User talk:Markus Pössel

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Welcome!

Hello, Markus Pössel, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} after the question on your talk page. Again, welcome! 

We're always glad to have more physicists on board. I'm "watching" your talk page for awhile, so you can just ask here if you have any questions about how things work. You can use colons

to indent (:)

or indent further (::)

in order to organize discussion threads. Section headings are generated like this: ==Section==, but I think you already figured that out. The history and watchlist are two of the most useful features of the wiki. Again, thanks for joining and good luck! Gnixon 15:56, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Gnixon: Many thanks for the kind welcome (and also for responding to my "Request for Comments"). I do have another question where I would appreciate your input. In late February, I created the entry Science festival. As you might have seen from my user page, I'm consulting for one of those (the one to be held in NYC), so strictly speaking it's once more a potential conflict of interest. I don't think the article is anything other than neutral, but I'd appreciate if you could have a look at it. I was thinking about declaring an official conflict of interest on that one, as well, but there is such a thing as making a mountain out of a molehill. Markus Poessel 19:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

You're quite welcome. I took a look at that article, and I don't see any bias problems. It wouldn't be crazy to just mention your affiliations on the talk page, but certainly there's no need to make any mountains. If people didn't have interests, articles would never be written! It's great to see a new editor already writing new articles. I've been around awhile longer than you, and I have yet to do so. I should probably take a cue from your good contributions. Gnixon 19:50, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh! I forgot to mention that I noticed nothing else links to your article (see "What links here" on the left). It'd be great if you looked around for other articles that could link to it, otherwise it's likely nobody will ever find it. You could also check out WP:PERFECT for ideas on crafting the perfect article. Gnixon 19:52, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - in fact, there was one link (from Festival), but I've now gone and added some cross-links with Science museum, the Edinburgh festival etc. Oh, and I've added a brief text to the talk page mentioning my affiliation with the NY festival. Markus Poessel 09:22, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Introduction to general relativity

I fixed dashes in one section only, but there are more to be done; have a look at WP:DASH on the difference between emdashes, endashes and hyphens. On matter-mass, I wasn't certain if it's a hyphen, or it it refers to matter to mass, in which case it may be an endash, but in either case, it wouldn't be an emdash. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:22, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi Sandy - thanks for helping out. I'm surprised, though – I did have a look at WP:DASH some time ago, and from that article gathered that spaced en-dashes are considered a valid alternative to em-dashes, as long as they were used consistently throughout the article. I then changed Introduction to general relativity so that all interruptions were indeed indicated by spaced en-dashes. A search I made just now reveals that I did in fact miss one hyphen that should be an en-dash, and I'm of course willing to correct that, but I'm reluctant to go through the whole text again without a compelling reason. Is there some rule I overlooked – are the dash criteria for featured articles more strict than what is stated in WP:DASH? Markus Poessel 14:50, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it was because of that one missed that I thought you might not have been aware of the need to use a consistent style; feel free to revert my changes if you prefer to consistently use spaced endashes, and change the one that was missing. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:14, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

That explains it - sorry for the confusion. I've reverted to the version with spaced en-dashes, and replaced the one erroneous hyphen. Markus Poessel 18:25, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good; I hope to get a chance to read the article soon. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:46, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request

Thank you so much for your help on The Age of Reason. I am busy researching, so it will take me a few days or a week to address your major points.

I was wondering if you would be willing to review Transformer. I did a "peer review exchange program" with the editor, but I feel incredibly guilty that I could not actually review the article more. Since I know nothing about transformers, I became mired down in clicking on other articles to try and understand the topic. As a physicist (cool), I am sure that you know the basics of transformers. I know the editor would greatly appreciate any help. His article has been sitting at peer review for a while.

By the way, was I correct in saying that undergraduate physics majors do not really understand general relativity? This is what all of my undergraduate physics major friends tell me. Are they all, um, challenged? I hope the FAC calms down and returns to a discussion of your excellent article. Awadewit | talk 05:17, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

That depends on what you mean by understanding. A smart undergraduate physics major can certainly work through gr textbooks (in which the more advanced mathematical concepts, not being part of the regular curriculum, are introduced alongside the physics) and come away with a good understanding of the subject. Also, you can get a good basic understanding (significantly above what popular science reading can do, but not enough to enable you to jump right in and start your PhD work) using no more than undergraduate maths (in the biography of Intro to gr, the book by Schutz is an example for what can be done that way). No doubt your undergraduate physics major friends set the bar higher than that, but yes, you can understand gr, for a reasonable definition of "understand", as an undergraduate.

As for transformer: Bad timimg - with the FA review and so on I feel that I am being sucked into Wikipedia at the moment, to the detriment of other things I should be doing. It's addictive, and there should be a big warning sticker to that effect on the main page. But yes, I'll see if I can fit the transformer in, and say at least a little bit on it (but I can stop anytime, you know). --Markus Poessel 06:55, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I understand being sucked into wikipedia and becoming addicted - it certainly happened to me and I wouldn't want it to happen to you ("Just say no!"). Not a problem. Awadewit | talk 08:30, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Tinker with "Introduction to general relativity"?

Hi Markus,

Would you mind if I tinkered a bit with Introduction to general relativity? I think I could make some improvements, but I would hate to throw a monkey wrench into its FAC, or make you miffed at me, so I thought I should ask first. If you'd prefer, I can wait until after it becomes FA. I could also write a few notes in a sandbox, and you could just extract what you liked from there. With many thanks for your understanding and hard work here, Willow 02:38, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

A recognition of your hard work

I dub thee a wizard in the knightly order of wikipedians for your tireless contributions to Introduction to general relativity. As a wizard, it is your duty to preserve and pass on your magical knowledge so that future generations may benefit.

Keep up the good work Markus and good luck with the main article. It attracts quite a few cranks so be careful. Cheers--Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 07:34, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

You might want to enlist the help of User:Silly rabbit, User:WillowW, User:Geometry guy, User:JRSpriggs, User:EVula, User:DVdm, User:Ems57fcva, User:Count Iblis, and WP:PHYS when you finally get going (although they will probably join in regardless). I imagine you could whip up an FA article from what is there in two weeks. Good luck.--Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 08:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea - thanks for the list of names! I hope that, even though getting the article to FA status within two weeks should be possible, things will move much more slowly. While I'm motivated to contribute, I think I need to cut down on the overall time I've been spending on WP the last week or so. --Markus Poessel 09:17, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I completely understand, it is very addictive, I have to cut down during the school year otherwise I don't get anything done. :)--Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 09:23, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

GR

I've only had a chance to glance briefly through Intro to GR, so I won't comment at the FAR FAC yet, but what I've seen looks great! Great writing, good organization, and not a single rubber sheet or the like to make me cringe. (Well, "doyen" instead of something simpler like "prominent" made me squint, but I can't argue it's inaccurate.) I see you have Willow on board, so this is sure to be an FA success story, and I look forward to reading through it carefully when I get a chance. If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know. Gnixon 04:56, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Categories

