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[edit] New taskforces.

I've been considering creating three new taskforces while.

Biography taskforce: For articles about physicists.
Publications: For articles dealing with publications, books, etc...
High-energy/particle physics: For articles dealing with accelerators, lab facilities, theory, experimentation, etc... and anything related to high energy/particle/nuclear physics.

What do you all think?Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 06:25, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Having the biographies and publications in a seperate taskforce seems like a good idea to me. Developing these articles requires a very different approach from many of our other articles, so it would probably be useful to have access to them through a taskforce. I'm not so convinced about a HEP/PP taskforce, this is such an integral part of modern physics that it would be kind of hard to pick it apart from the rest of physics, nor do the articles really need seperate attention.

As somewhat relevant remark, I would like to note that the WPBannerMeta template used for the physics banner only supports 5 taskforces. ~~So, any more than that would result in a lot of work for use.~~ Nevermind that, it seems there exists a hook to add 10 more taskforces. (TimothyRias (talk) 08:34, 15 April 2009 (UTC))

My first instinct is that we should not create a task force unless there is demand for one and/or someone ready and willing to lead one. The concept of 'build it and they will come' does not seem to apply that well to wikipedia. On the other hand, if the creation of task forces (prior to a demand) has helped in the past or if there is reason to expect that it will now then go for it. If you want to add task forces there are other areas that could use some help as well. Personally, I think the greatest needs in our community are recruiting more leaders, peer reviews, and image editing. TStein (talk) 13:55, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think creating the task forces will effect the activity in those areas very much. The main thing is that it will make organizing the articles a little easier. For example, it will be easier to find all physics biographies that need assesment. (TimothyRias (talk) 14:00, 15 April 2009 (UTC))

I am all in favor of having a page dedicated to these tasks. But does having a task force for these categories help or hurt? Has it helped or hurt in the past? I don't know. Would it help with cooperation with other biographical projects or other publications projects? Further shouldn't we consider merging both the biography and the publication task forces together as they are closely related and need similar skills and interests.

A biography task force would probably be best dealt with by the people in the biography project, and they could probably adjust their banner to accommodate it. Regarding the other ones, and additional task forces in general, I'm right now one of the coordinators of the Christianity project, and we're in the process of maybe trying to see if we can use navigation boxes in lieu of additional task forces for various relevant areas. If the members of your project can agree which articles/topics are of "Top" importance in a particular field, they could easily be placed in the primary navbox. Other articles, "High" for instance, will generally be more numerous and could be joined by other navboxes. Anyway, it's still even in the experimental stage over there, and there is at this point no guarantee that it will work, but it's an idea, if you want to consider it. John Carter (talk) 19:57, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Physics biographers are interested in different things then other biographers. I think it would make sense for us to have our own task force.TStein (talk) 03:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, granted. But it is generally possible to adjust a banner to accommodate assessments for more than one group, including outside groups. I think the Military history project has done so, and I know the Christianity banner does so, because I'm the one who adjusted it to do that. And, the Biography banner is the only one I know of which has the BLP and other biographical factors built in. It would probably be rather difficult to add them all to the Physics banner. And "joint task forces" are already rather common, in some ways. John Carter (talk) 18:51, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

All taskforces have done within the tropical cyclone project were to help track statistics of particular categories more easily. It didn't attract new editors. Thegreatdr (talk) 20:14, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Man, I am dense! For some reason, I missed the main reason for forming the task force: to add them to the physics rating template. (Or am I being dense still?) Was that information useful for the tropical cyclone project. In other words did it help the editors or was it book keeping for book keeping sake? TStein (talk) 03:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

It is nice to see how the progress in the various portions of the project is going. We keep a wikiscore for each section. Thegreatdr (talk) 03:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Well my motivation for the bio and pub ones is mainly bookkeeping. It would greatly facilitate bot-work (and human work too) as far as making sure they all have biography banners, listas parameters, etc... It's the area where the physics project lagging behind in terms of assesment, and gets the least ammount of attention. The publication taskforces wouldn't have a whole lot of things in it, true, but these are often articles that need to be treated differently than others, since they are not about physics per say, but about the impact of the publication, etc... It would make it easier to verify that infoboxes, ISBN, doi, etc., are presents. Again this is bookeeping mostly. I doubt we'd recruit much people with those taskforces, but it's not really the point.

