Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 February 21

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February 21

Specialty hospitals and emergency situations

If EMS responds to an emergency situation like a heart attack where someone has one foot at the Pearly Gates and one foot slipping on a banana peel, or if there's a huge mass casualty, will EMS take the patient(s) to a specialty hospital like a children's hospital (even if the patient is an adult), a VA hospital (even if the patient isn't a veteran), or a cancer hospital to get the patient stabilized assuming that the said facility is the nearest facility and has an emergency room? I do know I've heard of civilians being taken to U.S. Naval hospitals on base in such situations. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 01:06, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

See Mass casualty events; the U.S. military and its regional hospitals, and, to a lesser extent, civilian hospitals, conduct mass casualty training for various scenarios; the response would depend greatly upon the type, scale, and location. Dru of Id (talk) 02:02, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm reminded of the scent in The Natural where Robert Redford's character is taken to a maternity hospital because it's the closest one. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:36, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Sounds fishy to me.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 05:27, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

In that hospital, Roy Hobbs conceived an alternate ending to the story. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:39, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Why "to a lesser extent"? I'm sure civilian hospitals hold lots of training on major incidents - they're the ones most likely to have to deal with them. --Tango (talk) 00:58, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Civilian hospitals do this for certification, funding, etc. Military hospitals schedule this in conjunction with each civilian hospital in its region, with hospitals outside their own region to avoid complacency, and periodically without notice, i.e. 'emergency conditions'. These exercises can form a large portion of one's enlisted /officer evaluation (which are no less frequent than annual without very specific exception), and 'needs improvement' or 'unable to handle an emergercy' do not further awards or promotions compared to one's peers. Dru of Id (talk) 07:19, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Why would a cancer hospital have an emergency room? I've also never heard of a children's hospital with one, and I doubt VA hospitals have them. --Tango (talk) 00:58, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Some Children's Hospitals certainly do have them - and you forced to watch endless hours of cartoons while you wait in them (true story). Both of Michigan's major children's hospitals have them. Some VA hospitals have them too.[1] Rmhermen (talk) 16:01, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

See Trauma center. Cases are triaged so that the worst cases go to the highest level certified emergency department that still has capacity. Trauma center may be rated at different levels for adults and children. Rmhermen (talk) 16:07, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad − academic career

According to his official biography, president Ahmadinejad holds a Ph.D. from Iran University of Science and Technology, "wrote many scientific papers" and "supervised theses of tens of students at MS and Ph.D. levels". Do we have details on his papers and his Ph.D. thesis (titles, contents, journals, publication dates)? --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 10:48, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Check coverage from the time of his election, there were many bio articles in the paper. Most were somewhat favorable, which I doubt you'd see much of in a Western paper these days.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:01, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Hamid Behbahani was his PHD supervisor, according to media reports, of course. However you don't need to be very excited about the fact that Ahmadinejad has a PHD from an Iranian university because many PHD students in Iran write thesis denying Holocaust. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 14:55, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

So, wait, because Iran has a bizarre take on the Holocaust and its university student's interests reflect that, even civil engineering must be somehow tainted by that? Come on, get off it. I've no idea whether his work in civil engineering or traffic engineering is any good, but unless it actually has something to do with denying the Holocaust, dragging that into it is just ad hominem. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:24, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I think the point is that Iran may grant PhDs to people not strictly for competence, but because they support the position of the ruling elite. So, it's possible Ahmadinejad may not be worthy of a PhD, but just might have known the right people and told them what they wanted to hear. But, of course, even the Nazis were capable of doing good science, as long as it wasn't in the fields where the party line had to be followed. It would be interesting to have somebody outside Iran review his work and determine if it's really PhD-worthy. StuRat (talk) 21:48, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

