Talk:Proximity effect

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Almost any phenomenon which describes two disparate objects coming together could be described as a "proximity effect." Thus combustion could be described as a proximity effect between paper and flame. Clearly this usage is artificial and silly. I believe that this article should only describe phenomena that are commonly called "proximity effect" by scientists. Therefore I removed the section that described magnetic induction as a proximity effect: no one describes a transformer as a proximity effect device! Similarly I question whether there is a real PE in atomic physics. The acoustic proximity effect sounds real to me. I created a section on the superconducting effect, which is the only context in which I've heard the term used. -- Alison Chaiken 19:48, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

None of my books on atomic physics list "proximity effect" in the appendix. I did my PhD thesis on the Casimir effect, and never heard of it called a proximity effect. Unless a reference is cited, I'd call that section "original research". linas 22:40, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
Do you agree then that we should remove the section on atomic physics? Also, if this article is still a stub, what content is it missing? I could write more about the superconducting proximity effect but it's hard to know what the person who labelled it a stub had in mind. Alison Chaiken 03:08, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
I certainly won't complain about removing the atomic physics section. (although I'm changing my mind as I write this, see below). Although the section on sound is "stubby", the article doesn't otherwise meet the criteria for a "true stub". The section on superconducting proximity could/should be split out into its own article, say proximity effect in superconductors or something like that.
On the other hand, I suppose there could be room in WP for a general essay on "proximity in physics", which would list all of the various effects that are associated with short distances. If such an article made it clear that the Van der Waals force was "the result of proximity", rather than a "proximity effect", I would have no complaint. Ahh, the subtleness of language ... I'd add to the list the idea of the tunneling of light: the total internal reflection of light, and how it can be defeated by means of tunneling, by placing another piece of glass in close proximity. It could be fun to read about all of the effects of this sort, even if none of them are ever called "proximity effects" by the mainstream.
Thus, perhaps we should change the wording on the opening paragraph to state that there are many effects due to proximity, but few that are called "proximity effects", and then allow for the article to grow in various ways ...
Hmmm. Let me free-associate ... I wonder if there is any sort of generic mathematical study of proximity. I'm thinking about van der Waals ... Say one took two Hilbert spaces and coupled them weakly; what can we say generically about the changes to the energy levels? Weakly coupled classical oscillators are often known to be chaotic; what general statements can be said about the quantized system? In scattering theory, one bounces two hilbert spaces off of one-another at high energies, i.e. brief periods. Here, its almost the opposite: what happens when I adiabatically bring together two systems? Hmmm. Its not an uninteresting topic. linas 06:34, 26 December 2005 (UTC)


I think proximity effect regarding coils belongs in this article. It's a real issue that coil designers deal with, so it's an engineering issue more than scientific, but it still falls into the category of physics. How about a section title "proimity effect in induction"? Rtdrury 16:56, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Rtdrury writes: "How about a section title "proimity effect in induction"?" The answer is, there was such a section, but I removed it. I wasn't trying to be arbitrary or contrary, just making the point that the proximity effect article should only be phenomena called "proximity effect" by scientists, not about arbitrary effects caused by objects being close to each other. If every effect caused by proximity is discussed in the article, it will end up looking more like a grab-bag of unrelated, unscientific observations than an encyclopedia article. The bottom line is, I have never heard anyone use the term "proximity effect" to describe induction. Have you? Alison Chaiken 17:30, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Proximity effect is a term used by coil designers. Like the skin effect and eddy currents, it is an energy loss mechanism, a significant engineering issue. I agree that there is separation between the scientific and engineering contexts. I'll start a new article. I'll name it proximity effect (coils). Will that satisfy you? Sorry, but I can't make the whole coil engineering community change their terminology.

Rtdrury 19:01, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that anyone change their terminology, just suggesting that we don't add irrelevant stuff to the article. I now think that you are correct about induction and will revert the induction section that I removed before. My apologies. Alison Chaiken 21:39, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
One or more references to books or articles describing coil design, and mentioning the effect under this name would help tremendously in avoiding confusion of this sort. linas 04:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Nice addition, Rtdrury. I'd move the Terman reference to the end just to use standard formatting. Alison Chaiken 20:33, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

"Proximity effect in Music" - shouldn't this be changed to "Proximity effect in Audio"? I don't think microphones know the difference. ;-) Also, I've never seen it applied to anything but directional microphones. Can anyone site an example proximity effect and speakers? Sun sound 06:24, 3 June 2006 (UTC).

I have not heard of the proximity effect for speakers and would not expect it based on my understanding of how it works in audio. I have rewritten the audio section of the article to explain my understanding of how the proximity effect works in directional microphones.--Jack Cartland 18:32, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

My headphones get great bass response next to my ears, further away, none. Thats just how soundwaves propogate. Induction proximity effect should link to induction or crosstalk.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.32.239.181 (talk • contribs) 18:50, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split suggestion

On March 6, 2007, User:Mikkalai marked this page for cleanup per MoS:DAB and suggested that this page should be split into several sections because there are many completely different topics and this was bad for categorization. I have put up {{split}} now to make his suggestion more obvious. I'm not familiar with the topic of Proximity effect; I cleanup a lot of dab pages though, and I would turn this page into the main disambiguation page and link from here to all the other (new) articles. So the question is before I go ahead: is there anyone who disagrees? (I'd wait some time before I begin.) – sgeureka t•c 13:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for proceeding with the split. One question: should we agree on the titles of the individual articles before the split, or can that be easily fixed later?Ccrrccrr 23:06, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Moving the pages to the right name wouldn't be a big problem, although it's probably right to think about that beforehand. I would have used Proximity effect (atomic physics), Proximity effect (electromagnetism), Proximity effect (electron beam lithography), Proximity effect (audio) and Proximity effect (superconductivity) as recommended in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision). If someone can shorten the precision names even more, please state them here. – sgeureka t•c 06:35, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
The suggested names look good to me.Ccrrccrr 20:59, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
In the meantime, another experienced dab editor has removed the {{disambig}} tag. According to Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Summary_or_multi-stub_pages, that's right for now, but I think that all sections of this page are long enough (except the "In atomic physics" section obviously) and can be split off into their own articles, especially if these topics are really independant. I'll be away for a week and see whether someone else has formed a strong opinion one way or another. Then I'd go ahead with splitting. – sgeureka t•c 21:48, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I almost forgot about this page. I've decided to leave it alone for now. If someone still wants to split it, use the names/links above. If someone doesn't want a split for whatever reason, delete the {{split}} template on the main page. – sgeureka t•c 20:49, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi Karl2620, I'm just now seperating the topics into their own pages and about to put a redirect to Proximity effect (disambiguation). Any problems?? Kallog 10:21, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks great! Thanks very much for doing the job--and for the other recent contributions to the electromagnetism one. I've tried to update a few of references to proximity effect in other articles as well. Ccrrccrr 13:07, 8 July 2007 (UTC)