Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive September 2010

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.

Rainer W. Kühne

This article portrayed Kühne as a physics genius. Indeed he has published a few papers, but their impact is close to zero (just look him up in Web of Science, and you'll see...) As a physicist, he's definitely not notable (I can't judge the stuff about Atlantis). I've shortened the article accordingly and removed it from the List of theoretical physicists, however I was reverted a couple of times by Kühne's fans, so that I'm now in danger of violating the 3RR rule. Could some of the regulars here in en:WP keep an eye on the article, please? (I'm usually editing in the German WP and only stumbled across this article because de:Rainer W. Kühne is currently a nominee for deletion in de:WP) Many thanks --Juesch (talk) 12:21, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Nominated for deletion here. Materialscientist (talk) 00:11, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Boltzmann system

The article titled Boltzmann system has multiple problems. Wikipedia physicists, get on it. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:39, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

It can be safely deleted as nonsense, and I've tagged it so. Physchim62 (talk) 02:42, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Black hole naming controversies

This thread at Talk:Black hole caught my attention. The linked article, Black hole naming controversies (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), seems to be the pet project of Stonemason89 (talk · contribs). It was prodded on 24 August 2010, and the prod was promptly removed. I think it's AfD time, as I agree with 86.185.107.96 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)'s assertion that the article is non-notable, and with GregoryCJohnson (talk · contribs)'s assertion that it's at best puzzling and at worst deliberately inflammatory for the link to be in the Black hole article. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 06:07, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

It is absurd for anyone to demand that we stop using the words for the colors white and black (or red or yellow for that matter) just because someone might mistakenly jump to the conclusion that we are talking about race. Color is a much more fundamental and important attribute of things than race prejudice. In particular, black holes are notable for being black since they emit nothing. JRSpriggs (talk) 08:21, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm deleting the article as idiocy. — kwami (talk) 09:15, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, I've heard that initially the French translation of "black hole" had failed to catch on because of its sexual connotations. A. di M. (talk) 09:23, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

A. di M. -> LOL!

kwami -> Good job, and thank you. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 09:38, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

This is a completely out of process deletion for an article that was referenced and about a real topic. People are morons yes, but that doesn't mean their stupidity doesn't exist. I'm taking this to deletion review. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 09:40, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

The deletion review thread can be found here. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 09:50, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Headbomb, the title is obviously misleading - it is not about Black Holes at all, or naming black holes. The article is just a venue to stir things up, and a cover to make disparging remarks against certain groups of people. This was hardly a real topic. The subject matter had nothing to do with the title. There was no sources supporting controversial names for black holes. And it had no connection with black holes as astronomical phenomena - even the WikiProject Astronomy tag on the talk page was misleading. There was no connection to astronomy in this article. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 09:51, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm fully aware of that this has nothing to do with black holes and does not fall within the scope of either WP:PHYS or WP:AST. But that has little relevance on whether the article should exist or not. Bad templates can be removed, and issues with the title can always be fixed via the standard method of page moves. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 09:56, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the fixes in principle (page move, etc.) but to me the content of the article was really offensive. Of course, I suppose, that could be fixed as well by a group of editors. Then finally we can get into issues of notability, encyclopedic, etc. etc. So, I see what you are saying. However, I don't think a notable topic could have been created from this material. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 10:25, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

It is written on the French wiki page for Black hole. There were some reluctances in some linguistic comunities in particular French and Russian. The wiki page give the following source: Kip S. Thorne, Trous noirs et distorsions du temps in english Thorne, Kip, Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy, W W Norton & Company, 1994 (ISBN 0-393-31276-3) --Crazy runner (talk) 09:46, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

If, as Headbomb has suggested, the deletion of this article was overly speedy and not according to the proper process, then should the deletion review restore the article and then have it sent to Afd or should we short circuit that and just do the Afd arguments at the deletion review? JRSpriggs (talk) 16:26, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Restored and AfD is the proper way to do it yes. Deletion review is the place to complain about process not having been followed, or about bad closures (such as something that resulted in "delete" when there was "no consensus"). The place to argue for deletion is at AfD. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:22, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that as long as the article is not visible (i.e. undeleted) to those who haven't seen it, there can be no proper Afd discussion. DVdm (talk) 16:33, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

At deletion review there is a link to the Google cache version. Hans Adler 16:46, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed. Thanks! DVdm (talk) 19:58, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