" just might have known the right people and told them what they wanted to hear. ": isn't it often like that, everywhere? Anyway, there are enough crackpots getting PhD in the West too: see Gillian_McKeith#Debate_about_qualifications or mediocre guys getting a PhD for a dissertation copied from the Internet (including Wikipedia): Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg. There is no need to discrediting whole countries however.XPPaul (talk) 22:02, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Gary Null is another crackpot with a questionable degree from the US. However, if a particular university gives out bogus degrees, that would call into question any degree they give, even if the bogus ones are in a different field. StuRat (talk) 22:12, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I think there's there's a significant difference when it comes to questionable universities in developed countries with well respected universities. In those cases, the quality of the lecturers, researchers etc may be questionable because few people competent may want to work for such a university. Similarly few students genuine wanting to learn or to perform quality research are going to want to be students there. In cases of developing countries like Iran, if all the universities have problems, then quality lecturers and reseachers have limited choice. Either they can emigrate, and often many do or they do something else or they learn to live in the university system. Similar students can try to study in foreign universities but scholarships to do so, particularly at the bachelor level is usually fairly limited and only available to the ultra top students. And self or parent funding tends to be difficult. (There are greater options for postgraduate research particularly PhDs but not all may wish to do so and there may be some factors stopping them doing so.) So while there universities, even the best ones, may often not be as good as respected universities in developed countries and have a variety of problems, it may not mean their degrees are always useless. Nil Einne (talk) 23:13, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Not always, no, but suspect enough to require independent verification of the skills of the graduate. StuRat (talk) 06:34, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

"Iran may grant PhDs to people not strictly for competence, but because they support the position of the ruling elite." He's a civil engineer. What's the pro-Khomeni angle on that, I wonder? I think it's just foolish to assume that because he's from a country where they believe different things than this one that somehow he is less of a civil engineer than you'd find around here. There are, of course, differences in the quality of technical training on a country by country basis, but to assume just based on the fact that Holocaust denial is common in Iran, that suddenly all education is meaningless, is foolish. They have real scientists and engineers over there. They wouldn't be able to support a nuclear program if they didn't (even with help from outsiders). --Mr.98 (talk) 12:48, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

They might have more lax requirements for those in the ruling party, similar to how some athletes are given a pass on their grades in the US. A prof might not find it good for his health to flunk too many of the ruling elite. (I have no idea if the crazy dwarf in question was part of the "ruling elite" at the time, however. Indeed, his autobiography say he ranked 132 out of 400,000 when he took his college entrance exams in 1976, which was before the revolution. If true, then he apparently is quite bright.) StuRat (talk) 03:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

What you have to remember is that Iran is for the most part a rather modern country, which, when it is permitted, exports a large quantity of oil very well. It does not do that by having civil engineering degrees awarded to people who don't know which end of a T-square to grasp. Nil Einne's view is the fairly standard view of learning in countries upon which we look down a little bit, which adequately describes most in Asia.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:00, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

It's probably worth bearing in mind that similar comments were made regarding the technological competence of Japan prior to WWII. Not a particularly helpful assessment.. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:02, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Huh? Are you saying Japan was NOT technologically competent prior to WWII? I think the Chinese, Americans, and Koreans who fought them would beg to differ. --140.180.9.36 (talk) 06:36, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I understood that Andy was saying the reverse: Japan was underestimated. But it depends who he is respondiong to actually. --Lgriot (talk) 09:55, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I think their aggressiveness was underestimated (that they would attack everyone in sight). But, the assessment that technically they lacked the equipment and resources to win a war with the US was dead on. It's their willingness to start a war they couldn't possibly win that was not understood (I still don't understand it). StuRat (talk) 19:53, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Wehwalt's and Mr 98's comments are good ones. I was going to say a similar thing in my comment but decided it was already long enough. Large parts of the developed world, particularly the developed western world are scared of Iranian nuclear ambitions. Some of these people may have gained that knowledge elsewhere. But they can't be solely relying on a few people who studied elsewhere 30 years ago (or whatever). Logically we would expect a significant chunk of the people working on these programmes are 'home-grown' so to speak. There are similar concerns about weapons programmes like their ballistic missiles ones. Again some of this may be relying on cooperation with other countries or on stolen technology and people trained elsewhere but it's likely a significant chunk of the work comes from 'home-grown' engineers, scientists etc. Clearly either the people making the assessements who often claim there are areas of concern are just making stuff up (as some allege although usually not for those reasons) or they don't share the view that Iranian education is useless. Iran also has a somewhat successful space programme. Nil Einne (talk) 12:46, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

