Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 July 12

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July 12

Hygiene in Chinese court

So Versailles was reputedly a cesspit of filth where courtiers urinated and defecated in corners and used perfumes to mask the foul smell. I was wondering what was the hygienic practices was like in the Chinese courts amongst the imperial family, eunuchs and officials during the Ming and Qing dynasties in the Forbidden City. Were there proper bathroom facilities and what happened to waste in the inner palace? KAVEBEAR (talk) 03:51, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

History of water supply and sanitation and Toilet#History give some hints. I suspect they had a system of separation of urine and feces, and transportation of the latter to farmers' fields as fertiliser. The nobles did not rely on pig toilets. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 12:05, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

urine is industrially valuable for fulling And other processes. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:19, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

KAVEBEAR; "Those looking for old toilets will be disappointed: there was not a single toilet in the Forbidden City. Instead, metal or wooden bed pans were used, with designs ranging from simple to very elegant depending on the user’s rank or affiliation. After use, they were covered with ashes and cleaned by the eunuchs". Forbidden City 紫禁城 by Jürg Hornbostel. Alansplodge (talk) 07:50, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Interesting. The Last Emperor, the movie, featured the use of chamber pots but I never knew if there were any outhouses or toilets in the palace. It is interesting they didn’t threw the content out the window like in Europe.KAVEBEAR (talk) 14:55, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

"Europe" (a large place) had various mechanisms for dealing with its sanitation needs: Toilet#Modern_history gives plenty of links, and defenestration is not amongst them (although see also Flying toilet today). Carbon Caryatid (talk) 15:46, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

See also night soil. Larger medieval houses had a cesspit, while castles had garderobes which emptied into the moat. Alansplodge (talk) 11:31, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

US Senate requirements

From Article One of the United States Constitution "....and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen"

Why does it say not be an inhabitant, when that is a requirement? Is it just weird 1780s wording? CTF83! 09:09, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

It's a double negative: No person shall be a representative ... who shall not etc. Henry^Flower 09:16, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

I've edited Kristen's link to go directly to the relevant passage.

Actually, there is some weird 1780s wording here, in the way the double negative works. Consider:

• "No person is eligible if he is not 25 years old."

That is, to be eligible it must not be true that you aren't 25. That is, you must be 25.

• "No person is eligible if he is not 25 years old and does not live in the state."

That is, to be eligible it must not be true that "you aren't 25 and don't live in the state". That is, you must either be 25 or live in the state. (De Morgan's Law applies.)

Well, the actual wording has the same structure as the second example (with an additional requirement besides age, but never mind that). But clearly nobody thought it might be read that way. Conclusion: this is an example of weird 1780s wording. --76.69.47.228 (talk) 10:01, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Modern American English has an opposite but similarly weird usage: "I could care less", which means the speaker cares a lot, when they actually mean the opposite. In BrEng, we've retained the negative and say "I couldn't care less". --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:26, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Kavanagh has pledged to interpret the Constitution "as written". I wonder if anyone on the Senate panel would be astute enough to raise this issue. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:24, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

If that means he will be taking as his starting point the written Constitution, then that is no different from what anyone interpreting the Constitution would do. Anyone who interprets something else, such as someone else's commentary on what the Constitution means, is not interpreting the Constitution in the first place, and cannot claim to be doing so. At best, they'd be interpreting an interpretation. I would certainly hope that Supreme Court judges interpret the Constitution and nothing but; they may study other interpretations in their consideration of issues, that's all. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:29, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Some study contemporary dictionaries of 1787 or whatever the relevant passage year is, some study anything the legislature members who put that passage in the Constitution have said on the subject, some study the newest major dictionaries (the idea being that if English changed and the Constitution wasn't amended the new meaning is okay enough with the people (despite the fact that it's very hard to get the 2:1 or 3:1 majority needed to change the Constitution), even some very old school, very right wing judges who treat the Constitution, its writers, its writers' writings, and 1787 AD with reverence and consider it objectively about the best Constitution ever written use dictionaries. Wikipedia has articles on these and other (not always mutually exclusive) schools of thought on constitutional interpretation like the living constitution — that the Constitution was intentionally written vague and massageable because they knew how hard it'd be to amend so they should look at things like contemporary values when interpreting the Constitution. Also some look at English common law. To see the full Byzantiness of the US in this field I recommend the shortish the Common Law Origins of the Infield Fly Rule which was published in the serious law journal of one of America's most prestigious universities and later cited by federal judges. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:06, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

