Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Heim theory (second nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. John254 15:29, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Heim theory

Heim theory (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

The material here presented does not constitute a topic of research in Physics as can be confirmed by a simple search over research database. For instance, SLAC-SPIRES database http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/ shows that the paper by Mr. Heim was not peer-reviewed and have produced no other published paper on the subject by scientists. This shows that the scientific community do not consider the work of Mr. Heim to be enough relevant to science. In addition, this material is an extremely spectulative and controversial one and goes in the opposite line of present accepted published scientific research and results.

This text was given as the reason for a proposed deletion by User:201.43.76.101

This nomination was improperly included in the page for the old AFD. The error was corrected by Dhartung (talk · contribs), who has no opinion. --Dhartung | Talk 17:15, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

• Keep Though the topic is itself OR, it's notable OR, and its article can be written from a critical perspective. Cmprince 20:25, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - There's no Wikipedia policy against having an article on a speculative development in science. Notable? yes, widely discussed, any trivial search will show that. Sources? Yes, both the original Heim material and criticisms are easy to find sources for. Article balanced? Could use some more healthy skepticism, but I don't think anyone is keeping that out, and AFD would be the wrong solution for that anyways (AFD is not a substitute for a cleanup tag, etc). Georgewilliamherbert 21:17, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep on the basis that the theory has been talked about by others, scientists or not.DGG 02:23, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - There are sources for the text referenced in this article. Mr. Heim's work is certainly unconventional, but this wikipedia article was a clear and cogent tretease on this particular subject for my personal enightenment. Why would you want to deprive the next person who searches for Heim theory of this? Is wikipedia running out of space? "Enough relevant for science"? Who made you the spokeperson for the scientific community? How do you know 'they' would approve deleting ideas just because they are "speculative and controversial"? Digizen 04:17, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - Unbelievable that this should be up for deletion - it resoundingly defeated a previous attempt. How is such effrontery allowed? Get this unsightly tag off a.s.a.p. since Heim theory is in the ascendant: the Tajmar experiemnts have given it provisional experimental verification; a refereed review is in preparation and will be published in 2008; some top particle physicists are reading through the theory with great interest at the moment. I could go on and on. From the Wikipedia policy on deletion: Renominations: As with deletion discussions, a certain amount of time should pass between repeated requests for deletion review, and these requests should be carefully considered in light of policy. Renominations that lack new arguments or new evidence are likely to be closed quickly" There are no new arguments since the defeated deletion campaign in Sept 2006, so I propose that this disgraceful breech of etiquette be scrapped forthwith. --hughey 06:31, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable subject matter, paper winner of a recent Aeronautics prize. Godspeed John Glenn! Will 07:47, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Heim theory has been published already in peer reviewed scientific journal "Zeitschrift für Naturforschung" in 1977. See that snippet from the article:

 *Burkhard Heim: 
Vorschlag eines Weges einer einheitlichen Beschreibung der Elementarteilchen
(Suggestion of a way of a unified
 description of the elementary particles), 
Zeitschrift für Naturforschung (Max Planck Society), 1977, Vol.
 32a, pp. 233-243.

• Of course the article has many problems, starting with the fact that there is no way to decide whether today proponents' publication about Heim Theory even matches Heim's own (note the confusion about the number of dimensions to use). Then there was the ugly sideshow trying to fake official support by the University of Innsbruck. But unfortunately we don't delete articles we being non-encyclopedic. So let this article persist and just help fighting infections of other articles with Heim Theory claims. --Pjacobi 09:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
• The article has many advantages - many people heard of Heim e.g. from the New Scientist article and went there as it was referenced in NS itself!!!! They often then expressed satisfaction at the info and links in the article as an intro. And that is rubbish about 'confusion about the number of dimensions' as Heim very early on derived 12 as the maximum number of dimensions. Though he started with 6, i.e. 2 of the basic 4 sub-spaces, in his final years Droscher convinced him that the extension to 8 (3 sub-spaces) or even the full 12 dimensions was consistent with the original. Only Heim died before he himself could publish on the 8-dim version, as he had intended. And though critics are quick to pounce on the outdated reference to Droscher's Innsbruck University affiliation, they conveniently ignore Hauser's illustrious career [1]or the fact that several academics at Free Uni Berlin, Cern etc. are in the Heim-theory group or associated with it (private communication Von Ludwiger 2007). --hughey 12:05, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

^{[citation needed]} --Pjacobi 12:14, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Hdeasy, please don't remove my contents. When asked for references for your bold claims, you suggested the URL http://public.fh-wolfenbuettel.de/~haeuser/ -- but contrary to the appearance of page and URL, this is not a page of the Fachhochschule Wolfenbüttel. They only provide free webspace for personal homepages of their staff. The note on the site reads: Mit dem Public-Web-Service bietet das Rechenzentrum allen eingetragenen Benutzerinnen und Benutzern die Möglichkeit für die Einrichtung einer eigenen Homepage.

