Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Z Machine

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[edit] Z Machine

The Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories. Due to the extremely high voltage, the power feeding equipment is submerged in concentric chambers of 540,000 gallons of transformer oil and 600,000 gallons of deionized water, which act as insulators. Nevertheless, impressive lightning, referred to as "arcs and sparks", can be seen over the power feeds. The z-pinch releases, in X-rays, roughly 80 times the entire world's output of electricity for a few trillionths of a second. Courtesy, Sandia National Laboratories

I know I've been adding a lot of candidates lately, but I couldn't resist this one. I worked with this group over the last two summers, and took a tour of this machine twice (not while it was on :)). The point of this thing is to produce high energy x-rays to be channelled into uniformly collapsing a 2mm-wide deuterium capsule for fusion purposes. The whole bang is over in a tenth of a microsecond, and destroys most of the inner bits. An overhead camera was triggered to take a picture when the event occurred. Informative article here. Permission granted for usage on Wikipedia. -  BRIAN0918  04:02, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Nominate and support. -  BRIAN0918  04:02, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Support Wow! -- Chris 73 Talk 04:28, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
• STRONG Support Outstanding!! Where on earth did you find this picture? TomStar81 05:02, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • This picture's pretty old. It's officially nicknamed "Arcs and Sparks", and you can see it plastered all over the labs (well, back in the 90s you could, now the security's ultra-tight). They gave us posters of it back in 2003; I think they've got a surplus of them sitting around in a warehouse. -- BRIAN0918  05:44, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • All these years this awsome picture's been out there and I'm just now getting to see it. Boy, do I have lots left to see and learn. No wonder I love this site ;-). TomStar81 05:53, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Yes, very strong Support. A classic indeed. BTW what did you do with the z-machine group? I work with the group that made the optics for Z's X-ray backlighter laser Z-Beamlet [1].--Deglr6328 06:45, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I was actually trying to find a good Z-Beamlet image of the capsule implosion, but it looks like those images are still copyrighted. These last two summers I've been doing QMD simulations for electrical and thermodynamic data, and parametrizing a current profile for isentropic flyer-plate acceleration. I'm more like a cog in the wheel. :)  BRIAN0918  07:12, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Beautiful picture! I think I first saw it on the cover of a physics textbook (Benson's Univerity Physics?). I went looking for it for Wikipedia a few months ago. Are you sure that this image is in the public domain? The only copyright notice I can find is "All Rights Reserved. 1997-2003 Sandia Corporation." Unfortunately, government contractors are not required to produce public domain work... --Andrew 08:42, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • On the source page it says "Media are welcome to download/publish this image with related news stories." Based on the vague wording and a google search for places this image has shown up, it appears that way. I don't think PD is the proper tag, so I'll switch it to {{CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat}} or something like that. Let me know if this sounds correct. -- BRIAN0918  15:35, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • I think that's a reasonable license although "free for any purpose" provited that the purpose is to accompany a related news story is not actually very free. This raises the ugly question of whether this beautiful picture can actually be featured (much as I would like it to be). --Andrew 18:52, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
      • I don't think it's as big of a deal as you're trying to make it. Their wording is vague enough that, as long as the article has something to do with the Z machine and with its current abilities, or as long as it mentions the Z machine, it should be alright. -- BRIAN0918  19:20, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
        • If it's a featured picture, it will very, very difficult to argue that it's accompanying a "related news story", for the same reason we don't feature fair use images. Saying that the caption is enough badly twists the permissions that they do grant. —Korath (Talk) 19:39, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
          • Well, couldn't it be argued that any of the small versions of the picture which are displayed in articles are fair use due to their small size, while the larger image at Image:Zmachine.jpg is free because it has the news story along with it? I don't even see how they can actually copyright any of it; just because a puppet "corporation" does the work, everything that went into the creation of the image was funded, created, and owned by the government, as is the image itself and the webspace and bandwidth that went into displaying it. Any government facility could suddenly decide to call themselves a corporation, find a company to look over them (ie Lockheed Martin), and then copyright everything coming out. I've sent an email to Sandia to see where they stand on this. My guess is they'll gladly allow it to be used freely on Wikipedia. -- BRIAN0918  23:24, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I've switched the image source to another one that is smaller (1500x991) but which was much less compressed and has fewer artifacts. -- BRIAN0918  15:53, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I think this is PD-USGov. Sandia is a national lab that while operated privately, is fully owned by the US government. Works produced by or commissioned for them would therefore I think be pd. --Deglr6328 19:49, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Well, this may be, but they don't think so; their pages definitely do claim copyright for Sandia Corporation. If you like, you can (politely) email them and ask what the copyright situation is, but it seems pretty clear what they think. (Personally, I think it's an absolute scam that if the federal government wraps a group of people in a corporation, they get to keep copyright, but then I live in a country where the government just claims copyright on everything they produce (Crown copyright)). --Andrew 18:52, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
