Not sure what the OP is trying to say, here, sorry.--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 23:29, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Kage, see Number line. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:48, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thanks. Makes sense now. So it's basically just a diagrammatical representation of numbers, and nothing to do with writing or spoken language, in the sense that I assumed. Sorry.--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 00:01, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

It's common for Papuan languages to count based on numbers that move from the hand up the arm and across the body or head. I suspect (although I don't know if anyone's studied it) that their number line would follow a similar pattern. Steewi (talk) 00:24, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Is that from the right hand up the arm, or from the left hand up the arm? (Or does it matter?) -- 128.104.112.117 (talk) 00:58, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I think a lot of people underestimate the extent to which this is learnt/taught. Many children in the UK spend considerable time trying to learn how to use a numberline, making sure it goes left-to-right, etc. It is taught because without it these children have great difficulty mentally manipulating numbers. Some people pick it up very easily, others have to devote more time and energy, but it is taught. 80.41.9.159 (talk) 05:35, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

It was never taught to me (I'm from the UK). That's why I didn't have a clue what the OP was talking about.--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 07:19, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

If it isn't too personal, how many decades old are you? As in, are you in your teens, your twenties, thirties, etc? I'm intrigued that you never had to use a numberline at school. Not even when doing probability? 80.41.9.159 (talk) 15:59, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm 36 years old.--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 21:52, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm UK raised as well, and I didn't come across number lines until I left school. If I'd been taught about a number line, I'd have clicked with maths at school, rather than afterwards! --TammyMoet (talk) 19:12, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I used to think this sort of understanding is innate, but now I very much doubt that. I had a similar enlightenment when I realised that a lot of people, when sitting at a piano keyboard, cannot get even close to a simple one finger melody. They do not automatically associate a higher pitch sound with a key that's more to the right and a lower pitch sound with a key that's more to the left. Some people never need to be taught this, others definitely do. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:58, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I can't even understand why it's necessary to spend a considerable amount of time learning this diagram. I can't see the point. It's obvious to me that 2 is higher than 1, and in turn 3 is higher than 2, and of course it would go the other way with minus numbers. It was always obvious to me. Pointless. We send our kids to school for this?--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 12:29, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

The kids who don't need to be taught it explicitly will usually move on to something else. The ones who spend considerable time learning it do not find it obvious that 2 is higher than 1 and that the minus numbers go the other way. It was always obvious to you, it was always obvious to me, but I just spent an hour with 13 year olds who cannot consistently place 3 numbers on the line in the right order. They find addition and subtraction much harder than you do, because they do not have a solid mental number line to manipulate. They often resort to drawing a set number of something, and then add more things or take some things away. Obviously this makes negative numbers quite difficult, and is unwieldy for large numbers. 80.41.120.247 (talk) 19:23, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I was taught the number line in a UK first school. Not as "Now, stop drawing, it is time to learn the number line", but as part of learning addition and subtraction. Addition means moving a mental counter to the right, and subtraction to the left. We even had abacus type strings of beads for this, with a black central bead for 0, and different colours for +ve and -ve. It was an next step from counting physical objects (a man has 3 apples and gives 2 away....) to abstract numbers. No idea about original question though.YobMod 11:37, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Avacado Tree Pruning

We live in central Florida on the Gulf Coast and have an avacado tree that is 25' tall and produces fruit each year. We would like to know the best time to prune the tree. We would also like to know how far back we can cut since it is too tall to manage.97.106.127.62 (talk) 14:43, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Spring seems to be the time when to do it. This site suggests to keep it to 15 ft. Note that most trees that are pruned for ease of picking fruit don't look very ornamental. 71.236.24.129 (talk) 04:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Isn't it spelt 'avocado'?--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 12:31, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

With respect to the fields covered by this refdesk, what are the applications and benefits of a tree structure?

The Transhumanist 20:25, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

In computer science, a tree generally yields operations with logarithmic time complexity (see logarithmic growth, complexity class and algorithm). For instance, a tree is a good way of storing a sorted collection of elements, where new elements will be periodically inserted or deleted. Trees are also good representations for certain types of ontology or other hierarchical structures (for instance, decision tree classifiers); in this case, the tree structure is actually present in the data. 128.148.38.26 (talk) 21:22, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Like a hierarchical outline, where the tree structure is also in the data (if we define indents or list bullets as data). But you could say a hierarchy is a tree structure. So I have to ask, what are the benefits of (data) hierarchies? Such as hierarchical outlines. The Transhumanist 03:41, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Please don't crosspost questions to multiple branches of the Reference Desk. Tempshill (talk) 22:49, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, I've changed the question.  :) The Transhumanist 03:41, 14 May 2009 (UTC)