Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Physics

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surface gravity

I have a problem with the explanation found in the second paragraph of the first section:

A large object, such as a planet or star, will usually be approximately round, because large mountains will be squashed down, and large valleys filled in, by the object's own gravity.

It just seems flat out wrong. Can someone who actually understands what is trying to be said here correct the passage? --Izno (talk) 22:51, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll take a look at rewording this. It's an overly-dumbed-down description of hydrostatic equilibrium. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 23:36, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. --Izno (talk) 00:19, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

If they said "large, non-rotating object", would that be better?--Michael C. Price 20:02, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

It also applies to rotating objects, except that the equilibrium shape is an oblate spheroid rather than a sphere. For not-too-large rotation speeds, the "approximately round" still holds.― A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 20:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Biocentrism in cosmology

Biocentrism in cosmology has been nominated for renaming

76.66.192.206 (talk) 05:58, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

List of Feynman diagrams

Just created this. Extremely stub-like and in need of expansion (and attention from experts, especially for the descriptions). Headbomb {_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 18:18, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

My immediate reaction is "aren't there an infinite number of Feynman diagrams?" Physchim62 (talk) 18:24, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

There are infinitely many prime numbers too, but this doesn't stop List of prime numbers from existing. It's not titled "List of all Feynman diagrams"... ― A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 20:00, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes there are, but some diagrams such as those of pair creation/annihilation and box diagrams are definately "textbook cases" of Feynman diagrams, which could all have their standalone articles. This page would list the common/famous/prototypical diagrams. Ideally, there should be a list of the basic diagrams (aka all types of possible vertex), then a list of the "common/famous" diagrams (beta decay, box diagrams, penguin diagrams, ...). Headbomb {_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 23:30, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Course of Theoretical Physics

This is a well-known series of books by Russian physicists Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz. I've detailed the English publication history, but it would be nice to have the Russian side of the story. Thanks. Headbomb {_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 04:10, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Definition of second: classical or quantum vacuum?

The article Second seems to imply that the definition is supposed to apply to classical free space, not quantum vacuum, so that one has to correct the measurements for the Lamb shift. This sounds weird to me; I would have assumed that it applied to quantum vacuum, i.e. space without particles or photons. Can anyone who knows better shed light on Talk:Second#Classical or quantum vacuum?? ― A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 11:44, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

First, I should say that I don't think there is any quantum correction to how fast low-intensity light travels, but I'm not an expert. Let's suppose there is, for the sake of argument. If there is, I feel strongly that the "second" would be defined in terms of the quantum vacuum, not the "classical free space". Because the quantum vacuum is the one that actually exists in the universe we live in. The quantum vacuum is the one that's approached closer and closer by better experimental methodologies. NIST and other such organizations are not, to my knowledge, sponsoring theory research into whether there are quantum corrections to how fast low-intensity light travels, even though it quite conceivably could be a significant correction (given how accurate and reproduceable atomic clocks are). They don't mention anything about theoretical quantum corrections in SI literature. It's conceivable that without quantum corrections the speed that low-intensity light travels at could be twice as high or something. (If this sounds crazy, remember that without quantum corrections, the electron has an infinite mass! And lots of other silly things happen too.) If some theorist argued convincingly that there was a factor-of-two alteration of the speed of light accountable to quantum vacuum fluctuations, I can't imagine that SI would say we have to reset our clocks by a factor of two!

In general, I think it's a very weird hypothesis to say that some definition of a real-world unit that measures real-world quantities should refer to anything but the real world and the real laws of physics. The real world is quantum, not classical.

I have argued this at length with Brews, and I believe he would disagree with what I wrote above, but I'm not sure. What do other people think? --Steve (talk) 17:07, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

The discussion is linked above (and my intent was that answers would go there, too). ― A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 17:37, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Oops sorry. :-) --Steve (talk) 01:19, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

wiki/Pea_galaxy

I have all but finished this article on the new discovery by the Galaxy Zoo citizen scientists of Pea galaxies. These are some of the most star-forming galaxies in the local Universe, having rates over 1000 times faster than the Milky Way. There has been a link to the this Wiki Physics section on my discussion page, but I have only just plucked up the courage to put it here, as I am not a physicist.

