Talk:Planck units/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

removed paragraph

I removed the following explanatory paragraph:

While it is true that the electrostatic repulsive force between two protons (alone in free space) greatly exceeds the gravitational attractive force between the same two protons, this is not about the relative strengths of the two fundamental forces. From the point of view of Planck units, this is comparing apples to oranges, because mass and electric charge are incommensurable quantities. Rather, the disparity of magnitude of force is a manifestation of the fact that the charge on the protons is approximately the unit charge but the mass of the protons is far less than the unit mass.

I fully agree with an approach to this type of topic that inserts explanatory paragraphs like this without nitpicking about "referencing" everything at every point (the article needs a solid basis in expert literature, but the nature of the topic also demands that the article is then written by editors who understand the material and are granted agency to make use of their understanding).

But I am afraid this paragraph is misleading at best, and perhaps even wrong. The entire point is that "from the point of view of Planck units", mass and charge is commensurable. The natural, bias-free observation is that you pick a pair of fermions (this gives you a range of choices, but the most natural pick will be the electron as the lightest^* fermion), and you will observe that the ratio of forces will be of the order of 1E40. This "disparity" is the fundamental fact, it is not a "manifestation" of the "fact" that you have chosen the Planck mass and Planck charge the way you did. The choice of the Planck mass is designed to be the largest mass an elementary particle can have before the known laws of physics break down. Yes, it is a well-motivated choice, but once you have made it, you shouldn't be perplexed at the "fact" that all elementary particles turn out to have "small masses". Planck units are designed to talk about gravitation, so they are scaled to show gravitation as the "normal" force. It is just as natural to use Atomic units if you want to study electrodynamics, now your units are scaled to electromagnetism being the "normal" force and the 1E40 figure is now a "manifestation" of the "fact" that you chose your gravitational constant to have a small value. The fact that will not go away regardless of your choices is the number 1E40. What "facts" it is a "manifestation" of is still a matter of your arbitrary choices of "natural" units. --dab (𒁳) 08:00, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

The point is that the fermions have a mass much less than the Planck mass, yet the charge of a non-neutral fermion is about the Planck charge. That is the explanation from the point of view of Planck units for why "gravity is so weak, much much weaker than the electromagnetic interaction." The paragraph is not misleading and explains Wilczek's quote. 71.184.228.118 (talk) 05:23, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Table 3: Derived Planck units

In Table 3, the column “Approximate SI equivalent” gives the value 4.63298 × 10¹¹³ J/m³ for the Planck energy density and the value 4.63309 × 10¹¹³ Pa for the Planck pressure.

The final Expressions, however, for the two are identical, and since it can readily be shown, that Pa is equivalent to J/m³, shouldn’t the two SI equivalents be the same, even though they are merely approximate? Wouldn’t it be sensible to make them identical (choose one value or the other or a compromise value) or, alternatively, to indicate that the last three digits are uncertain? This, I think, is an edit that a physicist, expert in the subject matter, should make. --Wikifan2744 (talk) 06:14, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

This is correct and I came to make the same point, the planck pressure and the planck energy density are two names for the same thing, it's possible that the two figures given represent approximations based on different methods of measurement, or maybe the result. It doesn't look like the numbers are sourced. Plugging in "sqrt(c^14/(G^4*hbar^2))" to the Google calculator (I'm sure it's not a reliable source but just to see) gives 4.6332523 × 10^113 pascals. Since we only have agreement to the first three decimals in the three values, I think I'll go ahead and shorten it to 4.633 until someone can cite a source that gives a definite measurement and uncertainty.66.179.158.5 (talk) 20:59, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Plank mass and 2016 CODATA value

The value quoted for the Plank mass is inconsistent with that quoted in the cited 2016 CODATA source. I can't seem to find the value in the source code, and so I don't know how to change this to the up-to-date value. Can someone explain this, and possibly change the value? Thanks, Isambard Kingdom (talk) 13:37, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

I think you edit it here: Template:Base_Planck_units. I never thought it necessary or even a good idea to create that template. 71.184.228.118 (talk) 06:31, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

No, that doesn't do the the trick. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 21:29, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

I think you need to be patient. Your edit to the template has shown up in the article, but I added a non-breaking spaces between the 3rd and 4th digit (like the other values), and that has not yet shown up in the article. So there might be a longer period of time between when the articles update themselves from the templates. I hadn't known that before. 71.184.228.118 (talk) 17:24, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Okay, good to know. Thanks. 17:41, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Density?

In the table the density of the universe is given as 9.9x10^-27 kg. Should the units be kg/m^3?

Yes, the units should be kg/m³. I fixed that, but I didn't check the stated numerical value. 50.47.109.19 (talk) 00:20, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Correction to speed of light in human scale units value

This statement

 1 nano-(Planck length per Planck time) is about 1.079 km/h.

is wrong, not 1 nano-speed of light, but 1 pico speed of light is equal to 1.079 km/h — Preceding unsigned comment added by [[Special:Contributions/46.1\text{P}88.11.41|46.188.11.41]] (talk) 16:13, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Nope, check your calculations. It is correct as stated in the article. —Quondum 01:53, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

This is 1 nano-Planck speed, a Planck speed is equal to the speed of light. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xayahrainie43 (talk • contribs) 15:56, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you.

Derived Planck Units by ElectroMagnetism & Thermodynamics proprieties

References

MarianGheorgheWiki (talk) 04:05, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your extensive explanation of your approach to this matter. However, I think that your grasp of the English language is not adequate for you to edit this Wikipedia. I suggest that you gain experience of editing the Wikipedia in your native language. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:43, 10 November 2018 (UTC).

Hi MarianGheorgheWiki. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a place to publish the results of work that you are doing yourself. You say "As I working for 4 years almost each day on creating all new Derived Planck Units" and "wished to publish my research on wikipedia". As an encyclopedia our articles are about things that have become known by being written about in other places first. Just because the fundamental Planck units can be combined in many ways does not mean that they belong in a Wikipedia article. Just those that are already explained and used in textbooks and scientific papers. We also require that editors be able to write clearly in English. I know you are disappointed, but you will have to write about your work someplace else. StarryGrandma (talk) 23:57, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank for your advise, StarryGrandma, I will kept it in mind. But just wanted to adds more Derived Planck Units, not post my research on the page of Planck Units. just thought it that lack of Planck Units of Electromagnetisms. But don't worry I am not touch it anymore Wikipedia English, for my lack of langueage, even just add math formulas on table, not comments or else. As told me Xxanthippe to do so. I hope can give you my inspiration to do so, or somebody else. not my concerns to give my new theories or what I been discovery with Planck Units, just want to thank this articles of Planck Units because was so inspired me so much than others website, witch was very lack of informations and sources. It's not my way to became an Wikipedia writer or else. Just reading stuff on it. So I give to you to keeping writing and updates stuff on it. I will try on Arvix or others place to post my research, even I try it. can I leave at least my own page user my work? MarianGheorgheWiki

Your original research will not be suitable for inclusion in your user page: see Wikipedia:User pages. Neither on this talk page: Wikipedia does not publish WP:Original research anywhere. talk) 01:41, 11 November 2018 (UTC).

Removed comments.

${\displaystyle }$ MarianGheorgheWiki (talk) 00:40, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

You will also be expected to remove original research from your user pages. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:25, 12 November 2018 (UTC).

Ok, I found Wikiversity, it seem work with Original Research, gonna move it there. But please give some few day to updates my own stuff on Wikiversity before I deleted from users pages on Wikipedia. As I removed my last comments on this Talk page, I was too much offensive on this Talk page, I still sorry for it, and for lost time to Xxanthippeuser. -- MarianGheorgheWiki (talk) 08:26, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Needs update to reflect change in SI system

"due to the definition of ampere which sets the vacuum permeability μ0" is no longer true since the SI system was changed in 2019. The vacuum permeability is no longer defined in terms of an Ampere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pulu (talk • contribs) 17:13, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

(non-angular) Planck frequency?

Most of these derived units have no citation of usage in a the physics literature anyway, but should we have a seemingly contradictory definitions for Planck (angular) frequency and the recently added Planck frequency. First of all, they should not use the same symbol, "$\omega _{\mathrm {P} }$", only angular frequency should use that symbol. Even if the symbol is change (say to "$\nu _{\mathrm {P} }$"), should not this relationship exist?:

$\omega _{\mathrm {P} }=2\pi \nu _{\mathrm {P} }$

The should not both be ${\frac {1}{t_{\mathrm {P} }}}$. I believe this recent addition is best removed, but if not, it should be modified to be differentiated from, yet consistent with, the existing angular frequency definition. User:TimeHorse, could you please comment? 50.47.109.91 (talk) 20:22, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Planck Frequency

You're right, the equation should use $\nu _{\mathrm {P} }$ which I will fix shortly. As for the difference between frequency and angular frequency, I think you are also right, that angular frequency is in radians and thus should have a $2\pi$ or use a reduced Planck's Constant which reflects that, where as the frequency / wavelength should be based on the non-reduced Planck's Constant. The problem, though, is that if we change $\hbar$ to $h$, we end up dividing by ${\sqrt {2\pi }}$ which strikes me as incorrect. Any thoughts?

TimeHorse (talk) 02:47, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Addendum

I think you are right, Angular Frequency should be ${\frac {2\pi }{t_{\mathrm {p} }}}$ because the result is in radians, not in cycles. I changed it thus.

