April 5

What is the most prestigious constituent college of Oxford University - the Oxford equivalent of Cambridge's Trinity College? Acceptable (talk) 00:40, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Norrington Table --199.198.223.106 (talk) 01:47, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Christ Church is hands down the most respected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clashbash (talk • contribs) 05:21, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hands up if you agree. --Dweller (talk) 09:08, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well obviously respected is not the same thing as prestigious (respected by whom?). Also it depends what you mean by prestigious. If you mean academically, you would have to go by the Norrington table as linked to above. But Christ Church certainly has more aristocratic Brideshead-y cachet than any other college. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 09:14, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Kittybrewster ☎ 09:31, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There isn't one. Christ Church was historically the most socially prestigious, and perhaps still is (though given the contempt for privilege commonplace among modern Britons, including Oxford students, that doesn't count for much any more), but that's quite different from the role of Trinity at Cambridge. The Norrington Table should not be taken very seriously at all. It is only a reflection of current undergraduate performance (and of very limited value even as that), whereas intellectual prestige is built up over centuries and determined primarily by the stature of a college's fellows. Another candidate for the most prestigious Oxford College is All Souls, but as a graduate only institution specialising in the humanities it is nothing like Trinity. Luwilt (talk) 12:21, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Disclosure: I'm an Oxford graduate, but not from any of the colleges mentioned. Luwilt (talk) 12:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When was the sandwich invented? Not the term "sandwich" itself, but the actual food item. - Vikramkr (talk) 06:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Popular myth has it that it was invented by John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich; the article has a section called "The Sandwich", which mentions an alternate candidate for the creator. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:44, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But he just introduced it to high society. Poor people had been eating sandwiches for centuries if not millennia at that point. (sadly, I don't seem to still have the report I wrote in college on this topic, or I'd fork over the references. Sorry.) If I recall, the jist of it was that throughout history, almost at any point where people had the right sort of bread, the peasant or working class would come up with a way to use it to hold an entire meal together. APL (talk) 15:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have read this, although I find it hard to believe that a simple food item such as a sandwich came to existence in the 1700's. - Vikramkr (talk) 06:56, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just like America being "discovered" by some Viking (despite the natives) and Machu Picchu being discovered by Hiram Bingham, whoever claims the honor first (usually) gets the credit. This says the earl copied the idea from the Greeks and Turks, and that it is "a culinary practice of ancient origins", i.e. nobody knows. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's so obvious to place something on bread and fold it over, I imagine it was invented within a short time after the first use of bread; probably around 10,000 BCE.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:13, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The English form of sandwich does not involve folding the bread. Luwilt (talk) 12:26, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've always thought it odd that Cornish pasties have been around since at least the 13th century, yet it took four hundred more years for someone to try essentially the same thing with bread. A fanciful tale of invention to be sure, but hardly unique. Matt Deres (talk) 00:38, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hillel was eating sandwiches 2000 years ago - something that will be remembered and imitated by millions of Jews worldwide this very week. --Dweller (talk) 11:06, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Remember also that matzo in Hillel's time was much lss crumbly than ours and much easier to fold over. Phil_burnstein (talk) 00:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

He ate a wrap, not a sandwich. Luwilt (talk) 12:27, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I'm just curious, how high does a countries airspace territory go? I mean, we have satellites that orbit above countries, so presumably that isn't forbidden, but flying a russian jet flying over the US would almost certainly be considered a hostile act. Is there a certain height limit to which a county can claim to own? Cyclonenim :  Chat  11:01, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Our article Airspace states "There is no international agreement on the vertical extent of sovereign airspace" but then mentions ranges from 30km to 160km. ny156uk (talk) 11:28, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are international treaties dealing with high atmosphere / use of space. See Outer Space Treaty, also the proposed Space Preservation Treaty, and generally, Space law. Civilian use of another country's air space is by permission of that nation only; see, for example, Convention on International Civil Aviation, International Civil Aviation Organization, and more generally, freedoms of the air. Generally, most countries do not allow foreign spaceaircrafts to use their airspaces for non-civilian purposes, but see Treaty on Open Skies.

As to how far a country's sovereignty goes: theoretically, it goes on forever, at least under the Anglophone common law system and the Roman-derived civil law system, as a consequence of "cuius est solum eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos". Practically, it goes only to the limits of the atmosphere, or usable atmosphere - but definitions of what is that limit varies. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This question reminds me of a story from before most of those treaties. In The Man Who Sold the Moon, the main character successfully asserts that as property rights extend to infinity above a land parcel, only those countries in a narrow band north and south of the equator may lay claim to Earth's moon. Of course, taken to the next logical step, those countries would also collectively own all the planets in the solar system, but that wasn't touched on in the story. 152.16.16.75 (talk) 00:31, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The state of Illinois recently passed a law re-designating Pluto a planet while it is overhead Illinois, so in their minds at least their jurisdiction extends 7 billion kilometers. DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:18, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One might say that the state of Illinois is simply out of its depth. :) 87.115.166.150 (talk) 20:50, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Those legislators should be sacked (and then burnt at the stake) for wasting the public's money on such utter absurdities. One might have thought that they'd have quite a few more pressing issues than this, particularly at the present time in history. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:55, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

IIRC certainn countries near the Equator did try to claim that their sovereignty went all the way up, in an attempt to get rent from geostationary satellites. BrainyBabe (talk) 15:02, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That would be the 1976 Bogotá Declaration mentioned at Extraterrestrial real estate#Ownership of empty space. 152.16.16.75 (talk) 01:24, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]