Talk:Energy/Archive 4

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1 Do you really want to recreate the old Energy article under the guise of a disambiguation page?
2 History disambig
3 Wikipedia:Content forking
4 We need one article on the scientific view of Energy
5 Everything in the universe is either matter or energy
6 Why are the physicists so paranoid?
7 What's going on here?
8 User:Hallenrm
9 Opening image vote
10 Proposed structure for all energy articles
- 10.1 Energy in 68 other languages

[edit] Do you really want to recreate the old Energy article under the guise of a disambiguation page?

Perhaps it is inevitable, but the addition of explanatory text to this disambiguation page is beginning to change it into an unnecessary and redundant re-incarnation of the old "Energy" article (before it was subdivided). Is that really what you guys want? Let us remove the overview text and keep this just a list of pointers! JRSpriggs 08:00, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

On the other hand, we need an article-length peice on Energy in the natural sciences and technology which covers all the topics seen here collected under "energy and technology" and which was something like the old "Energy in physics" before it got too long. It could have as "main articles" for each section, all of the articles you see in that category here.

Why do we need an intermediate length article on "real" energy? Because there needs to be some introductory article to the transformations of that sort of energy which is quantified in joules, whether in the natural or biological sciences or in technology. There's a certain sweeping story of how that kind of energy makes the universe work, which has really (by now) been totally butchered and distributed among subarticles, on energy in the sciences and technologies. So the story is really gone. If you want to read about how initial Big Bang energy, together with newly created space and quantum states to expand into, makes the universe run-- i.e., how the low entropy energy showed up at universe creation, and it is even now stored and filtered and suddenly released to give us all the phenomena that makes stuff "go," even now-- THEN you have to read all those subarticles. Too long. But now, there's no other choice. S B H arris 20:13, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Not that this is a vote, but I agree with this. Robert K S 20:22, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'd take a stab at writing such a thing, but if I have to work against the blowing winds of various editors who've been responsible for carving this up to now, I won't bother. It's not worth the reversion wars. S B H arris 20:30, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Which is why the various editors--actually only one--need to sit on their hands and let others have a chance for a change. Robert K S 09:33, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History disambig

I just clicked on this page and found it with one sentence, so I wrote a quick history overview, without first looking at the talk page or knowing that it was a disambig. Anyway, the history section gives the reader a good springboard with which to dig into the numerous related links. --Sadi Carnot 17:35, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Content forking

From the content forking page: "The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major Points of View on a certain subject should be treated in one article. Hence, whoever decided to change this page into a disambig was doing so in opposition to good encyclopedia writing protocol. Both Encarta and Britannica, for example, have overview articles on energy. Basically, we need to have at least the top 10 uses of the term "energy" defined on this page in the form of stubby header sections with "see main" links above each overview paragraph. The average reader isn't going to know how to wade through all the various links as they are now. --Sadi Carnot 09:24, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

As the document to which you referred says "Sometimes, when an article gets long, a section of the article is made into its own article, and the handling of the subject in the main article is condensed to a brief summary. This is completely normal Wikipedia procedure; the new article is sometimes called a "spinout" or "spinoff" of the main article, see for example wikipedia:summary style, which explains the technique.". Articles which are too long must be subdivided. JRSpriggs 11:44, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

JR, Wikipedia:Summary style does not say that article which are too long must be "disambiged" it says they must be made "summary style", i.e. short summary paragraphs need to accompany each "see main" redirect. See: entropy and thermodynamics for examples. This page will need to be de-disambiged in the future. --Sadi Carnot 22:13, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Please remember what happened. First, the sections which did not deal with physics were separated into articles such as Energy (chemistry). So far so good. Then Hallenrm (talk · contribs) decided to move the main article to Energy (physics) (perhaps this was an error?). This left a redirect at Energy. I realized that there were many articles which had equal claim to the name "Energy" and that this would result, sooner or later, in "Energy" being made into a disambiguation page. So anticipating the inevitable, I converted it to a disambiguation page myself and added many links. Then it grew like mad on its own, confirming my belief that a disambiguation page was needed. JRSpriggs 07:44, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

