Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 January 1

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January 1

Is the Stephen King novel It (novel) available in large print or a shorter version of it's 1000 plus pages?

Is the Stephen King novel It (novel) available in large print or a shorter version of it's 1000 plus pages? Venustar84 (talk) 02:16, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

To go a different way, if you have trouble reading long books, that's one of the main reasons people watch film adaptations instead. I believe the movie/miniseries version of It was decent. You could also read the script, if you want the experience of reading with the abbreviated film version of the story. StuRat (talk) 08:24, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

That's a curious answer. The OP asked for a large print edition of the book, meaning there's a good chance they're partially sighted, meaning that the film won't be an awful lot of use to them. More to the point, the film is not the same thing as the book. --Viennese Waltz 12:58, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

But they also asked for a shorter version, which is exactly what a film script is. StuRat (talk) 02:16, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

It is available in large print. If you search on "stephen king it large print" you will find suppliers, one of which has large print novels for 25 cents. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:19, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Ford Article

When looking at Ford's Wikipedia page, I happened to realize that the "Operating Income" was less than the "Net Income". The Operating income being US$8.681 billion (2011) and the net income being US$20.21 billion (2011). Is the operating income supposed to be less than the net income, or is there a mistake with the decimal place values? I noticed that all the other figures were rounded to the nearest hundredths while this figure was rounded to the thousandths place. Thank you and have a nice day — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.54.128.135 (talk) 03:26, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

The operating income seems to be the total income less operating expenses and depreciating. I didn't see any mention of how taxes fit in, so I'm not clear if OI can be less than net income. StuRat (talk) 04:11, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Are there libraries that use Dewey Decimal system for fiction?

For a little project of my own I need to find possible Dewey codes for some books, including fiction. I know these aren't fixed and libraries sometimes assign different codes, but I don't care. The problem is that most libraries don't use Dewey codes for fiction. Of course I can more or less guess what the code should be using the list of categories myself, but I'd like to get a fairly authoritative answer. If someone could point me to any online library catalog (or better, a couple large ones) that uses Dewey for fiction (e.g. works of (not about) Shakespeare), I'd really appreciate it. --50.136.244.171 (talk) 05:19, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Not as far as I know, though specialist libraries often invent their own variations on Dewey, so a science fiction library (if there is such a thing), for example, might well invent their own numbering system. But since fiction is creative and might draw on different genres and a variety of topics in a single book, it's difficult to see how such a scheme would work in practice. (The usual arrangement of fiction books is by author of course.) You might find our long list of literary genres a useful starting point.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:46, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

It's uncommon to use the Dewey decimal system for shelving novels and short stories, but it's actually fairly common to see it used for some other genres of fiction such as plays. For example, Shakespeare's plays as you mention are often shelved in the Literature (Dewey 800) section. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:46, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

The University of Illinois Library is famous for using Dewey cataloging (most university libraries use Library of Congress). [[ http://vufind.carli.illinois.edu/vf-uiu/%7CUI Library Catalog]] They may not have a lot of popular fiction (although I found 50 Shades of Grey!), but they do show Dewey numbers for the fiction they have. Catrionak (talk) 17:33, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, plenty do, though it's the most frequently abandoned section. A lot of libraries will use a modified or simplified form of Dewey here rather than drop it entirely - among its other problems, it defaults to splitting "American" and non-American English-language fiction, which is always confusing, and it really doesn't handle genre classification well.

For example, my first library job had everything (poetry, prose, the lot) in "800" with a prefix for language (so E 800 AUS was Jane Austen, F 800 VER was Jules Verne, etc); a more recent employer used it in a more conventional way (813, American novels) but "binned" it by period - a prefix code grouped the shelving into early literature, 18th century, 19th century, 20th century, etc. Andrew Gray (talk) 17:43, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

OP here. Thank you guys, U of Illinois indeed works for me! --2620:0:1000:5E03:3985:42B0:3C2A:89D7 (talk) 00:19, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Resolved

SOLVING ALL POLYNOMIALS BY RADICALS

question at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Mathematics#SOLVING ALL POLYNOMIALS BY RADICALS
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
It is over 350 years now since Mathematicians started searching for the general formula for solving all equations and the search was believed to be impossible as some famous mathematicians have proved. The proof outlines vividly why it is always impossible to find the general formula. Formulae(solutions) for quadratic , cubic and quartic equations are well-known but quintic equations and above have since the start of mathematics (Classical algebra) troubled mathematicians rendering the general formula to be impossible. A young Ghanaian mathematician has found it to be possible to have a general formula for all equations whose work is about to be published in the JOURNAL OF GHANA SCIENCE ASSOCIATION. The question is, why young mathematicians always make great contributions to the development of Algebra or generally mathematics? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.215.160.196 (talk) 13:42, 1 January 2013 (UTC) This would be better suited to the Mathematics desk, but I'll respond to it anyway. The question is an interesting one, but the claim here is impossible. Évariste Galois (a very young mathematician) proved a long time ago that no formula exists for degrees higher than five. Looie496 (talk) 13:59, 1 January 2013 (UTC) Higher than four, actually. -- Jack of Oz [Talk] 20:22, 1 January 2013 (UTC) It would seem that Abel–Ruffini theorem is particularly relevant, as well—along with quintic function and Bring radical. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:33, 1 January 2013 (UTC) In regard to the question itself, I found this quote: "From A Mathematician’s Apology, G. H. Hardy, 1940: "I had better say something here about this question of age, since it is particularly important for mathematicians. No mathematician should ever allow himself to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game. ... I do not know an instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man past fifty. If a man of mature age loses interest in and abandons mathematics, the loss is not likely to be very serious either for mathematics or for himself." I also remember reading an article on this subject in the last year or two. Basically, there's no real evidence for this proposition, but I'm sure others will continue this discussion. I just thought the quote, dating back 73 years, was apropos. --TammyMoet (talk) 15:47, 1 January 2013 (UTC) Let's end this thread here, because it is at the math ref desk now. Duoduoduo (talk) 16:20, 1 January 2013 (UTC)