Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics

Archives
Antiquity – Sep 2005 Oct 2005 – Oct 2005 Nov 2005 – Dec 2005 Jan 2006 – Feb 2006 Feb 2006 – Apr 2006 Apr 2006 – May 2006 May 2006 – Jul 2006

Proposed rewrite of event horizon

In response to prodding, I've produced an article draft intended to replace event horizon. See the relevant thread at talk:event horizon for details. It's not perfect; what I'm looking for is opinions on whether or not it's worth taking it as a starting point for a replacement. If so, we can swap it in and then perform additional polishing as-needed. --Christopher Thomas 05:50, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I would be pretty well qualified to comment, but I am just too sick of cruft patrol to make the effort. Sigh... ---CH 02:39, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

The good news is, this is pretty cruft-free. Nobody's making inane arguments; it's just a rewrite-for-clarity situation. I've actually found it pretty relaxing, because it makes me feel productive instead of like I'm being bogged down in drama.

Though if you need a break, please take one. I've done so on a couple of occasions, and it helped. The encyclopedia won't self-destruct if you go on vacation for a month. --Christopher Thomas 03:38, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Indefinite block of KraMuc

I have indefinitely blocked KraMuc. See WP:AN/I#Indefinite block of KraMuc. Please discuss there and not here. -- SCZenz 10:51, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Der alte Hexenmeister

Can we get some more feedback? So far only one outside comment. ---CH 20:21, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Transitional kinetic energy

Does anyone fancy cleaning this mess up, or shall we put it to AfD? --Bduke 08:33, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

It's absolute nonsense. I urge AfD. I am quite sick of cruft patrol right now so I hope this goes easily... ---CH 02:33, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

prodded. It'll go away on its own. linas 04:04, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Continuing problems at time

Geologician (talk • contribs) has been editing time to state that models of the universe that involve time repeating itself require spacetime to be embedded in a six-dimensional space. I've reverted, he reverted back. Mike Peel (talk • contribs) added a citation request and a note on Geologician's talk page, Geologician removed the citation request and added a figure he drew as the requested "proof". I've left a note on Geologician's talk page attempting to point him both WP:RS and to Riemannian geometry, and to explain that embedding the manifold in a higher-dimensional space is an unnecessary (and possibly impossible) operation, but I seriously doubt this will have the desired effect. Additional people with a grasp of geometry contributing to maintenance of time would probably help. --Christopher Thomas 21:00, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

He's also been editing the   disambiguation page, adding the same information. --Christopher Thomas 21:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Absolute nonsense, for sure. Good grief. The problem is that as far as I can tell in all the Wikipedia community, there are only a handful with math/physics background who are even trying to keep hoaxes, frank crackpottery (like the claims of Geologician (talk · contribs)) out of the WP and to maintain NPOV in articles on scientifically controversial or fringe topics. What if we threatened to go on strike or something?  :-/ I am really starting to wonder if the Wikimedia board really cares about WP:NPOV and accuracy issues.---CH 02:37, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

This particular case shouldn't require much effort. All it would take is half a dozen people each reverting his re-insertion once to establish that he's acting against consensus and inserting information that experts deem factually inaccurate. I can take it from there (by diplomacy, then by RFC, then by carefully-measured escalation through the WP:DR list, though I hope that isn't needed). ObCaveat is, please read the additions (and his claims on the talk page, if you're a masochist) to make it clear that any reversion is a fully-informed judgement. --Christopher Thomas 03:36, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Still waiting for at least one more editor to revert his changes to wheel of time and time. If I do it without that happening, it'll look like I'm edit-warring. --Christopher Thomas 18:51, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Still waiting. We've had junk at this article for weeks now, because I don't want to be accused of edit-warring if I revert it. --Christopher Thomas 16:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, you start by reverting the articles back to a junk free state and I'll join you. --Michael C. Price ^talk 16:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I removed some of the funny stuff from time. Revert at will on this stuff (up to 3RR); it's uncited, and a cite request has been ignored, so it's only edit warring in the most technical sense. -- SCZenz 16:52, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Magnetic photon

It appears that magnetic photon is probably total whack. One of the principle actors is Rainer W. Kühne, an atlantis expert. I'm tempted to AfD it except that the mention of Abdus Salam confuses the issue. linas 03:53, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

So long as the term is common it'd be worth keeping around just for the Salam proposal and experimental result. Anyone have access to 1960s Physics Letters [1]? — Laura Scudder ☎ 04:13, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

The "we didn't find any magnetic photons" paper seems legitimate, though it seems that if they were serious about the experiment they'd have alternated on/off measurements with the photomultiplier instead of taking a batch of "on" and a batch of "off", to reduce the heating problem. They cited enough other papers that the concept itself doesn't seem "total whack", though the article could stand to be rewritten with many more references. I'd file this under Category:Obsolete scientific theories as an idea that was considered in the second half of the 20th century, but ruled out. Disclaimer: I'm in engineering, not physics, so it's quite possible that I'm missing something. --Christopher Thomas 04:14, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

If you review my edit history as of right now, you will see that I just removed several dozen links wherein Rainer W. Kühne is seen to be a time travel expert, an expert in the location of Atlantis, an expert in the Pioneer 10 anomoly, and an associate of famous physicists who died when he was twelve years old. Oh, and cold fusion too. I'm deleting the whole kit-n-kaboodle for now. linas 04:59, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Nomenclature for available useful work (Exergy)

I'm looking for input about a nomenclature issue. See Talk:Exergy#B or ψ or Ξ or X?. On the Second law of thermodynamics page, exergy is X. I thought I'd seek some input from physicists before flipping it over to B. Please discuss this on the Talk:Exergy page. Plenty of work to do there too if there's a systems ecologist/engineer/physicist around. Flying Jazz 06:52, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Photon induced electric field poling

