Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive 10

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Cold Fusion request for Comment

  • Debate on Cold Fusion See Talk:Cold fusion Request for Comment: Dispute over version to build on. Some want to continue with the September 2006 version which gives pro and con on experimental evidence. Some want to revert to a two year old featured article with less emphasis on presenting the experimenters point of view.Ron Marshall 20:53, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Scientific review wiki

This is an idea I've been thinking about for a while, and has been brought back to my mind by the discussion above. I'm considering setting up a new wiki site which would allow the creation and continuous updating of reviews of scientific topics. It would work in a similar way to Wikipedia, but would be aimed mainly at scientists. I've put a bit more detail on the idea on my user page. What do people here think to the idea? Mike Peel 19:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

It's a somewhat different idea because it is not collaborative, but have you seen Living Reviews ? –Joke 19:45, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing this out. It looks like it goes about halfway to where I'm after - i.e. it's continually updated, but as you say it's not collaborative. It also doesn't have the copyright freedom I'd like this potential project to have. Mike Peel 20:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I proposed a similar (or at least related) idea to Byrgenwulf and CH, here and here respectively. I'm still working on getting server space and a domain name — a student holiday has compressed everyone's schedules and made it harder to discuss with people, but I'm still very hopeful I can snag a spot in the .mit.edu domain. Anville 20:01, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I like your idea. I'm unsure which of encyclopaedia articles or full reviews is the best way to go. I went for the latter as it allows for a much more in-depth coverage of a subject, as well as hopefully proving useful to a wide range of people, from undergraduates through to professors. I think that doing reviews might get more attention than doing an encyclopaedia, too - it has less chance of being dismissed as a copy of wikipedia, plus reviews have more of a chance of being featured in the journals (i.e. it would be referenced more), which adds to its publicity within the academic circle.
If you do go ahead with your citizendium-like idea, then please let me know - I would be interested in helping out there. Mike Peel 20:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Nothing stops us from using a subject-specific Wikipedia fork as a base to build upon and then writing reviews to supplement (or supplant) particular encyclopedia articles. Actually, I think a site which offers both types of content has a better chance of pleasing everybody and thereby attracting more visitors (some of whom then become contributors themselves, etc.). Anville 20:47, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Are you just talking about a purely science based wiki? Caltech attempted this with quantum optics (http://qwiki.caltech.edu/wiki/Main_Page) but it does not have enough contributors to be very useful at this point. Waxigloo 16:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Restricting oneself to quantum optics does not sound like a recipe for success. Anville 16:49, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Anville, I've been too exhausted to respond with appropriate enthusiasm to your proposal, but once I regain some strength :-/ I'll want to hear more. I think this might be a very good idea, especially if MIT is willing to devote some servers to host an experimental version. ---CH 05:36, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I would be quite interested in helping with this. Is there a central place for discussing it? --Constantine Evans 08:16, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
We're setting up a mailing list to avoid cluttering lots of WP talk pages; you can wikimail CH and/or me if you'd like to be on the list. Anville 13:24, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Cold fusion

I direct your attention to the nonsense below. None of these people are practicing science. What they are practicing is scientific censorship, social conformity, name calling, arrogance, ignorance, and irresponsibility. --Ron Marshall 21:30, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I direct the attention of those interested to cold fusion and its talk page. This was a featured article, but is no longer that, nor is it a good article as of this July. The featured article version is here. It seems to me that this degradation is due to a severe pro- cold fusion bias, which I've commented on and have, to some extent, attempted to remove. I'd like to virtually remove 3/4ths of the article: I don't think that the content under the heading "Arguments in the controversy", essentially a giant argument for and against - but mostly for - cold fusion, belongs where it now is. I hesitate because I expect extreme backlash from pro-cf editors. Commentary on the article and my actions is requested. –MT 09:33, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Make sure you know what you are getting into. The crackpots and supporters of the crackpots will inundate you with incomprehensible diatribes and personal attacks. They will complain about you in a variety of places. If you are identifiable, it is quite possible that you or your employer will be harassed over your edits. Uninvolved admins might punitively block you (in contradiction with WP:BLOCK) for subtle misunderstandings of policy that you had already apologized about. You will see WP:OR, WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:3RR, and a variety of other policies and guidelines used against you. You will be compelled to go through a variety of dispute resolution processes, but since none of them have any real force against editors who wish to push their theories, you will simply have to wait until the editors are eventually banned, or tire of the debate (highly unlikely). During that time, the article will be constantly reverted back and forth in manners that just barely comply with 3RR. Then, once the article is in a good state, it is quite likely that you will come back a few months later to find the same crackpot problems that you spent so much time fixing. In order to make a significant change in such an article, you will have to monitor it indefinitely.
If you still want to do this, then good luck to you! We will certainly endeavor to help NPOV the article, though many of us have either left or are currently busy dealing with absurd citation demands for uncontroversial articles. --Philosophus T 10:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. Best to just leave it to rot and devote your energies to an area where progress can be made. But if you really want to try, then best of luck to you! Who knows, maybe one day someone will come along with sufficient knowledge and infinite patience to make a reasonable article of it. –Joke 14:53, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

We could help it rot a bit faster by adding some more nonsense. I was thinking of mentioning what I saw some time ago on NGC channel about spontaneous human combustion. There is a prof. from Greece who thinks that nuclear fussion occurs in our cells. He thinks that under rare circumstances the fusion reaction rate becomes too high, causing spontaneous human combustion. Count Iblis 15:26, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm not in favor of letting articles rot, and be very careful about suggestions such as that one, Count, as they might be construed as violatin WP:POINT. I'm on board with you, M. I reverted the article to its featured article status version in an attempt to be bold. --ScienceApologist 15:29, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
I do agree with you in principle. Let's see if your reversion to the FA version works. You can make the case that mentioning Dr. Panos Pappas and his theory of nuclear fusion inside cells does fit perfectly well in the article. It would be a constructive edit not necessarily to make the point that it's pseudoscience. That point has already been made; the article does mention that some of the research is considered to be pseudoscientific.
If an article mentions some pseudoscientific work that sounds ok to lay persons but omits other work that even lay persons will recognise as pseudoscientific then that's just propaganda. Count Iblis 16:28, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
I've tried to work on Cold Fusion before. There is a frequent editor there who is extraordinarily knowledgable and very rude, which makes the job simply too unpleasant. Maybe if we all work together, and just take turns reverting to the FA version, we can make progress. Certainly arguing on the talk page is pointless. -- SCZenz 17:34, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, in principle I'm not in favor of letting articles rot either. But SCZenz has identified what the issue on cold fusion is. Lately, my opinion is that there is SO MUCH work to be done with the physics articles, and so few people doing it, that it is best to focus on low-lying fruit. Or at least fruits that don't bite. –Joke 18:04, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

The response is ... well, amusing at best, I suppose. Has wikipedia no recourse against such clear degradation? I suppose not, given its open nature. I don't plan doing this for long, but perhaps this brief effort will help in some way. Thanks for the advice and support. –MT 06:00, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
Unforunately, I am something of an expert in how to deal with this. WP:BRD is a good starting point, and the actions of problematic editors are best dealt with first through talk and then through dispute resolution. It is possible to get through this. --ScienceApologist 07:38, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

There's what seems to be a pre- dispute resolution vote at Talk:Cold_fusion#Survey. –MT 03:50, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Hm, apparently User:JedRothwell was blocked for personal attacks and decided to leave back in May. I take back what I'd said above – possibly this has opened an avenue for progress from sufficiently motivated editors. I'll try to help out when I can, but I doubt I'll put too much work into it. –Joke 20:43, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Then again, perhaps he just came back under another name. Who knows? –Joke 20:48, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Citation guidelines proposal

Here is my proposal to deal with this debacle. Let's establish, by consensus within the project, a set of guidelines for referencing physics articles in Wikipedia. Then, at least, we will have a set of clear guidelines and an established consensus to refer to if we start having problems with WP:GA and WP:FA. I think if we write a reasonable set of guidelines, which respect WP:V and WP:CITE, we'll get little argument from the vast majority of the people over there.

