Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive May 2012

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Blooming (laser)

I just noticed this while browsing: Blooming (laser) is a redirect to Directed-energy weapon, and the link from Bloom does not even hit the right paragraph. Is it really so insignificant outside of military applications that it does not even deserve its own article ? However, even if it is, someone who knows what he's doing should probably fix that disambiguation. --87.234.74.6 (talk) 23:28, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I have made a few adjustments. Blooming (laser) is now a disambiguation page that links to Directed-energy weapon#Blooming and Thermal blooming, which may be what you're looking for but is just a stub. I have also made corresponding changes to the redirects in Bloom. I'm not sure what you mean by not hitting the right paragraph, though - the link to Directed-energy weapon#Blooming has the title of that section at the top of the page. RockMagnetist (talk) 00:16, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I guess that works. I wasn't really looking for anything, just surfing around, but Thermal blooming seems to describe what I think Blooming (laser) should redirect to, as the phenomenon is far from limited to directed-energy weapons. By not hitting the right paragraph, I meant that the link from Bloom only showed the top of Directed-energy weapon and did not automatically scroll down to the paragraph about blooming, but instead the top of the page.I am not sure what caused this, and did not have the time to do the testing to actually find out. If I somehow manage to find to time to do so, I'll try to expand Thermal blooming a bit, but doing that and learning the wiki-how-to to make something halfway decent out of it is going to be very difficult for me, at best. --87.234.74.15 (talk) 17:29, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

The reason that it doesn't go to the specific paragraph is that links only go to section headers. Still, it should be close enough. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:37, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Elementary physics formulae

This article has stuck around for a long time. It is fully inferior in every way to the main articles

This article should just be blanked and redirected to list of physics formulae. Don't get me wrong - I appreciate the effort in creation, but it's quite pointless to maintain or even keep anymore. Does anyone disagree? F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 20:56, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Apparently there was a proposal, dating from September 2010, to merge Elementary physics formulae into list of physics formulae, and no one was objecting. Why not just perform the merge as requested? RockMagnetist (talk) 21:23, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

The comments here don't lead anywhere - they just state the obvious. Also within the last year the list of physics formulae has come a long way - far better than it ever was since its creation around 2007. There is nothing to merge, all the formulae in the articles above are more general than those in Elementary physics formulae. Can you find anything useful to copy and paste from Elementary physics formulae to list of physics formulae? F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 21:36, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

You don't have to actually cut and paste anything. A merge would just provide a record of why Elementary physics formulae became a redirect. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:54, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Ok. Lets just do that. F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 21:55, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Done. F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 22:04, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Reference-pushing at Dark matter

As they're new, I left a note on their talk page attempting to explain how WP:RS, WP:UNDUE, WP:COI, WP:BRD, and WP:CONS work, and encouraging them to take the matter up on the dark matter talk page rather than endlessly re-inserting it. Assuming they _do_ that, more eyes on the talk page would help, because I'm not in a position to vet their source publications. Initial impression is that they likely meet WP:RS but not WP:UNDUE (the papers mostly cite each other, as opposed to being cited by others). That said, I'm not an expert on the appropriate journals, so I'd appreciate talk-page comments from people who are.

The entire section on modified gravity could stand to be reviewed, as it looks like a number of models of this type have been added already (the original MOND proposals got press, but I don't know how much weight any of the others mentioned have). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 18:27, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Comment request on proposed renaming

Comments on Talk:Gravitomagnetism#Page move proposal: Gravitomagnetism → Gravitoelectromagnetism by interested editors would be appreciated. — Quondum ^☏ 08:07, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Minor request for help with disambiguation

Came across the page Hubble Bubble (astronomy) while reading around, and I noticed the phrase "...a local monopole in the peculiar velocity field, perhaps caused by a local void in the mass density." Someone disambiguated monopole to magnetic monopole a while back, but my feeling is this isn't correct, so I thought I'd bring it here for the attention of someone more qualified. --Tyrannus Mundi (talk) 22:19, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I just removed the link. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:48, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I linked it to Multipole expansion. JRSpriggs (talk) 06:29, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Really, the link problem is just a symptom of a jargon-heavy lead. It needs rewriting. RockMagnetist (talk) 15:30, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Condensed matter physics

I'd earlier asked for help suggestions with this article. I have now nominated it at WP:GAN, see review link. It'd be great if someone could help with reviews, comments, suggestions, or improving the article in general.