When opponents of ratification said "this clause gives too much power," and Madison/Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers "don't be silly, this narrower reading is the only reasonable one," I think it fair to suppose that the ratifiers agreed with the latter; and no other interpretation has been ratified by anyone outside USG itself. —Tamfang (talk) 04:59, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Ohh! Those silly double negatives! Thanks all!! CTF83! 08:21, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Dead Apollo astronaut

I'm aware of the never-given speech prepared for Nixon had the Apollo 11 mission failed to return, but what if a single astronaut had died in flight? Of course, there would have been no lunar landing, but it might have been several days in cramped quarters with a corpse to return the body to Earth. Was there a protocol for whether to eject or keep the body? There must have been.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:24, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

As far as I know, Apollo 11 was not really intended to be opened in space. There was no air lock. Even on the moon, the only way to open the door was to evacuate the cabin and dump all the atmosphere. If you have plenty of air, then that is okay, but during the Apollo 11 emergency I doubt they would be willing to dump that much air without a very serious need to do so. Dragons flight (talk) 12:43, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Apollo 13 was the one with the emergency. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:23, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, yes. Apollo 13 was the big emergency. The OP's question about a death in space made my think about that emergency rather than the successful Apollo 11 trip. Dragons flight (talk) 18:40, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Aside from Apollo 13, the closest they came to buying the farm was in Apollo 10. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:18, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Could they have left the body in the LEM for the trip to Earth if they still had it and then seal off the LEM without throwing away the air? How much temperature differential could the LEM-CM system take for the whole trip to Earth? (keeping the LEM colder than the CM and the CM at the lowest temperature that the astronauts would rather stay in than smell the body more during the time the smell must be in the CM to bring the body back. Or maybe they could be in spacesuits before opening the door to strap the body back in the CM chair and never have to smell the body at all) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:20, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Presumably, if one of the astronauts had died, as per the OPs scenario, that would be classified as an emergency... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:00, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes. It's just the odd wording, "during the Apollo 11 emergency", as if there actually was an emergency with Apollo 11. Bubba73 (talk · contribs) is a resident expert on the Apollo program, and might be able to tell us more. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:23, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

During the return journey of Apollo 13 the systems on the service module were all out, having been disabled by the explosion. The only thing that continued to function was the radio transmitter and the first message sent was "Houston, we have a problem!" The astronauts survived by retreating to the lunar module. That was jettisoned in preparation for re-entry and the astronauts returned to the service module to splash down. 46.208.78.215 (talk) 14:54, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

I think you mean the "command module" for splashdown.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:54, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

And I think you mean "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here". But in the end, the Hollywood version of history always wins out. --Antiquary (talk) 16:29, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't know of any protocol for that. On a normal mission they had the ability to put on their pressure suits, depressurize the cabin, and open the hatch. But if it had happened on the crippled Apollo 13 they probably would not have been able to to that. They could try to get the dead body into a pressure suit. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 18:29, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

There is a big thing that no one has yet mentioned, which is Newton's third law. If you vent the atmosphere and dump a body out the airlock, well, you're doing the same thing a rocket engine does. This will alter your trajectory and mass. Even small changes in such can be a big deal in space. And, the craft only has a limited amount of fuel for course corrections. So, I highly doubt the astronauts would have been instructed to dump the corpse. As often with anything space-related, this is an example of how our human intuition doesn't work in such an environment.