To Sadi Carnot: If you really think that this should be undone, I would suggest that the proper procedure would be to propose a merger of Energy (physics) back into Energy using the merger template. Otherwise, perhaps you should consider moving the history section which you created from this article to the Energy (physics) article or make it a separate article (if History of energy does not already exist) and link to it from here. JRSpriggs 08:22, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I really like the idea put forth by JRSpriggs of creating another article "History of energy", and moving the content of the subsection History on the present disambiguation page to that article. Let us leave a disambiguation page as the MoS recommends it to be.Hallenrm 03:52, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] We need one article on the scientific view of Energy

All the other aspects of the scientific view of energy which once formed part of a great article ( See the last combined version) are now languishing in orphaned and almost meaningless isolation ( See Energy (Earth science) as an example. We need to bring them back together into one article , something under a name like Energy (science) , or Energy in science. We don’t want to perpetuate the idea that they are somehow different things. - Lumos3 23:15, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I welcome the idea of creating a fresh article, may be Energy (science) to integrate the idea of Energy in Science. As regards the Lomos3 comments, I really cannot comprehend what he means when he says "All the other aspects of the scientific view of energy which once formed part of a great article ( See the last combined version) are now languishing in orphaned and almost meaningless isolation."

The content is very much there, just a mouse click away, or is he very lazy for that, but then he must be equally lazy to scroll down a lengthy article!Hallenrm 03:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The point is to give a view that energy is a single unified concept across all the sciences. At the moment the approach is very nineteenth century. Accusations of laziness cheapen the argument. Lumos3 17:01, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

But the fact is technology has much advanced since ninteenth century, therefore the format of nineteenth century (a long all inclusive article) is not what is most appropriate for wikipedia, which is on the Internet and not a printed documentHallenrm 17:38, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

The nineteenth century was an era of fragmented sciences each working in their own patch. The unification of the concept of energy allows us to see that all sciences are part a joined up universe. We do our readers a diservice by obscuring this essential fact. I believe we must have a unifying article called Energy (science) , which brings it all together. Lumos3 08:32, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I heartily support this perspective. But here's a question. Don't all the other sciences' concept of energy resolve to the physics concept? And thus shouldn't the unifying article be Energy (physics)? And how would this article differ from the Energy article prior to the "grand redesign" commenced by Hallenrm circa May 1, 2007? Robert K S 10:35, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, all the natural and biological sciences' concepts of "energy" resolve to the physics concept, which is the main reason why there needs to be a unifying article for all the different areas where they talk about energy as measured in "joules" and it shouldn't just be in the energy (physics) article. Q: How would this differ from the original energy article before Hallenrm got after it? Well, the all the non-joule "energy" stuff, including definitions of energy as anything but work*distance, would be gone. And it might be shorter, as the various sub-science sections were getting long, and now can be dealt with as summaries, with a "main" article direct for each one, to the subscience specific article that exists now. In any case, I see Sadi Carnot has agreed to attempt the task, and I'll help where I can. S B H arris 02:19, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Everything in the universe is either matter or energy

Just to forewarn everybody on this page, I plan on doing a full-rewrite on this page, so that Wikipedia as a decent approximately 32kb article on energy, on all the main topics, not just energy (physics). I will write it similar in style (header and section-size wise) to that of the thermodynamics article, which is the science of energy transformations. I’m short on time presently, but unless someone else does for me, I will then do it. I would appreciate outline suggestions below. I hope we can all work together on this. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 17:20, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

