Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 September 26

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September 26

Chernyshevsky's opinion on Marx

Did Chernyshevsky ever write anything on Marx, what was his opinion of Marxism? --Gary123 (talk) 04:44, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

It would seem that Marx was more appreciative of Chernyshevsky, than Chernyshevsky was of Marx, as seen here http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSchernyshevsky.htm. As he did not see himself as a Marxist it would seem that he had little opinion of Marx.

Stonerwars 10:49, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

It may not be true. IIRC, Chernyshevski translated the first volume of Capital into Russian. 117.204.86.87 (talk) 05:02, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think my memory served me correctly. 117.204.86.87 (talk) 05:12, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

hi

where is i posted 2 dsays ago?

where you left it Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#background_check83.100.251.196 (talk) 09:24, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Who was the first woman swimmer in history?

Who was the first proffessional woman swimmer in history? I know its impossible to know about antiquity and such - I am rather asking about the first since the modern art of swimming was introduced in the 19th-century(?). --85.226.43.165 (talk) 14:33, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The earliest official female swimming record was set by Martha Gerstung of Germany (on whom we do not have an article) on 18 October 1908. See World record progression 100 metres freestyle. Tevildo (talk) 15:37, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

There is Nancy Edberg, who was a Swimming teacher and took part in official swimming events in the 1860s. I am not sure how that should be regarded in the context. --Aciram (talk) 16:05, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Note that "Who was the first professional woman swimmer?" and "Who was the first woman to swim in official competition?" likely have different answers. I'd imagine that amateur female competitive swimmers came long before the professionals, if there are in fact professional female swimmers. —Kevin Myers 18:17, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I we define it as: "The first Professional woman swimmer", who supported herself as such, regardless wether she compeeted, then would Nancy Edberg be the first, or does anyone know of an earlier one?--Aciram (talk) 10:35, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Economics question

Let's say I had a reason to suspect that Big Company X would buy Small Company Y in a number of years. How would one use stocks, bonds, whatever, to make money on that kind of suspicion, as an investor (with no connection to either company)? That is, how would you make a bet that would pay off? (This is not a homework question, just a naive question. And no, I'm not actually going to do this—I've got no money to wager!—but I was just curious.) --Mr.98 (talk) 18:13, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Depends. It depends on the circumstances of the buyout (distressed sale? merger? reverse merger?) and the relative positions of the company. One of your safest assumptions might be that Company X will likely pay a premium over the price of Company Y - that is, it will have to pay something extra over what Company Y is worth, in order to persuade Company Y's owners to sell.

However, note that this is a premium over what Company Y will be worth at the time of the acquisition (or, more realistically, just before a bid is announced). Whether that value will be higher or lower than its price now is difficult to predict. Typically, once the bid is announced, X's shares will fall slightly due to market apprehension of the risk of the acquisition (but not always!) and Y's shares will rise to take into account the anticipated premium to be paid by X.

If you time yourself correctly, you might (in most cases) short X's shares just before the merger announcement, and buy Y's shares, and then buy/sell as appropriate to reverse those positions after the merger announcement. The problem is knowing when that announcement would come. In an efficient market, and assuming that you don't have private information not available to the market, the price of the shares should already take into account the risk-weighted likely effect of the merger. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 20:01, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

With basic investments like stocks and bonds, I don't think there is a way that would work in general. You might be able to find (or, if you are a really big investor, invent) a derivative that does the job - a right to buy stock at a fixed price in the event of a change of control, or something. --Tango (talk) 21:49, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

You need more information than what you have stated in order to make money. You know it will be purchased but you don't know the price. One can presume that the price would be at a premium to the value of the company on the day before the announcement, and if you do presume this then you would either purchase stock of Company Y, or you'd buy a lot of call options on Company Y with an appropriate expiration date — but that assumes you know the date of the purchase announcement. Tempshill (talk) 05:34, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

• The answer is in Wall Street (film). This isn't an answer, but a relevant observation. Over the short term, most public acquisitions are at a public-market premium. Starbucks for instance has a market cap (as of Friday) of $14.62 B. I could buy up the float (718.01M, or about 5%) without increasing the price (unlikely), and then try to acquire the other 45.01% I need for control (assuming it's all common stock) without letting others know, I'll get the company for something close to the market cap. But as soon as shareholders realize what I'm doing, either because my buying drives up the price, or mandatory SEC disclosures make it obvious, I would expect higher prices. If you're a shareholder standing by watching, your shares increase in value during this time. So typically the share price of the acquired company goes up. There are some efficient market reasons that this seems absurd, and I am really interested to hear from some pure economics people about this, but in practice this is how it works. Shadowjams (talk) 06:29, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Who designed the IAEA flag?

