Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Physics

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Physics Project‑class

	Physics portal This page is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Physics on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhysicsWikipedia:WikiProject PhysicsTemplate:WikiProject Physicsphysics
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Cold Fusion request for Comment

Debate on Cold Fusion See Talk:Cold fusion Request for Comment: Dispute over version to build on. Some want to continue with the September 2006 version which gives pro and con on experimental evidence. Some want to revert to a two year old featured article with less emphasis on presenting the experimenters point of view.Ron Marshall 20:53, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Quantum cybernetics

Found this one today...it needs help (I'm doing a bit of helping, but I really don't feel like reading arXiv preprints about a theory in which I take no interest). Or maybe it needs getting rid of. Does Misplaced Pages need an article on this "quantum aether theory"? Byrgenwulf 15:19, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Here was my approach to it: {{subst:PROD|non-mainstream scientific claim with no peer-reviewed publications and no assertion of notability}} -- SCZenz 15:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Very reasonable indeed - thanks. I wanted to make sure it wasn't just me who had never heard of the idea...and thought it a little "odd". Byrgenwulf 15:52, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I realize I might have been mistaken somewhat, though—is Foundations of Physics Letters a scientific journal? Anyway, it doesn't matter—a theory with one journal publication and no subsequent activity is non-notable. -- SCZenz 16:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I changed the prod to read "non-mainstream scientific claim with no assertion of notability and minimal publication". Byrgenwulf 16:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't really care what happens to this article, but here is some info: Foundation of Physics Letters is a scientific journal published by Springer, it seems to be peer reviewed and reputable (although with a low impact-factor). The cited author's name is misspelled in the WP article, his name is Gerhard Grössing. He has published 19 articles in scientific journals since 1984, and is somewhat cited by other scientists, but nothing too impressive. The article mentioned in the WP article has only been cited once, but as it was published in 2004 I would say it is too early to assert that it is non-notable. Other scientists may or may not be working along similar lines, I don't have the background needed to investigate this. I'll let other decide whether this warrants an article in WP (have a look at the first entry on the history page. Self promotion?)O. Prytz 16:38, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info...this certainly is a borderline case. I noticed that the article was started by User:Groessing - at least he had the decency to "declare himself", as it were. I wouldn't say it is self-promotion so much as an earnest attempt to contribute information on what Herr Groessing clearly thinks is an important topic (or else he wouldn't have spent the last two decades working on it, I presume). Incidentally, Groessing is an acceptable English transliteration of his name, since English doesn't have an umlaut; I am not sure what Misplaced Pages manual of style says about it, but it isn't a misspelling (even he calls himself that!).

I think that the proposed deletion is an equitable solution...if the article is important enough to anyone to save, then they can simply remove the tag and take it from there. If not, then it goes quietly, without any ado.

I am fairly certain that "quantum cybernetics" (and similar ideas) is not a major research program: at least from Groessing's "non-linear dynamics" perspective...but then I supposes hidden variables approaches to QM have been out of vogue since, well, Bohr. Byrgenwulf 17:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Re Grössing vs. Groessing: I was referring to the fact that he cited as Groesser at the bottom of the article... O. Prytz 19:12, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Why, so he is. Pardon me. Fixed. Byrgenwulf 19:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Although I was not able to finish the Arxiv paper, I feel this is a moderately interesting theory. The author, Groessing, has one joint publication with Prof. Anton Zeilinger of the physics dept of the University of Vienna, who seems like a mainstream researcher in quantum mechanics. One of Zeilinger's experiments was featured on the cover of Scientific American. Zeilinger contributes to a field that Misplaced Pages calls Quantum information science. Some people probably believe that David Bohm's school was defeated and refuted forever. (Groessing appears to be contributing to that research direction). For a recent book exploring Bohm-like topics, which appears to be mainstream (or at least non-flaky), look at one of Groessing's book references: Peter R. Holland, "Quantum Theory of Motion: An Account of the de Broglie-Bohm Causal Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" (1993). Holland is the editor of the journal Physics Letters A.