The article still needs to be undeleted so people can edit it, improve on it, fix problems, add sources, etc... and all the other things that happens during deletion discussions. And other projects (although which project this falls into i don't know) should be notified as well.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:19, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Notice that the cached version of the article mentioned by Hans Adler is no longer available. JRSpriggs (talk) 08:13, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Content is available through history again. DVdm (talk) 09:20, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

FYI, the speedy deletion of Black hole naming controversies was overturned by Courcelles (talk · contribs) as a result of the deletion review, and in the same act it was sent to AfD. So those who want to try to save it should now go to work to fix it up. And those who want it deleted should polish their arguments. JRSpriggs (talk) 10:32, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Neutronium Categories

Please look at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals#Neutronium Categories. It concerns the suggested elementhood of neutronium.--Plasmic Physics (talk) 11:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

variable star physics

FYI, there is a request for attention at Low dimensional chaos in stellar pulsations and Stellar pulsation theory – Regular versus irregular variability

76.66.197.151 (talk) 05:13, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Colour confinement at Talk:List of unsolved problems in physics

Additional comments would be useful from people with a better QCD background than I have. The relevant thread is at Talk:List of unsolved problems in physics#Confinement. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 21:13, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

FTL and time travel

A request has been made at Talk:Faster-than-light#request for an example that a section be added describing the equivalence of FTL and time travel. It's mentioned several times in the article, but the original poster couldn't find either an explanation or a link to one. They've made it clear that they're not just looking for that piece of information (I gave a description of it); they'd like a short description of it in the article itself, which I'm not in a position to do (though it does sound like a good thing to include). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 17:41, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

There is already a tachyonic antitelephone article. A summary and pointer could be left at faster-than-light (and the article itself could stand some work). --Trovatore (talk) 19:00, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Doubochinski's pendulum

Doubochinski's pendulum is a complete orphan, i.e. no other articles link to it.

Work on it. Michael Hardy (talk) 21:24, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I added one link.Chhe (talk) 00:52, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I should point out though that I wasn't even able to find any publications of this doubochinski pendulum, smells fishy. I added a link anyway though, even the strange stuff needs links too I guess.Chhe (talk) 01:18, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Check the image's copyright release information - it was (allegedly) created by the person after whom this was named. This seems likely to be self-promotion to me. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 03:23, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

What I don't like about this article is that it's not really put in the proper context. Many if not most nonlinear systems can have bistable or multistable behavior. There's nothing unusual or remarkable about finding a multistable system, per se. But they are implying in the text (and saying in the references) that this system is "unusual", and that it is a marvelous connection between classical and quantum mechanics. Likewise, instead of using the standard terms like "multistability" and "fixed point", they use the more-exotic-sounding terms "quantization", "quantized level", etc.

That's just my first immediate impression--that the presentation is misleading and out of the proper context. --Steve (talk) 03:50, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Repeated insertion of nonsense title and irrelevant article

Can someone else take a look at this user who is repeatedly inserting the same link into Born rule and Interpretations of quantum mechanics? The title given is simply nonsense and does not match the URL which is to a paper but one seemingly unrelated to the topics, and edit summaries have been largely unenlightening, except two which again seem not to match the paper linked.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 23:24, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Persistent vandalism. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:41, 16 September 2010 (UTC).

Usual self-promotion. Warned. Immediately blockable if resumes. Materialscientist (talk) 23:47, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

The paper is related to the topic, but we still shouldn't link to that paper as it is just a preprint, so not yet published and certainly not notable at this time. There are, however, other previously proposed "derivations" of the Born rule based on game theory that are notable enough to be mentioned. And Zurek's derivation based on "envariance" (entanglement assisted invariance), is obviously notable enough to be mentioned too. Zurek's derivation is simple enough to be reproduced in the article itself. Count Iblis (talk) 23:48, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/OECC

I invite participants in this WikiProject to see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/OECC.—Wavelength (talk) 16:24, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Thank you, User:Steve Quinn, for improving the article "OECC".—Wavelength (talk) 03:54, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 21:17, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Directed Energy Weapons

I am concerned about the article entitled Directed-energy weapon, which has recently come to my attention. I proposed it for deletion because it is a mixed bag. In other words, given the introduction, it is not clear what is the topic of this article. The introduction mixes science, and science fiction, along with toys, film props and animation. However, it appears that science and science fiction are given equal weight, if not more to science fiction.