The HEP taskforce came to mind as I'm mostly interested in that area of physics, and it seems like a good chunk of members have a HEP background. I'll admit I'm sort of on a "taskforce high" because of the success of the recently revived Fluid Dynamics project and the creation of the Glass taskforce, which is also much more active than I expected. One of my plans for 2009 is the creation of more taskforces like these two. But if people are against the idea, I won't force it down anyone's throat. IMO, at worse it helps bookkeeping, at best it improves the quality of the coverage and help to identify problems and missing content. Dunno what it'll do for recruiting. The best way to increase membership will always remain "manually" inviting people, both on and off wiki. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 05:22, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. I agree about manually inviting people. I had two (unfounded as it turns out) worries about extra task forces. The first was that it would help fracture the physics 'community', if you want to call it that. (The chances are that it won't have an impact either way.) Second there is a maintenance cost associated with the task forces. If it help bots give us better and more useful data, then who could argue with that.

It sounds to me that the publication tasks that you want to use bots for is a lot more general then physics and should have another home. Perhaps, biography? (I am assuming there is not a WP:Publications or something like that.) Any bots can then look for both the physics banner and the biography banner together on the same page.

The high energy task force is a separate issue. I am not against it, but what makes HEP so special that it should be singled out when modern physics, electromagnetism, classical mechanics, solid state, optics, electronics, engineering physics are not? Or are you eventually planning to pick a reasonable set of task forces that spans most of physics? Are we aiming so that every field can have a technical page to go to for technical RFCs and the like while reserving the main physics page for generic RFCs and PR plus community building stuff? Then there is the additional task of maintaining the membership list between the main page and the task forces. (Sounds like bot-fodder to me.) TStein (talk) 14:09, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

There is a second reason for creating new task forces which has been mentioned yet. A task force has its own talk page and "Wikipedia identity", so helps to keep discussion on a particular topic together. I'm sure editors who watch this talk page are more than capable of discussing the problems of biographical articles about physicists, but it is helpful (especially for non-project members) to keep those discussions together. The main talk page of a large and active project (such as WP:PHYS) can be a little intimidating for outsiders who wish to discuss a technical point on an article which isn't obviously in the core area: I know that I tread carefully when I visit WT:MILHIST, for example!

A separate identity is also useful when the task-force needs to collaborate with other projects. WP:GLASS is a good example of this: a physics editor can completely ignore it if they so wish, but someone from outside WP:PHYS who wants to collaborate on glass-related articles will know that the editors who do turn up at WT:GLASS are the ones who are actually interested in dealing with glass-related topics!

Based on our experience at WP:CHEMISTRY, I would suggest a single task-force covering biographies, history of physics and publications (BHOP). We don't have one for chemistry, but it is an idea that has been discussed in the past and we do have editors who specifically look after these sorts of articles. In the end, nobody at WP:CHEMISTRY has been bothered to set up a new page, and the editors concerned rarely seem to run into problems which need the help of the rest of the project. Physchim62 (talk) 14:39, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

In theory, it should work out in that manner, where the individual task forces are in essence their own wikiprojects. But it hasn't worked out that way within the TC task forces, with very little discussion happening within those talk pages and very few people actually signing up as editors within the smaller task forces. Thegreatdr (talk) 18:59, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

(to TStein) Like I said, I do plan on setting up more taskforces that would cover a variety of topics over the next year. What these are just yet I don't know yet, but I'm hovering around the same sort of division (EM, Optics, we already have Relativity, Mechanics, ...). There's an interesting suggestion for a combined Bio/Hist/Pub taskforce from Physchim too. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 18:44, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

