Talk:Maria Spiropulu
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I've written a new article about Maria SpiropuluOmnium 00:38, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] Notable?
Please explain why this researcher is notable (WP:BIO) to be included in wikipedia or this article will be marked for deletion. feydey 01:02, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Notable!
Dr. Maria Spiropulu is a researcher of worldwide fame, and a leading figure in the experimental search for new - beyond Standard Model- physics. She was an Enrico Fermi Fellow at the EFI/University of Chicago, she has led experiments for the Tevatron collider in Fermilab, she has puplished many related research papers, about collider signatures of supersymmetry, extra dimensions and braneworld scenarios, and currently she's the co-leader of a research group looking into supersymmetric particles, extra dimensions and other phenomena beyond the standard model at CERN. To any person who has the slightest idea about what's going on in modern High Energy Physics (HEP), all these research activities are "top of the line", and will propably lead, in a few years, after the experiments in the LHC are completed, to a new revolutionary understanding of our Universe. Furthermore, allready there are hundreds of references in the web about Maria Spiropulu, including articles in the New York Times, Scientific American, MSNBC, and scientific magazines from all over the world. She has also participated in NOVA's popular scientific documentary "The Elegant Universe". Furthermore, she's one of the most famous and distinguished greek scientists, and there are many greek people, esspecially professors and students, who are interested about her life and work.
In this wikipedia article, I have collected biographical informations about Maria Spiropulu from many different sources, including Dr. Spiropulu herself, so that whoever is interested about her life and career, can find all these informations gathered and summarized here. Through the article's links, one can also learn about what's going on in modern physics, since Dr. Spiropulu's field of research embraces also string theory, which is a current candidate "theory of everything", and interellates almost all known topics of physics, from HEP to Cosmology. Deleting this article, whould be like closing a small window to the future of science. Omnium 30 December 2005
- My main concern is that there are millions of scientists and researchers, what makes her notable and special. Please mention her published articles and books in the article with resources. feydey 01:02, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
- I know that there are thousands of scientists and researchers out there, but only a few of them are working on such revolutionary topics, such as experimental proofs of spatial extra dimensions, and even fewer are leading research groups at CERN, Europe's premier particle-physics lab! Nevertheless, I consider your threat of deletion to be rather unencyclopedic, since this article meets all Wikipedia's stardards of conduct for the notability of people: Maria Spiropulu is more well known and well published than any average college professor, she's a published author who has written articles in periodicals with a circulation far more than 5000 (see Publications), and she has achieved renown for her involvement in physics. This article also passes Wikipedia's alternative tests, such as the Google Test (Maria Spiropulu gets hundreds of hits on Google, Yahoo and other well known search mechanisms) and esspecially the 100 year test. Omnium
- Good job clearing that up and adding those references to the article. P.S. Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. feydey 16:52, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The Era of Dimensional Exploration
Imagine for a moment that you're back at the beginings of the 20th century, when Marie Curie was conducting her novel experiments on radioactivity. If Wikipedia existed back then, wouldn't you like to see an article about that researcher, even before she achieves the great discoveries that would make her famous a few years later? Should we always write articles about scientists only if and after they receive a nobel prize? Aren't their early modest efforts that lead to such great discoveries notable? Place yourself now, 100 years later, in the early 21st century. Of all the ambitious scientific researches which are taking place right now, which one or two are the most promising, revolutionary (and notable for Wikipedia), the true analogs of Marie Curie's discovery of radioactivity? The answer is supersymmetry and extra dimensions. In Maria Spiropulu's words: "Finding supersymmetry is more important than finding life on Mars" and "The discovery of extra dimensions, will beat the superlative of any human achievement" but, as she adds "it needs a strong and long experimental program". Dr. Spiropulu is now at the battlements of such an experimental program, and I think that's plenty a reason to make her notable and special.
I would like to mention a historical example, pointing out the significance of extra dimensions. With the discovery of America by Columbus, followed by the age of Ocean Exploration, the western civilization made a giant leap, accompanied by both scientific and technological progress (not without embarassing sideffects though, such as the slaughter of the native Americans). That entire new era of our civilization though, was based on a single fact: the experimental proof of astronomical theories which dated back from ancient Greece to Copernicus, and asserted that the surface of the Earth isn't flat, but curved, forming a nearly spherical shape. That intellectual leap faced hard opposition from common intuition, because it required the stunning realization that we live on a planetary surface, embeded into three, rather than two spatial dimensions. Later on, the exploration of the Oceans forced navigators and cartographers, for the purpose of mapping the islands and continents of our planet, to abandon the use of flat Euclidean geometry, and adopt the Riemannian geometry of curved spaces.
Today, modern theories of physics assert that, not only the Earth's surface, but the entire Universe is curved and embeded inside a higher dimensional spacetime. They assert that our cosmos may be far more complex and bewildering, than we ever imagined, consisting not only of 4, but perhaps 11 spacetime dimensions. Can you imagine what the implications of the discovery of such extra spatial dimensions would be? Perhaps a new era would begin for our civilization: "The Era of Dimensional Exploration" or something like that. Do you imagine the effects of such a discovery in technology, economy, or even art? Exploring the geography of the extra dimensions, and learning to use their spectacular properties for our benefit, might even solve the energy problem, and help us travel with superluminal velocities to the edges of the Universe (that is, if our civilation won't selfdestruct during the next 50 critical years). That's why I consider researchers like Maria Spiropulu, not only as succesors to Marie Curie, but also succesors to Columbus, Magelanus, Gagarin and Armstrong. They will propably be the "navigators" who will lead the way, through the dark, unexplored "ocean" of extra dimensions. Omnium 1 January 2006
[edit] Inaccurate Comments?
I have questions regarding two passages in this biography:
One of the most important moments of her career, was when the CDF collaboration reported the discovery of the top quark in 1995.
Was she actually involved in the discovery of the top quark? Although she is on the author list for the paper, it would be more informative if the article provided either more detail of her involvement (especially a reference) or that this sentence was removed.
Throughout her career she has maintained an enthusiasm, which allows her to look at things each day from a different perspective, through a student-like approach on her object of research. She encourages students to “bug” teachers, never stop asking them questions until they get the answer, even though that means that she might also be “bugged” in such a manner, from time to time. That’s one of the greatest virtues, a scientist can have.
This is hardly NPOV, and contains what could only very loosely be described as biographical detail. --Jollygreengiant 21:52, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Name spelling
The name should be spelt SPIROPOULOU. Is there any reason for the current version? Politis 13:52, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