I have already written a proposal, available here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Citation guidelines proposal. It definitely has a whiff of the first draft about it (some sentences seem pretty tortured), but I'm confident we can bang it into something that is clear and concise. Here is my proposal:

  1. Spend a few days going over the proposal, seeing if anyone has issues with the content, language or examples
  2. Conduct a straw poll amongst the WikiProject Physics people
  3. If we have consensus, move it over to Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Citation guidelines and add a link from the main Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics page.
  4. Ask the GA and FA people if they seem reasonable?

I've tried to write the guidelines in such a way that they don't apply just to physics, although the examples are (by necessity) taken from articles I'm familiar with.

I'll also go over to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics and ask the people there for input. Perhaps we can have joint guidelines, since they seem to be having a similar issue. –Joke 16:51, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

It looks good to me. I say we adopt it, and then let the GA folks agree with us or not as they choose. I think inline citations are more controversial than they, or even some of the people who edit WP:CITE, realize. -- SCZenz 18:31, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
I think that all is not yet lost at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources. A mild change in the guidelines there would be more helpful than a per-project policy that the GA folk would be unlikely to heed. I encourage those who are interested in compromise to speak clearly and calmly in that discussion rather than giving up hope. CMummert 01:57, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree that all is not yet lost, but I nonetheless think this propsal is helpful. We are unlikely to change more than a line or two of WP:CITE, so adopting our own comprehensive set of guidelines can create additional clarification. –Joke 16:27, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Photon is now a Featured Article; and plea for encyclopedic writing

Hi all,

Photon was promoted to a Feature Article yesterday -- yeay! :) Lots of editors and reviewers contributed to its success, both directly and indirectly, and they all deserve our thanks and appreciation. Good job, you all! :) It was wonderful to see how people could rise above the edit wars that prevailed only a month ago and constructively make a cool article, using their different perspectives as a strength.

The Physics WikiProject now has five featured articles, leaving only — ummmm — 527 important articles left to go. Unfortunately, our present rate of ~1 FA/year seems a little depressing — and surprising, given the many smart, articulate people here. We as a group should at least be able to match the output of one user, e.g., Tim Vickers of the Biochemistry WikiProject, who is now producing one FA every ~2 weeks, mostly by himself. (Don't kid yourself, enzymology is not fluff!)

I'm a newbie and usually pretty clueless, so I totally believe that I'm not seeing the whole picture. My intuition is merely that we're not doing as well as we could, and I don't understand why. For example, are we spending too much time policing bogus physics? How can we foster the writing of articulate, encyclopedic articles about physics? I don't want to make waves, but this seems like a topic that concerns us all and warrants serious discussion. Willow 01:24, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I concur. We should make a real push to see if we can get more FA's. Here are my proposals, and articles I would be willing to put some effort into to see made featured articles:
To a lesser extent, physical cosmology or dark matter. Of course, these articles reflect my interests and expertise. I think they're all quite far from FA status but are still in good enough shape that it is a possibility to bring them up to that level in a short time. I have often thought of doing so in the past, but then I get distracted by writing more technical articles. –Joke 01:53, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Also, the Physics article is a shambles. There's a WIP to fix it up, but it seems to move in fits and starts (mostly fits, though). More people (myself included) should contribute, although I often worry that these sorts of committees go nowhere. –Joke 01:57, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
I've seen a few wikiprojects running weekly or so article improvement drives. Would it be worth doing something similar here, with the aim of getting an article up to FA-quality per week (or so)? Mike Peel 08:09, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
"We as a group should at least be able to match the output of one user, e.g., Tim Vickers of the Biochemistry WikiProject, who is now producing one FA every ~2 weeks, mostly by himself. (Don't kid yourself, enzymology is not fluff!)". Paradoxically , the less people are working on an article, the faster you can make progress. So, perhaps we should pick a few articles we want to improve to FA status and assign two editors to each article for that task. Count Iblis 13:14, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Agreeing with the Count here. It would be easier to get less important articles to FA status. On the more important articles, often quite a lot of editors try their skills, unfortunately also those, that may overestimate their skills. Adding those, who want to add avery "newest breakthrough" annouved at the popular science sites, and notforgetting our always busy POV pushers who are upset, if articles on astrony present the mainstream astronomy POV. The result is a random walk in quality space, as User:Christopher Thomas has put it.
Despite all these problems, FA status for mass, energy and force would be nice. And, surprisingly, among the few physics article (typically 2 to 4) which make it into the monthly Top 1000 of accesses, is Coriolis force.
Pjacobi 14:19, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

"Random walk through quality space" — funny, but also painfully true. Instead of a random walk, we need more of a ratchet, which can occasionally slip backwards, but mainly moves forwards. Do you all find that an FA article with lots of scientific references deters vandals, etc. more than a poorly organized/referenced article? If so, we might diminish physics vandalism by generating more FA articles; it might be non-linear in our favor. ;)

The Count's "Adopt a future Featured Article" approach seems like a great idea, at least complementary to article improvement drives. At the Biochemistry WikiProject, I usually find that I don't know enough to really contribute to the particular article chosen for improvement. :( So we might get more featured articles faster if we could each choose an article to take under our wings and shepherd to FA (or perhaps in pairs as the Count suggests, a "buddy system").

That said, we might want to agree to help each other out as a community. The Photon article benefited a lot from the input of many physicists. Moreover, we might want to coordinate our response in case there are unconstructive edit wars or whatnot.

I think Tim is so successful because he shows extraordinary focus on one article at a time and brings his articles to very high standards before moving on to the next. His concentration also inspires other good people to join in and help. What do other people think — a good model to emulate for physics? Willow 14:59, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I think what User:Christopher Thomas has described is not a random walk but a kind of simulated annealing. Sorry to be pedantic. –Joke 15:28, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, rather than beat around the bush, I think I'll do something. I intend to bring cosmic microwave background (which was awarded another Nobel prize today!) up to FA status along with cosmic inflation. (As for which I'll do first, that will take some thought, or perhaps I'll work on them in tandem.) After that, I would like to do dark energy and then work on the other two. It would be nice to have a second set of eyes. –Joke 16:35, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
I can help with cosmic background and inflation. I'm not a big expert in these matters, though. Count Iblis 17:36, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I just added a "Comments" option to the Template:Physics, where we can see who's adopted what article. You can see an example on Talk:Photon. (Hopefully, I didn't mess up the template too much!) The other articles seem a little high for me — maybe I'll try my hand at Classical mechanics instead? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by WillowW (talk • contribs).