American education system vs Indian system

My friend who stays in USA visited last week and when he saw my textbooks he said that they are really difficult and education in USA is more easy and there is less burden on students. Is this really true . you can have a idea by last years 12th standard maths Question paper Rahul^{Text me} 11:05, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I think few 12th graders would be able to pass that in the US.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:11, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

There's no simple answer here. First, can you tell us what 12th standard maths test should correspond to in USA? Is it the last test before university (Last year of high school in US)? Otherwise we don't know what to compare it to. You might be interested in the Advanced Placement exams in the USA. In short, many American students could pass the test you post, but by no means all. We don't even generally require calculus in the USA :-/ An anecdote: I used to work in a graduate math admissions office in a large state university. We had many applicants from around the world, and around the USA. It was commonly believed that Asian (including India) applicants tended to have stronger qualifications than Americans on average. We did not compile statistics by nationality. Even if we did, it would be hard to ascribe cause. It may be that the Indian system is generally better at teaching math. It could be that Indians are genetically better at math. It could be that Indian culture puts more value on math. It could be that only the "best of the best" are willing to go to the other side of the world to pursue education, while it's pretty easy to move within one's home country. You can easily find many authors lamenting that USA education standards are too low, but that's more a matter of opinion than reference :)SemanticMantis (talk) 15:18, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm dreadful at maths and found most of those questions to be an utter nightmare. Then I came to Q.28, which is worth a lot of marks (equal to six early questions, according to the rubric). It seems so childishly simple, it's either very out of place or I have even less idea about maths than I thought. Surely once you've found that the first coin is gold, there's only two types of box it could be (gold/gold or gold/silver) so the answer is 50%? --Dweller (talk) 15:50, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I can only give an anecdotal answer, but I live in a largely immigrant community (in Canada, where we aren't as different from the US as we would like to think), populated mostly by Indian and Chinese folks. They all claim that the OP's statement is true based on what they learned compared to what their kids are learning now. So, anecdotally, yes. Mingmingla (talk) 16:20, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

SemanticMantis is right. Actually Indian culture and tradition put more value on math than on other subjects. The average Indian thinks math is smarter than social sciences. This is why average Indian students have pathetic deficiency of critical thinking. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 16:20, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Hehe, the answer to that is clearly 2/3. The question must be meant to catch people in a fallacy. ;) Wnt (to clarify, there are three gold coins you might have pulled, all with equal probability. Two are in a box with a gold coin) (talk) 18:27, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and I don't get that snub about critical thinking. Mathematics requires people to think things through for themselves. Wnt (talk) 18:38, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

In cases where there is only one right answer, very different skills are needed than in areas where shades of grey must be considered. A master mathematician doesn't always make for a good debater. StuRat (talk) 06:44, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

@Semantic This is a board Final exam paper which means it is compulsory for students to pass the paper to graduate from school while the percentage students score in the board exam are the basis for entry in BA(bachelor of art) or bsc. but if a student wants to get in a engineering , medical etc college he have to pass a entrance test IIT,AIEE,PMT(which from my personal opinion is way to difficult then board paper) Rahul^{Text me} 16:33, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

And my ques is not specifically on maths but on whole education system including

• bio
• Chemistry
• Physics Rahul^{Text me} 16:33, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

In that biology paper, what the heck is Q.10 driving at? Qs 5 and 7 are also very poorly worded. --Dweller (talk) 17:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

How many subjects do they have to pass in India and in America to graduate? The smaller the number, the more in-depth I'd expect the level of knowledge to be. --Dweller (talk) 17:00, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

hmm i dont know about USA but in india we have to pass in all subject and if someone is failed in any subject then there is a supplementary exam usually after 1-2 months Rahul^{Text me} 17:11, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

actually till 10th standard students have to learn all subjects but after 10th standard we have to choose subjects for eg if I pick PCM then i have to study only english/Hindi , physics ,Chem,,maths (no social science , commerce,bio) in 11th and 12th standard Rahul^{Text me} 17:20, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