I just wanted to mention a minor technical detail in case there are a few sanboxes still lying around. When you transfer the original article be sure to remove the categories at the bottom of the article, otherwise it will count in the tables as an article (I did this with my first sandbox as well, it is fairly common). I removed them from WIP, but I wasn't sure if you had noticed, so I thought I would let you know. Cheers--Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 19:22, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I did notice that you and JRSpriggs had made some changes in that respect - thanks, and I apologize for my ignorance of this particular rule! --Markus Poessel 20:18, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

No problem, you have managed to meet just about every good math/science editor I know, so any little mistakes that anyone makes (hopefully) won't last long. I also recommend you "publish" your essay, see WP:ESSAY. Cheers--Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 20:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

After the mostly solitary work on the article version that I presented for FAC review, the present cooperation is certainly a new and nice experience. Thanks for the essay suggestion; I'll be sure to look at it once I've made a bit more headway with the main article general relativity. --Markus Poessel 20:37, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations

A worthy FA - let there be more...--Joopercoopers 11:30, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm quite relieved the FAC review is now over. Thanks for your support!//Markus Poessel 12:04, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome - they're not all like that - yours was a bit of a test case I think - and of wide and popular appeal, so generated a load of interest. regards --Joopercoopers 15:39, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Original Barnstar
		After your eloquent, calm and insightful defense of the excellent article Introduction to general relativity at FAC, you certainly deserve an award! Awadewit | talk 19:56, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks! --Markus Poessel 07:45, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

The Age of Reason

It would seem that the peer review for The Age of Reason was prematurely archived by someone or somebot. I have made extensive revisions. Please let me know if they address the problems you raised. We can just start chatting on the talk page of the article. Thanks so much for your help - I've never had this much trouble with an article and I really appreciate your assistance. Awadewit | talk 19:58, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering about the review's sudden move to the archive. Continuing on the talk page seems to be the logical next step - and: you're welcome! --Markus Poessel 07:48, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Question on Gravitational Time Dilation ...

I understand if you can't really get into this, but I have a question: I understand what gravitation time dilation is, but I can't piece together from the various articles I've read WHY it occurs. I must warn you, I'm no physicist, I'm just reading up on some topics. If you could find the time to message me and explain it, briefly and (relatively) simply, I'd appreciate it. TribeCalledQuest 14:42, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. I figured it out. TribeCalledQuest 12:02, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Great, but bad timing on my part. Here's the answer for which I just now got the inevitable edit conflict: "Physics isn't really concerned with the "why", which makes answering your question a bit difficult. I guess the closest one can come to an answer is that from general relativity, we know that the distortion of time and the warping of space are responsible for making bodies move as if there were a gravitational force acting on them. In order for bodies to move in the way we know they do (namely falling towards, and being attracted by, large masses), time must run more slowly close to massive bodies. Sorry if this isn't what you're after, but there really isn't that much more to it (except for all the details)." --Markus Poessel

Note to vandal

I saw your note to the GR vandal:

Dear anonymous user; thanks for dropping by general relativity to fix some things. The article is currently being revised simultaneously by a number of editors, and in such a situation, it would be great if you could propose major changes such as deleting a section...

Thanks for making my day! Alfred Centauri 22:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It's a Buddhist thing. --Markus Poessel 20:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

When you're not busy...

I was wondering if you might have some spare time (!) to do a peer review of Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman. It is an article about a novel by Mary Wollstonecraft (I'm working on a Wollstonecraft featured topic at the moment - I'm almost done - so close.) I am struggling with the organization of the article (again). Also, I am having a difficult time presenting all of the major scholarly points of view without descending into "X said...However, Y argues...Yet, Z sees it this way..." If you could offer any insights over the next few weeks, I would greatly appreciate it. The article did not garner a lot of attention at WP:PR. Since the academic year has started up again for me, there is no rush. I have plenty of other things to do!

Also, I don't know if Willow mentioned it to you, but she is harvesting right now, so she won't be around that much for the next month or so. I just wanted to make sure that you knew she wasn't abandoning introduction to general relativity. She is knee-deep in vegetables or something. Awadewit | talk 18:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

		The Reviewers Award
		Thank you for the careful and thorough reviews you lavished on The Age of Reason and The Wrongs of Woman. Your thoughtful comments helped me step back and see the articles from a new perspective. I appreciate your willingness to reread drafts and your great good humor. It is a pleasure to work with you. Awadewit | talk 01:12, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Vandal at Schwarzschild metric

Hi Markus,

I'm conscious that I owe you something thoughtful at ItGR but, honestly, I'm too tired today. I'm writing because there's a stubborn vandal at the Schwarzschild metric, coincidentally German from their user page. I can't revert him again because of WP:3RR, so any help you could give me would be curvaceously welcome in many dimensions. ;) Willow 01:00, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Willow - is that all you do? Calm down the rest of us? Willow is too kind. She is spending much time trying to mediate the dispute about BE vs. AE over at A Vindication of the Rights of Men. Now I feel guilty. She could be spending time contributing content and instead she is trying to arbitrate this absurd debate which has totally spiral[l]ed out of control. :( Isn't it nice that quarks, leptons, bosons, and fermions don't have dialect preferences? Awadewit | talk 06:53, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I see that someone else did the revert, and that the user in question is now indefinitely blocked, so all appears well now. As for ItGR, take your time – for my part, I'm looking forward to a busy two coming months, so I'm quite content with the leisurely pace of our current ItGR work. --Markus Poessel 15:22, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request

Finally! Something tangentially related to modern science! If you have any time in the next month or two, could you peer review Joseph Priestley? I have had two other editors occasionally looking over my shoulder at the science, but it never hurts to have more (I mean, I originally wrote he discovered "oxygen" instead of "oxygen gas"!) As the article is long and somewhat complex (it involves theology, philosophy, politics, and natural philosophy), I would owe you many favors. Awadewit | talk 06:48, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

A quote you might enjoy

I came across a quotation you might find intriguing. In 1789, the Analytical Review reviewed Jean d'Alembert's History of the French Academy and this is how they described him: "a man distinguished in the most learned society in Europe by the universality and depth of this knowledge; by his proficiency in grammar, particular and universal, philology, metaphysics, history, the fine arts, and, above all, geometry". - I thought you would like the grammar bit, especially since you must so familiar with the mathematical formula named after him. :) Awadewit | talk 07:17, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! That's certainly the kind of thing anyone could be proud to have said about him or her. I must admit that so far, I mostly knew d'Alembert as a man of principle. Just having had a look at the WP article, I see that he was much more versatile than that. --Markus Poessel 16:20, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

That's one of the things I love about the 18c - people dipped into a lot of things. No specialization. :) Awadewit | talk 19:27, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Peer review list