Also the term "directed energy weapon" appears to encompass lasers, particle beam weapons, sonic weapons and flame throwers (yes, flame throwers) in the introduction. Later in the article it appears radar jamming is being described as a directed energy weapon in Iraq, here. So, as I write this, I am beginning to get the sense of WP:SYN. However, this is only part of my concern.

It contains unsourced scientific statements (throughout the article), and a quick overview seems to indicate that the body of the article does not support the introduction.

This article appears to be some sort of main article which uses summary style and links to other main articles. Some of these other main articles also appear to be WP:SYN. I haven't looked at the history section yet. In any case, it seems apparent that this is truly a "mixed bag". I suppose my concern is how can all this be straightened out? I did provide feedback, because someone asked why I would propose it for deletion. The feedback is here. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 20:43, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Almost all offensive weapons work by delivering energy to a target in a way that cannot be controlled by the target so that the target is thereby disrupted. The only exception which comes readily to my mind is poison gas. However, the usual form of energy weapons is either explosives or high-speed projectiles or a combination; these are excluded from the article. So yes, it seems like a synthesis of stuff which has no common theme other than being unusual weapons. JRSpriggs (talk) 07:41, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Heim Theory

I think the Heim theory has a lot of potential. Anyone willing to help clean it up?--Novus Orator 02:25, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Not me. Fringe science, and needs to be identified as such. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:27, 19 September 2010 (UTC).

Could you at least get a reference from a reputable source that calls it a fringe science to help balance out the lead? Right now, it seems that every physicist mentioned in the article eludes to it directly as being worthy of furthur study or at least admitting former criticism was invalid. If there is a lot of consensus in the Physics community that this is considered a fringe theory, please cite your sources WP:V and add to the article's coverage.--Novus Orator 02:40, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

The onus is on its proponents to show that it is accepted by the mainstream. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:00, 19 September 2010 (UTC).

Only if it truly is a fringe theory, which hasn't been properly confirmed in the article yet.--Novus Orator 03:16, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Note that this article narrowly survived a VFD back in 2005 or 2006. I actually voted to keep the article, because you can have articles on any topic on Wikipedia. Then what we decided to do (to keep the peace) was to not stick to the official Wiki-rules and make up ad hoc rules for that article. On the one hand, we would let the Heim-theory enthusiast write about their theory from sources, but we would not invoke the usual Wiki-rules like WP:WEIGHT etc. that constrain in how much detail you can write about fringe theories. On the other hand, would also allow criticisms of the theory based on standard theoretical physics arguments, even if those arguments cannot be directly cited from the literature. So, violations of WP:OR and WP:SYNT would be tolerated to allow such arguments debunking Heim theory in.

I rewrote the article to make it more acceptable after the VFD and later User:SCZenz also put a lot of work into it under the ad hoc rules we agreed to. What we did back in 2006 would, I think, be heresy today, given the current fundamentalistic attitude toward the Wiki-rules and policies. Count Iblis (talk) 03:35, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Google Scholar gives two hits to the publications of B Heim with 9 and 8 cites respectively. Authors of Mainsteam theories would normally have many thousands of cites. Case proved that his work is not accepted or even noted in mainstream science. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:54, 19 September 2010 (UTC).

@Iblis I guess that attitude towards editing this article explains why it has languished so much. If it truly is a fringe theory, like I'm getting the picture of, there should be substantial information out there confirming that it is fringe. Instead the article I find has a whole bibliography of sources and references (many of them peer reviewed) supporting the subject. So far no-one has contributed this much-needed (sourced) criticism to the article. Do you have a solution?--Novus Orator 03:57, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

@Xxanthippe Would the solution to this (considering that he is not notable amongst the scientific community-at least according to Google Scholar) be inclusion of sourced criticism from experts who confirm that it is fringe in the lead?--Novus Orator 03:59, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I've fought the fringe-theory fight a few times. It's generally very unrewarding, given WP policy on consensus. The theory usually has at least a couple radical defenders who will game the system to protect their baby. Fell Gleaming ^talk 04:01, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that this is not just fringe, like Modified Newtonian dynamics is fringe. In the latter case the theory is still respectable enough for the general science community to have considered it and put some decent limits on the theory. Heim theory is not taken serious as a theory at all. This poses a problem for Wikipedia, because you can't then put in the arguments why it is wrong if you want to stick to the rules. Count Iblis (talk) 04:03, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmm...Well like @FellGleaming was saying, consensus is key to Wikipedia approval, so I guess my question would be; has any reputable Physicist done a well thought-out critique of Heim theory and then presented it for peer-review? Or has the theory simply not attracted enough limelight for physicists to care-even if it has some working principles to it?--Novus Orator 04:08, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

