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Revision as of 03:21, 5 July 2005

Category:Physics - general/basic/introductory concepts

This is a problem that has been discussed elsewhere and was the main incentive for creating Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Physics (besides the fact that it didn't exist yet). Now this is probably the best place to continue the discussion. A short summary of the pending discussion follows:

There have been discussions in several places on the structure of some subcategories in Category:Physics. Specifically, we are concerned with basic, general, and introductory phsysics articles. There is already a quite populated Category:Introductory physics, which probably gives a good overview of the most rudimental physics topics to the layman; so there is probably no point in changing it. During the big cleanup in May Category:General physics topics was created and populated by articles that were in the top level Category:Physics and didn't fit too well anywhere else. This category was then largely unpopulated and recently emptied and seems to have lost its purpose. Now there is the question whether we are actually in need of a new, similar category, which might be named Category:Basic physics concepts and would group together basic (fundamental) articles, such as time, space, vector, tensor, matter, energy, interaction, and so forth, which are now somewhat disperssed among various physics categories (please notice the difference between general and basic). If there is more positive feedback for this idea, we can either rename the existing Category:General phsyics topics or delete it and create a new one. The is also an idea about making something like Category:Mathematical tools in physics, which would encompass the mathematical concepts used in physics. Karol 11:28, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC) Note: This is a summary of the posts found in Category talk:Physics#General Physics Topics subcategory, Category talk:Physics#Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Mathematics, and Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Category:Physics: general/basic/introductory concepts.

I think things like tensors should be in mathematics categories, but it would be great if they would contain some physics examples. Otherwise we're going to have to make 2 articles about every applied mathematical thingy. Also because one of the things that is seriously lacking from mathematics articles is good motivation and intuition-stimulation I think we should cooperate more.--MarSch 14:52, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think Category:Basic physics concepts would be easily confused in purpose with Category:Introductory physics. Since you used the word fundamental, I think that Category:Fundamental physics concepts would be more appropriate as it makes clear that the topics aren't necessarily basic in the sense of simple.

I'm sure that physics students looking here would appreciate a Category:Mathematical tools in physics or some such category to cluster all the things we use everyday but don't own. --Laura Scudder | Talk 05:56, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Wild idea here - what if there was a Category:Mathematical tools in physics (or something suitably similar) that contained a lot of redirects to math pages. Of course, if that happened, it would be nice if those math pages contained physical examples.--StuTheSheep 09:57, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

My suggestion is similar to what has been written above. We need to separate the introductory concepts, which should be accessible to a lay person, from the basic concepts, which generally are not. For example, you can talk about forces without talking about gauge bosons. I also think we only need two categories, Category:Introductory physics and Category:Fundamental physics concepts; general topics can be left on the main Category:Physics page..--StuTheSheep 09:57, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you put it very clear - the introductory topics should be differentiated from the fundamental ones. For starters, I would identify fundamental topics (looking at Category:Physics) as: Fundamental interaction, Invariant (physics), Conservation law, Interaction, Time, and so on. So it seems we have a group of people that agree on this point. My mixed feelings remain only as to whether some of these articles should actually not appear in Category:Physics; after all, not much will be left... Karol 21:52, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

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I have just created Category:Fundamental physics concepts and added some basic articles to it. Karol June 28, 2005 17:30 (UTC)

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Some time has passed, so I nominated Category:General physics topics for deletion. Everyone intersted please see Misplaced Pages:Categories_for_deletion#Category:General_physics_topics. Karol June 28, 2005 20:12 (UTC)

World Year of Physics

I suppose I finally have an appropriate place to ask people to look at World Year of Physics 2005. I had originally thought it'd be a great idea to have it up to featured standard by the end of the year, but it hasn't really attracted any other editors recently and I feel like without feedback of other editors I may have taken it in a wrong direction (right now it mostly summarizes Annus Mirabilis Papers). So take a look if you're interested. --Laura Scudder | Talk 15:21, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The list of articles that attract crank edits

As there were voices that List of alternative, speculative and disputed theories is unsuitable in the article namespace, I've moved the physics section to the subpage Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Physics/List of alternative, speculative and disputed theories. --Pjacobi 15:08, 2005 Jun 24 (UTC)

That list is not exclusively about bogus physics theories. Even if it was I wouldn't want it associated with physics in any way. Please remove that again. The physics portal is not the place for it. --MarSch 17:49, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, please remove this list. Above all, WikiProjects are not intended to host subject articles, including original research. Karol 18:56, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Ugh. multiple problems with this list. 1) some of the theories are pure crackpot, e.g. timecube. 2) some of the topics are highly speculative but academically acceptable (possible changes in fine structure const, etc.) 3) some topics which are records of historical fiascos (polywater) or were once taken seriously but are not any more (luminiferous ether). linas 19:56, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Of course, most of these theories are pure crackpot. For this reason, they are on the list. And the list is here, so that we can watch, what's going on there. Isn't the task of WikiProject Physics to ensure the correct presentation of physics in Misplaced Pages? --Pjacobi 20:10, 2005 Jun 24 (UTC)