Please think about adding yourself to this list of peer reviewers. Awadewit | talk 19:26, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation, but I will refrain from doing so, seeing that I'm currently trying to keep my WP involvement down to a minimum - the bare essentials, if you will (general relativity and similar things, plus, of course, review requests from esteemed colleagues concerning). --Markus Poessel 21:13, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

• I don't know if this falls under your minimum categories of wiki-participation, but Le Sage's theory of gravitation is an interesting and very good article that I had to unfortunately fail for GA. My guilt is overwhelming me so much that I am trying to find editors that can help out with the page in some meaningful way. I don't know if defunct theories are an interest of yours, but this one seemed interesting. Awadewit | talk 09:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks, but I 'll pass this one up - checking all that is too close to real work, and I'd rather invest the time in streamlining the general relativity article, for instance. I'd rather wait for whichever of your 18th century articles is up for review next. --Markus Poessel 12:12, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

• Understood. I'll let you know. I'm still watching introduction to general relativity, by the way. Awadewit | talk 12:18, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

• I'm also still watching Introduction to general relativity - have you heard anything more from Willow about it, by any chance? --Markus Poessel 12:38, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

• She's just overworked, I think. You might ask gently prompt her, if you feel like it. We could do a section a week or something. :) Awadewit | talk 09:35, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request

If you have a moment in the coming weeks, perhaps you could review Joseph Johnson (publisher)? It is a bit longish, so I would understand if you said no. Johnson was am important publisher of works by people like Wollstonecraft and Priestley. Awadewit | talk 07:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

• By the way, I noticed general relativity is eligible for the Core Contest, if you are interested in those sorts of things. Cash-poor graduate students like myself are. :) Awadewit | talk 07:25, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to have a look at Johnson. Core Contest or no, I definitely want to do something about general relativity; at the moment, however, the reference books I need are in boxes which haven't caught up with me yet... --Markus Poessel (talk) 15:35, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

I wanted to thank you for the knowledge I've gained working with you on introduction to general relativity and the increased care you've forced me to take with my own contributions through your careful and thoughtful reviews. (I wanted to include a picture of the gingerbread particle accelerator that my friends and I are planning, but like most particle accelerators, its creation has been delayed. Hopefully, it will come online soon.) Awadewit | talk 09:06, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Template limits

I was just visiting Wikipedia:Template limits and noticed you hit the limit with a 100 cites. You might like to know that this should no longer be a problem, because a new page preprocessor has been introduced. So you no longer need to substitute for the citation template. Geometry guy 12:02, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

"Introduction to" articles

You might be interested in this debate: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Introduction to evolution (2nd nomination). Awadewit | talk 18:08, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I followed this link, and just noticed that you wrote the essay, Markus! Many many thanks for doing that: it is great work. Geometry guy 18:22, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I added a couple of comments at the other debate, but I'm afraid that I must try to focus on my dissertation at the moment. I wanted to make my voice heard, though! This is an important one. Awadewit | talk 00:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

You are invited!

New York City Meetup Next: Sunday March 16th, Columbia University area Last: 1/13/2008

In the afternoon, we will hold a session dedicated to meta:Wikimedia New York City activities, and have salon-style group discussions on Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects (see the last meeting's minutes).

Well also make preparations for our exciting Wikipedia Takes Manhattan event, a free content photography contest for Columbia University students planned for Friday March 28 (about 2 weeks after our meeting).

In the evening, we'll share dinner and chat at a local restaurant, and (weather permitting) hold a late-night astronomy event at Columbia's telescopes.

You can add or remove your name from the New York City Meetups invite list at Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Invite list.

You're also invited to subscribe to the public Wikimedia New York City mailing list, which is a great way to receive timely updates.
This has been an automated delivery because you were on the invite list. BrownBot (talk) 03:13, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Force

I was wondering if you had time to review and perhaps improve the Force article a bit. From looking at the lead, I am worried that it doesn't explain the concepts as clearly to the layperson as it could. The article is currently at FAC. Awadewit (talk) 21:45, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Awadewit – I would like to, and I think it's an important article, but I'm currently in the middle of responding to my own batch of reviewers at Wikipedia:Peer_review/General_relativity/archive1. And I've still got some of the more labor-intensive requests (hunting through the article for long sentences) ahead of me. All the best, Markus Poessel (talk) 17:01, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Understood - I'm trying to rustle up some more reviewers for you, too. I don't know how successful that will be. Awadewit (talk) 17:07, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for trying to rustle up more reviewers. I was thinking about going to the copy-editor's guild as a next step after that review – do you have any experience with them? My worry is that, with an article like this in which a number of formulations were chosen very deliberately, someone who might be a very good copy-editor, but doesn't know the science content, might actually create problems when editing the article. Markus Poessel (talk) 17:36, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you are right to be worried - unless you can find a copy editor who knows the material, I would dispense with that idea. It is very hard to copy edit an article that one doesn't understand thoroughly (I'm trying to do Action potential now and I feel useless - Willow is just being kind when she says I am helping, I think.) Also, the LoCE has a huge backlog - something like longer than six months. Awadewit (talk) 17:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, that is eminently useful information. Going to the LoCE, laudable as that organization is, doesn't seem to be the right next step then. I'll just go by the reviewers' comments, and try to do some polishing myself. Thanks! Markus Poessel (talk) 18:02, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Symphony Space

Well, the other image is much higher-resolution. Among other things, you can read the facade with phrases like "Family", "Film", "Wall to Wall", "Dance", "Literature", "Bloomsday on Broadway", posters for some upcoming shows etc. You can also see the sign for Thalia, Peter Norton's name, and the digital marquee in action.--Pharos (talk) 23:50, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

re:Thanks

Erm...did I do that? I guess I did. Strangely, I ran into that page marked as a new one while doing new-page patrol. I wouldn't have CSD'd otherwise...perhaps my browser glitched, or the site glitched, or I glitched. I had no intention of marking that for deletion. I could have sworn it appeared as a new page; apparently I made a stupid error. Sorry about that... FusionMix 22:42, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Alright :). Yes, it was a mistake. Thanks for not treating it as the end of the world, though. I saw a user lambasted thoroughly for the same mistake a couple of weeks ago. Again, thanks :). FusionMix 01:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

E=mc^2 und Atombombe

Hi, melde mich hier gleich direkt: Wir haben in der deutschen Wikipedia einen kleinen Disput, der sich u.a. um einen Ihrer Texte dreht - Von E=mc² zur Atombombe. Einige (wie ich) folgen der Meinung von Werner Heisenberg, Robert Serber und Ihnen, dass E=mc² nur eine nebensächliche Rolle bei den Entwicklungen zur Kernspaltung und der Atombobme spielten. Andere wie z.b. de:Benutzer:Norbert Dragon sehen das etwas anders und meinen, Ihre Darstellung sei falsch. Siehe dazu die Diskussionen:

• de:Diskussion:Äquivalenz von Masse und Energie#Atombombe, de:Diskussion:Äquivalenz von Masse und Energie#Qualitätssicherung, de:Diskussion:Äquivalenz von Masse und Energie#Pössel-Zitat

Die Diskussion wird derzeit weiter unter

• de:Portal:Physik/Qualitätssicherung#Äquivalenz von Masse und Energie

Vielleicht könnten Sie da einen Kommentar schreiben. Grüße --D.H (talk) 15:34, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Can Black Holes be formed?