There are interesting issues here. I agree with Count Iblis and others that Wikipedia should have articles on fringe science, pseudoscience and its practitioners. They are of interest as a pathology of psychology and culture, particularly if they are widely espoused in the popular domain. However such articles have to be labelled clearly to indicate their nature. We do not want naive readers to be misled into thinking that they represent views accepted by the scientific mainstream. How to sort the sheep from the goats? The easiest thing is to see if they are discussed in the mainstream literature via, for example, Google Scholar or the other citation databases. The answer to the question of whether any physicist has done a critique of Heim theory is probably no. It doesn't even approach the level where it is worth the time of a physicist to discuss it. They have better things to do with their time. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:28, 19 September 2010 (UTC).

I was able to add another Physicist who has criticized Heim theory.--Novus Orator 05:36, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that the criticism section has been greatly expanded, and the whole article is looking a lot sleaker. Please help prepare Heim theory for peer review.--Novus Orator 05:44, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I corrected some grammar, took out some of the peacocking and "gee-whiz" nonsense from the lede. Fell Gleaming ^talk 05:49, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Great! I left a thank-you on your talk page. I really appreciate the help.--Novus Orator 05:52, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Is there any way to place a notice at the top of the aritcle that this is considered fringe science, or science that is outside the mainstream? [1]. Also, I doubt very much that criticisms based on arguments, which cannot be directly cited from the literature, are given a free pass, and hence, allowed to be part of the content. That sounds worse than sparsely documented fringe science. In other words, I doubt violations of WP:OR and WP:SYNT would be tolerated to allow such arguments debunking Heim theory into the article. Do you have a link for this discussion? I am willing to be proven wrong. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 06:24, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I will look. I think that our contents under dispute notice on the talk page is a good start.--Novus Orator 06:27, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I think Heim was a legitimate researcher (in his own way). He just happened to be more brilliant then probably 95% of physicists who look at his work. Even John Reed (Ph.D in Physics) admitted that it needs a closer look after first criticizing it. I don't deny that it is outside the mainstream research, but a term like fringe connotes inferiority, while of what little I have seen of his work and the resultant criticism, he was operating on a superior level of computation compared to his peers...--Novus Orator 06:32, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

With the greatest respect, what one person thinks of the subject is irrelevant to WP:Notability and verges on WP:SYN. Whether a subject is regarded as being in the scientific mainstream is determined by whether it is cited by the scientific mainstream. This may be obtained very easily from the citation databases. In the case of Heim's work citations are minimal. The article needs a WP:NPOV warning and considerable pruning of superfluous material. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:53, 19 September 2010 (UTC).

I am thinking that Count IBIS meant to say that original research papers produced by Burkhard Heim, Walter Dröscher and Jochem Häuser, were given a pass (so to speak) as being allowed to be used as sources. It was probably the critisms that had to stringently follow guidelines and policies. I come to this conclusion after editing and matching sources in the introduction. It is OK because everyone makes mistakes, and no one has a perfect memory. Especially after three and four years. This can easily happen to someone who has a lot of contributions on Wikipedia, over the years.

Also, I agree that the article needs a WP:NPOV warning. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 07:31, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I put the neutrality poster on top of the page and will get to work trimming the article down..--Novus Orator 07:32, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

The discussions regarding application of polices happened a long time ago, I don't remember very well who said what when. However, we did include arguments against Heim theory in the article that strictly speaking violate WP:SYNT. Most of them are still in the article, particularly the objections against new light particles (neutral electron and two extra neutrinos). Count Iblis (talk) 16:46, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, that is interesting. Thanks for the feedback, and the correction regarding my response. Your feeback may actually alert us to corrections that might (or might not) need to be made in the article. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 20:00, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Physics articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Physics articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:28, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

The relativity task force (which is inactive) received a similar message at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Taskforces/Relativity#Relativity articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release. JRSpriggs (talk) 03:51, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

All taskforces probably will receive such a notice in due time. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 06:54, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Unorthodox Physics edits

Anyone care to check out the last four edits in the Physics article. The first edit goes like this:

Physics (Ancient Greek: φύσις physis "nature") is a natural science that involves the study of the composition of reality, including matter,[1] energy, space and time (called "space-time").

