Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 November 22

= November 22 =

POTUS
In many of the media interviews with POTUS, there is a very loud engine sound in the background.

1. Where is that sound coming from? I highly suspect it's the Marine One but can't confirm it.

2. Why not start that engine later after the interview? If it's indeed the Marine One then it's obviously not going anywhere without the president. Mũeller (talk) 12:03, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * With the chopper already running, the prez can make a quick exit. Reagan used to do the same thing, and I wouldn't be surprised if others have as well. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:51, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Why would he need to make an exit so quick that the couple of seconds it would otherwise take to start the choopper needed to be skipped? An assassination attempt maybe? ——  SerialNumber  54129  14:20, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Um... starting a chopper isn’t like stating a car. You don’t just turn a key and fly off. There is a lengthy checklist that the pilot has to go through to get a helicopter ready to fly (much more than “a couple seconds”).  As to the reason the chopper has to be ready to fly well before the President boards... that is for security reasons. If there is an assaination attempt, the President needs to be evacuated quickly. In fact, The Secret Service really hates it when the President stops to give interviews before boarding. Blueboar (talk) 15:24, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The noisy helicopter is also handy for pretending you don't hear a question you don't want to answer, and quick getaways are more likely to be needed to avoid unpleasant questions than to avoid assassinations. - Nunh-huh 19:18, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * well, thanks for answering my questions, anyway ;) yes, guess who doesn't know anything about helicopters! Or interview techniques either, for that matter  :)  ——  SerialNumber  54129  19:28, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Even the "couple of seconds" to start a car is probably too long a wait. Cars for such high-ranking individuals would probably be kept running as well, for the same reason of quick extraction from a hazardous situation. --Khajidha (talk) 18:25, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Even numbers in ancient Rome
Is it true that Romans didn't like even numbers? Temerarius (talk) 18:23, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes.  That's why they gave the old lunar year 355 days instead of the real 354.   They couldn't do anything about the twelve months, but if your year is an odd number of days at least one month has to have an even number of days.   They got round that by splitting February into two parts - one of 23 days and one of 5 (the leap day we have as the 29th used to come between the 23rd and the 24th).   Festivals largely fell on odd dates - e.g. kalends on the 1st, nones on the 5th or 7th, ides on the 13th or 15th. 2A00:23C1:3180:6501:3066:C989:8306:7E60 (talk) 18:43, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * That was quick, thanks. Is this information on any WP page? Also, they didn't have 12 months, in earlier times, they had ten months then winter. That kind of counts as an uneven number? Temerarius (talk) 18:50, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, the deeper question is where does this dislike for even numbers come from, did the same thing exist in other cultures of the time or of now, and could we add to pages for Parity: Mathematics, Roman Calendar, etc etc. Temerarius (talk) 18:56, 22 November 2018 (UTC)


 * The earliest version of the Roman calendar had 10 months because its main purpose was to regulate agricultural matters, and apparently nothing agriculturally important went on during Jan./Feb. in early Rome. The months with numerical names (September=7 to December=10, and in earlier times also Quintilis and Sextilis) are based on counting March as the 1st month, as is also the placement of leap adjustments before March, even though the Roman year no longer began on March 1st for  a long time before Julius Caesar's reforms... AnonMoos (talk) 19:35, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * P.S. I'm not sure if it's stated anywhere on Wikipedia, but the ancient Pythagoreans considered odd numbers masculine and even numbers feminine... AnonMoos (talk) 19:56, 22 November 2018 (UTC)