![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
This is an idea I've been thinking about for a while, and has been brought back to my mind by the discussion above. I'm considering setting up a new wiki site which would allow the creation and continuous updating of reviews of scientific topics. It would work in a similar way to Wikipedia, but would be aimed mainly at scientists. I've put a bit more detail on the idea on my user page. What do people here think to the idea? Mike Peel 19:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I direct your attention to the nonsense below. None of these people are practicing science. What they are practicing is scientific censorship, social conformity, name calling, arrogance, ignorance, and irresponsibility. -- Ron Marshall 21:30, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
I direct the attention of those interested to cold fusion and its talk page. This was a featured article, but is no longer that, nor is it a good article as of this July. The featured article version is here. It seems to me that this degradation is due to a severe pro- cold fusion bias, which I've commented on and have, to some extent, attempted to remove. I'd like to virtually remove 3/4ths of the article: I don't think that the content under the heading "Arguments in the controversy", essentially a giant argument for and against - but mostly for - cold fusion, belongs where it now is. I hesitate because I expect extreme backlash from pro-cf editors. Commentary on the article and my actions is requested. –M T 09:33, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Indeed. Best to just leave it to rot and devote your energies to an area where progress can be made. But if you really want to try, then best of luck to you! Who knows, maybe one day someone will come along with sufficient knowledge and infinite patience to make a reasonable article of it. – Joke 14:53, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes, in principle I'm not in favor of letting articles rot either. But SCZenz has identified what the issue on cold fusion is. Lately, my opinion is that there is SO MUCH work to be done with the physics articles, and so few people doing it, that it is best to focus on low-lying fruit. Or at least fruits that don't bite. – Joke 18:04, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
There's what seems to be a pre- dispute resolution vote at Talk:Cold_fusion#Survey. –M T 03:50, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Here is my proposal to deal with this debacle. Let's establish, by consensus within the project, a set of guidelines for referencing physics articles in Wikipedia. Then, at least, we will have a set of clear guidelines and an established consensus to refer to if we start having problems with WP:GA and WP:FA. I think if we write a reasonable set of guidelines, which respect WP:V and WP:CITE, we'll get little argument from the vast majority of the people over there.
I have already written a proposal, available here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Citation guidelines proposal. It definitely has a whiff of the first draft about it (some sentences seem pretty tortured), but I'm confident we can bang it into something that is clear and concise. Here is my proposal:
I've tried to write the guidelines in such a way that they don't apply just to physics, although the examples are (by necessity) taken from articles I'm familiar with.
I'll also go over to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics and ask the people there for input. Perhaps we can have joint guidelines, since they seem to be having a similar issue. – Joke 16:51, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Hi all,
Photon was promoted to a Feature Article yesterday -- yeay! :) Lots of editors and reviewers contributed to its success, both directly and indirectly, and they all deserve our thanks and appreciation. Good job, you all! :) It was wonderful to see how people could rise above the edit wars that prevailed only a month ago and constructively make a cool article, using their different perspectives as a strength.
The Physics WikiProject now has five featured articles, leaving only — ummmm — 527 important articles left to go. Unfortunately, our present rate of ~1 FA/year seems a little depressing — and surprising, given the many smart, articulate people here. We as a group should at least be able to match the output of one user, e.g., Tim Vickers of the Biochemistry WikiProject, who is now producing one FA every ~2 weeks, mostly by himself. (Don't kid yourself, enzymology is not fluff!)
I'm a newbie and usually pretty clueless, so I totally believe that I'm not seeing the whole picture. My intuition is merely that we're not doing as well as we could, and I don't understand why. For example, are we spending too much time policing bogus physics? How can we foster the writing of articulate, encyclopedic articles about physics? I don't want to make waves, but this seems like a topic that concerns us all and warrants serious discussion. Willow 01:24, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
"Random walk through quality space" — funny, but also painfully true. Instead of a random walk, we need more of a ratchet, which can occasionally slip backwards, but mainly moves forwards. Do you all find that an FA article with lots of scientific references deters vandals, etc. more than a poorly organized/referenced article? If so, we might diminish physics vandalism by generating more FA articles; it might be non-linear in our favor. ;)
The Count's "Adopt a future Featured Article" approach seems like a great idea, at least complementary to article improvement drives. At the Biochemistry WikiProject, I usually find that I don't know enough to really contribute to the particular article chosen for improvement. :( So we might get more featured articles faster if we could each choose an article to take under our wings and shepherd to FA (or perhaps in pairs as the Count suggests, a "buddy system").
That said, we might want to agree to help each other out as a community. The Photon article benefited a lot from the input of many physicists. Moreover, we might want to coordinate our response in case there are unconstructive edit wars or whatnot.
