Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive August 2013

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Was this move good idea?

Dimension10 (talk · contribs) just did the following moves

Standard Model → Introduction to the Standard Model

Standard Model (mathematical formulation) → The Standard Model of Particle Physics

I'm not sure this is an entirely good idea, as per our naming conventions Standard Model should redirect to The Standard Model of Particle Physics, but this is almost never the intended target. I'd much rather have Introduction to the Standard Model moved back to its original location (per WP:COMMONNAME amongst other rationales) and The Standard Model of Particle Physics moved to Mathematical formulation of the Standard Model, i.e.

Introduction to the Standard Model → Standard Model → unchanged

The Standard Model of Particle Physics → Mathematical formulation of the Standard Model

What's the feeling on those two articles? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:37, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Note the reasons given . It's foolish to indicate a non-mathematical , popular-science article as main, and a proper, full-fledged article as just a side article . Dimension10 (talk) 15:13, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

But I agree about the WP:COMMONNAME thing, so I moved it that way . Dimension10 (talk) 15:16, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Dimension10 (talk · contribs) Will you please stop making a billion moves to bad titles? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:20, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

The Stranded Model was an accident . Dimension10 (talk) 15:22, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

And Standard+Model? And The standard model? And the million others? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:27, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Those occured as temporary moves as for some reason, Standard Model, etc. were not accepeted moves . Dimension10 (talk) 15:16, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

For purposes of input form other editors apart form Dimension10: the moves are entirely unnecessary. Page moves should only be done sparingly if at all. M∧Ŝc²ħε И_τlk 15:38, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

@Maschen: The moves were necessary . The articles on GR, QM, and String theory have "Introduction" separately and the article with the name itself (E.g. General Relativity, String theory, Quantum Mechanics, M-theory, without the "introduction".). It makes no sense to have the non-technical, layman article as main and the technical answer as a side . I mean, several Q&A sites, wikis, forums are going to link to wikipedia . They'd want a simpler name like enwp.org/Standard_Model for the main article without an extra "(mathematical formulation)..." . And as a side effect, as most people don't re aallly look at the {{for}} tags, the technical article goes unnoticed . Dimension10 (talk) 15:16, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I'm very aware of "introduction" articles - and those are supposed to be simplified versions of the "main" article.

Just because an article doesn't appear to have much technicality/mathematics in it, how do you know someone will not add some in the future? If that happens then the "introduction to X" article is no longer an "introduction", but has become a main article as it already was supposed to be.

Actually - every article on WP (even those with very specific scope like Derivation of the Navier–Stokes equations and Derivations of the Lorentz transformations) is supposed to be an "introduction" to the topic - information accumulated in one place to stimulate the layreader to read further. No article on WP can give real in-depth coverage of the topic like textbooks can and WP (like any encyclopedia) is not intended to teach subjects like textbooks (the reason for Wikibooks).

So by your logic, does every WP article with apparent scope for the layreader (all of them ideally) need to be renamed "introduction to ..."?

The consensus by a variety of other editors is very clear: numerous article titles are messed up entirely from personal preferences with no consensus or even notification. They were not "bad" or "wrong" in the first place. M∧Ŝc²ħε И_τlk 20:33, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

At this moment, looking at the multiples and multiples of page moves on the editor's contribution page [1], I cannot sort out what is what, and what is supposed to be what. However, I do feel these page moves and name changes were not and are not appropriate, and should have been proposed and vetted here first. I think consensus for the original page names was implied by years of the same titles for these articles. Hence, I think and prefer that these articles be restored to their original name until consensus determines otherwise. These moves and name changes are based on one editor's personal standards but might not be based on WikiProject Physics conventions and standards. --- Steve Quinn (talk) 02:29, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Template

This newly created template entitled Not-technical-enough does not appear to agree with Wikipedia's intent, conventions, policies, and guidelines. For the uninitated please see: please make technical articles understandable, please make topics understandable to as many readers as possible, and we should always put our readers first. As an aside, are such templates supposed to be approved by consensus, before being deployed for use on articles? ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 03:45, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Probably a good candidate for a TfD. Any article that's "not technical enough" would be like a stub/start class. I can't fathom having the equivalent of simple:quark as the main English version, on any topic that's reasonable well developed. Could be useful in theory, but in practice... I'd need to see an article in need of that tag. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 05:53, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Nominated for deletion. M∧Ŝc²ħε И_τlk 06:20, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Help on Time-challenged article

Time-challenged When 4 ½ hours go by in what seems like 10 minutes, that is in the field of physics and not psychology. Maybe those of you who have access to physics journals know something about time anomaly affecting personal success.--Truexper (talk) 08:45, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Residue (chemistry)

should be splitted into Residue (chemistry) and residue (molecular biology) since everything after "In biochemistry and molecular biology, a residue ..." is definitely totally different from the rest!.--141.58.45.38 (talk) 11:59, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

You raise an interesting point, but it doesn't really fall within the WP:PHYSICS realm of interest. I would suggest starting a discussion on Talk:Residue (chemistry) and then asking participants in WP:CHEMS and WP:BIOLOGY to comment. Personally I agree that the two definitions are essentially separate, but I don't think there is enough out there talking specifically about biochemical/molecular bio residues to warrant its own article - a simple definition would be in violation of WP:DICDEF. It seems, on the other hand, that there is enough material for an article on chemical residues. Corvus coronoides _talk 13:08, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your links to the other projects. I moved the question to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals although i m not sure whether somebody reads it there nor whether i moved it to the correct site.