That's great! 221.190.2.230 00:34, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, go for it. Cover all fields where energy is defined and measured in joules, and ignore the rest, which is now covered elsewhere, and available on disambig. Use the (now) fragmented science articles as your "main" directs for subsections. Energy (science) is fine as a working title, but that sort of leaves out science energy (in joules) as used in technology, industry, commerce (i.e. the U.S. uses 13 terajoules a year now, of which 9.4 is from fossil fuels). Thoughts? S B H arris 02:25, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for the encouragement. It seems to be a new user who created this situation by moving the energy page to energy (physics). To give an idea of the problem this creates, I just happened to have started Willard Gibbs’ 1876 magnum opus On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances, a graphical analysis of multi-phase chemical systems. Gibbs is described by Wilhelm Ostwald as the "founder of chemical energetics". The opening sentence to this treatise is: “The comprehension of the laws which govern any material system is greatly facilitated by considering the energy and entropy of the system in the various states of which it is capable.” Here we see the problem. Energy is currently linked to a disambig page, whereas entropy goes to a full article. In any event, it will probably take me a few more weeks until I have a full day available to dig into this project. To clarify, I will be using this page, i.e. “energy”, to write the article, not energy (science) as Lumos3 and SBHarris suggest. I will put extraneous links at energy (disambiguation). I will use the entropy article and thermodynamics articles as role models along with Britannica’s 1911 articles on energy and energetics as good templates. Put a desired section or page outline below if you have one. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 00:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I predict you'll have problems with the same editor who moved energy to energy (physics), since what you're proposing is basically to undo that change, by moving a lot of the energy (physics) content back to THIS page, as well as the other science and tech uses. That's all fine with me (Gibbs wasn't refering to musical energy or aura/prana/chi energy anyway), and I'd like the scientific definition to be the default one, and the others to be "refer to disambig". Not everybody agrees, however. Anyway, no need to start from scratch. The original energy article (for example [1]) had a lot of good perspective and info in it, before the meaning-expanders and pruners and disarticulators got hold of it.S B H arris 06:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Hallen will conform. This is not Hallenpedia. One thing I will attempt to do differently is to keep this page as light as possible in overview-style, shuttling any lengthy derivations and equations to subsidiary pages. In this manner, we can have a nice overview on energy, from the various sub-branches, thus giving the new article room to grow. Talk soon: --Sadi Carnot 00:19, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I've been watching this article disintegrate from the sidelines—I haven't the knowledge to contribute anything useful—so I'm pleased to see that Sadi Carnot plans to put it back together again. Best of luck!--Old Moonraker 21:52, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Moonraker, energy is one of my favorite topics. In the last few months, for instance, I bought Crosbie Smith's 1998 The Science of Energy - a Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain as well as Vaclav Smil's 1999 Energies - an Illustrated Guide to the Biosphere and Civilization. Talk soon: --Sadi Carnot 00:23, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why are the physicists so paranoid?

Looking at the above discussion, I can see that the physicists editors on the wikipedia, atleast the people participating in the above discussion are really paranoid? After all, what are they grudging about when they indeed have a full article dealing with energy in physics. I think, I have an answer, they want to dominate any article on energy, and that is the reason why scientist editors of other desciplines seldom contributed to the other article, because the number of physicists editors outnumber and try to dominate. The main advantage of the present form of energy page, is that it gives space to all sectore of human endaveour that deals with energy. Can, dear Sadi Carnot ever cover all these aspects in a single article of 32k. Let him. come up with an article that gets critical acclaim from all the scientist editors, and not just the disgrunted few who participated in the above discussion, only then hi should try to change the present formatHallenrm

What did I tell you, Sadi? Look, Hallenrm, you had your way with the old energy article, and have now managed to fragment it into nothing more than a fancy disambiguation page, with no page now which covers and summarizes the many uses of scientific energy, which is the kind of thing many/most readers will want (and an article on science-energy such as every enclyclopedia has, except this one). So leave us alone to do it, Hallenrm. You've done your damage, and I for one am very tired of reading your comments here which mostly contain insults (including the one above), and of dealing with your extensive deletions of other people's work. Sadi and Robert and I are going to ArbCom and make the case that you should be blocked from editing this particular article, if you persist in this kind of disruption. S B H arris 21:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Hallen, the more you talk, the worse it gets. Take a Wikibreak and come back when you're cooled off. --Sadi Carnot 00:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What's going on here?

Why are there two disambig pages, Energy and Energy (disambiguation). And why isn't the article Energy (physics) not here, as it would be in any real encyclopedia? --Pjacobi

Yes, there are two disambig pages. A new user did this. Ridiculous isn't it? That's what I said when I got here. Anyway, I have volunteered to re-write the page, unless someone does it before me. I'll contact everyone, when I begin to dig in. Talk soon: --Sadi Carnot 00:11, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