Thanks a lot, SPat ^talk 21:42, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the Wikipedia:Good article criteria etc, and haven’t much time right now, but I know you have worked with others extremely hard on that article, and would like to say thanks for this also. The article does look very well presented, organized, and well written. =) F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 17:09, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words! SPat ^talk 03:46, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

QED in Mathematical descriptions of the electromagnetic field

Could someone who knows QED please clarify this section, making the symbols and background to the equations more specific? (what exactly does a, ψ⁺, and ψ mean? there is no clear mention...) Cheers... F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 06:37, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

No expert so I'll stay out of it but the + there should be a dagger † meaning Hermetian adjoint. Dmcq (talk) 07:35, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Similar disclaimer for me, but it is clear F=q(E+v^B) has a point: ψ is clearly the state vector of the source field (e.g. electron field), and this is not stated at all; the reader might presume this to be the state vector of the photon field. — Quondum ^☏ 07:58, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

They are Fermion field operators. See articles on QED. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:55, 14 May 2012 (UTC).

I've tried to clarify it a bit. Let me know if it's better. Best, SPat ^talk 16:49, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

It is much better. Thank you SPat, that helps. =) F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 17:05, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Two different systems of units are used in the same section, Mathematical descriptions of the electromagnetic field#Extension to quantum electrodynamics. A substitution is done and magically, $\mu _{0}={\frac {1}{\epsilon _{0}}}=4\pi \,.$ JRSpriggs (talk) 19:31, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

As ever I didn't notice the mistake... So the QED Maxwell equations should be:

\nabla ^{2}\mathbf {A} -{\frac {1}{c^{2}}}{\frac {\partial ^{2}\mathbf {A} }{\partial t^{2}}}=\mu _{0}e\psi ^{\dagger }{\boldsymbol {\alpha }}\psi

\nabla ^{2}V-{\frac {1}{c^{2}}}{\frac {\partial ^{2}V}{\partial t^{2}}}={\frac {1}{\varepsilon _{0}}}e\psi ^{\dagger }\psi

? I made the change... Please don't tell me this is wrong... F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 20:37, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Overlap between Alternative formulations of Maxwell's equations and Maths of EM field

There is so much overlap between Mathematical descriptions of the electromagnetic field and the 2nd half of Maxwell's equations, an obvious point worth mentioning (though I havn't noticed it mentioned before, maybe others have said this)... All the Alternative formulations of Maxwell's equations in the 2nd half of that article (Potential formulation, relativistic tensor forms, differential forms, GA) are in the Maths of EM field article.

What should we do, if anything?

I'm NOT going to actually do anything (i.e. move all the formulation content, and certianly not to try to merge the articles), but perhaps moving the Alternative formulations of Maxwell's equations from Maxwell's equations to the Maths of EM field article, would reduce the byte count and amount of maths in Maxwell's equations, leaving the more complicated mathematical details to the article of that subject... F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 21:42, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I would propose this summary in Maxwell's equations, and condensing all the formalism text into one section after moving (only if so). The equation summary could be like this:

Formulation	Maxwell's equations
GA	$\left({\frac {1}{c}}{\dfrac {\partial }{\partial t}}+{\boldsymbol {\nabla }}\right)F=\mu _{0}cJ$
Differential forms	$\mathrm {d} \mathbf {F} =0$		$\mathrm {d} \,{*\mathbf {F} }=\mathbf {J}$
Tensor calculus (fields)	${\dfrac {\partial F_{\alpha \beta }}{\partial x^{\gamma }}}+{\dfrac {\partial F_{\gamma \alpha }}{\partial x^{\beta }}}+{\dfrac {\partial F_{\beta \gamma }}{\partial x^{\alpha }}}=0$		${\dfrac {\partial F^{\beta \alpha }}{\partial x^{\alpha }}}=\mu _{0}J^{\beta }$
Tensor calculus (potentials)	Lorenz gauge: $\Box A^{\mu }=\mu _{0}J^{\mu }$
QED, vector calculus (potentials)	identites		$\nabla ^{2}\varphi -{\frac {1}{c^{2}}}{\frac {\partial ^{2}\varphi }{\partial t^{2}}}={\frac {1}{\varepsilon _{0}}}e\psi ^{\dagger }\psi$	$\nabla ^{2}\mathbf {A} -{\frac {1}{c^{2}}}{\frac {\partial ^{2}\mathbf {A} }{\partial t^{2}}}=\mu _{0}e\psi ^{\dagger }{\boldsymbol {\alpha }}\psi$
Vector calculus (potentials)	identites		$\nabla ^{2}\varphi +{\frac {\partial }{\partial t}}\left(\mathbf {\nabla } \cdot \mathbf {A} \right)=-{\frac {\rho }{\varepsilon _{0}}}$	$\left(\nabla ^{2}\mathbf {A} -{\frac {1}{c^{2}}}{\frac {\partial ^{2}\mathbf {A} }{\partial t^{2}}}\right)-\mathbf {\nabla } \left(\mathbf {\nabla } \cdot \mathbf {A} +{\frac {1}{c^{2}}}{\frac {\partial \varphi }{\partial t}}\right)=-\mu _{0}\mathbf {J}$
Vector calculus (fields)	$\nabla \cdot \mathbf {B} =0$	$\nabla \times \mathbf {E} =-{\frac {\partial \mathbf {B} }{\partial t}}$	$\nabla \cdot \mathbf {E} ={\frac {\rho }{\epsilon _{0}}}$	$\nabla \times \mathbf {B} =\mu _{0}\mathbf {J} +{\frac {1}{c^{2}}}{\frac {\partial \mathbf {E} }{\partial t}}$

