Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive June 2024

Virgo interferometer FAC

Hello everyone, I have submitted the Virgo interferometer article to FAC recently, and it has not attracted too much attention yet (perhaps due to the technicality ?). I would be happy if anyone was willing to take a look; you can find the candidacy page here. Thanks! Thuiop (talk) 07:17, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Nomination of GRSI model for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article GRSI model is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/GRSI model until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

The discussion is over. "The result was merge‎ to Alternatives to general relativity.". JRSpriggs (talk) 02:01, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Academic notability

Hi everyone! I usually write articles on physics topics, but I've been thinking about starting to write a bit more about people as well. For this reason I'm trying to get a feel for crierion 1 on Wikipedia:Notability (academics). What exactly qualifies as "highly cited". I've asked this question in the Teahouse, but I think its better to ask here since this community would have a better feel towards this physics niche case. The cases presented here are not obviously super stars since I'm also interested in what the lower bound is on this criterion.

For example, consider the following Professors at the University of Oxford:

• Andrei Olegovich Starinets: He has a MASSIVE impact on AdS/CFT hydrodynamics with his top cited papers have 2.9k, 1.7k, 1.6k, 1.2k citations each, which is pretty insane, so I'm baffled how he doesn't already have a page.
• Subir Sarkar: Cosmologist who is now Emiratus Professor at Oxford with a non-collaboration paper with 1.3k citations. His impact is however more due to his fundamental contributions to various collaborations such as IceCube and the Particle Theory Group and his most cited papers are from there. This is exemplified by the fact that his retirement had the department hold a 2-day conference called Subirfest https://subirfest.web.ox.ac.uk/home.
• John March-Russell: Discovered the axiverse (1.8k citations) (this is a very big thing due to the increadible popularity of axions to string theory), and has another important paper on FIMP thermal freeze with 1.1k citations.
• Joseph P. Conlon: He discovered the Large Volume Scenario with over 1k citations (this is the second most important mechanism for stabilising moduli in string theory, with the first most famous one being KKLT. These mechanisms are genuinely vital in constructing realistic string theory models and so are super important and comes up in standard string theory textbooks for example) and is a prominent string phenomenologists.

I'm not necessarily aiming to create articles for all (or even most or any) of them, cause, well, effort. But understanding if they are all indeed notable would help me in the future. Any thoughts? Thanks!!! OpenScience709 (talk) 10:06, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

In my personal opinion, the notability criteria adopted for biographies is far below common sense. A large number of citations is a sign that the work itself is notable and we should invest articles about that work. The citations do not make the author notable. A notable author will have a biography written by someone other than a wikipedia editor, eg a historian or a scientist writing about history. The remaining criteria are even weaker, leading to many many Wikipedia vanity "resumes". I don't think these are interesting or knowledge, sorry. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:28, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

I can agree with the sentiment that "The citations do not make the author notable" per se. But the issue with making the bar so high that every wikipedia biography needs to have a whole biography by a historian or scientist writing about history may be too strict. Mainly because these biographies usually only come about when someone retires, or when they die (or later), despite them being notable for a while beforehand. There is utility in these more contemporary figures which are notable in their respective fields, but no one yet bothered to write their history (since its still being written). On the other hand, using Wikipedia as "vanity resumes" is indeed annoying. Exactly why I'm trying to figure out the bar for genuine notability. OpenScience709 (talk) 00:17, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Just to be clear: I am not advocating that the bar be changed (see Don Quixote). Rather I am suggesting a way to make choices on which articles to invest in. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:06, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

It's really not possible to say anything based on citation counts alone, without at the very least comparing to typical profiles for the field. XOR'easter (talk) 02:17, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

"Ceiiinosssttuv" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Ceiiinosssttuv has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 June 13 § Ceiiinosssttuv until a consensus is reached. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 14:05, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Helium Featured Article review

This discussion may be of interest to the community here. XOR'easter (talk) 20:35, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

RfC on meaning of nonmetal

There is a RfC on this topic at Talk:Nonmetal#RfC_on_meaning_of_nonmetal which may be of interest. Is the primary use of the term nonmetal for elements in the periodic table, see discussions in Talk:Nonmetal and also at Talk:Nonmetallic compounds and elements. Editor Sandbh is arguing that this is the case, with some other additions. Editors Johnjbarton, Ldm1954 and YBG have questioned this, and both Johnjbarton and Ldm1954 have questioned the scientific accuracy.Ldm1954 (talk) 07:49, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Uuno Öpik

Does anyone here have an opinion on whether Uuno Öpik meets our notability criteria? It looks a little questionable to me, at least based on the sources cited in the biography. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:56, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I think WP:NPROF is not satisfied. His h-index is 13 [1], and he had two highly cited articles about Jahn-Teller effect (~1000 citations each) with co-authors that have higher h-indices (between 33 and 55). The next highest cited papers have 91 and 66 citations. He worked in UK, so he did not have any significant local effect on physics in Estonia either.

