User talk:CSTAR/archive2

It's very reasonable to mention my uncle Andrzej's connection to Mizar, but it really go on his own biography page, separate from that of my mom.

I would like to stay away from promoting my relatives on these pages; someone else should start the page for my uncle. He was born January 29, 1941. He is married with two children. His home page has various professional information which may be of interest.

Greg Kuperberg 19:39, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

thanks for the info about the four tildes. I use them. It's the same as hitting the signature icon at the top. But to get the hot link apparently you have to to do the bracket bracket vertical bar user colon name bracket name bracket bracket. I still hit the signature bar because it gets the date and stuff. Am I still missing something? --Will314159 01:01, 22 May 2006 (UTC) Will314159

Excuse me, that remark of yours is a foolish personal attack on fellow editors. --CSTAR 01:07, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nevertheless Haaretz reported yesterday that Palestinian schoolchildren under IDF escort were pushed by settlers into thornbrushes. Such is the reality of the ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank that has been ongoing now in spite of UN resolutions and law since 1967. But lay that aside. other than four tildes or the signature icon or a cut and paste I don't know how to do the name link. Take Care! --Will314159 01:42, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

talk:Intelligent design

In regards to Joan Schmone, I did a Google search on her but got nothing:

Your search - "Joan Schmone" - did not match any documents.

Was that a typo? --Uncle Ed 16:59, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Juan Cole - Green Cheese

I am so going to steal that one. :D -- Christian Edward Gruber 18:07, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The certainty principle

Hi, CSTAR! Why did you remove the link to external site in Quantum indeterminacy? Lonafi 00:04, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See edit summary. As per [1].--CSTAR 00:22, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Añoranza

[2] Please advise. Haizum 01:25, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Humor? Something needs to be done with this article... ;-)

Hi, CSTAR! Of course, you are a great humorist, but something needs to be done in this situation. Those guys (Zarniwoot and FCZenz) are plain stupid. It seems, they still do not understand that this was only a demonstration of force. They do not understand, that, for example, we can spread the attack to much more articles. Fighting with us, Zarniwoot and FCZenz break WP policy all the time and, possibly, cause more damage here than we. Recently, SCZenz blocked an IP-address of an independent person. Crazy guy! (How many other innocent people have he blocked already?) I left him a message about that and a notice that the article Introduction to quantum mechanics was already attacked two times without reversion and was already edited by three (!!!) people. That was the article that was defended already! Instead of recognition that he is unable to defend even several articles here, he just removed my post from the page, so that other people could not see, how stupid he is. (That happened already several times.) For what reason do we need such a crazy administrators here? They hurt WP more than help! How can be they so stupid? Do not they realize yet that WP works because most people want to make the world better, not because admins fight here with "bad" guys? —Preceding unsigned comment added by User:Goldufan (talk • contribs)

Re: Your comment They do not understand, that, for example, we can spread the attack to much more articles. I interpret these comments as a threat to disrupt wikipedia? Besides being possibly illegal in many countries, this kind of threat violates numerous wikipedia policies.--CSTAR 03:15, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(1) You are right. We should also understand that law is a non-perfect image of the Truth, not vice versa. For this reason, life forces us to break law sometimes (or to change law). And our situation is the situation, when the existing law will be broken irrevocably. You can complain to government, but that will make the situation just more funny. Anyway, it will be more wise than to fight here in WP. (2) For what reason have you added a note about the author to my post? It does not help at all. Admins blocked User:Goldufan for leaving that message on your talk page. Hryun Zildan 14:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well at least you admit you're a sockpuppet. Anyway you're now blocked too. --CSTAR 13:16, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rfc vs. Commodore Sloat

Hi CSTAR - I'm writing because I believe you're an admin, and I have a question about the conduct RfC that was filed against me by TDC (talk · contribs). I don't understand why it has not been summarily deleted yet. The Wikipedia policy (pasted at the top of the page) states:

In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with csloat 01:15, 16 June 2006 (UTC). If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 16:58, June 13, 2006 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 18:36, 15 June 2006 (UTC).[reply]

I suppose it has only been an hour and a half since the deadline passed, but I haven't even seen a comment from an admin about the rules. The RfC was signed by another user -- RonCram (talk · contribs) -- but he did not, as wikipedia policy calls for, provide evidence of efforts to resolve the dispute. The only such information was provided by TDC (and in fact, he included information from three different disputes, one of them with a user who did not sign the RfC, about a totally different dispute that was almost a year old). I have outlined a lot of this in my response.