I think Tim is so successful because he shows extraordinary focus on one article at a time and brings his articles to very high standards before moving on to the next. His concentration also inspires other good people to join in and help. What do other people think — a good model to emulate for physics? Willow 14:59, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
I just added a "Comments" option to the Template:Physics, where we can see who's adopted what article. You can see an example on Talk:Photon. (Hopefully, I didn't mess up the template too much!) The other articles seem a little high for me — maybe I'll try my hand at Classical mechanics instead? — Preceding unsigned comment added by WillowW ( talk • contribs)
Oops, how embarrassing! I decided to adopt Kinematics instead, since that is the basis for all classical mechanics. Although it's not as cool as Photon, hopefully we can bring it to FA status. This time I remembered ;) → Willow 18:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
An article with this title was deleted in June I think. Nothing links to it.Could people have a look at it? I'm on wikibreak and fly back to Australia from London tomorrow so I have no time to do more. -- Bduke 09:12, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
User:Iantresman has started a request for arbitration members of this project may wish to comment on WP:RfArb#Pseudoscience_vs_Pseudoskepticism. -- ScienceApologist 12:29, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Found this one today...it needs help (I'm doing a bit of helping, but I really don't feel like reading arXiv preprints about a theory in which I take no interest). Or maybe it needs getting rid of. Does Wikipedia need an article on this "quantum aether theory"? Byrgenwulf 15:19, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Regarding "Foundations of Physics": this is a semi-respectable journal. I believe it has an explicit charter to publish the crankier, more outlandish, more obscure, more problematic authors, authors who would find publication difficult or impossible in the mainstream journals e.g. phys rev. This is not to say that everyone who publishes there is a crank: there have been some very reputable authors who have published there, and the editorial board is filled with luminaries. However, its not hard to find papers that claim Einstein was wrong about the speed of light, etc. in that journal. Caveat emptor. linas 03:44, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
The following appear to be IRL one Gerhard Grössing, who says he is a phycisist in Vienna, and the creator of the so-called "quantum cybernetics", which appears to be very obscure:
The contribs, location, and nature of the edits all support this conclusion. Thus, this article appears vio WP:VAIN, and since I can find no evidence of anyone other than the author discussing this theory in the research literature, it may vio WP:RS- WP:NOR as well. --- CH 23:35, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Here. Byrgenwulf 12:19, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Talk:Jack_Sarfatti#undue_weight And I quote:
-- GangofOne 22:16, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I've created {{ atomic-physics-stub}} / ‹The template Category link is being considered for merging.› Category:atomic, molecular, and optical physics stubs and {{ thermodynamics-stub}} / ‹The template Category link is being considered for merging.› Category:thermodynamics stubs, per earlier discussion here and at WP:WSS/P. I've not yet populated them, but there's lists of candidate stubs, on the basis of category membership, at User:Alai/Atomic and User:Alai/Thermo. If someone with some knowledge of these areas could have a look at these, and check for "false positives", that'd be a help. (If they're largely OK, I can stub-sort them by bot.) Alai 15:04, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Since this topic provoked some comments earlier, I thought it would be worth posting another link to The n-Category Café. New Scientist has, it appears, reacted to whatever flak they received about their shoddy EmDrive reportage. Anville 19:05, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pseudoscience#Monitoring continued problematic activity by permabanned users. TIA for your feedback! --- CH 02:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Cold fusion controversy has been proposed for deletion, apropos this comment by Jefffire replying to Pjacobi. Anville 15:59, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I know people around here would rather be working on actual physics than dealing with yet another brushfire, and I'm equally sure that someone will accuse me of "soliciting votes" for posting this. No matter; you're welcome to ignore it, as always!
To sum up, Byrgenwulf has opened a Request for Comment on the conduct of Asmodeus, here. This business stretches back to that fracas back in the summer about the twice-deleted CTMU. Anville 18:10, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi guys: I just created {{ dist}}, which makes distance unit conversions very easy. You might want to check it out. — Mets501 ( talk) 16:29, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm busy rewriting Heim theory, I'm doing that offline. Within a few days I'm going to upload a version that the pro-Heim lobby probably won't like. So, I need your help to revert to my version. Also you may want to improve my version further.
Also, we need to check out physics articles that mention Heim theory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Heim_theory
Count Iblis 17:05, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I know we have a "recommended reading" (or something like that) for general relarivity. Now I just learned that there is also a List of notable textbooks in statistical mechanics, from finding it on AfD: List of notable textbooks in statistical mechanics. Any ideas here about usefullness and policy conformance of such lists? -- Pjacobi 19:47, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Danras ( talk · contribs) is back again adding his original research and opinions [3]. (Escape is possible, blablabla...) Could someone take a look? I've reverted a couple of times. Byrgenwulf 20:18, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
We have tow separate articles Statistical mechanics and Statistical thermodynamics. I'd consider this rather strange, but amerge (sparely attended) merge discussion two months ago was inconclusive. -- Pjacobi 13:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
The article Zentner does not cite any sources. I found an web page from the Swiss Federal Office for Metrology that says a Zentner is 100 kg, but the article says it is 50 kg. [4] [5] It would be great if a German-speaking editor could improve this article. -- Gerry Ashton 02:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
During my tagging of physics articles, I've come across a few odd ones that could do with attention. The first is Mousetrap car, which really could do with wikifying (and checking if it's appropriate for wikipedia, and isn't a copyvio). The second is Rafie’s_Law, which has been flagged as OR and is a possible candidate for deletion. More will probably be forthcoming as I work my way through the physics articles... Mike Peel 23:06, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
FysikRevy(TM) is now up on AfD. Another slightly odd one I've found is Tornado plasma hypothesis - I wouldn't have expected tornados to have sufficient energy to create a plasma, and I got the feeling from the article that the hypothesis is non-notable. I don't know much about this field, though, so I'm probably wrong. Mike Peel 21:33, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Another odd one: Metaevolution. Non-notable pseudoscience? Mike Peel 11:46, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I only had a very shallow reading of the articles, but besides Entropy and Information entropy, we have Entropy in thermodynamics and information theory and Maximum entropy thermodynamics (and perhaps more). And these latter ones look somewhat essayistic and unfinished to me. It's the problem of having too much articles, some are out of sight in a dusty corner of Wikipedia and strange things may happen to them. -- Pjacobi 20:41, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Yet another entropy article: Entropy (arrow of time). -- Pjacobi 10:12, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Albert Einstein is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 18:50, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm told that there's an effort to re-write physics, with the current draft at physics/wip. linas 04:56, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
This looks to be like a very important case, in my opinion. You may wish to watch parts of it or comment on talkpages even if you are not directly involved: [9]. -- ScienceApologist 12:37, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm just tired of those theory stubs, consisting only of
I know that TeVeS is a dark horse but sane and that SVT is only Moffat-cruft, but its current state both "articles" are useless, so I've PRODed them.