Perhaps also fails WP:GNG, although he is apparently mentioned in

• Estonian scientists in exile. Tln., 2009. P. 75-76.
• Estonian researchers abroad. Stockholm, 1984. Pp. 148.
• Estonian Voice (London, England), 2005, June 3, no. 2230, p. 4. Obituaries.

I have access to none of these sources. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 06:37, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Naturalness (physics) – article or essay?

I came across this, and I'm having difficulty imagining how this would ever become an encyclopaedic article or even how to define it clearly – does it merit its own article? Currently the content reads like some musings. Wouldn't any content not rather belong under more specific articles, such as Hierarchy problem? —Quondum 02:34, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Since the two sections Naturalness (physics)#Overview and Hierarchy problem#Overview appear to be identical, I have to wonder whether the two need to be merged as the topics of both seem similar. Both have been around for a long time, so perhaps they are different enough -- need an expert opinion for that.

I also will throw out the question of whether a little should be added in a broader sense. It is pretty standard in many areas of theory to rescale to dimensionless parameters to collapse data. This can be as simple as using atomic units in QM to effective medium models in many (many) areas etc. Ldm1954 (talk) 05:49, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. On the grounds that this was little better than an attempt at an essay about a potential subcategory of Category:Unsolved problems in physics and that it basically duplicated material from specific articles about the individual scale enigmas ("problems"), I have boldly merged this. At best, it could be a list-class article, but I've left it as a redirect. —Quondum 15:55, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello, Please note that Breaking wave, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 24 June 2024 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team

Good article reassessment for Nature

Nature has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 20:11, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Typical medium dynamical cluster approximation

This discussion may be of interest to the community here. XOR'easter (talk) 02:18, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

The discussion has been closed with a consensus to merge to Dynamical mean-field theory. XOR'easter (talk) 17:59, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

I have done a very selective merge. XOR'easter (talk) 23:38, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Three-dimensional electrical capacitance tomography#Requested move 14 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Three-dimensional electrical capacitance tomography#Requested move 14 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Polyamorph (talk) 15:38, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

FA Archimedes

Some discussion in the article FA Archimedes about its low standard criteria FA. Opinions from a third point of view are voluntarily welcomed. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 02:27, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

What is a nonmetal (in physics)?

I’d've thought that in physics a nonmetal would be a semiconductor or an insulator.

However use of the term "nonmetal" in physics doesn't appear to be well established.

Here's an extract from Fundamentals of Physics (Halliday, Resnick & Walker 2005, 7th ed., p. 563):

We can classify materials generally according to the ability of charge to move through them. Conductors are materials through which charge can move rather freely; examples include metals (such as copper in common lamp wire), the human body, and tap water. Nonconductors—also called insulators—are materials through which charge cannot move freely; examples include rubber (such as the insulation on common lamp wire), plastic, glass, and chemically pure water. Semiconductors are materials that are intermediate between conductors and insulators.

Nowhere in this 1,248-page source are any of the terms nonmetal/s; non-metal/s; nonmetallic; or non-metallic used.

To my surprise, the Oxford Dictionary of Physics, 8th ed. (2019) defines "nonmetal" in the same way as set out in the Oxford Dictionary of Chemistry, 8th ed. (2020):

An element that is not a metal. Nonmetals can either be insulators or semiconductors. At low temperatures nonmetals are poor conductors of both electricity and heat as few free electrons move through the material. If the conduction band is near to the valence band (see energy bands) it is possible for nonmetals to conduct electricity at high temperatures but, in contrast to metals, the conductivity increases with increasing temperature. Nonmetals are electronegative elements, such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sulphur, and the halogens. They form compounds that contain negative ions or covalent bonds. Their oxides are either neutral or acidic.

Do physicists seemingly have no independent conception of what a nonmetal is? --- Sandbh (talk) 00:06, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

My interpretation of the information you gave is that Oxford Dictionary is confused. Their "definition" clearly a mashup of "nonmetal material" and "nonmetal element". Most insulators and semiconductors are not elements. It is exactly this confusion that lead me to argue that our article on "nonmetal" should be renamed to "nonmetal element".

Halliday and Resnick is fine, but not much of a source on materials science. Johnjbarton (talk) 00:35, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

First define metal. A non-metal is not that.