I'm not trying to rush a decision here; I am just curious if this is something I need to keep paying attention to -- I am leaving town in a few days and I probably won't be very active on Wikipedia until after I return.

If you don't think this RfC qualifies for speedy elimination, I'd also like to ask that you take a look at it and provide your opinion. You have intervened in a couple of disputes I've had with other users in the past, including RonCram (one of the signatories of this RfC), and I've found your input measured and level-headed, so I value whatever you might have to add to the discussion there. I don't believe that I have done anything worth sanctioning in that manner. Thanks! --csloat 01:15, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not very good at interpreting bureaucratic language, but it does seem that Ron Cram has certified the basis for the dispute; I'd have to look and see if it also requires each person to independently provide a bunch of diff files which show that that person has also attempted to resolve the dispute. But I think deletion would be a bit premature and excessively bureacratic. In any case I'll send him a note and ask him about this.--CSTAR 01:30, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

CSTAR, I don't really know what is required of me in this matter. I agree with csloat that you are levelheaded and I also appreciate your input. I would prefer to spend what limited time I have to improving articles rather than on digging up old disputes. I don't believe the Michael Scheuer dispute is even mentioned in the RfC. My biggest problem with csloat, up until now, is that he reverts my edits so quickly other editors do not get a chance to read them and the sources I cite. If he would just leave my edits alone for at least three days so other editors will know I wrote something, that would be an improvement. But his harassment on the Talk pages was over the line. Let me know what you think. BTW, I just finished a rewrite on the Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda page. I truly tried to improve it and make it NPOV. Please take a look and tell him what you think. RonCram 01:47, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, CSTAR. If you do get a chance to read over the RfC and add your input I would appreciate it. Ron -- the RfC does not seem to be about how quickly I change things. Of course, with Wikimedia software, we can always look at previous versions of a page, so that does not seem to be an issue anyway. The Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda article did not have any NPOV problems that I was aware of until your changes (in fact, there was no NPOV tag on it). You made massive POV-shifting changes without a single word of justification of any of them; all I ask for is a list of changes and justifications; otherwise they should be reverted.--csloat 01:52, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

CSTAR, just so you know, it took csloat all of ten minutes to revert my rewrite. Now if you want to read it, you have to go to history. How often will most editors do that? RonCram 02:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's the way WP works sometimes; there should be no expectation that what you write will stay there for any length of time. However, many editors will in fact look at the history.

The best strategy is to figure out specifically what csloat objects to (and vice-versa); the worst case: You have sources that say P ("Al Qaeda had a relationship to Saddam") whereas he has sources that say the opposite. This is tricky: you have to evaluate the validity of the sources do a "meta" comparison of the sources. I may not be the best intermediary in this case, but I'll have a look at the history.--CSTAR 02:46, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It would have been better if you had discussed these changes first; it was a major change. I looked at your intro: it looks OK, but I do object to

The official view has come under increasing criticism as new information from Operation Iraqi Freedom documents comes to light.

That statement does seem tendentious. At the very least it needs a citation; preferably a direct quote or paraphrase for "increasing criticism".

Also what does "formal view of the intelligence community" mean? For instance, is there an informal view?