Dear Markus Poessel,

I write to you, because I found your name under the discussion about General Relativity (GR). I read the page about GR and found, that it claim, GR predict Black Holes. As I understand GR, a Black Hole can't be formed, because it'll take an infinite time for the last part to fall in, so a event horizon can be formed. Isn't this correct, and should it be pointed out on the page about GR?

See: http://www.engr.newpaltz.edu/~biswast/bhole/blackhole.shtml and http://physorg.com/news101560368.html

Sincerely John Niclasen, Niels Bohr Institute, Denmark. http://www.fys.ku.dk/~niclasen/

John Niclasen (talk) 09:29, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I haven't looked in detail at Krauss' quantum calculations, but classically, the "infinite time" it takes for the star to collapse is a matter of using inadequate coordinates - coordinates with a coordinate singularity at the horizon. Israel's article (Dark stars- the history of an idea, cited in general relativity, I believe) has a nice account of the evolving understanding of this. Markus Poessel (talk) 00:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi Markus

How've you been? I'm sorry that I've been lame about finishing our work at Introduction to general relativity, but I hope to get back there this summer, if you're still game. I think Awadewit would be. I've rather allowed myself to get distracted. :(

One of my distractions you might like, however: List of scientific publications by Albert Einstein. :) It's being considered as a Featured List candidate right now. If you could look it over and critique it, I'd be grateful. I tried to get everything right, but I'm conscious of how horribly limited my knowledge is, so I'd really appreciate your help and review. Thanks muchly, Markus! :) Willow (talk) 23:04, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I think I might've addressed your concerns at the FLC? Could you look it over and see if that's true? Thanks again, Willow (talk) 21:18, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

NYC Meetup: June 1, 2008

New York City Meetup Next: Sunday June 1st, Columbia University area Last: 3/16/2008

In the afternoon, we will hold a session dedicated to meta:Wikimedia New York City activities, elect a board of directors, and hold salon-style group discussions on Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects (see the last meeting's minutes).

We'll also review our recent Wikipedia Takes Manhattan event, and make preparations for our exciting successor Wiki Week bonanza, being planned with Columbia University students for September or October.

In the evening, we'll share dinner and chat at a local restaurant, and (weather permitting) hold a late-night astronomy event at Columbia's telescopes.

You can add or remove your name from the New York City Meetups invite list at Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Invite list.

Also, check out our regional US Wikimedia chapters blog Wiki Northeast (and we're open to guest posts).
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:07, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Update of Intro to GR

Hello, first let me congratulate you for your very well written article. I wanted to ask you something about a phrase in section Experimental tests:

Further tests of general relativity include precision measurements of the Shapiro effect or gravitational time delay for light (most recently in 2002 by the Cassini space probe) and measurements of effects predicted by general relativity for the behavior of gyroscopes travelling through space. For example geodetic precession has been tested with Lunar laser ranging experiments (high precision measurements of the orbit of the Moon), while frame-dragging will be tested by the Gravity Probe B satellite experiment launched in 2004 (with results expected in late 2007).

Have the results been published, so that the article can be updated? I'm asking you, because you might be in a better position to update this than most people. Good luck! diego_pmc (talk) 08:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Mary Shelley

Interested in learning about the author of Frankenstein? I know you are! :) Qp10qp have finally raised Mary Shelley to the peer review level and are looking for the kind of careful reviewer that I know you are! If you have time, we would really appreciate your thoughts on the article. Awadewit (talk) 12:05, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks for your marvellous review. It is a long article, and your time and care is much appreciated. With two of us available, I'm hoping we can address your comments reasonably quickly. qp10qp (talk) 22:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Markus - thanks again for your meticulous work! You know how much I appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed reading the article. I hope you, I, and WillowW can get back to introduction to general relativity soon! Awadewit (talk) 22:53, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

help with two claims in group article

Hi Markus,

after your helpful PR and additions about groups, I'm even bolder to kindly ask for your help in two questions: I was tagging the article with {{fact}} tags here and there. There are two claims about physcis, which would benefit from a source, favorably by someone who knows what goes on. (I.e. not me here):

"They [Lie groups] can, for instance, be used to construct simple models – imposing, say, axial symmetry on a situation will typically lead to significant simplification in the equations one needs to solve to provide a physical description.{{fact}} Lie groups are also of more fundamental importance: Noether's theorem links continuous symmetries to conserved quantities.{{fact}}"

Do you know of a concrete example for the first claim, together with a source? The second is probably easier to source(?)

Thank you in advance. If I can do something in return (especially in algebra / alg. number theory) I'll be glad to do so. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 21:21, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Just a note: we were already able to resolve the issues above. I chose the Schwarzschild metric as an example where symmetry helps calculating. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 21:04, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Best wishes on general relativity

I saw that GR was up for FAC! I wish I could review the article, but I think I should stick to the beginner's version for now. :) Are you going to work on any other introductions? Awadewit (talk) 14:33, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I wanted to wish you good luck as well! :) I'll try to read up on general relativity and comment at the FAC.

A few months ago, I made a (amateurish) animation of the cyclic Friedmann-Einstein cosmological solution here showing the Big Bang and Big Crunch for a small block of space with eight galaxies. The cycloidal expansion/contraction is numerically accurate (with the cosmological constant Λ=0) and the "galaxies" retain their size and rotation during the expansion as they should. (Unfortunately, they do that a little too well, since they don't get crushed or mixed up when the available space gets too small in the Crunch!) Maybe the animation might be helpful in explaining the "cosmological expansion of space" thing? I did similar ones for other cosmological solutions, but I thought I should refine this one before moving on to the others. If you had any suggestions of how to improve the animation, or where such animations might find a good home, I'd be grateful! :)

The other thing is that I was thinking of making some animations for the Kepler problem in general relativity, and I'd like your advice on which ones would be worth doing. I was thinking of maybe showing the deflection of light for different impact parameters b, and maybe the qualitatively different classes of orbits described there? You probably have a better sense of what would be helpful, though.