IAEA flag: tres awesome

Who designed the flag of the IAEA? (By which I refer specifically to the atomic logo.) It reminds me a lot of Erik Nitsche's work from the 1950s, but I haven't found any direct statement that said he came up with it. Anyone know? --Mr.98 (talk) 18:49, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Benjamin Disraeli's and Benjamin Franklin's attituds to war?

Hi everyone,

I am desperate to find out what were the personal attitudes of those great men towards wars?

I would be immensely grateful if anyone could help me to find good evidences to back up the answers as well. Thanks in advance

Ben Franklin: "There never was a good war, or a bad peace."

Disraeli: "War is never a solution; it is an aggravation." Clarityfiend (talk) 23:56, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Richard Armour: "Peace is a short period of preparation for the next war." :) →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 05:04, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

What is the Communist Party of China's current position on Stalin?

What is the Communist Party of China's current position on Stalin? --Gary123 (talk) 20:09, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I do not know the present position, but I would guess from this article Sino-Soviet split that it is not positive. --Saddhiyama (talk) 07:03, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

But I can assure you that Foreign Language Publishing House in Beijing pubished Stalin's works as late as in 1980's.117.204.86.87 (talk) 07:09, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

The Sino-Soviet split doesn't really tell you much on this. Part of the split involved the fact that Beijing still thought Stalinism was OK while the new Soviet leaders did not. (Or, as the article more eloquently puts it, "These occurrences shocked Mao, who had supported Stalin ideologically and politically, because Khrushchev was dismantling Mao’s support of the USSR with public rejections of most of Stalin’s leadership and actions — such as announcing the end of the Cominform, and (most troubling to Mao), de-emphasising the core Marxist-Leninist thesis of inevitable war between capitalism and socialism.") Anyway, that was some time back, and I doubt the current position of the Chinese party is anywhere similar to Mao's... --Mr.98 (talk) 02:46, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Post-split, the CPC used to say that Stalin was '70% right, 30% wrong'. I think this position should be interpreted as a pragmatic one, where CPC continued along the general M-L lines but at the same time considered itself free to adjust to local conditions as it liked. With Deng, pragmatism was elevated to a sacrosanct principle. With this in mind, i think its unlikely that CPC would have made any formal positioning on Stalin (or his legacy) lately. --Soman (talk) 16:26, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Here's a mention of Stalin in a 1981 CPC document, http://www.idcpc.org.cn/english/maozedong/comments.htm --Soman (talk) 16:38, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Is this a pithy statement in literary criticism?

From time to time, every hundred years or so, it is desirable that some critic shall appear to review the past of our literature, and set the poets and the and the poems in a new order.

That's from T.S. Eliot. Is this a common enough statement in literary criticism or a wise statement with great literary gravitas? I can see that de Quincey said something to that effect:

EVERY great classic in our native language should from time to time be reviewed anew.

Can somebody point to similar ideas from other writers? --Ravindrakakkar (talk) 20:58, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Psychological immune system

Does psychology fit in here? Well, according to the wikipedia article Psychological immune system, each persons view of the world, or reality, is actually a set of lies and biases, and that in order to keep our ego healthy, we continue to view reality through biased eyes whenever we are confronted with adverse situations, that could potentially cause our ego harm. Is my interpretation correct? What really caught me by surprise is that, according to the article, each one of us has a biased view of the world, and our brains subconsciously deceive us in negative situations by transforming reality into a psychologically more comfortable state.

Have you had a look at cognitive dissonance? Vranak (talk) 23:54, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Our individual world view is sometimes called our "reality construct". More bluntly, in his book, The Way of the Weasel, Scott Adams concluded that we are not only weasels with each other, but with ourselves as well. →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 00:27, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

This same question was asked at the Science desk. →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 00:31, 27 September 2009 (UTC)