--CSTAR 02:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

CSTAR, thank you for taking a look. The statement about increasing criticism can be sourced with about 10 or 15 major findings from the OIF documents. Perhaps the best evidence though it that from Democrat Senator and 9/11 Commission member Bob Kerrey has changed his view. He no longer supports the official view that no working relationship existed. The informal or unofficial view is supported by a good many terrorism experts and reporters. Reports of the working relationship were quite common during the Clinton Administration. The Intelligence Community had downplayed these reports in the media and the non-official view is that this is another example of an intelligence failure by the community. Also, I noticed in the RfC that you made mention that you thought I also could behave better. I would like to know what I have done wrong so that I could correct it. RonCram 14:45, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, However, I am not accusing you of doing anything "wrong". Nevertheless, it does seem to me that both of you (that is you and csloat) could benefit from writing from the viewpoint of the opponent. This is a valuable intellectual exercise, and though writing to make a point is valuable in other contexts, it's not not helpful here. For instance, even if one doesn't believe there was much to the relation between Saaddam and Al-qaeda, it would be worthwhile (for csloat for instance) to flush out the exact details of the citations you mention, to figure out exactly what they say. One has to accept the fact that many editors are going to be sceptical of these claims and state things in a way which a sceptical editor could accept. The facts are the facts, and regardless of whether one is on the right or left, it behooves everybody to face the facts.

I will try to provide more specific instances later when I have more time. I do think you are a valuable editor however. --CSTAR 15:31, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

CSTAR I have done that numerous times (writing for the opponent); I have yet to see Ron do it once. I mentioned this on the RfC. It is very frustrating to be in this dispute with Ron for over a year. I don't expect to change his mind, but I do not think Wikipedia is a place to showcase your favorite conspiracy theories from fringe sources. The alleged link between Saddam and al-Qaeda is something I have expertise on, and it is little more than that. Yes there were contacts between the two of them, but they never conspired together and in the end they were extremely hostile to each other. Ron consistently cherry picks facts that support his side of the story and combines them with opinion pieces from the Weekly Standard and similar sources in order to make a case for cooperation even though every major investigative body that has looked into this -- the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, State Department, the 9/11 Commission, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as foreign intelligence agencies in Britain, Spain, and Israel -- has published the conclusion that there was no operational relationship between these two entities. Over the past year or so I have vetted every right wing source used by Ron and others to prove a relationship and developed an extensive timeline dealing with each claim in turn. So even though I think Ron's claim is wrong I have not deleted his information; I have simply added context or refutation from other sources where necessary. I have also discussed every significant change in talk meticulously rather than making massive changes without discussion. Now Ron has completely and radically changed the POV of the article, made massive changes, and foregrounded fringe theories in order to make it look like 9/11 was Saddam's idea. The main source for his theories is the discredited writer Laurie Mylroie, whose ideas have been dismissed by every major counterterrorism scholar to look at them (including conservatives). Reputable scholars not normally given to extremes of language like Peter Bergen and Daniel Benjamin call her a "crackpot." While the consensus version of the page that Ron deleted already had her theories published, it did not place those theories front and center the way Ron's revision did. I don't understand why this version should be put up for even 72 hours and I don't understand why Ron should be in a position to dictate such a thing of other editors.--csloat 16:38, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Requiring that any edit be left up for 72 hours is unreasonable. That is simply incompatible with the rapid flux of Wikipedia articles. The best course of action is to take his version and putit in the talk page or somewhere else such as in your directory. To reinforce your case, use the footnote facility ( <ref> .. </ref> ) to comment on each one of RonCram's additions you have some issue with. Avoid using words such as "right wing" etc. As far as Laurie Mylroie I think she has been generally discredited, but it's not clear that his sources can all be traced back to her.--CSTAR 17:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your level-headed commentary. You are right that Ron has other sources than Mylroie; my objection was the prominence he gave Mylroie in his new version of the page. What I have done on the talk page is begun a dialogue about what I see as the egregious POV issues in his version of the page. Since he has so far refused to list his changes and justify them, I made a list of problems that I have with his version, and initiated a debate on those issues. Hoipefully a productive revision will come out of that dialogue.--csloat 21:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments

I do appreciate your saying that you think I am a valuable editor. I understand also your view that leaving the article untouched for 72 hours is unreasonable. Truthfully, I never expected any other editor to wait that long. I was only asking csloat to give the new version a chance to be seen so it could be discussed. Others might have made changes that would have made it more acceptable to him.