Oops, how embarrassing! I decided to adopt Kinematics instead, since that is the basis for all classical mechanics. Although it's not as cool as Photon, hopefully we can bring it to FA status. This time I remembered ;) → Willow 18:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I personally think that Bogdanov Affair is more than good enough to be an FA; the only thing not yet mentioned hasn't yet been covered by trustworthy sources. The only problem is the stability concern — FA criterion 1(e) seems to rule out articles with big ArbCom banners at the top. Anville 18:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Yep. But perhaps nominate at Wikipedia:Featured pastel shaded boxes/Candidates. --Pjacobi 14:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Transitional kinetic energy

An article with this title was deleted in June I think. Nothing links to it.Could people have a look at it? I'm on wikibreak and fly back to Australia from London tomorrow so I have no time to do more. --Bduke 09:12, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Right, an article with this title was deleted after a prod:[1]. I can't check if this is a "substantially identical copy" of the previously deleted material, a condition needed for a speedy.  --LambiamTalk 12:49, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
I turned it into a redirect to Kinetic energy.  --LambiamTalk 12:56, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
The author of the article has some odd notions which I doubt explication can untangle. See Talk:Recoil, and try to keep your eyes from bleeding. Anville 15:48, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

RfArb

User:Iantresman has started a request for arbitration members of this project may wish to comment on WP:RfArb#Pseudoscience_vs_Pseudoskepticism. --ScienceApologist 12:29, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

That is some very depressing reading; I have a feeling that this will only end badly after a protracted dispute. Lots of sound, plenty of fury, the vast majority of it signifying nothing, etc. Anville 15:41, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Quantum cybernetics

Found this one today...it needs help (I'm doing a bit of helping, but I really don't feel like reading arXiv preprints about a theory in which I take no interest). Or maybe it needs getting rid of. Does Wikipedia need an article on this "quantum aether theory"? Byrgenwulf 15:19, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Here was my approach to it: {{subst:PROD|non-mainstream scientific claim with no peer-reviewed publications and no assertion of notability}} -- SCZenz 15:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Very reasonable indeed - thanks. I wanted to make sure it wasn't just me who had never heard of the idea...and thought it a little "odd". Byrgenwulf 15:52, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I realize I might have been mistaken somewhat, though—is Foundations of Physics Letters a scientific journal? Anyway, it doesn't matter—a theory with one journal publication and no subsequent activity is non-notable. -- SCZenz 16:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I changed the prod to read "non-mainstream scientific claim with no assertion of notability and minimal publication". Byrgenwulf 16:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't really care what happens to this article, but here is some info: Foundation of Physics Letters is a scientific journal published by Springer, it seems to be peer reviewed and reputable (although with a low impact-factor). The cited author's name is misspelled in the WP article, his name is Gerhard Grössing. He has published 19 articles in scientific journals since 1984, and is somewhat cited by other scientists, but nothing too impressive. The article mentioned in the WP article has only been cited once, but as it was published in 2004 I would say it is too early to assert that it is non-notable. Other scientists may or may not be working along similar lines, I don't have the background needed to investigate this. I'll let other decide whether this warrants an article in WP (have a look at the first entry on the history page. Self promotion?)O. Prytz 16:38, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the info...this certainly is a borderline case. I noticed that the article was started by User:Groessing - at least he had the decency to "declare himself", as it were. I wouldn't say it is self-promotion so much as an earnest attempt to contribute information on what Herr Groessing clearly thinks is an important topic (or else he wouldn't have spent the last two decades working on it, I presume). Incidentally, Groessing is an acceptable English transliteration of his name, since English doesn't have an umlaut; I am not sure what Wikipedia manual of style says about it, but it isn't a misspelling (even he calls himself that!).
I think that the proposed deletion is an equitable solution...if the article is important enough to anyone to save, then they can simply remove the tag and take it from there. If not, then it goes quietly, without any ado.
I am fairly certain that "quantum cybernetics" (and similar ideas) is not a major research program: at least from Groessing's "non-linear dynamics" perspective...but then I supposes hidden variables approaches to QM have been out of vogue since, well, Bohr. Byrgenwulf 17:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Re Grössing vs. Groessing: I was referring to the fact that he cited as Groesser at the bottom of the article... O. Prytz 19:12, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Why, so he is. Pardon me. Fixed. Byrgenwulf 19:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Although I was not able to finish the Arxiv paper, I feel this is a moderately interesting theory. The author, Groessing, has one joint publication with Prof. Anton Zeilinger of the physics dept of the University of Vienna, who seems like a mainstream researcher in quantum mechanics. One of Zeilinger's experiments was featured on the cover of Scientific American. Zeilinger contributes to a field that Wikipedia calls Quantum information science. Some people probably believe that David Bohm's school was defeated and refuted forever. (Groessing appears to be contributing to that research direction). For a recent book exploring Bohm-like topics, which appears to be mainstream (or at least non-flaky), look at one of Groessing's book references: Peter R. Holland, "Quantum Theory of Motion: An Account of the de Broglie-Bohm Causal Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" (1993). Holland is the editor of the journal Physics Letters A.
Although I feel the topic is interesting, the current way the article reads is not very impressive. One could argue that the material ought to be merged with what's now in Quantum information science. And one can certainly argue that if no-one (not even me) comes forward to re-write the article, that it should be deleted. EdJohnston 18:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I have Holland's book (although a later edition), and it is good, although I still don't agree with the pilot-wave idea. Bohm's theory is borderline, but undoubtedly a notable scientific contribution that should be treated with due seriousness (at least in its early form - unfortunately Bohm seems to have lost it a little when we get to "Implicate Order" and his curious ideas on "dialogue" and suchlike).
Quantum cybernetics, however, is emphatically not quantum information theory. It comes closer to being in the genre of the interpretation of quantum mechanics. I am certainly interested to see that this Groessing co-authored a paper with the esteemed Zeilinger (do you know what it was?). But just as we don't have articles on mathematicians based on their Erdos number (or at least I hope we don't), co-authorship with a notable figure should surely not count for much. And just because Holland wrote a book on the pilot-wave theory, doesn't mean that Wikipedia needs to have an article on quantum cybernetics.
Skimming this paper, a conference proceedings piece for the "Wittgenstein Symposium on Time and History", I cannot help thinking of process physics. Arguments like "Considering that classical Brownian motion describes the motion of particles suspended in some medium, it would only be logical to consider said hypothesized sub-quantum dynamics in such a way that a description of both particles and waves is necessary, the latter actually originating from the particles, i.e., being created by the particles’ “wiggly” motions in the “fluid” medium" don't really convince me very much, personally.
Look, this chap may have a point or two. I am not bothered to sit down and work through his stuff to find out, but how valid it is shouldn't matter here. Is it interesting? Maybe. Is it 100% respectable? Probably not, if he has to present it at conferences on Wittgenstein instead of publish it in journals. Is it a notable theory? I don't think so. Is the person who came up with it particularly notable? I don't think so. Should it be on Wikipedia? Byrgenwulf 18:59, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Groessing has about four papers with Zeilinger on the subject of quantum cellular automata, some of them in regular physics journals. See [2] for his publication list. But given the article in front of us, I agree that WP:PROD is the way to go. EdJohnston 19:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Regarding "Foundations of Physics": this is a semi-respectable journal. I believe it has an explicit charter to publish the crankier, more outlandish, more obscure, more problematic authors, authors who would find publication difficult or impossible in the mainstream journals e.g. phys rev. This is not to say that everyone who publishes there is a crank: there have been some very reputable authors who have published there, and the editorial board is filled with luminaries. However, its not hard to find papers that claim Einstein was wrong about the speed of light, etc. in that journal. Caveat emptor. linas 03:44, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Copied from Talk:Quantum cybernetics

The following appear to be IRL one Gerhard Grössing, who says he is a phycisist in Vienna, and the creator of the so-called "quantum cybernetics", which appears to be very obscure:

The contribs, location, and nature of the edits all support this conclusion. Thus, this article appears vio WP:VAIN, and since I can find no evidence of anyone other than the author discussing this theory in the research literature, it may vio WP:RS-WP:NOR as well. ---CH 23:35, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

AfD

Here. Byrgenwulf 12:19, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

If I didn't read Wikipedia, I wouldn't know Sarfatti won the Nobel prize

Talk:Jack_Sarfatti#undue_weight And I quote:

I'm also removing this paragraph: "A graduate seminar taught by University of Campinas, Brazil mathematics professor Waldyr Rodrigues, which looked for mathematical errors and inconsistencies in physics papers published in scientific journals or posted on the arXiv online physics preprint archive, recently focused on some of Sarfatti's concepts and methods. In his paper "A Comment on Emergent Gravity," posted on arXiv, Rodrigues cited alleged mathematical inconsistencies in the first version of Sarfatti's recent paper "Emergent Gravity: String Theory Without String Theory," [13] calling it a "potpourri of nonsense Mathematics," and said that later revisions of the paper also contained errors." While the information seems to be correct and factual, one has to wonder why it is notable enough to be here. An obscure seminar taught by an obscure Brasilian professor is not important enough to be a blemish on the permanent record of a worldwide-famous Nobel-prize-winning physicist from Cornell. Its placement here is giving Rodrigues undue weight. It's like putting a criticism section on, say, Sean Penn's article and citing references to a small-time community-theater actor who states that Penn is a poor actor. Not all criticism is encyclopedic. User:wikipediatrix 15:12, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

--GangofOne 22:16, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Clearly, concerning physics Wikipediatrix is... somewhat misinformed :-/ But a glance at contribs suggests this user mostly edits a wide range of AfDs and generally seems to like to edit maximally controversial pages, so "her" comments might well be somewhat trollish. ---CH 02:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

New stub types created

I've created {{atomic-physics-stub}} / Cat:atomic, molecular, and optical physics stubs and {{thermodynamics-stub}} / Cat:thermodynamics stubs, per earlier discussion here and at WP:WSS/P. I've not yet populated them, but there's lists of candidate stubs, on the basis of category membership, at User:Alai/Atomic and User:Alai/Thermo. If someone with some knowledge of these areas could have a look at these, and check for "false positives", that'd be a help. (If they're largely OK, I can stub-sort them by bot.) Alai 15:04, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Anyone had a look at these? Should I take silence as "yes, re-stub them all by bot" assent? Or else, do so, and see if anyone yelps afterwards? Alai 23:40, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
My vote is for deploying the bot and watching people yelp afterwards.
Sometimes I think I just want to see people yelp. Anville 00:14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

New Scientist reacts

Since this topic provoked some comments earlier, I thought it would be worth posting another link to The n-Category Café. New Scientist has, it appears, reacted to whatever flak they received about their shoddy EmDrive reportage. Anville 19:05, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Not surprising; their readers appear to demand a steady diet of glazed eyed "reporting". ---CH 02:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to monitor for enfourcement of ArbCom bans etc

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pseudoscience#Monitoring continued problematic activity by permabanned users. TIA for your feedback! ---CH 02:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

We never tire of AfDs

Cold fusion controversy has been proposed for deletion, apropos this comment by Jefffire replying to Pjacobi. Anville 15:59, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

And another one Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Entropy (energy dispersal). I start feeling like Noske -- Einer muss den Löschtroll machen, for those knowing German language and history. --Pjacobi 14:40, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Request for Comment

I know people around here would rather be working on actual physics than dealing with yet another brushfire, and I'm equally sure that someone will accuse me of "soliciting votes" for posting this. No matter; you're welcome to ignore it, as always!

To sum up, Byrgenwulf has opened a Request for Comment on the conduct of Asmodeus, here. This business stretches back to that fracas back in the summer about the twice-deleted CTMU. Anville 18:10, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

New Template

Hi guys: I just created {{dist}}, which makes distance unit conversions very easy. You might want to check it out. —Mets501 (talk) 16:29, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Rewriting Heim theory

I'm busy rewriting Heim theory, I'm doing that offline. Within a few days I'm going to upload a version that the pro-Heim lobby probably won't like. So, I need your help to revert to my version. Also you may want to improve my version further.

Also, we need to check out physics articles that mention Heim theory:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Heim_theory

Count Iblis 17:05, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Recommended reading pages

I know we have a "recommended reading" (or something like that) for general relarivity. Now I just learned that there is also a List of notable textbooks in statistical mechanics, from finding it on AfD: List of notable textbooks in statistical mechanics. Any ideas here about usefullness and policy conformance of such lists? --Pjacobi 19:47, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Surely that's what the bibliography of the relevant article is for? The point of an encyclopaedia is that it is a reference work, or a first port of call when embarking on research. One reads the article, and if one needs more information, one consults the bibliography. Not a separate list... Byrgenwulf 19:51, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Black hole

Danras (talk • contribs) is back again adding his original research and opinions [3]. (Escape is possible, blablabla...) Could someone take a look? I've reverted a couple of times. Byrgenwulf 20:18, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Another case of too many articles?

We have tow separate articles Statistical mechanics and Statistical thermodynamics. I'd consider this rather strange, but amerge (sparely attended) merge discussion two months ago was inconclusive. --Pjacobi 13:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be best to rename
"Statistical thermodynamics" ---> "Introduction to Statistical thermodynamics", or something similar. The Stat. Mech. article may become too large if you merge them, so that would lead to the contents of the intro article being more or less deleted (all the non trivial stuff is in the stat mech article). Count Iblis 13:26, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Zentner article needs sources

The article Zentner does not cite any sources. I found an web page from the Swiss Federal Office for Metrology that says a Zentner is 100 kg, but the article says it is 50 kg.[4][5] It would be great if a German-speaking editor could improve this article. --Gerry Ashton 02:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not fluent in German, but according to the German Wikipedia it seems both are correct, depending on whether you use a northern or southern definition. I don't want to edit the English article though, since my German isn't good enough to be sure if I've understood things 100%. O. Prytz 23:32, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I also looked at the German Wikipedia article. I didn't see anything that looked like footnotes. It's possible that sources are mentioned in the text, but since I don't speak German, I couldn't tell. --Gerry Ashton 23:56, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Here are the two sentences from the German article that I think give a precise answer:
In Deutschland verstehen die meisten Menschen noch heute die Definition des ehemaligen Zollvereins von 1858, das heißt 100 Pfund zu 500 Gramm. In der Schweiz und Österreich sowie einigen anderen Ländern (Russland, Ukraine) galt hingegen der (Meter-) Zentner oder das (neue) französische Quintal (q) von 100 kg.
which I'd summarize as saying that today most people in Germany think of a Zentner as the 'Zollverein Zentner', named after the customs union (Zollverein) of 1858, which consisted of 100 pounds of 500 grams each, which equates to 50 kg in today's notation. However in Switzerland, Austria, Russia and the Ukraine, a Zentner today means a 'metric' Zentner (i.e. 100 kg), which is the same as the (new) French quintal of 100 kg. When they say French they seem to refer to a unit of measure that was promoted by Napoleon. Even the reference cited above [6] by the original commenter O. Prytz (that he found on the Swiss government website) says "Zentner: 1 q = 100 kg *) (* spezifisch schweizerisch !) i.e. specifically Swiss. They also use the 'q' which must refer to the French quintal, a word which is still found in French dictionaries.
So there is no paradox, the Zentner is different things in different countries. Some places have Napoleon's Zentner (quintal) of 100 kg. and others have the Zollverein Zentner of 50 kg.
If the idea of a 'pound' of 500 grams seems surprising, there is an anti-metric-system web site at [7] which claims that pounds (=livres) of half a kilogram satisfy a desire for older units in some quarters on the Continent. It claims the Zentner is used in Germany to measure machinery, wood, farm products and coal.
Sorry that this is not getting you any closer to proper sources; there are no sources listed in the German text except the German Wiktionary and the above cited Swiss link. But at least this story seems to be the bottom line about the two different Zentners. EdJohnston 02:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

A couple of articles that could do with attention

During my tagging of physics articles, I've come across a few odd ones that could do with attention. The first is Mousetrap car, which really could do with wikifying (and checking if it's appropriate for wikipedia, and isn't a copyvio). The second is Rafie’s_Law, which has been flagged as OR and is a possible candidate for deletion. More will probably be forthcoming as I work my way through the physics articles... Mike Peel 23:06, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I've also come across FysikRevy(TM), which I think is non-notable and should probably be AfD'd. Comments? Mike Peel 15:05, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I say AfD the FysikRevy(TM). Anville 17:27, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

