Template talk:General relativity

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Contents 1 Re the picture question 2 Bug in wikicode? 3 Removing the category link from this template 4 Einstein equation or Einstein equations 5 Horizontal template?

[edit] Re the picture question

de:User:CorvinZahn can do GRT Ray Tracing. Perhaps we can ask him for something better than the NASA art which doesn't really fit.

Pjacobi 18:15, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that is a great idea! Those pictures are very cool, and despite my very limited German it's pretty easy to figure out what they are. –Joke137 18:28, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Corvin has uploaded a nice sample and I've inserted it in our template. Perhaps some cropping is called for. --Pjacobi 11:17, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bug in wikicode?

Hi all, this template is used in the "General relavity" article. This article happens to have a name which is shared by a category. Now take a look at the Category:general_relativity page. Note that several articles are listed under "asterisk" (before "A") and a few more are listed under "{" (after "Z"). I think this is a bug, yes? And I notice that the articles listed under "asterisk" correspond with the SUBTOPICS in this template. Can't see anything "special" about the two which wind up under "{". Any ideas what might be going on here? ---CH (talk) 09:33, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I can explain both. In brief, the astericks are my doing, while the "{" was due to a now-resolved bug in this template (which I should have posted some talk on yesterday when I found it but did not have time). Now the details:

The asterick entries are due to explicit category links in those pages. For example, the category link for general relativity is [[Category:General_relativity|*]]. This is called the "pipe trick". The "|" is called a "pipe" for historical/UNIX reasons. In a category link, instead of changing the displayed text (as for a normal link), it instead changes the text used to sort the entry in the category (which by default is the page name iteself). In the category, I wanted the core pages to appear first, as in done in other categories. In this template, I wanted them grouped together too, which is why they are subtopics of "general relativity".

In this template, there also is a category link reading [[Category:general_relativity|{{PAGENAME}}]]. Within a template, {{PAGENAME}} says to use the page name of the current entry (instead of the template name I guess). However, yesterday it read {{{PAGENAME}}}, which caused the inner braces to become part of the sorting text in the category. To remove this, the affected pages need to be editted so that they are resorted using the corrected template. (I started doing that, but as I mentioned above ran out of time before I could complete the job.) --EMS | Talk 15:17, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removing the category link from this template

I am removing the category link from this template. Instead of being an aid, it is a nuisance.

• Item: A bug in this template missorted a number of these entries (as noted above)
• Item: The black hole page, which is the main page for Category:black_holes is forced to also be part of Category:general_relativity. However, that is made reduntant because the "black hole" category is a subcategory of "general relativity". This also violates a Wikipedia rule that the main page for a category should only be part of one category, and that is the category that it is the main page of.
• Item: This category link is being overridden for the core pages, which I have chosen to sort differently than by their page name.

It seems to me that navigation and categorization are two different functions and should not be mixed up. I see templates without navigation where you want to know what pages use it. In that case having a category for those pages which is populated by the template's use is helpful. However, this is a different situation.

If there are pages in the template which lack an explicity link to the general relativity category or one of its subcategories, then that should be remedied in the page itself.

BTW - This type of phenomenon is one of the reasons I decided that I did not like Template:cosmology being included in the general relativity page. --EMS | Talk 15:36, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Einstein equation or Einstein equations

I, personally, use the singular because when written in tensorial form, as it usually is, it is only one equation. Besides, the page it links to is Einstein's field equation. –Joke 22:31, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I roll my eyes at that page being misnamed, and will see about getting that fixed soon. However, I need to have a redirect at the correct name deleted first. If you really want to make the artlcle titles consistent, then go ahead and revert my change out pending the title change to the EFE article. --EMS | Talk 05:58, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Horizontal template?

As ever with vertical-format templates - it's messing with the formating of some articles and it's always difficult to work images in around them - can we reformat to a horizontal? --Joopercoopers 13:24, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the vertical template makes things look awkward. Where would you have a horizontal template go - above the article? Below? Below the lead? --Markus Poessel 13:30, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the bottom of the article is the norm. --Joopercoopers 14:49, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

BTW is the equation listed at the top of the box anything to do with relativity or is it just used as a generic equation for all physics articles? --Joopercoopers 14:51, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah - it's the field equation - got it. --Joopercoopers 14:52, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Bottom would be OK. Even top would be OK with me, if the default is "hidden". I really like the box examples you and Awadewit posted on the "Introduction to gr" side, so yes, splendid, or, reverting to the local dialect, strong support for the idea. Many thanks for taking care of this. --Markus Poessel 15:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Afterthought: I don't know if EMS happens to have this page on his watchlist. From all I've seen, he's one of the reliable old relativity article hands around here, and apparently was involved with this template from (almost) the beginning, so it would be great if you could solicit his opinion before going forward with the change. I don't think he'll mind, but it would be courteous if you were to ask him directly. --Markus Poessel 16:00, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Markus, strong support. The template might be especially good at the bottom of the Intro to GR page, where it might act to draw readers into learning more, as in "but wait! there's more..." ;) If we put it at the top, I think it should be hidden by default, as Markus said, so that readers can dive right into the article. For flexibility with other pages and other editors who prefer the vertical mode, perhaps you could make the layout of the template tunable, by adding a "horizontal=yes" parameter or somesuch and then add a conditional to the template itself. Just a suggestion, Willow 19:08, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

That last bit is beyond my technical expertise I'm afraid Willow, unless you have the knowhow - I'll have a stab at creating a new page with the horizontal version - that way editors have the choice. (but there's a little more work updating both) --Joopercoopers 16:58, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

As long as I have been called on, I will comment a bit. Overall, this box started as a simple navigation tool based on template:physical cosmology, and to some extent the two have been developed in parallel. Part of the current problem is that it has grown quite a bit recently. If you go back to a previous version, yuo find a much smaller template that is much less disruptive.

At this point your options are to either shrink it back a ways so that it is less diruptive or change the format and move it to the bottom of the articles. For shrinking, the sections "Equations", "Advanced theories", and "Solutions" can be removed, with "Eintein Field Equations" and "Schwarzschild Solution" being moved up to "Key topics". A lot depends on where people want to go with this. Should this be a breif listing of the most important articles (in which case it is best being as a short, vertical, left-side box), or should it be a fairly comprehensive listing of the significant articles on the topic (in which case it becomes a larger listing kept in a horizontal box at the bottom of the articles)? --EMS | Talk 04:53, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I removed the vulgar vandalism from the template title. I think it's from the same ex-user that was banned by the admins here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.242.201.47 (talk) 03:28, 11 May 2008 (UTC)