And BTW, Heim theory is leaking out of its article. I've just spotted it in Neutrino#Notes. What's your opinion on that? --Pjacobi

I think that it would be desirable for part of the wikiproj to be helping keep dodgy psuedoscience in check. So if the list could be restructured to contain *only* the wacko psuedoscience, and a suitable header put on, would that be OK? William M. Connolley 21:20, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC).

The way you guys put it makes it sound reasonable :) that is to have such a repository for monitoring pseudophysics topics. Karol 23:41, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

The list should be split into the different categories that linas identified. List 1) shouldn't be part of this project. What we need to keep in check is what is supposed to be physics and what is not. The other two lists would be very welcome. --MarSch 10:34, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I misunderstood the purpose of the list. Lets change the name to The list of articles that attract crank edits. This is a list of (mostly) legit articles on (mostly) noteworthy topics, (most of which happen to be noteworthy crank topics), that, unfortunately, tend to get vandalized in subtle ways. The name change would completely resolve my initial discomfort on reading the list. We can add over unity and Wilhelm Reich to the list. We can add legit science topics to the list, if they happen to be topics that attract inappropriate attention and edits. linas 1 July 2005 00:39 (UTC)

Yikes! Surely what you understood when you read what I wrote can't possibly be what I meant when I wrote it?? We can add Afshar experiment and the entire Category:Quantum measurement; some of these articles are already subjects of long-running edit battles; note even User:Afshar is an active editor. linas 1 July 2005 01:21 (UTC)

1941 Reich-Einstein experiment

Can please anybody provide references for the existence of a "Reich-Einstein experiment" experiment? Otherwise I'd prefer to leave Einstein's good name out of this article. --Pjacobi 18:03, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)

Oy vey Jacobi, you could find references by at least 3 different authors in the link that I gave above. Ah, I forgot - if it is an infomrative list of publications in other venues or on its own, it's advocacy. You guys (like this melititis who is now doing his bureaucratic shift and was the fellow who shut me up) are amazing. This is how it goes: a fellow (W. Reich) makes a discovery; another fellow (A. Einstein) CONFIRMS it; guys like you two, Jacobi and Melititis, make 'peer-pressure'; that fellow (A. Einstein) still CONFIRMS the finding but clams up; everybody like you two come to believe that this is PROOF that the effect is not REAL; years later some other guys confirm the effect (Correas, E. Mallove); it is published (not in your beloved Nature or whatever consumption of nerdiness you elect as your GOD); yet, it continues to be taboo, because the impression remains, because masses of people like you DESIRE oppression as they desire IGNORANCE. Facts are facts: Einstein performed a week long experiment with Reich and they found what they found. Jacobi and Melititis are showing their deep ignorance of FACTS once again. Helicoid.

Indeed, I was just about to add the same comment: I Googled for it, and could not find any references to a "Reich-Einstein experiment" outside of the world of Aetherometry/free-energy websites. According to , the "Reich-Einstein experiment" involves orgone accumulators and temperature variations, so presumably the "Reich" involved would have been Wilhelm Reich.

Which led to this: . According to this account, Reich and Einstein did indeed meet, and Reich did indeed demonstrate a temperature effect -- and Einstein showed Reich that the temperature effect was completely explained by conventional high-school physics. And the page linked above provides cites to Reich's The Cancer Biopathy etc. for the details of the experiment. And, according to the article, Einstein was lent an accumulator, and had his assistant perform his own experiment. However, labeling this experiment of Reich's the "Reich-Einstein" experiment seems to be an attempt to enlist Einstein's name in support of an effect that Einstein seems, according to the account above, to have explicitly debunked.

Quoted from the linked article above:

"In 1941, Reich gave an orgone accumulator box (with thermometers set up in strategic places) to Albert Einstein. Einstein quickly discovered that, yes, the temperature inside the box did indeed tend to be higher than the temperature outside the box. However, an assistant pointed out that convection currents between the air over the table and the air in the room as a whole could explain the temperature difference. Einstein then took pains to measure the air temperature above the table — without the orgone accumulator being present — and the air temperature below the table, and found that the air above the table was warmer than the air below the table by 0.68 degrees Celsius. As far as Einstein was concerned, this completely explained the temperature difference inside and outside the accumulator. In his private notes and in a lengthy letter of reply to Einstein, Reich, in an all-too-characteristic manner, levelled a thinly-veiled accusation of incompetence at Einstein's assistant."