--141.58.45.38 (talk) 15:23, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Quantum trolling?

I am curious about [2]. It is certainly not a useful edit, but I never saw this as a form of vandalism. Could somebody rollback it? I am tired of accusations about biting newcomers. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 15:09, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Done. Gandalf61 (talk) 15:50, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

"vital" articles

I don't know important the selection at Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded/Physical sciences#Physics.2C_270 is in practical terms (probably not much), but if someone has the time, that list could use some attention. The actual discussion is at Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Expanded#Physics. Someone not using his real name (talk) 01:11, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Useful articles?

Are the following two (brand new) articles useful to WikiProject Physics: List of things named after Paul Dirac, and List of things named after James Clerk Maxwell? ---Steve Quinn (talk) 20:06, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Why not? We have a list of things named after Leonhard Euler... M∧Ŝc²ħε И_τlk 20:50, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Keep in mind that all of those list should satisfy WP:LISTN. It would be wise to find appropriate sources before putting much work into them. RockMagnetist (talk) 00:07, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Personally I think it's a bit pointless, and better replaced with a category, IRWolfie- (talk) 01:05, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Actually, categories of things named after people tend to get deleted because the articles aren't related in any meaningful way. RockMagnetist (talk) 01:37, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

The lengths of the lists suggest they're not "pointless"... Surely it's allowed to use the same sources from the main articles linked to in the lists? M∧Ŝc²ħε И_τlk 21:13, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Have a closer look at WP:LISTN. What you need is a reference that provides a list of things named after Scientist X. If there happens to be such a reference in their bios, that would save time. RockMagnetist (talk) 22:09, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

You're right, specific on-topic sources are required... I haven't seen any specifically for the above lists, but will have a look and add them in time. Given the physicists in question just had a hunch that they are notable... M∧Ŝc²ħε И_τlk 07:54, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been featured

Hello,
Please note that Absolute magnitude, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
_{Delivered by Theo's Little Bot at 00:06, 12 August 2013 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team}

Kantrowitz limit

There seems to be an article request at talk:hyperloop for Kantrowitz limit -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 04:46, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Requesting opinions

I am thinking of a PROD for "Electronic Journal of Theoretical Physics". I checked Google Scholar to get an idea of citation rates. The first article on Google Scholar is entitled "Consciousness as a research tool into space and time" with 33 cites. I now question this journal's reliability besides its notability. I am wondering if some members of this project could look through enough of the articles listed on Google scholar to give an opinion pertaining to its reliability. Besides a few articles, I feel that I don't have enough knowledge about the subjects covered to make a judgement. The other stuff, WikiProject Academic Journals can handle. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 03:29, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

It was already PRODed, BTW. If you want to delete, it'll have to go to AFD. As far the "quackiness" of this journal, gscholar seems to yield perfectly sane articles on the subjects you expect from such a journal, except for a bunch of articles from Sorli (and Sorli), which are definitely in kook-land. The high citation count of their articles are from self-citations, or kook journals. But other articles (sane ones) are also relatively highly cited, and from a variety of people, in reputable venues. So it seems this journal is a mixed bag of nuts, with the peer review process at work for most, but that Sorli is given a pass by the editors, or something.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:24, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Headbomb, thanks for clearing this up. I really couldn't figure out what the heck was going on with this one. Now I am informed :). --- Steve Quinn (talk) 18:06, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

This may be after the horse has left the barn, but here is a link to the Google scholar listings for this journal. -- Steve Quinn (talk) 01:12, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Paper translations

Delphenich (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been adding a lot of links to translations of older physics papers to a number of pages. I'm sure they mean well, but I'm inclined to mass-revert. Thoughts? a13ean (talk) 13:47, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

They seem to be the user's own translations of papers and books that are in the public domain for one reason or another (User:Delphenich = D.H. Delphenich). They're linked on his own web site, neo-classical-physics.info, but as far as I can tell, the addition of the links is not promoting his own web site, his own papers, or his own original research. I'm not certain whether the addition of the links to Wikipedia articles is useful in every case. However, it represents a massive amount of work that's useful and well done, and I imagine these translations will actually be helpful for various articles. For example, in Neutrino theory of light he has added a translation of one of de Broglie's original papers on the idea. I don't find another English translation of this paper, and it's highly relevant to the article. Therefore, I suggest not doing a mass revert. Have you found other examples where the articles are not relevant, or do you have another reason for proposing to revert? --Amble (talk) 15:11, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