FysikRevy(TM) is now up on AfD. Another slightly odd one I've found is Tornado plasma hypothesis - I wouldn't have expected tornados to have sufficient energy to create a plasma, and I got the feeling from the article that the hypothesis is non-notable. I don't know much about this field, though, so I'm probably wrong. Mike Peel 21:33, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Another odd one: Metaevolution. Non-notable pseudoscience? Mike Peel 11:46, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Metaevolution does not necesaarily appear to be pseudoscience, but it does appear to be a neologism and/or an advertisement. Both are grounds for deleting the article. George J. Bendo 12:17, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Loose ends at Entropy

I only had a very shallow reading of the articles, but besides Entropy and Information entropy, we have Entropy in thermodynamics and information theory and Maximum entropy thermodynamics (and perhaps more). And these latter ones look somewhat essayistic and unfinished to me. It's the problem of having too much articles, some are out of sight in a dusty corner of Wikipedia and strange things may happen to them. --Pjacobi 20:41, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

At least at first glance, nothing in the latter two articles looks shockingly illegitimate, but they are not well organized or (to my mind) pedagogically oriented. Some deep thought will be required before overhauling them; thanks for bringing them to wider attention. Anville 21:29, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
The precursor of Maximum entropy thermodynamics was nominated for deletion at [8] in November 2005 but the result was Keep. (The reviewers had to be persuaded that it was not original research). The article which is there now seems (from a quick look) to be a fairly accurate and neutral-sounding account of Edwin Jaynes' approach to statistical thermodynamics. The references are quite thorough. Since Jaynes' own works are not crystal-clear, I look forward to studying this article and some of the references that are new to me. One of the editors of the article is Jheald, who participates regularly in Talk:Entropy. The article has about 15 incoming links from other main-space articles, but it looks like some of them go through a redirect via 'MaxEnt thermodynamics' which was the old name. EdJohnston 21:56, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for reviewing so far. I wasn't of the opinion, that these are of the crackpotish variety, but one of the concerns is the sheer number of articles about entropy which are in danger of "diverging". Also empty headings like at Maximum entropy thermodynamics#Mathematical Structure may imply, that they are abonded by their original authors. --Pjacobi 22:12, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
At the main article entropy the (IMHO) not notable view of Frank L. Lambert gets re-inserted. Situation is somewhat tense, as opposer User:Sadi Carnot is rather upset and somewhat unsure about Wikipedia's workings. --Pjacobi 19:50, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Yet another entropy article: Entropy (arrow of time). --Pjacobi 10:12, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I notice in that article (Entropy (arrow of time)) the following statement, which starts off innocently enough but ends rzther bizarrely. Does anybody have a clue what this means?
Research on irreversibility in quantum mechanics takes several different directions. One avenue is the study of rigged Hilbert spaces, and in particular, how discrete and continuous eigenvalue spectra intermingle. For example, the rational numbers are completely intermingled with the real numbers, and yet have a very unique, distinct set of properties. It is hoped that the study of Hilbert spaces with a similar inter-mingling will provide insight into the arrow of time.
--CSTAR 06:22, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
To CSTAR: It sounds like bull-shit to me. JRSpriggs 11:00, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
There are currently 53 articles in Category:Entropy, about a third or half of which provide a subject-specific definition of entropy for some given area of science. Organizing a master article on the topic which provides a balanced overview of all of these different inter-related ideas will take a lot of editing and discussion, not unlike what we've gone through for manifold, gravitation, mathematics, etc. Seasoned editors know that this is a time-consuming and sometimes contentious process.
BTW, one of the articles is tagged with a "referenced by the press" category. What's that about? linas 05:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 18:50, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Physics/wip

I'm told that there's an effort to re-write physics, with the current draft at physics/wip. linas 04:56, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Pseudoscience arbitration

This looks to be like a very important case, in my opinion. You may wish to watch parts of it or comment on talkpages even if you are not directly involved: [9]. --ScienceApologist 12:37, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

This exposes a fundamental problem in Wikipedia (and a problem in the mainstream media and other places). Wikipedia's policy is written to give the impression that everyone's viewpoint carries equal weight. Consequently, Wikipedia seems like it wants to give equal weight to mainstream and pseudoscientific viewpoints in its articles. Therefore, if someone has a wacky idea ("the Sun is made of iron"), Wikipedia will end up being rewritten to include as many words for the idea as against the idea, even though the concept is largely unproven. ("The Sun is made of iron" idea is a real theory being promoted by someone whose name I have forgotten. It appeared on CNN.com with about equal discussion given to and against the idea because the article needed to have an "unbiased" viewpoint.) George J. Bendo 13:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, WP:NPOV#Undue weight says clearly that minority views do not get equal weight. -- SCZenz 14:32, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

PRODed TeVeS and SVT gravity

I'm just tired of those theory stubs, consisting only of

I know that TeVeS is a dark horse but sane and that SVT is only Moffat-cruft, but its current state both "articles" are useless, so I've PRODed them.

Pjacobi 12:59, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Is not a "useless" article (on a valid topic) better than no article at all? At least it serves as a stub which people can add to and fix. By the way, there is only one day left before the PRODed article Limitations of special relativity is deleted, if any of you want to save it. JRSpriggs 07:45, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
At a certain treshold of article quality, I definitively don't think so. --Pjacobi 07:51, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
If the quality is NEGATIVE, i.e. it is mostly false, meaningless, or confusing statements, then I would agree. But if it is merely inadequate, no. JRSpriggs 09:39, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
SVT and TeVeS both seem to cite journal articles. I don't see deleting them being justified—why not edit heavily instead, for example by removing that the gravity template? -- SCZenz 07:49, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
It will be put back in. TfD has failed. But go ahead. Everybody can remove a PROD-tag, and the article is saved. --Pjacobi 07:51, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I know that, but I'm trying to see if there's something I'm missing first. However, you don't seem to be claiming that the articles are wrong—just stubs with a big template which are difficult to maintain. That doesn't seem to me to justify deletion. -- SCZenz 07:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
TeVeS is just a large Bekenstein quote, bordering on copyvio. Compare [10]. --Pjacobi 08:34, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Where is User:Hillman?

Where is User:Hillman (better known as CH to some)? linas 05:41, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[11] was his last edit, and seems to be his leaving words. :( Mike Peel 06:41, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I have an email from him confirming that he decided to leave. -- SCZenz 07:29, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I also almost left a few months after joining wikipedia when an article I wrote here, DAMA/NaI, was put on VFD by User:RickK. Some time later it was Rickk who decided to leave :-) Count Iblis 12:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Blast! –Joke 20:09, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
What is "VFD"? More generally, please avoid using acronyms without a pointer or other explanation. JRSpriggs 09:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
VFD was "votes for deletion" -- an old version of the current deletion policy. --ScienceApologist 12:37, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Current activity

In case anyone hasn't seen the new box on the top-left of the wikiproject page, I've started up a current activity page with the aim of listing all physics articles which are currently undergoing a process needing community input - for example, AfD's and Peer Reviews. I'm also adding events related to featured articles, such as FACs, FARS etc., and general WP:Phys to-do things. It isn't quite as complete as the maths one - I'm only human, not a bot.

I'll do my best to keep it as up-to-date as I can, but I'm hoping that I won't be the only person updating the page - if you spot a physics-related AfD etc. (or you create one!) then please add it to the list. I'd recommend that people add the page to their watch lists (click here). Mike Peel 19:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Photon to appear on the Main Page

Hi everyone, Photon is due to appear on the Main Page in about an hour. It's a good opportunity for Photon to make a "quantum leap" in quality, but there will undoubtedly be some vandals attracted as well. If you have some time, please watch over the article and protect it from malicious edits — thanks! :) Willow 23:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

3rd Redshift FAC

3rd time is a charm? Perhaps. Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Redshift. Please comment. --ScienceApologist 19:32, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes it was. Thanks everybody who helped. --ScienceApologist 12:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

How far does this WikiProject extend?