TimeHorse (talk) 02:59, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

No, it should not if it is $\hbar$ that is normalized with Planck Units instead of $h$. $E=\hbar \omega$ maps one unit of angular frequency to one unit of energy. 50.47.109.91 (talk) 03:37, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Planck Frequency

I see that someone revered my change. I won't put mine back but feel we need to discuss this further as reverting the change without addressing my comments is rather rude. The problem with Planck Angular Momentum as written is it fails dimensional Analysis. To take the reciprocal of the Planck Time $t_{\mathrm {p} }$ you arrive at units of Hertz (Hz), not ${\frac {rad}{second}}$. You are creating a unit of Radians out of nowhere. In fact, what you are doing when you calculate ${\frac {1}{t_{\mathrm {p} }}}$ is effectively units of ${\frac {cycles}{sec}}$ and to convert to Radians you need to add the conversion factor $cycle=2\pi Radians$. Thus, you need to multiply your Planck Angular Frequency by $2\pi$. Or, to go back to the point made by 50.47.109.91, you have the quantization equation for which Max Planck was famous, $E_{\mathrm {p} }=\hbar \omega _{\mathrm {p} }$, which then means $\omega _{\mathrm {p} }={\frac {E_{\mathrm {p} }}{\hbar }}={\frac {E_{\mathrm {p} }2\pi }{h}}$.

Now, all that said, we can consider the reverse. If we do insist that $\omega _{\mathrm {p} }={\frac {1}{t_{\mathrm {p} }}}$ in ${\frac {rad}{sec}}$, then I will concede that the true result for Planck Frequency would be $f_{\mathrm {p} }={\frac {1}{2\pi t_{\mathrm {p} }}}={\frac {\omega _{\mathrm {p} }}{2\pi }}$. If you will agree to this, I suggest we add back Planck Frequency with the appropriate value as calculated. Thanks.

TimeHorse (talk) 22:35, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

It's fine with me. Because it's $\hbar$ that is normalized, I think $2\pi f_{\mathrm {P} }=\omega _{\mathrm {P} }={\frac {1}{t_{\mathrm {P} }}}$. You wanna make it a capital "P" (non-italics) in the subscript. Lower case "p" means "proton", not "Planck". 50.47.109.91 (talk) 22:28, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Extended content

It's fine with me. == Unit of measure when G = c = 1 == Both equations are dimensionally consistent and equally valid in any system of units, but the second equation, with G missing, is relating only dimensionless quantities since any ratio of two like-dimensioned quantities is a dimensionless quantity. If, by a shorthand convention, it is understood that all physical quantities are expressed in terms of Planck units, the ratios above may be expressed simply with the symbols of physical quantity, without being scaled explicitly by their corresponding unit: $F={\frac {m_{1}m_{2}}{r^{2}}}$ This last equation (without G) is valid only if F, m1, m2, and r are the dimensionless numerical values of these quantities measured in terms of Planck units. This is why Planck units or any other use of natural units should be employed with care. Referring to G = c = 1, Paul S. Wesson wrote that, "Mathematically it is an acceptable trick which saves labour. Physically it represents a loss of information and can lead to confusion." This is not true. If you divide a real value by planck units, you obtain the number of that Plank unit inside your real value, so this is its unit of measure. Take the example. If you divide mass by Planck mass, what you obtain is the number of times Plank mass is in that mass. So, i can say that i hav== Unit of measure when G = c = 1 == Both equations are dimensionally consistent and equally valid in any system of units, but the second equation, with G missing, is relating only dimensionless quantities since any ratio of two like-dimensioned quantities is a dimensionless quantity. If, by a shorthand convention, it is understood that all physical quantities are expressed in terms of Planck units, the ratios above may be expressed simply with the symbols of physical quantity, without being scaled explicitly by their corresponding unit: $F={\frac {m_{1}m_{2}}{r^{2}}}$ This last equation (without G) is valid only if F, m1, m2, and r are the dimensionless numerical values of these quantities measured in terms of Planck units. This is why Planck units or any other use of natural units should be employed with care. Referring to G = c = 1, Paul S. Wesson wrote that, "Mathematically it is an acceptable trick which saves labour. Physically it represents a loss of information and can lead to confusion." This is not true. If you divide a real value by planck units, you obtain the number of that Plank unit inside your real value, so this is its unit of measure. Take the example. If you divide mass by Planck mass, what you obtain is the number of times Plank mass is in that mass. So, i can say that i have x Planck masses. So, Plank mass (say, mp), become the unit of measurement. That is, mp has in itself as the numerical dimension, as the measurement unit. So, the formula $F={\frac {m_{1}m_{2}}{r^{2}}}$ Can be espressed as: $F={\frac {m_{1}m_{2}}{r^{2}}}{\frac {mp^{2}}{lp^{2}}}$ Without any loose of informaany'any'anytion nor measurement unit. And it is universal. Thank you. e x Planck masses. So, Plank mass (say, mp), become the unit of measurement. That is, mp has in itself as the numerical dimension, as the measurement unit. So, the formula $F={\frac {m_{1}m_{2}}{r^{2}}}$ Can be espressed as: $F={\frac {m_{1}m_{2}}{r^{2}}}{\frac {mp^{2}}{lp^{2}}}$ Without any loose of informaany'any'anytion nor measurement unit. And it is universal. Thank you. Because it's $\hbar$ that is normalized, I think $2\pi f_{\mathrm {P} }=\omega _{\mathrm {P} }={\frac {1}{t_{\mathrm {P} }}}$. You wanna make it a capital "P" (non-italics) in the subscript. Lower case "p" means "proton", not "Planck". 50.47.109.91 (talk) 22:28, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Original research

I tagged this article as possibly containing original research and was asked by an anonymous user to eleaborate my claims. Thus, I present a list of possible OR, from most to least confident:

1. The passage describing the consequences of changing the value of c, beginning with We can notice a difference if some dimensionless physical quantity such as fine-structure constant, α, changes or the proton-to-electron mass ratio, m_p/m_e, changes (atomic structures would change) but if all dimensionless physical quantities remained unchanged (this includes all possible ratios of identically dimensioned physical quantity), we cannot tell if a dimensionful quantity, such as the speed of light, c, has changed.
2. The subsections of "Alternative choices of normalization", which are unsourced;
3. The "List of physical equations" section, also unsourced and possibly indiscriminate;
4. The last two paragraphs of "Base units"; and
5. Some contents of "Derived units", such as the details about measurements.

–LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 00:00, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

So 1. is directly addressed by the Michael Duff et.al. papers. It is not OR. The research is Duff's. The references are cited in the section.

2. is a bunch of equations that were copied from the respective Wikipedia articles (that are Wikilink referenced) and that have citations in those articles. There are other articles, such as Natural units or Maxwell's equations or Gravitoelectromagnetism that have also said as much. But I don't know where I would find a book that has those equations with the corresponding constants set to 1 (and disappearing). Still, I think it would be not useful to anyone to remove these, since they demonstrate directly what equations of physical law look like in terms of Planck units.

3. I dunno about books, but there are plenty of websites that itemize and define base Planck units other than the Planck charge. E.g. http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/P/Planck+Units . It's not made up from whole cloth.

4. Can you be more clear about "details of measurement" in Derived units. I am not sure what words you are referring to. 50.47.109.91 (talk) 04:52, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

For 4, the material beginning with Some Planck units are suitable for measuring quantities that are familiar from daily experience. I think that 1 needs to be clearly attributed to the source. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 07:25, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a crappy way to put it. The Planck mass is small (about the mass of a flea) but not immeasurably small and the Planck momentum is nearly a kg m/sec. But nearly all of the Planck units are astronomically large or beyond microscopically small. Maybe that should go. But most of the Planck scale is just ridiculous in comparison with the anthropometric scale. Dunno how best to word it. What OR do you think should be removed? 50.47.109.91 (talk) 09:09, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

References

Relation between Planck time and Planck length in Table 2: Base Planck Units

I would like to ask other more experienced members about feedback regarding this issue I am facing and having trouble to explain: per my understanding, multiplying the speed of light (c) by Planck time should yield Planck length. Speed of light in vacuum is taken from "Table 1: Dimensional universal physical constants normalized with Planck units". However, when performing the multiplication, I obtain 1.616254771...×10-35 instead of 1.616255(18)×10-35. Initially, I thought it was a rounding error, so I switched to integer math by just ignoring the powers of ten to see if the digits match the expected beginning 1616255, still no luck: 299792458 * 53912456060606060606060606060606060606060606060606060606060606060606060606060606060606060606060606060606060606060 = 16162547719226087878787878787878787878787878787878787878787878787878787878787878787878787878787878787878787878787697095480 Can anyone please check and clear-up this mystery for me? I guess there should be a simple explanation but I don't see it. Thanks!

Badc0ded, the value in the table for the Plank time is wrong! The table has 5.391245(60) for the digits and the reference here has 5.391247(60) for the digits. Thanks for noticing this. StarryGrandma (talk) 16:37, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

StarryGrandma, thanks so much for clearing that up, so physics isn't broken, phew :) Update: I also get that I was wrongly interpreting (60) to mean periodic decimals, when it's actually the standard uncertainty: https://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Info/Constants/definitions.html.