As an aside, I guess you know that there's an exact solution for the Schwarzschild solution involving Weierstrass's elliptic function $\wp$? You can compute it pretty easily using the Jacobi elliptic functions. It might be a little safer than numerical integration? Willow (talk) 05:55, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: General relativity FAC

Sure, no problem. I'll go ahead and cap my comments. Nousernamesleft (talk) 18:18, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Introductory articles

There is a discussion at Template_talk:Introductory_article#What_does_generally_accessible_mean.3F about what the introductory article template really means. It will be helpful if you weighed in. Thank you. Loom91 (talk) 21:15, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Introduction mergers

Hi,

I read with interest your comment at the discussion of the introduction template. I think a reasonable guideline is that the level of the main article and the "introduction" article should be substantially different, with the latter accessible to a much wider audience. In the case of introduction to systolic geometry, you will notice that the level is considerably more accessible than the main article. There is nothing here that should not be accessible to someone with a good highschool education, which in this case means a reasonable calculus course containing some discussion of length and area and how they relate to derivatives (granted such a course is not always offered at the high school level any more). As far as introduction to general relativity, obviously high quality of this sort is difficult to match, and if the "introductions" category is ever to get beyond the dozen articles found there currently, standards will have to be relaxed somewhat. Katzmik (talk) 08:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

"Introduction" alert

I thought you might be interested in Introduction to virus, which is currently up for FAC here. Awadewit (talk) 15:32, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi Markus, Would you have time to revisit the FAC? I have tried to address all your helpful comments. Best wishes, Graham. GrahamColm^Talk 12:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Markus, thanks for all the help with this one, I think I actioned all your valuable comments now. Graham. GrahamColm^Talk 18:07, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Introduction to virus

Markus, thanks for your critical review, edits, and suggestions. I enjoyed answering your questions. The FA status could have not been achieved without you. Best wishes , Graham. GrahamColm^Talk 19:52, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, and congratulations – WP sorely needs first-rate "Introduction to..." articles like this! Markus Poessel (talk) 00:56, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

GA Nom on hold

Hey, I reviewed your GA nom for World Science Festival and had a few questions, so I temporarily put the nom on hold. If you could answer them, I think everything will check out. :) Intothewoods29 (talk) 18:53, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay great! I don't see anything else wrong, so I'm promoting this to GA status! Feel free to keep editing and improving the article, or other articles (like Odwalla, my pet project!) :) Intothewoods29 (talk) 00:56, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Haha thanks for helping out on Odwalla! ;) I didn't know in which category I should put World Science Festival on WP:GA, so I put it under Chemists and materials scientists, so you might want to change it! I meant to tell you, but it slipped my mind! <:) Intothewoods29 (talk) 03:37, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Second Annual WikiNYC Picnic

Greetings! You are invited to attend the second annual New York picnic on August 24! This year, it will be taking place in the Long Meadow of Prospect Park in Brooklyn. If you plan on coming, please sign up and be sure to bring something! Please be sure to come!
You have received this automated delivery because your name was on the invite list. BrownBot (talk) 20:20, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

FAR

Introduction to general relativity has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

Wikis Take Manhattan

Wikis Take Manhattan Next: Saturday September 27

WHAT Wikis Take Manhattan is a scavenger hunt and free content photography contest aimed at illustrating Wikipedia and StreetsWiki articles covering sites and street features in Manhattan and across the five boroughs of New York City. The event is based on last year's Wikipedia Takes Manhattan, and has evolved to include StreetsWiki this year as well.

LAST YEAR'S EVENT

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Takes Manhattan/Spring 2008 (a description of the results, and the uploading party)
• Commons:Wikipedia Takes Manhattan/Gallery (our cool gallery)

WINNINGS? Prizes include a dinner for three with Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales at Pure Food & Wine, gift certificates to Bicycle Habitiat and the LimeWire Store, and more!

WHEN The hunt will take place Saturday, September 27th from 1:00pm to 6:30pm, followed by prizes and celebration.

WHO All Wikipedians and non-Wikipedians are invited to participate in team of up to three (no special knowledge is required at all, just a digital camera and a love of the city). Bring a friend (or two)!

REGISTER The proper place to register your team is here. It's also perfectly possible to register on the day of when you get there, but it will be slightly easier for us if you register beforehand.

WHERE Participants can begin the hunt from either of two locations: one at Columbia University (at the sundial on college walk) and one at The Open Planning Project's West Village office. Everyone will end at The Open Planning Project:

• Wikis Take Manhattan page at The Open Planning Project

349 W. 12th St. #3

Between Greenwich & Washington Streets

By the 14th St./8th Ave. ACE/L stop

FOR UPDATES

Check out:

• Wikis Take Manhattan main website

This will have a posting if the event is delayed due to weather or other exigency.

Thanks,

Pharos

You can add or remove your name from the New York City Meetups invite list at Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Invite list.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:18, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Quark is up for FAC

Just a little note - it could probably use a good specialist review! :) Awadewit (talk) 07:41, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Reception history of Jane Austen

Reception history of Jane Austen, one of the daughter articles for Jane Austen, is up for peer review here. I would appreciate your thoughts. Awadewit (talk) 20:53, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

NYC Meetup: You are invited!

New York City Meetup Next: Sunday November 16th, Columbia University area Last: 6/01/2008

In the afternoon, we will hold a session dedicated to meta:Wikimedia New York City activities, finalize and approve bylaws, interact with representatives from the Software Freedom Law Center, and hold salon-style group discussions on Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects (see the June meeting's minutes and the September meeting's minutes).

We'll also review our recent Wikis Take Manhattan event, and make preparations for our exciting successor Wikipedia Loves Art! bonanza, being planned with the Brooklyn Museum for February.

In the evening, we'll share dinner and chat at a local restaurant, and (weather permitting) hold a late-night astronomy event at Columbia's telescopes.

You can add or remove your name from the New York City Meetups invite list at Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Invite list.

To keep up-to-date on local events, you can also join our mailing list.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 22:29, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

WSF

Re: "thanks": great. I'm available to help with getting any science articles through FAC; if you know people struggling to get over the hump, let me know. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 22:17, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the message – and knowing you're ready to help with FAC-bound science articles is useful information indeed. Markus Poessel (talk) 17:06, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Plea for some magic

I was wondering if you might be able to help bring introduction to special relativity to the level of accessibility and quality as introduction to general relativity. The contrast between the two on both counts is quite striking. Thanks! Vassyana (talk) 16:08, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

When it comes to the appropriate level of presentation for an Introduction to special relativity, there are quite different views, and while I personally would welcome a re-write along the lines of Introduction to general relativity, other editors are strongly in favour of keeping the formulae in there. That said, special relativity is on my list, just not very high up at the moment – sorry. I realize it's important to get right, though. Markus Poessel (talk) 17:14, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Photon

Photon is up for featured article review. I know that WillowW worked very hard on this article - it is too bad she is gone at the moment! Awadewit (talk) 17:21, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Acid dissociation constant

You might be interested in the accessibility discussion ensuing at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Acid dissociation constant. Awadewit (talk) 19:02, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Quark