If a death occurred on an Apollo mission before lunar module separation, the mission would have been aborted, as all three astronauts were necessary. If one between lunar module separation and return, they might have been instructed to leave the corpse behind, either on the Moon or in the to-be-detached lunar module. Mission Control would have to recalculate some stuff, but since there's less mass less fuel needs to be used, which is generally a good thing. After everyone's back on board, they're committed to the return trip. Some unpleasantness is not uncommon in space: on Apollo 8, Borman got "spacesick" and had vomiting and diarrhea, which made a mess in the cabin they had to clean up as best they could. Remember, they didn't have a toilet. Also of note, Apollo 13 was instructed to temporarily stop urine dumps during its return flight, because, as I noted, this would alter its trajectory, which deviated from the planned trajectory because of the accident and mission abort. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 19:58, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

I think that on Apollo they were only supposed to stop urine dumps for a while, but they misunderstood it and stopped all dumps. I think the reason is that they were having a hard time getting the precise position with ground-based radar, probably due to debris from the explosion. A human body has very little mass compared to the spacecraft, so it wouldn't alter it much. But it does, however that can be taken into account. Apollo 13 kept getting off the projected path back, and part of that was because they had planned for 600 pounds of lunar rocks to be onboard. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 20:13, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

When the movie said that I always thought that was a lot of moon samples, at least for that early in the Apollo program. It's not like they were there for 3 days with a car like Apollo 17. Are you sure that isn't just an incorrect quote from the movie? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:05, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

You are probably right about that - Apollo 14 brought back a little less than 100 pounds of samples, so A13 was probably planned for about that much. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 21:14, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

I suspect they could have minimized the Newton's third law effect, possibly by spinning the spacecraft a bit as they released the body, then doing a burn as soon as possible afterwards to leave the body behind. Still, this must have been decided at some stage, after all, they simulated the return of the mission with only one or two astronauts aboard. I'll keep digging. So to speak. Thanks to all.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:31, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

The spacecraft was mostly moving under the effect of gravity, so the effect on the course would be neglible until the next rocket burn, when the slightly different mass could be taken into account. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 18:08, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Venting air would likely not amount to a large mass at a large velocity, so it should not affect the trajectory of the massive spacecraft so much that a very small use of thrusters or a short burn of the engine would put things right. As for jettisoning a body you just ease it gently out the door. It is not necessary to somehow punt it out like a football. If they had pressure suits they could have survived. Didn’t they have pressure suits during launch like in Mercury? Gemini had pressure suits and used them when one did EVA and the other stayed inside in vacuum. As for the air loss from opening the hatch, they opened the hatch after venting air on the Gemini space walks and survived nicely. Edison (talk) 21:04, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

They definitely had the ability for all three astronauts to put on space suits. EVAs were done on at least Apollo 9. Easing even the heaviest Apollo astronaut, Swigert at 89.3 kg slowly out the door would not change the trajectory of the command module, with a 5800 kg dry wright. Oxygen at 5psi filling the 6.17 cubic meter capsule would have a mass of about 3kg. Edison (talk) 21:53, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, they all had pressure suits because a contingency in case the LM couldn't dock back with the CM, they would depressurize and do an EVA to get over. Besides the mass of the CM, there was the mass of the Service Module. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 22:04, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

The estimate above of 3kg of oxygen to repressurize can be compared to the 296 kg of liquid oxygen carried in the service module, which supplied both breathing needs and fuel cell operation for electricity. A 1% use in an emergency sounds plausible. Edison (talk) 22:07, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

EVA was done on 15 as well (Worden).--Wehwalt (talk) 22:32, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

A pressure suit could probably be a reasonably effective makeshift body bag, so there might not have been any need to jettison or otherwise dispose of the deceased. Keeping him on board means no adjustments would be needed for the changed spacecraft mass. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 22:40, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that is probably what they'd prefer to do. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 22:45, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

The spacesuit May well have had an overpressure relief device, set to relieve pressure above the normal (5psi?) setting and below the test pressure or burst pressure of the suit assembly. You would not want the failure of a pressure regulator which allowed too much oxygen into the suit to result in a Michelin Man which could not get back through the hatch, and you would not want the most fragile part of the envelope, such as the fingers of the gloves, to pop, resulting in severe injury or death. Better a controlled release, giving them time to re-enter the capsule and repressurize. The suit likely had an internal pressure gauge, so that if it approached the burst point, the jettison option could be reconsidered, same as if an overpressure relief started venting intolerable gasses into the capsule. Edison (talk) 14:45, 18 July 2018 (UTC)