Unit of measure when G = c = 1

---

${\begin{aligned}F&=G{\frac {m_{1}m_{2}}{r^{2}}}\\\\&=\left({\frac {F_{\text{P}}l_{\text{P}}^{2}}{m_{\text{P}}^{2}}}\right){\frac {m_{1}m_{2}}{r^{2}}}\\\end{aligned}}$

can be expressed as

${\frac {F}{F_{\text{P}}}}={\frac {\left({\dfrac {m_{1}}{m_{\text{P}}}}\right)\left({\dfrac {m_{2}}{m_{\text{P}}}}\right)}{\left({\dfrac {r}{l_{\text{P}}}}\right)^{2}}}.$

Both equations are dimensionally consistent and equally valid in any system of units, but the second equation, with G missing, is relating only dimensionless quantities since any ratio of two like-dimensioned quantities is a dimensionless quantity. If, by a shorthand convention, it is understood that all physical quantities are expressed in terms of Planck units, the ratios above may be expressed simply with the symbols of physical quantity, without being scaled explicitly by their corresponding unit:

$F={\frac {m_{1}m_{2}}{r^{2}}}$

This last equation (without G) is valid only if F, m1, m2, and r are the dimensionless numerical values of these quantities measured in terms of Planck units. This is why Planck units or any other use of natural units should be employed with care. Referring to G = c = 1, Paul S. Wesson wrote that, "Mathematically it is an acceptable trick which saves labour. Physically it represents a loss of information and can lead to confusion."

---

This is not true. If you divide a real value by planck units, you obtain the number of that Plank unit inside your real value, so this is its unit of measure. Take the example. If you divide mass by Planck mass, what you obtain is the number of times Plank mass is in that mass. So, i can say that i have x Planck masses. So, Plank mass (say, mp), become the unit of measurement. That is, mp has in itself as the numerical dimension, as the measurement unit.

So, the formula $F={\frac {m_{1}m_{2}}{r^{2}}}$ Can be espressed as: $F={\frac {m_{1}m_{2}}{r^{2}}}{\frac {m_{p}^{2}}{l_{p}^{2}}}$ Without any loose of information nor measurement unit. And it is universal.

The point here is to keep $m_{p}$ and $l_{p}$, as units. I.e.: Don't compute them, just keep the letters. As in Kg, m, l, etc. So, you don't name a (human) unit of measurement, but the dimension: length, mass, time, temperature, charge, and so on. It's perfect to me.

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Manfredo Manfredi (talk • contribs) 04:28, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

This needs to be updated.

In Base units it says:

Today the value of the speed of light c in SI units is not subject to measurement error, because the SI base unit of length, the metre, is now defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second. Hence the value of c is now exact by definition, and contributes no uncertainty to the SI equivalents of the Planck units.

That continues to be true, but the following is no longer true:

The same is true of the value of the vacuum permittivity ε₀, due to the definition of ampere which sets the vacuum permeability μ₀ to 4π × 10⁻⁷ H/m and the fact that μ₀ε₀ = 1/c². The numerical value of the reduced Planck constant ħ has been determined experimentally to 12 parts per billion, while that of G has been determined experimentally to no better than 1 part in 21300 (or 47000 parts per billion).

How should this be fixed so that it is current with the 2019 redefinition of the SI base units? 69.5.112.154 (talk) 07:02, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Alternative choice of ℎ over ℏ

I think the section Alternative choices of normalization could/should include a section on using $h$ instead of $\hbar$.

Furthermore, this choice would be consistent with the use of other "rationalized" constants: $\epsilon _{0}$ instead of $k_{\mathrm {e} }={\frac {1}{4\pi \epsilon _{0}}}$ and $4\pi G$ instead of $G$, since these constants are more related to the "full sphere" rather than a differential element of a (solid) angle. This is analogous to how $h$ relates to "cyclic" frequency whereas $\hbar$ relates to angular frequency.

An example of related use would be the recent redefinition by the SI of the kg in terms of $h$ (and not $\hbar$) and the former definition of the ampere related to $\epsilon _{0}$ (and not $k_{\mathrm {e} }$). No examples of use of $4\pi G$ come to mind, though.

It would be nice to add a subsection with this, but currently I don't know of any sources using $h$ instead of $\hbar$.

—Cousteau (talk) 16:45, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't know for sure, but I think the motivation to normalize $\epsilon _{0}$ rather than $k_{\mathrm {e} }={\frac {1}{4\pi \epsilon _{0}}}$ is the same reason to normalize $\hbar$ instead of $h=2\pi \hbar$. It's so that fewer scaling constants remain in the physical equations of interaction.2604:2000:D149:B000:A591:4CF3:93:372B (talk) 04:09, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

It's the other way around; Coulomb's law is simpler if you use $k_{\mathrm {e} }$ instead of $\epsilon _{0}$, so $k_{\mathrm {e} }$ is comparable to $\hbar$ in this aspect. —Cousteau (talk) 12:55, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

No, normalize $\hbar ={\frac {h}{2\pi }}$ instead of $h$, normalize $\epsilon _{0}$ instead of $k_{e}={\frac {1}{4\pi \epsilon _{0}}}$, normalize $4\pi G$ instead of $G$, are more natural. Ahri6279 (talk) 13:48, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Proposed split

The page Planck scale was once a separate article. Then, several years ago, it was proposed that it be merged here. No discussion took place so far as I can see, but it was redirected here, then edited to target Planck length. Recently the old article content was resurrected at Planck scale, which I reverted. To hopefully ward off any sort of edit war, I'm starting discussion here about whether any sort of content should be "split" from this article into an article about Planck scale, possibly that it should just be its own independent page without any content removed from here. Lithopsian (talk) 18:38, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I fail to see what's to be gained by extricating the scale aspect of this article to put in another article, to be left only with the unit aspects in this article, when both are so intimately linked. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:15, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

To clarify: all I have to go on is the edit summary "Distinct topic; relevant/public interest with recent science news". Perhaps @Vassyana: will further explain the need for a separate article. Or perhaps just let the issue die? Lithopsian (talk) 15:27, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't see any benefit to a separate article apart from the units since the scale is so closely related to the units. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:08, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

• Comment Plank units and Plank scale are basically the same concept, I suggest improving the content here rather than splitting. Polyamorph (talk) 06:45, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

"Planck units are free of anthropocentric arbitrariness. "

Is this remotely true?

For c_vacuum, then yes, I accept that as a fundamental constant. However nearly all of the "Planck units" here are given with two values, depending on the choice of normalisation. Doesn't that mean that the whole notion of them being absolute has failed? Andy Dingley (talk) 01:10, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

That's rounding, not anthropocentricness. Completely unrelated to one-another. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:13, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

How is this merely rounding? There's an (optional) factor of $2{\sqrt {\pi }}$ in there. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:54, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley: I think I mixed up this talk page for another. I can't make any sense of my own comment here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:54, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

I think that the claim (that Planck units are free of anthropocentric arbitrariness) is overdone, and should be toned down or removed. There is an arbitrariness in the choice of factors as Andy Dingley points out, and the choice is rooted in our history, making it anthropocentric. The choice of constants to normalize is also anthropocentric: Why G and not Λ? Again a choice based on what we perceive as being more immediate. But perhaps we should hold off until the current editing spree by Ahri6279 has been cleaned up. —Quondum 14:01, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

There are two versions of Planck units: Lorentz–Heaviside version (also called "rationalized") and Gaussian version (also called "non-rationalized"). Both of these two versions set $c=\hbar =k_{\text{B}}=1$, the Lorentz–Heaviside version sets $4\pi G=\epsilon _{0}=1$, the Gaussian version sets $G=4\pi \epsilon _{0}=1$. Ahri6279 (talk) 03:27, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

@Quondum: “Why G and not Λ”? Planck units are not from any human construct (e.g. luminous intensity (cd), luminous flux (lm), and equivalent dose (Sv)) nor any quality of earth or universe (e.g. standard gravity, standard atmosphere, and Hubble constant) nor any quality of a given substance (e.g. melting point of water, density of water, and specific heat capacity of water). However, isn’t Λ (Cosmological constant) from a quality of universe? Ahri6279 (talk) 04:04, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Recent expansion, lack of sourcing and many new redirects

See WP:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 February 26#Planck angle Andy Dingley (talk) 01:12, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

It has closed as delete. What else needs cleanup? I would support a pretty substantial rollback on this article and the deletion of all the recently-added derived units as unsourced. @Ahri6279: ? Andy Dingley (talk) 00:56, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Why delete? I was curious and calculated almost all physical quantities in Planck (Lorentz–Heaviside or Gaussian) units, and I mainly collect the order of magnitude of the Planck units (e.g. Planck rotational inertia (Lorentz–Heaviside version) is about 10^-61 kg.m², and Planck electric induction (Lorentz–Heaviside version) is about 10⁶¹ V/m). —Ahri6279 (talk) 14:52, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

And before I added many physical quantities, there were already “Planck volumetric flow rate”, “Planck viscosity”, “Planck inductance“, and “Planck magnetic induction”, and I looked at them and think that this is not perfect, thus I added many physical quantities like “Planck rotational inertia”, “Planck capacitance”, “Planck electric induction”, and “Planck specific heat capacity”. —Ahri6279 (talk) 14:56, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Same happening for me they delete me my derived Planck Units that I did an extension of one already exist it. @Ahri6279: I may sugestion you to save your data and move to wikiversity that allow new material, has I did so. Or do a home page with your material and then link it to source material on wikipedia, or seek on JTOR or links to keep it on this page. can you link wikiversity on here?. MarianGheorgheWiki (talk) 18:32, 21 March 2020 (UTC) 19:32, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

• How about you just source it, per WP:V and WP:RS ? Andy Dingley (talk) 18:41, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

I would support a substantial rollback. This article has become a sea of noise: information irrelevant to the understanding of the topic, to the point that it drowns out the key points. And where does the idea of "Gaussian" and "Lorentz–Heaviside" versions of Planck units come from? I would like to see a notable source for that. —Quondum 18:17, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

I too am concerned with the expansion. I would support a significant trimming down to units that have actually been used by scientists, and not just an arbitrary extension to all possible physical quantities. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:44, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