If someone could rate the article- it has all the citations and has been edited thoroughly, so is waiting for a larger audience! http://en.wikipedia.org/Pea_galaxy

Thanks, Richard Richard Nowell (talk) 10:50, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLP cleanup

There is currently a lot of concern across Misplaced Pages about how biographies of living people (BLPs) are handled (see discussion). One solution which is being considered is mass deletion of all unreferenced BLPs. While I doubt there are many significant problems in BLPs of interest to the Physics project, to avoid having our articles caught up in the process it would be worthwhile to go through them and try to get them up to the required standard. (I also suspect that getting rid of unreferenced biographies isn't going to help much in solving the real problem of people slipping contentious content about living people into various Misplaced Pages articles, but that viewpoint seems to be on the loosing side in the discussion!)

Based on the latest bot-generated cleanup listings, I've made a list of the articles which are tagged with WikiProject Physics BPH and also tagged as unreferenced BLPs. I'm going to try to work through the list to check whether articles are really unsourced, whether sources can be found, etc. Any help would be appreciated! Djr32 (talk) 12:38, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Does a paper written by the person qualify as a reference?Chhe (talk) 20:38, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

If the paper gives his biographical information and is subject to editorial checking to make sure that it is a reliable source WP:RS. JRSpriggs (talk) 21:02, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Weight and Apparent weight

Hi physicists. It seems to me that expert attention is needed at these articles. Please refer to the various concerns voiced on the articles' talk pages. 86.136.27.202 (talk) 21:10, 2 February 2010 (UTC).

GA Reassessment of Astronomy

Astronomy has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Malleus Fatuorum 00:01, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposed Photo links

I've added or enhanced existing links to a handful of physicist pages; these links are to image search results at the Emilio Segrè Visual Archives. Pages include: Richard Feynman, Robert J. Van de Graaff, Ernest Lawrence, Wolfgang Pauli, and Harold Jeffreys. Please let me know whether there is a problem with this.

Sprout333 (talk) 18:38, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see why anyone would have a problem with this. You've fixed broken links and added ones to valuable pictures. So thanks a bunch! Headbomb {_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 06:05, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Isotopes of hassium

The half-life information is contradictory in Hassium and in Isotopes of hassium; the former is from Lide, D. R., ed. (2005). CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (86th ed.). Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press. ISBN 0-8493-0486-5., but those data are from 2002 at best and are hardly up to date. This page is a nice summary, but I can't quickly find the original source. Anybody knows a reliable source for Hs isotope data? Materialscientist (talk) 05:13, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I think most of the data comes from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: see here for their page on hassium. The original references for each nuclide can be accessed here. I tried the IAEA site as well, but in directed e back to LBNL. Physchim62 (talk) 12:12, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Bot which automatically updates unreferenced biography of living persons daily

RE: Misplaced Pages:Bot requests#Unreferenced biography of living persons bot to get projects involved in referencing.

Hello wikiproject, I requested a bot which will update unreferenced living people (BLPs) daily. User talk:Betacommand is willing to create this bot. Since you already have a /Unreferenced BLPs page, this shows your project really cares about this issue.

I just need a list of projects who would like to test this bot. Please let me know here if your project would like to do this. Thank you Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 19:57, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

hello, is this something your project maybe interested in? Several hundred, probably several thousand articles on physics will be deleted if they remain unreferenced. Okip (formerly Ikip) 19:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Okip - I don't think anyone would object to you doing this, but I'm not really sure how useful it will actually be. It only took me a minute to generate the current list (by copying it from the cleanup listings generated by Wouterbot). What will make the difference to whether articles are deleted or not is people going through the list and fixing them (or removing the unreferenced tag if it turns out to be incorrect), not a whizzy new list-creating system.