This AFD could use some qualified eyes on it. Thanks. - Motor (talk) 14:00, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

The article as-written is near-gibberish (looks like a mangled copy of press release text). The effect it describes _might_ be real, but is insufficiently sourced in the article. --Christopher Thomas 16:48, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I've attempted to rewrite/summarize the article, so that it can be assessed on its technical merits or lack thereof, rather than prose style. Still needs expert attention and verification.--Christopher Thomas 17:14, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I've finished another rewrite of the article. It looks like the phenomenon described is both real and well-published; the original version of the article was just garbled as heck. Please take a look at Photon induced electric field poling to sanity check the new version. --Christopher Thomas 04:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Good. Keep. The original version was gibberish. I tweaked the intro slightly to mention perovskite again, etc.linas 14:40, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Event horizon rewrite

The event horizon article was recently rewritten. An anon has voiced concerns about it. Just to make sure it's correct, could a few of the GR-types here please take a look at it, and comment on the talk page? --Christopher Thomas 17:26, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

The anon is still present and still making objections. My math isn't good enough to tell for certain whether or not he has a point (though I'm pretty sure he's mistaken, and the article did get a vote of confidence from the other editors reviewing it). I know there are GR types here. Could a couple of you please take a quick look at event horizon and talk:event horizon? --Christopher Thomas 15:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't immediately tell what objection you're referring to, by skimming the talk page. Is it "Infinite tidal forces simply do not exist at the S R location"? Tidal forces do indeed approach infinity as you approach the singularity (they go as 1/R^4), but nothing in the article is about the singularity. The article is about the horizon, so I can't figure out what the complaint actually is. Also, I am baffled by this initialism SR. What does it stand for? Usually in relativity, SR means special relativity, but clearly here it refers to some feature of black holes. What is it? -lethe ^{talk +} 16:22, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Schwarzchild radius, I guess. You're right it should be explicit. --Michael C. Price ^talk 16:27, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course the article should be explicit, but it's OK for people to use jargon on the talk page. I've just never seen this initialism before. OK, SR means horizon. I don't like it, it seems to limit us to horizons nonrotating uncharged static classical black holes (the Schwarzschild solution), but at least now I know what anon is saying. Thank you, Michael, for cluing me in. -lethe ^{talk +} 16:35, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The anon thinks I'm claiming infinite tidal forces in the article. I'm not, and have made this clear numerous times. I _do_ claim that a rigid rod that is stationary with respect to a distant observer that is placed through the horizon would experience infinite tensile forces (in addition to falling apart because photons couldn't propagate between all parts of it). The anon disagrees. It's possible that I'm mistaken, but I trust the GR crew here more than I trust an anon. --Christopher Thomas 16:27, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

So you're looking for backup on this assertion, for example: the boosting force to keep your rocket ship stationary (with respect to asymptotic Minkowski space) approaches infinity as you approach the horizon. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that is correct. -lethe ^{talk +} 16:38, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Lethe is right, I beleive. The anon seems to be saying that, in the reference frame of the person holding the rigid rod, the rod would not be long enough to actually cross the event horizon. Err.. indeed this is confusing. Basically, the anon is claiming that, if I unreeled a very very long spool of "steel tape" (ruler) down towards the event horizon, the tip of the ruler would never actually cross!? In the frame of a distant observer, the rules on the ruler would appear to get more and more compressed as the tip approached the SR (swar. rad). From the point of view of an obsrever hanging from the end of the ruler, the SR appears to "very far away". I think anon might be right, because that's how I remember it being taught in school. So maybe everyone is right? Although the forces would get infinite for the person hanging off the end of the ruler, fortunately, the person hanging off the end of the ruler can never get near enough to the SR to feel those "infinite forces". The closer he tried to get, the farther away the SR would get, the greater the forces would get, but he'd never actually get there. He'd have to "let go" and fall in order to fall in; but, while falling the forces would no longer be actualy infinite. The infinity is "potential" not "real", the falling observer does not feel infinite tensile forces. Only the rocket ship attempting to stay away from SR exteriences the need for more and more and more thrust, and unbounded amount of thrust, to keep at a safe distance. linas 00:03, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I.E. there is no actual infinity, because either the ruler breaks and falls in (and feels no infinite force on crossing the SR), or the ruler is infinitely strong, in which case the unwary holder of the ruler will eventually feel a force that overwhelms his grip/ his rocket engines, and will have to cut the ruler free and let it fall. At no point does the ruler experience infinite force (before contact with the essential singularity). At no point does the non-falling ruler ever actually cross the SR, and a non-falling ruller can never be made long enough to cross the SR, because, in the non-moving ruler's reference frame, the SR is infinitely far away. linas 00:42, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by your (apparent?) statement that the ruler does have to be infinitely strong, but that the force is finite. That the non-moving ruler measures the horizon as infinitely far away is more reasonable, but that would lead to force on the ruler tending towards infinity as you integrated force along its (infinite) length, unless something strange was going on. This also seems to say that the situation where a non-falling ruler exists that crosses the horizon from the viewpoint of a distant observer can't be constructed/described, which seems odd to me. To see why I'm confused about this, consider the related situation of a rigid rod that, from the distant stationary observer's viewpoint, appears be stationary and to connect the distant observer to the singularity, and spell out to me how the rod is described in the various relevant regions. I'm really wishing my math was good enough to see all of the implications involved directly, as this really seems to be a coordinate systems issue more than anything else. --Christopher Thomas 02:45, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Enough with the SR abbreviation, linas. I'm glad MCP told me what it means, but that doesn't mean that we have to start using nonstandard notation. -lethe ^{talk +} 04:21, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Why would the dude hanging off the end see the horizon as far away? I think you should be able to lower him right up to it (assuming infinite tensile strength). -lethe ^{talk +} 04:31, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Because the hanging dude is radially contracted he sees the horizon as infinitely distant. --Michael C. Price ^talk 06:53, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

