Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 August 15

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

August 15

British Cycle firm

Anyone here know where there might be a history of a firm called George Fitt Engineering? Sfan00 IMG (talk) 14:12, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

This seems to have a little information. --Jayron32 15:37, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Most watched Olympic event?

Recently, in an a failed ITN/C nomination, Nergaal (talk · contribs) claimed that the men's 100m final is the most watched sporting event at the Olympics. Is that true? I tried to find more on Google. One source [1] seemed to confirm it was the most watched Olympic competition on BBC in 2012, though the source seemed to only report BBC's viewership in the UK and not international partners. Without a credible source I also found a claim that the 100m final was second most watched competition in 2008 (behind the China v. Cuba volleyball final). I also found a number of sources comparing sports as a whole (e.g. gymnastics v. swimming v. athletics) but that's less relevant to the question of what is the most watched competition. Is there concrete evidence for the 100m dash being the most watched (or among the most watched) competition during the last several Olympics? I think numbers that include the international audience would be most interesting. Maybe the Olympics organization directly publishes such figures to promote the importance of key events? I'm honestly a little surprised that a 10 second race would be the most popular event, especially since it is so easy to miss if you don't tune in at the right moment. Dragons flight (talk) 14:12, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

If an evenly matched China and India are ever in the gold medal game in something then it'd probably be that. Pity they don't have cricket in the Games or it'd be every India vs Pakistan final. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:25, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

They might have to start the tournament a couple of weeks ahead of the opening ceremonies. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:57, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Imagine an NHL playoffs-style tournament of Tests (switch home team four times a series). They might have to start the year before. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:45, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Probably not. The first match of the Super 10 stage of the 2016 ICC World Twenty20 was held on 16 March. The final on 3 April. This is 19 days which means it's only one day more than the 18 days for hosting the Football at the 2016 Summer Olympics (which as discussed before, starts 2 days early). It's true this means only 10 teams will qualify for the olympics but this is 2 more than the 8 teams for Baseball at the 2008 Summer Olympics. You could likely compress the schedule slightly without affecting rest time too badly, or reduce the number of teams if 19 days is too many. Nil Einne (talk) 16:16, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

So if cricket had just a few more major teams like France, Italy and Argentina it'd probably be in like rugby. How long would a top-level cricket tournament have to be if a country had the potential to play 28 Tests and travel 16 times just to finish the final? This is the format of the world ice hockey club championship. So if the rankings were like today #9 Bangladesh would travel to #8 West Indies, play two Tests, both teams would fly to Bangladesh and play two Tests, then possibly fly to West Indies again to play one Test, then fly to Bangladesh and play a Test then fly to West Indies and play a Test and that's just the first round. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:06, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Test is the long format. ODI games are done in a day. Akld guy (talk) 17:32, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Which is probably why you don't have tournaments longer than ODI. No major ones anyway. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:46, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean. Akld guy (talk) 20:43, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Well that's why the Cricket World Cup is ODI even though Test is more prestigious and doesn't have that impure scoring fast is more important than protecting your wicket thing. Right? Presumably a Test tournament world take too long, especially a US baseball, basketball or hockey-style one (especially the hockey tournament, which takes up to 28 games to win and is annual). I think you might have triangular Test tournaments but 3 contestants is barely a tournament. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:35, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Oh I see. Yes, Tests can take days because the batsmen tend to play cautiously and defensively by protecting their wickets and tend to play the ball only when confident. ODI's put pressure on the batsmen to make as many runs as possible within the 50 overs (300 balls bowled per team), so they're faster matches that tend to be edge-of-seat stuff for the viewers. Akld guy (talk) 01:42, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

You've got that first part the wrong way round. It's not that test matches last for days because the batsmen play cautiously, it's that the five-day length of a test match allows batsmen to play more carefully than in a one-day match. --Viennese Waltz 07:58, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Test matches are not five days long. They are four innings long. They can be over in a day if all batsmen are got out quickly, but otherwise last up to the ~5 days required for four innings. Akld guy (talk) 20:08, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

@Akld guy: It's like the chicken and the egg. Scoring is not rushed because they want it 5 days and it's 5 days because they want it not rushed (else they'd play limited overs and score hundreds of runs in hours). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:36, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Cricket has been part of the Olympics. Also relevant to this discussion, the cancelled ICC World Test Championship. Warofdreams talk 02:08, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

I once semi-jokingly suggested that India should have Tests, ODIs and T20s at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. If you take the 2 weeks early (i.e. total of four weeks) suggested by BB, you could probably actually host all 3 at the Olympics with resonable rest schedules if you reduce matches to semifinals. Perhaps host semifinals for the Tests in the fortnight before then start with ODI and T20's in the week before and keep going to the finals in the first week after opening ceremony. Then host the finals for Tests in the second week of Olympics.

You could probably extend to holding quarterfinal for T20, maybe even for ODI. Holding a group stage for even T20 (let alone ODI) would be difficult though although it depends on what you see as fair scheduling (rest days etc) and how much you need the schedule to be known in advance. As there would only be four country in the semi finals for Tests (well everything but Tests is what matters here) you could host matches for the other countries during this time and only host matches involving the four Test semifinalists (well perhaps a few involving others due to the need for rest days). I guess if Tests really are reduced to four days there will be a minor advantage too.

Still if you want any sort of group stage for T20s and especially for ODIs, I think you'd need to extend to 3 weeks or more, and you're starting to get to a level where perhaps you should just have some sort of qualification round sometime prior to the olympics and stick with semifinals, in a pinch you could probably start only about a week before despite holding for all 3 forms.

Mind you, an open question is how you deal with the many no results for Tests. And you're also fairly beholden to the weather unless you have fully covered stadiums (in which case you'd need to accept a Day/Night sort of test I suppose). You'd also have the problem that you can't really do much else with these stadiums given your schedule so you'd need at least 2 stadiums dedicated to cricket for the duration of the Olympics, an ideally with roofs and sufficiently lighting too, not an easy sell for a country with little cricket heritage. Some would also suggest a single match knockout is unfair especially for Tests given factors like who wins the toss although all sports have to deal with that to some extent.

Nil Einne (talk) 15:03, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't know about actual television viewership but FiveThirtyEight did a poll on popularity of Olympic events and also a weighted medal count based on sport popularity. If you want to review viewership numbers, there is a report here but it is dated 2012. uhhlive (talk) 21:49, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

The Olympics produce this very thorough report, covering, among many other things, peak, average and total viewing figures for each sport. With a bit of time trawling through, you could find the highest peak figure for a sport and then have a good guess at what the specific event attracting that audience would be. Warofdreams talk 02:18, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Plane crash

I'm looking for an article about an air crash. It was about 20 years ago. I thought the aircraft was a DC-9, but there is no accident like this in the DC-9 article. The elevator jammed, and the plane crashed into the Pacific near Los Angeles. The cause of the accident was poor maintenance procedures by the airline. Can anyone identify it? Thanks. 195.89.37.174 (talk) 18:01, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Might you be thinking of Alaska Airlines Flight 261? RickinBaltimore (talk) 18:02, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

My wife often complains about " insufficient lubrication of the jackscrew assembly" --Jayron32 18:12, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, that's it. 195.89.37.174 (talk) 10:24, 16 August 2016 (UTC)