Recently, I've been trying to figure out how far this WikiProject extends. This has been particularly important of late as I'm tagging a lot of articles with Template:Physics. One thing I've noticed is that, as an astrophysicist, I tend to include a lot of astronomy stuff under 'physics'. The same goes for bits of mathematics (for example, string theory). An additional problem is that there's a certain amount of overlap between physics and other subjects - should Entropy be tagged as physics or chemistry? (or, as it is at the moment, both.) Is Spacecraft propulsion just under the scope of WikiProject Space exploration, or physics as well?

I'm now taking the approach that generally physics things fall under WikiProject Physics, unless they're astronomical objects (e.g. specific stars, planets, etc. - but not mechanisms or general descriptors, such as Exosolar planets]), or over half the article falls outside physics. Does anyone have any comments/suggestions on how to improve this approach? Mike Peel 20:46, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Speaking as a chemist who is a computational chemist and can perhaps be labelled as a chemical physicist, I have to jump in and say that many articles, including Entropy, must come under both the Physics and the Chemistry Wikiprojects. For example, much of the argument over on Entropy and related pages is about whether the ways chemists teach entropy should be taken into account. --Bduke 20:55, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I think defining "physics" as wider rather than narrower is a good idea. The risk of something falling through the cracks is a larger risk than a turf war between WikiProjects. If a topic related to both physics and chemistry, ideally both groups would have it tagged and keep an eye on it. -- SCZenz 21:02, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Heh. Entropy? Do chemists actually do anything any more with entropy, other than teach it? How about physicists? I humbly suggest that the only people around who still perform actual, current research on entropy are the mathematicians :-) linas 04:56, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with SCZenz. Physics is a VERY broad category, and I don't think there is much of a risk associated with labelling something as physics that people might argue is not. If you look hard enough, you'll find a person in a physics department somewhere doing it anyway. Labelling it as physics as well as chemistry is perfectly fine. I'm in a computational group where there's a lot of chemists doing things traditionally physics, as well the other way around. 0SpinBoson 19:15, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments; they've been very useful. A more specific question, now, to test the waters - does Star come under physics? Mike Peel 19:53, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Astronomy is a branch of physics (although it may not always seem that way). George J. Bendo 00:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely, whether or not you think of astronomy as a branch of physics understanding the processes that occur in stars certainly is (e.g. Chandrasekhar's Introduction to the theory of stellar structure). –Joke 01:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Quantum Hamiltonian

it might be a good idea for that article to receive some educated attention. Mct mht 20:17, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

For one thing, I thing there should be a seperate article on "Schroedinger Hamiltonians" in non-relativistic QM. What should that be called?--CSTAR 01:47, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

after asking some questions and seeing responses from the primary contributor of that page, that page is full of it and written by a crank, IMHO. i'd be happy to be corrected. i request again some folks here go and take a look. far as i can see, the gist of it seems that everything named after Hamiltonian is related: the Hamiltonian graph, Hamiltonian group, the QM and classical mechanical Hamiltonian, etc., which seems to me highly dubious. Mct mht 03:56, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh I agree that page was written by a crank or a pranskter. I had assumed it was on AfD. What do these statements mean for "Hamiltonians" in QM:
The Classical Relativistic Electromagnetic Hamiltonian ... forms a basis for Quantum Mechanics.
a complete graph with more than two vertices is Hamiltonian
as i am the prankster and that is not the intention, i would welcome any ideas as to naming it different maybe, though would like to preserve the connection between general hamiltonian mechanics and quantum mechanics. there are differences that need be made visible and other than rendering i have yet found none. thanks for the comprehensive hamiltonian links. this issue absolutely needs cleanup. andrej.westermann 04:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
It should be deleted.--CSTAR 03:59, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
i am gonna prod it for deletion. as the prod process could attract amateurish attention, i request folks here participate. Mct mht 04:24, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
i am now convined we are dealing with a crank. dude just removed the prod tag. this could get interesting. Mct mht 04:34, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
my bad, so i read the rules wrong. will convert. andrej.westermann 04:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)


clean up and split. From the discussion this issue becomes clear as a major misunderstanding. This page as it is now has little to do with physics and should therefore be reduced to a describtion of the time and mass independent classical relativistic hamiltonian. The rest of the content be removed to a different page giving an overview of inherent differences between hamiltonian axioms. As not to disturb the main sections in the fields of QM and classical mechanics, that new page should be an overview on the disambiguitions and relate any experts quickly to either QM or Mechanics while giving an overview of the differences. Details should only be found at the respective pages (Quaternions, QM hamiltonian, Mechanics, Groups etc.). andrej.westermann 12:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

"Free Energy" CEO editing Ultraconductor article

Heads-up to anti-pseudoscience editors: Mark Goldes, the CEO of "zero-point energy" company Magnetic Power, Inc., and its subsidiary "Room Temperature Superconductors, Inc." is actively editing Ultraconductors to remove criticism of his company. In particular, he's deleting any reference to the parent company's "free energy" orientation, links to a highly critical Wired Magazine article, and the insertion in Category:Pseudoscience. Attention would be welcome. Bm gub 12:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I've put the article on Afd: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ultraconductor
No publications in scientific/engineering journals.
08:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Infobox particle

Any Particle physicists out there? I would like to have Template:Infobox_Particle "peer reviewed".

  • My thoughts: Right now decay time is a field (suggested by me). But I am not sure that is the best name for it, perhaps half life is better? "Half life: Stable" might seem weird though. Another issue is with the "parentage" (how else to describe?) of particles. Right now there are twofeilds used to describe a particles in relation to other particles: family and group, however I have been informed these are not real "groupings" used by physicists. These groupings also fail when talking about composite particles. The old wikitable infoboxes just had listing above the particle with what is now called family and grouping, however that was confusing for non-physicists. Perhaps there is an overarching article that could be linked to and then all of the "parent" particles could be listed. Help? -Ravedave (help name my baby) 18:44, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
  • The "Fermion vs. boson" question should be renamed to "Spin statistics". "Group" should perhaps be called "Type", and merged with "composite"---the types could be lepton, quark, gauge boson, meson, baryon, pentaquark, nucleus, supersymmetric particle, etc.. Decay time should be indeed called half-life, keeping in mind that half-life and mean life differ by a constant. "Half life: (stable)" is perfectly acceptable. "Decay particle" should be renamed "Important decay modes". "Color charge" should be deleted---the only possible entry is that the quarks and squarks carry one unit of color, and gluons and gluinos carry a color and an anticolor. Unless you're going to have a separate article on "red charm quark", "blue charm quark" and "green charm quark", there's no way to say "what type" of color a given quark carries. Bm gub 19:44, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I concur with Bm gub except I'd like to recommend quoting mean life (or lifetime) rather than half-life. Almost always it's the mean life that's quoted by, e.g., the Particle Data Group and the conversion factor (ln(2) I think) is a pain to stick in every time. Another alternative is "Partial width" which is 1/(mean life) and usually given in energy units. "Color charge" could be replaced by transformation property under SU(3) - quarks are triplets, antiquarks are antitriplets, gluons are octets; all hadrons are singlets. Maybe this could be included only if the particle interacts via the strong force? "Number of spin states" is redundant once the spin (and whether the mass is zero or not) is known, but could be included as a convenience to the layperson. "Generation" is relevant only for quarks and leptons. Everything interacts with gravity -- even massless particles, because they still carry energy -- so having that as an option under "interactions" is redundant. HEL 23:16, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
    • It's fine having items that only apply to one type of particle (even only one particle) as they are completely optional for display and there really aren't that many particle articles.Decay should be changed to "mean lifetime", sounds good I'll do that. I am thinking that we should make the infobox for laypeople, you totally lost me at the SU(3) and triplet part. I think that the most clear and logical way of categorizing particles should be used. One that has a title that can be wiki-linked for explanation would be best. Don't forget to checkout places that the template is used such as: Photon, Electron, Gluon, and Meson. Those articles cover groups or particles and particular particles. Anyone else? Are there any missing fields? -Ravedave (help name my baby) 02:12, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
      • For elementary particles, it'd be great if the infobox could include a graphic/table version of the Standard Model, like this one: http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/events/pic/sm.jpg with the relevant particle highlighted, and the others linked. I have no idea how to code up such a thing, though.Bm gub 02:38, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
        • I don't think image maps work on WP. The one thing that pic does give us though is a way to categorieze things, quarks, leptons and force carriers. Still doesn't include composite particles though. -Ravedave (help name my baby) 04:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Black hole