--Michael C. Price ^talk 16:25, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Michael is right. In fact, this whole confusion has a historical basis: when Schwarzschild first published his result, the initial interpretation was of an actual singularity at the SR. Later, when it was realized that a free-falling observer felt nothing unusual on crossing the SR, that's when the true debate started. To go back to Chris Thomas question about math: in the Schwarzschild metric, the spatial distance goes as 1/(1-R/r) and as r approaches R, the distance becomes infinite. That's why the event horizon is infinitely far away for an observer attempting to hover above the black hole. The observer is accelerating away from the black hole, accelerating at precisely such a rate that a constant position is maintained with respect to the black hole: this is what "hovering" means. In a way, this makes common sense: if you're trying to run away from something, accelerate away, you shouldn't be surprised that the something becomes "far away" as you run away.

There is a way to extend a finite length rod so that it crosses the SR. Suppose I had many thousands of miles of fishing line, with a little weighty hook on the end. I maintain a safe distance away from the black hole, where the gravity is not particularly strong, and start reeling out the fishing line. Suppose I reel it out so that the hook at the end goes into free fall, and crosses the SR. Because the weight (and line) was free-falling, I did not need an infinite length of line to pay out, before having the hook cross the SR. I now give the line a tug, hoping to pull the fish-hook out. As I tug on the line, a stress wave starts propagating down the line, moving more or less at the speed of sound. As the stress wave approaches the black hole, the stress becomes increasingly large; at some point, outside of the SR, it becomes so large that the line snaps, and the hook falls in the rest of the way. There's no "actual" infinity, because the fishing line never felt an infinite stress. It broke first, and after it broke, it felt only a small stress until it hit the true singularity. linas 16:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Apparently I haven't made the scenario I'm trying to discuss clear enough. I'm looking at the _limit_ as tensile strength of the line approaches infinity, and the rate of initial lowering approaches zero, and so on and so forth, of the forces required to maintain the scenario described. Stating that the line snaps, rod breaks, or what-have-you violates the constraints of the question. As far as I can tell, for nonzero cable mass-per-unit-length, the tensile force on the cable tends towards infinity (with a description that was different from my original picture). Per discussion on talk:event horizon, we mainly seem to be arguing about terminology, and it's moot point anyways because I'm satisfied with your rewrite of the section involved. --Christopher Thomas 22:45, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Afshar POV

User:Afshar has reverted a POV tag on Afshar experiment on the grounds that it was anonymous. Could an admin revert/add it to make it "official"? --Michael C. Price ^talk 06:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

On the talk page, another user says there is no NPOV problem and has removed the notice. If you, or the anon, disagrees, feel free to use the talk page to discuss it. An NPOV notice without any attempt to discuss and resolve doesn't accomplish much. -lethe ^{talk +} 06:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm.. I see also that in the section of the talk page immediately preceding Sededeo's, you did engage in discussion about the issue. I apologize for the above comment which may have been superfluous. -lethe ^{talk +} 06:43, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

It's worth noting that nothing an administrator does, contentwise, is more "official" than anyone else. Anons have equal standing with other users as well; in practice they're often ignored if they do something controversial without leaving an explanation on the talk page, because it's often impossible to engage them in discussion later. The upshot of all this is that you can restore the NPOV tag as well as anyone else. (Discussion, as lethe notes and you apparently already knew, is also important for such tags.) -- SCZenz 08:03, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The discussion with Afshar is, as expected, going nowhere. Linas has suggested that everybody agree that the whole article be rewritten from a decoherence POV, but given that Afshar can't understand the basic idea of OR, this seems doomed. Anyway I updated the critiques section with nod to the decoherence POV. I'm not hopeful that Afshar will respect Wiki policy and let it stand. --Michael C. Price ^talk 18:31, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

As expected, he reverted it. --Michael C. Price ^talk 21:12, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I did not mean to suggest that the article be re-written from the decoherence pont of view. I wanted to suggest that Afshar study decoherence in his own spare time, and write about it in some other forum, ideally in a journal, and not here. linas 23:33, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The article has been in an acceptable shape for quite a while, the POV tag is undeserved. I do not think amateur debunking attempts in the critique section would be appropriate at this time. If there is a critique that is posted off-site, and is somewhat deeper and more insightful than a few paragraphs of hand-waving, then a reference to it can be included. But short, hit-n-run critiques aren't helpful. linas 23:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree -- see my response on the Afshar experiment talk page. --Michael C. Price ^talk 23:45, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

There is a general issue here of the appropriateness of critique sections in controversial articles. And of their length. I have written a short one (for Afshar experiment) and had it deleted for being too short and handwavy. Yet if I lengthen it I am told that it still won't be appropriate and should be in an external link. It seems that no critique will be acceptable, yet other controversial articles have them (e.g. Bohmian mechanics - which I did not write, Modern Galilean relativity -- which I wrote). What gives? --Michael C. Price ^talk 00:55, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Write it so that the section accurately represents or summarizes the four published critiques out there. People love to come by and take pot-shots at this topic. Going with this one variant, as opposed to the dozens of others, does not improve the article or add balance. linas 16:15, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I have not just "come by" and taken a "pot-shot", I have been trying for weeks to get Afshar to see beyond his own POV. As for whether it improves the balance, I disagree with your POV. What part of:

The modern understanding of quantum decoherence and its destruction of quantum interference provides a mechanism for understanding the appearance of wavefunction collapse and the transition from quantum to classical. As such there is no need, in the decoherence view, for an a priori introduction of a classical-quantum divide as enshrined by complementarity. Any experiment that claims to violate complementarity needs to address this issue.

do you find "pure, unsubstantiated OR"? --Michael C. Price ^talk 16:25, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. The standard mathematics of QM does not enshrine complementarity. The Copenhagen interpretation does enshrine wave function collapse. Any experiment that claims to violate complementarity is "boring" unless it somehow addresses the issue of wave-function collapse. Shall we add a sentence to the article stating that, as far as the Copenhagen interpretation is concerned, the Afshar experiment is "boring", because it sheds no light on wave function collapse? I suspect that the Afshar experiment is also boring if you view it in the light of the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics; likewise for most of the other interpretations. The one place where the experiment seems to get possibly interesting is with the Englert relationship. There's lots of things that one might say that are true about the Afshar experiment; the mention of decoherence seems to be some random factoid that floats in from left field. I suppose we could start a list of factoids about the Afshar experiment, but I'm concerned that it could easily spiral out of control again. The other problem I had was that the sentences were vaguely insulting and condescending: that they're promoted as "general criticisms", when in fact, if one examines the record of the specific criticisms, they don't match these general criticisms at all. However, I tire of this debate. You've been championing decoherence recently, in many other articles, and, as a hammer, perhaps everything looks like a nail. Put yourself in someone else's shoes for a while: then the "general criticisms" just don't look very general at all, and they don't appear to accurately reflect the actual debate either. linas 17:34, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi linas, I appreciate the change in tone. Yes, the Afshar experiment and my mini-critique are boring to anyone who has a good grasp of QM (such as yourself, for ex.) but what about the others whose POV you ask me to consider? Believe it or not they are precisely the target audience who require an accessible quick critique with links for depth as required. And just to correct a couple of misapprehensions, yes I think decoherence is important and not a random factoid, but I am hardly alone in this view. One other thing, you misunderstood what I meant by "general" vs "specific" -- which was my fault and I'll try to clarify that here and elsewhere. By "specific" I meant that many of the links were critical of specific aspects of the construction of Afshar's experiment, whereas my points were of a more general nature and insensitive to these minor details. And finally, the point that the experiment didn't violate the Schrodinger equation was something that had been highlighted on the talk page at least twice and in one of the external links. --Michael C. Price ^talk 19:42, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Scalars

A proposal to merge Scalar has turned into a protracted discussion of whether or not the term 'scalar' means the same thing in different disciplines. See Talk:Scalar. --Smack (talk) 05:13, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Massive insertion of Scientific American links

208.241.19.100 (talk • contribs) seems to be adding links to Scientific American articles about appropriate topics to a very large number of science- and physics-related articles. While these don't seem to be vandalism per se (being appropriate links), I'm not quite sure how to react to it, as it does seem to be linkspamming. Links are added roughly every 3 minutes, suggesting script assistance (or someone really bored). --Christopher Thomas 16:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

They're relevant, and Sci Am writes reasonably good popular articles that may be helpful/interesting to our readers. I very much doubt this is Scientific American trying to advertize itself, so I don't really think it's linkspam. I think it's just a user trying to improve the encyclopedia in a small systematic way, and succeeding. No action necessary unless there's something I'm missing. -- SCZenz 16:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

They continued after the first warning, I've given another. The IP is registered to Scientific American, this definitely qualifies as commercial spamming and needs to be watched. Femto 17:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Even if it is linkspamming wouldn't Wikipedia readers benefit? SciAm is quite accessible. just be thankful it's not the Fortean Times. --Michael C. Price ^talk 17:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the only thing we need to worry about is whether the links are to free articles. If WP policy would somehow require to unlink these articles, then IMHO, there is something strange about WP policy.--CSTAR

I disagree strongly with the above warnings. Links to relevant Sci Am articles are useful to Wikipedia, regardless of their source. -- SCZenz 17:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

PS When I looked at one of the linked SciAm articles, a advertising banner partially obstructed the text. Even though that obstruction is likely only temporary, in my view that is not a "free" link. --CSTAR 18:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

People can read the article. Do we really have a rule that says too much advertizing makes a link unacceptable? If so please point me to it. -- SCZenz 18:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not objecting to advertising accompanying the text. I'm objecting to advertising blocking the text. There is a policy against links to advertising.--CSTAR 18:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

This is how they display their articles, as many websites do. The blocking goes away after a short while. So the advertizing is a little bit obtrusive, it's not like there isn't an article there. I don't see the problem. -- SCZenz 18:09, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's clearly a matter of interpretation. I think we should be hard-nosed. We should tell them: If you want links to your articles from WP, then you can keep your advertising so long as it doesn't obstruct the text. That's a fair bargain, in my view.--CSTAR 18:15, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Even then, there's only one side that truly benefits from bargaining over unfree content for external linking. The "content instead of links" rule is there for a reason in the free encyclopedia. It holds true not only, but especially, for content providers that will have a commercial or promotional gain from links. Femto 18:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Since this is turning into a policy debate, may I suggest moving the discussion to WP:AN/I to get more eyes on it? --Christopher Thomas 20:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and added a section there at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Apparent SEO/Linkspam to Scientific American articles with pointers to prior discussion here and at the IP's talk page. GRBerry 18:59, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

While I may have your attention, may I re-open the case of the xstructure links, see [2]? --Pjacobi 18:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• I haven't yet decided what I think about this; the links themselves are fine and contribute to the articles, but I generally consider it to be bad form to link to your own sites, and WP:NOT a collection of external links. There's also the slippery-slope problem of where to draw the line. What happens when the next magazine want to link their content into article? Furthermore, as noted, this appears to be either bot assisted or a dedicated effort (paid by SciAm?) to systematically link a *large* number of article, which in my mind smacks of search-engine optimization. I guess that's the part that really rubs me the wrong way. --Alan Au 02:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Just to provide some references for this discussion, first, yes there is a guideline that indicates sites with objectionable amount of advertising should be avoided: WP:EL, "links to normally be avoided", point #4. Coincidentally, also covered in the same point are "links that are added to promote a site."