Pjacobi 12:59, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Where is User:Hillman (better known as CH to some)? linas 05:41, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I also almost left a few months after joining wikipedia when an article I wrote here, DAMA/NaI, was put on VFD by User:RickK. Some time later it was Rickk who decided to leave :-) Count Iblis 12:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
In case anyone hasn't seen the new box on the top-left of the wikiproject page, I've started up a current activity page with the aim of listing all physics articles which are currently undergoing a process needing community input - for example, AfD's and Peer Reviews. I'm also adding events related to featured articles, such as FACs, FARS etc., and general WP:Phys to-do things. It isn't quite as complete as the maths one - I'm only human, not a bot.
I'll do my best to keep it as up-to-date as I can, but I'm hoping that I won't be the only person updating the page - if you spot a physics-related AfD etc. (or you create one!) then please add it to the list. I'd recommend that people add the page to their watch lists ( click here). Mike Peel 19:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi everyone, Photon is due to appear on the Main Page in about an hour. It's a good opportunity for Photon to make a "quantum leap" in quality, but there will undoubtedly be some vandals attracted as well. If you have some time, please watch over the article and protect it from malicious edits — thanks! :) Willow 23:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
3rd time is a charm? Perhaps. Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Redshift. Please comment. -- ScienceApologist 19:32, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Recently, I've been trying to figure out how far this WikiProject extends. This has been particularly important of late as I'm tagging a lot of articles with Template:Physics. One thing I've noticed is that, as an astrophysicist, I tend to include a lot of astronomy stuff under 'physics'. The same goes for bits of mathematics (for example, string theory). An additional problem is that there's a certain amount of overlap between physics and other subjects - should Entropy be tagged as physics or chemistry? (or, as it is at the moment, both.) Is Spacecraft propulsion just under the scope of WikiProject Space exploration, or physics as well?
I'm now taking the approach that generally physics things fall under WikiProject Physics, unless they're astronomical objects (e.g. specific stars, planets, etc. - but not mechanisms or general descriptors, such as Exosolar planets]), or over half the article falls outside physics. Does anyone have any comments/suggestions on how to improve this approach? Mike Peel 20:46, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Speaking as a chemist who is a computational chemist and can perhaps be labelled as a chemical physicist, I have to jump in and say that many articles, including Entropy, must come under both the Physics and the Chemistry Wikiprojects. For example, much of the argument over on Entropy and related pages is about whether the ways chemists teach entropy should be taken into account. -- Bduke 20:55, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree with SCZenz. Physics is a VERY broad category, and I don't think there is much of a risk associated with labelling something as physics that people might argue is not. If you look hard enough, you'll find a person in a physics department somewhere doing it anyway. Labelling it as physics as well as chemistry is perfectly fine. I'm in a computational group where there's a lot of chemists doing things traditionally physics, as well the other way around. 0SpinBoson 19:15, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments; they've been very useful. A more specific question, now, to test the waters - does Star come under physics? Mike Peel 19:53, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely, whether or not you think of astronomy as a branch of physics understanding the processes that occur in stars certainly is (e.g. Chandrasekhar's Introduction to the theory of stellar structure). – Joke 01:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
it might be a good idea for that article to receive some educated attention. Mct mht 20:17, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
after asking some questions and seeing responses from the primary contributor of that page, that page is full of it and written by a crank, IMHO. i'd be happy to be corrected. i request again some folks here go and take a look. far as i can see, the gist of it seems that everything named after Hamiltonian is related: the Hamiltonian graph, Hamiltonian group, the QM and classical mechanical Hamiltonian, etc., which seems to me highly dubious. Mct mht 03:56, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
clean up and
split. From the
discussion this issue becomes clear as a major misunderstanding. This page as it is now has little to do with physics and should therefore be reduced to a describtion of the time and mass independent classical relativistic hamiltonian. The rest of the content be removed to a different page giving an overview of inherent differences between hamiltonian axioms. As not to disturb the main sections in the fields of QM and classical mechanics, that new page should be an overview on the disambiguitions and relate any experts quickly to either QM or Mechanics while giving an overview of the differences. Details should only be found at the respective pages (Quaternions, QM hamiltonian, Mechanics, Groups etc.). andrej.westermann 12:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Heads-up to anti-pseudoscience editors: Mark Goldes, the CEO of "zero-point energy" company Magnetic Power, Inc., and its subsidiary "Room Temperature Superconductors, Inc." is actively editing Ultraconductors to remove criticism of his company. In particular, he's deleting any reference to the parent company's "free energy" orientation, links to a highly critical Wired Magazine article, and the insertion in Category:Pseudoscience. Attention would be welcome. Bm gub 12:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Any Particle physicists out there? I would like to have Template:Infobox_Particle "peer reviewed".