For example, in astronomy, metals are any elements above Lithium. Non-metals are therefore Hydrogen and Helium.

But in solid state physics, metals are elements (and alloys) where the Fermi level lies inside the valence/conduction band. Non-metals are elements where the Fermi levels lie outside of it (semiconductors and insulators). Chemists will define metals a bit differently, but is mostly equivalent to the solid state physicist's definition.

Some other fields will define metals differently. Non-metals will, again, be the things that don't fit the definition of a metal. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:38, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Britannica has an artice on nonmetals: https://www.britannica.com/science/nonmetal. Not sure if it helps.

A "nonmetal element" would be one of the 100+ elements that naturally form structures that are not metallic (?), where metallic means "a blacksmith would know what to do with them" or "they feel metallic to touch" or "they form beautiful salts with some acids". When it comes to el. conductivity, things get more complicated as there's, for example, carbon, which can be a good insulator (diamond), a semimetal (graphene), a semiconductor (some graphene nanoribbons), xxxx (graphite is a non-metal but has many properties of metals). Pretty much all elements become metallic under pressure. So I guess every definition has to be a bit vague as things are not always black and white. Ponor (talk) 04:12, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

@Ponor: Thank you. The Britannica article says that a nonmetal, in physics, is a substance having a finite band gap for electron conduction. This seems odd, as I understand that only solids and liquids have band gaps. --- Sandbh (talk) 07:00, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

@Ponor: Carbon is interesting since, as you say, it's generally regarded as a nonmetal, whether as graphite, its most stable form in ambient conditions, or e.g. as diamond. That said, graphite has the electronic structure of a semimetal in a direction parallel to its planes. It thus has a Fermi surface and, as I understand it, is ostensibly a metal from this perspective. Since, as you note, pretty much all elements metallize under pressure, definitions are generally taken be those that apply in ambient to near ambient conditions, unless otherwise noted. --- Sandbh (talk) 07:28, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

The "physics" definition of a metal is also used in metallurgy and materials science, at Northwestern University it is part of a undergraduate class that all engineers have to take. All the solid-state chemistry, physical chemistry and chemical physics faculty I have coauthored papers with use the Fermi level definition. Ldm1954 (talk) 09:18, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

All metals have their Fermi level crossing a band. Not all materials with a band that's crossing their Fermi level are metals. They may be metallic in some sense, but are not metals. Graphite is a conductor, but is not malleable and is not considered a metal. Ponor (talk) 10:51, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

We have to be careful. Graphite is a semimetal, which I at least call a subclass of metals. Malleability is something very different, and has to do with the Pierls barrier for dislocation motion as well as the number of slip planes, which in turn are a function of the crystal structure. This is why, for instance Mg & Zn are normally cast rather than cold worked.

Malleability is a consequence which also depends on microstructure -- nano materials and deformed ones are different. To me it is not a defining characteridtic. Ldm1954 (talk) 11:05, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

@Ldm1954: An important consideration is that there does not seem to be a generally used concept of "nonmetal" in either metallurgy or materials science. Anything other than a metal, is presumably not a metal or a "not metal", but this is not necessarily the same as the concept of a "nonmetal" as it is primarily used in the literature. --- Sandbh (talk) 07:36, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

@Ldm1854: Re: "Graphite is a semimetal, which I at least call a subclass of metals." From a physics perspective, I agree. From a primary use perspective, I disagree; graphite in this context is regarded as a nonmetal. --- Sandbh (talk) 07:43, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

@Sandbh, from what you have said on Talk:Nonmetal and Talk:Nonmetallic materials only chemistry matters, which multiple editors have disagreed with. You have asked here what people think is a nonmetal, and they have answered. Ldm1954 (talk) 07:52, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

@Ldm1954: To clarify, what matters in a Wikipedia context is the primary use of the term “nonmetal” and its associated meaning, which is as an element that mostly lacks distinctive metallic properties. This situation has arisen due to the iconic status of the periodic table in science. Even so, it’s pertinent to seek to establish meanings, and clarify same, in other fields, as I’ve done, and am attempting to do here.

