Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 April 4

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April 4

Search of original French Author of the verse that follows.

Un Pays Qui n'a pas d'hommes de Foi:

In so many places, an old saying comes down in history, but Unfortunately I have been unable to trace the original author;

Un Pays Qui n'a pas d'hommes de Foi, Va aux hommes de la loi, En attendant qu'il aille, aux homes sans foi ni loi!

Said properlly this would have its righful empotional impact on any who so witnessed, even if that person understood not one word od French or the grammar!

Translation:

A Country which lack men of faith, Goes to men of law, While waiting until it goes, To men without faith or law!

Given our present global mess, this has its own salience in MANY places! Food for thought!

Maybe some day I will stumble on the original author, whom I suspect likely lived in France about the time of Louis IV!

Note the word faith does not say anything about "faith in what!"

The Historical Note:

The original version, back in 1963 when I entered the then library of Montreal Institute of Technology to apply to do the then program known (before the inception of the C.E.G.E.P. program for Technical and practical post-secondary education in Quebec, which started in the fall of 1967) was, along with many other sage items, beautifully calligraphed on the ceiling beams of the room.

That one I noticed, even though my French at the time was far less than it is today, but I never remembered the author.

Since then, I have revisited the building, but all the calligraphy has been painted over and lost and the building is now a part of the U.Q.A.M. Science faculty. All that remained was the painted over relief of the crest of the former Montreal Institute of Technology, which, having been stippled there was not totlly lost by the repainting.

(In the summer or fall of 1967, the rear part of what was Montreal Institute of Technology, having been built with huge wood timbers, was destroyed by fire. That part of the overall site was rebuilt and became another part of what now belongs to U.Q.A.M. the facade has the address of 200 Sherbrooke St. W. just east of Park Ave.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by R. E. Bruce Martin (talk • contribs) 03:52, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Using Google Books on some of the phrases, I found what I suspect is the original passage (at the bottom of the page):

En comparant les hommes d'autrefois, royalistes et même républicains, aux bommes [sic] qui gouvernent la troisième république, on ne peut se défendre d'une triste réflexion : Un pays qui ne veut plus des hommes de foi va aux hommes de loi, en attendant qu'il tombe aux mains des hommes sans foi ni loi.

("In comparing men of the past, royalists and even republicans, to the men who govern [our] Third Republic, a sad reflection cannot be kept away: A country that no longer wants men of faith goes to men of law, waiting to fall into the hands of men with neither faith nor law.")

I believe this is the original because of the way it's presented, as a "sad reflection" rather than a quotation. Unfortunately it's not 100% obvious who the author of the passage is, as there is no signature at the end of it.

The Google Books hit is on a bound volume covering 6 months of Revue de la Révolution, which describes itself as a monthly historical, philosophical, economic, literary, and artistic review, published under the direction of fr:Gustave Bord and edited by Retaux-Bray. Neither the magazine nor the editor named has a Wikipedia article in English or French. However, Google Books attributes the magazine to Gustave Bord and Charles d'Héricault, who is mentioned as a cofounder of the magazine in Bord's French Wikipedia article.

So one guess as to the author of the passage is that it was Retaux-Bray, who might or might not be the same person as d'Héricault. But the passage appears at the end of a review of a book Généraux et chefs de la fr:Vendée militaire et de la Chouannerie, which was also edited by Retaux-Bray. But while the book review is not signed, it's one of a series on consecutive pages, and the previous one is signed by Victor du Bled. (He also has no Wikipedia article, but some of his other writing appears in the French Wikisource.) The table of contents at the end of the bound volume mentions du Bled as the author of reviews over a wide range of page numbers, so it's at least possible that he wrote this one, and my guess is that he's the author of the passage.