Quark is at FAC again. I know that you commented at the last FAC, so I thought you might want to comment again. :) Awadewit (talk) 00:09, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Quark

I've made some replies. I have to be honest - I'm no expert, just an amateur physics lover who decided to try and get quark featured having read a lot of material on the subject beforehand. Some of your requests, which involve coverage of topics that seem to verge on the mathematical and higher level theories of particle physics, are quite beyond me. This is a big ask, but perhaps, seeing that you seem to have some knowledge of the area (having made the requests), you could use your expertise to chip in? If you were to contribute, it seems obvious that the article would be improved more efficiently and the overall product would be greater in quality and depth. If you can't, it's not a problem. Cheers, —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 14:25, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Great job with group theory , SU(3) and Yang-Mills. Really great stuff. I just cropped out the first part of the first sentence, such that the paragraph started with "In modern..." - the two statements basically said the same thing and the phrase I removed was slightly awkward. Now the job is just to perhaps work on simplifying it a little; I'm a little worried the average reader might be baffled by some of the unexplained terms. Since their even a bit new to me, I'll have to read some on the subject and then work towards expanding it and making things more digestible. Thanks very much again; I appreciate your expertise and input. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 00:36, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

What's your current opinion on the article? Do there remain any major omissions from the content? What things do you think still require improvement? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 12:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Matrices

Hi Markus

I'm currently working on matrices. I think there are plenty of physical applications where I think it's best if somebody into the matter writes about it. Would be help out by adding some words about physics applications of matrices? The "see also" section of the article contains some key words I found interesting when browsing around, especially the quantum mechanics stuff. See you over there, if you want! Jakob.scholbach (talk) 18:37, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is pushing us to excel, right? Outstanding work. Thank you! Jakob.scholbach (talk) 20:59, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

You're invited!

New York City Meetup Next: Sunday January 18th, Columbia University area Last: 11/01/2008

In the afternoon, we will hold a session dedicated to meta:Wikimedia New York City activities, look at our approval by the Chapters Committee, develop ideas for chapter projects at museums and libraries throughout our region, and hold salon-style group discussions on Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects (see the November meeting's minutes and the December mini-meetup's minutes).

We'll make preparations for our exciting museum photography Wikipedia Loves Art! February bonanza (on Flickr, on Facebook) with Shelley from the Brooklyn Museum and Alex from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

We'll also be collecting folks to join our little Wikipedia Takes the Subway adventure which will be held the day after the meeting.

In the evening, we'll share dinner and chat at a local restaurant, and generally enjoy ourselves and kick back.

You can add or remove your name from the New York City Meetups invite list at Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Invite list.

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This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 02:26, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Electron

Electron is up for FAC here. Thought you might be interested. Awadewit (talk) 19:14, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Symposium: FAC and the sciences

• Your input is requested, either at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#FAC_symposium or at the subpage where the effort will begin... Thanks! Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 10:56, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

March 2009

Please do not add copyrighted material to Wikipedia without permission from the copyright holder, as you did to The Physics of Superheroes. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. The copyrighted text was taken from [1]. -- BlastOButter42 ^See Hear _Speak 03:56, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

What's your reason to think that the text in question was copied from [2] to Wikipedia, instead of the other way around? Markus Poessel (talk) 07:24, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

It reads like it was taken from an ad for the book, not written for an encyclopedia. Was it? -- BlastOButter42 ^See Hear _Speak 20:29, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't remember in detail all the things I've written for Wikipedia, but I'm pretty sure I was never as clueless as to cut-and-paste other people's copyrighted material. Compared with the ad copy I've found on the book's website, this text does sound positively encyclopedic, although I agree that there is room for improvement. Is style the only basis for the serious (and, to me, heavily insulting) accusation you've leveled against me, though? If yes, then I would politely suggest you re-think your approach. There's a heck of a difference between commenting on a text's not-quite-encyclopedic style and slamming a quasi-legal warning onto a user's talk page, complete with big red sign. Before you do the latter, you should make very sure that there is an unambiguous case to answer. Markus Poessel (talk) 10:06, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

As I'm sure you realize, we get a lot of people here who either don't know what copyright means or don't care. Since it is very important, we have to take action quickly and directly to remove copyrighted text and make sure people do not add copyrighted material again. If innocent people sometimes get caught up in this effort, that is largely unavoidable. The vast majority of the time, however, it is that some editor didn't know any better than to copy and paste from another website, not that other websites are taking Wikipedia's text without permission. In this case, as I read the text, I thought the style sounded like something taken from somewhere else, like a magazine article about the book or the author, not written for Wikipedia, which made me suspect a copyright violation, so I Googled the text and found that webpage. The copyright on the bottom of the page indicated it was written in 2005, well before it was added to Wikipedia, which I suppose could be false, but this was enough to confirm my suspicion. Furthermore, it seemed very unlikely that the author of the webpage would have taken a small snippet from Wikipedia and then written the rest of their article around it, whereas it seemed very likely that an editor could have taken a paragraph from that page and put it into Wikipedia. This case seemed quite unambiguous to me. -- BlastOButter42 ^See Hear _Speak 04:30, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

My first suggestion would be that the message itself should be more polite. I assume it's a standard text that gets re-used; there's no harm in making it less harsh. Saying "It seems that you have added copyrighted material.." rather than simply stating that the person has, without a doubt, done so, would take a great deal of the edge off in those cases where the accusation is false. And it would be in compliance with Don't bite the newcomer which, for the present version, is arguable. I've seen vandalism warnings more polite than this message.

While your eagerness to root out copyright violations is commendable, I would still urge you to be more careful. The tone of your writing and your statement about unavoidable collateral damage suggests to me that you're convinced there's nothing wrong with the way you've handled this and, presumably, with the way you handle cases like this in general. On the other hand, while I'm trying very hard to WP:Assume good faith, it does puzzle me that anyone looking at the webpage and copying the URL could have failed to see the rather conspicuous "2008" in the page name, and the page title stating that Kakalios was the guest of honor for the 2008 convention. It takes about 2 minutes' worth of googling to see that (a) there is a much shorter 2005 version (without the Wikipedia text), since Kakalios was guest of honor in that year as well, and that (b) by the time the people from this con got around to even announcing the 2008 guests in their blog, the Wikipedia text had long been up. And no, the copyright at the bottom of the page indicates very little. It takes about 10 seconds to see that they have the exact same "Copyright 1999-2005" on pretty much all of their pages. It's a standard part of their footer, they simply forgot to update it (which is rather common).

Also, I think your view of what Wikipedia is and isn't used for is somewhat skewed. If someone is writing a text where originality isn't all that important (hey, it's only a descriptive bio), where they don't have time (con date's coming up), where there's no editing and it's probably all voluntary anyway, copying and pasting a paragraph from Wikipedia that happens to fit - or, although I don't know in this case, doing copy-and-paste from a number of sources (promotional material, book jacket, Wikipedia...) would seem to be par for the course.