(reading up the table are the accumulations of equations which become collected together) but again - I'm not actually going to do anything at all. Just a suggestion. F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 22:06, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I am strongly in favour of collapsing this section into such a summary in Maxwell's equations; this article is already unmanageably long and more detail can be obtained via links. The GA formulation should be as stated for spacetime algebra i.e.

\nabla F=\mu _{0}cJ

– what is given I'd expect in APS. I'm not about to do it myself at this point, I wish I had the time. This thread should probably be moved to Talk:Maxwell's equations. — Quondum ^☏ 07:16, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

This thread has now started there. F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 08:22, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Terahertz radiation

Terahertz radiation may be headed to the main page via WP:ITN/C because of the Wi-Fi record set this week by Japanese researchers using the spectrum.[1] However, I'm no expert in the field. Would anyone more qualified in the topic be willing to doublecheck my additions to the article? Khazar2 (talk) 16:15, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Your changes look factually correct, though you might want to paraphrase a bit more (several sentences are very close to what was in the press release). I'm not convinced that these results deserve that much space - they're incremental milestones, and IMO would best be given a sentence each at most - but I don't feel particularly strongly about it. I'm surprised that tunnel diodes can reach frequencies that high, but I've been surprised enough times before. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 22:10, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look (and thanks to everybody else who appears to have gone from this page to there). I'll doublecheck myself for close paraphrasing as well. (I often struggle with this on the technical stuff).

As for length, FWIW, this was front-page news on the BBC yesterday (and the day's most popular article). If wireless developments with T-rays become routine, though, I'll be fine with seeing this trimmed back. Khazar2 (talk) 02:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

It's not that I think it'll be routine per se (though lab tests of it arguably already are). It's that I think it's a "flash in the pan" - an interesting technology that I doubt will see much application, due to the fact that it's pretty much line-of-sight. Even within the high end of single-digit GHz, signals are stopped or strongly-attenuated by walls. They also lose their ability to diffract around obstacles/corners (1 GHz and below will do this readily). We've had cheap, readily available means to transmit this way for a long time: LEDs and photodiodes (throw in MEMS gratings if you want to do WDM). It's used in niche applications (remote controls, IrDA data links), but I'm having trouble seeing what t-waves do that IR doesn't, for networking.

That said, this is just my opinion. Per WP:CRYSTAL, we shouldn't be assuming anything about how popular or not, or routine or not, it'll be in the future. It's made the news for now; the paragraph will either shrink or grow to reflect long-term relevance in due time. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 05:09, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Makes sense... thanks again for the look and input. Khazar2 (talk) 17:16, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Planck constant

More eyes are needed on a proposed change by a newbie at Talk:Planck constant#The Entire Discussion under "Uncertainty Principle.... Is this going too far off topic? Spinning Spark 08:26, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

People are usually allowed to ramble on as much as they like on talk pages. Article space is another matter. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:07, 17 May 2012 (UTC).