-- Karada 18:27, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So now Roger Wilcox is supposed to be an NPOV authority on orgonomy? Tsk tsk. If you guys are going to make yourselves the judges of information having to do with Orgonomy, Reich, or any other scientific endeavour not accepted by the mainstream, then you need to learn how to distinguish wheat from chaff. You cannot elevate someone to the position of an "authority" simply because he or she comes from the same aprioristic knee-jerk preconceptions as you. And if you cannot do that, then be honest enough to disqualify yourselves from "editing" articles on such topics. 165.154.24.70 18:56, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, now we know how Wikipedian machinations work, the kind of kangaroo court of knowledge that Misplaced Pages has become, the kind of administrator 'research' by the fastest mouse click possible: to become a peer of anything you read the web; anything will do, Roger Wilcox and Demeo (sheer pseudo-science and pseudo-Reichianism) do not need to have published their attacks on W. Reich and the Correas in any peer-review publication, let alone a mainstream one. A simple search and some dirt turns up, presto! Then that dirt can be used to impugn those that HAVE LEGITIMATE DEGREES, UNTARNISHED REPUTATIONS and DO LEGITIMATE WORK EVEN IF THEIR PUBLICATIONS ARE NOT MAINSTREAM BUT MINORITARY. I think that Misplaced Pages needs to be denounced loud and clear. I suspect it will. Helicoid.

No, I'm not regarding Wilcox as more or less expert or reliable than the Correas: there's nothing in that page to draw a conclusion from on that matter. I'm just saying that "Wilcox says Reich says Einstein denied Reich's interpretation of the results". Now, that's only an opinon, twice removed. However, Wilcox is kind enough to give us cites to Reich's work, and to say that Reich's notes mentioned Einstein's conclusions. Now, given that Reich's writings are widely published, it is possible for a third party to check whether or not Wilcox's account fairly reports Reich's own account of this matter. (Quote from Wilcox: "In his private notes and in a lengthy letter of reply to Einstein, Reich, in an all-too-characteristic manner, levelled a thinly-veiled accusation of incompetence at Einstein's assistant.") Now, those notes and that correspondence either exist or don't. It they don't, then Wilcox's account is suspect. One, the other hand, if they do, being debunked by experiment by Einstein is big hit to the credibility of Reich's interpretation of the temperature differences he observed in his experiment. So, do you want to do the literature research to check on Wilcox's account? -- Karada 19:42, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A quick Googling shows that the Wilhelm Reich Museum will sell you a copy of Reich's notes regarding this: . Even better, Oregon State University appear to have copies of the correspondence . -- Karada 19:51, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You do as you want, Karada. It is YOUR article entry, if you think Wilcox is what peer-review is about, then go for it, you're the master of the googling and the gurgling. The man who settles issues with mickey mouse clicks. I have already voted to delete, and am now threatened by Mel Etitis again (who's been busy destroying what lightning Rod was doing, etc), so do not expect me to do work for you. Helicoid.

• Just wondered why someone seems to have taken it upon themselves to delete my earlier reference to the Reich-Einstein experiment link, catalogued at the Wilhelm Reich Museum. The protocol for the experiment did not involve orgone accumulators (as Karada's previous google reference asserts) but Faraday cages - nor does the rest of the Wilcox text do any justice whatsoever to the historical record. The references to the correspondence are now up, so I won't repeat them. I would add however, that since Mr.s Jacobi and Karada seem so eager to expose facts, it would help if they bothered, to not only locate a few - but then actually read them. Let the factual and historical references speak for themselves. 4.231.175.111

• Knott, here are the references: first the link already supplied by Karada and which you dismissed . Then:

Correa, P & Correa, A (1998, 2001) "The thermal anomaly in ORACs and the Reich-Einstein experiment: implications for blackbody theory", Akronos Publishing, Concord, ON, Canada, ABRI monograph AS2-05.

Correa PN & Correa AN (2001) "The reproducible thermal anomaly of the Reich-Einstein experiment under limit conditions", Infinite Energy, 37:12.

Mallove, E (2001) "Breaking Through: A Bombshell in Science", Infinite Energy, 37:6.

Mallove, E (2001) "Breaking Through: Aether Science and Technology", Infinite Energy, 39:6.

Aspden, H (2001) "Gravity and its thermal anomaly: was the Reich-Einstein experiment evidence of energy inflow from the aether?", Infinite Energy, 41:61.

Bearden, T (2002) "Energy from the vacuum", Cheniere Press, Santa Barbara, CA, pp. 333-337.