Although I feel the topic is interesting, the current way the article reads is not very impressive. One could argue that the material ought to be merged with what's now in Quantum information science. And one can certainly argue that if no-one (not even me) comes forward to re-write the article, that it should be deleted. EdJohnston 18:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I have Holland's book (although a later edition), and it is good, although I still don't agree with the pilot-wave idea. Bohm's theory is borderline, but undoubtedly a notable scientific contribution that should be treated with due seriousness (at least in its early form - unfortunately Bohm seems to have lost it a little when we get to "Implicate Order" and his curious ideas on "dialogue" and suchlike).

Quantum cybernetics, however, is emphatically not quantum information theory. It comes closer to being in the genre of the interpretation of quantum mechanics. I am certainly interested to see that this Groessing co-authored a paper with the esteemed Zeilinger (do you know what it was?). But just as we don't have articles on mathematicians based on their Erdos number (or at least I hope we don't), co-authorship with a notable figure should surely not count for much. And just because Holland wrote a book on the pilot-wave theory, doesn't mean that Misplaced Pages needs to have an article on quantum cybernetics.

Skimming this paper, a conference proceedings piece for the "Wittgenstein Symposium on Time and History", I cannot help thinking of process physics. Arguments like "Considering that classical Brownian motion describes the motion of particles suspended in some medium, it would only be logical to consider said hypothesized sub-quantum dynamics in such a way that a description of both particles and waves is necessary, the latter actually originating from the particles, i.e., being created by the particles’ “wiggly” motions in the “fluid” medium" don't really convince me very much, personally.

Look, this chap may have a point or two. I am not bothered to sit down and work through his stuff to find out, but how valid it is shouldn't matter here. Is it interesting? Maybe. Is it 100% respectable? Probably not, if he has to present it at conferences on Wittgenstein instead of publish it in journals. Is it a notable theory? I don't think so. Is the person who came up with it particularly notable? I don't think so. Should it be on Misplaced Pages? Byrgenwulf 18:59, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Groessing has about four papers with Zeilinger on the subject of quantum cellular automata, some of them in regular physics journals. See for his publication list. But given the article in front of us, I agree that WP:PROD is the way to go. EdJohnston 19:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Regarding "Foundations of Physics": this is a semi-respectable journal. I believe it has an explicit charter to publish the crankier, more outlandish, more obscure, more problematic authors, authors who would find publication difficult or impossible in the mainstream journals e.g. phys rev. This is not to say that everyone who publishes there is a crank: there have been some very reputable authors who have published there, and the editorial board is filled with luminaries. However, its not hard to find papers that claim Einstein was wrong about the speed of light, etc. in that journal. Caveat emptor. linas 03:44, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Copied from Talk:Quantum cybernetics

The following appear to be IRL one Gerhard Grössing, who says he is a phycisist in Vienna, and the creator of the so-called "quantum cybernetics", which appears to be very obscure:

Groessing (talk · contribs)
212.186.121.51 (talk · contribs) the vie.surfer.at anon (Elvedin Music, Telekabel Wien GmbH in Vienna, Austria)
193.170.250.43 (talk · contribs) (an unregistered IP address in the brz.gv.at zone for Vienna, Austria)

The contribs, location, and nature of the edits all support this conclusion. Thus, this article appears vio WP:VAIN, and since I can find no evidence of anyone other than the author discussing this theory in the research literature, it may vio WP:RS-WP:NOR as well. ---CH 23:35, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

AfD

Here. Byrgenwulf 12:19, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Scientific review wiki

This is an idea I've been thinking about for a while, and has been brought back to my mind by the discussion above. I'm considering setting up a new wiki site which would allow the creation and continuous updating of reviews of scientific topics. It would work in a similar way to Misplaced Pages, but would be aimed mainly at scientists. I've put a bit more detail on the idea on my user page. What do people here think to the idea? Mike Peel 19:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