Rambling is generally discouraged as wikipedia isn't a forum (policy): WP:FORUM. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:44, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

My concern was not rambling on the talk page, but that the rambling is crystallising into something about to be inserted into the article. Hence the reason for bringing it here. I do not mean "off-topic" for the talk page but off-topic if it were inserted in the article. Someone knowledgable really needs to review this. Spinning Spark 14:22, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Flux density

This article is extraordinarily padded for concept, its trivial to define flux and flux density mathematically... There are merge tags between that article and electromagnetic field, but flux density seems to be written from a general perspective and then describes EM. It should be merged into flux - if anywhere. Opinions? =) F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 16:46, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

It is evident that the merge tag into electromagnetic field should be removed; the overwhelming opinion supports this. As to whether to merge with flux, I offer no opinion, due to the different definitions of the term flux confusing the matter. — Quondum ^☏ 17:06, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

To be honest this article (flux density) should just be blanked and redirected to flux, since everything in flux density is essentially covered in flux (and obviously the main articles magnetic flux, electric flux etc). For now I'll remove the banners - they are not even worth the markup that generates them... F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 17:27, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Incidentally, the flux article in the electromagnetism section is potentially confusing in that it uses E where D would be expected and appears to be following (without explicitly stating) some pre-SI system of units. Spinning Spark 19:41, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Its not worth the effort to maintain or keep. I'm going to blank and redirect to flux. F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 20:01, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Done. F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 20:03, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Outdated articles?

Comments on Wikipedia:Village_pump_(idea_lab)#Static_vs_dynamic_topics:_seriously_outdated_articles will be appreciated, so we can get a general perspective on this. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 05:02, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

You say that the integrated circuit packaging article is "a disaster" (on the VP page) and "needs a rewrite", but gave absolutely no indication of what you'd want changed. My usual response to comments like that is to discard them out of hand (I see that sort of thing from time to time in cosmology articles, usually from people pushing fringe topics; a comment that gives no specific complaints also gives no means to address those complaints).

Your edits are usually of decent quality from what I've seen, and as a result I value your opinions, so please spell out either here or on talk:integrated circuit packaging what your actual problems with that article are, without hyperbole. The most anyone else has said is "factually correct but hasn't been updated", which is a far cry from "disaster" status. Care to clarify? --Christopher Thomas (talk) 07:03, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation endorsing Access2Research

Hey all

The Wikimedia Foundation has decided to endorse Access2Research and its petition to make research funded by the US government publicly accessible. This will be done by way of a blog post on Friday morning PST; as noted, we are not trying to speak on behalf of the community, but just the Foundation itself. You can read more in the FAQ, and leave any comments or questions you might have on its talkpage.

Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:27, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I believe that the government should not fund research (other than classified military research) which will not be made publicly available in the near future. However, going through the White House to do this seems inappropriate to me. The President is merely supposed to execute the laws. The policies and laws of the United States are supposed to be decided upon by the Congress, not the President. So a proper petition would be directed at the Congress and not at the President. Also it is paradoxical that the White House would be collecting signatures to petition itself. Thus this appears to me to be a political gimmick by the Obama administration to try to get support and addresses to use during the current Presidential campaign. Since Obama has been a disaster as President, this is not something of which we should be part. JRSpriggs (talk) 04:59, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

This is the WikiProject Physics talkpage. As the message above states, the right place to discuss this petition is on its talk page. RockMagnetist (talk) 05:33, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Notice that that talk page was not linked in the message to which I was replying. Discussing this there rather than here would not reach most of those here who would be tempted to sign the petition. JRSpriggs (talk) 09:35, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, no, it wasn't linked directly. I assumed anyone who read "You can read more in the FAQ, and leave any comments or questions you might have on its talkpage." would be capable of going to the page and then clicking "talk". Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:24, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I take it this petition is US only. It would be nice for the EU equivalent :) IRWolfie- (talk) 10:21, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Thankfully (whee!) the EU's pretty much at the stage we're asking for :). Many EU nations are, at least individually, far ahead of the US. If you see a similar petition crop up, though, let me know! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:24, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Power spectrum estimation

Our coverage of power spectrum estimation (spectral density estimation) seems very weak, with very little bringing together or contrasting the different methods, or giving historical perspective. Indeed, most articles looking for a signal processing treatment of the subject appear to have been being redirected to spectrum analyzer, about a hardware box with very little discussion of algorithms usually used in pure-software methods.

In particular, there is very little discussion of all-poles versus all-zeros methods. There appears to be nothing at all about John Parker Burg or the Burg algorithm. We have quite a detailed article on the Levinson recursion, but nothing to say that this is perhaps its most important application. Linear predictive coding appears to exist in a silo of its own, without even a link to ARMA modelling; while in turn the article on ARMA models doesn't appear to mention power spectrum estimation at all. Autoregressive model is a bit better, but doesn't give any sense how a pure AR fit is likely to compare to other fits.

It probably doesn't help that spectral analysis goes to a dab page, and the top link spectrum analysis that probably ought to be merged into spectroscopy.