Black hole is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 16:36, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I have started on a merge and cleanup of articles related to gauge fixing. I could use some help, specifically with identifying and merging in stubs, fixing sections in redirect links, and merging in Lorenz gauge condition. And, of course, with completeness and correctness issues; I am strongly interested in the subject but less than expert. Cheers, Michael K. Edwards 21:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Can you beieve it? If you have view on this please go to Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Quantum_theory and cast your vote. -- Michael C. Price talk 06:07, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I've uploaded a new version of Heim theory. Take a look and, if necessary, improve my rewrite. Count Iblis 17:21, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
If I may add clamour for wider attention: we have articles named:
These articles should be cleaned up in the process of solving the Quantum Hamiltonian discussion above. Similar articles be merged, or if unnecessary, deleted. The disambiguition page on the term Hamiltonian should end up as the main source for finding appropiate information and a page discussing the differences be created to avoid future clashes of experts from different fields due to the separate possible meanings of Hamiltonian. We are lucky not to have the political Alexander Hamiltonians get into this so far ;-) andrej.westermann 12:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Caution: This is a pet peeve of mine so this could sound like a rant. Please, bear with me...
I think we should have an effort to describe (with references to original papers) all central experiments in physics, similar to the list in the Portal:Physics section of Central theories of physics. I would like to see this, because it would more clearly show, how physics relies on experiments and tests to inform it on the correctness of theories. With this, the untiring efforts of the unsung experimental physicist to "shoot down" bad theories become more obvious, and we introduce the readers of WP to an under covered area of the sciences (and their history) IMO.
First, we should create a list of such experiments and observations, and then make sure the related articles contain the necessary words and references "worthy" of the importance of their topic. Maybe even develop a list/template mechanism to navigate them all. What do you all think? Awolf002 22:50, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
The emphasis of this category would be the 'central' character of the experiment. This may include the discovery of superconductivity, the detection of cosmological redshift, and similar things. This would not include the data on every half-life time of every isotope. I agree, one needs to strike a delicate balance in what to include, but the most influental experiments and those that "changed" the landscape pf physics should be part of this. Awolf002 11:21, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I think that the experiments that established/discovered things should be discussed in the articles on those things themselves. The discovery of superconductivity should be in superconductivity. The experimental methods for finding the top quark should be in top quark, something I've been meaning to add for a long time. I'm not sure what advantages there are to separating the experiments out into separate articles. -- SCZenz 14:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 00:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Since the discussions seem to have abated for some time now, I am asking the Mathematics and Physics WikiProjects if they support the new citation guidelines that I (and others) have devised. The point of the guidelines is to establish an appropriate, sensible standard for referencing articles in our fields so that we are less likely to run into objections (such as those that have come up recently) when we try to write technical articles that others then tell us are improperly sourced. I think these guidelines are now well thought out enough that they can be added to the main pages of the two WikiProjects and perhaps linked from WP:CITE. I should also note that they seem to have attracted some encouragement from outside the WikiProjects, on their talk page, mine, and on WP:CITE.
One outstanding issue is where to move the page. I don't have any great ideas. Wikipedia:WikiProjects Mathematics and Physics/Citation guidelines is too cumbersome. We could just leave it under physics as Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Citation guidelines or be BOLD and put it at Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines (presumably this would mean we would have to engage with the rest of the community to ensure there is consensus). I submit we should go with Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Citation guidelines and once we have consensus here go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Biology and Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry (and wherever else seems appropriate) to solicit their opinions, and then move it out of the physics WikiProject. We could even eventually go ask the wider Wikipedia community what they think at WP:CITE but I think that should be left as a longer term project. – Joke 22:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Werdnabot ( talk · contribs) runs an archiving service for talk pages (see User:Werdnabot/Archiver/Howto), which I've been running on my talk page with no problems for the last month or so. Since this page is pretty active and doesn't get archived that often, would anyone object to me setting up the automatic archiving service on this page? Also, how long should conversations be kept for here? I'd recommend 14 days or so. Mike Peel 12:02, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
OK. Now it seems to be working again. JRSpriggs 05:29, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I personally don't like the rate at which the sections are archived. Karol 06:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
In my travels around the stub-vaults of Wikipedia, I've come across the Boltzmon article. To me, this seems like complete bollocks. A Google search] returns 616 results, and I think that most of those are due to a book named Boltzmon, which is possibly what the article is based on. A Google Scholar search returns 3 hits, all non-notable. The Arxiv returns nothing. I'll be taking it to AfD shortly, but wanted to check here first. Thanks. Mike Peel 19:52, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