It's a somewhat different idea because it is not collaborative, but have you seen Living Reviews ? –Joke 19:45, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. It looks like it goes about halfway to where I'm after - i.e. it's continually updated, but as you say it's not collaborative. It also doesn't have the copyright freedom I'd like this potential project to have. Mike Peel 20:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I proposed a similar (or at least related) idea to Byrgenwulf and CH, here and here respectively. I'm still working on getting server space and a domain name — a student holiday has compressed everyone's schedules and made it harder to discuss with people, but I'm still very hopeful I can snag a spot in the .mit.edu domain. Anville 20:01, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I like your idea. I'm unsure which of encyclopaedia articles or full reviews is the best way to go. I went for the latter as it allows for a much more in-depth coverage of a subject, as well as hopefully proving useful to a wide range of people, from undergraduates through to professors. I think that doing reviews might get more attention than doing an encyclopaedia, too - it has less chance of being dismissed as a copy of wikipedia, plus reviews have more of a chance of being featured in the journals (i.e. it would be referenced more), which adds to its publicity within the academic circle.

If you do go ahead with your citizendium-like idea, then please let me know - I would be interested in helping out there. Mike Peel 20:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Nothing stops us from using a subject-specific Misplaced Pages fork as a base to build upon and then writing reviews to supplement (or supplant) particular encyclopedia articles. Actually, I think a site which offers both types of content has a better chance of pleasing everybody and thereby attracting more visitors (some of whom then become contributors themselves, etc.). Anville 20:47, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Are you just talking about a purely science based wiki? Caltech attempted this with quantum optics (http://qwiki.caltech.edu/Main_Page) but it does not have enough contributors to be very useful at this point. Waxigloo 16:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Restricting oneself to quantum optics does not sound like a recipe for success. Anville 16:49, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Anville, I've been too exhausted to respond with appropriate enthusiasm to your proposal, but once I regain some strength :-/ I'll want to hear more. I think this might be a very good idea, especially if MIT is willing to devote some servers to host an experimental version. ---CH 05:36, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I would be quite interested in helping with this. Is there a central place for discussing it? --Constantine Evans 08:16, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

We're setting up a mailing list to avoid cluttering lots of WP talk pages; you can wikimail CH and/or me if you'd like to be on the list. Anville 13:24, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

If I didn't read Misplaced Pages, I wouldn't know Sarfatti won the Nobel prize

Talk:Jack_Sarfatti#undue_weight And I quote:

I'm also removing this paragraph: "A graduate seminar taught by University of Campinas, Brazil mathematics professor Waldyr Rodrigues, which looked for mathematical errors and inconsistencies in physics papers published in scientific journals or posted on the arXiv online physics preprint archive, recently focused on some of Sarfatti's concepts and methods. In his paper "A Comment on Emergent Gravity," posted on arXiv, Rodrigues cited alleged mathematical inconsistencies in the first version of Sarfatti's recent paper "Emergent Gravity: String Theory Without String Theory," calling it a "potpourri of nonsense Mathematics," and said that later revisions of the paper also contained errors." While the information seems to be correct and factual, one has to wonder why it is notable enough to be here. An obscure seminar taught by an obscure Brasilian professor is not important enough to be a blemish on the permanent record of a worldwide-famous Nobel-prize-winning physicist from Cornell. Its placement here is giving Rodrigues undue weight. It's like putting a criticism section on, say, Sean Penn's article and citing references to a small-time community-theater actor who states that Penn is a poor actor. Not all criticism is encyclopedic. User:wikipediatrix 15:12, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

--GangofOne 22:16, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Clearly, concerning physics Wikipediatrix is... somewhat misinformed :-/ But a glance at contribs suggests this user mostly edits a wide range of AfDs and generally seems to like to edit maximally controversial pages, so "her" comments might well be somewhat trollish. ---CH 02:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Cold fusion