If you create a bio/hist/pub task force can that be used to clean up some of the cruft in our lists of articles? Perhaps we can have a bot tag any article with both a physics template and a WPBiography template with this task force. Right now there are way too many articles to try to maintain and a good portion of those are biographies. (An example of this are the 225 start articles of unevaluated importance.) A task force for bio/hist/pub may be a start. The first step to cleaning up a really big mess is often to organize it. TStein (talk) 05:47, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I actually was looking into the how of this tonight. I think the best way to do this would be to have three parameters in the template (such as |bio= |hist= |pub= ) which would (for categorization purposes) be handled as three different taskforces. But the "homepage" of all three projects would be the same. What do you think? Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 06:21, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Also we would need to find physicists (and physicists related) categories and subcategories for bot tagging. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 06:22, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is probably a good idea to make bot request (probably for anomieBot) to add to missing parameters. For this we need a list of tasks so that all of them can be handled at the same time. Some suggestions:

Add "bio=yes" to all articles tagged with the {{physics}} template that are in the category category:physicists and its subcats.
Add "bio=yes" to all articles tagged with the {{physics}} template that are tagged with {{biography}} or {{BLP}}.
Add "pub=yes" to all articles tagged with the {{physics}} template that are in the category category:journals or any of its subcategories.
Add "pub=yes" to all articles tagged with the {{physics}} template that are in appropriate subcategories (which ones???; at least category:scientific literature) of the category category:academic publishing or any of its subcategories.
Add "pub=yes" to all articles tagged with the {{physics}} template that are tagged with {{WPJournals}} or {{WikiProject Magazines}}, {{WPBooks}}.
Add "hist=yes" to all articles tagged with the {{physics}} template that are in the category category:History of physics and subcategories.
Add "hist=yes" to all articles tagged with the {{physics}} template that are tagged with {{HistSci}}.

Anything else? (TimothyRias (talk) 12:59, 6 May 2009 (UTC))

I've modified the request to incorporate your suggestions. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 16:40, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Astrophysics? {{Astronomy}} has a switch "|astrophysics=yes" that says that the article is also covered by WP:PHYSICS, a complementary with the inverse saying might be appropriate. 76.66.196.85 (talk) 07:47, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but that an old parameter which is not used anymore. Now it is custumary to tag pages with both {{physics}} and {{astronomy}}. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 07:52, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

+1 for classical mechanics taskforce --Vanuan (talk) 16:55, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion about html formatted style for simple tex formatted equations

The many people who have the (I believe default) setting for equation rendering as using html for simple equations, have been seeing the equations as being too small relative to the ping equivalents. This is fairly simple to fix in the style file; although it may cause other problems, in particular with inline math equations. (Those should be removed in general principle anyway.)

I started a discussion about changing the font size for the span.texhtml element that is used for the html rendered equations at MediaWiki talk:Common.css about this issue.

Current rendering of a simple equation: $e i π + 1 = 0$ .
Forced to render with png using \,: $e^{i \pi} + 1 = 0 \,$ .
One proposed solution changing style: $e i π + 1 = 0$ .

I probably should have discussed it here and in WP:math or in WP:village pump (technical) but I got a little ahead of myself I am afraid. In any case I think it is worth discussing and hope to get your input.

[edit] Large number of fringe edits

A new user, Gil987 (talk · contribs), has been very industrously adding references to what look like fringe publications to a number of physics articles. I have neither the time nor the expertise to pick through these in detail, so I'm bringing it up here. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 02:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I started an RfC on this user, who seems to have several aliases. -- BenRG (talk) 11:00, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I've been following the RFC. If it's true that they're literally adding references straight from Google searches, could this be the actions of a bot? A quick Google search of the known aliases suggests that the usernames could have been picked by a bot too (scanning random documents for adjacent word-number pairs could have produced these names). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 04:38, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Liquid crystal

Hi, I am currently reviewing the above and would appreciate a second opinion, specifically on the prose, clarity and comprehensibility by Wikipedia readers. Thanks. Review page --- Jezhotwells (talk) 01:06, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Euler equations

The article is useful, as it contains and, to some extent, explains equations based on the work of Leonhard Euler. At present, it is, however, a patchwork of content from various textbooks, and it is not always made clear which equations are more general and which relate to specific conditions (especially the Energy conservation equation vs. the adiabatic condition). I have added some context in a new “History” section, but I'm probably not familiar enough with the topic to fix the article. Cs32en 15:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Spinodal decomposition

You might want to give this article another look, since I have beefed it up considerably -- with some helpful input from John Cahn. -- logger9 (talk) 18:01, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Color force: 100 or 100,000 newtons?