It's now on AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boltzmon. Mike Peel 14:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
This is an idea I've been thinking about for a while, and has been brought back to my mind by the discussion above. I'm considering setting up a new wiki site which would allow the creation and continuous updating of reviews of scientific topics. It would work in a similar way to Wikipedia, but would be aimed mainly at scientists. I've put a bit more detail on the idea on my user page. What do people here think to the idea? Mike Peel 19:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I direct your attention to the nonsense below. None of these people are practicing science. What they are practicing is scientific censorship, social conformity, name calling, arrogance, ignorance, and irresponsibility. -- Ron Marshall 21:30, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
I direct the attention of those interested to cold fusion and its talk page. This was a featured article, but is no longer that, nor is it a good article as of this July. The featured article version is here. It seems to me that this degradation is due to a severe pro- cold fusion bias, which I've commented on and have, to some extent, attempted to remove. I'd like to virtually remove 3/4ths of the article: I don't think that the content under the heading "Arguments in the controversy", essentially a giant argument for and against - but mostly for - cold fusion, belongs where it now is. I hesitate because I expect extreme backlash from pro-cf editors. Commentary on the article and my actions is requested. –M T 09:33, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Indeed. Best to just leave it to rot and devote your energies to an area where progress can be made. But if you really want to try, then best of luck to you! Who knows, maybe one day someone will come along with sufficient knowledge and infinite patience to make a reasonable article of it. – Joke 14:53, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes, in principle I'm not in favor of letting articles rot either. But SCZenz has identified what the issue on cold fusion is. Lately, my opinion is that there is SO MUCH work to be done with the physics articles, and so few people doing it, that it is best to focus on low-lying fruit. Or at least fruits that don't bite. – Joke 18:04, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
There's what seems to be a pre- dispute resolution vote at Talk:Cold_fusion#Survey. –M T 03:50, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Here is my proposal to deal with this debacle. Let's establish, by consensus within the project, a set of guidelines for referencing physics articles in Wikipedia. Then, at least, we will have a set of clear guidelines and an established consensus to refer to if we start having problems with WP:GA and WP:FA. I think if we write a reasonable set of guidelines, which respect WP:V and WP:CITE, we'll get little argument from the vast majority of the people over there.
I have already written a proposal, available here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Citation guidelines proposal. It definitely has a whiff of the first draft about it (some sentences seem pretty tortured), but I'm confident we can bang it into something that is clear and concise. Here is my proposal:
I've tried to write the guidelines in such a way that they don't apply just to physics, although the examples are (by necessity) taken from articles I'm familiar with.
I'll also go over to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics and ask the people there for input. Perhaps we can have joint guidelines, since they seem to be having a similar issue. – Joke 16:51, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Hi all,
Photon was promoted to a Feature Article yesterday -- yeay! :) Lots of editors and reviewers contributed to its success, both directly and indirectly, and they all deserve our thanks and appreciation. Good job, you all! :) It was wonderful to see how people could rise above the edit wars that prevailed only a month ago and constructively make a cool article, using their different perspectives as a strength.
The Physics WikiProject now has five featured articles, leaving only — ummmm — 527 important articles left to go. Unfortunately, our present rate of ~1 FA/year seems a little depressing — and surprising, given the many smart, articulate people here. We as a group should at least be able to match the output of one user, e.g., Tim Vickers of the Biochemistry WikiProject, who is now producing one FA every ~2 weeks, mostly by himself. (Don't kid yourself, enzymology is not fluff!)
I'm a newbie and usually pretty clueless, so I totally believe that I'm not seeing the whole picture. My intuition is merely that we're not doing as well as we could, and I don't understand why. For example, are we spending too much time policing bogus physics? How can we foster the writing of articulate, encyclopedic articles about physics? I don't want to make waves, but this seems like a topic that concerns us all and warrants serious discussion. Willow 01:24, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
"Random walk through quality space" — funny, but also painfully true. Instead of a random walk, we need more of a ratchet, which can occasionally slip backwards, but mainly moves forwards. Do you all find that an FA article with lots of scientific references deters vandals, etc. more than a poorly organized/referenced article? If so, we might diminish physics vandalism by generating more FA articles; it might be non-linear in our favor. ;)
The Count's "Adopt a future Featured Article" approach seems like a great idea, at least complementary to article improvement drives. At the Biochemistry WikiProject, I usually find that I don't know enough to really contribute to the particular article chosen for improvement. :( So we might get more featured articles faster if we could each choose an article to take under our wings and shepherd to FA (or perhaps in pairs as the Count suggests, a "buddy system").
That said, we might want to agree to help each other out as a community. The Photon article benefited a lot from the input of many physicists. Moreover, we might want to coordinate our response in case there are unconstructive edit wars or whatnot.