So you have to pass in 4 subjects. --Dweller (talk) 17:22, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

yepp but some school also have an optional subject like (Computer science ,IP , physical education etc )Rahul^{Text me} 17:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Many of the questions are workable even to my badly rusted memories. Some of the terminology seems altogether unfamiliar - the gof and fog thing, for example. I should say, I can't answer this question without knowing what marks the students need to make, what fraction of students actually take this test, and how much cheating is going on. (Alas, at least in the U.S., when you see a teacher giving an unusually difficult test it very likely means that the answers are being distributed to the students ahead of time) Also, modern education - even in the U.S. - has been teaching more and more to the test. Those integrals are either nightmares from hell, or child's play, depending entirely on whether you've seen that particular formula before. The working of the differential equations might be the same way. Still, not to make any mistake about it, I think that twelfth grade students working any differential equation is pretty impressive compared to the U.S. norm! At least in the past, even calculus was pretty uncommon for them. Wnt (talk) 18:38, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

The gof and fog thing is just badly typeset - it should say $g\circ f$ and $f\circ g$ (it's composition of functions). --Tango (talk) 01:17, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, on the biology test, it asks for "the two species of filiarial worms causing filariasis". But our article Filariasis names six. :) Wnt (talk) 18:52, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

The maths paper is roughly A Level standard in the UK. Most 18 year olds choose not to take maths at A Level. They would have only the GCSE they took at 16, and the grade C that is regarded as the standard pass at GCSE is a lot easier than that paper. In France, on the other hand, all young people continuing their education to 18 (which is the vast majority), take maths, and most of them have to do at least a bit of calculus. Even so, I think many French students wouldn't do well in a maths paper like this one. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:54, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

That's more advanced that A-level Mathematics (the basis calculus stuff is all in A-level Mathematics, and maybe some of the trig, but I don't think matrices are even mentioned). You could answer a reasonable amount of it with A-level Further Mathematics, though (so that's restricting it to just people that have chosen to really concentrate on maths - students studying Further Maths typically do 4 A-levels, so you are choosing to spend half your time from age 16 to 18 on maths). There are some things in there that I didn't really cover until first year at university (although that's more just a matter of choosing what to put on the syllabus rather than difficulty). As mentioned above, it's a little difficult to judge the difficulty without knowing what kind of percentage you should be getting and without knowing what else was on the syllabus that happened not to come up in that exam. If the exam pretty much covered everything, so you could prepare on those topics and practice those types of questions, I would expect an A-grade A-level Further Maths student to be able to get 70-80% on that paper. If it was a much broader syllabus, then that could significantly lower the mark. The vast majority of UK students wouldn't even think about taking Further Maths, though. --Tango (talk) 01:17, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but on the other hand this paper has no mechanics, and only one very basic question about statistics, which made up a large part of my maths classes from 16-18. So although a British student wouldn't be able to answer the matrix questions on the Indian exam, an Indian student would be similarly stumped by questions about, say, normal distributions on the A-level paper. 59.108.42.46 (talk) 03:22, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm a high school senior in America, and most of those problems look doable. --108.227.29.65 (talk) 23:12, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Are these same high standards held to for students in the poorest parts of India ? If so, I'd say the expectations for math and science are higher in India, whereas a "well-rounded student" is the goal in the US. (And with childhood obesity, our students are getting more well-rounded every day. :-) ). StuRat (talk) 06:48, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

These things are extremely difficult to compare given that different education systems focus on different areas of maths. I have heard anecdotally that British maths/science/engineering departments have a little difficulty with some students educated in China, who arrive with very high-level knowledge of classical geometry (though why their schools would consider that a good area to concentrate on, I'm not sure) but only a very shaky understanding of basic calculus. There have been some attempts to objectively compare educational attainment in different countries, like PISA, which doesn't cover India but ranked the US as about average for maths attainment of 15-year-olds in 2009. Of course, in many countries it is fashionable to believe that educational standards have been slipping behind those in other countries, and this is helped along by silly cherry-picked comparisons in the media like this one. 130.88.99.231 (talk) 12:15, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

