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Merging the two articles ('centrifugal force' and 'centrifugal force and absolute rotation')

Headbomb, I could never see the point in separating them in the first place. I have consistently argued for one single article on centrifugal force. I support your merger proposal. In fact, I also believe that all the branch articles should be nominated for deletion as the entire topic can easily be accomodated within one single article. David Tombe (talk) 15:04, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

The article Centrifugal force was made as a WP:Summary style article for Centrifugal force (rotating reference frame), Reactive centrifugal force, Centrifugal force and absolute rotation, History of the concepts of centrifugal and centripetal forces, Mechanics of planar particle motion, etc. Dicklyon (talk) 17:36, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it could work rather well as a summary-style article, and I would much rather see the quality of these articles improved rather trying to move/merge/delete them. I don't see how merging will improve any of these articles in any way. Wilhelm Meis (Quatsch!) 02:37, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Dicklyon's reversion

Dick, I made that edit to clarify the fact that it was not Daniel Bernoulli himself who drew that conclusion, but rather it was the opinion of Mr. Meli in the book which he wrote in 1990. I agree that it was somewhat unencyclopaedic to elaborate on that fact, and so the best option would be to remove the explicit statement of Meli's opinion altogether and to leave Bernoulli's statement on its own in order for the readers to make up their own mind. They can check out Meli's book if they like. We cannot have Bernoulli's ideas reinterpreted by Mr. Meli, because we all know that Bernoulli was not alluding to rotating frames of reference, irrespective of what Mr. Meli thinks. Bernoulli was pointing out the fact that the inertial characteristics of the centrifugal force meant that we get a different value for every arbitrarily chosen point in space. David Tombe (talk) 21:59, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately David, that view goes directly against wikipedia policy. Meli is a valid secondary source, and his interpretation of Bernoulli's ideas supercedes, for the purposes of the article, any of our own interpretations of Bernoulli's ideas. If you have another reliable, verifiable, secondary source that provides an alternate interpretation of Bernoulli's work, then provide it and we can work it in. However, removal of the statement of Meli's opinion is unacceptable as such removal goes against wiki policies. Including the direct quote is, in my opinion, is what Wilhelm suggested when he advised sticking as close to the sources as possible. --FyzixFighter (talk) 22:53, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, yes, FyzixFighter, that is what I meant. I have long hoped that all the editors here would treat the stated interpretations in reliable secondary sources as superceding their own interpretations of primary sources. We have long needed the editors of this article to take a step back from the subject and stick with what is Verifiable in Reliable sources. Thank you for pointing it out. Wilhelm Meis (Quatsch!) 23:57, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

FyzixFighter and Wilhelm, Nobody was stating an alternative interpretation of Bernoulli's statement. It is quite clear from Bernoulli's statement that he was referring to the fact that centrifugal force changes with respect to the point of origin. Bernoulli did not mention rotating frames of reference. Now if we state Mr. Meli's opinion, then we are giving undue weight to Mr. Meli's opinion. So why do we actually need to state Mr. Meli's opinion explicitly in the article without emphasizing the fact that it is Mr. Meli's opinion?

Let's not lose track of what this is about. FyzixFighter holds the point of view that centrifugal force is a fictitious force that only exists in a rotating frame of reference. Nobody is trying to remove that point of view from the article. FyzixFighter could quite legitimately make his point in that respect in the history section in relation to Mr. Coriolis or perhaps even Mr. Lagrange. But why spoil it by introducing it in relation to Daniel Bernoulli when we all know that Mr. Meli has interpreted Bernoulli's statement wrongly. I'm trying to make the history section accurate and it is not accurate as it stands.

