Talk:Quantum Reality

Quantum Reality has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: April 25, 2017. (Reviewed version).

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Quantum Reality/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Porphyro (talk · contribs) 11:23, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

This is my first review, so hopefully another editor with more experience will also chime in.

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
The article seems overall well written to me, even though this is challenging to achieve in an article about quantum ontology. No spelling or grammatical issues. The lead is a good summary of the book and the article adheres to the manual of style.
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):
I think the section on interpretations is undersourced. Statements like "this is the most broadly accepted interpretation among physicists" worry me, because it is unsourced. If this is something that is stated in the book, that needs to be made clear. The blog post on "Quantum Tantra" is written by the author and so may be considered reliable enough to merit inclusion. I do not see any original research or plagiarism.
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
The article addresses the main aspects of the topic in broad fashion, as far as I can see.
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
The article as written on occasion gives undue weight to the author's opinion, with such presented as facts. I find statements such as "the many-worlds interpretation lacks the counterfactual definiteness required to prove Bell's theorem" worrying, since such a statement is at the very least debatable. However, most of the article is better at enforcing this divide.
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
The article is stable.
It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
There is one image, and it is both useful to the article and describes its rationale for fair use.
Overall:
Pass/Fail:
Overall, I think this article is close to meeting the criteria for a good article. Seeing that this is my first review, however, I have changed the status to "second opinion".
Is there a specific aspect on which you want a second opinion? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 18:52, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Just that I am judging this fairly and against the right standard of criteria. I don't know if I have a good feel for throw yet. Porphyro (talk) 20:01, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, I will take a look and give my opinion, I will have no objection if anyone else offers another opinion. I also do not consider myself an expert, but will give it my best shot. I will point out that the subject matter is out of my field. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:03, 21 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Second opinion

A layman's view. (I am a mechanical engineer, and read a fair amount of popular science and SF, but have not read this book.)

The article is quite short, so there should be no problem adding some content to clarify where needed.
I have no issues with the grammar and general use of language, or the layout and structure of the article. The terminology appears to be appropriate to the subject matter of the book itself, but is dense and relatively inaccessible to the layperson. This may be unavoidable, and I would not fail it on this point myself, but it might be possible to be a bit more explanatory of the technical terminology, or to use less direct but more comprehensible descriptions, depending to some extent on whether this would be needed for someone who has sufficient background to find the book useful.
I am not going to check references, I assume competence of the original reviewer. Same for breadth of coverage, stability and image use.
The actual statement the many-worlds interpretation lacks the counterfactual definiteness required to prove Bell's theorem mentioned above as NPOV is not a matter I would be able to form an opinion on, but it could be rephrased to show that it is the author's opinion (if this is the case - it is not clear), which is admissible. It is also a statement which does not mean much to me. Some explanation would do no harm. Another option would be to provide references showing that it is a generally accepted view, (which you dispute, so may not be possible).
Is this the only NPOV issue?

Background

The second paragraph is somewhat opaque. I would like to see some clarification of:

proxy wave function - I get proxy, and wave function, but combined they become incomprehensible.
The bandwidth associated with any such decomposition represents the uncertainty in the quantum measurement - The linked article on bandwidth does not clarify the use in this case for me, and "decomposition" is also unclear in this context.

Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:10, 21 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for doing this. You could find sources for or against the necessity of counterfactual definiteness for Bell's theorem, and although I would say the view in the article is the majority, it is at least something up for debate. Other potential NPOV/citation issues are the following:

"this is the most broadly accepted interpretation among physicists" This definitely requires a citation, since surveys done on which interpretation of QM is favoured by physicists have often suffered from severe selection bias one way or another, and this is especially suspect given that the Copenhagen interpretation has been split into two.
"For this reason, neorealism is rejected by most of the physics establishment." This is followed by a citation from the book and so is possibly the author's opinion. It suffers from the same locality problems as the "broadly accepted" Copenhagen interpretation.

I tend to agree with you on your comments in "Background" that they are very opaque to a lay reader and deserve more attention, especially the use of "proxy". I'm switching the status of this GA review to "on hold". Porphyro (talk) 10:04, 21 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To editors Porphyro and Pbsouthwood: Huge thanks to both of you for your reviews! I've tried to address each of the issues you identified (diff). I hope the "background" section is clearer now; the topic is outside my field as well (I'm an engineer too), so I hesitate to stray too far from the source terminology for fear of introducing inaccuracies. I'd be happy to address any other parts you think need work. Thanks again! —swpb^T 13:32, 21 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think the revisions improve the article. The background section makes more sense to me than it did before. Whether it is clear enough for others is something I cannot judge, but I have no more serious reservations. Porphyro, I think the ball is back in your court. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 19:01, 21 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy with the article as it now stands. Porphyro (talk) 10:59, 25 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! —swpb^T 13:03, 25 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Next step is to promote to GA. This is Porphyro's privilege. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:08, 25 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I see it has been done. Thanks to all involved for another good article. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:11, 25 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]