Black hole is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 16:36, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Gauge fixing

I have started on a merge and cleanup of articles related to gauge fixing. I could use some help, specifically with identifying and merging in stubs, fixing sections in redirect links, and merging in Lorenz gauge condition. And, of course, with completeness and correctness issues; I am strongly interested in the subject but less than expert. Cheers, Michael K. Edwards 21:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

AfD raised on Quantum theory

Can you beieve it? If you have view on this please go to Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Quantum_theory and cast your vote. --Michael C. Price talk 06:07, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree the AfD was likely ill-advised, and is certainly destined for failure, but I have serious concerns about the way terminology is presented in the article. I've thrown a bunch of tags on it and put a note on the talk page, if anyone wants to join the discussion. -- SCZenz 23:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Heim theory rewritten!

I've uploaded a new version of Heim theory. Take a look and, if necessary, improve my rewrite. Count Iblis 17:21, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Hamiltonian articles

If I may add clamour for wider attention: we have articles named:

  1. Dyall Hamiltonian (quantum chemistry)
  2. Geodesics as Hamiltonian flows
  3. Hamilton's Equations
  4. Hamilton's equations (yes, that's a different article)
  5. Hamilton's principal of least action (sic, now a redirect)
  6. Hamilton's principle (yep, also different)
  7. Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation
  8. Hamilton-Jacobi equations
  9. Hamiltonian (a somewhat partial disambiguation page)
should be more complete now --andrej.westermann 14:46, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  1. Hamiltonian (control theory)
  2. Hamiltonian (quantum mechanics)
  • MOVE to Quantum Hamiltonian? and integrate further via disambiguation page --andrej.westermann 14:46, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  1. Hamiltonian constraint (a mysterious stub related to loop quantum gravity)
  2. Hamiltonian fluid mechanics
  3. Hamiltonian lattice gauge theory (another quantum stub)
  4. Hamiltonian mechanics
  5. Hamiltonian system (a stub)
  6. Hamiltonian vector field
  7. Liouville's theorem (Hamiltonian)
  8. Molecular Hamiltonian (quantum mechanics/quantum chemistry)
  9. Quantum Hamiltonian (see above)
Many of these are a bit of a mess. There is a lot of duplication, and little effort to have one article stand on the shoulders of others. Most of these articles are not well developed. The concept of a Hamiltonian is perhaps defined the best in Hamiltonian mechanics, but hardly explained and not motivated at all. In my opinion there should be an article with a title like "Hamiltonian (operator)" or something like that, exploring the concept well, and serving other articles. The article called now "Hamiltonian (quantum mechanics)" ought to be a redirect to (I think) Quantum Hamiltonian – but of course not to the current version having that name. It is all a bit far from my own areas of expertise, so I can't contribute more than criticism and copy editing (and encouragement), but it seems to me that this may need a cooperation between several editors, some of which might hopefully be recruited from the Wikimaths project.  --LambiamTalk 22:52, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
good idea on the operator. was pondering "understanding hamiltonian" but not satisfied. positions? andrej.westermann 12:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, I've looked at a few of these articles and they all say that for practical problems there is little to be gained by using the Hamiltonian instead of the Euler-Lagrange equations! Have the editors been sleeping during classical Mechanics class, or what! :) Many one dimensional variation problems can be solved easily if you write down the Hamiltonian. This is conserved if the Lagrangian does not explicitely depend on the integration variable. Then you can use that it is conserved.
Correct. The hamiltonian is not that important for practical purposes. but it is important that it is well understood, if only to see why it isn't much help when applied without due respect to its intrinsic behavior. andrej.westermann 04:53, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
E.g. try solving this problem: given two points at equal height we want to make a vacuum tunnel between the points in which an object can move without friction. What shape must the tunnel be for the for travel time of the object to be minimal? Count Iblis 02:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

These articles should be cleaned up in the process of solving the Quantum Hamiltonian discussion above. Similar articles be merged, or if unnecessary, deleted. The disambiguition page on the term Hamiltonian should end up as the main source for finding appropiate information and a page discussing the differences be created to avoid future clashes of experts from different fields due to the separate possible meanings of Hamiltonian. We are lucky not to have the political Alexander Hamiltonians get into this so far ;-) andrej.westermann 12:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Central experiments in physics

Caution: This is a pet peeve of mine so this could sound like a rant. Please, bear with me...

I think we should have an effort to describe (with references to original papers) all central experiments in physics, similar to the list in the Portal:Physics section of Central theories of physics. I would like to see this, because it would more clearly show, how physics relies on experiments and tests to inform it on the correctness of theories. With this, the untiring efforts of the unsung experimental physicist to "shoot down" bad theories become more obvious, and we introduce the readers of WP to an under covered area of the sciences (and their history) IMO.

First, we should create a list of such experiments and observations, and then make sure the related articles contain the necessary words and references "worthy" of the importance of their topic. Maybe even develop a list/template mechanism to navigate them all. What do you all think? Awolf002 22:50, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Would not the number of such experiments be too large to handle? Do you propose to list them all in one article or category? JRSpriggs 07:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
After all, the whole point of theories is to consolidate into comparatively simple rules the otherwise unmanagable mass of empirical facts. JRSpriggs 08:00, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The emphasis of this category would be the 'central' character of the experiment. This may include the discovery of superconductivity, the detection of cosmological redshift, and similar things. This would not include the data on every half-life time of every isotope. I agree, one needs to strike a delicate balance in what to include, but the most influental experiments and those that "changed" the landscape pf physics should be part of this. Awolf002 11:21, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