I found two pages that contain different values for the strong force: 100,000 and 100 newtons. Both lack references, so I can't check which one is correct. Does anybody know which one is correct and have any references that can be used? — SkyLined (talk) 18:09, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I recall reading a RS that said 16 tons. So I assume it's 100,000 newtons. It's possibly D. Griffith (2008) Introduction to Elementary Particles, Wiley-VCH. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 19:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Interesting addition to Physics of the Impossible article

I added a section to this article entitled: A book of many fields and disciplines. I think this will help to give the reader of the article more opportunity to explore subjects within the field of physics, and it helps to give the reader insight into the background research that went into this book. In addition, if the reader is familiar with some of the names, this section helps to add authenticity to the book and to the article.

Perhaps this can be veiwed as a contribution to WikiProject Physics. Feel free to give feedback if anyone so desires. Ti-30X (talk) 18:00, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Anything special happened on 10 May 2009?

'cause the traffic tracker seems to think there was... Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 03:48, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Just guessing. Maybe there is a bug in the tracking program. Or maybe a bot went into a loop scanning the page. Or some popular site referenced it with a link. JRSpriggs (talk) 08:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Albert Einstein

...is at peer review. Help get it back to FA. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:34, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Merge point mass, point charge in point particle

Hi, everybosy. As I've suggested here, I think is better to merge point mass and point charge as section in the general article point particle. I think it's better that, if someone look for point charge for example, before they'll learn about the general idea of point particle in physics. We can make a single good article from three stubs and I can't see any reason not to do so. --CristianCantoro (talk) 13:30, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. (TimothyRias (talk) 13:46, 19 June 2009 (UTC))

I'd go even further, and try go get some order into subatomic particle, elementary particle, list of particles as well. Particle (physics) redirects to elementary particle, which is a synonym of point particle: however, there are many important particles in physics which are not elementary! Physchim62 (talk) 14:43, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Point mass and point charge and point particle are "point" as in "infinitely localized", and only exist in classical physics due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. An elementary particle is a real-world thing with a spread-out wavefunction, so is not a "point" particle. --Steve (talk) 15:41, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, point masses and point charges existed (in Physical theory) well before the Schrödinger equation and the uncertainty principle. What exactly is your objection to discussing the distinctions in a single article, rather than spreading coverage over many articles, none of which is accurate? Physchim62 (talk) 17:07, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Point masses and point charge exist in classical physics theory but do not exist in the universe. Elementary particles are real things that exist in the universe. So I don't think point particle and elementary particle should be combined into the same article. Of course, I think the articles should be accurate however they're arranged. :-) --Steve (talk) 18:05, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

You-all might want to consider whether Test particle should also be part of the merger. JRSpriggs (talk) 05:13, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

(<=) I agree with Steve. My two cents: elementary particles are (forgetting for a moment QM and QFT) point particles, but (not all) point particles are elementary particles. They are different models used in rather different ways. Anyway, I think it's a good thing to get some order between articles (but I don't know your situation, since I'm mostly active here. Instead, test particle is the same thing of point particle (I've only heard about test particles when introducing the electromagnetic field or the gravitational field as a synonym for point charge or point mass). --CristianCantoro (talk) 18:53, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the point particle articles should be merged. Ti-30X (talk) 22:08, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Do not merge test particle and point particle; they are different physical concepts. The defining property of a test particle is that doesn't effect the field configuration it is supposed to be testing. That is it charge and mass are assumed to be negligible. Point masses and point charges are point-like sources for gravitational and electromagnetic fields. (TimothyRias (talk) 17:19, 23 June 2009 (UTC))

