User talk:Headbomb/Archives/2014/August

Book:Roses

Hello Headbomb,

I don't know if you are still interested in the book roses, but somehow I stumbled across it once again and decided to try to change it from a stub-book to at least a start-book (in part because the report for Book:Roses does help me to find automatically reported problems with rose articles). Hence I removed and added some articles to the book. As you seem to be the main editor of the book (;->), I wanted to notify you...

--Anna reg (talk) 14:00, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Well I'm not particularly interested in the topic (I have a background in physics, and I tend to gravitate around science-y subjects + sometimes classical arts). I think I created the book for a friend who was into roses. But I do know about books, probably more than anyone on Wikipedia. I created a bunch of them, and I came up with the idea of book reports, so I know it's quite the considerable task you have ahead of you to bring a book with such a massive scope from "stub" to "start". The main problem I see with that book, from a book perspective, is that there's a lot of things in the "Miscellany" chapter that could perhaps be put in dedicated chapters. Maybe there's space for a "Events and Organisations" chapter, and for a chapter that could regroup the unusual cultivars/type or whatever the term would be for a chapter containing Herbal teas, Blue roses, Rainbow roses, etc..., a chapter for rose-derived products (rose fruit, rose oil, rose water...). And it's been a while since anyone took a look at Category:Roses and subcategories to see if new articles need to be included in the book, although you seem to have done a bit of that recently. It's also possible that the book is a bit too large in scope, and needs to be split into more topical books [i.e. one on roses themselves (species + cultivars + overview topics), and another with all the Rosarians and Gardens.].

As for the endeavour of improving the articles themselves, it will be a significant undertaking to be sure. I'd gather as much references as I could get on roses (books, websites, etc...) and just plow through every article one by one. Maybe with help from members of WP:PLANTS (I would definitely let them know of your endeavour and ask them for help, perhaps divide tasks per people, or form subprojects (i.e. this week let's make sure all the articles are assessed, next week let's work on cultivars, next week let's work on rosarians, etc...). It would also not hurt to get help from outside Wikipedia if you can, since you'll be dealing with a specialized topic. Another good way to gather people to help would be to browse the article histories and find major editors, and let them know of your project. The more people you can bring on board, the better. ou can use the book's talk page to centralize discussions on things too.

I'm afraid I can't be of much help on the articles themselves, but I'll do an AWB run on the book to take care of minor formatting issues, spelling, etc. And if you need technical help with the book, I can provide that as well. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:26, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your detailed answer. I actually do know some good internet sources on roses and have an eye on the rose categories, as I took over responsibility for the category Rosa on commons, especially the cultivars - which is also the reason why I'm interested in roses, being a chemistry student myself. Sorting the pictures and getting to know a bit which cultivars are well known made me interested in the articles as well. I'm not sure if I'm ready to call it a project as I'm not sure how much time I'd like to invest in it, but I do think that the book can help me to improve the cultivar articles a bit more systematically. But asking for help is probably a good idea... so far, I've asked for help to understand the assessment system better (I'm not sure which cultivars actually are stubs and which could already be starts).

You are probably right about the scope - it's something I didn't want to change so far as I'm not the creator of the book. I could imagine at least dividing the content into two - one book about roses in general, but without articles about cultivars (or species?) except something like the Rose Hall of Fame (which would have to be reworked quite a bit) and one about rose cultivars, where I would include the most important gardens and rosarians, as that information goes hand in hand (each cultivar has the name of its breeder - after a while you want to know who that is). It could also include those species important for the hybridisation of garden roses, but not any other. This would make the content similar to the big Rose book of the royal horticultural society I have at home (my mane paper reference on cultivars ;->), though thankfully not with that many cultivars ;->. Though dividing the content would probably mean that I would be focusing on the cultivar book...

Thanks for your advice - and your help (I saw you already started fixing articles).

Best wishes, Anna reg (talk) 15:49, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Computer models and physics

Hello, First as an introduction to myself, my name is Jose Rafael Mendoza, graduate from a high ranked university within Venezuela, 61Universidad Simon Bolivar, http://www.usb.ve . I am a Computer Engineer, 61 years old, graduate in july 1976.

Since 1973, the Computer Engineering career had 2 years having physics included each trimester at the beginning, 3 2/3 years of mathematics included each trimester. Later the students only had to study 1 2/3 years of physics included each trimester. The course that was excluded had as name physics 6 and included Maxwell differential equations. We didn't study quantum mechanics neither relativity theory.

Those theories were studied by me many years as a hobby. I worked 13 years in steel industry, 11 years in a bank and 15 years as free lance, independent engineer selling, installing and solving problems of numerous commercial firms up to now.

During the steel work experience my team develop and implemented a system to control maximum demand of energy of two plants without interrupting production but syncronizing furnace start and stop. That saved a lot of money and gave me a prize in an internal symposium. Yhe work was original.

I write in a Karl Popper forum since 2003 at the Yahoo Groups named Critical_Cafe and you are welcome. He was a philosopher of science with many books published, and here at the Critical Café we discuss and criticed numerous scientific topics. One is about scientific theories and refutation. A scientific theory is one that can be refuted by a single observations and the theory is universal by definition. A topic that says that Classic Physics has been refuted had been discussed, others says it is not refuted. Karl Popper says that The theory of relativity explain what the classic physics can't and has it as a example for low value of speed v , such that v << c being c the speed of light in vacuum.

I can include references in the same Wikipedia and in the Critical_Cafe</ref>, but you have to be member of the Critical_Cafe to see them. It is free and you have to complete certain basic data.

Can I include those references: web pages, Wikipedia and Critical_Cafe post?