The deletion problem is less severe than you suggest - I think there were 161 physics articles tagged with BLP unreferenced when the database dump was taken, of which at least 70 have now been dealt with. Most of the remaining ones are stubs of pretty borderline notability. Djr32 (talk) 20:59, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Great, I am really glad you have this under control. No need to do this if no one thinks it is necessary. I was thinking of project football, who have over 5000 articles. Glad you are taking care of this, best wishes. Okip (formerly Ikip) 22:45, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

AfD of interest (optics)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/PHOSFOS. Pcap ping 21:56, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Aether drag hypothesis

Have just improved the history, updated and added references tag, links and citations to the Ether Drag page. I also hope to be able to fill in the long standing 'citations needed' gaps shortly, unless anyone else can.Docjudith (talk) 12:55, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

ARBCOM/Speed of light revisited

Since this project is directly affected by the case, I though I'd let you know of this. The amendment request can be found here: Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Amendment#Request to amend prior case: Speed of Light. Headbomb {_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 18:45, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

First bounds on the Higgs boson from hadron colliders

Hopefully, this will interest the Physics community here. Three papers were published today (Feb. 12) in Physical Review Letters by researchers of the CDF and D0 collaborations at Fermilab. The papers describe new limits for the mass of the Higgs boson. In addition, there is a "Viewpoint" commentary in "Physics" (APS). Here is the external link: APS - "Physics" - Viewpoint There are three articles at the top of the page with the articles available in PDF format. There is also a referenced article that follows, which looks interesting, but I haven't read it. Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 04:03, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

It's very interesting, but if I'm reading things right, they're only excluding it to between 2 and 3 sigma based on data in-hand, right? Saying that it's certainly excluded in the 160-200 GeV range would seem premature, given that.

Thanks for the links! --Christopher Thomas (talk) 05:29, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Proton decay in the Pati-Salam model

I recently added a link to the original Pati-Salam paper, Lepton number as the fourth "color" to the Pati-Salam model article. The article is presently completely incomprehensible, IMO, to anyone who does not already understand it. I was hoping I could make some small improvements, but I'm puzzled by some of the things in the original paper.

Pati/Salam say that B-L (which they call "fermion number") is preserved (although they define L as -L, so they call it B+L), but at the end of the paper they also say that the proton decays into three neutrinos and a pion:

→

3
ν

But this seems to violate B-L. Do they mean 2 anti-neutrinos and a neutrino, in addition to the pion?

The paper is quite hard to read (e.g. they unaccountably switch the order of the muon and muon neutrino in their multiplets, which necessitates the insertion of a Pauli matrix into some of their gauge field matrices), but perhaps it will make more sense to someone here! --Michael C. Price 11:37, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Responding to "Do they mean 2 anti-neutrinos and a neutrino, in addition to the pion?". No, my guess is that three neutrinos is exactly what they mean. If you regard each quark (rather than each baryon) as being equivalent to a lepton, and each anti-quark as equivalent to an anti-lepton, then their equation balances. JRSpriggs (talk) 07:32, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

JRSpriggs, you may be right. I just checked and I see they define baryon number as 1 for the conventionally colored quarks, instead of the modern convention of 1/3. --Michael C. Price 08:45, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Wait. Quarks are leptons now?

I get three baryons, no leptons, for (B-L) of 3 for the proton, and one baryon and one antibaryon for the pion, for (B-L) of 0. If the decay produces three antineutrinos, it balances (L of -3, (B-L) of +3 for the RHS). Disclaimer: I haven't read the paper itself. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 08:23, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

ObDisclaimer about calling a "quark" a "baryon" ;). Baryon number of 1, I meant. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 08:25, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

"A not derivable from E and B"

Anyone feel like helping me out over at Talk:Aharonov–Bohm effect#Feynman's views? -- BenRG (talk) 22:48, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Disparity in numbers in the articles on the Fundamental interactions