I for one did not understand that - it sounded like you were saying that x is not y because x has the same attributes as y. Where did I go wrong? Abtract (talk) 17:29, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Let's try it again then. Point masses and point charges are typically sources of gravitational en electromagnetic fields. For example you can calculate the gravitational field generated by a system of point masses. Test particles on the other hand are assumed NOT to generate a gravitation (or electromagnetic) field of their own (are at least it is assumed to negligible.), instead they are used as a theoretical tool to explore an existing gravitational (or electromagnetic) field. As an example take the reduced three body problem this describes three masses the first two are very massive and orbit each other according to the solution of the two body problem, while the last one is a test particle that is assumed to be very light compared to the other masses so that its influence on the other orbits can be safely ignored. (TimothyRias (talk) 18:57, 23 June 2009 (UTC))

I can see your point, TimothyRias. Anyway I wonder if it's worth to keep separeted articles only beacause test particles are point(-like) particles that generate negligible (EM, gravitational) fields. IMHO, I believe it's better to merge the articles and make "test particle" a subsection of "point particle". --CristianCantoro (talk) 07:24, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction to quantum mechanics

There is a discussion at Talk:Introduction to quantum mechanics (mainly between two editors) on how a good introductory article to quantum mechanics should look like. Now we have two competing versions, Introduction to quantum mechanics and Basic concepts of quantum mechanics. I am not too keen on studying the long-drawn-out discussion, but in particular, I am not a physicist, so I cannot really judge any inaccuracies. Is there someone to take pity on the two articles? :-) I guess there is a lot of good content in both, but the two should be well dissociated (Is that correct English?) or merged. -- Momotaro (talk) 13:46, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Momotaro, I just noticed your question. Yes, that is very correct English. Ti-30X (talk) 20:15, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. :-) -- Momotaro (talk) 08:44, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] GA Reassessment of Special relativity

I have done a GA Reassessment of the Special relativity article as part of the GA Sweeps project. I have found the article to need quite a bit of referencing. I have placed the article on hold for a week pending work. I am notifying all interested projects of this review which can be found here. If there are any questions please contact me on my talk page. H1nkles (talk) 17:59, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Need more opinions at Wavelength

We've been having an edit war there, and could use some input from others. It's all pretty well explained on the talk page (start with Talk:Wavelength#The_crux_of_the_problem and work backwards if you care). Dicklyon (talk) 18:21, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Need more opinions at Electromotive force

I could also use help at Electromotive force from anyone who is familiar with this topic. I've taken out some dubious stuff, but I think there's more. Dicklyon (talk) 20:28, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

The situation at Electromotive force is approaching what we had at Wavelength, which resolved itself only by Brews quitting it when he got blocked for edit warring. He's starting with his usual pattern at Electromotive force. We don't need an expert on this topic, but someone who understands basing science articles on sources to take a look and help us sort this out. Dicklyon (talk) 15:48, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

The problem at Electromotive force is indeed similar to that at Wavelength, viz. the only sources that Dicklyon calls sources are those he adopts. At the moment the article Electromotive force cites as support a reference by Cook, who in fact flatly contradicts the view of Electromotive force that emf is voltage (along with 98% of the sources of which I have supplied many on the Talk page). I replaced this erroneous sentence with a very simple, sourced definition, but it was reverted. Dick insists upon the view of Ross, a 19th century historian, expressed in a footnote to his discussion of Volta, that emf is a vaguely defined entity, despite all sources and argument to the contrary.

The one source that almost supports the article is a discussion by Vladimir Borisovich Rojansky, who does equate emf to integral of E-field between two points, but I'd say that if one feels impelled to mention this view, it should be flagged as a minority opinion (possibly the opinion of one). I say that for these reasons: (i) This view is not compatible with Kirchhoff's law, except in special cases. (ii) This view is not compatible with the "separation of charge" definition, which is the dominant view. (iii) Rojansky explicitly limits this discussion on p. 187 to the case where there actually is zero emf according to Faraday's law - he suggests a "redefinition" is necessary when a Faraday's law emf is present.

Please read the talk page. Brews ohare (talk) 20:10, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I still need help here; not necessarily a content expert, but someone who is willing to help slow down Brews. Dicklyon (talk) 21:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Or, we could try to speed up Dicklyon, but that would be harder. :-) Brews ohare (talk) 22:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Hard, but not necessarily harder. Dicklyon (talk) 04:21, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Consensus Please

In the article Physics of the Impossible a single editor removed material that I believe, very much enhanced this article. The other editor’s view is that the removed material was off topic. My view is that it is very much on topic.