I direct your attention to the nonsense below. None of these people are practicing science. What they are practicing is scientific censorship, social conformity, name calling, arrogance, ignorance, and irresponsibility. --Ron Marshall 21:30, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I direct the attention of those interested to cold fusion and its talk page. This was a featured article, but is no longer that, nor is it a good article as of this July. The featured article version is here. It seems to me that this degradation is due to a severe pro- cold fusion bias, which I've commented on and have, to some extent, attempted to remove. I'd like to virtually remove 3/4ths of the article: I don't think that the content under the heading "Arguments in the controversy", essentially a giant argument for and against - but mostly for - cold fusion, belongs where it now is. I hesitate because I expect extreme backlash from pro-cf editors. Commentary on the article and my actions is requested. –M 09:33, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Make sure you know what you are getting into. The crackpots and supporters of the crackpots will inundate you with incomprehensible diatribes and personal attacks. They will complain about you in a variety of places. If you are identifiable, it is quite possible that you or your employer will be harassed over your edits. Uninvolved admins might punitively block you (in contradiction with WP:BLOCK) for subtle misunderstandings of policy that you had already apologized about. You will see WP:OR, WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:3RR, and a variety of other policies and guidelines used against you. You will be compelled to go through a variety of dispute resolution processes, but since none of them have any real force against editors who wish to push their theories, you will simply have to wait until the editors are eventually banned, or tire of the debate (highly unlikely). During that time, the article will be constantly reverted back and forth in manners that just barely comply with 3RR. Then, once the article is in a good state, it is quite likely that you will come back a few months later to find the same crackpot problems that you spent so much time fixing. In order to make a significant change in such an article, you will have to monitor it indefinitely.

If you still want to do this, then good luck to you! We will certainly endeavor to help NPOV the article, though many of us have either left or are currently busy dealing with absurd citation demands for uncontroversial articles. --Philosophus 10:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. Best to just leave it to rot and devote your energies to an area where progress can be made. But if you really want to try, then best of luck to you! Who knows, maybe one day someone will come along with sufficient knowledge and infinite patience to make a reasonable article of it. –Joke 14:53, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

We could help it rot a bit faster by adding some more nonsense. I was thinking of mentioning what I saw some time ago on NGC channel about spontaneous human combustion. There is a prof. from Greece who thinks that nuclear fussion occurs in our cells. He thinks that under rare circumstances the fusion reaction rate becomes too high, causing spontaneous human combustion. Count Iblis 15:26, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not in favor of letting articles rot, and be very careful about suggestions such as that one, Count, as they might be construed as violatin WP:POINT. I'm on board with you, M. I reverted the article to its featured article status version in an attempt to be bold. --ScienceApologist 15:29, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I do agree with you in principle. Let's see if your reversion to the FA version works. You can make the case that mentioning Dr. Panos Pappas and his theory of nuclear fusion inside cells does fit perfectly well in the article. It would be a constructive edit not necessarily to make the point that it's pseudoscience. That point has already been made; the article does mention that some of the research is considered to be pseudoscientific.

If an article mentions some pseudoscientific work that sounds ok to lay persons but omits other work that even lay persons will recognise as pseudoscientific then that's just propaganda. Count Iblis 16:28, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I've tried to work on Cold Fusion before. There is a frequent editor there who is extraordinarily knowledgable and very rude, which makes the job simply too unpleasant. Maybe if we all work together, and just take turns reverting to the FA version, we can make progress. Certainly arguing on the talk page is pointless. -- SCZenz 17:34, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, in principle I'm not in favor of letting articles rot either. But SCZenz has identified what the issue on cold fusion is. Lately, my opinion is that there is SO MUCH work to be done with the physics articles, and so few people doing it, that it is best to focus on low-lying fruit. Or at least fruits that don't bite. –Joke 18:04, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