Strong interaction, Weak interaction, and Fundamental interaction all make statements about the relative strength of what are generally referred to as the four Fundamental interactions. Strong interaction does not currently seem to agree with the other two, but according to this Weak interaction might still be wrong as well. Electromagnetic interaction and Gravitation make no statements of relative strength, and Fundamental interaction also has the note "The exact strengths depend on the particles and energies involved." No matter what it seems like the numbers are off somewhere, and that someone should correct them. It's not clear what references are used to create these numbers. Talk on this also occurs here and here, and some references are talked about there, if that helps at all (probably not). I'm sure the real answer is pretty complicated just based on what is being said in the articles; either way it falls to someone who knows a lot more about this subject with access to good sources to figure this out and correct it. Thank you for your help. Rifter0x0000 (talk) 05:51, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

They are not strictly comparable because the interactions have coupling constants with different units and depend on distance differently. So the statement that "The exact strengths depend on the particles and energies involved." is correct. Usually it is said that their strengths tend to become more nearly equal as the violence of the collision increases. JRSpriggs (talk) 17:03, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

It might still be useful to pick a specific test case and use it to illustrate relative strengths, while at the same time giving these caveats. The forces acting between two protons within a nucleus of some light element would be one example (with the added caveat that we'd be measuring the residual strong force rather than the inter-quark strong force). The forces acting between two quarks within a proton or neutron would be another good example, except that (as far as I know) we don't have a good enough model of strong interactions within nucleons to give good numbers for this. We'd have to dig up citations for sources giving these specific examples, of course, which could be tricky.

The part that gives me pause is the weak force. Does it cause a force to be applied at all, or does it just provide a mechanism for things like beta decay to occur? If it's the latter, we'd have to do something closer to comparing the weak, strong, electromagnetic, and gravitational components of the potential energy within a system rather than comparing the magnitudes of literal Newton-style forces. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 18:22, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the weak force does apply a force. The exchange of a W or Z particle transfers momentum and energy between the two interacting particles. What may make it confusing is that W also transfers electric charge which appears to make the identity of the particles change. Also the very short range (and quickness) of the force is unlike the gradual effect of the other forces. Beta decay can be thought of as a down quark emitting a W and an electron-neutrino absorbing the W. In the process the down quark becomes an up quark and the electron-neutrino becomes an electron. Also the electron-neutrino reverses its course from moving backwards in time to moving forwards when it is an electron. JRSpriggs (talk) 03:22, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I understand the exchange of energy and momentum during a reaction. To clarify, what I was referring to was a scenario similar to considering two protons (or two lead weights, or what-have-you) held near each other (or co-orbiting, etc): a scenario where the system is in a steady state, and forces are being applied. Beta decay is a transient event, which changes the objects that are interacting, so it's hard to construct an easily-understood example where the force applied can be compared to that from other forces. Hence, suggesting a potential energy comparison as an alternative that it's easier to construct cases for. Am I overlooking a Weak-force case that's easier to use in examples? --Christopher Thomas (talk) 04:29, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you are overlooking Z-boson exchange. This behaves very much like the exchange of a photon, with the exception that the Z-boson is massive. Z-boson exchange causes force between any two charged particles, that decays exponentially with the distance. TimothyRias (talk) 09:32, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Help regarding infraparticle

This article is the best on the encyclopedia, and it was turned into a stub. The article is a first-principles explanation of a very difficult topic, and I am afraid the unlike Wikiproject mathematics, there are not enough Wikiproject physics people who will defend the best content from administrative style destruction. Is there anyone who can help?Likebox (talk) 07:24, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

On a related matter, is anyone willing to rewrite Scholarpedia articles for here, so that they are open to public comment? This will require writing articles of the same sort as infraparticle, and scholarpedia exists precisely to defend articles from political attacks by people who don't fully understand the topic. We could do the same thing on Misplaced Pages, with the appropriate critical mass of editors (like mathematics). But if it is impossible, it will not be worth any physicist's time to contribute any serious content to this project.Likebox (talk) 07:28, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

The problem is as far as I can see it's an unsourced explanation of a topic, so OR and doesn't belong. Find sources for it, then write it based on them. It will also help you recruiting other editors who can use the source, and others it references or that reference it, to build on your work. Something that's almost impossible with original research.--JohnBlackburne_deeds 01:05, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

To JohnBlackBurne--- it is not OR if it doesn't have a source! It is OR if a source does not exist. This material is very old, and the explanation that is given is crystal clear, and written by a top-notch science contributor. I could tell it was correct by checking it (although I thought it was crackpot nonsense at first).

