User talk:William M. Connolley/Old Talk 9

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[edit] Glacier proposal

I understand your concern regarding our translation method at Wikipedia:Spanish Translation of the Week. I have written up a proposal here. I hope that it addresses your concern, and I would appreciate your input in creating a viable solution. — J3ff 01:38, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] INQUA sea level

Interesting observation: Morner's website dealing with the INQUA commission on sea level seems to have disappeared from the internet. http://www.pog.su.se/

Well I know that INQUA have been telling him to do so for ages. So it looks like he finally got leant on enough to do it. Hmmm... William M. Connolley 20:22:51, 2005-07-28 (UTC).

[edit] Talk:Glacier#Roca_aborregada

William, I realize that your specialty is climate and not glaciers, but would you be so kind as to have a look at this paragraph? We've having a devil of a time translating it and we're hoping you can help out. Fernando Rizo T/C 20:08, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fictitious force reversion

I have looked over fictitious force. Let me put it this way: I will contest the reversion, but I think that you lost as much as you gained. What that article needed was a good rewrite to remove the hand-waving and set it more back on track. Even now it still needs that rewrite.

In this case, Cleon was more in his element and so covered some good ground. As I mentioned in the article's talk, I think that the ground still should be covered. However, it can be done in a better way than with Cleon's style.

Please realize that you are losing a lot with major reversion, and also realize that Cleon's name on something does not automatically mean that it is corrupt. Inertial frame of reference itself was a shock to my system. I was not sure whether to VfD it or what until I figured out where the article "went wrong". Once I saw the Januaray version, I knew that I had to take it back to there. That Cleon was behind this almost gave me a laugh: He really is a good guy and I hate doing stuff like this to him, but I saw little choice in that case. Cleon was just way, way, out of his element there, unfortunately. --EMS | Talk 16:46, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, I'm not saying that everything CT says is wrong, only that... well, it has become clear that he edits outside his knowledge. And I disagree with the way he says things. Oh, and thanks for correcting my version. William M. Connolley 19:25:53, 2005-08-02 (UTC).

[edit] Coriolis force

William -

I took a quick look at the Coriolis effect article. At least at first glance it looks OK to me. If you have specific complaints, then deal with them. If you think that the article needs a rewrite, then draft it up as a subpage of your user page (like an archive) and present it for comment when you are done.

I know that this page is one of Cleon's projects, but it impresses me as something more akin to his Sagnac effect article that to inertial frames of reference. With the Sagnac effect, he had things more than halfway under control, and I was able to collaborate with him on improvements. With time dilation, I had him produce that nice animation, and he learned from doing it. On the other hand, on the equivalence principle page myself and another bodily tossed him aside, and a proposed rewrite of his for that page was sent down in flames.

So my advice is to work with Cleon as best you can. I think that he is mostly in his element here.

Kindly be advised that I am not interested in working on this page. My interest is on the relativity side of things with the 2003 UB₃₁₃ discovery also keeping me a busy recently. So do what you can with Cleon and what you have to without him. Good luck. --EMS | Talk 19:24, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Cleon has added some remarks on this on my talk page. Perhaps we can sort this out, but Cleon does have some odd views about rotataing frames of reference, and I think that this is the source of the difficulty. --EMS | Talk 15:41, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. You don't have to be involved, I guess its not a major interest of yours. Do tell us if we talk too much on your page. I at least will try to be terse... CT not only has odd ideas, he seems unable to parse what I say, which contributes to the problem. William M. Connolley 17:06:18, 2005-08-03 (UTC).

[edit] From handwaving to applying mathematics

Cleon Teunissen wrote:

Here is a site with animations that shows puck sliding over a frictionless Earth The opening page The first animation Those animations use an approximation: the Earth as a perfect sphere. Unfortunately, that approximation is not valid in meteorology, in meteorology the oblateness of the Earth needs to be taken into account (and of course, the oblateness is (indirectly) represented in the equations of the big computer models, otherwise those computermodels would produce nonsense). It was the writing of the meteorologist Anders Persson that made me aware of this. --Cleon Teunissen | Talk 17:57, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure I subscribe to that. I'm pretty sure that the std met equations just incorporate the oblateness into the gravity/local vertical term. The horizontal terms just look like they would on a spherical earth. I think. William M. Connolley 19:51:39, 2005-08-03 (UTC).