--76.71.6.254 (talk) 05:56, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Retaux-Bray was a publishing company. https://openlibrary.org/publishers/Librairie_Retaux-Bray Wymspen (talk) 08:42, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

This seems to be attributed to François Guizot. By the way, the context of this is probably the "Great Awakening"-type revivals of Catholicism that periodically occur in France; I'm sure we (or the French Wikipedia) must have an article about them, but I can't find one right now. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:37, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

In one of the three pages where Google finds the phrase attributed to Guizot, the blogger (Gilles Jobin) who quotes it says it is shown atttributed to Guizot in the Revue universitaire in 1898, but he (Jobin) has not been able to find the phrase in Guizot's works. Now Google Books does find the sentence in Revue universitaire from 1898, but it only shows me a snippet view, which begins by asking Que pensez-vous de l'opinion suivante ("What do you think of the following opinion?")—and does not attribute it, at least not within the snippet, to anyone. Searching in the same document for Guizot finds his name but not on that page. I think this is still only a tentative atrtibution unless someone can actually find it in Guizot's writings. --76.71.6.254 (talk) 20:07, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

It sounds much as a line intended for political declamation. The author could certainly be Guizot, although it could perhaps be some other politician or poet of a lesser stature. Interestingly, "lawless" translates in French to "sans foi ni loi" . Google Ngrams seems to show that in writing this lawlessness-faithlessness close association very shortly predates the French Revolution. --Askedonty (talk) 21:40, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Proper name of Iranian confectioner's union

During the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, "the Iranian confectioner's union" was reported to have wanted Danish pastries renamed. Is there an official title for this union? InedibleHulk (talk) 10:52, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Seems to be the "Association of Iranian Confectionery Manufacturing", by virtue of nothing else in that link fitting. Its website seems defunct and I don't want to try phoning. If anyone has a better answer, go for it, but that's good enough for me. InedibleHulk (talk) 13:48, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Business model of construction companies

How do construction companies make more money from change requests than from anything else? Do they deliberately dictate changes to clients? How, if so? Clover345 (talk) 11:56, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Your assumption that change requests make the most money is not true. A change request may be that the cost of the job will be reduced - making less money. To simplify, there are three aspects to every construction job: The work, the time, and the cost. The rule is that you can set only two of those and the third will be adjusted. For example, I can tell you that I need a garage built in one day, setting the work and the time. The cost will be huge because I made the time so short. A change request is a change to one (or more) of the aspects of the job. I could put in a change request to have the job build a bigger garage. I could put in a change request to get it built in half a day. I could change the day that it must be built. The change request is a bilateral agreement to change an aspect of the contract. But, it doesn't always increase the profit for the construction company. What if my change request was that the garage be built for a fraction of the original agreement, but you can take as long as you like. The construction company will likely make less money on the job. If, however, a change request comes in halfway through a job, it can be very profitable. What if I wait until the foundation is poured and the walls are up before I put in a change request to move the garage across the street? The construction company got paid to build the garage, then got paid to tear it down, and then got paid to rebuild it again. In that case, it brings in more profit. But, keep in mind that all that work inhibits the company's ability to take on other jobs that might actually be more profitable. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 13:18, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I've heard it's how construction companies operate in England. They deliberately influence clients to make change requests that they'll profit from. Clover345 (talk) 13:43, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I've also heard that many engineering design firms try to do the same thing. Clover345 (talk) 13:44, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm sure you can hear all kinds of sterotypes. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 14:06, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Large, well-established, responsible companies are unlikely to do that because they'll get a bad reputation and reputations matter in these businesses. However, one can always find some dishonest contractors, especially new operators who give suspiciously low bids. Someone could, for example, get you to agree in writing to something that is subtly different than what you actually wanted, and then charge a large fee to "fix" the issue once you discover the discrepancy. It is easy to demand a lot of money on a change order because many customers are reluctant to stop work on a project, fire their contractor, and seek a new one. However, as I said at the beginning, most companies aren't trying to do that. Most companies are more concerned with the long-term benefit of ensuring a good reputation and a steady stream of new business rather than the short-term benefit of exploiting current customers. Dragons flight (talk) 14:22, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