You must understand--- science is a big topic--- if you don't know what something is about, leave it alone. People who know the field will delete stuff that is truly OR.Likebox (talk) 01:08, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The deletion of accurate content for lack of effort to find sources is intolerable. I did not believe that editors would do this for technical discussions of such high caliber, but it happened. I am very disappointed by the decision of editors to attack material that they clearly did not understand.Likebox (talk) 01:10, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Like it or not, this is one of Misplaced Pages's core principles (per WP:V). By all means lobby to change the policy, but until then, finding sources should go hand in hand with writing articles. Other sites have different core principles, which may or may not lead to building better encyclopedias. This is great; diversity is a sign of health, and it's a big internet. That fact doesn't change what Misplaced Pages's policies are. Rather than complaining about how non-experts are removing material here, how about asking some of the experts you're in contact with what the standard references/sources for this topic are? Problem solved, without fuss, if you do that. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 01:31, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

But a reasonable case must be made that the explanation is likely nonsense (if not then I can justifiably invoke IAR to overrule OR, V or any other policy). Many Wiki pages contain unsourced explanations. There is nothing wrong for an explanation in Misplaced Pages to be unsourced in the sense that no articles on the topic give that explanation. There can be many innocent reasons for that. E.g., research papers will not give explanations that are obvious to researchers in the field. They are not writing for undergraduate students, yet Misplaced Pages cannot assume that its readers have more advanced knowledge than this. Count Iblis (talk) 01:39, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The article is not adequately sourced, it is at at best OR, at worst fringe drivel. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:10, 19 February 2010 (UTC).

(deindent) You cannot be serious! The article has a source now--- I found it and listed it in the talk page. Absent your review of the relevant literature, I don't know where your opinion comes from. Calling an article on 30 year old well-accepted physics "fringe drivel" or "OR" is irresponsible. I would like to know how you came to your conclusion.Likebox (talk) 02:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

To Christopher Thomas: WP core policy is designed to make sure that material is verifiable and not original. I didn't know the source for this, but I found it eventually, and listed it on the talk page. It is intolerable to delete material without reviewing the literature and looking for proper sourcing--- this is lazy editing at its worst. The source is not famous, but it is not obscure either.

Unfortunately, the people who came to the page just deleted it based on a feeling they had that this is OR. How do you deal with this feeling responsibly? You look up the literature, see what is sourceable, see what is not, and make corrections to the article accordingly. I did this years ago, and I realized that everything is OK. I provided a reference which should be sufficient for the time being.Likebox (talk) 02:22, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that looking for sources before deleting is a polite and constructive thing to do. However, the present consensus of Misplaced Pages administrators seems to be that the onus is on article writers, rather than subsequent reviwers, to dig up such references. I respectfully suggest that until you successfully lobby to change that convention, you will find it easier (and faster) to save articles by sourcing them (as you eventually did here) than by arguing that such sourcing must be done by others. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 04:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The article was written years ago by an expert contributor who left. Frankly, it didn't need any more than the one source provided by headbomb--- anyone who can read it can verify the material. This article was the only source I actually read about the subject for a long time.