The current article is here: (current)

The version which I restored is at my sub page here: (restored)

Everything that was removed is related to the book. This is because, as the author writes: “The material in this book ranges over many fields and disciplines, as well as the work of many outstanding scientists.” There is a two and one half page list of the individuals, “who have graciously given their time for lengthy interviews, consultations, and interesting, stimulating conversations.” Most on this list happen to be scientists. I listed only the first 22 individuals and these are scientists. In addition, I linked their names to their biography on Wikipedia. I also listed each scientist’s fields of specialties. Many on the list in the article have more than one field of specialty (view here), and hence this reflects the breadth of knowledge contained in this book. If you look at this section in the restored article you will see what I mean.

In addition, before this material was removed by the one editor, the article was much more interactive. It was also more in line with the intent of Wikipedia that that the readers (as well as the editors) have a satisfying experience with Wikipedia. One aspect of this more satisfying experience is being able to access the knowledge that is available at Wikipedia on the sciences, and, perhaps, the mathematics. So, I linked not only the names on the list, but also many of their scientific disciplines to the respective Wikipedia article. Accessing this knowledge supports the following WikiProjects and their respective portals: (there are more I am sure)

Also, there were graphics that were removed which support the article and the concepts in the book. I believe these should be restored as well. These are on the restored article page, at my sub page. The captions of the graphics show that the book is grounded in real science. If you scroll through the restored article you will see the variety of graphics. I believe these enhance the article aesthetically, as well as help to give a clearer picture of the concepts contained in the book and the article.

Lastly, there were external links that were removed which reflect the concepts in the book. These external links were removed as though they were not relevant. For example, I will list some of the external links, and then the page number in the book, to which each link is related:

Solar sails: pp. 152, 158 - 159, 166, 172…
Space elevators: pp. 165 – 169
Black holes: 156, 232, 235 – 236…
Travel at the speed of light: 159 – 161, 163 – 165, 169 – 170…

Unfortunately the external links that were removed are going to have to be restored one at a time, because they cannot be cut and pasted back from the revision history without some distortion. I think these external links should also, be restored to the article.

I think the bottom line is, let common sense decide. Even Wikipedia guidelines say that they are just guidelines, not letter of the law.

I would appreciate a consensus on whether or not to keep the removed material. Please place your comments here: Consensus please. This is on the talk page of Physics of the Impossible.

Thanks for your time Ti-30X (talk) 13:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

The list of 22 scientists who were interviewed for the book seems excessive to me. That's just everyone who was interviewed...some of them may have had nothing to say that actually got put into the book.

The pictures seem OK, but each caption should specifically say that the topic is discussed in the book (assuming it is). Keep in mind that it's an article on the book "Physics of the Impossible", not an article on the topic of physics of the impossible.

Also, don't be afraid to write a book summary on your own personal website, and then add it as an external link to the article. I doubt anyone would object, and you could make it much more extensive than would be appropriate for wikipedia, and you wouldn't have to argue with people about what is or isn't important enough to include. :-) --Steve (talk) 23:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Steve, a belated thanks to you, for your input. Ti-30X (talk) 01:54, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Where

The area of a triangle is xy/2, where x is the length of the base and y is the height.

The area of a triangle is xy/2. Where x is the length of the base and y is the height.

The first usage above I've been accustomed to for decades in the speech and writing of mathematicians. The second usage above is bizarre: it treats the word "where" as if it's the beginning of a new sentence rather than part of the same sentence. The phrase that begins with "where" is a phrase, not a complete sentence. I keep finding this in Wikipedia physics articles. I've never seen it in books or journal articles or anywhere else: only Wikipedia. Sometimes there's even a paragraph break in the middle of the sentence. Is this actually a standard usage among physicists? Michael Hardy (talk) 19:49, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Not that I know of. That's grammatically wrong. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 20:18, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I just fixed yet another of these. Why does this happen with such extraordinarily high frequency within Wikipedia if it doesn't exist anywhere else? It's really weird. Michael Hardy (talk) 03:08, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Many people aren't trained in writing. Intuition says that if it's a different line, it has to be a different sentence, especially if you were using math tags in the previous line. It's also not that intuitive how to place punctuation in math tags, so many just half-ass it because it's good enough, even though grammatically incorrect. That's my hypothesis. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 04:03, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that when you find these, you go back in the revision history and figure out who put in the period & capitalization. My guess is that there are just one or two offenders. If we identify them and tell them to stop, then it may stop. JRSpriggs (talk) 07:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