This is very poor. Given the importance of this topic in signal processing and applications, we ought to be able to match at minimum the level of discussion in Numerical Recipes at least. But at the moment we're way short. Anybody out there willing to step up to the plate? Jheald (talk) 09:23, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Cross-posted to WT:WPSTATS, WT:WPMATH -- Jheald (talk) 09:30, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Discussion moved to Talk:Spectral density estimation#Coverage. --TSchwenn (talk) 17:11, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

List of scientific constants named after people

The list of scientific constants named after people should obviously be a hundred times as long as it is. Work on it. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:19, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

But first, establish notability. RockMagnetist (talk) 22:40, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I would rather delete the list and replace it with categories in the relevant constants' articles. Ideally we could categorize them as both eponym and scientific constant and let the requested category intersection feature generate a list, but that feature request appears to have stalled. So how about just creating an eponymous scientific constant category? Or maybe this is all an exercise in overcategorization? --TSchwenn (talk) 22:02, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

It's a terrible article and no one should be told to "Work on it" without so much as a please - we are all volunteers. Besides, wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Deleting and replacing with categories would be fine if deemed necessary. Polyamorph (talk) 15:05, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

I think that's a good suggestion, notablity is far from apparent. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:53, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

There are several other lists of eponyms: Scientific laws named after people, Scientific phenomena named after people, List of eponymous laws, List of waves named after people, List of hydrodynamic instabilities named after people, List of fluid flows named after people (see also Category:Lists of eponyms). None of them seem to have established notability. Perhaps there should be a joint AfD on them. RockMagnetist (talk) 03:03, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Before the AfD is filed, it's probably prudent to figure out who made these lists and whether (and where) there was discussion about their creation. One list could be someone's pet project, but several implies that it was at one point considered a good idea to make these. That doesn't mean they must be kept; just that finding the original discussion for context is likely prudent. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 10:13, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not advocating hasty action. We could start by tagging them with {{Notability|Lists}} and starting a discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists. RockMagnetist (talk) 14:38, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

I have done the tagging and notifying. In doing so I discovered that there is a WikiProject Anthroponymy! Sadly, the only list that establishes notability is List of medical eponyms with Nazi associations. RockMagnetist (talk) 18:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Arbitration RFC that may be relevant

There have been enough physics-related disputes that hit arbitration that I think this RFC is relevant to WP:PHYS:

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Effect of arbitration processes on editor retention

If there are changes that could be made to arbcom that would make editing on the wiki less draining, I'd be all for it. If you have ideas, or wish to comment on others' suggestions, the link above is a good place to do so.

If you have ideas about how other parts of the wiki process or ruleset could be changed to make editing here less draining, my understanding is that WP:VPP is a good place for that (though check WP:PERENNIAL first; some things keep getting proposed and shot down over and over again).

Note: Making such proposals _here_ in this thread is _not_ very useful. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 02:31, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Casimir Effect

Yesterday I was reading up on a revolutionary deep space propulsion system that was pioneered by a 19 year old university student that uses the Casimir Effect. I was surprised this was not in wikipedia yet. I would suggest creating a subsection called "Propulsion System for Spacecraft" within the Applications section, but I am unsure whether the following references are noteworthy within the scientific world. Here are some links that backup this alleged breakthru which are potential references:

http://www.fastcompany.com/1837966/mustafas-space-drive-an-egyptian-students-quantum-physics-invention

http://www.sparkingdawn.com/2012/05/aisha-mustafa-warp-drive/#!prettyPhoto

http://www.onislam.net/english/health-and-science/science/457096-egyptian-student-invents-a-new-propulsion-method.html

I suggest someone with a keen interest in the topic insert's the material they feel appropriate in the Casimir Effect article by creating the subsection accordingly or as they see fit. I imagine this would be subject to the finding of more appropriate references, should they be required. I dont really have time to get into this article (or others) right now. Arkatakor (talk) 06:26, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

These are press releases. They claim that a net force can be produced, but I'll believe that when someone measures it - it's far more likely to be an error with the analysis of the proposed system, than a loophole in Newton's Laws. The basis for the claimed effect has been known for quite a while (one of the press releases cites a 1995 IEEE article about MEMS devices based on it), so it would be surprising (to say the least) if such a loophole had been overlooked.