There's only one disambiguation page, Energy (disambiguation). This article is a valid link target, as an encyclopedic article about energy. It may (and probably does) need cleanup, and is getting it. -- JHunterJ 21:48, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's not getting it at the moment, due to the intransigence of a single editor. Every one of the editors on this page, and also those editing energy (physics), which is where much of the material on this page was ultimately moved (along with putting dabs in various other science pages) feels that energy should direct primarily to a page which summarizes science-based uses of the word, and everything else should go to the disambiguation page. One editor disagrees. That's where we're stuck. S B H arris 22:00, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it's more a list than a disambig, but for sure it isn't an article. For comparison look at the Energy article in other languages' Wikipedias. --Pjacobi 22:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm in agreement with the editors who think that the physics topic should be at the base name. I'm only here, however, after the disambig-cleanup tag was placed; the list of energy types with gallery and stub-like text wasn't a disambig. So I split off the stuff that was a disambig. Getting the correct article here needs an merge or move. -- JHunterJ 22:06, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

JH, I’m going to do the whole thing, as I have said. There’s not going to be any merge or move. We have to be proactive with our current situation, i.e. make the best out of it. In other words, I will use concise chunks of other articles (the main ones listed here), add a few new references, etc., and streamline a nice “overview-style” energy article. Then we can all let it grow again, while keeping the more rigorous equations and technical details sidelined on focused pages. --Sadi Carnot 00:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

If it can be done as a distinct article, that'd be great. I'm not a subject-matter expert, so I'm having a hard time envisioning it as other than the Energy (physics) page. But we (you, since I'm not going to be editing this one) don't have to make the best of what's here; the move and merge processes are in place to handle disruptions like this without having to re-invent the wheel (unless you want to, or are inventing a different thing altogether). -- JHunterJ 00:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, JH you are missing the big picture. Hallen has pawned off a lot of material to subpages, e.g. energy (physics), energy (biology) (the correct article is biological thermodynamics (which I wrote)), energy (chemistry) (the correct article is chemical thermodynamics (which I wrote)), energy (earth science) (the correct article would be geological thermodynamics (which I own two textbooks on)), etc. Basically, the whole thing is a big mess and is going to require more than a simple merge tag. Thanks for the words of encouragement. Talk soon: --Sadi Carnot 01:23, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I’m also going to have to do a merge of psychic energy (Freud’s term) and energy (psychological) (the same topic) to psychological energy (a more modern term), or something similar. --Sadi Carnot 01:48, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Sadi, all I see is, that you are effectively destroying the readability of Wikipedia by fragment the topic into way too many articles. --Pjacobi 08:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Pjacobi, you are misunderstood. I just arrived at this page a few day ago. It was a new novice editor: User: Hallenrm, that turned the original 40-50 kb energy article into a disambig page. I haven’t done anything to the page. As you see it, is basically how I found it when I got here. You might want to review Talk:Energy (physics) and this and here to get a clearer picture of what’s going on here. Later: --Sadi Carnot 12:18, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Hallenrm

Hallenrm, I see that you are the one who is causing all the problems here. I suggest you take a Wikibreak, for at least two weeks, from editing. Come back with a clear head and then work with us. Again this is a community project. Talk soon: --Sadi Carnot 00:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree with above. S B H arris 00:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Opening image vote

I still won't be able to do a full dig into the article for a bit, but in the mean time maybe we can vote on a good intro pic to use for the new article to represent all the related energy articles equally? Please visit: Wikipedia:Commons or upload a free-content image if you have one. I have put the previous gallery on a sub-page (Talk:Energy/Photo-gallery) for the moment. --Sadi Carnot 08:26, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I replaced the boring solar panel pic with a new pic (the sunflower, with its encompassing caption) and put the old pic in: Talk:Energy/Photo-gallery. We can always replace it if there is some big disagreement. --Sadi Carnot 11:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed structure for all energy articles

I suggest we come up with and agree on a proposal for the structure for all of the Energy articles. Get a consensus and then implement it.

My proposal would be:

Energy redirects to Energy (science) with a note at the head pointing to Energy (disambiguation)
Energy (science) is a general review of energy across all sciences.
Energy (physics) is a more detailed expansion of the physics point of view

Energy (biology)etc. These articles are mostly summaries and do not support separate articles. They become part of the Energy (science) overview.

Articles on Specific named forms of energy retain their independent status as articles linked as appropriate from all the above.

Comments please. Lumos3 08:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Energy in science is the same as energy in physics. The scientific definition of energy coincedes with the defintion in physics. --Pjacobi 08:52, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Lumos, you seem to be missing the point: energy is going to be the main article. See the other countries (below) to compare. This is a no-brainer. --Sadi Carnot 09:03, 12 June 2007 (UTC)