That would be my guess, that it's a few people doing it, and since editors tend to stick within a few topics, we get a lot of the "XY/2. Where..." on physics articles. --Falcorian ^(talk) 18:28, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

MS Word tends to "correct" a new line that starts with a lower case letter. Maybe some editors are labouring under the delusion that MS Word knows something about grammar... Djr32 (talk) 16:39, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Help needed at Glass transition

I have protected this article over an edit war that seems to have been building for some time. The current version is the one that happened to be live at the time of protection. Input is required from editors who are familiar with the subject to bring the article back on track. Please discuss on the Talk:Glass transition page. Thank you. Exploding Boy (talk) 02:08, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Lightning ACID

Lightning is the current Article Creation and Improvement Drive collaboration!

CAST YOUR VOTE for the next article

Colds7ream (talk) 15:49, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Help wanted at Minimal subtraction scheme

I would be grateful for some expert opinions on the example I propose to add to Minimal subtraction scheme. Comments at the article talk page would be welcome. A.K.Nole (talk) 20:10, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Article space troll

Working on glass transition, I ran into a strange edit war. Looking deeper into my opponents edit history, I found that User:Logger9 has created a number of pretty long texts, which he pastes almost at random in articles that are unattended by others.

This reveals a fundamental problem of quality control in WP. While usual vandalism is immediately recognised and reverted, while talk space trolls are sooner or later recognised and kept short of food, this user space troll has surprising success. Several editors intervened in his defense; they admitted that they were unable to understand his contributions, and took this as an indication that the material must be very very scientific. Actually, Logger9 decorates his contributions with tons of references (sometimes more than twenty in support of one statement). For me, this is an obvious sign of lacking judgement, but others are deeply impressed.

Right now, Logger9 has abandoned glass transition. Instead, he has pasted his favorite essays into Plastic deformation in solids. Please have a look - you will rapidly see what I am talking about. -- Cheers, Paula Pilcher (talk) 17:36, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

One more point: In the past, some editors have tried to handle the problem by leaving some unattended articles like physics of glass or Phase transformations in solids to Logger9 in order to keep him out of more often read articles like glass and phase transition. I think, this kind of gentleman's agreement is a foul compromise. There are obvious reasons why we should not tolerate private sandboxes in article space. -- Paula Pilcher (talk) 17:51, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Let me copy just one paragraph from Phase transformations in solids:

"Critical insight into the nature of the heat flow associated with thermal relaxation may be gained by consideration of Frenkel's observation on thermal conductivity that the quantity of heat flowing to a given volume element is used partly to heat it and partly for performing external work. It should be noted that in Debye's theory of the heat motion in a condensed body, the elastic vibrations describing this motion are treated without any a priori reference to the temperature, the latter being introduced merely as a measure of the average intensity of these vibrations. Such a treatment implies a strict validity of the principle of superposition of normal longitudinal and transverse vibrational modes; i.e. a neglect of their deviations from a linear law of force (anharmonicity)."

It is loquacious, partly wrong, off-topic, and as a whole borderline to nonsense. Yet non-scientists who intervene in this debate with opinions based on purely formal criteria defend these contributions, considering them just a little bit too much "technical". It really seems our policies are incapable of preventing this kind of trolling. -- Paula Pilcher (talk) 15:39, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree, it's garbage. Was it sourced? Verifiable? If not, then WP:V is the relevant policy being violated. If it's sourced but badly paraphrased, it can be repaired to agree with the source. Give warning; after enough ignored warning, call it vandalism and report it as such; if that doesn't work, you have to escalate. It's a pain to deal with such guys, I know. See my recent arguments with User:Brews ohare, who seems well intentioned and knowledgeable, but doesn't seem to have any inhibitions against making up partly wrong and mostly unrelated stuff. Dicklyon (talk) 15:46, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I tried various ways of escalation ... this talk page is my last hope ... if several of you cast the votes in the deletion debate, perhaps there is some hope. -- Paula Pilcher (talk) 15:55, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Dark matter on hold for GA Sweeps