If you want a policy-based argument, then I'd say that a claim like this will require better sources (bona fide academic publications at bare minimum) to be considered reliably-sourced as fact. The fact that a claim was made can be sourced to the press releases, but I'd wait to see if it makes a bigger splash before considering it noteworthy enough to include on that account (per WP:UNDUE). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 10:22, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

I thought as much. What kind of web publications / sites (if any) are normally used to verify claims of such magnitude within the scientific community? Arkatakor (talk) 15:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

A paper in a mainstream peer reviewed publication would be a good start. a13ean (talk) 16:38, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Web publications? None, though citation databases for reputable journals will usually be online. Web-based press releases about reputable research will usually give the name of the journal in which the actual research papers were published in, though, and will mention the name of the scientist leading the research and the institution they're working at. From there, it's straightforward to start sifting through journal publications.

Regarding which journals are reputable for physics claims, I could list a few names, but I'll leave that to editors here who are actually physicists (I'm CE/EE, so I'd likely make mistakes with that). The 1995 paper linked was a CE/EE paper in IEEE Journal of (MEMS), which is reputable but doesn't describe a Newton's Laws violation. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 21:52, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Bell's Theorem

The article on Bell's theorem has been taken over by fringe lunatics. Every time I remove references to the discredited work of Joy Christian, and other totally un-notable authors, Joy Christian himself comes back and undos the edit. I think this s an example of vandalism and promoting own research. But if nobody is interested in this article, it can better be left to the cranks, to do with it whatever they like. Richard Gill (talk) 18:23, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Also adding to WP:FRINGE/N. a13ean (talk) 18:27, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

The material is completely undue, I've removed it as a result. IRWolfie- (talk) 18:49, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Note that the editor has so far refused to engage on his talk page User_talk:Interintel or on the Bell's theorem page and even reverted Gill attempts to discuss [2], I have warned the editor and will take things to WP:AN3 if the editor continues to edit war. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:14, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Reverting a request to discuss changes on the talk page, that's a new one on me! Dmcq (talk) 20:45, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

What's more, there were several edits like that one, from two different accounts: [3], [4], [5]. Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:11, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

If it can be established that this user is indeed Joy Christian, that would be a conflict of interest. It might be anyway. Note, in particular, the consequences of ignoring the COI guideline. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:23, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

If there's only a single editor edit-warring, step 1 is to establish clear consensus among other editors that they shouldn't be making those changes (via a talk-page thread on the article), and step 2 is to visit WP:AIV when they continue reverting. Once you've established that an editor's actions are disruptive, and can say "editor (foo) is making a series of disruptive edits (diff)(diff)(diff) against established consensus (thread link) after being warned (diff)", dealing with them becomes straightfoward.

Problems only occur if you have warring between groups of editors, where establishing consensus isn't clear.

Regarding COI, people are actually allowed to edit; they're just strongly encouraged to be careful while doing so. The blockable bit is "self-promotion", not editing in one's own field, and for that you'd need discussion on the talk page establishing that it _was_ against consensus (violating WP:UNDUE or similar). I'd argue focusing on the disruption rather than trying to use COI as a rationale for action, for that reason.

The interesting bit is that I could have sworn there was an arbitration case involving Bell's Inequality a while back. It might be worth digging that out of the archives to see if any of the present actions are related to it. If this is the return of an old party rather than a new party showing up, WP:AE tends to bring down the hammer rather quickly. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 21:59, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Numbered figures

A couple of our top-importance articles (Hysteresis and Equipartition theorem) number their images for reference with, say, "Figure 1: ..." in the caption. The numbering is added manually, and the trouble with this system is apparent at Hysteresis: the figures are out of order (1, 4, 3, 2). Also note that many of the figure numbers at Equipartition theorem are never referred to in the text. What can we do to fix these issues with minimal hassle?

An automatic numbering feature was requested (and ignored) circa 2003, but I have another idea: replace the figure numbers with a bold "Figure title ..." in the image captions, like I've done with the lead image caption at Equipartition. This bold figure title could serve as the handle for its respective image in the text, with the advantage of semantic value. It would also be relatively robust under future article expansion/reordering, and some figures could go untitled or unreferenced without apparent inconsistency. What do you think? --TSchwenn (talk) 19:42, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

While I don't have a good solution, and can't seem to find a useful guideline, I oppose the proposed solution on the basis of MOS:CAPTION: "The text of captions should not be specially formatted (with italics, for example), except in ways that would apply if it occurred in the main text." Hopefully someone else has a good way of referencing figures in the main text. 786b6364 (talk) 23:50, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

In Hysteresis, it is easy enough to remove all references to figure numbers. I have done that. RockMagnetist (talk) 23:58, 29 May 2012 (UTC)