Regarding writing from the viewpoint of the opponent - contrary to csloat's unkind statement, I attempt to do that regularly. If you read the section of the article that represents the official or orthodox view, you will see that I have done so. The words "The dislike was mutual" are mine. The summary paragraph is also mine. It reads: "In short, the official view of the Intelligence Community holds that a relationship between Saddam and al-Qaeda is unlikely because Saddam was a secular leader who would not trust an Islamic radical like Osama bin Laden. In addition, Osama expressed hostility to Saddam's regime, intelligence reports from the Iraqi National Congress had been discredited and the paucity of evidence for a formal relationship did not convince most analysts that a cooperative working relationship existed." I thought that was a fair summary of the evidence presented just above.

Also, Sloat continues to act as if those who hold to the non-official version of the relationship are somehow on the "fringe" of society. He even treats Weekly Standard as if it is not a widely read and widely respected journal. TWS publishes investigative reporting as well as opinion pieces. For example, the Feith memo was leaked to TWS. If you have not read Democrats praising Weekly Standard, you can do so on my User page. csloat has read it but still denigrates the reporting there as if it is a right-wing version of Pravda. Facts are facts and the fact is Weekly Standard is highly regarded by both political parties for being highly accurate.

Regarding Mylroie, she earned a Ph.D. from Harvard and was Bill Clinton's advisor on the Middle East. She held the respect of the intelligence community for many years until her research led her to a contrary conclusion. Now, I'm not saying she is right. But I can say that the article will be incomplete if it does not discuss the question of Saddam's possible involvement in 9/11. And it is not possible to discuss that without discussing Mylroie's books. Her first book had a big impact on Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. It was Mylroie's book that made the Bush Administration wonder if Saddam was responsible. The evidence never clearly pointed to him, so Bush never made that case. These are the historical facts and they deserve to be in the article. I do not see how addressing these facts in the article can be considered POV.RonCram 23:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ron, I think at this point the debate is best continued on the Saddam/AQ talk page. You are repeating arguments here that I have refuted over there, and I don't think we need to duplicate the debate on a user talk page. I appreciate what you have to say concerning writing for the opponent -- this is the first time I have seen you do that, but I want to both acknowledge that you are trying to do that and encourage you to keep an open mind. I do still think the overall result of your edits were a massive POV shift, but I don't want to dismiss a reasonable attempt to be more circumspect in your editing. As for The Weekly Standard, you have tried to make this point all over Wikipedia and it has been challenged over and over again. I do not wish to repeat those arguments. If you have information you would like to add to The Weekly Standard entry please feel free to do so at any time. As for Mylroie and the 9/11 stuff, again I think that debate belongs on the article's talk page. The view that Saddam may have had a relationship with al Qaeda deserves more consideration than the view that he was behind 9/11 -- that view has been rejected by every reputable source, and even the Bush Administration has rejected it. You are correct that Mylroie's book influenced Cheney and others to an unreasonable degree, and that deserves mention on the Mylroie page, for example. Even on the Saddam/AQ page that can be mentioned, but it does not deserve center stage. It is already indicated on the timeline. It is one thing to acknowledge that Cheney and others were influenced by information that is now widely recognized as not credible; it is quite another to present that non-credible information as the central focus of the article.--csloat 00:27, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sloat, why do you feel compelled to answer for CSTAR? Do you truly think he is not able to hold up his end of a conversation? I have said this to you in the past, Sloat, and I will say it again. You need to stop sticking your nose in where it is not wanted. Neither I nor CSTAR felt your comment here was required. Let me say this plain, Sloat. Don't talk to me about anything on any page except an article's Talk page. Don't talk to me on my User page. Don't address me on anyone else's User page. Are we clear? If we are, then you will not answer that. RonCram 06:48, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ron, it appears to me that you are the one speaking for CSTAR. I don't believe I said anything about what CSTAR wants in my post. I addressed you here because your comments dealt with our dispute on Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. I am interested in the substantive arguments here; I am not interested in fighting with you.--csloat 07:01, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I'm concerned a user talk page is a public area.

Re Ron's comment. Neither I nor CSTAR felt your comment here was required. I don't think I ever said anything which would suggest that. I'm actually happy to see this discussion, although I still see that neither one of you (csloat and RonCram) has really addressed each other's arguments.