I figured I will let someone else revert this set of WP:OR. Steve Quinn (talk) 02:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh I forgot to mention the explanation in the edit history:

Feynman is misquoted here ~ not everything is 'made of atoms' and physics is not just about 'matter' by the standard definition ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 02:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The first sentence of the aritcle has been refined to read:

Physics is the natural science that studies reality and its composition, including matter,[1] energy, space and time (called "space-time").

This editor must be a genius (LOL!). He may have created a new paradigm! (LOL!)

Some of us will recognize the name of the editor. I guess he feels the need for attention. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 02:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

One-electron universe

That sounds like total nonsense to me. The difference between an electron and a proton isn't just the mass, and I can't think of a way which would make a lepton look like a baryon in the Standard Model; if someone has hypothesised some "new" mechanism able to do that, I'd demand a reliable source stating that, per WP:Exceptional claims require exceptional sources. A. di M. (talk) 17:46, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure they meant "positron" instead of "proton", though I agree that their wormhole mechanism is still very fringe. The idea behind OEU is that, if you draw a Feynman diagram of the universe, you can draw a single line that traces all electron and positron edges if you make appropriate declarations about electrons being "hidden" within neutrons and a few other particles. The catch is, once you've finished declaring what all of the hidden cases are, all it ends up saying is "charge is conserved" (you're using electrons as a unit of exchange of charge and keeping track of where charge ends up), which tells us nothing that wasn't already assumed for other reasons (making it untestable). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 18:09, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

We now have another prolific anon (89.110.4.94 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)) adding original material to one-electron universe. I've reverted it, but having additional people watching the article would be handy. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 17:35, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Scientific mainstream-In or Out?

At Talk:Heim theory there is a debate going on about whether science citation databases like Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science can be used to give an indication of whether a topic is inside or outside the scientific mainstream. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:15, 22 September 2010 (UTC).

They can, but you have to know in advance which journals are considered reputable in any given field, and filter the results based on that. Anything that's considered mainstream will have publications from multiple independent groups in well-respected journals, and will mostly _not_ cite their own group's work. Things that are non-mainstream but respected will only have one or two groups working on them, with correspondingly more within-group citation, but will at least be published in respected journals. Things that are fringe won't be published in respected journals, and usually also are the work of one group of researchers or one or two individuals.

The tools you list can give some idea of both where papers on a topic are published, and what patterns exist in these papers' references. The fact that they turn up publications in the first place, though, does not establish mainstreamness or notability. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 07:09, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

True indeed. Judgement, which many Wilipedia editors of this page have, is needed to interpret results. But where there are no citations there can be no notability. Little judgement is needed for that. Xxanthippe (talk) 07:23, 22 September 2010 (UTC).

Xxanthippe, I keep coming back to that (notability) myself regarding this article. We may have to let this one go, because it can't satisfy the notability criteria. I think AfD is the only way to clear up this situation. And I don't expect it will tally up to keep. I have nothing personal against the article. It is just that if it doesn't meet the standards for inclusion, then I think that is the higer priority here. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 07:31, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Not quite true. Without journal publications, something is not accepted as science, but I doubt time cube has many refereed publications either. If something is established as being fringe, per the criteria in my original response, it's time to look outside of academic publications to see whether it's noteworthy fringe work. In this case, if memory serves there were a couple of popular-press write-ups speculating about it being a new dark-horse theory-of-everything. If so, that wouldn't make it scientific, but would make it something that should be kept.