I also think that the article has become a sea of noise. The "Gaussian" and "Lorentz--Heaviside" versions of Planck units make the article unnecessary complicated. Much of recent stuff has to be removed.--Tjem Svasp (talk) 09:26, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

I attempted a rollback and cleanup, but my work was reverted (with an edit that I can't help but feel indicates a complete lack of awareness of any of the policies and guidelines that make for encyclopedic writing). XOR'easter (talk) 15:08, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

I understand your point of view. But I believe that being not the first to extend Planck units, I can ask you to make a separate page for only derivative Planck units. And leave only the most important here. the sources are there on google you will find tables full of derivative Planck units, some of them I made myself. I study physics, and I understand your copyright police and unreliable material. But I don't agree in doing it suppresses the creativity that the copiright denies. here it is theoretical quantum physics, not music or polita. I don't mean to say that anyone can afford to ruin Wikipedia pages now. but if there are experts in the field of those pages, but they have difficulty finding reliable sources, m, to which they can always make a contribution on the merit of the topic. I believe that user @Ahri6279: should definitely look for external sources or create an Homepage to use his work that source it. this presumptive material of Planck units has become very noisy in the fact that there are, many units, often also symbols that give us confusion. I would advise not to repress creativity but to give a hand to it to make sure that that material is not lost. Like making a Wikipeida page of unfit sources. out of 6/7 million articles on Wikipedia I don't think they are all within the law of the police and reliable sources. I believe that his material, @Ahri6279:, is very important for the research of gravitational physics. It is a crisis as today as Covid-19 and the imploding economy, and the deformation and deviation of the news. That does not allow the distinction between true and false. I think we shuold giva us more creativity with awareness of the arguments that the copyrights suppression by force as happens in Youtube or other platforms that does not allow Copyright. Wikipedia is as a last resort for not having this control with wisdom and respect for users to allow improvements and ideas. the page of Planck's units is only in the field of theoretical physics, so it is the only pure theory of those who have dedicated many years of research and publications. I think user @Ahri6279: should try type on Arxiv.com library to put his research. so he can cite his sources. with respect and health by those who have been studying Black Holes physics for over 13 years, but here in Italy these topics do not intresting much at all. I have economic and health problems that don't give me time to write a book or go to Arxiv.com for english language problems or the possibility of having visibility. obviously I do not want to offend anyone and your work is important and I respect this page of Planck units a lot but then I have to look elsewhere to have notions of quantum gravity. I apologize if I am emotionally involved but the work that user @Ahri6279: did was the same work I did it, even better in detail, with lacks of corrects symbols, but correct formulas. And I cried a lot, for days for losing everything on english Wikipedia. And seeing the same sufferings, like the user @Ahri6279:, seen repeated like me hurt so much. In a moment like this of a pandemic crisis that man has lost his sensitivity in the next one. To have control of the information that is always change in time and never static has the Copyrights it try to do so each time ( like the law of entropy in continuos change). so I ask you not to lose your brilliant work, the Gauss and Lorentz-Heavise units were already in natural units. Give him the opportunity to post that in-depth table on perhaps other platforms or other Wikipedia pages specific to these issues. with greetings and sincerity.MarianGheorgheWiki (talk) 13:45, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

MarianGheorgheWiki, you clearly misunderstand the purpose of Wikipedia. It is expressly not a place for creativity or developing ideas. This is like choosing to play with your own construction ideas in the middle of a highway. There are other places where ideas can be worked on. Ahri6279 would have far more freedom to edit in his/her own sandbox on Wikipedia, where no-one would object. However, Ahri6279 persists in ignoring the objections of other editors and undoing what they do, and as a result risks being blocked from editing on Wikipedia. —Quondum 14:17, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Quondum I know! it's not a place of creativity. but since they also took my own stuff away from "talk page" or from senbox, last years. I was very bad and I fell into deppresion and I was very sick about this and I live with the anxiety of wikipedia. for user Ahri6279 need talk to us and understand his point of view do not restore old pages. and he will lose it all. You have to understand why he doesn't want to take away his material. there is a way to talk to him in sendbox or leave messages that I will talk to about how to find the sources and where his material moves.MarianGheorgheWiki (talk) 14:44, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm in favour of removing all derived units. Planck angle? Planck volume? Planck absolute hardness? These and the rest are excessive. Attic Salt (talk) 15:30, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it's easy to invent Planck anything. Precious few of the quantities so invented have any use at all. Those are the ones we should be writing about. For example, "Planck area" is invoked in discussions of quantum gravity and black-hole entropy, where you'll see arguments like "there is one qubit associated to each Planck area of the event horizon". A Google Scholar search for "Planck area" turns up results in respectable journals by serious people: Baez, Bousso, Witten, etc. By contrast, searching for "Planck force" returns garbage in the Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research and a few false positives (like a Physical Review paper that mentions a "Fokker–Planck force", which is something else entirely). I suspect that there's still more Planck-cruft in various pages that we haven't flushed out yet, added by people who think they can reveal the mysteries of creation by doing high-school algebra. XOR'easter (talk) 16:44, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Multiple redirects listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Planck electric displacement field. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:40, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Planck current density. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:01, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Planck specific activity. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:46, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Planck radiation exposure. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:48, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Planck catalytic activity. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:52, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Planck electric dipole moment. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:54, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Planck surface tension. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:06, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Planck wavenumber. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 22:53, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Planck specific volume. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 22:54, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Planck radiance. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 20:33, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Planck specific charge. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 20:34, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Planck thermal insulance. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 22:24, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Planck thermal transmittance. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 23:38, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Planck amount of substance. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 23:39, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Planck molar mass. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:26, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Individual articles

Wikipedia used to have a separate page for most Planck units, and in many cases they were good articles. However recently all of them have been removed and they all redirect here now. I would like to restore them. --Grufo (talk) 20:34, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Which were the good ones? I think I looked at all of them, and I can't recall any that stood out as worth being stand-alone articles. It's all one topic. XOR'easter (talk) 21:21, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Onestly all of them contain either a paragraph about their significance or interesting related facts (which you cannot merge into a gigantic single article – well, you could… but you wouldn't do a good service to an encyclopedia).

Base units (latest revisions):

• Planck length
• Planck mass
• Planck time
• Planck temperature
• Planck charge

Derived units (latest revisions):

• Planck momentum
• Planck energy
• Planck force
• Planck density
• Planck acceleration

These were the last revisions of the pages before they have been removed. Some articles never existed (Planck frequency for example), but I could start working on them. --Grufo (talk) 00:11, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

You really don't listen to others, do you? Others object to what you do or say (above being an example), and you refuse to acknowledge what they have said. This is not the way to get cooperation from others. If you go ahead against consensus, such articles will almost certainly not survive an Article for Deletion discussion. Save yourself the trouble. —Quondum 00:37, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

@Quondum:

“You really don't listen to others, do you?” Uhm?

“Others object to what you do or say (above being an example), and you refuse to acknowledge what they have said.” Seriously? I feel some personal issue here. Do I have to assume that XOR'easter's question “Which were the good ones” was a rhetorical question or do you think it deserved an answer? If it did deserve an answer, as I think, I gave the most sincere answer I could think of. Now, since I don't like being rhetorical, please, you do answer this question: What exactly did I not listen to?

--Grufo (talk) 01:01, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

My question was not rhetorical, but revisiting the articles now, I find that my assessment has not changed. A few scattered "interesting facts" do not an article make, and the subject becomes harder to understand when doled out piecemeal rather than being explained as, well, a system of units. Moreover, the density of fringey cruft and marginal speculation was unhelpfully high. XOR'easter (talk) 03:52, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

@Quondum: There are five main reasons why I think the individual articles should be restored:

1. Planck units are not like any other unit and per se deserve separate articles. This gives the possibility to report important information specific to each topic.

2. As the articles were, in my opinion there was information that deserved to be saved together with information that needed to be improved. Sure, there was also fringey cruft, but reacting to that by removing entire pages instead of fixing the fringey cruft does not seem very constructive to me.

3. Separate articles help reducing the size of the Planck units article.

4. The task of the individual articles must not necessarily be that of adding further information. They could serve a good cause also by simply explaining the same things explained in the Planck units article more clearly and with the necessary number of words.

5. Future improvements: individual articles give more rooms to users for improving the content when compared to a gigantic single page that must be kept constantly under a certain number of words

“Which were the good ones?” My fast selection of relatively good material:

If an object were to reach the temperature of 1.42×10³² kelvin (T_P), the radiation it would emit would have a wavelength of 1.616×10⁻³⁵ m (Planck length), at which point quantum gravitational effects become relevant.

— Old revision of Planck temperature

Or, to put it in different words, the energy required to accumulate one Planck charge on a sphere one Planck length in diameter will make the sphere one Planck mass heavier:
$m_{\text{P}}={\frac {q_{\text{P}}^{2}}{4\pi \epsilon _{0}c^{2}l_{\text{P}}}}$

— Old revision of Planck charge

Unlike most of the other Planck units, Planck momentum occurs on a human scale. By comparison, running with a five-pound object (10⁸×Planck mass) at an average running speed (10⁻⁸×speed of light in a vacuum) would give the object Planck momentum. A 70 kg human moving at an average walking speed of 1.4 m/s (5.0 km/h; 3.1 mph) would have a momentum of about 15 $m_{\text{P}}c$. A baseball, which has mass $m=$ 0.145 kg, travelling at 45 m/s (160 km/h; 100 mph) would have a Planck momentum.