      • See my reply above. -- BRIAN0918  19:20, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Support Unreal image --Fir0002 10:53, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Fascinating. —Sandover 21:43, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose unless we can show it to be public domain. Currently it looks like fair use to me. ed g2s • talk 11:38, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm working on getting permission (although it isn't clear that we don't already have it) right now. I should have a response in a day or two. -- BRIAN0918  17:40, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • It's certainly not fair use (in the sense of using it legally without permission) since we do have permission to use it to accompany an encyclopedia article (I suppose an encyclopedia). But I'm not convinced we have permission to use it for other purposes (such as including it in WP:FP). It's certainly not freely redistributable (which is what we would like from images). And yes, it's an absolute scam that the government gets to keep copyright if a puppet corporation does the work; but it's a scam that works, and we have to live with it. --Andrew 21:40, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)
• I'm afraid I have to oppose on copyright grounds unless some really compelling statement comes out of Sandia. --Andrew 21:40, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)
  • As I said above, wait a couple days. -- BRIAN0918  21:48, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Support. Nice work getting the permission for this beautiful picture! --Andrew 18:55, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)
• Support Oppose until copyright/licensing is resolved. This is a stunning tech picture, and I considered nominating it my self last October when the original news story broke (in fact it has been on the front page). However I decided that the license probably didn't qualify. That was actually for the very similar Image:Z machine.jpg, and it is interesting to see that User:Duk has reconsidered the Copyright tag on that image a couple of times. I think the current tag is about right (at least until User:Brian0918's email bears fruit). There is an argument that we can still use it for FP, if you consider FP as less of a gallery of images and more of a source for Pic of the Day leading people to the related articles. A FairUse tag probably wouldn't be OK in either respect. -- Solipsist 13:59, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I should have waited a couple of hours. The clarified license position looks OK to me. In fact it is probably closer to {{CopyrightFreeUseProvided|Credit is given}} which perhaps isn't good enough for WikiCommons, but is good enough for Wikipedia and most derivatives. It should also be good enough for Featured Pictures status — except for the thumbs page, we don't use Featured Pictures anywhere without mentioning the credit. Keep up the good work. -- Solipsist 20:58, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• I just got a reply from Sandia, permitting usage in Wikipedia articles. -- BRIAN0918  15:33, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Support - nice job getting permission Brian. --Duk 16:48, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • From the top of the page "Images listed here should be either in the public domain or covered by the GNU Free Documentation License or a similar license". This is a gallery of the best Wikipedia has to offer, best not to have images we can't even offer people. Cancel nomination. ed g2s • talk 17:16, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • That comment is just a suggestion, not policy (as you note at Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates#GFDL only). It doesn't say that images used with permission are not appropriate candidates (as it does say for fair use images). I see no reason not to include it. We've gotten permission to use this image throughout all of Wikipedia, and anyone else can by contacting the original source. If we were to deny featured picture status to images such as this which have the proper permission, that would wipe out the possibility of any photos which require specialized equipment, such as rapid-shutter, micro-photography, or imaging done in the non-visible parts of the spectrum. The only reason we have space images (such as from Hubble) is because we are lucky that the U.S. Government releases them into the public domain, when they could easily restrict them, as they have done with this image. You stated that it is "best not to have images we can't even offer people." But, I don't see anywhere on this page (or at Wikipedia:Featured pictures where such a guarantee is made. Keep nomination. -- BRIAN0918  17:36, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia:Featured pictures states that some fair use is tolerated, so an image used with permission should unquestionably be allowed featured picture status. -- BRIAN0918  18:08, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • I agree. Of course a free license would be preferable, but commons:Featured Pictures is the place for such ideological purity. --Andrew 18:55, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Great picture. Glad to see the copyright issue seems to have been resolved. But if it was done with DOE resources, it is PD-USGov-DOE no matter what they claim on their website. (There are a lot of people who erroneously claim copyright on DOE photos -- CORBIS is a major offender, claiming that they own copyright to Los Alamos mugshots taken during World War II! I don't think so...). --Fastfission 18:05, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • That might be the case, but we've gotten permission so everything should be alright. -- BRIAN0918  18:14, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Please discuss this policy here ed g2s • talk 11:08, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Support Wow! What can I say. -Casito 05:06, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• The conditions of this image prevent usage in most circumstances so it is not a free use image. I have re-tagged it appropriately, and its listing here should be archived. ed g2s • talk 19:56, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Inappropriate nomination. Archived. ed g2s • talk 09:44, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)