Hi William,

I agree that I need to shift from handwaving to math. I'm not familiar with what you here call vertical and horizontal term. Anyway, what is necessary is to look at the equation of motion as it is applied in meteorological computer models.

By 'taking the oblateness into account' I mean the following: if you are at, say, 45 degrees latitude, then the line perpendicular to the surface does not point to the center of gravity, there is a bit of angle.

But so what? You just use the local vertical in your 2-d equations. William M. Connolley 14:29:22, 2005-08-04 (UTC).

The vector of the force of gravity can be decomposed into a perpendicular component and a parallel-to-the-surface component, the parallel-to-the-surface component pointing to the north. The perpendicular to the surface component is the force that keeps everything on earth, the component parallel to the surface is the force that makes air on every latitude stay on its latitude, rather than sliding to the equator.

You could decompose it like this, but it would be pointlessly complicated, why not just use the local vertical?

That is simply second law of Newton. If that parallel-to-the-surface component wouldn't be there, the water and air would slide to the equator.

I assume that in models the equations are set up in such a way that for air that is stationary with respect to the Earth the gravity-component parallel to the surface does not need to be in the equation explicitly, for that gravity-component is maintaining something, maintaining the latitude of air that is stationary with respect to the Earth. So for air mass that is stationary with respect to the Earth the gravity-component parallel to the surface cancels away.

But for air mass that is moving either west-to-east or east-to-west with respect to the Earth it is a different story: air mass that is moving west to east is "speeding", like in the example of race-cars on a banked circuit. Air mass that is moving west to east will "drift outside" when nothing prevents it from swinging wide. The tendency to swing wide is proportional to the velocity with respect to the Earth (mathematically: $2 m ω v$ . I can provide a mathematical derivation in terms of dynamics of that)

The crucial point, of course, is that factor 2. To give air mass an west-to-east acceleration involves a torque, and this torgue increases the angular momentum. In the rotating situation the torque needs to do two things, in perpendicular directions: increase the linear velocity and increase the potential energy associated with the centripetal force. That is where the factor 2 comes in. --Cleon Teunissen | Talk 07:43, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Air mass that is moving in east to west direction is going too slow to stay at its latitude, the gravity-component parallel to the surface will pull it to the north. In terms of centrifugal force: when air mass is stationary to the Earth the centrifugal tendency and the gravity-component parallel to the surface exactly cancel each other, but for air mass moving east to west the centrifugal force is less, so then that air mass is pulled to the north.

That is what the red arrows in the diagrams stand for (for the east-west and west-east flows, the other direction is a story on its own) That is why those red arrows represent a force that is proportional to the mass! Of course it is proportional to the mass, it's good old gravity and centrifugal force!

These ideas are not my own inventions, this is from the publications of Anders Persson.

This is correct. This flows automatically from the equations of motion. All the meteorologist needs to do is to program the equations of motion correctly and to use an oblate spheroid Earth rather than the perfect sphere approximation and then it will work automatically. If someone would go through the trouble of writing a computerprogram for performing all the calculations in the context of a non-rotating frame of reference, the outcome would be the same. On the other hand: if the oblateness would not be taken into account, (in one form or another), then the meteorological model simply wouldn't work.

If I am wrong about this (but I know I'm not) I will withdraw from wikipedia altogether. --Cleon Teunissen | Talk 04:09, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

To re-iterate: I'm pretty sure the 2-d equations used by met just use local vertical. I think you need more math and fewer words. In fact, to quote James IN, an introduction to circulating atmospheres: "the second term on the right... is the centripetal acceleration. Since it is the gradient of a scalar it introduces no structural changes to the equations of motion; it can be absorbed into the definition of gravitational potential... thus, newtons 2nd law may be written:

du/dt + u.(grad)u = 2 omega cross u - 1/rho(grad)p + F"

F being misc other terms (friction). William M. Connolley 14:29:22, 2005-08-04 (UTC).

http://mtp.jpl.nasa.gov/notes/altitude/altitude.html My background is physics, so I've had to look up details about geopotential height.