— Old revision of Planck momentum

The ultra-high-energy cosmic ray observed in 1991 had a measured energy of about 50 joules, equivalent to about 2.5×10⁻⁸ E_P. Theoretically, the highest energy photon carries about 1 E_P of energy (see Ultra-high-energy gamma ray). Most Planck units are extremely small, as in the case of Planck length or Planck time, or extremely large, as in the case of Planck temperature or Planck acceleration. For comparison, the Planck energy is approximately equal to the energy stored in an automobile gas tank (57.2 L of gasoline at 34.2 MJ/L of chemical energy).

— Old revision of Planck energy

Since 1993, various authors (De Sabbata & Sivaram, Massa, Kostro & Lange, Gibbons, Schiller) have argued that the Planck force is the maximum force value that can be observed in nature. This limit property is valid both for gravitational force and for any other type of force.

— Old revision of Planck force

This is a unit which is very large, about equivalent to 10²³ solar masses squeezed into the space of a single atomic nucleus.

The Planck density is thought to be the upper limit of density

— Old revision of Planck force

The Old revision of Planck acceleration contains also both fringey cruft and acceptable article material.

But again the question simply is: Do Planck units deserve a separate article in an encyclopedia? If the answer is yes we should:

1. Restore all the articles removed

2. Fix and improve them

Now, considering that most non-English Wikipedia have separate articles for the Planck units, considering that even Wiktionary has an article for Planck frequency and considering the current size of the Planck units page, I do think that all Planck units deserve a separate article. --Grufo (talk) 04:42, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedias in different languages have different inclusion standards, and what works for one does not necessarily translate to another. The existence of a dictionary definition does not mean that an encyclopedia article is warranted; after all, Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Meanwhile, this article only looks long because it has a few tables and because nobody has deleted the "invariant scaling of nature" section and its OR-ish, fringey waffling yet. XOR'easter (talk) 14:06, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Named Planck units

It seems that it is easy to assume that "Planck *insert dimension name*" is automatically the name of a unit of the Planck unit system, and furthermore, that it is coherent with the others. Assumptions from SI unthinkingly find their way into the mix too. It is interesting to see how an internet search finds mostly the online echo chamber apparently created by the OR in this article. So I've thought to try to find notable use of names in this system, so that we can avoid inventing names in WP. The ones I've seen so far in reasonable secondary sources on the history and usage – I've not looked too hard yet – give notability to "Planck length", "Planck time", "Planck mass" and "Planck temperature", and I've seen sporadic mention of "Planck energy", "Planck density" (but not enough to qualify these as an established part of the system). I don't put much weight on individual papers: they invent variations of the system and terms to suit the purpose of the paper. One notable absence is "Planck charge", which was not in the system as proposed by Planck. —Quondum 00:45, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

"Planck energy" is definitely a term people actually say; I'm much more dubious on "Planck density". XOR'easter (talk) 16:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Following on from this, every source that I can remember that has spoken historically about the Planck unit system has made it fairly clear that the electromagnetic dimension is not part of the system, either as Planck defined it originally or its modern variant with the reduced Planck constant. Currently, what is in the article amounts to what can be found in some primary sources as a definition for convenience, which it seems to me should not be reported here. Consequently, I think the Planck charge should be removed as "a Planck unit" and its inclusion limited to a mention of its status in this regard. Should anyone have references that contradict this perspective, these would be welcome. —Quondum 14:25, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

The Planck charge is very important and it is a base (non-derived) unit. It is actually a very peculiar unit, since it is the only Planck unit that does not depend on the gravitational constant, so its value is known with high precision (and before the last changes in SI it was the only Planck unit whose value was exact by definition). It establishes a relationship between electric and gravitational force: take two flea eggs, charge them with ${\frac {e}{\sqrt {\alpha }}}$ of positive charge each (i.e., a Planck charge, value known nearly exactly – as for the fact that the value is not an integer number of elementary charges, it is very easy to find the right workaround), if they don't repel each other because their gravitational force balances exactly their electric repulsion you have got two Planck masses – and you have got them without having to know the exact value of G. Furthermore the Planck charge appears as a limit in the Reissner–Nordström metric for a charged Planck black hole. The original Planck units were different than the ones used today – I have posted a table in the article: if you feel like removing the Planck charge just because it was not present in the original proposal written by Planck you should also multiply all other units by ${\sqrt {2\pi }}$ (but then this article will finally be completely useless). --Grufo (talk) 15:36, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

It shows up in this formula or that, but without solid references spelling out its importance, we shouldn't be hyping it. In decades of being a physics person talking with other physics people, I haven't had one conversation that referred to it, very unlike the case for "Planck energy", and hunting through the literature strongly suggests that my sample is not too biased. XOR'easter (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

So basically it seems to be an invented name without a history, which of course should not appear in WP. —Quondum 17:49, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: “In decades of being a physics person talking with other physics people, I haven't had one conversation that referred to it” It seems to be a very good reason to remove a Planck unit from an encyclopedia article that talks about Planck units.

@Quondum: “So basically it seems to be an invented name without a history” To whom does it seems so? All Planck units are “invented” if compared to the original Planck units. As for the history instead, the Planck charge has a long history and appears in the description of extremal black holes (a black hole of n Planck masses can have at most n Planck charges of electric charge). It represents how much charge one Planck volume can store when its mass is entirely due to the electric self-energy. Planck units were proposed in 1899, at that time $E=mc^{2}$ was not known yet, so Planck had no way to know how much charge could be confined in a Planck length even if he wanted to. --Grufo (talk) 20:36, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

To repeat myself: "Should anyone have references that contradict this perspective, these would be welcome." We have a requirement of reliable sources, which editors are expected to understand. —Quondum 21:58, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

@Quondum: It might sound to you that you are repeating yourself, but it is still not clear to me what perspective you want to see contradicted. If you want that someone demonstrates to you that the Planck charge was proposed in 1899 that is impossible, the Planck charge is a later addiction (and it couldn't have happened differently). If you want that someone demonstrates to you that “it belongs” to the Planck units and it appears in literature, Google is a better help (do not ask other people to do that for you). If you want that someone demonstrates to you that the Planck charge is a fundamental constant, that will not happen either, all Planck units are not fundamental constants, they are units, tuned to a scale where fundamental constants are most likely located (the Planck scale). So, the minimal length of nature could be as big as √(2π) times the Planck length, or as small as 1/17 of the Planck length, nobody knows it yet. What we do know instead is that all Planck units are well within that scale, Planck charge included. Now, given that any set of units of measurement requires a unit for the electric charge, what would you like to replace the Planck charge with? The elementary charge? The coulomb? Fill the box and then you try to demonstrate that your choice is better suited/attested as the correct value for the Planck charge than its current value. But again do not ask other people to do that for you. --Grufo (talk) 22:30, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

A general Google search over the whole web will return a lot of garbage. We don't care about what random websites have to say, particularly when the subject is fringe-prone, like many things on the physics frontier. We care about peer-reviewed literature (with rare exceptions, like arXiv posts by established physicists). Where's the textbook that lays out the importance of the topic and a specific way of thinking about it? Or the review article? I've looked, but I have found only passing mentions. Note that the other four entries in that table have CODATA values [1][2][3][4], but the Planck charge does not (the references given for it are really for values it can be calculated from). One of these things is not like the others. XOR'easter (talk) 23:00, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: Search better ;) You might never talk about Planck charges, but you do realize that using the Planck units and setting the Coulomb constant equal to 1 automatically forces you to use e/√α as the unit of charge, right? I mean, literally, you have no other choice mathematically speaking. And setting the Coulomb constant equal to 1, much more than any possible physical significance of the Planck charge, is the main reason why the Planck charge is normally preferred to the elementary charge when the Planck units are used. Historically Q = e/√α comes from QCD units, but it is also the inevitable consequence of setting k_e = 1 when the units of mass, time and length are 1 Planck mass, 1 Planck time and 1 Planck length. --Grufo (talk) 23:58, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

This erases the difference between base and derived units. And I regret sounding exasperated, but "Search better ;)" is not a helpful response to a request for sources. Where is a textbook, or even a review article, that makes the case that Planck charge should be among the Planck base units, instead of merely one of the many Planck-unit-related quantities that can be derived and which are potentially useful in a couple applications? (Reliably published, of course, and not on viXra or a fly-by-night scam journal, which offer a plenitude of claims that elementary algebra can unlock the cosmic secrets. And, ideally, prior to 2004, when the division into "base" and "derived" was introduced into this article — we should avoid citogenesis!) Everybody doing anything with both "gravity" and "quantum" in it cares about the Planck energy, but from everything I can see, the "Planck charge" is calculated in passing, if ever. What matters is not its definability or its occasional use, but its significance. XOR'easter (talk) 16:44, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter:

“This erases the difference between base and derived units. [...] Where is a textbook, or even a review article, that makes the case that Planck charge should be among the Planck base units, instead of merely one of the many Planck-unit-related quantities that can be derived and which are potentially useful in a couple applications?”

In every set of measurement units there is some level of arbitrarity in deciding what is base and what is derived. For example we could decide that time and speed are base units and say that length is derived from them. However this can happen only between units that have a direct relationship and where the conversion does not require external constants. As soon as a conversion between two units requires a constant they cannot be put in a “base unit vs. derived unit” relationship. There is some arbitrarity too in what you decide to use as constants, but that's for another time... So, you can always swap a Planck derived unit with a Planck base unit and say that that is the new base unit, but you cannot make a Planck base unit purely derived from other Planck base units. You can derive all Planck units knowing only one of them, but you will always require some constants to do so (the fact that in Planck units all constants are equal to 1 is just a particular choice specific to the system and does not erase their dimensionality). In the case of the electric charge, you will require the Coulomb constant. Therefore, either the Planck charge is among the base units or the set of Planck units misses a unit for the charge. But you definitely cannot have the Planck charge among the derived units. In a system where there are five constants there will be always five base units, independently of what you choose to be “base units”.

