Talk:B. Roy Frieden
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[edit] Copied from VfD discussion
155 Google hits for "B. R. Frieden Tucson." Looks like original research as well. Another vanity article I couldn't let pass by. - Lucky 6.9 22:49, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Keep: I don't understand mathematics beyond division, so I haven't a clue about whether the article is accurate, but the problem here seems to be in the article's name. B. Roy Frieden turns up a lot of hits. B.R. Frieden virtually none. Further, the B. Roy Frieden looks entirely consistent with the article's description of him. I can't say that it's significant or not, but he does have the Fischer chair, etc. Geogre 02:17, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Keep. Frieden's "Extreme Physical Information" theory has gotten a certain amount of press. From skimming some websites and newsgroups, it seems to be considered interesting and not crankery. See for example this skeptical book review [1]. The article as it stands is a promo piece, certainly written by Frieden himself (try a reverse DNS lookup on 150.135.248.126). Move to cleanup for NPOV-ification, which might be hard but oh well. Wile E. Heresiarch 07:32, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Also the article should be renamed to Extreme physical information theory or something; it's the theory that gets any press -- Frieden himself is not otherwise notable. Wile E. Heresiarch 07:34, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Works for me. It was the self-promotional tone and the whacked-out Google search that threw me. Clean and rename. - Lucky 6.9 08:56, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Comment: Looks like another article came in from the same proxy. See Extreme physical information. I'm far from a mathmetician, but this could use a look from someone who knows the subject. - Lucky 6.9 19:12, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Comment number two: Wile was right about the proxy. It's from the University of Arizona. - Lucky 6.9 19:14, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- The article needs a lot of cleanup/attention, but EPI is a real (if unlikely) physical theory; Frieden has 39 papers in the Scitation index[2], and other writers cite his work at least occasionally. It's a well-known enough theory that people would reasonably want to look it up- keep. -FZ 13:17, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Also delete B Roy Frieden - This is a new attempt to recreate the vanity page under a new title. User acknowledged it is his (and his name) on Wikipedia:Help desk. - Tεxτurε 20:34, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
end moved discussion
[edit] B. Roy Frieden's anonymous POV-pushing edits
B. Roy Frieden claims to have developed a "universal method" in physics, based upon Fisher information. He has written a book about this. Unfortunately, while Frieden's ideas initially appear interesting, Frieden's work is highly controversial:
- Binder, Philippe M. (2000). "Physics from Fisher Information: A Unification (a review)". American Journal of Physics 68: 1064-1065.
- Kibble, T. W. B. (1999). "Physics from Fisher Information: A Unification (a review)". Contemporary Physics 40: 1999. (the reviewer has some positive comments but concludes that Frieden's work is "misguided")
- Case, James (2000). "An Unexpected Union---Physics and Fisher Information". SIAM News July 17. eprint (highly favorable)
- Matthews, Robert (1999). "Physics and Fisher Information (a review)". New Scientist January. unauthorized electronic reprint
- Physics from Fisher Information: A Unification (a review) from Cosma Shalizi (Computer Science, University of Michigan) (highly critical)
- Physics from Fisher Information (a review) from R. F. Streater (Mathematics, Kings College, London) (highly critical)
- Physics from Fisher Information thread from sci.physics.research, May 1999 (mostly critical)
- Fisher Information - Frieden unification Of Physics thread from sci.physics.research, October 1999 (mostly critical)
User:Lucky 6.9 was dead right about WP:VAIN. Note that Frieden is Prof. Em. of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona. The data.optics.arizona.edu anon has used the following IPs to make a number of questionable edits:
- 150.135.248.180 (talk · contribs)
- 20 May 2005 confesses to being Roy Frieden in real life
- 6 June 2006: adds cites of his papers to Extreme physical information
- 23 May 2006 adds uncritical description of his own work in Lagrangian and uncritically cites his own controversial book
- 22 October 2004 attributes the uncertainty principle to the Cramer-Rao inequality, which is potentially misleading
- 21 October 2004 adds uncritical mention of his controversial claim that the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution can be obtained via his "method"
- 21 October 2004 adds uncritical mention of his controversial claim that the Klein-Gordon equation can be "derived" via his "method"
- 150.135.248.126 (talk · contribs)
- 9 September 2004 adds uncritical description of his work to Fisher information
- 8 September 2004 adds uncritical description of his highly dubious claim that EPI is a general approach to physics to Physical information
- 16 August 2004 confesses IRL identity
- 13 August 2004 creates uncritical account of his work in new article, Extreme physical information
- 11 August 2004 creates his own wikibiostub
These POV-pushing edits should be modified to more accurately describe the status of Frieden's work.---CH 21:54, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
For the record: subsequent to my protest, B. Roy Frieden created a user account as noted above. I have exchanged some polite emails with him and he feels that his second book (which I plan to examine) overcomes objections raised by myself and other critiques regarding his first book. We have more or less agreed to reopen the discusssion in sci.physics.research once I have obtained his second book.---20:55, 11 July 2006 (UTC)