The response is ... well, amusing at best, I suppose. Has wikipedia no recourse against such clear degradation? I suppose not, given its open nature. I don't plan doing this for long, but perhaps this brief effort will help in some way. Thanks for the advice and support. –M 06:00, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Unforunately, I am something of an expert in how to deal with this. WP:BRD is a good starting point, and the actions of problematic editors are best dealt with first through talk and then through dispute resolution. It is possible to get through this. --ScienceApologist 07:38, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

There's what seems to be a pre- dispute resolution vote at Talk:Cold_fusion#Survey. –M 03:50, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Hm, apparently User:JedRothwell was blocked for personal attacks and decided to leave back in May. I take back what I'd said above – possibly this has opened an avenue for progress from sufficiently motivated editors. I'll try to help out when I can, but I doubt I'll put too much work into it. –Joke 20:43, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Then again, perhaps he just came back under another name. Who knows? –Joke 20:48, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Citation guidelines proposal

Here is my proposal to deal with this debacle. Let's establish, by consensus within the project, a set of guidelines for referencing physics articles in Misplaced Pages. Then, at least, we will have a set of clear guidelines and an established consensus to refer to if we start having problems with WP:GA and WP:FA. I think if we write a reasonable set of guidelines, which respect WP:V and WP:CITE, we'll get little argument from the vast majority of the people over there.

I have already written a proposal, available here: Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Physics/Citation guidelines proposal. It definitely has a whiff of the first draft about it (some sentences seem pretty tortured), but I'm confident we can bang it into something that is clear and concise. Here is my proposal:

Spend a few days going over the proposal, seeing if anyone has issues with the content, language or examples
Conduct a straw poll amongst the WikiProject Physics people
If we have consensus, move it over to Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Physics/Citation guidelines and add a link from the main Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Physics page.
Ask the GA and FA people if they seem reasonable?

I've tried to write the guidelines in such a way that they don't apply just to physics, although the examples are (by necessity) taken from articles I'm familiar with.

I'll also go over to Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Mathematics and ask the people there for input. Perhaps we can have joint guidelines, since they seem to be having a similar issue. –Joke 16:51, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

It looks good to me. I say we adopt it, and then let the GA folks agree with us or not as they choose. I think inline citations are more controversial than they, or even some of the people who edit WP:CITE, realize. -- SCZenz 18:31, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that all is not yet lost at Misplaced Pages talk:Citing sources. A mild change in the guidelines there would be more helpful than a per-project policy that the GA folk would be unlikely to heed. I encourage those who are interested in compromise to speak clearly and calmly in that discussion rather than giving up hope. CMummert 01:57, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that all is not yet lost, but I nonetheless think this propsal is helpful. We are unlikely to change more than a line or two of WP:CITE, so adopting our own comprehensive set of guidelines can create additional clarification. –Joke 16:27, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

New stub types created

I've created {{atomic-physics-stub}} / Category:Atomic, molecular, and optical physics stubs and {{thermodynamics-stub}} / Category:Thermodynamics stubs, per earlier discussion here and at WP:WSS/P. I've not yet populated them, but there's lists of candidate stubs, on the basis of category membership, at User:Alai/Atomic and User:Alai/Thermo. If someone with some knowledge of these areas could have a look at these, and check for "false positives", that'd be a help. (If they're largely OK, I can stub-sort them by bot.) Alai 15:04, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Anyone had a look at these? Should I take silence as "yes, re-stub them all by bot" assent? Or else, do so, and see if anyone yelps afterwards? Alai 23:40, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

My vote is for deploying the bot and watching people yelp afterwards.

Sometimes I think I just want to see people yelp. Anville 00:14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Photon is now a Featured Article; and plea for encyclopedic writing

Hi all,

Photon was promoted to a Feature Article yesterday -- yeay! :) Lots of editors and reviewers contributed to its success, both directly and indirectly, and they all deserve our thanks and appreciation. Good job, you all! :) It was wonderful to see how people could rise above the edit wars that prevailed only a month ago and constructively make a cool article, using their different perspectives as a strength.