When deleting material from a technical article, it is not only impolite to not check the sourcing, it is vandalism. Most of the science sections of the encyclopedia are not sourced like history articles, and should never be. The sourcing of science articles is for controversial statements, while 99% of science is uncontroversial, and all the experts agrees on everything. This 99% is what is represented here in this article, not the controversial 1%. I finally found the (original?) source for the argument, but the argument itself was a self-contained non-controversial exposition, which referred only to common-knowledge of everybody who knows quantum field theory. It's deletion bodes ill for every other article.Likebox (talk) 05:19, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

It is important to note that this is still not resolved. The article is still a stub, despite the new source. I believe that the editors that deleted the text are dead set against it. Text which explains mathematics clearly is a popular target, because all such text sounds like OR to non-mathematical readers.Likebox (talk) 05:23, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Theoretical and experimental justification for the Schrödinger equation

As somebody has written on the talk page, "Right now, this article looks like a cobbled-together bunch of physics material. It took me a while to notice that the article even contains the Schrödinger equation, and it's not at all clear how the earlier sections help to justify the equation."

Also, as somebody else has written, the relative phases appear to be all wrong in the diagram of an electomagnetic wave.

Is this article serving any useful purpose?

Or is it a candidate for AfD? Jheald (talk) 22:30, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Please do not delete it-- it has lots of wonderful diagrams and charts which can be incorporated into other articles. Although the content is less than wonderful (Maxwell's equations are the worst example of a wave corresponding to a particle--- you need to use the vector potential A to describe photons, some components are unphysical, and there is no nonrelativistic limit). But the article can be cannibalized. If the article is deleted, all the good stuff disappears into the ether. Besides, this isn't urgent--- the article isn't doing any harm at the moment.Likebox (talk) 00:43, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Orphaned images aren't instantly deleted, so this isn't an all-or-nothing situation. Make a placeholder page in user-space or in a subdirectory of WP:Phys space, and they'll stay indefinitely (mine certainly have). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 01:37, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

This looks like it started as a details-fork from Schrödinger equation. Some of the material in it looks like it may be useful for context, so deletion should probably only happen after careful consideration of what can/should be salvaged. If there's enough for a useful article, rewriting would be the better option. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 01:35, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

(misplaced comment removed by author)

These types of comments are not constructive--- all articles start out unsourced. This one is not very good, but it is neither OR nor drivel. It is a mishmash of various physics topics which can be reviewed and delegated to appropriate places. The words "OR" should not ever come up when discussing material that everyone knows is OK. The words "OR" refer to original ideas which are inserted in the encyclopedia, not to explanations of well known scientific content.Likebox (talk) 02:34, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The electric and magnetic fields should be in phase (as shown at File:Light-wave.svg), but the wave should be moving right to left (rather than left to right as shown). JRSpriggs (talk) 03:11, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Political protection for technical content

I would like to ask physics contributors opinion: do we expect Misplaced Pages to cover scientific content at the same depth as Britannica? Or is Misplaced Pages going to be a layman gloss with a few links? I really want to know the answer, because if there is not going to be serious content here, I don't want to stick around.

If editors would like serious content, including good in depth explanations of technical scientific topics, there had better be a large number of physics editors willing to write these articles and defend them from attacks. To delete "infraparticle's" content is as ridiculous as deleting "quantum vacuum" or "infrared divergence". The only difference is that infraparticle had a wonderful technical exposition of the subject, written by an expert, while the other articles are stubs.

If competent editors expect their work to be deleted by people who do not understand what they write, these articles will stay stubs forever.

I am asking if people are willing to make a "technical physics cabal", devoted to writing scientific content, and making sure that it is not deleted by uncomprehending editors. The guide should be the essay WP:ESCA, which describes how to write technical content and make sure that it is correct and non-original. To join the cabal, write an article with equations in it. The cabal will mediate disputes on articles with equations in them. Without such a political system, it seems pointless to me to ever write technical content here again.Likebox (talk) 03:17, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

This is a false dichotomy. All that Misplaced Pages's policies ask is that, when an expert writes an article, they include citations to sources as well. This really isn't very difficult; I know that in my own field of expertise, I can pull up journal or textbook references trivially. The articles that you perceive as being "under attack" are ones where the author didn't bother to do this. If you want to save them, it's straightforward to do so: either search for the references yourself, or ask the original author or another expert to do so. This is the best of all possible counterarguments to "delete because it's unsourced", so I'm puzzled as to why you feel complaining about it here is a better use of your time.