Best, Jose — Preceding unsigned comment added by Popeye mendoza (talk • contribs) 18:30, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't care about your background, and I have no idea what you're talking about. But the material you wanted to include is not supported by reliable sources, or even relevant to the topic of classical physics. I also suggest you read our policies and guidelines on what Wikipedia is, and what it is not. If you have anything specific to propose adding to specific articles, I suggest you use the article's talk page. See also Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia for information on editing Wikipedia in general.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:00, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Aalert bot

I know Wikipedia's servers have been farting a lot lately, but the alerts bot hasn't run since August 6. Is there some way you can restart it or something please? Thank you! - SweetNightmares 21:09, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Hmm you're right, that is strange. The bot runs on my home machine so I'll take a look. I'm fairly surprised I didn't notice this myself. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:22, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Cyclic Reverting

I moved the material you kept deleting from WT:B to its archive--if you really want to keep up a reversion cycle and purge it from the archive, go see Wikipedia talk:Bot policy/Archive 25. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:32, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Please stop adding inappropriate material to WP:BOTPOL and WP:BAG pages. These pages (and archives) are specifically for the discussion of matters pertaining to Bot policies and those pertaining to the Bots Approval Group. You wouldn't add a "please block this IP vandal" on ARBCOM pages, or keep adding it when ARBCOM members reverted you, now would you. I suggest applying similar logic to WP:BOTPOL/WP:BAG pages. If you want to discuss the technical aspects, WP:T and similar are more than enough, although you could post a link soliciting participation to WP:BON if you wanted and that would be fine. If you want to actually get approval for a bot, then WP:BOTREQ is the place to go.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:43, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Geiger-Marsden experiment

I'm trying to get a peer review done for the Geiger-Marsden experiment. My peer-review request expired after a week and has now gone into archives. This article is getting very little attention, which is odd given how important an article it is. What should I do to draw more attention to it? Can you take a critical look at it?Kurzon (talk) 15:27, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

@Kurzon: The main thing missing from it right now is the cross section formulas for Thompson scattering and Rutherford scattering, and if possible, exp vs theory plots. Preferably the original ones, but modern plots would work too. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:39, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Something like this? User:Kurzon/Scattering Kurzon (talk) 13:21, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Ok, take another look at it. Is this what you wanted?Kurzon (talk) 09:34, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

I worked out the equation at the hyperphysics page and I did not get 0.00013 radians. What am I doing wrong? Kurzon (talk) 09:26, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Thomson scattering

OK, based on what I read at http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nuclear/rutsca3.html, I added some maths to illustrate the Thomson scattering in the Geiger-Marsden experiment article. I changed the equation around a bit into something that made more sense to me. The figure I provide for the deflection, 0.00026 radians, is double that which appears on the hyperphysics page. For some reason they added a 2 to the denominator out of nowhere. Could you sort this out for me? Kurzon (talk) 10:12, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Not quite sure... there's an L=2R in the figure, so maybe that's where it came from, although it seems a bit strange and not all that well-justified to use 2R instead of R out of nowhere... Gut feeling is that this is a mistake. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 11:15, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly. What do you think of my "corrected" version? Do you think I did the maths right? Do you think 0.00026 is the correct answer? Is there anything I should add? Kurzon (talk) 14:14, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not satisfied with the mathematical workings I put in the "Implications of the plum pudding model" bit. Rutherford did not know what precise charge of an alpha particle or a gold atom was at the time. What I need to do to is lay out the argument the way Thomson and Rutherford would have put it. Do you have any guides I can use? Kurzon (talk) 17:09, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

That argument is mostly an order-of-magnitude thing. They didn't know the exact charged, but I read that they suspected it to be around 100 and not bigger, like around 1000. I agree that the original argument should be mirrored as closely as possible, so the thing I'd say to you is look up Rutherford's papers (there are volumes of collected papers out there, Vol. 2 is the one dealing with this topic if I recall). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:18, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Strangeness production

Hi, Strangeness production is in Category:Strangeness production, and this is a direct subcategory of Category:particle physics. Do we really need a second line of inclusion for the article? --mfb (talk) 20:03, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

For a topic as important as this one, I feel that yes it should be in both. Kinda like Hadron is both in Category:Particle physics and Category:Hadrons. There doesn't need to be a "if it's in a subcategory, it shouldn't be in parent category". Ideally, the parent category of a scope as large as particle physics should contain the "main/core/important articles of the topic" + "whatever doesn't fit in subcategories". Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:06, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Trim fat?

Sorry, why did you cut the motto of the journal from the page Memocs? JeromKJerom (talk) 17:48, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Same reason why we don't have the Coca-Cola corporate mission statement plastered in our article. It might be something that actually influences the journal and its editors, but at the end of the day, it's self-agrandizing puffery 99 times out of 100. See also the "What not to include" section in WP:JWG ("aims, readership"). This advice isn't 1:1 with the motto, but the general idea of "describe the scope, not aims" still applies.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:54, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Question concerning AAlertBot

Hi, Headbomb. I would like to ask your opinion about expanding AAlertBot also to WP:CFDS. Right now AAlertBot lists normal WP:CFD entries but not speedys. Of course, I see the drawbacks, mainly increased workload and the fact that speedys are listed only for 48 hours. And as a rule, they are usually non-controversial so the discussion does not needed. At the same time, sometimes there may be speedy proposals which are not so clear cases and it is quite hard to spot these if not following the WP:CFDS ´list on everyday bases. Has there been any previous discussion about this and what is your opinion? Thank you. Beagel (talk) 09:35, 31 August 2014 (UTC)