The counterbalance would be for me to clarify in the article that it is Mr. Meli's opinion and not Mr. Bernoulli's opinion. But why do we need to go to all those lengths? Why not keep it simple and to the point and state what Bernoulli said? It is playing to the letter of the law that completely ruins many wikipedia articles because there are so many conflicting sources, especially about controversial and changing topics. David Tombe (talk) 00:08, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

David's reason for calling out the Bernoulli interpretation as if it's the recent opinion of one guy, as opposed to all the other stuff that's reported with less explicit attribution since it's all from reliable secondary sources, is as he says above, "we all know that Mr. Meli has interpreted Bernoulli's statement wrongly." As far as I've heard here, David is the only editor who believes that the interpretation is suspect, as he pretty much always rejects the modern viewpoint of fictitios force in a non-inertial reference frame. The only way to be neutral here is to report what Meli said, as a quote, with a footnote to who said it and where and when, which is what we had before. David should stop jerking us around. Dicklyon (talk) 03:20, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm taking a step back from this issue, for now, and I will let you guys work out how to most neutrally and accurately present the information available in the sources. I'll still watch the page, though. Wilhelm Meis (Quatsch!) 04:00, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, Wilhelm. I'm going to work on merging this section over to the history article, so watch that, too. Dicklyon (talk) 04:08, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, the question of the Meli quote has now migrated to the other article, History of centrifugal and centripetal forces, per the unopposed merge proposal. Dicklyon (talk) 06:56, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Dick, The quote has not been neutralized entirely. Alot of people overlook the fact that primary sources are still acceptable under wikipedia's rules if they contain an unambiguous quote. This is especially so if we are dealing with a history chronology. What has been sacrificed here is another important wikipedia policy known as 'undue weight'. We cannot have a history chronology of what the great masters said, overstamped by the modern day opinions of the likes of Meli. We all know that FyzixFighter and Meli are of the same generation, and that they firmly believe that centrifugal force is a fictitious force that is observable only in a rotating frame of reference. But Daniel Bernoulli never said that. So why does a short paragraph on what Daniel Bernoulli said two hundred years ago, have to be overstamped with the opinion of 1990 that 'the idea that centrifugal force is a fictitious force, emerges unmistakenly in a memoir by Bernoulli'? This is a classic case of distorting history in an attempt to bring it into line with the present day. It is against wikipedia policy to do so because it ignores the issue of 'undue weight'. David Tombe (talk) 10:41, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

The Germans on Centrifugal Force

Here is the centrifugal force article from the German wikipedia. This might give a few ideas on presentation. ]David Tombe (talk) 20:46, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I can't read German, but I do like the illustration of the rotating cylinder containing a liquid. The fact that it produces a paraboloid surface is very important from an engineering point of view, as that is currently in use to produce extremely large liquid mirror telescopes, such as the Large Zenith Telescope. I have put this on my to-do list: to borrow the image, add caption and inline text, explain the math, and link to other articles. CosineKitty (talk) 20:01, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

An interesting and informative article

I stumbled apon this reference, which seems to be a nice general overview, at least after reading the first three or four pages. good article

Title: 
Centrifugal Force - a Few Surprises 
Authors: 
Abramowicz, M. A. 
Publication: 
R.A.S. MONTHLY NOTICES V.245, NO.4/AUG15, P. 733, 1990 (MNRAS Homepage) 
Publication Date: 
08/1990 
Origin: 
KNUDSEN 
Bibliographic Code: 
1990MNRAS.245..733A

Cheers CoolMike (talk) 18:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Centrifical force

Doubly fictitious is centrifical force. It perhaps deserves some mention in this article. There are still many who believe it is a similar force, or another the word for centrifugal. I just don't know where or how to place it. Perhaps a simple redirect. Thoughts? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 10:12, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I have never seen the word "centrifical" before, and I was unable to find it listed in any mainstream dictionary. On checking a random selection of the instances of its use uncovered by a Google search, I could find none where it was obviously intended to mean anything different from "centrifugal". It would appear to be simply a misspelling, possibly derived from hearing the word "centrifugal" pronounced with the stress on the second syllable rather than the third (both pronunciations are common and correct).