If you want the other members of Wikiproject Physics to help you save articles, the most effective way to encourage that would be to post a list of articles tagged as poorly-sourced and ask for volunteers to search for sources. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 04:35, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The reason is that the arguments in sources need to be modified for the encyclopedia, and these modifications, when done by someone competent, often look like "OR" to other people. Articles that are fully sourced come under attack all the time, by editors that do not bother to read the sources with understanding.

"Infraparticle" was unsourced, because the contribution was common knowledge to a technical subfield, with many many references. The sources are scattered, and difficult to find, and there is no guarantee that the arguments in the article are an exact duplicate of the arguments in the sources. It's the same ideas with different language. Non-expert editors often complain about expert editors contributions because they do not see that the ideas are the same as those in the sources. But this is the first time that I have seen such a contribution deleted wholesale. Unless there is meaningful protection for content with equations in it, this content will not (and should not!) get written.Likebox (talk) 05:13, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Op-amps are well understood too, but I'd still pull out a copy of Sedra and Smith before writing an article about them. It is neither difficult nor onerous to provide sourcing for the vast majority of articles like this. Case in point: You dug up references for infraparticle in far less time than it took you to argue your case here. Even in a hypothetical case where sources are scattered, a partly-sourced article is unlikely to be summarily deleted, while an unsourced one _is_ likely to be summarily deleted. A modest effort gives you a large improvement in outcome.

I agree that objections to article arguments not matching source arguments do happen. These usually result in talk-page traffic, and revision of article text to reflect the form of the sources or acquisition of additional sources with clearer form. This may, on occasion, result in a stylistically worse article. That's still a far cry from the dichotomy that you paint at the beginning of this thread, as the articles still have technical depth.

Long story short: You didn't have much trouble sourcing infraparticle. Sourcing it makes it (and articles like it) far less likely to be summarily deleted. Where's the problem? --Christopher Thomas (talk) 05:31, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The article is STILL DECIMATED. The editors that took away the material will not reintroduce it, even with a new source. The source I gave is of no help--- I will have to argue with the people there about exactly where to find every single assertion in the source. There is no reason for this argument, because each assertion is uncontroversial physics, I repeat: there is absolutel no controversy in the literature about this article.

The problem is that, for technical fields like theoretical physics, with a long history of deductive arguments, you are not going to find an exact source for every argument presented in "infraparticle". What you will find is the source I provided--- a discussion of Gauss's law and modified currents for theories with infrared divergences, and parallel constructions which are not matching equation for equation.

But the mathematical content on the page is a paraphrase of these sources. It can be checked on its own, and the stuff it is talking about is the exact same stuff as the literature source. I repeat: you will not have technical content if you require exact match between mathematical deductions and sources. You will have none. If you do this, this is the end of technical science on Misplaced Pages.

Mathematical arguments are thoughts in themselves. They can be paraphrased into other arguments that say the same thing, but don't look the same. When someone who is a Wiki "OR" strict constructionist sees these arguments, they will delete the material. The arguments here must be done by people who understand what they are editing, otherwise nonsense like infraparticle will happen again and again.Likebox (talk) 16:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Regarding op-amps: The central difference between "op amps" and "infraparticle" is the technical level required to understand the subject. For op-amps, there are hundreds of thousands, or millions of experts. For infraparticle, it's only a thousand or so. If I were writing an article on "QCD sum rules". "infraparticle". Landau poles, or any other technical topic which is mathematical, I would not consult a single source for any of the mathematical deductions, because mathematics, without exception, can only be discussed from first principles. I would cite the original author of the deductions, when the discussion has been mathematically paraphrased so that an inexperienced editor might not be able to tell at first that it's the same thing.

For disputes in the literature, I would find sources. For matches to experiment, I would find sources. If stuff became controversial, I would explain it better. The sourcing of well known mathematical derivations is destructive from the process of writing the encyclopedia. "Infraparticle" is, along with BKL singularity, the only reason that any physicist should care about this project.Likebox (talk) 17:07, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

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