I think Tim is so successful because he shows extraordinary focus on one article at a time and brings his articles to very high standards before moving on to the next. His concentration also inspires other good people to join in and help. What do other people think — a good model to emulate for physics? Willow 14:59, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
I just added a "Comments" option to the Template:Physics, where we can see who's adopted what article. You can see an example on Talk:Photon. (Hopefully, I didn't mess up the template too much!) The other articles seem a little high for me — maybe I'll try my hand at Classical mechanics instead? — Preceding unsigned comment added by WillowW ( talk • contribs)
Oops, how embarrassing! I decided to adopt Kinematics instead, since that is the basis for all classical mechanics. Although it's not as cool as Photon, hopefully we can bring it to FA status. This time I remembered ;) → Willow 18:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
An article with this title was deleted in June I think. Nothing links to it.Could people have a look at it? I'm on wikibreak and fly back to Australia from London tomorrow so I have no time to do more. -- Bduke 09:12, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
User:Iantresman has started a request for arbitration members of this project may wish to comment on WP:RfArb#Pseudoscience_vs_Pseudoskepticism. -- ScienceApologist 12:29, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Found this one today...it needs help (I'm doing a bit of helping, but I really don't feel like reading arXiv preprints about a theory in which I take no interest). Or maybe it needs getting rid of. Does Wikipedia need an article on this "quantum aether theory"? Byrgenwulf 15:19, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Regarding "Foundations of Physics": this is a semi-respectable journal. I believe it has an explicit charter to publish the crankier, more outlandish, more obscure, more problematic authors, authors who would find publication difficult or impossible in the mainstream journals e.g. phys rev. This is not to say that everyone who publishes there is a crank: there have been some very reputable authors who have published there, and the editorial board is filled with luminaries. However, its not hard to find papers that claim Einstein was wrong about the speed of light, etc. in that journal. Caveat emptor. linas 03:44, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
The following appear to be IRL one Gerhard Grössing, who says he is a phycisist in Vienna, and the creator of the so-called "quantum cybernetics", which appears to be very obscure:
The contribs, location, and nature of the edits all support this conclusion. Thus, this article appears vio WP:VAIN, and since I can find no evidence of anyone other than the author discussing this theory in the research literature, it may vio WP:RS- WP:NOR as well. --- CH 23:35, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Here. Byrgenwulf 12:19, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Talk:Jack_Sarfatti#undue_weight And I quote:
-- GangofOne 22:16, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I've created {{ atomic-physics-stub}} / ‹The template Category link is being considered for merging.› Category:atomic, molecular, and optical physics stubs and {{ thermodynamics-stub}} / ‹The template Category link is being considered for merging.› Category:thermodynamics stubs, per earlier discussion here and at WP:WSS/P. I've not yet populated them, but there's lists of candidate stubs, on the basis of category membership, at User:Alai/Atomic and User:Alai/Thermo. If someone with some knowledge of these areas could have a look at these, and check for "false positives", that'd be a help. (If they're largely OK, I can stub-sort them by bot.) Alai 15:04, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Since this topic provoked some comments earlier, I thought it would be worth posting another link to The n-Category Café. New Scientist has, it appears, reacted to whatever flak they received about their shoddy EmDrive reportage. Anville 19:05, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pseudoscience#Monitoring continued problematic activity by permabanned users. TIA for your feedback! --- CH 02:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Cold fusion controversy has been proposed for deletion, apropos this comment by Jefffire replying to Pjacobi. Anville 15:59, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I know people around here would rather be working on actual physics than dealing with yet another brushfire, and I'm equally sure that someone will accuse me of "soliciting votes" for posting this. No matter; you're welcome to ignore it, as always!
To sum up, Byrgenwulf has opened a Request for Comment on the conduct of Asmodeus, here. This business stretches back to that fracas back in the summer about the twice-deleted CTMU. Anville 18:10, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi guys: I just created {{ dist}}, which makes distance unit conversions very easy. You might want to check it out. — Mets501 ( talk) 16:29, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm busy rewriting Heim theory, I'm doing that offline. Within a few days I'm going to upload a version that the pro-Heim lobby probably won't like. So, I need your help to revert to my version. Also you may want to improve my version further.
Also, we need to check out physics articles that mention Heim theory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Heim_theory
Count Iblis 17:05, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I know we have a "recommended reading" (or something like that) for general relarivity. Now I just learned that there is also a List of notable textbooks in statistical mechanics, from finding it on AfD: List of notable textbooks in statistical mechanics. Any ideas here about usefullness and policy conformance of such lists? -- Pjacobi 19:47, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Danras ( talk · contribs) is back again adding his original research and opinions [3]. (Escape is possible, blablabla...) Could someone take a look? I've reverted a couple of times. Byrgenwulf 20:18, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
We have tow separate articles Statistical mechanics and Statistical thermodynamics. I'd consider this rather strange, but amerge (sparely attended) merge discussion two months ago was inconclusive. -- Pjacobi 13:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
The article Zentner does not cite any sources. I found an web page from the Swiss Federal Office for Metrology that says a Zentner is 100 kg, but the article says it is 50 kg. [4] [5] It would be great if a German-speaking editor could improve this article. -- Gerry Ashton 02:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
During my tagging of physics articles, I've come across a few odd ones that could do with attention. The first is Mousetrap car, which really could do with wikifying (and checking if it's appropriate for wikipedia, and isn't a copyvio). The second is Rafie’s_Law, which has been flagged as OR and is a possible candidate for deletion. More will probably be forthcoming as I work my way through the physics articles... Mike Peel 23:06, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
FysikRevy(TM) is now up on AfD. Another slightly odd one I've found is Tornado plasma hypothesis - I wouldn't have expected tornados to have sufficient energy to create a plasma, and I got the feeling from the article that the hypothesis is non-notable. I don't know much about this field, though, so I'm probably wrong. Mike Peel 21:33, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Another odd one: Metaevolution. Non-notable pseudoscience? Mike Peel 11:46, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I only had a very shallow reading of the articles, but besides Entropy and Information entropy, we have Entropy in thermodynamics and information theory and Maximum entropy thermodynamics (and perhaps more). And these latter ones look somewhat essayistic and unfinished to me. It's the problem of having too much articles, some are out of sight in a dusty corner of Wikipedia and strange things may happen to them. -- Pjacobi 20:41, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Yet another entropy article: Entropy (arrow of time). -- Pjacobi 10:12, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Albert Einstein is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 18:50, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm told that there's an effort to re-write physics, with the current draft at physics/wip. linas 04:56, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
This looks to be like a very important case, in my opinion. You may wish to watch parts of it or comment on talkpages even if you are not directly involved: [9]. -- ScienceApologist 12:37, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm just tired of those theory stubs, consisting only of
I know that TeVeS is a dark horse but sane and that SVT is only Moffat-cruft, but its current state both "articles" are useless, so I've PRODed them.