As I understand it: The geopotential height is automatically incorporated in meteorological models in the form of a vector addition of the Earth's force of gravity plus centrifugal force arising from the Earth's rotation. The Earth's force of gravity is not perfectly perpendicular to the surface (except on poles and equator) On the other hand, geopotential height, after the vector addition, is perpendicular to the surface of the ellipsoid.

From my point of view, this confirms my story: the component parallel to the surface is in the meteorological models allright (it has to be), but for air that is stationary with respect to the Earth there is a mutual cancelation with the centrifugal force associated with the rotation of the Earth.

The coriolis term in the transformed equation of motion,

2 m ω v

, is of course valid in the case of ballistics, no dispute there. My story is that the ballistics case and meteorology are such different physics that the one doesn't help in understanding the other.

In my story I do end up with a formula that is identical to the coriolis term in the transformed equation of motion, but the physics and the derivation are unrelated to coordinate transform. The reason the same formula pops up in a different context is why I made the animations of the section Unconstrained motion

first I should get the mathematics of my story sorted out. I'm not through with the Coriolis effect article, but I'm not going to hurry. --Cleon Teunissen | Talk 16:38, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Fourier

Dear William M. Connoley, I think it is reasonable to list people under their most common name, and not their full official name, which should be on the first line of the article. So it is John Lennon and not John Winston Lennon or Bill Clinton and not William Jefferson Clinton. This is not only my own humble opinion, but also a documented wikipedia practice. (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). Kind regards, --Lenthe 14:58, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, can't say I like it but the convention appears to be on your side. I would have been much less annoying if you'd consulted first. William M. Connolley 16:28:46, 2005-08-04 (UTC).

[edit] Dragons flight

Based on your earlier comments, I took the liberty of mentioning your endorsement in my nomination of this user for adminship, see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Dragons flight. You can add your support explicitly if you want, or if you've changed your opinion for some reason, feel free to remove your name from my comment. --Michael Snow 05:15, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Siberian peat bogs?

I know this isn't really your field, but I'm sure you've read the article in the Guardian about the Siberian peat bog permafrost melting... Any thoughts on that? Is it as significant as the sources quoted claimed? How reliable are the sources they are quoting. Just curious...--Fangz 14:13, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Antarctica without ice

Please, see Wikipedia:Reference_desk#Geography_of_Antarctica Superm401 | Talk 05:01, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

I was away, sorry. DF has mostly answered; I've added a BEDMAP link to the Geog of Ant page. William M. Connolley 14:16:12, 2005-08-20 (UTC).

[edit] Go!

Hey William... Take a look at Open Game 1 (SGO1). I placed m10, but someone placed o11. If n11 is placed, then o10 can still be captured, correct? One could say that o10 is a loss... but it could be backed up by moving at n10. But I really don't see any value adding to n10. Just wondering if p11 would be any worth consideration and attempt to finish the closure from p11 to r11. Allowing o10 to be captured, does provide an opportunity to use two turns to close p11 to r11... but it leaves one move to chance to break free still... and if the placement was placed at o10, then white has a stronger hold... Just curious on your thoughts on the game. --AllyUnion (talk) 07:43, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

o10 is lost; p11 would be pointless. Black is winning, especially if she pays some attention to the bottom left corner. William M. Connolley 18:48:51, 2005-08-30 (UTC).