“Where is a textbook, or even a review article [...]?”

I don't know, how about the National Institute of Standards and Technology? Or the International Journal of Modern Physics? Or Nature? or Foundations of Science? Or Progress in Physics? There is even OEIS: A246504. If you want a more high-school-style textbook, there is Glenn Elert's online Physics Hypertextbook. The guy, being a physics teacher at Midwood High School, explains the Planck charge situation quite simply:

What about the natural units of electricity and magnetism? Planck never dealt with the subject that I know of. Your natural choice for a natural unit of electric charge might be the elementary charge…

$e$ = 1.602176487 × 10^-19 C

but this would not be in keeping with the spirit of Planck's work. After all, the Planck mass isn't related to the mass of an electron, proton, or any other physical thing. The Planck quantities are derived from the laws of nature. To that end some have suggested using the coulomb law constant to extend the original system since it's analogous to the universal gravitational constant G.

${\frac {1}{4\pi \varepsilon _{0}}}$ = 8.98755179 × 10⁹ N m² C^-2

Including this unwieldy symbol pile gives us the following electromagnetic Planck units.

[...]

— G. Elert, The Physics Hypertextbook, "Blackbody Radiation"

That said, you will never find the list of “Official Planck Measures”. There is not an “International Committee for Planck Weights and Measures” like there is for the SI units. Physicists use what they need to use as long as it is coherent, and some do not consider even the Planck temperature. But if you want to have a complete set of measurement units you do need a unit for the charge (and the temperature as well). Now, let's try to be serious and constructive. Imagine you are using the Planck units and you need to measure a charge. Since in your view Planck units are incomplete and cannot measure charges you'll need to integrate the system with another set of units. What will you choose? The SI would be a very bad choice, it would be largely out of scale. The only possible choice would be to use the elementary charge. Some people do that, it depends on what their work focuses on. But guess what? If you set the elementary charge as the unit, then the Coulomb constant will result equal to $\alpha$ and the strength of the electric force will “appear” weaker than gravity – although the latter would be just an appearance. As I said, some physicists do that, it all depends on their personal tolerance to confusion. But whatever you choose as the unit for the charge, it will never be a derived unit (unless you put another electromagnetism-related unit as the “base unit”). --Grufo (talk) 04:35, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Since, nowhere here, has there been any indication that something with the name "Planck charge" is described in Wikipedia:Reliable sources (which is the only point that this thread serves), I will consider it as that it should be removed from this article, with the corollary that the article Planck charge qualifies for deletion under the Wikipedia:Notability guideline. Grufo, if you persist in arguing around the point without addressing it, I may formally warn you on your talk page against Wikipedia:Disruptive editing (with specific reference to the section Wikipedia:Disruptive editing § Failure or refusal to "get the point"). Further, please read Wikipedia:Competence is required. —Quondum 12:32, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

@Quondum: “if you persist in arguing around the point without addressing it” Excuse me? --Grufo (talk) 13:49, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

None of the sources you provided make the case that the Planck charge should be taken as a base unit. They calculate it, but that's it. The Physics Hypertextbook says "some have suggested" and then shrugs: "Once again, I'm lost. These quantities aren't as easy to interpret as the original Planck units. I don't think anyone is really working on them as a subject of theoretical study." Cooperstock and Faraoni (2012) define an "extended Planck charge" and treat it as a thing they themselves are inventing. More power to them, I guess. Meschini (2006) relegates the topic to a footnote and says that Placnk temperature and Planck charge are not quantities that physicists "routinely consider". The NIST source just mentions it in a big table, along with things like "von Klitzing's constant". Nothing here addresses the point. Indeed, to the extent that these sources are relevant, they are better suited for making the case that temperature shouldn't be in the table of "base units" either. XOR'easter (talk) 14:18, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter:

“They calculate it, but that's it”

I am starting to think that you refuse to understand. All Planck units are calculated, derived. But there are two possible scenarios when you calculate a Planck unit:

1. New Planck unit = F(constants of nature[, other Planck base units]) -> this is a base unit

2. New Planck unit = F(other Planck units) -> this is a derived unit

Is this clearer? I repeat myself: in a system derived from five constants of nature you need five base units; you can swap some of them with some derived units, but at the end of the day they'll still need to be five. If you remove the Planck charge you need to unset the value of the Coulomb constant too.

“Nothing here addresses the point”

That's because there isn't a point to address except what you and Quondum want to address. It's like if right now I start to repeat obsessively that the Planck temperature should be removed from the Planck units (and accordingly the Boltzmann constant as well) due to the fact that temperature is an emergent phenomenon that appears only in the macroscopic world and is not a fundamental property of matter – but careful, charge is. And then I start to ask people to demonstrate to me that the Planck temperature has the right to belong to the Planck units or I will remove it from Wikipedia. People do show me that it does (while thinking that they shouldn't waste their time in such a futile activity), but then I keep arguing. This is what we are talking about here. The sources presented do list the Planck charge and most of them are perfectly valid sources, but they don't explicitly argue that the Planck charge should be listed among the Planck units, simply because this has bever been a debate outside this talk page. There isn't a Planck Units Manifesto around, I am sorry to disappoint both of you. But there is the physical world, and sadly this possesses dimensions like charge and temperature.

“Placnk temperature and Planck charge are not quantities that physicists "routinely consider".”

The only Planck unit that physicists “routinely consider” are the Planck length (String Theory, Quantum gravity, etc.) and the Planck time (Big Bang). What do you think, should we reduce the whole set of units to time and length? It could be a nice idea... The only sad thing is that some physicist might keep using all of them without listening to us. --Grufo (talk) 15:04, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Without what you so derisively refer to as a "Planck Units Manifesto", declaring that a particular combination of quantities is the set of "base units" is Original Research. We could trade off charge for current (historically justifiable, since we can define a standard amount of current if we have a standard amount of distance, mass and time, and people found this more convenient than defining a standard amount of charge directly). SI gives us 7 "base units" and 17 "derivative" ones; though it's easy to find physicists who'll argue that 4 out of the 7 "base" set should be called "derived" instead [5]. What we should do is, first, to be clear about the history — which units Planck himself introduced, and why; and second, be clear about which other quantities have been defined later in the same spirit and how they are used. Planck length (24,000+ GS hits) and mass (40,000+) arise as cutoffs in quantum gravity; Planck time (8,900+) defines an epoch in early-universe cosmology; Planck area (1200+) is a convenient unit for speculations about black-hole entropy and holographic principles. As currently written, this article obscures the history and the physics, while promoting a defensible but arbitrary set of choices that lack justification in the literature. XOR'easter (talk) 16:49, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter:

“Without what you so derisively refer to as a "Planck Units Manifesto", declaring that a particular combination of quantities is the set of "base units" is Original Research.”

If the sum of peer reviewed literature uses all the units listed in the page, whether in a manifesto or in pieces, it is not OR, is peer reviewed literature.

“We could trade off charge for current (historically justifiable, since we can define a standard amount of current if we have a standard amount of distance, mass and time, and people found this more convenient than defining a standard amount of charge directly).”

Sure, as I said you can swap a base unit with a related derived unit, what you cannot do is bringing the number of base units below five (as long as you keep five constants in the system). The only argument against it would be that the Planck current has no usage, while the Planck charge is one of the pillars in the study of charged black holes and is a unit of charge normally used in QCD.

“What we should do is, first, to be clear about the history — which units Planck himself introduced, and why; and second, be clear about which other quantities have been defined later in the same spirit and how they are used.”

I agree here. But this should be under History. Tables instead should be as dry as possible.

“As currently written, this article obscures the history and the physics, while promoting a defensible but arbitrary set of choices that lack justification in the literature.”

What choices do you think are arbitrary exactly?

Just to recapitulate a bit, I would like to summarize what this discussion has been so far, because I don't think this is very normal. First you and Quondum propose to remove the Planck charge because it's not part of the original proposal from 1899. I show that it is an important later addition, but then you two argue that is not named in literature. I show that it is named, but then you argue that it should be a derived unit instead (only you, while Quondum at this point decides to limit himself only to trolling). I show that as long as you keep the Coulomb constant in the system an electromagnetic unit must be kept among the base units, but then you argue that in this case it would be better to use the Planck current instead of the Planck charge as base unit, although the Planck current has no usages. My question is: what exactly is wrong with you two and the Planck charge? --Grufo (talk) 18:04, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

No, that's not what happened. Quondum wrote, Currently, what is in the article amounts to what can be found in some primary sources as a definition for convenience, which it seems to me should not be reported here. Consequently, I think the Planck charge should be removed as "a Planck unit" and its inclusion limited to a mention of its status in this regard. This was not an argument for total exclusion, merely one for historical clarity and due weight. (Quondum made a stronger statement later, after multiple requests for sources were unsuccessful. I'd agree that the article Planck charge doesn't need to exist; a couple lines in this article would suffice.) Nothing has established that the Planck charge is an "important later addition". A later addition, yes; important, no. I never said that the name was not used, only that it is drastically less so than the Planck amounts of mass, length, time or even area. Yes, the Planck charge is mentioned in the study of charged black holes, but nothing I can find supports the claim that it is a "pillar" of such. (Rather the opposite, if anything. Any model of black-hole evaporation will depend upon the species of particles that the hole can decay into, so the model will include the physical charges of those particles, and with those constants available, the mathematical artifice of an invented charge unit will have diminished significance.) Yes, it's an amount of charge that one can define if one wishes to expand Planck's original proposals into a "complete" system of units, but we shouldn't misrepresent the occasional invocation or redefinition of a quantity as establishing that such a "complete" system is actually used. XOR'easter (talk) 19:56, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter:

“not an argument for total exclusion”

Saying “Hey guys, do a literature review for me or otherwise I will remove the Planck charge from the article” is not a valid argument for anything at all.