Re Mylroie's PhD from Harvard. Ron I have a PhD from Harvard (ALso know many PhD's from Harvard); it's a nice piece of paper, but well, I dunno. It's not all that it's cranked up to be.--CSTAR 14:47, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

CSTAR, perhaps I should not have spoken for you. I did not intend to say that you would be offended by his speaking, only that you would not feel it necessary for him to speak for you. I am willing to work with csloat on the Talk pages but I am not willing to socialize with him. Perhaps you do not understand my feelings but I am certain that if someone expressed that feeling to you, you would not continue to follow him around just to harass him. I save truly substantive discussions (when I answer other people's arguments) for the article Talk page. User Talk pages are for introducing subjects and getting to know people. I simply don't want csloat talking to me when I have a conversation with someone on a Talk page. If he cannot understand that, I am not sure how he will learn good manners. Regarding a Ph.D. from Harvard, I understand what you are saying. I have a Master's degree and was accepted into a Ph.D. program at USC, so I am not overawed by the degree. There are several Harvard Ph.D.s that I am not impressed with. I have read Mylroie's first book and she does an incredible investigative job proving certain facts. Unfortunately, to really prove her case she would have to have the resources of the Intelligence Community. So, for the time being I have to say I am not convinced by Mylroie's theory but find that its inclusion is required because of the historically role the book played. Perhaps I should cite that role better in the article? RonCram 16:12, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think a citation to her work is warranted for the historical reason you mention.

I really believe WP editors have to take a scholarly approach to writing (and that it's actually possible to do so). This means one has to ask oneself about every sentence "is this really true" or "what does this really prove". As I've suggested to csloat, imagine you are making notes to yourself without trying to prove a point (Epistemologists may object that such incomplete impartiality is impossible). Also keep in mind that that the weekly standard is a political publication and writers for it are polemicists.

In any case I'm very happy to see these arguments on my talk page.

Re I am not willing to socialize with him. Clearly, csloat should avoid your talk page. I think if you make that request and he goes against it, then I you have a case for stalking. But I don't think it's reasonable to ask him to stay away from other talk pages. If you want private conversations, use email.--CSTAR 16:40, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, CSTAR; I have been trying to make that point about email. The central substance of the RfC that Ron and TDC filed against me is a "stalking" charge based on a comment I posted to someone else's talk page. I have no interest in harassing, but I don't see what's wrong with participating in a public conversation about improving a wikipedia article. And I really am trying to work with people on these pages, not against them, though it is very hard with certain people who seem to attack me every time they write. As for socializing with Ron, I have no interest in that. We both live in southern California; if I wanted to socialize with him, I would take him out for a beer. I'm not on wikipedia for that reason; I'm here to help improve articles about topics in which I have some expertise. As for Mylroie, it's not her Ph.D. that is at issue. The degree itself is neither here nor there. But her books are published by trade presses. Her first book on Saddam, coauthored with now-discredited journalist Judith Miller, was a best seller, and it is not a terrible book for a one-sided portrayal of a dictator (and let's face it, with Saddam, there really isn't another side to his murderous nature). But it would never have passed peer review. Her second book was first published by American Enterprise Institute; it is a screed, not a work of scholarship. The problem with it is not, as Ron says, that she doesn't have enough resources to write it; the problem is that it is based on logic that is flawed to the point of incomprehensibility. If you type Laurie Mylroie into google, the first hit is Peter Bergen's analysis of her book. He takes her analysis apart piece by piece, showing that her entire case relies on completely flawed logic concerning Ramzi Yousef. I hope you don't mind if I quote Juan Cole on this issue at some length to articulate my point:

"In the academic world, we don't get to publish our books at academic presses without peer review. When Princeton University Press considered my book, written out of the Egyptian National Archives, on the 19th century Urabi Revolt, the editor sent the manuscript to eminent experts in 19th century Egyptian history. Now, I lived in the Arab world for 6 years, have a degree in Arabic studies from Cairo, and had a Fulbright grant for my research. I spent a year working almost daily in the archives in Cairo. I had an academic position in a major department at a major university. But Princeton University Press did not trust me. They still had the book refereed. In contrast, the American Enterprise Institute publishes anything Mylroie hands into them, no matter how fantastic. Her Arabic is imperfect, she has never been in any Iraqi archive, and has no standing in the Middle East field. Her books don't have to be refereed, apparently. The poor lay reader who finds her book in Borders has no way of distinguishing it from the trade paperbacks of Princeton University Press. And then the mere fact of the book's existence can become a reference-point in political debate. No university press would have published Mylroie's pablum, because academic researchers would have shot it down for poor evidence and bad reasoning. You'd think that where people are writing about issues that involve life and death, war and peace in the contemporary world, it would be more important to have the books refereed. Nineteenth century history we could get wrong and survive. The tragedy is that people will go on believing Mylroie's weirdness, and she will keep getting invited on t.v. and to speak to Congress, and AEI will not suffer a loss of credibility because of this fiasco. If an assistant professor in a university wrote such nonsense, the person would never get tenure and would end up unemployed."[3]

So while I actually do think a PhD at harvard should mean something, a degree is not the end of one's career and it certainly does not legitimize every statement you make after receiving the degree. Mylroie's credentials do not mean that her statements have as much credibility as the claims of, say, Fawaz Gerges, Robert Pape, Daniel Benjamin, Rohan Gunaratna, or Daniel Byman, or even journalistic authors such as Peter Bergen. The problem is not even that she acts as a shill for a right wing think tank but that she abandons the logical faculties to make her claims, yet those claims are published anyway. Anyway, I agree that Mylroie should be menitoned on the page, so I don't think we have a major point of contention here; I just don't think her work should be treated as the central focus of that page as Ron's version had it.--csloat 20:04, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Sloat

I don't know how to use wikipedia email. I never bothered to learn. An informal mediation process may help temporarily, but Sloat will soon return to his old ways. Regarding the RfC, Sloat mentioned TDC's name and brought him into it. TDC saw how upset I was with Sloat's harassment and he felt justified in filing the RfC. Sloat has truly been incorrigible and that is why I want nothing to do with him on a personal level. The fact Sloat continued to harass me on my Talk page after I asked him to leave me alone was his worst offense in my opinion. As my statement on the RfC relates, I had to delete two of Sloat's comments from my Talk page. You can check the history. If Sloat had not continued to post to my Talk page, I doubt if TDC would have filed the RfC. It's funny you do not think that complaint has merit when that is the issue that bothered me the very most. People should be able to go somewhere on wikipedia without the stress of having to face an unreasonable opponent who always demands the last word. The User Talk pages should be that refuge. But Sloat is not a reasonable and he just does not understand.RonCram 15:30, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP Email is very easy to use. Look on the left margin of th ebrowser window. Where it says "toolbox". Click on where it says "E-mail this user" and you should be on your way.--CSTAR 15:36, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop defaming me Ron. If we have content disputes, let's deal with them as content disputes. There is no reason to keep personally attacking me. Thanks.--csloat 04:10, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Certainty principle

Hi CSTAR, Long time no talk. I see from the above that you are still a controversy magnet. Anyway, I wanted to ask about another controversy: the Certainty principle. Yes, I see that there were threats, sockpuppets, and general bad behaviour and excessive promotion, and that given that, this article has no place on WP. But that's not why I'm here.

A polite request from User:Rcq caused me to actually read the Arbatsky paper. Its actually not a bad paper, and its major failing is that it fails to mention its most interesting and important result in either the abstract or the intro. However, the result is interesting to me, I've never seen anything like it. Its has a rather simple derivation, easy to understand, and surprisingly it offers a strong physical insight. So I'm wondering if its already in some book I haven't read, or if I slept through class on the day it was taught, etc. As you actually have a formal education in Hilbert spaces, and I don't, I was wondering if you could look at it, and tell me if you've seen this before.