The Physics WikiProject now has five featured articles, leaving only — ummmm — 527 important articles left to go. Unfortunately, our present rate of ~1 FA/year seems a little depressing — and surprising, given the many smart, articulate people here. We as a group should at least be able to match the output of one user, e.g., Tim Vickers of the Biochemistry WikiProject, who is now producing one FA every ~2 weeks, mostly by himself. (Don't kid yourself, enzymology is not fluff!)

I'm a newbie and usually pretty clueless, so I totally believe that I'm not seeing the whole picture. My intuition is merely that we're not doing as well as we could, and I don't understand why. For example, are we spending too much time policing bogus physics? How can we foster the writing of articulate, encyclopedic articles about physics? I don't want to make waves, but this seems like a topic that concerns us all and warrants serious discussion. Willow 01:24, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I concur. We should make a real push to see if we can get more FA's. Here are my proposals, and articles I would be willing to put some effort into to see made featured articles:

To a lesser extent, physical cosmology or dark matter. Of course, these articles reflect my interests and expertise. I think they're all quite far from FA status but are still in good enough shape that it is a possibility to bring them up to that level in a short time. I have often thought of doing so in the past, but then I get distracted by writing more technical articles. –Joke 01:53, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, the Physics article is a shambles. There's a WIP to fix it up, but it seems to move in fits and starts (mostly fits, though). More people (myself included) should contribute, although I often worry that these sorts of committees go nowhere. –Joke 01:57, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I've seen a few wikiprojects running weekly or so article improvement drives. Would it be worth doing something similar here, with the aim of getting an article up to FA-quality per week (or so)? Mike Peel 08:09, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

"We as a group should at least be able to match the output of one user, e.g., Tim Vickers of the Biochemistry WikiProject, who is now producing one FA every ~2 weeks, mostly by himself. (Don't kid yourself, enzymology is not fluff!)". Paradoxically , the less people are working on an article, the faster you can make progress. So, perhaps we should pick a few articles we want to improve to FA status and assign two editors to each article for that task. Count Iblis 13:14, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreeing with the Count here. It would be easier to get less important articles to FA status. On the more important articles, often quite a lot of editors try their skills, unfortunately also those, that may overestimate their skills. Adding those, who want to add avery "newest breakthrough" annouved at the popular science sites, and notforgetting our always busy POV pushers who are upset, if articles on astrony present the mainstream astronomy POV. The result is a random walk in quality space, as User:Christopher Thomas has put it.

Despite all these problems, FA status for mass, energy and force would be nice. And, surprisingly, among the few physics article (typically 2 to 4) which make it into the monthly Top 1000 of accesses, is Coriolis force.

Pjacobi 14:19, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

"Random walk through quality space" — funny, but also painfully true. Instead of a random walk, we need more of a ratchet, which can occasionally slip backwards, but mainly moves forwards. Do you all find that an FA article with lots of scientific references deters vandals, etc. more than a poorly organized/referenced article? If so, we might diminish physics vandalism by generating more FA articles; it might be non-linear in our favor. ;)

The Count's "Adopt a future Featured Article" approach seems like a great idea, at least complementary to article improvement drives. At the Biochemistry WikiProject, I usually find that I don't know enough to really contribute to the particular article chosen for improvement. :( So we might get more featured articles faster if we could each choose an article to take under our wings and shepherd to FA (or perhaps in pairs as the Count suggests, a "buddy system").

That said, we might want to agree to help each other out as a community. The Photon article benefited a lot from the input of many physicists. Moreover, we might want to coordinate our response in case there are unconstructive edit wars or whatnot.