“Nothing has established that the Planck charge is an "important later addition". A later addition, yes; important, no.”

Again, the Planck charge is used as a limit in the Kerr–Newman metric and as an actual unit in QCD units – while, as far as I know, no field of physics uses for example the Planck time as an actual unit, only as a limit, or as a single “epoch” of the Big Bang.

“Rather the opposite, if anything. Any model of black-hole evaporation will depend upon the species of particles that the hole can decay into, so the model will include the physical charges of those particles, and with those constants available, the mathematical artifice of an invented charge unit will have diminished significance.”

That's Hawking radiation. Kerr–Newman metric is ten years older and has nothing to do with it.

“Yes, it's an amount of charge that one can define if one wishes to expand Planck's original proposals into a "complete" system of units, but we shouldn't misrepresent the occasional invocation or redefinition of a quantity as establishing that such a "complete" system is actually used.”

On the contrary, once you start setting G = 1, c = 1, ℏ = 1 and k_B = 1 is very normal to set also k_e = 1. --Grufo (talk) 21:00, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia depends upon reliable sources. Asking for them is not unreasonable.

Planck time is a unit in quantum-gravity phenomenology [6] (e.g., "statistical fluctuations mimic the effect of a random walk of the beamsplitter surface of about a Planck length per Planck time, times some geometrical factor" [7]). It also shows up when people try to bring quantum information theory into fundamental physics [8][9], and in some other places [10][11]. In QCD units, there are at least three options for a fundamental charge, of which the original is the proton charge, naturally enough; and the other units in that system aren't Planckian, so it's not really an example of the quantity being used as a Planck base unit. (Setting k_B to 1 is just admitting that the size of a degree was arbitrary; setting k_e to 1 amounts to ignoring that we have physical charges that we can count.) Again, maybe Quondum would take a harder line, but I'm fine with a couple sentences on the topic — I just don't think that it merits an article, and I think the current text of this article is presenting a historically unjustified vision. XOR'easter (talk) 21:32, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter:

“Wikipedia depends upon reliable sources. Asking for them is not unreasonable.”

Agree on asking, but that was requiring and not listening, not asking. And you know what the problem of requiring is? Time. We got lucky and a discussion started, but what if there was no one here willing to discuss about it for months? A better and more constructive approach? Leave a {{Citation needed}} mark on each of the parts in the article that you think should be referenced. There are two advantages in doing so: you are specific about what you are looking for and each mark remains indefinitely as a reminder in the article until someone finds the right reference. It is good to write in the Talk page before marking things, sure, but it is not good to require or otherwise the anger of the gods will fall upon you.

“Planck time is a unit in quantum-gravity phenomenology [...] It also shows up when people try to bring quantum information theory into fundamental physics ”

All niche applications, comparable with those of the Planck charge.

“the other units in that system aren't Planckian, so it's not really an example of the quantity being used as a Planck base unit.”

This shows even better the presence of the Planck charge's value beyond the Planck units, and definitely separates the Planck charge from other Planck units that exist only as theoretical mathematical constructs or limits (think about the Planck acceleration or the Planck speed, which is the speed of light, for example).

“Setting k_B to 1 is just admitting that the size of a degree was arbitrary; setting k_e to 1 amounts to ignoring that we have physical charges that we can count.”

Is this about how appropriate or not physicists' habits are? Setting k_e to 1 does happen, whether appropriate or not it's not for us to judge. I see now however where your adversion against the Planck charge comes from, from the fact that q_P is not an integer multiple of the elementary charge, am I wrong? So consider three things: 1. Both setting $q=e$ and $k_{\text{e}}=\alpha$ and setting $q={\frac {e}{\sqrt {\alpha }}}$ and $k_{\text{e}}=1$ still leaves you with the fractional $\alpha$ to deal with in the equations involving elementary charges, nothing changes in the final result, but $k_{\text{e}}=1$ simplifies the equations not involving defined numbers of elementary charges; 2. Wikipedia must only report what physicists do, not judge it; 3. The importance of setting $q_{\text{P}}={\frac {e}{\sqrt {\alpha }}}$ goes beyond the value itself and is that of fixing a point of reference (that's the whole deal with Planck units); imagine tomorrow I want to create a system of units as coherent as the Planck units (G = 1, c = 1, ℏ = 1, k_B = 1 and k_e = 1) but where the elementary charge is the unit for the charge: I know now that I have to divide all Planck base units by ${\frac {1}{\sqrt {\alpha }}}$ – also the ones that have nothing to do with electromagnetism (mass, length, time, etc.).

“maybe Quondum would take a harder line”

Harder than what?

“I think the current text of this article is presenting a historically unjustified vision.”

You can still integrate the History paragraph and write how the Planck units got re-discovered, where they got their new value ${\sqrt {2\pi }}$ times smaller than the original value, who introduced the Planck temperature, who introduced the Planck charge, etc. etc. I honestly don't know yet who were the ones who proposed Planck charge and Planck temperature first. --Grufo (talk) 12:27, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

I see now however where your adversion against the Planck charge comes from, from the fact that q_P is not an integer multiple of the elementary charge, am I wrong? To be perhaps unduly blunt: Yes. I do not have an "adversion". I am simply expressing my honest read of the situation, which is that it is a topic of niche interest (even more so than Planck time or Planck area), and the current text of the article is a poor presentation both of the history and of the current status. Frankly, when I first saw this article, I didn't have a problem with the "base units" table; only after reading more did I find it problematic. I agree that Wikipedia must only report what physicists do (with the addendum that this also includes what physicists have done), and that is something this article is, at present, failing to achieve. XOR'easter (talk) 18:47, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter:

“To be perhaps unduly blunt: Yes.”

I understand that. For example it disturbs me that a black hole of one Planck mass doesn't evaporate in one Planck time but in five thousand Planck times (if I remember correctly), despite light takes one Planck time to travel across half its radius. However Hawking radiation goes with the cube of the mass, so already resizing the black hole by some dozens makes it evaporate in one Planck time. But everything seems to tell us that we hit the right scale. All these adjustments (including your ${\frac {1}{\sqrt {\alpha }}}$) account for one order of magnitude maximum (10¹), and this is quite crazy, because we are talking about a scale so small that the fact that so many things (including the elementary charge) tend to touch it is already incredible. Personally I believe that at some point, as soon as physicists will get a better clue of the universe and its real fundamental units, Planck units will be resized by a small factor, and this factor could happily be ${\frac {1}{\sqrt {\alpha }}}$, or maybe three times as much (1/35) – as for the mass, it will always be an upper limit, not a minimum limit, i.e. the maximum mass allowed for a point-like particle. At that point, though, they will not be called Planck units anymore, they will be called The Units. That said, I will repeat myself, Planck units establish a point of reference that intersects apparently disconnected dimensions, and while waiting that physicists resize them altogether, at the moment they remain the best point of reference that we have.

“this also includes what physicists have done”

I agree. However the article is not completely empty. See Planck units § History and Planck units § Alternative choices of normalization. --Grufo (talk) 05:31, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

The plain and simple fact of Wikipedia policy is that if no reliable source has tabulated a standard set of "base Planck units", then we cannot tabulate a standard set of "base Planck units". This is true even if a purported standard would be the only logical completion of a smaller set, which is not even the case here. I have speculated as to why some quantities have languished in comparative obscurity (they are semi-incidental features in calculations of mostly niche interest; nature provides a physical reference for charge just as it does for speed). Those are my own speculations, which I do not advance as definitive, merely as what I find to be a plausible account of why the current situation in physics is what it is. XOR'easter (talk) 14:56, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter:

“source has tabulated a standard set of "base Planck units"”

The fact that Wikipedia tables need to be copied “as such” and cannot be compiled here I think is just your opinion. Wikipedia is full of tables that are collections of sparse things (filmographies, events, countries, etc.). Even that source that lists only length, mass and time does not present them as The Planck Units, but uses the following premise for limiting the scope to the page's topic (which is quantum gravity): “In quantum gravity, there are three dimensional constants that can all be set to one: the speed of light c, Newton's constant G, and Planck's constant ℏ. The resulting units are called "Planck units."”. That said, we have only to demonstrate that all the units we list are all present in the peer reviewed literature as such, even if in sparse order. And I think we are past that point.

“would be the only logical completion of a smaller set, which is not even the case here.”

That this is the only way to complete the Planck units is sure, the spirit of Planck units is that of setting all constants to 1, so you have to set k_e to 1 as well. And indeed this is what physicists do when they talk about Planck charge, which has always the same value. If you change it you have the absurd situation where a Planck black hole can contain at most more or less charge than exactly one Planck charge. There are infinite possibilities after setting G = 1, c = 1, ℏ = 1, k_B = 1 and k_e = 1, so you have to fix one unit to a precise point and the rest will come accordingly. Planck chose to fix the length to the point where this intersects the Compton wavelength, which is only one. The rest just followed.

“nature provides a physical reference for charge just as it does for speed”

And this is an important hint for physicists indeed, thanks to this you can look at that ${\frac {1}{\sqrt {\alpha }}}$ relationship with the Planck charge and ask questions. If you erase that ${\frac {1}{\sqrt {\alpha }}}$ without having found the answers you will just loose the question. A dissonance is often more precious than a consonance. --Grufo (talk) 18:38, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is full of tables that are collections of sparse things (filmographies, events, countries, etc.). The analogue of this situation with a filmography would be an article that presented a set of "essential Kubrick films" without any references indicating how or why a particular subset of all Kubrick films are the "essential" ones. That wouldn't be good encyclopedia writing.