@stu hmm yeah its a standard paper for the whole country as the paper is supplied by CBSE one day before the exam to schools so every school which is affiliated to CBSE(60-70%) have the same paper.117.224.183.128 (talk) 13:43, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

And what about the other 30-40% ? And do all kids in poor areas attend school right until they graduate ? StuRat (talk) 03:44, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Most students among the other 30-40% attend schools affiliated to local state education boards like Tamil Nadu Board of Secondary Education. As regarding the poor areas, as far as I've seen, many kids start learning local trades from their relatives instead of schooling. But then again it may depend on what you mean by saying poor areas. Suraj T 10:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, that makes a difference, because, in the US, the expectation is that everyone will attend high school (it's not the reality, though, as many drop out), so schools accommodate those with less ability, while in your system, such students leave to learn trades earlier on. StuRat (talk) 20:47, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Australian poet John Millet

My article should've been title simply "John Millett" instead of the "Australian poet John Millett". I've been having a difficult time making this simple change. I tried a redirect but the article went to John D Millett. I need to make this simple change because wiki searchers would be able to find the poet "John Millett" I'm sorry for being a klutz for not being able to do this simple task. Pjt48 (talk) 16:04, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I believe if a wikipedia article name were ever changed, it would break the whole Internet, or at least the part served by Google and Bing. This is like changing the TCP/IP protocol - you just can't do it. I propose that you explain the situation to John Millet, and kindly ask that he start calling himself "Australian poet John Millett". just kidding: bing wouldnt find the article either way. but for google, all the above applies, for sure. --188.6.76.0 (talk) 18:31, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Now for a helpful answer: To change the title of an article, just use the "Move page" button under the Page tab. I've moved it to John Millett (poet) for you. I've also made some changes to the text to make it more encyclopedic, add some categories, remove some unnecessary words etc. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:45, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I've also added a hatnote to John D. Millett, the redirect target of John Millet. The other alternatives are to move the above article to John Millet and put a hatnote for the D guy or turn John Millet into a disambig (discouraged for 2 pages but sometimes used when we can't decide which one should be the primary topic, e.g. Bill O'Reilly). BTW it's better to ask for help using wikipedia at WP:Help desk Nil Einne (talk) 23:22, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

It helps - a lot - in these sorts of issues to be clear on exactly how the subject's surname is spelt: in this case, whether it's Millet (one t) or Millett (two t's). This person seems to have 2 t's. The OP gave him only one t in the header, but the full compliment of t's in the question itself. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 00:09, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't see why it's such a big deal whether I copied and pasted the wrong variant from someone else's question (which was in the wrong place), concerning some Australian poet I've never heard of and don't particularly care about (poetry is not my thing). Particularly when the important action, adding the hatnote to the redirect target (of the correctly spelled name) so people looking for the poet have a fair chance of finding him if they aren't using an external search engine, was copied and pasted with the correct spelling and therefore had the desired effect. Would it be better in future, if I do not add such hatnotes, so people are unable to find an article they may be interested in, on someone I personally don't care about and am unlikely to ever care about? In case when noting I have done so, I happen to copy and paste the wrong variant used in the original question (or perhaps miss one character at the end) and therefore cause some alleged confusion over a redlinked non redirect (at the time), even if simple logic would have suggested that I actually meant the correctly spelled name which is and was a redirect to the other person with the same (including spelling) first and last name but who apparently normally includes a middle initial, rather then the redlinked non redirect. In any event, John Millet is now also a redirect to John D. Millett, as of writing this reply (i.e. it was still a redlink until a few minutes ago). I suggest John Millet follows whatever happens to John Millett unless and until we get an article on someone actually called John Millet. Incidentally, after fixing some archiving issues at Talk:Bill O'Reilly (political commentator), I came back here and happened to noticed the red link and had planned to correct it (but obviously did not do so after finding the reply). But even so, I guess the 1-2 hours of possible confusion over this redlinked non redirect when noting what I had, wasn't worth people actually being able to find what they're looking for. P.S. Of course if it did happen the poet was John Millet and the university guy John (D.) Millett, then the correct cause of action would almost definitely have been to move John Millett (Australian poet) to John Millet. Then perhaps add a hat note with some variant of Template:Distinguish to each article. Nil Einne (talk) 00:50, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Wow, that seems somewhat of an over-reaction. My comment was aimed mainly at the OP, if anyone. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 01:28, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Rule of the shorter term