Here's the summary: Consider a Hilbert space. Let A be a Hermitian operator on the space, and let $U(t)=\exp(itA)$ be the unitary operator generated by A. Let x be a vector in the Hilbert space, and define its time evolution as $x(t)=U(t)x$ . Define the velocity as $v(t)=dx(t)/dt$ . Define the "angular speed" as $\omega =\lim _{\epsilon \to 0}\arccos(x(t+\epsilon )\cdot x(t))/\epsilon$ which is of course equal to $\omega =||v_{\perp }||=||v-x(x\cdot v)||$ . That this deserves the name "angular speed" just follows from the simple definition of a dot product as the cosine of the angle between two normalized vectors. This should be all very obvious up to this point, text-book material. Here's the kicker, the interesting bit: the angular speed is equal to the RMS expectation value of A!! That is, $\omega =<A^{2}>_{x}-<A>_{x}^{2}$ . THAT is the "certainty principle". I'm curiously excited by this, but that may be due to a lack of sleep. But take -- for example, A being the Hamiltonian, so that the RMS expectation is the uncertainty in the energy -- see why that's interesting? Please let me know if this is "well-known", or if its indeed novel. linas 04:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't claim there is anything wrong with it, but this kind of general (pretty trivial) manipulation is hardly new. Claiming that it is some kind of general principle is totally unwarranted and trying to add this to WP even moreso. --CSTAR 14:01, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree completely, its a trivial manipulation, it should not be claimed as a "general principle", and it should not be added to WP. I was just wondering if you'd seen it before. (BTW it holds generally for the transport of tangent vectors on a manifold). linas 14:19, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I note that to order ε, I have $\left(U(t+\epsilon )x_{0},U(t)x_{0}\right)\approx (x_{0},x_{0})+i\epsilon \langle A\rangle +O(\epsilon ^{2}).$ Thus the thing you are taking the inverse cosine of is not real (assuming A is self-adjoint). Most geometric intuition you might get from thinking about angles goes out the window when you start talking about complex angles, I think. Which is why no one ever talks about angles in Hilbert space. What you've got here is just a nifty calculation trick for finding the dispersion in an operator which might even be useful if "angles" and "angular velocity" were actually quantities people used in Hilbert space. But they're not, so this isn't. By the way, your preference to use the Euclidean dot product notation for the inner product in Hilbert space gives me the jibblies. -lethe ^{talk +} 14:37, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And potential for geometric intuition (or lack thereof) aside, I'm not sure about the rest of this calculation. Using the Taylor series for the inverse cosine, I get

\lim _{\epsilon \to 0}{\frac {\cos ^{-1}(U(t+\epsilon )x_{0},U(t)x_{0})}{\epsilon }}=-{\frac {i}{\sqrt {1-\langle A\rangle ^{2}}}}

and this only works if I assume x₀ is a unit vector. I haven't seen how to arrive at the result you claim, linas. Maybe I'm mucking the calculation. Can you outline some more steps for me? -lethe ^{talk +} 15:30, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

THe way to do these calculations is use the spectral for self-adjoint operators. Assume A is a multiplication operator. If it's true, it's trivial.--CSTAR 15:37, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lethe, see User:Linas/Arbatsky's principle unmaksed for some details. That page indeed states that they are unit vectors. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 16:10, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Having looked at linas's derivations, I can say that this whole business appears fishy to me. I have a lot of problems with linas's text. For one, the notion that this calculation can be repeated for a Lie group or a Riemannian manifold seems very hard to justify. It's true that the exponential map is defined in those contexts at least locally, but the space is not a vector space, let alone an inner product space. It is a manifold. Much of the argument would have to at least be drastically modified in a way that is not obvious to me at present. So let's just evaluate this argument in the context where it makes sense: the Banach algebra of bounded operators on a Hilbert space. Fine. Two, a lot of the argument revolves around calculating the perpendicular projection of the derivative of a unit vector. But I know from elementary calculus that the derivative of a unit vector, or indeed any with constant length, is always perpendicular. Thus

v_{\perp }=v

. The length of our vector will indeed be constant in the case that our evolution operator is unitary, and of course although the derivation never stipulates that the operator is unitary, it does assume this fact. Finally, the main point of the whole business, this stuff about the angular velocity, well it isn't treated in linas's derivation (which simply states "and its not hard to show that"), and I've tried again to get it myself. I'm quickly becoming convinced that it's simply not true. So what are we left with? Absolutely nothing. The one true equation of this derivation