Pjacobi 12:59, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Where is User:Hillman (better known as CH to some)? linas 05:41, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I also almost left a few months after joining wikipedia when an article I wrote here, DAMA/NaI, was put on VFD by User:RickK. Some time later it was Rickk who decided to leave :-) Count Iblis 12:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
In case anyone hasn't seen the new box on the top-left of the wikiproject page, I've started up a current activity page with the aim of listing all physics articles which are currently undergoing a process needing community input - for example, AfD's and Peer Reviews. I'm also adding events related to featured articles, such as FACs, FARS etc., and general WP:Phys to-do things. It isn't quite as complete as the maths one - I'm only human, not a bot.
I'll do my best to keep it as up-to-date as I can, but I'm hoping that I won't be the only person updating the page - if you spot a physics-related AfD etc. (or you create one!) then please add it to the list. I'd recommend that people add the page to their watch lists ( click here). Mike Peel 19:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi everyone, Photon is due to appear on the Main Page in about an hour. It's a good opportunity for Photon to make a "quantum leap" in quality, but there will undoubtedly be some vandals attracted as well. If you have some time, please watch over the article and protect it from malicious edits — thanks! :) Willow 23:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
3rd time is a charm? Perhaps. Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Redshift. Please comment. -- ScienceApologist 19:32, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Recently, I've been trying to figure out how far this WikiProject extends. This has been particularly important of late as I'm tagging a lot of articles with Template:Physics. One thing I've noticed is that, as an astrophysicist, I tend to include a lot of astronomy stuff under 'physics'. The same goes for bits of mathematics (for example, string theory). An additional problem is that there's a certain amount of overlap between physics and other subjects - should Entropy be tagged as physics or chemistry? (or, as it is at the moment, both.) Is Spacecraft propulsion just under the scope of WikiProject Space exploration, or physics as well?
I'm now taking the approach that generally physics things fall under WikiProject Physics, unless they're astronomical objects (e.g. specific stars, planets, etc. - but not mechanisms or general descriptors, such as Exosolar planets]), or over half the article falls outside physics. Does anyone have any comments/suggestions on how to improve this approach? Mike Peel 20:46, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Speaking as a chemist who is a computational chemist and can perhaps be labelled as a chemical physicist, I have to jump in and say that many articles, including Entropy, must come under both the Physics and the Chemistry Wikiprojects. For example, much of the argument over on Entropy and related pages is about whether the ways chemists teach entropy should be taken into account. -- Bduke 20:55, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree with SCZenz. Physics is a VERY broad category, and I don't think there is much of a risk associated with labelling something as physics that people might argue is not. If you look hard enough, you'll find a person in a physics department somewhere doing it anyway. Labelling it as physics as well as chemistry is perfectly fine. I'm in a computational group where there's a lot of chemists doing things traditionally physics, as well the other way around. 0SpinBoson 19:15, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments; they've been very useful. A more specific question, now, to test the waters - does Star come under physics? Mike Peel 19:53, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely, whether or not you think of astronomy as a branch of physics understanding the processes that occur in stars certainly is (e.g. Chandrasekhar's Introduction to the theory of stellar structure). – Joke 01:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
it might be a good idea for that article to receive some educated attention. Mct mht 20:17, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
after asking some questions and seeing responses from the primary contributor of that page, that page is full of it and written by a crank, IMHO. i'd be happy to be corrected. i request again some folks here go and take a look. far as i can see, the gist of it seems that everything named after Hamiltonian is related: the Hamiltonian graph, Hamiltonian group, the QM and classical mechanical Hamiltonian, etc., which seems to me highly dubious. Mct mht 03:56, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
clean up and
split. From the
discussion this issue becomes clear as a major misunderstanding. This page as it is now has little to do with physics and should therefore be reduced to a describtion of the time and mass independent classical relativistic hamiltonian. The rest of the content be removed to a different page giving an overview of inherent differences between hamiltonian axioms. As not to disturb the main sections in the fields of QM and classical mechanics, that new page should be an overview on the disambiguitions and relate any experts quickly to either QM or Mechanics while giving an overview of the differences. Details should only be found at the respective pages (Quaternions, QM hamiltonian, Mechanics, Groups etc.). andrej.westermann 12:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Heads-up to anti-pseudoscience editors: Mark Goldes, the CEO of "zero-point energy" company Magnetic Power, Inc., and its subsidiary "Room Temperature Superconductors, Inc." is actively editing Ultraconductors to remove criticism of his company. In particular, he's deleting any reference to the parent company's "free energy" orientation, links to a highly critical Wired Magazine article, and the insertion in Category:Pseudoscience. Attention would be welcome. Bm gub 12:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Any Particle physicists out there? I would like to have Template:Infobox_Particle "peer reviewed".