Given this evidence, please at least consider the possibility that your self-assurance in this matter might be mistaken, and that you might be just a tad over-eager and cursory in your current way of dealing with suspected copyright violations. Markus Poessel (talk) 11:05, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

(undent) The message is one of many user template warnings (Template:Uw-copyright) used to notify editors about various things. It needs to be harsh to let people who might not realize it how serious copyright violations are and to discourage further abuse. I have slightly modified the wording of the template to be a little less so.

I use a tool called TWINKLE to deal with vandalism, copyright violations, and other bad things. Once I'm satisfied that something is vandalism or a copyvio or anything else that needs to be removed, I push a button and it automatically removes the text and pasts that template on the page of the person who added it. I don't spend much time thinking about it; the goal is to remove problems quickly and efficiently and move on. As I said, it is regrettable but not entirely shocking or unforgivable that I make a mistake now and then. In this case I do not think it was unreasonable for me to come to the conclusion that the text needed to be removed. If this was not the case, I apologize; I still have not heard you say it wasn't, though. -- BlastOButter42 ^See Hear _Speak 11:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

As I said, I'm as sure as I can be that I didn't just copy-and-paste, because that's just not the way I work. So while I don't really remember in detail the act of writing the text, I'm convinced it's original. Apology accepted - now could you please revert your deletion? It wasn't just my text that was deleted but, as far as I can see, also a number of changes by other people. Once you've done so, I'll see if I can make it a bit more encyclopedic. But I dimly remember it was not easy making it truly encyclopedic - there's something very strange about writing in an encyclopedic style about a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek book like that of Kakalios. Markus Poessel (talk) 18:39, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Link to posting at arbcom request for enforcement

[3] --KP Botany (talk) 22:47, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Quark

Hello Markus,

Over the past four months, work has gone into improving this article further. We're starting to consider FA again, since the text is undergoing copyediting and each of your referencing concerns has been individually allayed. If you could give your opinion on the article before we do anything, it'd be appreciated. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your detailed review. I've a question about your first point: where you say gauge SU(3) and flavour SU(3) has been mixed up, what do you mean? Do you mean the section requires a rewrite, or just that we need to change references to "gauge symmetry" to "flavour symmetry". I'm a little unclear. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 14:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you think this is ready or do you think there is work to be done? I think your concerns as mentioned on the talk page have been allayed. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 09:14, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Quark su(3)_c

Hi. I've rewritten the second last paragraph of this to discuss color su(3). I've made the text there a bit shorter as it was verbose earlier. Could you take a look and tell me what you think/make corrections or additions? Thanks for any help. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 12:42, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I see you went ahead and rewrote the para to mainly discuss the analogy of spatial geometry. In doing so, though, you removed several key points. I've attempted the amalgamation of our versions. I think it looks pretty good. Feel free to extend upon that if you like. I will note, though, that I think that little more than a clause is needed for the geometric analogy, not the two or three sentences your version had. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Some of the "problems" you cite with my version seem to be the product of your incorrect inferences. For example, you say ""gauge symmetries" as "a kind of symmetry group" - when I hear the latter, I think of group properties" – what you think of is hardly material here, right? It's the reader that matters. The same is true for "fundamentally associated with the other members of the set" – that it sounds like a property of quarks rather than an association with quarks is your idea, and it's certainly not the idea I get when reading the same piece of text. Overall, though, I'm very open to the refactoring and complete redoing of this section. But only if such a reconstruction makes more sense than this one. Yours didn't seem to, in my eyes. You say you want to include information about gluons here, and that's probably appropriate, but this made no sense to me:

"The requirement that the choice of color scheme be allowed to vary with location (in mathematical terms: that SU(3)c should be a local or gauge symmetry) necessitates the introduction of additional particle fields: those of the gluons, the carrier particles of the strong force."

It's kind of just a tangle of words – it relates two concepts through sentence construction without actually explaining why they're related. Here, you've associated the "choice" of color scheme with the "necessity" of gluons without actually explicating why those two ideas are related. Can you kind of see what I'm getting at? On another note, this idea of "choosing" a color scheme seemed to run throughout your version, and I never fully picked it up. Pieces of it like "the different ways of choosing a quark color scheme" make it sound like there is some human component to it, like someone "choosing" an icecream, when I don't think you mean that at all. Finally, I thought "Quark colors are not uniquely defined: The choice of which state represents a blue, green or red quark, respectively, is as arbitrary as the choice of three coordinate axes x,y,z in three-dimensional space" was not needed; it's already known that quark colors are arbitrary, and it's drawing an unnecessary bow between the Cartesian co-ordinates. Presumably you've done this to get the reader in the mood for the concept of rotating the spatial co-ordinate system, but I don't think it's necessary.

Overall, I'm very appreciative of your expertise, and you're evidently well-versed in your field. But you need to come up with a way that is 1) scientifically correct and precise (this may be a problem with my version and that is 2) easy for the reader to understand and doesn't leave them puzzled (that may be the problem with your version. Finding a compromise between the two is critical. The only way of doing that, it seems, is to continue chipping away at the section until it looks good. Or, perhaps we could propose a paragraph on the talk page and discuss the pros and cons there. Thanks for your time. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 22:10, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

• As to the ref for why SU(3) was introduced: I used p.78 of A Story of Light because it contained the following:

These color charges are not related to any physically identifiable quantities, but they triple the number of quarks [which we know to be 6] and provide the bases for a new color SU(3) symmetry for strong nuclear interactions; each of the quarks – u, d, c, s, t, and b – come in three distinct varieties of red, green and blue color charges, as in red up, green up and blue up quarks.

I thought that was a fairly appropriate reference for what the article's saying; what do you think? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 07:59, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Spin

What was the problem with the statement? I suppose it might have been more accurate to say that the hadron spin is the sum of the quark spins and angular momenta, but, other than that, what's wrong? I do have a number of sources I can draw to prove the correctness of it. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 15:05, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Another thing: I understand what you're doing with the color confinement section. If I'm right, you've restructured it so we have cause --> effect. This does make logical sense, but I question how well it fits in for the readers. I think simple --> complex is better. Color confinement is the salient point, it's the effect, it's what the reader wants to know about first. I think the old ordering was better: we had what was happening (color confinement) and then we explained it. Now, we are bamboozling them with the technical explanation before the simple part. See what I mean? What are your thoughts? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 07:17, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Opinion

Is quark ready for FAC, do you think? The reference issues are all addressed, I think. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 01:54, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Replacement

Do you have any suggestions for a replacement sentence for the erroneous "SU(3)c introduction" one? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:24, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Quark BS