If these links are being added by a bot, this taints their additions even further. Per WP:SPAM, "external links spamming": "Spam bots should be treated equivalently as vandalbots. Edits by spambots constitute unauthorised defacement of websites, which is against the law in many countries, and may result in complaints to ISPs and (ultimately) prosecution." What I don't see anywhere is a qualification there that says "unless the links could be useful".

One other guideline reference:

• WP:EL, "links normally to be avoided": "A website that you own or maintain, even if the guidelines above imply that it should be linked to. This is because of neutrality and point-of-view concerns"

SEO is a serious problem, and we ought not ignore the possibility that is is exactly what we're looking at. Even if the articles are relevant, Wikipedia is not here to promote another website, which is exactly what SEO does. Considering that these edits are coming from Sci Am themselves, and are occuring between the hours of 9-5 EST (the time zone that SciAm's located in [3]), does anyone really think that this is some editor trying to help out Wikipedia on his/her own time? --AbsolutDan ^(talk) 04:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Based on the edit histories, this is clearly a spambot at work, and so sets a bad precedent. As long as the SciAm article provides substaintially more, or better information than the WP article, having such a link is acceptable. However, when a linked website, any linked website, is information-poor as compared to WP, it should not be linked. Its not obvious that some of the SciAm links are really head-n-shoulders above what's in WP. linas 18:31, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

This is an ugly case and bad precedent. Unfortuntely, just like in the law, it is usually the bad cases that go to court. If there is a bot, it is human attended. I haven't found a clearly irrelevant linkage and it is 3-5 minutes per article, which isn't unattended computer speed. But it appears as a linkspam campaign, and ought to be treated as such. If the articles are that valuable, someone not associated with SA will eventually find a reason to add them again, we should take them out. GRBerry 18:56, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello, I represent Scientific American and I am responsible for the insertion of the new external links on Wikipedia to SciAm. I don't believe what we are doing is wrong but we have stopped inserting links at this time. Also, I want to clarify what we're doing and why. We are not using a spambot. A person is manually entering the links to the Wikipedia articles and we are not inserting articles just for the sake of spam or search optimization. We're only adding an external link when we believe it would contribute by providing additional information on the topic. Wikipedia is a valuable resource for many people and we would like to contribute by adding our content. Yes we acknowledge that by adding the links it will probably benefit us but that is not the reason we're doing it. The articles that we link to are all completely free and the user is not required to pay or register to view them. The ad unit several people have mentioned does promote a subscription but the viewer has the option to immediately close the ad. Visitors to our web site will view ads since it is partially advertising supported and we must do this to operate and continue to provide content to our readers. This is a user experience that is similar to visiting most other content web sites and blogs on the Internet. We are not trying to mislead anyone and have been completely transparent in our actions by not masking our IP and by using the user ID - Scientific American. We believe we are providing additional content on the topic, which I believe is valuable to Wikipedia users. We are not inserting links indiscriminately. We add external links at the bottom of the list not the top. We do not modify other links. We make the copy straightforward by just placing our publication name, issue date and title. We do not reinsert other links that have been removed by others who may view it as inappropriate. Also the next phase was to to add actual content to Wikipedia in topics lacking any substantial content. But at this time, we will not do that since it may be viewed as inappropriate. I hope I have been clear in our motivations and intentions. Finally, if many Wikipedia community members views what we're doing is inappropriate we will stop. Thank you --Scientific American 18:40, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

This is pretty much what we had already inferred. Although I personally think that useful links are a good thing, there was substantial disagreement about this linking. I am going to paste your comment into one of our policy discussion forums; hopefully we'll reach some consensus on this and let you know. -- SCZenz 18:46, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Scientific American linking. -- SCZenz 19:03, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

FYI AciAm was not the first. A couple of authors from the Russian on-line differential equations website spammed a number of articles on differential equations a year ago. For the most part, the links were relevant, if poorly formatted. At this point, my major concern is that they at least format the inserted links properly, instead of adding to the mess that is known as "external links" (which mess I would dearly like to see abolished). linas 01:35, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Quantum Theory Parallels to Consciousness

Anybody feel up to tackling Quantum Theory Parallels to Consciousness and making it into something encyclopedic, if that is even possible? Anville 17:03, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it is possible. It should most likeley be deleted. --Philosophus ^T 17:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

A quick glance at the references shows at least half of them to fail WP:RS. I'd be tempted to just AfD this article, but I don't feel up to another pseudoscience battle right now. In an ideal world, the article would just neutrally describe the fact that a small but (hopefully) notable number of people believe that quantum mechanical thought processes allow ESP, but good luck getting the article into anything resembling that form. --Christopher Thomas 17:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Is there already a decent discussion of this sort in some article? We could probably turn this one into a redirect. Anville 17:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, anyone object to redirecting it to Consciousness causes collapse? --Michael C. Price ^talk 17:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I do. The articles do not appear to be related. One is about consciousness causing collapse, the other is about psychic nonsense. By the way, the Consciousness causes collapse article seems quite bad as well. --Philosophus ^T 17:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

No disputing that, but it's less bad. --Michael C. Price ^talk 17:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

It's already up for AfD. --Philosophus ^T 17:29, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