• Does the rule of the shorter term recognize copyrights falling out of protection if it was only for failure to perform copyright formalities in the host country?
• Does the rule of the shorter term recognize copyrights falling out of protection due to other non-duration factors like works created by the US government?
• What is the minimum protection usually afforded under rule of the shorter term in most countries?

Magog the Ogre (talk) 16:57, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Maybe you should ask in an area specifically devoted to copyright discussions, such as commons:Commons:Village pump/Copyright... AnonMoos (talk) 14:47, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Calories and kcal

People talk about "250 calories" and whatnot, but when I look at food products, they tend to say "kcal". Does this mean "kilo calories"? If so, they really mean "250,000 calories" when they say "250 calories", no? Or am I confused? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xcvxvbxcdxcvbd (talk • contribs) 17:35, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Not exactly a humanities question, but the explanation is found in the calorie article. Favonian (talk) 17:44, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

the short of it is almost anytime anyone talks about calories, they should say Calories instead (capital c). kcal avoids this confusion — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.6.76.0 (talk) 18:07, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I didn't get an answer... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xcvxvbxcdxcvbd (talk • contribs) 18:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

THe answer is simple. When people talking about calories, they don't - you either mishear "This burger is 300 calories" when they really said "This burger is 300 Calories" (note capiltalizaiton) or they make the mistake of saying the former when they mean the latter. when people say calories, they MEAN TO SAY Calories. and a Calorie is a kcalorie. Nobody ever MEANS to say calories. THey always MEAN to say Calories. --188.6.76.0 (talk) 18:33, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

The real solution is to use the metric units of joules and kilojoules, where nobody would dream of leaving off the "kilo-" prefix. HiLo48 (talk) 19:58, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Do dieters in fully-metric countries actually talk about joules instead of calories? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:11, 22 February 2012 (UTC

Never heard any dieter anywhere speaking in terms of joules. Just google joules diet and see that scientists speak in terms of joules. XPPaul (talk) 00:49, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Australians generally talk about kilojoules rather than calories these days. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 01:25, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Just to add another data point, I have in front of me here a pack of Chinese (a metric country) instant noodles and the unit is kilojoules. Everything else here in Canada (another metric country) seems to be in Calories. 99.245.35.136 (talk) 02:44, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

How many Kilojoules in a Calorie, or vice versa? And not to be ironically confused with Jewel (supermarket). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:12, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

According to our food energy article it's "One food calorie is equal to 4.184 kilojoules." I'm actually thankful it's just 3 units for measuring food energy; it could've been much worst[2].99.245.35.136 (talk) 03:20, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Does that mean that one Calorie is equivalent to 4.184 megajoules?. I see that it doesn't, I have just read the a "food calorie" is a "Calorie". -- Q Chris (talk) 13:52, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

There are two units of energy with the same name, the "calorie" (lowercase c, used in science, although not used very often any more since everything is metric now) and the "Calorie" (uppercase c, used in food, sometimes called a "food Calorie"). There are 1,000 calories in a Calorie, so a Calorie is the same as a kilocalorie, which is abbreviated kcal. It is ridiculously confusing! --Tango (talk) 22:43, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

What is "calorie"? and what is "Calorie"? answered before i posted. 203.112.82.2 (talk) 01:37, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

It's very very simple really. There are two types of "calories".

• Big calorie which is known as Calorie
• Small calorie which is known as calorie

To avoid confusion always use kilocalorie which is known as kcal. 1 kcal is 1000 calories is 1 Calorie. Simple!!! 202.177.218.59 (talk) 02:12, 22 February 2012 (UTC)