How old are the papers? Are they still within copyright? We can't link to translations that would infringe on copyrighted works, IRWolfie- (talk) 21:02, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

70 years for this sort of thing right? (On my side of the pond at least). I think that puts most of them in the clear. I don't dispute that they're helpful, and the few I looked at were nicely done translations from the original German. However, we're not an indiscriminate collection of links, and we don't generally link to the authors original papers... a13ean (talk) 21:08, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

If we don't usually link to the original papers, then it's something we should change. Original papers are always highly highly relevant, both in terms of history, and in terms of content. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:48, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

In principle, we are supposed to use secondary sources as much as we can. The rationale for this is given in Wikipedia:Nor#Primary.2C_secondary_and_tertiary_sources, where we read:

"Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than to an original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors."

In practice, when editing historical articles on classic physics experiments, I have often found it all too necessary to resort to making interpretive analyses of primary source material. This is, of course, against a strict reading of the rules, but you have to do the best-faith effort that you can to work with what you have available, hoping that you can maintain the goals of accuracy and objectivity that the rules are there to try to encourage. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 23:27, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Your practice in this matter is correct. It is generally agreed that original papers in science can be treated as secondary sources in articles about those papers by editors with no COI, but as primary sources when editors with COI are attempting to promote their own work or their own POV on some matter. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:08, 15 August 2013 (UTC).

Whether they are primary or secondary or tertiary is pretty irrelevant to most people I'd say. The core idea of the guideline is that we can't make novel interpretations of old things, or an original synthesis of primary sources (i.e. if you need to give context and go beyond the original papers, give the interpretations given in secondary and tertiary sources), and that we can't use primary sources to establish notability. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 04:31, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

I see no problem in linking to both the primary and secondary source. Martinvl (talk) 04:57, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Ulrich Mohrhoff

Seems like a borderline AfD, would appreciate input. a13ean (talk) 13:53, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Agree. My preliminary search for sources seems to make a case for deletion, but as you say it's borderline and IMO not worth the fight in an AfD. It looks like the article has some supporters out there. Corvus coronoides _talk 14:40, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Pseudoscience?

The article "Atomic Dielectric Resonance" seems to be psudescience to me. According to the article "Conventional science says that electromagnetic energy can only penetrate solid ground to a depth of centimetres to a few metres ...[however] Dr Stove was surprised to find that he was imaging the water table several metres below the surface of the beach," and so on.

Also, the "Background" section appears to be a word for word copyvio anyway from here. I suspect that most or all of the article is a copyvio.

OK, well, I decided to request a speedy delete. I am seeing too much wrong with this article. My rationale for speedy delete is as follows:

Most of this article amounts to blatant advertising and I suspect that the whole article consists of copyright violations. For example, background section is copy and pasted from (same url posted above). ---Steve Quinn (talk) 06:44, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Speedy was the right choice. a13ean (talk)

Science sidebar

I have started a discussion of the {{Science}} template at WikiProject Science. RockMagnetist (talk) 00:28, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

It is at Template_talk:Science not at WikiProject Science. --Bduke (Discussion) 02:06, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

COI

Since I'm about to submit a paper on the topic, I took the liberty to update our article on the Gell-Mann–Okubo mass formula. I don't believe anything I wrote in there is remotely biased, controversial, or original research, but I'd rather be open about things and have others vet what I wrote rather than be accused of WP:COI or WP:OR. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:55, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for doing things transparently. It looks good to me, although entirely out of my area of expertise. a13ean (talk) 18:42, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for declaring possible COI. I don't see any biases, the new material looks great and the added references are welcome. Thanks, --Mark viking (talk) 18:58, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Period 1 electron distribution

have been nominated for deletion (these will not appear on article alerts, since they are not FFD nominations) -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 08:45, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Missing topics page

I have updated Missing topics about Physics - Skysmith (talk) 11:22, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Flame vs. Combustion

Flame is rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Combustion is not even included into WP:PHYS. This is illogical, actually combustion physics is a very rich branch of physics, and flame is just one aspect of combustion. Yes, I'm a combustion physicist and I'm willing to help with the article (see ru:Горение for a somewhat better outline of the subject). However, I'm not a native speaker. --Fedor Babkin (talk) 18:13, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Feel free to tag talk:combustion with {{WP Physics}} then. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:43, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Resolved

and glad to do it. Please see combustion talk page". I rated this as the same as the other project banners. --- Steve Quinn (talk) 22:51, 30 August 2013 (UTC)