Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics: Difference between revisions

Energy is the new Core Topics collaboration

Hi, I thought folks here might be interested to know that Energy is the current core topics collaboration. Unfortunately it looks like there have been some edit wars and name calling recently, but in such cases a larger number of people can often help the article reach the point of consensus. If you can help out, please do, this is an important topic. Thanks, Walkerma 06:44, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

An invitation to categorize uncategorized physics stubs

Hello. The categorization taskforce is trying to find WikiProjects interested in using the bot of Alai to identify physics stub articles which do not currently have a category (besides the stub category of course). If the project is interested, we could create something like Category:Uncategorized physics stubs (amounting to roughly 350 articles) which could then be categorized by people knowledgeable in the subject, thus reducing the risk of improper categorization. Please let us know on the taskforce's talk page if you're interested. Cheers, Pascal.Tesson 00:25, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

re: Delta potential well (QM)

I did a copyedit to this article as it was written in a lecture/speaking style, could someone look it over and be sure I have not changed the meaning? Maybe that is the way you folks write all your articles, if so feel free to revert. If I have inadvertantly solved some obscure physics quandry I want credit on the paper. :) Thanks!--killing sparrows ^(chirp!) 05:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

PS, if its OK let me know and I'll remove the tags and do other copyedit housekeeping stuff.--killing sparrows ^(chirp!) 05:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

AfD: Mathematical landscape

Mathematical landscape has been nominated for deletion. Comment as you see fit! Anville 15:34, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I copied the above comment from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. The article mentioned is about dimensions used in various physical theories. So I felt that the physicists should also comment on whether to delete it or keep it. JRSpriggs 10:44, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

DO IT NOW

Dear fellow members of the Physics WikiProject,

Please allow me to encourage you to review Equipartition theorem, which is a Featured Article candidate. I'm sure that the article would benefit from your insights. Thank you very much for your time and trouble, Willow 21:15, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Magnetic field article

I think that the magnetic field article is not in good shape, and needs some attention. Thoughts? --Starwed 21:51, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Systems

System is a key concept in physics, with a rather specialised meaning, explained well at the beginning of thermodynamic system. There is also an article physical system which is linked to from Energy, and a general article on system. These pages all have some drawbacks as links from physics pages like Energy:

• system uses an engineering-type definition, refering to the "objective" of the system.
• physical system is quite eccentric. I edited it a bit to make the lead sensible, but most of the (short) article describes a definition of "complexity", which is not the focus I'd expect, (and the definition given looks a lot like OR).
• thermodynamic system starts with a definition which could be trivially adapted to apply to all physical systems but rapidly specialises to thermodynamics.

Complicating things is a new Wikipedia:WikiProject Systems which has an agenda I can't fathom and a stake in at least the first two articles above. If it was up to me I would just replace the current physical system with a slightly edited lead section of thermodynamic system; maybe merging the examples lists (I wrote the one in physical system to emphasise some counter-intuitive possibilities). What do other people think? PaddyLeahy 01:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Systems was created by two people who are strongly involved with systems research and/or who believe in categorizing things identified as systems. The project formed after the deletion of Category:Systems Other than an extended discussion on Category:Systems and some subcategories, I have not been involved with the group. I suggest contacting the project (or the two members) to discuss your concerns. Dr. Submillimeter 22:26, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Hello, WikiProject Physics, Paddy Leahya and Dr. Submillimeter. I noticed this new point of discusion, because of earlier discussion about this, see [1] on the talk page of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Systems. I'm a member of that project, and we from our side are going to look at this situation also. It would maybe be nice to talk about this together and exchange some ideas. Greetings - Mdd 22:37, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Big Bang FAR

Big Bang has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. LuciferMorgan 14:09, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Electromagnetic stress-energy tensor

Does anyone here know enough about both electromagnetism and relativity to check Electromagnetic stress-energy tensor? Although the article has been changed several times by various people, I have never been satisfied that it is correct. Checking articles on EM is difficult (for me at least) because there are several conflicting sets of conventions in use which affect this topic, it is not just a matter of converting units. JRSpriggs 06:34, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't have any strikingly obvious errors, but I just gave it a short look. I can look it over again when I'm not so tired if someone else doesn't get to checking it more thoroughly. Besselfunctions 12:51, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Energy

An editor has recently begun to split Energy into several articles and general reorganize that article. It would be helpful for additional editors familiar with the subject to collaborate in this task. CMummert · talk 13:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

This article is now the subject of a post at WP:ANI involving User:Hallenrm, and it appears to be rapidly changing at the moment. It will be difficult to get involved with so much happening with the article and the people involved with the article. The article even moved as I tried to type a comment on the talk page. Maybe we should just wait for things to settle down. Dr. Submillimeter 14:33, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

BF3 Tube Neutron Detector deletion

Theory, Design and Calibration of a BF3 Tube Neutron Detector has recently been nominated for deletion; as it is becoming painfully obvious that none of us on AfD understand enough particle physics to decide whether this is a worthwhile topic for an article, would anyone who does know enough about the matter to have an opinion take a look at the AfD discussion and contribute accordingly? Many thanks — iridescenti (talk to me!) 20:11, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Anti-gravity?