I think Tim is so successful because he shows extraordinary focus on one article at a time and brings his articles to very high standards before moving on to the next. His concentration also inspires other good people to join in and help. What do other people think — a good model to emulate for physics? Willow 14:59, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I think what User:Christopher Thomas has described is not a random walk but a kind of simulated annealing. Sorry to be pedantic. –Joke 15:28, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, rather than beat around the bush, I think I'll do something. I intend to bring cosmic microwave background (which was awarded another Nobel prize today!) up to FA status along with cosmic inflation. (As for which I'll do first, that will take some thought, or perhaps I'll work on them in tandem.) After that, I would like to do dark energy and then work on the other two. It would be nice to have a second set of eyes. –Joke 16:35, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I can help with cosmic background and inflation. I'm not a big expert in these matters, though. Count Iblis 17:36, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I just added a "Comments" option to the Template:Physics, where we can see who's adopted what article. You can see an example on Talk:Photon. (Hopefully, I didn't mess up the template too much!) The other articles seem a little high for me — maybe I'll try my hand at Classical mechanics instead? — Preceding unsigned comment added by WillowW (talk • contribs)

Oops, how embarrassing! I decided to adopt Kinematics instead, since that is the basis for all classical mechanics. Although it's not as cool as Photon, hopefully we can bring it to FA status. This time I remembered ;) → Willow 18:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I personally think that Bogdanov Affair is more than good enough to be an FA; the only thing not yet mentioned hasn't yet been covered by trustworthy sources. The only problem is the stability concern — FA criterion 1(e) seems to rule out articles with big ArbCom banners at the top. Anville 18:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Yep. But perhaps nominate at Misplaced Pages:Featured pastel shaded boxes/Candidates. --Pjacobi 14:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Transitional kinetic energy

An article with this title was deleted in June I think. Nothing links to it.Could people have a look at it? I'm on wikibreak and fly back to Australia from London tomorrow so I have no time to do more. --Bduke 09:12, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Right, an article with this title was deleted after a prod:. I can't check if this is a "substantially identical copy" of the previously deleted material, a condition needed for a speedy. --Lambiam 12:49, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I turned it into a redirect to Kinetic energy. --Lambiam 12:56, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

The author of the article has some odd notions which I doubt explication can untangle. See Talk:Recoil, and try to keep your eyes from bleeding. Anville 15:48, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

RfArb

User:Iantresman has started a request for arbitration members of this project may wish to comment on WP:RfArb#Pseudoscience_vs_Pseudoskepticism. --ScienceApologist 12:29, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

That is some very depressing reading; I have a feeling that this will only end badly after a protracted dispute. Lots of sound, plenty of fury, the vast majority of it signifying nothing, etc. Anville 15:41, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

We never tire of AfDs

Cold fusion controversy has been proposed for deletion, apropos this comment by Jefffire replying to Pjacobi. Anville 15:59, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

And another one Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Entropy (energy dispersal). I start feeling like Noske -- Einer muss den Löschtroll machen, for those knowing German language and history. --Pjacobi 14:40, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

New Scientist reacts

Since this topic provoked some comments earlier, I thought it would be worth posting another link to The n-Category Café. New Scientist has, it appears, reacted to whatever flak they received about their shoddy EmDrive reportage. Anville 19:05, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Not surprising; their readers appear to demand a steady diet of glazed eyed "reporting". ---CH 02:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to monitor for enfourcement of ArbCom bans etc

Please see Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Pseudoscience#Monitoring continued problematic activity by permabanned users. TIA for your feedback! ---CH 02:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

A couple of articles that could do with attention

During my tagging of physics articles, I've come across a few odd ones that could do with attention. The first is Mousetrap car, which really could do with wikifying (and checking if it's appropriate for wikipedia, and isn't a copyvio). The second is Rafie’s_Law, which has been flagged as OR and is a possible candidate for deletion. More will probably be forthcoming as I work my way through the physics articles... Mike Peel 23:06, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I've also come across FysikRevy(TM), which I think is non-notable and should probably be AfD'd. Comments? Mike Peel 15:05, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I say AfD the FysikRevy(TM). Anville 17:27, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Any objections to automatic archiving of this page?