That a few other editors disagree on the basis of personal perspectives is neither here nor there in the context of attempting to build an encyclopedia by the light of Wikipedia policy. --- Sandbh (talk) 12:28, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

@Headbomb: Thank you. As I understand it, in solid state physics, substances with Fermi levels are metals. Such substances are not confined to elements. Substances not having Fermi levels, are not metals. In physics, "nonmetal" is not typically used as a general term; instead, insulators and semiconductors, where solid or liquid, are defined based on their band structure and the position of the Fermi level within those bands. For gases, the concepts of band structure and Fermi levels don't apply; gases are instead understood through their discrete energy levels and their overall poor electrical conductivity. Gases are insulators because they lack free electrons and have discrete rather than continuous energy levels. I'd expect all this to be understood by physicsts, which is fine, but as a non-physicist is my understanding of the situation reasonable? --- Sandbh (talk) 06:52, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

I was waiting for @Headbomb to respond, but to clarify one thing: everything has a Fermi level, you have not understood, sorry. This statement is correct for gold, oxygen, the sun, a black hole, chocolate cookies. Ldm1954 (talk) 07:55, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

NP. I may be wrong. As I understand it, solids and liquids have Fermi levels. If the Fermi level lies in a band overlap, the substance is a metal. If the FL lies in a band gap, the substance is a semiconductor or an insulator. Gases, due to their nature, don't have a band structure or a Fermi level. Instead, they have discrete energy levels. Glad I asked and sought clarification. --- Sandbh (talk) 12:46, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, as already stated by many, you are wrong. One more error is the use of the word "band overlap". Another is to think that there is a difference between a semiconductor or an insulator. There is none, it all depends upon how the project is being spun to a funder.

For reference, you can find the definition in many texts and also on Wikipedia. The Fermi level is the energy where the probability of finding an electron would be 0.5, independent of whether there exists a state at that energy. It is also sometimes called the chemical potential of the electrons, please note the use of the term that Gibbs introduced.

• For the O2 molecule this is half way between the HOMO & LUMO where there are no states
• For undoped Si it is approximately in the middle of the band gap where there are no states
• For highly doped n-type Ge is it in the conduction band, which is why with impure Ge people once thought it was metallic
• For a Field effect transistor the FL depends upon the applied voltage
• For TiN, Au, graphite etc there are states at the Fermi level
• For fun, with ground coffee the Fermi level depends upon whether water vapor is present, see here although this is much more complex.

Ldm1954 (talk) 13:18, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Tx Ldm1954. I always stand ready to be corrected or be provided with further clarification.

1. Re: "One more error is the use of the word 'band overlap'." What error are you referring to? In solid-state physics, as I understand it, the concept of band overlap is crucial for determining whether a substance is a metal. When discussing metals, the valence band and the conduction band overlap or touch each other. This overlap means that there is no energy gap between these bands, allowing electrons to move freely.

2. Re: "Another is to think that there is a difference between a semiconductor or an insulator. There is none, it all depends upon how the project is being spun to a funder."

First, the literature routinely distinguishes between semiconductors, such B, Si, P and Se; and insulators, such as S. Second, a distinction can be made based on band gap width:

"A semiconductor...being taken as an element having a band gap less than or equal to the visible spectrum cutoff of 1.8 eV.⁴⁸ A semiconductor with such a relatively narrow band gap⁴⁹ has a metallic or black appearance,^50,51 and metalloids have traditionally been regarded as looking like metals⁵² (semiconductors with wider band gaps, and insulators, appear colored, white, or transparent).^53,54 See: doi:10.1021/ed3008457, p. 1705.

— Sandbh (talk) 06:16, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

@Johnjbarton: The Oxford Dictionary of Physics (2019, 8th ed.) definition of a nonmetal as an element that is not a metal, such as C, N, O, P, S, and the halogens, has not changed since the 3rd edition of 1996. If the Oxford Dictionary "is confused" as you put it, then I expect that after 23 years and another 5 editions such confusion would've been corrected. The fact that it hasn't calls into question your interpretation. --- Sandbh (talk) 06:05, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Please note, The Oxford Dictionary of Physics is a tertiary source and as such should be avoided or used with great care, see this essay (with thanks to @HansVonStuttgart for pointing out the information.) Ldm1954 (talk) 09:47, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

@Ldm1954: That essay is neither Wikipedia policy nor guidance. For WP policy, there is WP:PSTS, which states that: "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources, and to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. --- Sandbh (talk) 12:53, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Example: IUPAC Gold Book mentions a metal-nonmetal transition as an alternative term to to metal-insulator transition. Here nonmetal apparently means 'insulator'. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 15:25, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

@Sandbh You're the one who said it was a copy of the Chemistry entry. Not a mark of careful work is it? The entry mixes physical properties like conduction with chemical ones like electronegativity.

