Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2015 April 18

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

April 18

Gulf

Britain used to be a protectorate of the UAE. Why did it relinquish control of a region so wealthy in natural resources? World bymyself (talk) 00:42, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

See Trucial States, aka Trucial Oman. Note that they were a protectorate of Britain, not a colony or possession. The states voluntarily entered into a treaty of protection with Britain as sovereign states, and were not possessions or colonies of Britain. In the 1960s, as with the rest of the states with which Britain still had hegemony, the Trucial states were granted full independence. But this basically was a withdrawal of British defensive forces from the states, they were never a formal part of the British Empire, were never under formal Dominion under Britain's sovereign control, rather they were merely a means to provide military support to prevent lawlessness and border security for what were otherwise sovereign states. This military support did give Britain some say-so in the local governance, but the control was by truce, and the truce was ended by mutual agreement as it was formed. Britain never had "control" over the region. --Jayron32 01:01, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

"prevent lawlessness and border security" ? StuRat (talk) 18:28, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. The short answer is that the British presence represented an immense drain on the battered domestic economy, without any real benefit to the UK. In 1968, Harold Wilson announced that all British military bases "East of Suez" would close by 1971. "On the one hand, the prevailing view is that the long-term relative decline of the British economy compelled the Labour government to withdraw its troops from overseas. This argument posits a strong link between economic retrenchment and military retreat, thus finding some comprehensible pattern in the whole process. On the other hand, a smaller group of scholars contends that the government needed to satisfy domestic opinion, which inclined against overseas commitment." Shohei Sato, Britain’s Decision to Withdraw from the Persian Gulf, 1964–68: A Pattern and a Puzzle, March 2009, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (p.100). Alansplodge (talk) 17:46, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

On an entirely irrelevant point, that's the first use of "immense" rather than "emmense" I've seen on-line for a considerable period. But my experience may not be representative. Tevildo (talk) 20:44, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

That of course should be spelled either e-mmense or i-mmense when online. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:15, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Does that mean I'm not cool? Alansplodge (talk) 00:16, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Perish the thought, Alansplodge.

Tevildo, we must move in different circles. I have the most delicately tuned hair trigger for spelling errors, but have never encountered "emmense" anywhere. I'll add it to my list of atrocities to watch out for. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:20, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

"Emense" is also depressingly popular among the indociles with whom I associate. Tevildo (talk) 23:08, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

80 Degrees North Latitude

A quick question for the mathematically inclined: how far from the North Pole (90 degrees north) would a point at latitude 80 degrees north be? Just looking for a simple geographic measurement, preferably in in U.S. statute miles. The formulas at wikiarticle Latitude are way above my pay grade. Textorus (talk) 02:22, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

A degree of latitude is about 111 kilometers [1]. So 80 degrees North Latitude is roughly 1100 kilometers from the North Pole. --Jayron32 02:35, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Whoa there. I thought 90 degrees North *is* the North Pole. Also, doesn't the north-south distance between degrees of latitude get smaller as they approach the Pole? Textorus (talk) 03:06, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I did a rough calculation using this tool. 80th parallel north lists Nordaustlandet as very close to the 80th parallel. That utility notes that Nordaustlandet is 1140 km from the North Pole (try it yourself). Seems like a pretty good confirmation of my estimate. (the link I note says that a degree of latitude is 111 km, so 10 degrees would be 1110 km, while the official Lat/Long of Nordaustlandet is, according to the Wikipedia article, slighly south of the 80N, making this a DAMN good estimate). --Jayron32 03:20, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

And also to confirm, degrees of latitude do not get closer as you get closer to the poles. If the earth were a perfect sphere, the distance between 0N and 1N would be identical to the distance between 89N and 90N. Longitude gets closer together as you approach the poles, but degrees of latitude are parallel, so each degree should be a consistent distance. In reality, the earth is slightly oblate (i.e. not a perfect sphere) but the difference is small enough for the rough estimates here to make no difference. --Jayron32 03:24, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

We probably need to define our terms more precisely. Measuring the shortest distance between lines of latitude along the surface of the Earth, the distance is the same near the poles, assuming the Earth to be a perfect sphere. The same would be true if we found the shortest distance tunneling directly through the Earth. However, if we run planes through each line (actually circle) of latitude, then those parallel planes do get closer and closer as we approach the poles. That's likely the cause of confusion here. StuRat (talk) 04:09, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Okay, so on the surface of the earth, degrees of latitude are the same distance apart, all up and down the globe (not counting minor differences due to shape of the earth). Got it. It would be nice if this were clearly stated in the latitude article. The freemaptools.com calculator is great. Thanks for the help, guys. Textorus (talk) 04:30, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