[edit] Tropical Cyclone page

User:Golbez has written on the [1] page about the content now on Tropical cyclone:

Can you quote any meteorologists (since they know more about what causes a hurricane than a climatologist), and can you state that the ENTIRE cyclone season worldwide is worse, or is it only the Atlantic? These are valid points. Again, the Atlantic is only 1/6-1/5 of all cyclones worldwide. Were all basins over-active? If not, then I will remove the statement on tropical cyclone that says that activity between 1990 and 2005 was higher, and that just destroys the whole argument. If only the Atlantic has gotten worse, then you have to establish why the other basins did not. Please do, quickly. --Golbez 01:32, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

I suspect that if the whole argument is distroyed, Emanuel's paper would not have passed peer review. However a lot of what I have written could probably be improved upon. Would you care to offer some of your expert opinion? crandles 10:40, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

It looks like the text got moved to tropical cyclone and that seems fair enough. I've revised the text on that page - see what you think. William M. Connolley 19:30:44, 2005-09-05 (UTC).

Thank you very much, it is far better now. Golbez has also become much more conciliatory having discovered Kerry Emanuel is a meteorologist. crandles 22:54, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reddi's 3RR

Have you reported this at WP:AN/3RR? Jayjg ^(talk) 20:40, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Nooooooooooooo... feel free to if you want. In fact I suppose I encourage you to. For myself, I thought I'd give him a warning, and didn't feel like filling in the page. If this was Cortonin in the GHG wars I'd be on him like a shot, but this seems less serious. If he does it once more though even I'll do it. ps: see-also User_talk:Ed_Poor#Ark_of_the_Covenant_issues William M. Connolley 20:46:12, 2005-09-06 (UTC).

I saw his 5th R and your warning, at least he has backed down now. But the dispute tag then looks spurious. Hey ho, on we go... William M. Connolley 21:34:11, 2005-09-06 (UTC).

[edit] Art at the BAS

I recently heard a rumor that one or more of my figures had found there way onto some poster floating somewhere around the British Antarctic Survey? Would you know anything about that? :-) Dragons flight 02:43, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

Not that I've seen... any more details for the rumour: a scientist-type poster or a corporate-blurb one? I'll keep my eyes open though. Is this the 1000- or 2000-y plot? (ps: I know that "the BAS" is technically correct but only the men in suits ever remember to say that... :-) William M. Connolley 08:36:56, 2005-09-12 (UTC).

Well, if it didn't occur because of you, then that just makes it all the more mysterious. Someone told someone told me that the original someone saw image:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png on a poster while visiting. I don't really have any details to offer about what type of poster or why. Dragons flight 15:15, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Jedi Knight on Demographics of the UK

Noticed you added Jedi Knight to the 'religion' table in Demographics of the United Kingdom. There has already been some discussion on the issue; however, the fact that there were so many Jedi Knight entries does not mean it is a recognised religion. Should an elaborate and well-organised university hoax really be placed as equally valid as a religion in the UK as Sikhism, for example? I think not. Mention of the anomaly in the paragraph preceding the table is certainly sufficient, I feel. If you do not object, I think it should be removed from the table, but not the preceding paragraph. Mark Lewis 22:14, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I did check the article talk for mention of Jedi (and the page history), and was surprised not to find it. If its already been decided, I won't object to the original consensus. But as a Jedi myself, I don't quite see why we shouldn't take our rightful place above Sikhs and Jews. William M. Connolley 10:49, 19 September 2005 (UTC).

Yes. Sorry, I can't seem to find it either, although I read the discussion somewhere on Wikipedia! I think the issue ought at least be raised on article talk page, and I will do that. Also, I will do my best to find the original discussion. Yours, Mark Lewis 18:37, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Stanley church image

Hello! It looks like the Falkland Islands may be the featured destination for the month of October over at Wikitravel, but sadly we don't have any good images of Stanley. Looking at the Port Stanley article here I was wondering if you would be willing to dual-license Image:IMG 0688-ch-whalebone-arch.jpg under the CC-SA for use in the Stanley article? If so you would have my, and possibly even tens of others, undying gratitude. Also, if you're still in the Falklands / South Georgia and happen to see Jerome Poncet, please tell him hello from Ryan, Ted, and the rest of the Shackelton crossing crew. Cheers! -- Wrh2 05:10, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi. Feel free to change add CC-SA for that image; otherwise I'll get round to it this evening. The pic was taken by Tom Lachlan-Cope, if you know him. He'll he going south again this year so you can always forward him requests for pix... William M. Connolley 08:29, 20 September 2005 (UTC).