On which I voted to delete. I don't feel like trying to turn this dreary pageant of bad thinking into something scientific and encyclopedic. . . maybe I'm just getting old? Anville 17:31, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Unscientific yes, but unencyclopedic? Eugene Wigner published stuff on consciousness and QM. So I say redirect and the number of pseudoscience articles is reduced by one. --Michael C. Price ^talk 17:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The most sensible redirect I can find is to point the "Parallels" page to Orch-OR, another page which needs serious de-POVing by a real science person. Anville 17:40, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Yet another AfD

An AfD has been started for Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe. Evaluate as you see fit. --Christopher Thomas 15:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

That's quite an overbearing AfD page. The sockpuppets are out in force today, I see. Anville 18:37, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

You're doing a great job of flagging them so far. A batch-AfD of related pages might be in order once the fuss dies down for this one (unless of course any of them happen to actually be encyclopedic). --Christopher Thomas 19:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Judging by the media coverage metric, the guy who cooked up the Cognitive-Theoretic Whizbang of the Wangdoodle may be notable. Once this furor dies down, we could probably roll all the related pages into his biography and leave a few redirects. I don't think The Ultranet and Mega Foundation can or need to stand on their own, for example.

Side note: if all the people involved with this guy's high-IQ societies are as unpleasant as the sockpuppets mucking up this corner of the Wikipedia, I'm sure glad I'm dumb. Anville 19:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, as the redlink above shows, the CTMU was deleted. However, it has been proposed for undeletion (can you believe it?) over here. Why can this unpleasantness just not end? Byrgenwulf 07:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Undoubtedly one factor is the unpleasantess and lack of civility from both sides. Perhaps a lesson for the future for all concerned. --Michael C. Price ^talk 09:24, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I have tried to point out in the undeletion review which Byrgenwulf mentioned something I regard as a key issue which seems to have been obscured by the smoke and mirrors: I suspect that DrL (talk · contribs) is IRL "Dr. Gina Lynne LoSasso", or possibly Christopher Michael Langan.

LoSasso and Langan are the cofounders of Mega Foundation (apparently aka Mega International and The Mega Society; a previous and now deleted article was called Mega Society). Langan is author of the so-called CTMU, which is not a theory and not certainly not a cosmological model as I understand that term. Googling shows that in interviews Langan has described himself as an "bouncer/cosmologist", but DrL now seems to claim that he regards CTMU as "philosophy". I regard it as nonsense :-/

The internal evidence is circumstantial but suggestive. Among other points, I note that:

1. The edits of DrL (talk · contribs) have exclusively concerned organizations founded by Gina Lynne LoSasso, or the wikibiography of Christopher Michael Langan, cofounder with LoSasso of Mega Foundation and other organizations which are the subjects of the articles edited by DrL. They have all tended to portray Langan and these organizations in glowing terms, or have been keep votes in AfDs, requests to undelete, etc.
2. Her edits suggest that DrL is a close personal friend of Langan. According to Wrong Planet - Aspergers and Autism Community - The Smart Guy, Gina LoSasso is the girlfriend of Chris Langan (their email courtship is described in the 1999 Esquire profile, written at a time when they had not met).
3. DrL's user page reads in its entirety "PhD in science field", which most of us (but look out for spinning the reader's expectations!) would probably take to mean that she has earned a Ph.D. in "a science field". Googling shows that according to a 1999 Esquire profile, LoSasso allegedly earned a Ph.D. in clinical neuropsychology from Wayne State University, but she seems to also describe herself as a "psychologist".
4. I know many Ph.D.s; very, very few insist on being called "Dr. whozit", but Googling shows that Gina Lynne LoSasso belongs to this group. I would guess that all the Ph.D.s here know exactly why I find this oddity so striking, although I may be making too much of it.
5. LoSasso apparently resides in Cainsville, MO, which is a small town located in a region of northern Missouri with a population density of only 12 persons per sq mile. According to his wikibio, Langan presently resides in "rural northern Missouri".

Thought I'd share an Esquire profile from 1999 which pokes fun at LoSasso in an understated way. It reads in part:

Gina LoSasso is a short, garrulous woman with a heavy Brooklyn accent and purple eye shadow that matches the fancy satin bra strap peeking out flirtatiously from the shoulder of her floral blouse-and-shorts ensemble...Since men with extremely high IQs (and men with extremely low IQs) are fifty times more plentiful than women, Gina estimates, the incidence of females in the population with an IQ similar to hers is about one in 3.4 million... Forty-three years old, twice divorced, the mother of two--a twenty-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old son--Gina recently received her Ph.D. in clinical neuropsychology from Wayne State University in Detroit...By way of a first-time e-mail introduction, Gina opines that highly intelligent women make the best lovers. She believes that her high libido and her high intelligence are both related to a higher-than-normal percentage of testosterone in her system. When she was young, in fact, she wanted to be a boy, refused to answer to any name other than Billy...Gina is currently the only female on the list of the top fifty American players in the International Correspondence Chess Federation...Gina lived in Brussels for many years as a professional chess player, traveling the European circuit...Before she found chess through a correspondence league associated with Mensa, Gina managed a weight-loss clinic, flunked out of three colleges, attended computer-programming school, sold copiers, made sand-art terrariums, sold candy behind the counter at a movie theater... [As a child], she became somewhat of a hellion. As a young teenager, she frequently hitchhiked to Greenwich Village. She'd pick an apartment building, gain entry, listen at doors for the sounds of a party in progress. If one sounded interesting, she'd knock. She spent much of her fourteenth year in a residential drug-treatment program...Puzzles and games have always been Gina's passion and forte. She loves playing Scrabble, breaking tough encryption codes...Another difficult obstacle, she says, is finding the patience to communicate properly with others. Though she is a people person of the highest order and has many good friends, she isn't always easy to get along with. She expects those around her to make leaps they sometimes fail to make. She easily becomes impatient: Why should she have to belabor a point to make herself understood? ...Gina is very competitive, an admitted obsessive-compulsive. Upon a first meeting, she gives you a three-ring binder with section tabs--a compendium of personal tidbits, FAQs, and background readings. She likes to be in charge. She likes to be the center of conversation and attention. She has a need for order and control...She loves to argue, has a difficult time agreeing to disagree...Gina also has a torrid ongoing e-mail correspondence with Chris Langan, the bouncer/ cosmologist, though they've never met. [As of 1999.] She has printed out both sides of the correspondence; she keeps the hard copies in a three-ring binder beneath her desk--a blue, HiQ version of Love Letters..."I'd love to clone myself, I really would," she says, smiling at the sound of it, continuing anyway. "I would know how to raise me to reach my full potential. I think sometimes that if I'd been raised by a normal family, with opportunities to go to the best schools and stuff like that, I might have been a neurosurgeon or something by now.