You may also be interested in Nautical mile. A navigator, responding to your question, would quickly say that 10 degrees of latitude yields 600 nmi ≈ 690 mi (since nautical miles are 15% larger than statute miles). This is accurate to a fraction of a percent because a nautical mile is defined to be exactly 1852 meters, the nearest whole meter value of the distance of one minute (1/60 of a degree) of latitude along a meridian. -- ToE 11:49, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

• The OP asked for a distance in US miles. WTF are these "km" thingies? μηδείς (talk) 17:34, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
  • The OP said "preferably in US miles". You don't have to cherry-pick on that to get an excuse to insult the metric system, used by every country in the world except the United States. JIP | Talk 20:54, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

• As implied by Jayron, each degree of latitude is 1/90th of the distance from the equator to the pole, i.e. each 10 degress is 1/9th of that distance. Going with the old round number of the earth's circumference being 25,000 miles, a quarter of that would be 6,250 miles - and one-ninth of that would be just a bit under 700 miles for 10 degrees. Each ten degrees of latitude being about 1,111 kilometers is not exactly a happy coincidence. The kilometer was originally derived from the presumed distance from the equator to the pole, which would be about 10,000 kilometers, or about 10,000,000 meters. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:21, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I too passed 10th grade Chemistry, but WP recognises no such thing as a "kil...o...me...ter". μηδείς (talk) 20:08, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Wince WP has both a redirect and a spelling note in the opening sentence, they do indeed recognize it. StuRat (talk) 20:10, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

If you try using that word in article space it will be changed to the French spelling (even in American articles) within about 30 minutes on average. μηδείς (talk) 23:20, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Those pesky French, eh? Alansplodge (talk) 00:18, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Yeah it's all their fault! Of course since the internal wikipedia search handles plurals but not this specific alternative spelling, we know there are currently ~39,228 articles with the kilometer spelling [2] [3], whether containing both spellings in an 'or' fashion, both spelling used inconsistently, or only kilometer Atenango del Río; Chisato Station (Mie); Vienna–Bratislava–Budapest Supermarathon; Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot; Chūkyō Metropolitan Area; Dobrich, Haskovo Province; Trenta, Calabria; ERuf Model A. And this number compares to ~126,177 for kilometre [4] [5] i.e. less than 3.22 times. But why ruin a silly rant with facts? Nil Einne (talk) 10:36, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, it is still an out rage when the spelling is changed from -er to -re on American articles, where -er is standard. I have no problem with French spelling in British articles. Had we Americans not defeated Napoleon at the battle of Thermopylae the Brits would be speaking it as well as writing it.

There used to be a user here who did nothing but changes things to -metre, etc. The agendum was even in his username. In an article I was working on, there was a verbatim quote by a nineteenth century English explore who said something about a 5,000-mile distance, which the user insisted (in the middle of a verbatim quote) be changed to a 8,047-kilometre distance. He then proceeded to argue that his school children relations in Australia literally had no idea of what a mile was, even that it was a unit of distance, and were unable to understand anything written in British English since the 1980's.

So if you really want a rant, let me know, I'll email you one. :) μηδείς (talk) 21:34, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Given the British and Australian Englishes are mostly the same, perhaps the children had other issues.Hack (talk) 09:28, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Jami’ es-Sittin

Per edit request. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:27, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Where can I find Jami’ es-Sittin on the map?

To the South of Walli Yetaim, there was a structure called “Jami’ es-Sittin” or “The Mosque of the Sixty” in English. It was located on a hill with escarped walls and a carved beam positioned over the door. It is thought to have been a synagogue11. It contains many ancient remains such as column shafts and classic resources. After the consultations made in 1967, a beautiful room to the west was exposed. The room has been plastered two times with white lime, and it has an area that faces south to Jerusalem. The Lintel was removed from the north door, and a pillar a synagogue or a church are encased over the west door. [6] Dr Lol (talk) 08:02, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

A google search for "Jami’ es-Sittin" yielded several hits. Looks like it is/was at 32.0525°N 35.2962°E / 32.0525; 35.2962 or maybe 32.05°N 35.2833°E / 32.05; 35.2833. We also have an article on the city of Shiloh which mentions Walli Yetaim.—Steve Summit (talk) 21:11, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Exact location of planned 1979 World Scout Jamboree?

The 1979 World Scout Jamboree was planned to be held in Nishapur, Iran. However it was cancelled due to the events surrounding the overthrow of the Shah. I've found information to indicate that planned site was 7km outside on a 10 sq km site (same site as the 1977 Asia-Pacific Jamboree) called Omar Khayyám Scout Park. However according to Google Maps, there appear to be park areas both to the east and to the southwest of town. I'd like information as to which of these was the planned site for the WSJ if either.Naraht (talk) 22:06, 18 April 2015 (UTC)