The article needs a {{fiction}} or {{in-universe}} warning.

Pjacobi 11:27, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. for the above reasons. this nomination for deletion is absurd. Whateley23 01:04, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. I agree with and wish to second the reasons stated by the above posters. Tajmar's experiments offers apparent verification, theory is highly notable and is founded on and in established scientific facts, as formulated by, among others, Albert Einstein. Heim theory is not a "pseudoscience" as is (for instance) astrology or numerology. Korv McHund 21:59, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

• Please read our deletion policy before commenting on deletion nominations. Most of your reasoning is entirely irrelevant; we have many good articles on pseudoscientific topics, for example. Notability does not mean what you think it means here. --Philosophus ^T 18:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

• I'm afraid you have misunderstood my reason for mentioning "pseudoscience" together with Heim Theory. My purpose for doing so was not to indicate that Wikipedia does not (or should not) have an ample amount of good articles on pseudoscientific topics, but to show to the person nominating the Heim Theory article for deletion that the theory does in itself not fall under the criteria for "pseudoscience", as is initially alleged by him (see the talk page for Heim Theory). I certainly have no qualms about including articles concerning well-known pseudoscientific theories in Wikipedia for informative purposes. Korv McHund 19:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

• Keep deletion is an innapropriate method of improving an article, imho DDB 01:24, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - This is notable, as the media sources show. What is needed here is heavy rewriting of the article to conform with policy, which does not permit the article to be written from the view that Heim Theory is serious science. See the talk page for more information. --Philosophus ^T 18:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep I find the efforts to delete this article an attack against anything that might challenge the status quo of physics more than a sincere effort to expand recorded knowledge. There seems to be a vendetta against this theory even though those opposed to it probably have not spent much time actively studying it. Comments such as "no way to decide whether today proponents' publication about Heim Theory even matches Heim's own (note the confusion about the number of dimensions to use)" shows that any of the refernced material was not actually read. Should we throw out all of "the big bang" theory because it had been modified to "the inflationay big bang". Add to this recent experimental research "the Tajmar experiments" into some of the areas addressed by Heim Theory, along with referenced works, and new publications (for peer review) are coming soon. These should more than warrant keeping the article, along with the immediately removing the "up for deletion" tag. DEK46656 18:28, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

• This user has only two edits, and the first is in a discussion about deletion on the article's talk page. To the user, please don't comment on these things before you understand Wikipedia policy. Most of what you say is entirely irrelevant. Also, be aware that using multiple accounts on Wikipedia to give the impression of more support for a viewpoint will result in indefinite banning (WP:SOCK), and that votes by users without any other edits will most likely be discounted, or will be assumed to be illegitimate. You should read WP:V, WP:N, WP:NOR, WP:DELETE, WP:RS, WP:NPOV, and WP:ARB/PS before joining this discussion. --Philosophus ^T 18:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

• • 'comment This is the second allegation I've read about sock puppetry and this issue ^[1] I don't condone such activity, but neither do I condone bullying. I think it best if editors stick to the article in question, and make their issue known with admin, rather than make public denunciations imho. DDB 20:29, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

• I'm simply following the usual method of notification to the closing admin of an new SPA and possible sockpuppet !voting on an AfD. Take a look at DEK46656's contributions... --Philosophus ^T 22:30, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep The fact that this theory is not mainstream is completely irrelevant to its existence on Wikipedia. It is a notable theory, there has been at least one peer-reviewed publication and a conference award. It's a legitimate, rigorously formulated, and falsifiable scientific theory. Is it true? Who knows--it will probably turn out to be false, like most other proposed theories. But this is not our concern here on Wikipedia--we're concerned about notability, verifiable sources and NPOV, and the article as it stands meets these criteria. Heck, this is more than Astrology has going for it. The topic generates considerable interest, especially in connection with the recent ESA/Tajmar experiments. The article is well written and free of bias. There is no reason for deletion. I would also like to point out that the deletion proposal was made by an anon IP user, for whom this nomination and related wrangling are the only edits ever; and that all the votes so far have been keeps. This hardly even merits evaluation. Freederick 10:19, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.