Thanks! I'll actually be heading that way myself in a couple months, but won't be visiting Stanley on this trip. -- Wrh2 01:45, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] footnotes

Hi William. I've noticed that you have some concerns with the use of "footnotes" and with Wikipedia:Footnote3 being a "guideline" — so have I, although perhaps for different reasons. Is it that you don't like the use of footnotes altogether? or is it the style of footnotes implemented by the ref/note templates? If it is the latter, do you like the style implemented by the rf/ent templates used in Euler's identity for example, any better? Paul August ☎ 19:52, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

The objections are manifold. But looking at the Euler article, they are being used for a different purpose. In solar variation, the footnotes are being used to replace an inline [this] link. Nothing is gained, because its simply a link to the same external source. But much is lost: its two clicks not one; it doesn't work on old versions (they link back to the current one, which is deeply confusing if that footnote no longer exists!); and its a needless complication. William M. Connolley 20:57, 2 October 2005 (UTC).

[edit] Image:Dscn4066-pendennis-dark-in-shed crop 1200x600.jpg has been listed for deletion

An image or media file you uploaded, Image:Dscn4066-pendennis-dark-in-shed crop 1200x600.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you.

See discussion on the Pendennis page. You page move appears hasty, and at the very least overly curt. William M. Connolley 22:25, 2 October 2005 (UTC).

Hi William - I'm out of my field here, but I just reverted to your page with that great photo. I like trains - just don't usually edit the topic due to lack of knowledge. By the way you need to sign your keep vote on the image. Cheers Vsmith 22:52, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] coach pic

Regarding the Royal Mail coach pic you're right, Wikipedia is pretty much devoid of information on rolling stock of any kind at the moment. I'm considering creating a GWR passenger rolling stock and a GWR goods rolling stock article or similar articles. Need to do some more research. I took quite a few pics of various goods wagons at Didcot recently, though I'm a bit short on pics of passenger coaches. I don't know too much about rolling stock from the other "big three" so I'll probably leave that to someone else :) Cheers. chowells 14:30, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah good, I'm glad its not just my incompetence at finding things. Now I'm just someone who visits Didcot with his son and takes pix, so... would it be appropriate to create a mail carriage or mail coach or rail sorting office (I don't even know which is right)? William M. Connolley 16:08, 9 October 2005 (UTC).

There is Travelling Post Office which is what you're looking for I think. Though I'd like some more general articles about rolling stock, has some quite interesting historical/social aspects such as first vs third class in passenger carriages. chowells 18:41, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah, so there is. Errrm... which category would that pic of mine come in, do you think? Or I can wait till I next visit and look more closely... William M. Connolley 20:13, 9 October 2005 (UTC).

[edit] Wave-particle duality

You were right to bring the edits to everybody's attention--sorry I didn't pick up on what was wrong immediately, I gave it too quick a read. I think this whole business will be sorted out soon enough. -- SCZenz 19:18, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thomas Hobbes

Thank you for your recent edit [2] to this article. That is exactly the kind of editing that Wikipedia needs more of to nip this sort of dispute in the bud, before it becomes a problem for the articles and editors. Keep it up! Cheers --Ryan Delaney ^talk 23:04, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, most kind. William M. Connolley 08:55, 10 October 2005 (UTC).

[edit] Adminship

Thanks for almost voting for me ;). I didn't solicit any support, as it didn't seem necessary. Rd232 22:12, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

And you were right, congrats. William M. Connolley 09:40, 15 October 2005 (UTC).

[edit] Quantum indeterminacy

Please see and comment on Talk:Quantum indeterminacy#Dispute status of this article. Thanks --CSTAR 18:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Actor model, mathematical logic, and quantum physics

I have put this article up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Actor model, mathematical logic, and quantum physics

Please consider voting. Thank-you. DV8 2XL 01:54, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pic of the day