(EC) You need to be careful about the idea of "making money". Consider 209's excellent summary above (which applies to most projects, not just construction). A change request will affect one or two of the three aspects - and it could be any two - but in practical terms, it's unlikely to be the money side that is being directly altered. Think about it: the minimum amount of money was already agreed upon and the stakeholder is unlikely to just offer up more cash. Instead, they're likely going to request one of two things: shorter time frame or additional work, both of which will drive up the cost. But will the project managers "make" money off this? Sure, there'll be an incremental increase, but it honestly does just run the bills up to change things: people are less efficient, there's increased confusion, there are more meetings/emails/work orders, etc to get lost, misconstrued, etc. Could less scrupulous PMs "game" the system to force stakeholders into unnecessary change requests (while presumably knowing in advance that they'll need to modify the project, reducing their internal costs)? Sure. However, in my experience, it is much more likely that change requests are the result of incompetence rather than malice (see Hanlon's razor) and chances are good that nobody is making more money in the sense of "profit"; the costs run up due to inefficiencies. Matt Deres (talk) 15:49, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

But don't construction companies want to do the least amount of work in the shortest time possible, and get maximum profit from it? Just because construction is so expensive. Same with most companies I guess. Clover345 (talk) 16:09, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, certainly. But all companies (besides nonprofit organizations and some types of governmental agencies) are in it to maximize their profit and any company that sets out to not be efficient is just asking to be run out of business. Like any other business, construction companies will do their best to keep costs down and increase revenue; those two things are what give you profits and allow you to keep the lights on and your employees fed. But also like (almost) every other business, construction companies do not operate in a vacuum: if their prices go too high, no one will hire them and if their costs go too low (due to cutting corners or getting cheap labour) they will get a bad reputation, get investigated for safety or code violations, and so on. Within any field, there will be the "cheap and cheerful" option. The Walmart option, if you will. And if you buy their service you may find out that cheapest is not the best. But I don't think there's anything particularly endemic to construction that makes that more prevalent there. Maybe the large price tags make the instances that do occur stick out more. At the end of the day, the person or company hiring would need to do their due diligence in conjunction with a detailed RFP/RFQ so that they can make an informed decision (closest link is Informed consumer).

So you get the Low cost airlines of the construction world as well? Who maybe charge extras for everything? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:B9B7:CF00:71AA:6CF2:3EB:1DBF (talk) 22:27, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Apparently many construction companies deliberately under budget when bidding for jobs, so they can win the contract, as they're confident a change would be needed by the client at some point in the project and they can profit from this. 80.169.173.171 (talk) 10:33, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Prince2

Within the PRINCE2 framework, what is the purpose of client organisations which have a project structure which mirrors that if the delivery organisation? Clover345 (talk) 15:42, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

As PRINCE2 doesn't seem to imply that more than one company is involved, I must be misunderstanding your question. Can you rephrase it? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:49, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I understand the question well but it might be part of what is called in PRINCE2 "Project assurance". "Business assurance is checking that the project remains viable in costs and benefits. User assurance is checking that the users' requirements are being met", see page: PRINCE2 methodology. --Askedonty (talk) 11:46, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Mid-20th Century Dutch Liberal Political Philosophers and Political Theorists

Hello. I'd like to read a book or article which lists, and possibly outlines the ideas of, political philosophers and political theorists from Holland from approx the 1950's through 1970's. Does this exist? Thank you. Llamabr (talk) 16:14, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't know the answer, but to help others, does this have to be an English language book. If you speak Dutch you might get a better answer at the Dutch Wikipedia -- Q Chris (talk) 16:26, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Chris. I'd much rather find it in English, if possible. But that's a good lead, if no one can help here. Llamabr (talk) 22:15, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

New pyramid discovered in Egypt

Do we have an article about the new pyramid recently discovered in Egypt? The news article is dated 2017-04-03 and says “The remains of a 13th Dynasty pyramid have been discovered ... in an area to the north of King Snefru's Bent Pyramid in the Dahshur Necropolis.” – b_jonas 16:37, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

It probably won't merit a separate article, but it could certainly be mentioned in Dahshur#Pyramids. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:46, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

List of Egyptian pyramids doesn't seem to have an entry for this yet. – b_jonas 11:12, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Judaism, Christianity

