Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 January 10

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January 10

Latin translation

Hi, can somebody do an idiomatic translation of the Latin phrase into English: "De Arte Chirurgica Recte Erudienda" Thanks. scope_creep^Talk 16:43, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

• Possibly: “Correct training in the Art of Surgery” (?)… I am sure someone else could come up with better. Blueboar (talk) 19:18, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

The declarative sentence ars chirurgica recte erudienda est means, "the surgical art should be taught properly". The most plausible meaning of the title of the treatise I can come up with is, literally, On the surgical art that must be properly taught, or, more idiomatically, On the proper way of teaching the art of surgery.  --Lambiam 19:50, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

@Lambiam:, @Blueboar: That is ideal. Better than my effort. scope_creep^Talk 17:26, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

No Vice President

When Thomas Hendricks died while Vice President, the office was left vacant until the next election, correct? If so, why was his position left empty? 12.116.29.106 (talk) 17:54, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

It wasn’t considered vital that the position be filled. Blueboar (talk) 18:31, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

See Vice President of the United States#Vacancies; prior to the Twenty-fifth Amendment, no mechanism existed to fill such a vacancy. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 18:28, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

(EC) Until the adoption in 1967 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution dealing with presidential succession, there was no provision for filling a vice-presidential vacancy until the next presidential election. A vacancy could be caused either by the Vice-President dying (as in Hendricks' case); by his assumption of the presidency upon the death or resignation of the President (this first occurred with John Tyler in 1841, and many times afterwards; or through resignation (which had not happened yet at the time). The relevant section of the amendment has been used twice since its adoption, in 1973 upon the resignation of Spiro T. Agnew and in 1974 after Gerald Ford acceded to the presidency following the resignation of Richard Nixon. Xuxl (talk) 18:34, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

• Resignation had happened at least once: see John C. Calhoun. --142.112.220.65 (talk) 23:19, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

It should be noted that the Vice President only has two jobs according to the U.S. Constitution, 1) To be the presiding officer of the Senate, and to vote in case of ties in said body and 2) To not be dead just in case the President is. The Vice President was long considered such a worthless job, consider what John Adams said of the job, that it was "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." while John Nance Garner, one of FDR's veeps, said that the job "wasn't worth a pitcher of warm piss" (sometimes bowdlerized to read "...warm spit" for the children). Basically, no one thought to come up with any mechanism to replace the Vice President because the Vice President didn't have a job worth replacing. This was a corollary of what happened when the President died. While the original Constitution does have some vague statements about what should happen in the case of a vacancy in the Presidency, noting only "In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected." When William Henry Harrison died, no one really knew what that clause meant in a practical sense, and there was a LOT of controversy over whether his Vice President, John Tyler, would assume the full office and title of "President" or just be "acting" as the president, like as a caretaker. Tyler just kinda decided he would become the "honest-to-God" real President, and over time that kind of ad-hoc solution seemed to work, so the US just went with it, without any formal rules. In the mid 20th century, it was decided that some actual statutory clarification was necessary, and the formal procedure for replacing a President was put into force by the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and as part of the clean up, a formal procedure for replacing a vacancy in the Vice Presidency was also established. --Jayron32 18:48, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

I suspect that the Vice Presidency exists only because the Electors must vote for “two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves” (to avoid splitting the vote among thirteen local favorites), and it was thought absurd to cast two votes for one office. —Tamfang (talk) 20:15, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

You're flipping your causations here. The voting for two persons was done because there were two offices to fill: President and Vice President. Had they only had the one office, they would have only required the vote for one person. --Jayron32 13:32, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

The requirement to vote for two people had nothing to do with the number of offices. It was to avoid state/regional factionalism. Blueboar (talk) 13:38, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

The requirement that one was not of the same state as themselves was to avoid regionalism. The Vice President was not a tack-on to allow two votes to occur, it was created as an office unto itself, and needed to be elected or chosen some how. Federalist 68 lays out explicit justification for the office itself, and the office itself was explicitly modeled after the Lieutenant Governor of New York. --Jayron32 13:46, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Earliest photographs with precisely-known date

File:Ras el Tin palace 7 November 1839.jpg

Most of the early photographs shown on Photography are dated to a year or month. What are the earliest photographs taken on dates known to day-precision? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:59, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

The section Photography#History has the oldest surviving camera photograph from 1826, and Inauguration of James Buchanan has a photograph from March 4, 1857. So we can at least bracket the answer between those two. --Amble (talk) 20:16, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. The earliest I have so far (inserted above) is "Ras el Tin palace 7 November 1839.jpg". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:09, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Wow, that's early. Do you happen to know how it was determined that the original exposure was on November 7? I suppose Vernet and Goupil-Fesquet kept a journal? The linked article mentions quite a few details, but I don't see the source they are taken from. (I suppose it's a judgment call whether an engraving based on the photograph counts the same as the photograph itself.) --Amble (talk) 23:33, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

That would be Ras El Tin Palace. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:39, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Whose logo?

Then Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits Spaceport Cornwall

Whose logo is partially hidden behind Boris Johnson's head, in this photo? Where can I see a clear copy of that logo? (The doctored version of the photo, in the news today, appears to have a mangled version of the logo.) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:18, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

The logo is the mission-patch-style logo for Virgin Orbit's exhibit at the 2021 G7 summit, as shown here. Supporting link between the two photos is this one with Johnson and a clearer view of the logo in question. — Lomn 19:43, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Brilliant, thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:05, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Computers

Hi.

Im doing some research on computers. I overheard some people who said two 60s researchers asked a computer the causes of ww1.

Any help? Thanks. Can't find it on Google. Ema--or (talk) 22:03, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Wasn't World War I started because 1 person was shot? Franz Ferdinand? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 23:20, 10 January 2023 (UTC).

Yes, but if Germany hadn't given unlimited backing to the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum against Serbia, then it might not have immediately led to a continental war, etc. etc. etc. AnonMoos (talk) 01:31, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

A bit more complicated than that. See Mobilization, and particularly the section Mobilization in World War I. DOR (HK) (talk) 17:46, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Or if Russia hadn't given unlimited backing to Serbia... At the time, most of the blame was put on Germany, but that wasn't entirely fair. Nowadays, historians put a larger fraction of the blame on Russia. Thing is, the great powers of Europe had allowed for a situation where any incident could trigger a great war and apparently many wanted that war, just looking for a pretext. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:48, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich 'cause he was hungry. Iapetus (talk) 13:12, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Some basic searching suggests the names Ithiel de Sola Pool and Allen Kessler, but I can't really turn up details of what they may have written... AnonMoos (talk) 01:28, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Our article on Ithiel de Sola Pool mentions, as a contribution to social sciences, "First computer simulation in decision making during crises". This refers to a computer simulation dubbed "Crisiscom", described in: Ithiel de Sola Pool and Allen Kessler (1965), "The Kaiser, The Tsar, and The Computer: Information Processing in a Crisis", American Behavioral Scientist 8:9, pp. 31–38, doi:10.1177/000276426500800909. The purpose of this simulation, using the week before the outbreak of WWI as a scenario, was not to find causes, but to increase the understanding of the psychological process of deterrence during a crisis situation.  --Lambiam 10:19, 11 January 2023 (UTC)