A total of 7 publications, but you will find more if you search. Satisfied? Leave the "1941 Reich-Einstein experiment" in. Facts are facts, you should not toy with them because some unpeer-unreview on the web says so. And Demeo - that is plain pseudo-science and plain pseudo-reichianism. Yes, it befits what appears to be your degree of understanding of the subject matter. Helicoid (with sense of humor running very short indeed)

Why Knott do you keep putting in italics on the "1941 Reich-Einstein experiment"? It knotts my head. Helicoid.

Very, very thin evidence for an experiment Einstein is supposedly involved in. --Pjacobi June 28, 2005 16:40 (UTC)

Peter Jacobi: have you read the correspondence between Reich and Einstein published in "The Einstein Affair"? I guess the answer is NO, you have not. Have you read any of the above 7 references? I guess you have not, since you were unaware of them. So, how can you dispute facts? The Reich-Einstein experiment does not need to have been published by Einstein in a mainstream journal or magazine in order to exist and be or have been a fact. In his last letter on the subject, Einstein confirmed the existence of the temperature difference. So, his verification of Reich's finding was positive. Einstein could not come up with an explanation for the finding. That's when Infeld (one of those peers...) came up with the interpretation that permitted Einstein to dismiss the finding. That interpretation of Infeld's has now been shown by the Correas to be experimentally wrong, as they employed further controls that neither Reich, Einstein or Infeld thought about employing. This is exactly a case study of what that reference on peer review (by Horrobin, who has been a scholar on the subject for 3 decades, and published in a peer-reviewed journal Trends Pharmacol Sci For all you peer-review worshippers) described as "antagonism to openness and evaluation". Since facts are facts and the experiment took place, your argument that the evidence for its existence is tenuous only reflects your self-assumed ignorance. That willful and zealot-like ignorance cannot be the guiding criterion for any encyclopedia. It betrays a narrow-minded and obscurantist POV. Which means that from the beginning you have sought only pernicious distortions of the facts in order to argue against my submission and Aetherometry itself. That you have no shame in putting it forth is an interesting feature of this entire Talk, but of interest only to psychiatry. Helicoid

Fine, if there is now a new, repeatable experiment, which will proof the effect, we can sureley wait a little until it is reproduced at any faculty of physics. Or like the bubble fusion crowd, you may get BBC interested to try a reproduction. --Pjacobi June 28, 2005 20:39 (UTC)

Has anybody a reference and quote what Einstein said about the 1941 Reich-Einstein experiment? Reich's view and those of the "over unity researchers" are already presented. --Pjacobi June 30, 2005 08:19 (UTC)

There are only 4 google hits in this regard.--MarSch 30 June 2005 13:56 (UTC)

Ronald Clark, Einstein: The Life and TImes Reich is discussed on pages 689-90 paperback ed. "He also tried to ignore his involvement with W. R. This eccentric distraught figure seems already have slipped down the slope towards charlatanry or maddness by the time he asked E to investigate his discovery... Reich called on E. in his Mercer St home on Jan 13, 1941. 'He told me,' his wife wrote later, ' that the conversation w. E. had been extremely friendly and cordial, that E. was easy to talk to , that their conversation had lasted almost five hours. E was willing to investigate the phenomena that R. had described to him , and a special little accumulator would have to be build and taken to him.' Certainly there was a further visit , and certainly E. tested the apparatus. ... E found a commonplace explanation of the phenomenon which R had noted, and said so in polite terms. The postscript -- contained in _the Einstein Affair_ a privately printed booklet from R's own press was spread across the following 3 yr of their correspondence. Reich disputed E's findings and E was dismayed that his name might be wrongly used to support R's theory" GangofOne 1 July 2005 22:25 (UTC)

Denis Brain, Einstein: A Life. Wiley, 1996. "... a marathon conversation that lasted almost five hours, during which R. had him look through an instrument called an orgonoscope. Exactly what E saw has not been reported. ... E. seemed impressed. He agreed that if the temperature in an enclosed object was raised without any apparent source of energy, as R. asserted, it would be a remarkable discovery --"a bomb."..They agreed to meet again, when R would bring an orgone-energy accumulator for E to put to the test. As Reich was leaving, he asked, "Can you understand now why everyoune thinks I'm mad?" "And how!" replied E. , perhaps recalling all those who had called his own ideas crazy. .... Reich took it to Princeton on Feb 1.... A week later E sent R his report. He wrote that although he observed a difference of temperature, there was a simple explanation that had nothing to do with the orgone-accumulators. Convection current ... E. advised the bitterly disappointed R not to be carried away by an illusion.... R bombared him with ... letters ... E did not reply. ... Reich's wife believed that "E saw the phenomena, may have had an inkling of their significance, but was unwilling to get involved in a highy controversial scientific discovery at a time when he was deeply engrossed with developing atomic energy" GangofOne 2 July 2005 03:00 (UTC)