Werdnabot (talk · contribs) runs an archiving service for talk pages (see User:Werdnabot/Archiver/Howto), which I've been running on my talk page with no problems for the last month or so. Since this page is pretty active and doesn't get archived that often, would anyone object to me setting up the automatic archiving service on this page? Also, how long should conversations be kept for here? I'd recommend 14 days or so. Mike Peel 12:02, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead and try it out. If people do not like and complain, then stop it, otherwise continue. I would suggest that the archiving be done once per month because that seems to be roughly the established practice. It could be done at the middle of each month for the previous month. That way we would normally have between two weeks and six weeks of talk still on this page at any one time.

I am also leaning towards suggesting that sections should be taken based on the earliest date in the section rather than the latest. This would prevent the sections from becoming excessively long. JRSpriggs 10:39, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Request for Comment

I know people around here would rather be working on actual physics than dealing with yet another brushfire, and I'm equally sure that someone will accuse me of "soliciting votes" for posting this. No matter; you're welcome to ignore it, as always!

To sum up, Byrgenwulf has opened a Request for Comment on the conduct of Asmodeus, here. This business stretches back to that fracas back in the summer about the twice-deleted CTMU. Anville 18:10, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Loose ends at Entropy

I only had a very shallow reading of the articles, but besides Entropy and Information entropy, we have Entropy in thermodynamics and information theory and Maximum entropy thermodynamics (and perhaps more). And these latter ones look somewhat essayistic and unfinished to me. It's the problem of having too much articles, some are out of sight in a dusty corner of Misplaced Pages and strange things may happen to them. --Pjacobi 20:41, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

At least at first glance, nothing in the latter two articles looks shockingly illegitimate, but they are not well organized or (to my mind) pedagogically oriented. Some deep thought will be required before overhauling them; thanks for bringing them to wider attention. Anville 21:29, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

The precursor of Maximum entropy thermodynamics was nominated for deletion at in November 2005 but the result was Keep. (The reviewers had to be persuaded that it was not original research). The article which is there now seems (from a quick look) to be a fairly accurate and neutral-sounding account of Edwin Jaynes' approach to statistical thermodynamics. The references are quite thorough. Since Jaynes' own works are not crystal-clear, I look forward to studying this article and some of the references that are new to me. One of the editors of the article is Jheald, who participates regularly in Talk:Entropy. The article has about 15 incoming links from other main-space articles, but it looks like some of them go through a redirect via 'MaxEnt thermodynamics' which was the old name. EdJohnston 21:56, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for reviewing so far. I wasn't of the opinion, that these are of the crackpotish variety, but one of the concerns is the sheer number of articles about entropy which are in danger of "diverging". Also empty headings like at Maximum entropy thermodynamics#Mathematical Structure may imply, that they are abonded by their original authors. --Pjacobi 22:12, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

At the main article entropy the (IMHO) not notable view of Frank L. Lambert gets re-inserted. Situation is somewhat tense, as opposer User:Sadi Carnot is rather upset and somewhat unsure about Misplaced Pages's workings. --Pjacobi 19:50, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

New Template

Hi guys: I just created {{dist}}, which makes distance unit conversions very easy. You might want to check it out. —Mets501 (talk) 16:29, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Rewriting Heim theory

I'm busy rewriting Heim theory, I'm doing that offline. Within a few days I'm going to upload a version that the pro-Heim lobby probably won't like. So, I need your help to revert to my version. Also you may want to improve my version further.

Also, we need to check out physics articles that mention Heim theory:

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Heim_theory

Count Iblis 17:05, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Black hole

Danras (talk · contribs) is back again adding his original research and opinions . (Escape is possible, blablabla...) Could someone take a look? Byrgenwulf 20:18, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

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