The Good Article dark matter has been reviewed by me in accordance with the GA Sweeps process. I left concerns on the talk page; if they are not addressed within seven days the article may be de-listed as a Good Article. Thank you, and happy editing! -RunningOnBrains^{(talk page)} 19:17, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think a one week deadline is reasonable given the large number of points raised. Most of them are requests for citations for statements that are widely accepted. So, it's not that there are a lot of problematic statements in the article. I think that it is reasonable for the problems to be fixed before September.

I'm sure they'll be reasonable, they were the one time I worked on a GA. As long as the points were being addressed. --Falcorian ^(talk) 00:21, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone ever received a referee report from the editor saying: "you got 7 days to revise your manuscript, or else it will be rejected"? Count Iblis (talk) 21:12, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

We didn't even get seven days at WP:CHEM for sodium hydroxide. The whole process is a farce, best thing to do is to ignore it. Physchim62 (talk) 00:47, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Point Particle Questions

I have some questions regarding point particles (this is for an article on Wikipedia).

Are the muon and tau lepton considered to be point particles? I know that they have no internal structure, like the electron so, these are elementary particles. But the fact that they decay during the weak interaction, and the size of the tau lepton have me wondering if these are point particles. (There was one other thing, but I can't recall at the moment what it was.)

What is the momentum of the electron? Is this is a conserved property? I am having a difficult time determining what it is. Ti-30X (talk) 16:46, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean by a point particle? That's not a very useful concept in physics. And electron momentum is not conserved; momentum in conserved in closed systems, but it can move between components of the system. It is also uncertain. But if you know the wavenumber, it's proportional to that, with a factor of Planck's constant. Of course, the point particle concept doesn't have the concept of wavenumber, so maybe that's not what you want to know. Dicklyon (talk) 18:13, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Dicklyon, I am equating point particle with elementary or fundamental particles. It seems there is a well known Nobel laureate in particle physics (Leon Lederman) who stated that the electron was a point particle. It has spin, mass, and charge, but is considered to be without dimension. It is counterintuitive to the human perspective. He wrote that a particle with point mass, point spin, and point charge does create conceptual problems (IMHO a conceptual problem, doesn't seem to be much of a problem). Anyway here is the link in Google Books. If you can write "point particle" in the search box, click on page 142, scroll back to the bottom of page 141, and then read bottom of page 141, and the whole of page 142, you will see what I mean. (If you have time) Let me know what you think. Thanks. Ti-30X (talk) 03:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

"Point particles" are a pedagogical tool for teaching classical physics. They're not real things. --Steve (talk) 19:42, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Asking "what is the momentum of the electron" is somewhat like asking "what is the velocity of the football". A given electron will have a momentum, then it gets bumped, and then it has a new momentum, then it gets bumped again... --Steve (talk) 03:18, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Steve, your football analogy agrees with what I was thinking. But for some reason I got the idea there was an established momentum involved for the electron. I don't know where this idea came from. Probably from something I mis-read. The fog is clearing - (not about what I misread) - just as Diklyon wrote, above, momentum is conserved in a closed system. Somehow I must have mixed that up with my question. Ti-30X (talk) 03:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

According to string theory, there are no point particles, only little strings which are entities with extension in time and limited extension in one spatial direction (they may be open-ended or loops). If point particles existed, they would require infinite strength of interaction (producing other infinities, previously fixed by renormalization when possible) because the probability of two points colliding is zero. JRSpriggs (talk) 19:37, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

JRSpriggs - this is interesting because renormalization is what is used today. And, (probably as everyone here already knows), around the time QED was being developed there were those pesky inifinities. As a solution, Feynman and colleagues came up with renormalization. So this aspect of string theory supports that. Ti-30X (talk) 03:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)