There is another article being promoted by the pseudo-scientists, to wit, anti-gravity. Tcisco (talk · contribs) linked to it (through the redirect "gravity control") from History of general relativity, saying "The role of the 1950's gravity control propulsion projects in the history of general relativity.". I removed the link. Get ready for another edit-war and/or AfD. JRSpriggs 09:45, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

(Superquantum) non-locality

There has been a lot of work done over the past few years on super-quantum non-locality, which comes out of work by Sandu Popescu and Daniel Rohrlich showing that the CHSH inequality can be violated to an absolute value of four, in breach of Tsirelson's bound for quantum correlations. There is an article that discusses Nonlocality briefly, but it isn't entirely comprehensive. I was wondering if the project here would object if I rewrote this article with a comprehensive review of non-local boxes, maximal violations of Bell's inequalities, etc. I think it's such a large topic that it merits its own article rather than being spread out over many. The topics I would like to cover would be (ion no particular order):

- brief overview of EPR, Bell's inequalities, and Cirelson's work (mostly linking to the existing articles on the subjects, so only one or two paragraphs)
- superquantum violations of the CHSH inequality, and how they are theoretically achievable
- the various classifications of non-signalling boxes (including local boxes) and what conditions a non-signalling box has to fulfil in terms of joint probability distributions
- links to applications of quantum non-locality (as appropriate) and a brief discussion of usefulness in computation (as per a paper by Linden, Popescu, Short and Winter)

I don't envisage removing any of the general overview of non-locality already in this article, but would combine it into appropriately titled sections, such as a general definition, and some philosophical aspects.

Since this was my undergrad specialism, I would like to be able to write it, but not without checking with you guys what you would like done first! Please get back to me --Fritzpoll 11:55, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

We can ask User:Tsirel himself. As per the usual recommendation he didn't edit "his" article Tsirelson's bound (wouldn't be bad in this case IMHO, the current state of the article is ... err ... suboptimal). But in the field as a whole, he may want to contribute. --Pjacobi 17:34, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Maybe in the meantime, I can get started and others can chip in with corrections? Provided the idea of including all the above in the article is considered acceptable --Fritzpoll 17:47, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

The key problem is, whether you can manage an encyclopedic treatment. If you envision something more textbook or review-like, you may be better off to start a WikiBook. --Pjacobi 17:55, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, what I'll do is write out the article as I wanted to write it, and then I'll dump it in my sandbox. I'll come back here and let you know its finished, and it can be decided then whether it is suitably encyclopaedic. I don't intend derivations, particularly, since they won't be especially useful. Mostly a statement and explanation of key ideas - the end result I envision is a more thorough and lengthy article than exists at present --Fritzpoll 20:09, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, the current Nonlocality article can muddle the reader. At the very least, various ideas of nonlocality should be disambiguated carefully.

However, I do not want to do it myself. Recently I wrote two articles, Large deviations of Gaussian random functions and Standard probability space; why did I? Since I felt that (a) the topic can interest thousands of students, but (b) maybe I was the only wikipedian able to describe it.

Nonlocality topic satisfies (a) but violates (b); many wikipedians should be able to describe it. I hope that others can do it better than me, namely, more readable for non-experts. I'd better make remarks when needed. And of course, I am ready to answer questions, if any. Boris Tsirelson 12:19, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Quantum computer is on FARC

I took a stab at addressing the problems of the quantum computer article (as per the Featured Article Removal Candidate discussion), but since it's not exactly my sub-sub-field of expertise, I'm sure other people will have better ideas of references to add. Anville 15:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

New physics-related FAC

..in the making. ;) Now that equipartition theorem has been made into a Featured Article, a few of us have been ensnared by X-ray crystallography, which is the Science Collaboration of the Month. Won't you join in? I promise you, arguing over AfDs cannot bring you the satisfaction of writing a featured article that people will appreciate and learn from. The community of editors is more fun, too! :) Would you really rather dispute with cranky cranks rather than working towards a common goal with Nice People Who Have a Clue? Willow 05:57, 9 May 2007 (UTC)