		The E=mc² Barnstar
		For your incredibly meticulous reference review at quark, which was instrumental in bringing it to FA-level. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 15:41, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! I always wanted one of those! Markus Poessel (talk) 17:20, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

A noiseless patient spider, I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul." —"A Noiseless Patient Spider" by Walt Whitman Happy New Year Awadewit (talk) 05:53, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Speed of light

You might be interested to know that the above article has been nominated at FAC. Awadewit (talk) 16:20, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

World Science Festival

I have nominated World Science Festival for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Nageh (talk) 20:38, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Main page appearance

Hello! This is a note to let the main editors of this article know that it will be appearing as the main page featured article on March 7, 2011. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 7, 2011. If you think it is necessary to change the main date, you can request it with the featured article director, Raul654 (talk · contribs). If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you might change it—following the instructions of the suggested formatting. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :D Thanks! Tbhotch* ^{۩ ۞} 21:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The 2008 World Science Festival was a science festival held in New York City. The festival (May 28 – June 1, 2008) consisted mainly of panel discussions and on-stage conversations, accompanied by multimedia presentations. A youth and family program presented topics such as sports from a scientific perspective and included an extensive street fair. A cultural program led by actor and writer Alan Alda focused on art inspired by science. The festival also included a World Science Summit, a meeting of high-level participants from the worlds of science, politics, administration, and business. The festival was the brainchild of Columbia University physicist Brian Greene and his wife, Emmy Award-winning television journalist Tracy Day. It was held in partnership with major New York City cultural and academic institutions such as Columbia University, New York University and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (more...)

Main page appearance: General relativity

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General relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics. General relativity generalises special relativity and Newton's law of universal gravitation, providing a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of space and time. In particular, the curvature of spacetime is directly related to the four-momentum of whatever matter and radiation are present. The relation is specified by the Einstein field equations. Some predictions of general relativity differ significantly from those of classical physics. Examples of such differences include gravitational time dilation, gravitational lensing, the gravitational redshift of light, and the gravitational time delay. General relativity's predictions have been confirmed in all observations and experiments to date. Although general relativity is not the only relativistic theory of gravity, it is the simplest theory that is consistent with experimental data. However, unanswered questions remain, the most fundamental being how general relativity can be reconciled with the laws of quantum physics to produce a complete and self-consistent theory of quantum gravity. (more...)

UcuchaBot (talk) 23:01, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

E=mc² with Einsteinian Distinction

	File:Science barnstar einstein.JPG		The E=mc2 Barnstar with Einsteinian Distinction
			Seeing as you have already received the The EMC² Barnstar, I hereby award you the same award with a rather dubious neologism tacked on to the end for your impressive work on the article for Jürgen Ehlers. –Runfellow (talk) 03:40, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks! Markus Poessel (talk) 20:23, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

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Main Page appearance: Jürgen Ehlers

This is a note to let the main editors of Jürgen Ehlers know that the article will be appearing as today's featured article on June 28, 2013. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. If you prefer that the article appear as TFA on a different date, or not at all, please ask featured article director Raul654 (talk · contribs) or one of his delegates (Dabomb87 (talk · contribs), Gimmetoo (talk · contribs), and Bencherlite (talk · contribs)), or start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 28, 2013. If it needs tweaking, or if it needs rewording to match improvements to the article between now and its main page appearance, please edit it, following the instructions at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/instructions. The blurb as it stands now is below:

Jürgen Ehlers (1929–2008) was a German physicist who contributed to the understanding of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. From graduate and postgraduate work in Pascual Jordan's relativity research group at Hamburg University, he held academic posts before joining the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Munich as a director. In 1995, he became the founding director of the newly created Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) in Potsdam, Germany. Ehlers' research focused on the foundations of general relativity as well as on the theory's applications to astrophysics. He formulated a suitable classification of exact solutions to Einstein's field equations and proved the Ehlers-Geren-Sachs theorem that justifies the application of simple, general-relativistic model universes to modern cosmology. He created a spacetime-oriented description of gravitational lensing and clarified the relationship between models formulated within the framework of general relativity and those of Newtonian gravity. He had a keen interest in the history and philosophy of physics and was an ardent popularizer of science. (Full article...)

UcuchaBot (talk) 23:02, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Precious

Wikipedia:Many things to many people
Thank you for quality articles with scientific background, making science accessible for less educated readers in Intro to general relativity, and introducing its people, such as Jürgen Ehlers, for meticulous reviewing and reflecting Wikipedia, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:21, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

A year ago, you were the 529th recipient of my PumpkinSky Prize, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:52, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Seven years ago, you were recipient no. 529 of Precious, a prize of QAI! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:46, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

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Ways to improve George K. Miley

Hi, I'm Musa Raza. Markus Pössel, thanks for creating George K. Miley!

I've just tagged the page, using our page curation tools, as having some issues to fix. It requires copyedit.

The tags can be removed by you or another editor once the issues they mention are addressed. If you have questions, you can leave a comment on my talk page. Or, for more editing help, talk to the volunteers at the Teahouse. Musa^Talk ☻ 21:47, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

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File:Spin_network.svg

I confess that I am totally ignorant on the matter. I noticed that one of the node connection lines is unnumbered. All the others are, so it seems odd. It is the five-point 'star' node the upper left corner about the five o'clock position. There is no discussion page on the file, so I am leaving a message here. No need to reply. Cheers Jim1138 (talk) 19:04, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

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Signpost Op-ed detail

Markus: in the Op-ed contribution for The Signpost issue 11, you refer to "the proposal" for changes in notability criteria. It appears to be an informal proposal, not technically an RfC. Is this the case? Just want to make sure we are consistent with all terminology in the issue. - Bri.public (talk) 17:38, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

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Christopher Kaelin

WP:ANYBIO subject has made a widely recognized contribution. I will seek to add the mainstream references, and appreciate any help or guidance you can offer. Lubbad85 (☎) 15:21, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Read your how-to-guide for newcomers on twitter about avoiding typical pitfalls. Very helpful! Adelequested (talk) 12:51, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Ref names need no quotes

Just so you know, the 'name=' field in <ref> tags does not need double quotes if it is just letters and numbers, with no spaces or funny characters. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 18:13, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

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Precious anniversary

Precious

Nine years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:37, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Good to see Jürgen Ehlers on the Main page on his centenary! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:10, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

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Always precious

Ten years ago, you were found precious. That's what you are, always. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:23, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

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Nobel winners list

Would you like to update User:Markus Pössel/Nobel Laureates and Wikipedia Pages ? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:51, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Too much else on my plate right now, sorry! Feel free to update if you want to. 21:51, 6 July 2024 (UTC) Markus Pössel (talk) 21:51, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

One of the chemists has won two Nobels: one in 2001, before his article was created (2003), and the other in 2022. I've marked him as having his article created "before", since 2001 is out of scope, but I leave the final decision to you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:46, 7 July 2024 (UTC)