The caveat is that if it's established as being fringe, it shouldn't be presented as non-fringe anywhere else, or given undue weight in articles discussing mainstream science concepts (per my removal of links at FTL and elsewhere). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 12:35, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree it's notable fringe science. Fell Gleaming ^talk 13:02, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks. One other issue is - these articles have their own namespace equal to mainstream science articles. The only way these appear to be presnted as fringe science is to say so in the introduction, and throughout the article. However, is this sufficient? Should there be some standard label, or template (at the top), so a reader knows right away that this or that particular article is fringe? Or perhaps this is not necessary---- Steve Quinn (talk) 15:12, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

It's been tried, with Template:Infobox pseudoscience and Category:Pseudoscience. These have drawn enough flack when used that I've long-since stopped advocating their use. Add or not as you see fit; just expect backlash. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 15:22, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Christopher, I meant to back to you sooner. Thanks for the tip about the Infobox and category. I don't know if I will try these or not. I suppose I should not be surprised that these draw flack, but I am. So I am guessing there are people who believe in their pet theory, and do not want their pet theory challenged. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 17:54, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Pretty much. Most articles about fringe topics on Wikipedia typically attract at least one or two people who do not consider them fringe, and who are very industrious about a) modifying the article to present it as widely accepted/revolutionary/what-have-you, and b) adding links and mentions of it to other articles in a way that implies that it's widely accepted. This sort of thing is what gave rise to the ArbCom case on pseudoscience, to the WP:PSCI and WP:UNDUE clauses in WP:NPOV, and to the WP:FRINGE guideline.

Trying to bring content about fringe topics in line with WP:NPOV is draining enough that I've largely retired from doing it. The most important part of the task is to make sure that you're at all points calm, civil, and performing actions that are backed by Wikipedia policy (and frequently asking for others to verify that your actions are correct; mistakes happen). If this becomes difficult, disengage and let someone else take over. Any lapses tend to be immediately pounced upon, and the situation immediately becomes much worse. Edit-warring has to be avoided; this is why you frequently see me posting here for second opinions when a change I make is reverted, rather than undoing the reversion myself. If it becomes clear that one - and only one - person is acting against consensus and won't stop, _then_ it's time to go to AN/I (with diffs of attempts at discussion, policy-violating actions, and attempts at dispute resolution in-hand).

And then the whole thing starts again a few weeks or months later, with either the same person or a different one. There's a reason I semi-retired. But, it's still possible to make progress. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 18:15, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I would like to make a point again here that I've tried to remind people of from time to time: It is very important to distinguish fringe from pseudoscience or crackpot. :Specifically, fringe is not necessarily a bad thing. Revolutions start on the fringe. Only a tiny fraction of the ideas on the fringe will turn into revolutions, but it's an extremely important tiny fraction and must not be lost.

From a brief review of what has been said here, very much from a non-expert point of view, my suspicion is that Heim theory is probably fringe but is almost definitely not pseudoscience. In general the term pseudoscience is thrown around far too easily on Wikipedia. It needs to be restricted to the very clear Velikovsky or pyramid-measuring sorts of cases. --Trovatore (talk) 19:16, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

While I recognize the distinction, "pseudoscience" on-wiki tends to be called "fringe science" because its proponents kick up a stink when the word "pseudoscience" is used. I've been using the term "non-mainstream" for things that you would be calling "fringe science". I hope that this puts my comments into appropriate context.

With regards to Heim theory, whether or not it's pseudoscience depends on whether you believe the claim that it predicts particle masses without fine-tuning. It was pointed out that an early version of it actually used the particle masses as input to derive magic numbers used by the model, which means it didn't actually predict anything that wasn't fed to it in the first place. There are claims that revised versions of Heim theory don't do this, but I'd want to see it thoroughly vetted before accepting these claims.

If it's making predictions - correct or not - from its own internal structure, then it could be considered "fringe science" under your use of that term (I'd call it pathological science, given the difficulties it has reconciling some of its other predictions with observations). If it's instead just producing as output numbers that were put into it while claiming otherwise, then I'd argue that "pseudoscience" is a correct label for it. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 19:33, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the distinction between fringe and pseudoscience and that Heim theory in its original form is the former rather than the latter. However the current editing of the article is, wittingly or unwittingly, presenting Heim theory as pseudoscience because it pretends that it is validated by the standard methods of science. A main editor of the article User:Terra Novus previously edited as User:Gniniv. His participation in this ANI[2] is indicative. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:12, 25 September 2010 (UTC).