Physics talks of "metals", "insulators", and "semiconductors", and not of "notmetals", "noninsulators", and "nonsemiconductors". "Nonmetal" in physics is literally "not a metal". And it is definitely not "one of a list of certain elements", which is why I object to the name of the article Nonmetal. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:56, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

@Johnjbarton: Tx. I presume the Oxford Physics Dictionary entry is the same as the Oxford Chemistry Dictionary entry given physics generally appears to have declined to say anything meaningful about nonmetals, per the example of Fundamentals of Physics by Halliday, Resnick & Walker 2005, 7th ed. i.e. 138 mentions of the words metal/metals/metallic, compared to 0 of the terms nonmetal/s; non-metal/s; nonmetallic; or non-metallic.^ As you say, physics instead talks of "metals", "insulators", and "semiconductors", which is quite straighforward.

^ Clarification: in Appendix A-15 they include a periodic table showing metals, metalloids, and nonmetals.

Re, "Nonmetal" in physics is literally "not a metal", that would be a good assertion if the physics literature actually clarified that this the case, but it doesn't, as I understand it. That is to say, there is no general conception in physics that nonmetal = insulators and semiconductors, that I've been able to find evidence of.

As you know, the title of the Nonmetal article reflects the primary use of the term "Nonmetal" employed in the literature. That is how articles are titled, rather than being based on personal expectations. Nature abhors a vaccum—which, in the case of the relationship between the term "nonmetal" and physics, appears to have essentially been filled in by the notion of a chemical element that mostly lacks distinctive metallic properties. As an encyclopedia it is then incumbent on such to reflect this situation. — Sandbh (talk) 07:44, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Regarding your claim about the physics literature:

• Yonezawa, F. (2017). Physics of Metal-Nonmetal Transitions. Amsterdam: IOS Press. p. 257. ISBN 978-1-61499-786-3. “Sir Nevill Mott (1905–1996) wrote a letter to a fellow physicist, Prof. Peter P. Edwards, in which he notes... I've thought a lot about 'What is a metal?' and I think one can only answer the question at T = 0 (the absolute zero of temperature). There a metal conducts and a nonmetal doesn't."

Johnjbarton (talk) 15:00, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, Mott's letter of 1996 is a pertinent consideration, as a relatively uncommon example of a physcist making a distinction between metals and nonmetals, and actually using the term "nonmetal". The phrasing of Mott's letter is interesting. If he had to think a lot about 'what is a metal?' it cannot have been a topic he, as a physicist, ever gave much thought to in the preceding, say, 70 years. --- Sandbh (talk) Sandbh (talk) 13:54, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@Sandbh claims:

• If he had to think a lot about 'what is a metal?' it cannot have been a topic he, as a physicist, ever gave much thought to in the preceding, say, 70 years.

Nevill Francis Mott worked on metals from the early 1930s and was awarded the Nobel prize for that work. For more on his letter to Peter Edwards see

• Edwards, P. P., et al. "… a metal conducts and a non-metal doesn't." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 368.1914 (2010): 941-965.

Johnjbarton (talk) 15:44, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, Mott worked on metals from the 1930s, and it took until the tenth decade of his life to write that, "I've thought a lot about 'What is a metal?' and I think one can only answer the question at T = 0 (the absolute zero of temperature). There a metal conducts and a nonmetal doesn't." --- Sandbh (talk) 06:35, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

@Sandbh "given physics generally appears to have declined to say anything meaningful about nonmetals, per the example of Fundamentals of Physics by Halliday, Resnick & Walker" - I would just like to note that an introductory level omnibus textbook not mentioning a topic really tells you nothing about whether physics has said something meaningful about it. I can think of dozens of topics Halliday, Resnick, and Walker do not mention because they're unnecessary to mention in a freshman physics text that nevertheless have been discussed extensively in physics. I have not looked carefully, and frankly don't particularly have the time to trawl through all of this discussion, but Kittel's solid state textbook (a classic in the field), for instance, does mention nonmetals. (Also, as an aside, the statement "If [Mott] had to think a lot about 'what is a metal?' it cannot have been a topic he, as a physicist, ever gave much thought to" is inherently self-contradictory, so I'm not really sure what you mean by this.) Anyway, if you walk into a group of solid state physicists and say 'physics has nothing meaningful to say about nonmetals' I can't imagine it'd go over well! Nerd1a4i (they/them) (talk) 02:35, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

@Nerd1a4i: Thanks for chiming in. I looked in Kittel's solid state textbook (8th ed., 2005). There are two mentions of "nonmetals" in its 680 pages, neither of any relevance. If the topic of nonmetals has "nevertheless have been discussed extensively in physics" where are these discussions? If Mott worked on metals from the 1930s, why did he wait until the tenth decade of his life to write "I think one can only answer the question at T = 0 (the absolute zero of temperature). There a metal conducts and a nonmetal doesn't."? — Sandbh (talk) 07:12, 30 June 2024 (UTC)