Is Christianity a branch of Judaism?144.35.45.48 (talk) 17:11, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

see History of Christianity... Short version: It started out as such, but ceased to be so after Paul made changes. Blueboar (talk) 17:17, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

It's ultimately derived from Judaism, but neither mainstream Jews nor mainstream Christians would generally want to say that it's part of (included within) Judaism or the Jewish community now. Some conventional cover-terms applied nowadays are "Judeo-Christian civilization" and "Abrahamic religions"... AnonMoos (talk) 18:29, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

More of a spin-off. Most of the early Christians were Jews, and the core issue dividing them was (and always will be) the question of whether Jesus is considered the Messiah or not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:54, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

See Messianic Judaism. This is a proselytising religion - mainstream Judaism is not. 86.147.208.39 (talk) 10:27, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Memorizing final digits of multiples of powers of 5

Note: although this is about mathematics, I'm putting it here rather than on the Mathematics reference desk because it relates to human memories rather than math independent of human memories.

Do you know of anyone who has the complete list of all n-digit endings of numbers divisible by 5^n in their actual memories for values of n in the 5-10 interval?? I have them all memorized for n=1 to n=4:

• n=1: 5
• n=2: 25 and 75
• n=3: 125, 375, 625, and 875
• n=4: 0625, 1875, 3125, 4375, 5625, 6875, 8125, and 9375

(those ending in 0 can be obtained by adding groups of 0's to the appropriate parts of the list so that it can have n digits)

Anyone who has the list memorized for n=10?? Georgia guy (talk) 17:39, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I doubt anyone has a complete list of all n-digit endings of numbers divisible by 5^n. 5^∞ is infinite. You probably want to set an upper limit, because if you don't, then you will spend the rest of your life counting numbers instead of eating, sleeping, and doing more important things. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 18:03, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Not necessarily, if there's a formula or pattern, which certainly looks like a possibility. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:49, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I think the OP wants the actual numbers, not a formula. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 19:16, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Seems like a rather narrowly-defined hobby. What about numbers divisible by powers of 7? That might be more of a challenge. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:25, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Wrong. Any group of final digits can occur in a number divisible by a power of 7. Georgia guy (talk) 21:09, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Sure. But maybe harder to memorize. Speaking of which, what is the purpose of your project? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:12, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

No, he clearly does NOT want the actual numbers. He wants to know whether anyone has memorised the numbers past n=5. He's wanting to investigate techniques of memorisation, as he made very clear in his question. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:12, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

5ⁿ divides 10ⁿ so the list for n is the arithmetic progression 5ⁿ + k×(2×5ⁿ), for k = 0 to 2^n-1-1. For n=10 there are 512 10-digit numbers. I doubt anyone would bother to memorize that. Some people could learn it with mnemonic techniques but it would be easier to just memorize 5ⁿ and get good at adding. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:42, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Well said. For those who didn't catch it, your 5ⁿ + k×(2×5ⁿ) is the same as (2k+1)5ⁿ, or the odd multiples of 5ⁿ. -- ToE 03:19, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

There are people who have memorised pi to 2,500 decimal places. 86.147.208.39 (talk) 10:23, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

The World Record for pi recitation is now in the tens of thousands. By my count, there are 9217 digits to remember in this sequence up to n=10 (omitting the numbers with trailing 0's as suggested by the OP). That would be roughly equivalent to the 1978 World Record for recalling the digits of pi. Within the realms of human ability, but still highly pointless. 92.18.65.81 (talk) 21:08, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Who can say it's pointless without a special insight into the workings of the universe? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:43, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

One must imagine Sisyphus happy. --Trovatore (talk) 21:47, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Sisyphus's sister Cecily Sassafras always thought so. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:49, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Calculating the numbers with a computer sounds easy enough, but memorizing them seems like less cool a waste of brain cells than memorizing pi or the golden ratio or even the Feigenbaum constants or whatever. 50.0.136.56 (talk) 19:24, 8 April 2017 (UTC)