Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 November 29

= November 29 =

Gold and other prices in £
According to from a gold bullion dealer, one ounce of gold cost £4.25 in January 1901 and £1,605.88 this month, so £1 in January 1901 buys the same as £377.85 now. However, according to from the Bank of England, £1 in 1901 had the general purchasing power of £101.55 last month. In other words, assuming that both of these sources are roughly accurate, the price of gold relative to the general economy is 3.72 times what it was in 1901. Why is this the case? Nyttend (talk) 01:47, 29 November 2023 (UTC)


 * One very significant factor is that the rise in economic activity since 1901 has outpaced the rise in the amount of gold in human hands since 1901. During much of the 19th century, when currencies and finances were often tied to gold, there was a long term deflationary trend for the same reason -- the economy was usually expanding faster than the gold supply (though it might go the other way if an economic depression coincided with a mining gold rush).  Since deflation is creditor friendly, while inflation is debtor friendly, whether to stay on a strict gold standard or allow "bimetallism" (both gold and silver backing the currency), became an acrimonious political controversy in the late 19th century United States, whose highpoint was the 1896 William Jennings Bryan Cross of Gold speech, extremely famous in the U.S. at the time (though it didn't really lead to any resolution of the issues). AnonMoos (talk) 02:47, 29 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Also, there are many uses for gold in the modern world that simply did not exist in 1901. According to our own article, we use about 100 BILLION grams of gold just producing new cell phones each year. Since (as AnonMoos said), the supply has not really increased, this new demand leads to a higher price. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:19, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * For smartphones? Not just that but I believe every laptop has about 3 g of gold. 170.76.231.162 (talk) 16:59, 30 November 2023 (UTC).


 * Please don’t assume that gold equals purchasing power; it is merely an unwieldily alternative store of value. The end of the failed gold standard (see Great Depression) also invalidates the 1901-2023 timeline. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 14:18, 29 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Not sure of the point, but if the price of a pint of beer was 2d in 1901, £1 would have bought you 120 pints. To buy 120 pints today (outside of London) would cost you about £480. O tempora....  Alansplodge (talk) 18:58, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Exactly! Leave gold out of it. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 16:02, 2 December 2023 (UTC)


 * https://www.macrotrends.net/2541/platinum-prices-vs-gold-prices Gold and platinum prices comparison. They can change relative to each other. 170.76.231.162 (talk) 16:44, 30 November 2023 (UTC).


 * Platinum was kind of a specialized niche medal until it became trendy in a ca. 1930 fad. It was not commonly the basis of currencies... AnonMoos (talk) 22:25, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

What is the Anno Mundi equivalent of BC for 'pre-start-date' events?
In the Jewish Anno Mundi system, what is the notation for referring to events before the creation of the world, such as the large eruption that occurred at Cueros de Purulla c. 5870 BC mentioned in our 6th millennium BC article? In the Anno Domini system, the notation is, as shown in that article, "BC" for "Before Christ". Is the Anno Mundi version "BC"-but-now-it-stands-for-"Before Creation", or what? -sche (talk) 04:09, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Was that event mentioned in the Bible? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:32, 29 November 2023 (UTC)


 * User:-sche -- The starting points of both the Jewish and Greek versions of Anno Mundi, as well as the starting point of the Julian day system, all precede any written human history (the Narmer Palette or whatever), so there's not much use for a pre-start-era system of dating... AnonMoos (talk) 08:12, 29 November 2023 (UTC)


 * You might as well ask for the notation in cosmological time for events occurring before $t = 0$. --Lambiam 09:36, 29 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Presumably anyone who wanted to refer to a date in AM more than 1 year before the (supposed) Creation (the "Year of emptiness" was a novel concept to me) could just use a minus sign, but it seems unlikely (though not impossible) that anyone wanting to use AM would also want to refer to such a date. Perhaps doing so is so rare that there is no established convention. {The poster formerly known as 87.l81.230.195} 51.194.245.32 (talk) 12:30, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I appreciate this response. Since dateable events occurred prior to the AM system's start date, just like dateable events occurred prior to the AD start date, and since such events can be referred to in the AD system, it seemed not unreasonable to me that it might also be possible in the AM system. -sche (talk) 15:00, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * But if you really take the AM system seriously, then the question is nonsensical. You can't have dates before the beginning of time. If you accept that the world is actually older than the AM system implies, then the AD/BC system is so much more useful and readily understood as to make the development of an AM equivalent of BC pointless. And if you don't like using the Jesus-centric terminology, then the exactly equivalent BCE/CE system is available. -User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 16:19, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The best one could do is to say that any particular event prior to the creation of humans must have occurred on one of the other "days" preceding it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:39, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

In addition to the former comments, I've not met a Jewish person (including ultra-religious people) who don't make use of the conventional dating system. They would all know it's currently 2023. It's used for worldly matters, whereas the Jewish system is used for spiritual ones. There's therefore no need for what you're asking for, even if the question didn't appear to them to be inherently based on a fallacy. --Dweller (talk) Old fashioned is the new thing! 09:58, 30 November 2023 (UTC)


 * This could make sense if any esoteric works tried to give a chronology for events happening before the creation of the world. For example, in Origenism, Neoplatonism, or works like Kephalaia Gnostika or Enochic literature there can be a first creation, or creation of angels or human souls, or some other kind of Pre-existence. You could have something similar in Gap creationism. But I don't know whether there are any works that give a specific chronology for these kinds of events before the creation of our world. (Note the point is not whether such events happened or are part of any orthodox religious belief, but that there have been many ancient and modern works that propose events happening before the creation of our world, and in that context they could sensibly talk about a chronology that goes back before AM 1.) --Amble (talk) 20:50, 30 November 2023 (UTC)


 * The only other negative chronology (apart from Astronomical year numbering, which assumes a year zero) that I am aware of is BH (Before Hegira) for Arab dates before 17 July 622.  But Islamic dates are a mess for the period before the calendar was fixed in AD 632. 2A00:23C5:E103:3301:3553:4492:6F41:3DC8 (talk) 13:29, 1 December 2023 (UTC)