Negative frequency

Not sure if this is the right place, but does anyone here feel interested in fixing that article? It appears wrong from the get go. I left some comments on the talk page about some less obvious stuff. Tijfo098 (talk) 15:54, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

If I'm in a position to do so over the weekend, I'll do a full rewrite of the article, as it looks like it's been mutating for many years. The key concept is that allowing both positive and negative frequencies is useful in the mathematical analysis of many types of system. Whether the concept has physical meaning is for philosophers to argue about (much as with "negative speed"; I'm either driving in reverse, or moving with positive speed in the opposite direction, and both views make sense). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 17:54, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Large number of problematic edits

(Cross-posting here, because they've also hit quite a few physics articles from 24 Sept. through early 25 Sept.)

An anonymous user (72.254.128.201 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)) has been making a very large number of changes to astronomy-related articles (neutron star, active galactic nucleus, quasar, and several fusion process articles, to name a few). At best these are benign but not very useful typesetting changes. More often, they're problematic (replacing words with less-appropriate or outright wrong synonyms throughout the article). In several cases, the anon changed temperature values in the fusion process articles, without citing a source to back up their claimed values.

I've cleaned up the damage down to their 19:2x 25 Sept. edits to carbon burning process, but there's a lot more to be vetted (and possibly reverted). Help would be appreciated. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 22:47, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I think most their edits were checked and reverted where necessary. It is indeed problematic, as edits are in good faith, and the person is knowledgeable, and a few were appropriate (minor though), but many were not. Need to be watched, as I'm not sure they stopped. Materialscientist (talk) 02:19, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

They've been ignoring warnings from many users prior to the ones I issued. The edits they made during the (admittedly short) timespan I vetted myself were at best "not harmful", vs actually improving the article. If they continue to exhibit problematic behavior after the warnings, it'll be time to hit WP:AIV, as they've taken up quite a lot of other peoples' time fixing the damage. They're only a net benefit to Wikipedia if the good work outweighs the cleanup work. Hopefully they'll listen to the talk-page notes, but they don't have a good track record so far. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 02:27, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

This editor has been signing comments as 'lysdexia.' Per Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Lysdexia, this IP is a reincarnation of an indefinitely-blocked user. I've blocked the IP for three months. Since Lysdexia has been switching IPs frequently, please report again if you see similar edits on these articles from another new user. The two IPs he used prior to this one were open proxies. EdJohnston (talk) 04:40, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Checked and reblocked as an open proxy. Eh, my AGF softens me .. Materialscientist (talk) 04:50, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

A third IP, 203.175.185.43 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), has become active with exactly the same revert pattern. I've reported them to WP:AIV, and started the rollback process. This will likely continue for a while (I doubt there's a shortage of open proxies). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 22:05, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Blocked. Hold on. Group contribution often helps breaking persistence of such editors. Materialscientist (talk) 22:12, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Now it's 88.187.16.37 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Does someone else want to handle rollback this time, or should I? --Christopher Thomas (talk) 23:41, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! That was an impressively quick response. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 23:46, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Quasar

FYI, someone tagged quasar with a few {{citation needed}} tags in several physics statements. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 02:28, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for adding references! --Christopher Thomas (talk) 22:04, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Repeated copyvio

Repeated cut-and-paste copyvio of this page at dark flow by Fire Vortex (talk · contribs) - extra eyes on the article would be helpful. Gandalf61 (talk) 15:49, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

They'd altered dark energy and metric expansion of space, too. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 16:48, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

...and an IP user (who is probably also Fire Vortex) has recently copied the same image and text to Lambda-CDM model. In a discussion on my talk page, Fire Vortex claims that their edits are not a breach of WP:COPYVIO because the source page is in the public domain. Are they correct ? Gandalf61 (talk) 09:54, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:COPYVIO reads as follows: "However, material copied from sources that are not public domain or compatibly licensed without the permission of the copyright holder (unless brief quotation used in accordance with non-free content policy and guideline) is likely to be a copyright violation."

The page in question has an explicit permission typed in plain English language at its bottom. I told you about it yesterday, but even after that, you kept reverting my edit instead of reading Wikipedia:COPYVIO more attentively. Fire Vortex (talk) 11:10, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

At the bottom of that page it says "You can use this material if you include the proper credit". This gives a license to the first person who copied the material, i.e. Fire Vortex himself, but it says nothing about people who might copy it from Fire Vortex's contribution to Wikipedia. JRSpriggs (talk) 14:40, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Your logic is lame. A permission allowing uncredited redistribution would be a complete waiver of copyright and passing the material to the public domain. WP:COPYVIO allows copying from sources that ARE NOT public domain or compatibly licensed with the permission of the copyright holder.