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 13:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe an Eggcorn. Actually, I could really go for some eggcorn right about now. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 14:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Subject matter discussion

Okay. So we're discussion a subject matter. And somebody says it doesn't exist. And then I say it does exist, and then you throw me out based on a requirement related to the composition of the article about the subject matter. Does that make sense? I'm not in the article trying to change it. I merely provided a rational method of refuting the statement in the article that centrifugal force doesn't doesn't exist. And I don't know what you're trying to do. So please tell me how else I would be able to provide that information if I got some from your proposed source. And I really don't care about the composition of the article, because I read it to get correct information about the subject matter.WFPM (talk) 14:52, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I really can't make any sense of what you are trying to say. Anyway, this is not the place to discuss the subject matter. Please read the first sentence of the talk page guidelines, then read the guidelines and policies at WP:NOR and WP:RS. Thanks. DVdm (talk) 15:22, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay. Have it your way. And I can see now why it is so hard to get articles corrected.WFPM (talk) 16:45, 10 May 2010 (UTC) If I referred You to Clerk Maxwell's discussion of force vectors in the "Atom" section of the 9th edition of the EB,would that solve your WP:RS requirement?WFPM (talk) 16:58, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't find anything in here related to the subject of this article. The word force appears 27 times in the context of electromagnetic attraction and repulsion between atoms. If you intend to draw conclusions from anything in there about the subject of this article, then that is original research - see the section WP:SYNTHESIS. What we need is a reliable source saying what you want to say. So, no, I don't think that "Atom" solves the WP:RS requirement. DVdm (talk) 17:31, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, how about the references in the article, like about "Newton's Bucket" etc. Do the writers of the article read those references? And I particularly like the one about "Acceleration and force in circular motion", where people in a rotating space station are able to stand up and walk on tha outside wall of the station due to the action of the "nonexistent?" centrifugal force exerted on their bodies towards the wall of the station.WFPM (talk) 19:16, 10 May 2010 (UTC) And I don't think you read about Boscovitch's argument that the motions of the atoms are controlled bu the force vectors and not by any physical contact. But thanks for the computer link to the article and I didn't know you could do that. And I am very impressed by the power of the computer to organize and present data. But if you're just worried about the composition of the article, and not about it's subject matter rationale, I don't think you're going to wind up with a good and informative article.WFPM (talk) 19:43, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean with this question: "Well, how about the references in the article, like about "Newton's Bucket" etc". What do you mean with "How about..."? DVdm (talk) 19:51, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

The question has always been as to whether there is or is not a real centrifugal force. And Newton used the whirling bucket phenomenon to argue that there had to be a force that moved the water away from the center of rotation until it ran into a force that constrained it. But there wasn't any explainable force within the attention sphere of the bucket, so they got into an argument about relative motion activities, and lost sight of the local problem, which is still as to why the water piles up in the direction away from the center of rotation. And I don't see the reason for the complications. If something accelerates in some direction, it's because something is pushing (applying a force) in that direction. That's part of Newton's laws of motion. But you can keep it complex if you want, by either disregarding the space and motion relationship of the components of the subject matter, or by developing some mathematical formula that leaves out some relationship factor that leaves out something related to the process of the event.WFPM (talk) 20:28, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not asking for your opinions about and reflections upon something that is written, or not written, in the article. As you really should know by now (see WP:NOR), this is not the place to discuss such things. I asked what you meant with the question: "Well, how about the references in the article, like about "Newton's Bucket" etc". I assume that this was a question about a reference in the article, so we can discuss that. But I did't understand the question, so I asked what you meant with "What about..."? DVdm (talk) 20:41, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Well I assume that the information contained in the article includes the information contained in the references and that it should be compatible with the references as to concept and rationale. But maybe not. So it's not about my information and references versus your information and references, but rather the subjective opinion of the editor about the relative importance of a given subject matter with relation to his point of view. And I thought that the editor's POV was supposed to be neutral about subject matters.WFPM (talk) 21:20, 10 May 2010 (UTC) And what do you think about the information in the Acceleration and force in circular motion article? does it imply the existence of a real centrifugal force or not?WFPM (talk) 21:26, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't understand your intent as to the proper controlling of the message of an article. Are you interested in the correctness of the grammar? Or of the agreed definition of word meanings, (which is important) or the Syntax of the discussion, or of the punctuation, or what else? How about the ability of the article to meet the requirement of Newton's first rule of Philosophy? Which requires the simplest correct and adequate explanation of the phenomenon and nothing more. And since there are many things in the hierarchy of the entities of physical entities and events that need to be explained and understood, that sounds like a good idea to me.WFPM

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