\|v_{\perp }\|={\sqrt {(Gx,Gx)-|(x,Gx)|^{2}}}

follows trivially from

v=Gx

by squaring both sides. I have not been able to reproduce the result about the angular speed being equal to this velocity magnitude. Actually, CSTAR's suggestion of working in the basis where A is a multiplication operator makes it obviously true, but that doesn't work in an arbitrary basis, right? Only for certain vectors will that argument go through? -lethe ^{talk +} 19:51, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you prove an equality by use of a coordinate system, the validity of the equality does not depend on the coordinate system (whatever that would mean).--CSTAR 19:54, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but in general, the starting vector x₀ need not be an eigenvector. Like, OK there is a basis in which the operator acts like multiplication on all basis vectors. But what about linear combinations of different vectors? It no longer acts on them like multiplication. Right? -lethe ^{talk +} 20:02, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, but there is a measure space (X, μ)and a real-valued function a on X such that

[A\psi ](x)=a(x)\psi (x)\quad \forall x\in X,\quad \forall \psi \in L^{2}(X,\mu ){\mbox{ s.t. }}a\psi \in L^{2}(X,\mu )

Yeah, and we can get to that space by a unitary transformation, right? This is the eigenbasis, so to speak. But how does this operator act the state

\int _{X}f(x-y)\psi (x)\,d\mu (x)

It doesn't act like multiplication on that state. It's not an eigenstate. -lethe ^{talk +} 21:02, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah but a unitary preserves the whole kit'n caboodle. It's like there were no there there. --CSTAR 21:04, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Was that a reaonable response or too flippant? What I meant was that the unitary U which implements the equivalence preseves everything: derivatives, angles, inner products. So one might as well assume A to begin with is a multiplication operator (it's as though U weren't there...).--CSTAR 00:48, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Density Matrix

Hi CSTAR, I was wondering if you could check my updates to density matrix? Especially the bit I added saying that:

in general a measurement may convert a pure state into a mixture, but never a mixture into a pure state; this is analogous to the "collapse" of the state vector, or wavefunction collapse.

Also I have a question: we get from a mixture of kets (even if they are not orthogonal) to the density matrix simply by construction, but how to we get back from just the density matrix (or operator) to the mixture of kets? --Michael C. Price ^talk 12:08, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is the theorem which states:

Projective measurements cannot decrease entropy

See for example Nielsen and Chuang, Quantum Information and Quantum Computation Theorem 11.9.

Since Pure states are characterized by having 0 entropy, your claim follows from the theorem for projective measurements. The result however, may be false for non-projective measurements.

As to your second question, there is no unique way to recover the mixture of kets.

--CSTAR 14:28, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, good point about entropy. Now that you mention it I recall that Everett's PhD thesis also shows that the act of measurement increases the entropy of the density matrix. Probably only valid for projective measurements. What are non-projective measurements? Did von Neumann consider non-projective measurements?

As for recovering mixtures, does that mean that, in general, we can't recover the mixture? Doesn't this imply that the ket mixture is more fundamental than the desnity matrix formulation?

--Michael C. Price ^talk 14:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Replies

In his book, von Neumann only considered projective measurements. For generalized measurement, see POVM (BTW article needs work). Basically a generalized measurement is a projective measurement on a larger system (Naimark's theorem).

In general in a convex set, one can represent any element as an integral over extreme points. For the convex set of states of a physical system, the extreme points are the pure states. The integral representation is generally not unique, unless the convex set is of a very special type (a generalization of a simplex). For physical systems, it means the algebra of observables is commutative, i.e., it is a classical system.--CSTAR 15:17, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks for the help; I'm done with density matrix for tne moment. See what you think. --Michael C. Price ^talk 20:43, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nice new section, I like it. I believe that

\langle F(A)\psi \mid \psi \rangle .

may also be written

\langle \psi \mid F(A)\mid \psi \rangle .

in Dirac notation. OK if I mention this as well? --Michael C. Price ^talk 00:25, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes of course. That's the more usual physicist notation. --CSTAR 00:38, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Kaplansky link

The American Mathematical Society posted a short note on June 26: [4] The link is likely to be short-term, though; certainly no longer than year's end. Something more permanent will no doubt arise. Magidin 19:06, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]