— Mike Sager, Esquire, November 1999

If my guess is right, "DrL"'s persistence would correspond to the characteristic noted by Sager: LoSasso apparently loves to argue and insists on being in control.

When I challenged her concerning her IRL identity, DrL responded with four strangely worded "nondenial denials":

1. 20:05, 22 July 2006 " I have no financial interest in the Mega Foundation or The Ultranet. Please note that you are way off base here" (No financial interest? These are nominally nonprofit organizations.)
2. 19:58, 22 July 2006 "I don't even know what "shilling" is! If you mean sockpuppeteering, I assure you that nothing of the sort is going on here. I do know some people that belong or belonged to these groups, but nothing out of the ordinary." (Nothing of what sort? I did not mean sockpuppetry in the sense of two or more registered users corresponding to one individual, and in my query I had provided a link to shill.)
3. 16:34, 22 July 2006 "I'm sorry but you are misinformed." (Misinformed about what?)
4. 16:31, 22 July 2006 "That is not my name and I would very much appreciate it if you take your baseless accusations elsewhere. For your information, this was the fifth initial I tried when I set up my account." (What is not her name? And who mentioned initials?)

If my guess is right, DrL's attempt to evade my challenge would also appear to be in LoSasso's character. Am I the only one who feels that DrL is as slippery as the proverbial eel? ---CH 07:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Chris Hillman says:

LoSasso and Langan are the cofounders of Mega Foundation (apparently aka Mega International and The Mega Society; a previous and now deleted article was called Mega Society)

Please note that Chris Hillman is has made the common mistake of equating the Mega Foundation with the Mega Society. It is this sort of ignorance & confusion by trigger-happy deletionists that has led to the Mega Society being deleted. (A confusion that will no doubt be perpetuated since the deletion of the latter.) Chris Langan used to be a member of the Mega Society but he left and set up the Mega Foundation principally because the Mega Society didn't receive his CTMU with the adulation he felt it should. The deletion of the Mega Society is being appealed on procedural grounds which reflect widespread abuse of due process (issues of notability and judging by voting are both common practice and contrary to the deletion guidelines as outlined here). I believe this widespread divergence between usual practice and written procdure is damaging to Wikipedia.

PS there is not such society as Mega International. Possibility Mensa International? --Michael C. Price ^talk 08:22, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The servers seem to be stressed right now. Unfortunately Michael made this edit just as I was archiving two months of old discussions, and I thought I'd have to go back and add his text, but now it looks like all is well.

Michael, you wrote "Please note that Chris Hillman has made the common mistake of equating the Mega Foundation with the Mega Society. It is this sort of ignorance & confusion by trigger-happy deletionists that has led to the Mega Society being deleted. (A confusion that will no doubt be perpetuated since the deletion of the latter.)" Indeed, I thought I might not have the exact relation between Mega Society, Mega International, and Mega Foundation quite right (that's why I took the trouble to mention allt three), but I was confident that they are all associated with LoSasso and Langan. According to the information you provide, I was correct about this point, the only one which really matters here, I think.

"It is this sort of ignorance & confusion by trigger-happy deletionists that has led to the Mega Society being deleted." Actually, my comments indicate (yes?) that I went above and beyond the call of duty to research this affair. I was confused about the detailed history of Mega Foundation vs Mega Society (what about Mega Internatinal and megafoundation.org while you are at it?), but I did enough research to realize that I might be confused about some of the details but also enough to know that I had the essentials right: Langan and LoSasso are involved in all three (four?) organizations, and a few more besides which I have not even mentioned. (Google if you are curious!). So I think calling me (?) a "trigger happy deletionist" is fair.---CH 08:39, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Problems at string theory

The editor zelos (talk · contribs), who also edits as 217.208.244.136 (talk · contribs), has been aggressively removing information he considers to be unfounded "rumour" from string theory and other articles. For all I know he may be correct, but he isn't providing citations, just re-inserting when reverted and making statements on talk pages. If additional people familiar with the topic could take a look at the (short) edit histories of these two users and sanity-check them, it would be greatly appreciated. In the meantime, I've left messages attempting to clue him in. --Christopher Thomas 19:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Linas pointed out that the tone of the statements at string theory was a bit sensationalistic, so I replaced it with text based on the much more neutral statements at Gabriele Veneziano (which the above editors also don't like). --Christopher Thomas 21:54, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Definition of physics

I wish to propose changing the definition of physics on the physics page. The current definition (as of 16 July) is:

Physics…is the science of Nature, from the quarks to the cosmos. Physics deals with the elementary constituents of the universe and their interactions, as well as the analysis of systems which are best understood in terms of these fundamental principles.

