Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Maximum power

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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 of the debate was NO CONSENSUS. — JIP | Talk 19:29, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Maximum power

Page appears to be original research into some basic principles of physics. linas 02:23, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

This is one of a number of related deletion debates, you may wish to study all of them before forming a judgment. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 21:18, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


  • Delete. linas 02:23, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • STrong Keep - H.T. Odum's signature idea, well referenced. Guettarda 03:15, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Move to maximum power transferMerge to maximum power theorem, which is what the article actually describes, and remove references to Odum's work, which isn't. Gazpacho 03:22, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Support I support this merge if it can retain reference to Odum and the significance he atributed to in the functioning of ecological systems as the '4th' principleSholto Maud 03:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
    If we have an article on Odum's principle, it should be separate from the one about electrical systems. The two are connected only by name and analogy. Gazpacho 04:09, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Huh? How is Maximum Power not Odum's work? Guettarda 03:29, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
      1. Odum did not discover the principle of maximum power transfer in electrical systems. That goes back at least to Thomas Edison.
      2. Odum also did not discover the laws for the rate of heat transfer. That is due to Fourier and Newton.
    • If you take those two away, what remains is little more than a redirect to maximum empower. Gazpacho 03:46, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep the article describes maximum power efficiency and maximum power transfer. Odum used such in his analysis, modeling and simulation of ecological systems, and proposed it as the 4th "principle". Widely regarded as the "father" of ecosystems ecology, Odum's work is historically relevant and notable. Sholto Maud 03:32, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
    He may have used it, but he certainly didn't invent it, at least as far as this article describes. Gazpacho 03:48, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • There is no claim that Odum invented it in the text. There is a claim that he proposed it as the fourth principle of energetics. If someone else proposed maximum power as the fourth princple of energetics before Odum, then this needs to be mentioned. Please include references to those people who have proposed that maximum power is the fourth principle of energetics (or thermodynamics) and then the article will be more relevant. Sholto Maud 03:57, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
    To clarify the point, I have removed the parts that have nothing to do with Odum. Gazpacho 04:15, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • It might be good for someone to give an example of the electronic circuits Odum used to model and demonstrate the maximum power efficiency in ecological systems. This might help clarify the confusion. Sholto Maud 04:02, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep now that I have removed the non-Odum bits, at Maximum power principle, with appropriate disambigs. Gazpacho 04:17, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete now that the core of Odum's work has been removed it is worth much less as an article. Sholto Maud 04:35, 1 December 2005 (UTC) (second or third vote by this user Gazpacho) Maybe I shouldn't vote on this. Sholto Maud 02:49, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
    This is silly. Are you saying that if Odum can't get credit for ideas that existed in their current form before he was born, as opposed to his original contributions, you don't want an article? Gazpacho 05:48, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • No. I'm saying that a key component of Odum's ideas was the application of the electronic understanding of maximum power efficiency to ecological systems. Thus the graph and table are key components to the article and an effective rendition of his approach. I am not saying that Odum should get credit for ideas that existed in their current form before he was born. He proposed that this should be considered a principle of energetics with wider application than electronics, that it could be applied in ecology. Sholto Maud 06:33, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
    If you want the article to discuss his version of the principle and how he applied it, add that. Gazpacho 18:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete until it gains acceptance by scientists in that field. -- Kjkolb 05:56, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • In the discussion page I report back that the previous edition had been given the ok by scientists in that field Sholto Maud 06:33, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • DeleteKeep(I don't know why I wrote delete) and rewrite this badly written article. Karol 05:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
comment Ok :). So. 1. It seems that the article on max power theorem could benefit the table and graph that used to be on the max power site. People happy if we put them on the max pow theorem in the section on efficiency? 2. This maximum power article could be deleted. 3. People criticised the article and the principles of energetics article because it did not properly refer to the history and development of the theorem. I notice that the maximum power theorem article has no historical discussion. It would benefit from this, with examples of applications. The history of the application, might be the best place to discuss Odum's use of the theorem and suggestion that it should be considered the 4th principle of energetics? How does that sound?Sholto Maud 07:24, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: to repeat in different words what I said in one of the other related AfDs: the immediate problem is that (as I guess) Sholto is not familiar with the physics literature, while Linas is not familiar with the ecology literature. The trouble is that almost no-one else is either! Linas: Sholto is right about Odum being notable as one of the fathers of ecology, and even about Odum's influential but questionable ideas which he is trying to describe in these articles being notable. Sholto: Linas is right that you have not written a good article even regarding a good summary of Odum's suggestions and later work in ecology, and he is even more right that to someone knowledgeable in physics, Odum's suggestions about energetics will appear rather cranky. The best solution would be for someone expert in ecology, information theory, and thermodynamics, to write much better versions of all these articles, but such a user will prove hard to find. Oh well, if nothing else at least this incident shows the value (and difficulty!) of breaking down barriers between disciplines. I suspect ecologists have more to benefit from a better understanding of thermodynamics and information theory than vice versa, but that it would be far easier to a smart physicist to read enough ecology to be able to speak the ecologists's language. Linas, if you want to spend some time, a very nice semipopular book is Paul Colinvaux, Why Big Fierce Animals are Rare, Princeton U Press, 1978 (also reprinted by a mass market publisher). After that, you would have to do a literature search in ecology and start sifting through literally hundreds of papers with the help of an abstracting service, then read the most relevant dozen or so. You also have to have studied a book like Cover & Thomas, Elements of Information Theory, Wiley, 1991.---CH 03:38, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, I guess I'm on the hook. Looks like Principles of energetics will survive the AfD, and so I shall take a shot at editing it so that it has what I might have expected to see there. I am also concerned about the technical content of emergy: it sounds more like a concept used economics, where there are explicit equations that can value an object today based on the value that its parts may have had some time in the past. Although I know I've seen such equations in the economics lit, I certainly wouldn't be able to name these equations. Again, my complaint is that emergy sounded like something the economists have already been working on for quite a very long time and even awarded each other nobel prizes for (e.g. the LTCM folks).linas 04:23, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment I would like to draw the courts attention to § 16.11 Generalized Treatment of Linear Systems Used for Power Production (in M.Tribus (1961) Thermostatics and Thermodynamics, Van Nostrand, University Series in Basic Engineering, p. 619). Tribus draws conclusions and variables about maximum power efficiency of thermodynamic steady state from an article by Odum, H.T. and Pinkerton, R.T., "Time's Speed Regulator," American Scientist, Vol. 43, No. 2, p. 331, Apr. 1955. Tribus seems to be referring to this as the founding article in the analysis of "peak power". Would anyone like to comment on the implications of this in terms of our discussion of the status of maximum power re: Odum and re: the laws of thermodynamics? Sholto Maud 11:19, 3 December 2005 (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.