Black hole is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 16:36, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I have started on a merge and cleanup of articles related to gauge fixing. I could use some help, specifically with identifying and merging in stubs, fixing sections in redirect links, and merging in Lorenz gauge condition. And, of course, with completeness and correctness issues; I am strongly interested in the subject but less than expert. Cheers, Michael K. Edwards 21:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Can you beieve it? If you have view on this please go to Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Quantum_theory and cast your vote. -- Michael C. Price talk 06:07, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I've uploaded a new version of Heim theory. Take a look and, if necessary, improve my rewrite. Count Iblis 17:21, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
If I may add clamour for wider attention: we have articles named:
These articles should be cleaned up in the process of solving the Quantum Hamiltonian discussion above. Similar articles be merged, or if unnecessary, deleted. The disambiguition page on the term Hamiltonian should end up as the main source for finding appropiate information and a page discussing the differences be created to avoid future clashes of experts from different fields due to the separate possible meanings of Hamiltonian. We are lucky not to have the political Alexander Hamiltonians get into this so far ;-) andrej.westermann 12:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Caution: This is a pet peeve of mine so this could sound like a rant. Please, bear with me...
I think we should have an effort to describe (with references to original papers) all central experiments in physics, similar to the list in the Portal:Physics section of Central theories of physics. I would like to see this, because it would more clearly show, how physics relies on experiments and tests to inform it on the correctness of theories. With this, the untiring efforts of the unsung experimental physicist to "shoot down" bad theories become more obvious, and we introduce the readers of WP to an under covered area of the sciences (and their history) IMO.
First, we should create a list of such experiments and observations, and then make sure the related articles contain the necessary words and references "worthy" of the importance of their topic. Maybe even develop a list/template mechanism to navigate them all. What do you all think? Awolf002 22:50, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
The emphasis of this category would be the 'central' character of the experiment. This may include the discovery of superconductivity, the detection of cosmological redshift, and similar things. This would not include the data on every half-life time of every isotope. I agree, one needs to strike a delicate balance in what to include, but the most influental experiments and those that "changed" the landscape pf physics should be part of this. Awolf002 11:21, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I think that the experiments that established/discovered things should be discussed in the articles on those things themselves. The discovery of superconductivity should be in superconductivity. The experimental methods for finding the top quark should be in top quark, something I've been meaning to add for a long time. I'm not sure what advantages there are to separating the experiments out into separate articles. -- SCZenz 14:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 00:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Since the discussions seem to have abated for some time now, I am asking the Mathematics and Physics WikiProjects if they support the new citation guidelines that I (and others) have devised. The point of the guidelines is to establish an appropriate, sensible standard for referencing articles in our fields so that we are less likely to run into objections (such as those that have come up recently) when we try to write technical articles that others then tell us are improperly sourced. I think these guidelines are now well thought out enough that they can be added to the main pages of the two WikiProjects and perhaps linked from WP:CITE. I should also note that they seem to have attracted some encouragement from outside the WikiProjects, on their talk page, mine, and on WP:CITE.
One outstanding issue is where to move the page. I don't have any great ideas. Wikipedia:WikiProjects Mathematics and Physics/Citation guidelines is too cumbersome. We could just leave it under physics as Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Citation guidelines or be BOLD and put it at Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines (presumably this would mean we would have to engage with the rest of the community to ensure there is consensus). I submit we should go with Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Citation guidelines and once we have consensus here go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Biology and Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry (and wherever else seems appropriate) to solicit their opinions, and then move it out of the physics WikiProject. We could even eventually go ask the wider Wikipedia community what they think at WP:CITE but I think that should be left as a longer term project. – Joke 22:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Werdnabot ( talk · contribs) runs an archiving service for talk pages (see User:Werdnabot/Archiver/Howto), which I've been running on my talk page with no problems for the last month or so. Since this page is pretty active and doesn't get archived that often, would anyone object to me setting up the automatic archiving service on this page? Also, how long should conversations be kept for here? I'd recommend 14 days or so. Mike Peel 12:02, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
OK. Now it seems to be working again. JRSpriggs 05:29, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I personally don't like the rate at which the sections are archived. Karol 06:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
In my travels around the stub-vaults of Wikipedia, I've come across the Boltzmon article. To me, this seems like complete bollocks. A Google search] returns 616 results, and I think that most of those are due to a book named Boltzmon, which is possibly what the article is based on. A Google Scholar search returns 3 hits, all non-notable. The Arxiv returns nothing. I'll be taking it to AfD shortly, but wanted to check here first. Thanks. Mike Peel 19:52, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
It's now on AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boltzmon. Mike Peel 14:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)