This means, I presume, those experiments which first demonstrated / confirmed a phenomena, as opposed to the experiments students carry out in a lab (although there may be some crossover) for instance:
  • Dropping a hammer and feather, (independence of gravitational acceleration based on mass and composition)
  • Michaelson Morely (apologise for spelling) test of the independence of the speed of light with the motion of the earth (lack of aether / demonstration of special relativity)
  • Neutrino capture experiments (demonstation of neutrino oscillations)
I'd guess these were all covered in articles already, but I can agree that giving experiments greater prominence wouldn't be a bad thing. --Neo 11:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
  • It wouldn't be too hard to come up with a list of foundational experiments in physics, but it might be worth running the list by the people at Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Science as well to make sure that the list doesn't perpetuate myths which are commonly perpetuated in physics textbooks (i.e. of the sort that say things like Planck's positing of the quanta was to avoid the ultraviolet catastrophe). But there are a lot of experiments which can be considered rather foundational without much controversy which we already have articles on, such as the Michelson-Morley experiment, the oil-drop experiment, and the gold foil experiment (and many, many more at Category:Physics experiments). Some which we don't have articles on but should include Eddington's observation of the eclipse of 1919 (predictive power has some discussion of this). More problematic are whether we should include observations which weren't set up as controlled experiments — the line between the two can be quite blurred at times. In any case a listing of experiments, chronologically with brief annotation, could be a great way to organize the creation of individual articles for some of these experiments, which I think would be wonderful. --Fastfission 13:10, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that the experiments that established/discovered things should be discussed in the articles on those things themselves. The discovery of superconductivity should be in superconductivity. The experimental methods for finding the top quark should be in top quark, something I've been meaning to add for a long time. I'm not sure what advantages there are to separating the experiments out into separate articles. -- SCZenz 14:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes SCZenz, some experiment are fitting better within some general article, especially if they demonstrated "effect" was predicted with no special doubt about its existance (Bose-Einstein condensate). However, historically some experiments were crucial for the acceptance of controversial new theories (Michelson-Morley experiment), or were like "lightning strikes"(Nuclear fission). Those two categories show the importance of experiments in science (and especially physics). Having a complete coverage of such experiments with their historical context and all needed references would be very valuable. Awolf002 23:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree with that 100%, although I think the experiments should be covered in the articles on the theories they're related to as well, with the usual {{Mainarticle}} link. I've written a number of articles on particle physics experiments, in fact. -- SCZenz 23:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Very well put. We definitely need to tie in the theoretical points of each of these experiments. The use of the Mainarticle tool would be perfect for that! It would be excellent if the non-physicist reader would realize the 'ping-pong' like interaction between theory and experiment. Awolf002 23:51, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Alright, I've got the "ball rolling" (I hope) with adding this subpage "Wikipedia:WikiProject_Physics/Worklist of central experiments" and some simple scaffold sections. I plan to enter articles there, soon. Please, join in! Awolf002 03:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 00:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Citation guidelines proposal

Since the discussions seem to have abated for some time now, I am asking the Mathematics and Physics WikiProjects if they support the new citation guidelines that I (and others) have devised. The point of the guidelines is to establish an appropriate, sensible standard for referencing articles in our fields so that we are less likely to run into objections (such as those that have come up recently) when we try to write technical articles that others then tell us are improperly sourced. I think these guidelines are now well thought out enough that they can be added to the main pages of the two WikiProjects and perhaps linked from WP:CITE. I should also note that they seem to have attracted some encouragement from outside the WikiProjects, on their talk page, mine, and on WP:CITE.

Note A support vote with more participants is also taking place on the talk page of WP:WPM [12].EdJohnston 16:36, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

One outstanding issue is where to move the page. I don't have any great ideas. Wikipedia:WikiProjects Mathematics and Physics/Citation guidelines is too cumbersome. We could just leave it under physics as Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Citation guidelines or be BOLD and put it at Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines (presumably this would mean we would have to engage with the rest of the community to ensure there is consensus). I submit we should go with Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Citation guidelines and once we have consensus here go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Biology and Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry (and wherever else seems appropriate) to solicit their opinions, and then move it out of the physics WikiProject. We could even eventually go ask the wider Wikipedia community what they think at WP:CITE but I think that should be left as a longer term project. –Joke 22:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Since there doesn't seem to be any objection to this proposal, I have gone ahead and moved it to Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines and added links on the pages of the relevant WikiProjects and on WP:CITE. –Joke 03:53, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Support
  1.  --LambiamTalk 22:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
  2.  --EdJohnston 23:58, 16 October 2006 (UTC) however the references in the mentioned article, Scalar-vector-tensor decomposition look a bit thin by the proposed standard.
  3. Count Iblis 01:18, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
  4. ScienceApologist 12:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
  5. Joshua Davis 20:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
  6. SCZenz 20:44, 26 October 2006 (UTC) - Let's use these and not worry further about getting them "accepted" by others.
Object
Neutral/Comment

Any objections to automatic archiving of this page?

Werdnabot (talk • contribs) runs an archiving service for talk pages (see User:Werdnabot/Archiver/Howto), which I've been running on my talk page with no problems for the last month or so. Since this page is pretty active and doesn't get archived that often, would anyone object to me setting up the automatic archiving service on this page? Also, how long should conversations be kept for here? I'd recommend 14 days or so. Mike Peel 12:02, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead and try it out. If people do not like and complain, then stop it, otherwise continue. I would suggest that the archiving be done once per month because that seems to be roughly the established practice. It could be done at the middle of each month for the previous month. That way we would normally have between two weeks and six weeks of talk still on this page at any one time.
I am also leaning towards suggesting that sections should be taken based on the earliest date in the section rather than the latest. This would prevent the sections from becoming excessively long. JRSpriggs 10:39, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
If we use the automated service, then the only options we have are: how long after the last posting date should the thread be archived (in days), whether single-comment threads should be archived, and where the threads get archived to. The archiving is an on-going process - when a thread gets to be, say, 14 days old, it will be archived. Doing a bulk archive is not an option. We don't have control over whether it's the first or last date that's used - it's always the last. If you want additional features adding to the bot, then you'll have to ask Werdnabot (talk • contribs) nicely. Mike Peel 20:56, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Look at the revision history. Werdnabot malfunctioned and removed ALL the sections of this page. It was reverted. JRSpriggs 09:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Checking into this further, I see that Werdnabot has been blocked for going on a "rampage". So until its owner returns from his wikivacation and fixes it, we will have to go back to the old method of archiving this talk page. JRSpriggs 07:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

OK. Now it seems to be working again. JRSpriggs 05:29, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Werdnabot seems to be broken again. It has not done any archiving (for anyone) since 24 October 2006. (Just as I was trying to get it to work for Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics, too.) And Werdna himself seems to have dropped out of wikipedia (at least temporarily). JRSpriggs 07:05, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
It seems to be working again now. Mike Peel 14:18, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Rate of archiving

I personally don't like the rate at which the sections are archived. Karol 06:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

How long would you like the sections to be kept (before archiving) after the last new comment? And why? JRSpriggs 07:52, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't know... maybe a few months, half a year, but certainly not one month. It seems to me that some discussions need to lay around before getting a reactivated discussion. Also, the archives are growing so fast at this rate and are kind of small. Just my view. Karol 14:09, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
This is a very active page; if we kept discussions on here for even a few months before they're archived, it would turn into a very long page (longer than the recommended 32k by an order of magnitude or two), and I'd expect that comments would keep getting lost in it. Most of the discussions we have here are either very quick (XXX is up on AfD, for example) and so don't need to stay here long, or else have at least one comment posted to them in the 10 days before they're auto-archived (in which case, they aren't archived until 10 days later - assuming no-one else posts to them). If people do want to bring up old topics, then they can just start a new section here with a link to the old discussion. Mike Peel 14:18, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Boltzmon

In my travels around the stub-vaults of Wikipedia, I've come across the Boltzmon article. To me, this seems like complete bollocks. A Google search] returns 616 results, and I think that most of those are due to a book named Boltzmon, which is possibly what the article is based on. A Google Scholar search returns 3 hits, all non-notable. The Arxiv returns nothing. I'll be taking it to AfD shortly, but wanted to check here first. Thanks. Mike Peel 19:52, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, FWIW: The reference is real. Use the Amazon search feature on the Ferris book... and there is the word on page 99. Still, this looks like a "pet theory" of someone. Awolf002 20:01, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks - the UK Amazon site can't do that, and I didn't think to check the US one to start with. I'll wait for other people here to chime in, then, before potentially (probably?) taking it to AfD. Mike Peel 20:14, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree that this appears like a pet theory. I've done my fair share of research on black hole information and I haven't come across this term. The idea that black hole information is contained in some sort of relic objest left over after the black hole evaporates has been seriously discussed, however. I'm just not familiar with this terminology "boltzmon". I did a full text search for "boltzmon" on the physics preprint server and came up with nothing. But if someone can find a peer-reviewed journal article with the word, then it might deserve to be in WP. Even so, the article itself would need some fixing. The phrase "preserving purity" means nothing and there are a bunch of claims in the last paragraph that need to be verified. Joshua Davis 20:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

It's now on AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boltzmon. Mike Peel 14:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

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