Read this: Wikipedia:Requesting_copyright_permission#For_text So, Wikipedia users must in all cases credit the authors when copying their materials from Wikipedia, even if the material is licenced to Wikipedia. Fire Vortex (talk) 16:42, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

The text on that site does NOT give permission to release the text under CC-BY-SA or GFDL, which is the permission you need to use it on wikipedia.TimothyRias (talk) 20:40, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

You are in error, Timothy. It says "You can use this material if you include the proper credit." This permission does not have any limitations incompatible with CC-BY-SA. Here are CC-BY-SA conditions (see Wikipedia:Requesting_copyright_permission#For_text):

"1. The text may be freely redistributed and used.

2. It may be freely modified, and modified versions may also be freely redistributed and used.

3. In all cases, CC-BY-SA requires proper attribution of the author(s).

4. CC-BY-SA allows commercial re-uses provided such re-use is also under CC-BY-SA.

You may also choose to explain that the author does not give up any of his or her rights to use the text: he or she is still free to publish the text elsewhere or to license the same text to other parties under any other license." 89.110.9.219 (talk) 02:52, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

The question is not whether it is incompatible with CC-BY-SA. The question is whether the copyright holder has explicitly granted a license under CC-BY-SA and also under GFDL. The standard is as stated under your edit window "You irrevocably agree to release your contributions under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license. See the Terms of Use for details.". The copyright holder must agree to these conditions, not merely fail to disagree with them. Otherwise it is not safe for users of Wikipedia to use the material under the conditions of CC-BY-SA or GFDL. The copyright holder could sue them and perhaps also Wikipedia or you. JRSpriggs (talk) 06:02, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

You have a very poor knowledge of WP policies. Read this:

Only an explicit statement (by the author or the holder of the rights to the work) that the material is either:

in the public domain,
licensed with the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA), or
otherwise compatible with CC-BY-SA,

allows works to be reused in Wikimedia projects under current policy, unless it is inherently in the public domain due to age or source. Wikipedia:Possible_copyright_infringements#What.27s_copyrighted.3F -- Fire Vortex (talk) 06:29, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that "otherwise compatible with CC-BY-SA" means another explicit license which gives at least as much freedom as CC-BY-SA, for example CC-BY. JRSpriggs (talk) 06:46, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

If there is a dispute over an image or set of images, I respectfully (and strongly) suggest that you don't use it. There is an administrative page where legal issues such as copyright questions can be authoritatively answered (by the Wikimedia Foundation, not by users at large), but searching off and on over the last couple of days hasn't found it (otherwise I would have pointed you towards it much earlier in this thread).

In a nutshell, as Wikipedia and its sister projects have matured in recent years, they've become much more strict about making sure that any images used by Wikipedia (or other projects) have been released for use in the project in a way that is sufficiently clear that there is no risk of future lawsuit. That is not the case for the images you've linked.

Among other things, one things that the CC and Gnu licenses have that your images don't is a "this license never expires and cannot be rescinded" clause. That alone makes them incompatible, so please refrain from accusing other users of not knowing what they're talking about. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 07:05, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

The WMF does not investigate or deal with individual cases unless the apparent copyright holder complains directly. Nearly all copyright issues are raised preemptively by volunteer editors and addressed by other volunteers (some with a great deal of expertise in this area). Dragons flight (talk) 07:22, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

It is time to close this topic once and forever. Read this: "You must also in most cases verify that the material is compatibly licensed or public domain. If the original source of publication contains a copyright disclaimer or other indication that the material is free for use, a link to it on the media description page or the article's talk page may satisfy this requirement." Wikipedia:Copyrights#Using_copyrighted_work_from_others Class dismissed! -- Fire Vortex (talk) 07:27, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Look, Fire Vortex, there are four authors telling you in this thread that the material you have copied is neither public domain nor appropriately licensed for Wikipedia; another author says the same thing at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions#Center for Cosmological Physics - public domain ?; and three editors have reverted your cut-and-paste additions at dark flow. It is time to stop flogging a dead horse, admit that you were wrong, and either remove the material or re-write it in your own words. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:59, 30 September 2010 (UTC)