My main objections are that a definition of physics should be independent of our current description of it, and it is too vague: “from the quarks to the cosmos,” tells you nothing. I propose the following:

In everyday terms, physics is the science of the world around us that attempts to describe how objects behave under different situations. To illustrate, physics tells us that objects at rest like to remain at rest (Newton's First Law of Motion), or that all known processes increase the total entropy of the system and its surroundings (the Second Law of Thermodynamics).

You say "physics should be independent of our current description of it", yet now you are talking about Newton's Laws and thermodynamics.  ??? Just accept "from the quarks to the cosmos" as poetical if you have problems with quarks. --Michael C. Price ^talk 23:27, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

However, a more formal definition would be that physics is merely the description of, or the desire to acquire knowledge of, how physical objects interact, if they indeed do so. The word "interaction" is understood to mean the influence of one "physical object" on another such "physical object"; and "physical objects" are objects that have been observed to have "interacted" in some way with other such "physical objects". It should be noted that the definition makes no predictions about nature: it does not say what form the "interactions" take, or what the "physical objects" are.

Physics, as defined above, appears to be based on a circular definition between the terms "interaction" and "physical objects". To explain the reason for this, let us remark that we would like physics to be the description of how nature truly behaves, and, as a first attempt at a definition, this is what we may naively assert. However, such an ideal is not thought to presently be possible. If, as observed, no person (or more generally no "entity", which we do not elaborate further on, which can inquire about physics) has any prior, inherent knowledge of the true behaviour of nature, then they may only infer what laws are likely to be followed by nature solely through an act of observation. This conclusion inevitably leads one to accept that it is not currently possible to give any intrinsic meaning to the words "interaction" or "physical objects" that is independent of the other.

Krea 23:18, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

It needs some work, but I like your definition better. "the science of Nature, from the quarks to the cosmos" is meaningless. — Omegatron 23:26, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Not meaningless, just an expression of the fact that physics is the fundamental empirical science of everything (as opposed to mathematics, which is tautological or, say, biology which has a narrower domain). --Michael C. Price ^talk 01:11, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

The first paragraph is merely an introduction for the lay, the more formal part is "independent of our current description of it". Any suggestions for improvement? Krea 01:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Howabout

Physics…is the empirical science of the fundamentals of Nature, i.e. of everything. --Michael C. Price ^talk 01:18, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, its not completely meaningless, but I don't think it's really required. Where do you want to put your suggested sentence? As an addition or a replacement?

Krea 01:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

A rewording of the opening sentence. I thought that was clear. --Michael C. Price ^talk 01:41, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

How about:

In everyday terms, physics is the science of the world around us that attempts to describe how objects behave under different situations; which it does through empirical observations with the ultimate aim of describing the entirety of nature. To illustrate, physics tells us that objects at rest like to remain at rest (Newton's First Law of Motion), or that all known processes increase the total entropy of the system and its surroundings (the Second Law of Thermodynamics).

Krea 01:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

May I suggest we take this to talk:physics and I'll see you there? --Michael C. Price ^talk 01:41, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I've copied this section to talk:physics. Anyone interested can take the conversation there. --Michael C. Price ^talk 01:54, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Hyperwarp 6D & AfD

A wonderfully exciting new theory of spacetime, which solves all the problems faced by modern physics by positing an extra two temporal dimensions. Designed by a "chaos magician", this one is quite bizarre. I have added tags, infobox, etc., but it's going to need a lot of help. Moreover, since it isn't published anywhere except on the chap's own website (with all of 608 google hits); should it be here? Byrgenwulf 13:53, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

As I just said on the article's Talk page, Hyperwarp 6D would be a good title for an arcade game, but as pseudophysics, it's not even widespread enough to be notable "quantum flapdoodle". AfD is only a template away. . . . Anville 14:11, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

In progress. Byrgenwulf 14:12, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Right, the AfD nomination is here, for anyone who's bothered. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Hyperwarp_6D Byrgenwulf 14:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Metric expansion

Help us edit, expand, and reference a new article on Metric expansion of space. --ScienceApologist 18:18, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject on Physical Chemistry

There is a proposal on Wikipedia:WikiProject/List of proposed projects at the bottom of a long list for a Wikiproject on Physical Chemistry. Discussion on it is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry. This would look at all articles in the general area of Physical Chemistry and this includes a lot of articles that are more linked to Physics articles. The project will be a sub project of Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry but maybe it should also be a sub-project of Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics. Please comment on all aspects of this proposal. --Bduke 08:40, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject on Spectroscopy

I just started a new WikiProject for WikiProject Spectroscopy. I am hoping that efforts can be focused from this project and WikiProject Chemistry. I am new to editing and may have taken too big of a bite. --Tjr9898 00:52, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

AfD: Mass of the observable universe

The article Mass of the observable universe is up for AfD: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Mass_of_the_observable_universe. It might be useful if some one with a cosmology background can inform about the hoax/original research status of this article. -- Koffieyahoo 05:27, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Request for physics input at physics/chemistry interface

I am looking for quality rational input from a very physics perspective on physics related articles that have components that fall at the interface between physics and chemistry. It does involve content disputes however I am not looking for mediation. I am interested in including your perspectives in my position on the issue. In other words I am very open minded and actively seeking input. It is important to understand the difference between truth and verifiability and to be able to parse the two. Please contact me on my talk page to start collaborating on this and hopefully other interfacial articles.--Nick Y. 22:29, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Time again

There's now a discussion going on at talk:time about revising the introduction and definition of time (again). It could use review by actual physics-types, as this article has always had a high amount of attention from philosophers, and that seems to now be exclusively the case. --Christopher Thomas 05:47, 23 July 2006 (UTC)