That this is the only way to complete the Planck units is sure — well, if one were inventing a system to be as closely analogous to SI as possible, then current would be a "base" unit, not charge. XOR'easter (talk) 20:28, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: Ok, so, given that the Coulomb constant is present in the system the only choice is whether the Planck charge or the Planck current must be listed among the base units (our “essential Kubrick films”). There are two reasons why the Planck charge and not the Planck current should be there. 1. Do you see that column in the base units table that says “Dimension”? Right now all base units have one single capitalized letter. In the case of the Planck charge this letter is a “Q”. With the Planck current it would be Q T⁻¹, making it the only multidimensional base unit of the system. 2. Planck units belong to the older tradition of natural units, and no system of natural units that I am aware of has the current as a base unit. So we are not treating it as analogous to the SI, we are treating it for what it is, a system of natural units. --Grufo (talk) 07:40, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

First, that's WP:OR. Second, Q T ^-1 = I. Third, it's still not established that we have to list anything beyond mass, length and time. Some people stop there [12]. Others throw in energy and temperature or maybe just temperature. Wilczek might say that the most obvious answer is the trinity of mass, length and time [13], but when pressed further, the question becomes "intrinsically fuzzy" [14]. XOR'easter (talk) 14:12, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter:

“First, that's WP:OR”

This is a talk page, there is no OR here. Or, better, everything is OR here. I apologize however for missing the dimensional symbol of the electric current (if that is what you refer to with OR).

“it's still not established that we have to list anything beyond mass, length and time”

Just checked. Temperature was proposed by Planck himself (Tomilin, 1999, p. 290), although, differently than charge, temperature is only an emergent macroscopic phenomenon. As for the charge instead, this is an encyclopedia, which according to the dictionary is “a book or set of books containing many articles arranged in alphabetical order that deal either with the whole of human knowledge or with a particular part of it, or a similar set of articles on the internet”. Since Wikipedia does not target a particular part of the human knowledge the duty is to report the whole of the human knowledge. The current human knowledge calls Planck charge an electric charge that amounts to about eleven times the elementary charge, although this is a later addition to the Planck units and was not proposed by Planck himself. So yes, we have to list the Planck charge, exactly like we must list the Planck energy and all the other non-original units. Other sources that are not encyclopedias may omit parts of the set, Wikipedia cannot. By the way, there are also sources that list all the base units altogether, including the Planck charge, so I don't understand how you would motivate the fact that we should prefer the sources that list only length, mass and time. --Grufo (talk) 16:15, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia does not target a particular part of the human knowledge the duty is to report the whole of the human knowledge. No, Wikipedia reports what can be substantiated in reliable sources on topics that meet a standard of notability, which (a) is a proper subset of "the whole of human knowledge", and which (b) includes disagreements and variations. The project is defined by its policies, not by the dictionary — articles here aren't in alphabetical order! :-) If some sources (e.g., Wilczek) say that all we need are the units of mass, length and time, then we should report that some sources consider mass, length and time to be an adequately complete set of units. When ideas were introduced later, we say that they were introduced later. Other sources that are not encyclopedias may omit parts of the set, Wikipedia cannot. On the contrary: other sources that do not have our standards can introduce as many units as they like. Anyway, I'm happy that we have the Zeidler (2006) and the Deza and Deza (2014) references to talk about now, but I'm concerned that they postdate the introduction of "base Planck units" on Wikipedia, since I've seen first-hand how even scientists copy stuff out of here without checking, when it's historical stuff or material that is mostly incidental to what they really are interested in. Like I said way up there, the risk of citogenesis is real. (Deza and Deza are apparently non-physicists who wrote a compendium of every kind of "distance" they could find, and they don't provide anything beyond a bare mention that can be followed up further, and the book was seemingly never proofread, so while it's nice to have a reference, it's not the reference I was hoping for!) XOR'easter (talk) 15:08, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter:

“Wikipedia reports what can be substantiated in reliable sources on topics that meet a standard of notability”

We all agree on this, there is no point in repeating it. That said, the fact that the peer reviewed literature is a subset of the total knowledge does not authorize you to create arbitrarily a subset of this subset.

“If some sources (e.g., Wilczek) say that all we need are the units of mass, length and time, then we should report that some sources consider mass, length and time to be an adequately complete set of units.”

We could. Althugh due weight would suggest that specifying that according to some sources only length, time and mass are to be considered, when part of the scientific community does not agree with it, is not something we should necessarily do.

“On the contrary: other sources that do not have our standards can introduce as many units as they like.”

…And remove as many units they like. Wikipedia instead can neither add nor remove, but must conform to the subset of the human knowledge that the scientific community produces. The Planck charge and the Planck temperature are part of this subset, as the sources presented so far have demonstrated.

“I'm concerned that they postdate the introduction of "base Planck units" on Wikipedia, since I've seen first-hand how even scientists copy stuff out of here without checking”

I think we are a bit exaggerating now. The peer reviewed sources for the Planck charge that predate the Wikipedia page exist as well. --Grufo (talk) 19:25, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

First, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Ideas can be published but not yet be sufficiently well established to warrant inclusion. Second, the question is not whether the Planck charge has been defined, but how it should be treated. The new sources (most of which I think I'd seen while hunting through the literature myself) indicate that people mention it, but not that it should be part of an "essential" or "base" set of units. This is exactly the position we've been in all along. (Mäkelä and Repo (1997) actually put it in quotation marks, hinting that it's less familiar to their audience than the Planck mass is. Von Borzeszkowski and Treder (1994) invent multiple sets of units for different theories, none of which they present as being "standard", and their paper seems to have vanished into obscurity.) Third, those sources include fringe "black hole electron" silliness. More care is needed. XOR'easter (talk) 13:40, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter:

In this discussion I have often the feeling that any point we reach does not stick, and we have always to repeat again and again…

“The new sources […] indicate that people mention it, but not that it should be part of an "essential" or "base" set of units. This is exactly the position we've been in all along.”

Base or derived have nothing to do with “essential” or more important, but have just to do with the fact that you need constants for deriving them. I would like that we fix some points once and for all. Point one – electromagnetic units -> either one of them is among the base units or they are all absent altogether. Can we find an agreement on this first point? Second point: all sources either list a subset of Wikipedia base units or list exactly Wikipedia base units, but no source mentions another electromagnetic unit instead of the charge. So, either the Planck charge is in the table or no electromagnetic unit is in the table, unless you find a source that mentions the Planck current instead of the Planck charge. Point three: due to point one and point two, the question here is simply: should there be the charge among the Planck base units or should there be no electromagnetic units among the Planck units? Whether there should be another unit instead of the charge is not a topic until you reference it with sources. Point four: whether the Planck charge is “essential/cool/protagonist” is not a point and has nothing to do with it being “base”. Which leads to point five: the statement “This is exactly the position we've been in all along.” is a non-sense in this discussion, since if that had been your position you would have shown sources that omit the charge and show the current, instead of talking about sources that either show the charge or show no electromagnetic units whatsoever. Can we find some agreement on these five points?

“actually put it in quotation marks, hinting that it's less familiar to their audience than the Planck mass is”

It might be the case, but all the new sources are there only for showing that this is not citogenesis and the value does not come from Wikipedia. Absurdly, one of the sources could have even stated “Hey listen you people! I invent here today the Planck charge!”: it would be more than enough for showing that when the date is 1985 citogenesis is to be excluded. What matters today is that the Planck charge is considered by an authoritative part of the scientific community, is labeled as “Planck charge” when is used, and has not been invented by Wikipedia. If in the 1980s someone loved to catch aliens with it matters exactly zero today.

“the question is not whether the Planck charge has been defined, but how it should be treated.”

It should be treated according to the sources. Which means either no electromagnetism or Planck charge among the base units, because this is what the sources do.

Now the final point. The base units need to be minimum five, but they can be more, we could even treat all the derived units as base units, without making any distinction between base and derived. For me it would be absurd to have things like acceleration among the base units, but without sources that reference the Planck current as “base” this might be your only way to obtain that the Planck current be listed among the base units.

Addendum concerning your idiosyncrasy towards the fractional Planck charge… Goldfarb, 2017 (p. 2) shows how in 2006 the SI Working Group was nearly going to fix the Planck charge instead of the elementary charge – and in that case you would have needed the Planck charge for calculating the elementary charge – but at the end the idea was rejected. Currently CODATA has no value for the Planck charge and you need to calculate it using the elementary charge. --Grufo (talk) 15:49, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't have an idiosyncrasy towards the fractional Planck charge. Please don't attribute ideas to me that I have not actually expressed. Nor have I said anywhere that the idea of a Planck charge itself originated on Wikipedia. I observed that a list of "base Planck units" was posted here in 2004, and that is exactly the kind of material that a careless reader would just assume to be correct, so a particular choice of "base units" — or even the idea that Planck's original idea has to be expanded to such a set — could be citogenesis. I only brought up the idea of a "Planck current" in order to show that the choice of how to build such an extension is not unique, and to emphasize that we need high-quality sources making one choice or another before we can say that any of the multiple logically possible extensions are preferred, or that physicists actually care to perform such an extension. (Wilczek, as noted above, finds it unnecessary.) XOR'easter (talk) 16:50, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: I think we have examined the situation quite in deep now. On many things we agree, on some we do not agree. I think we both think that the Planck charge is an outsider among Planck units, but I personally think that it is one of the most precious units, much more than the Planck temperature. To be honest, any electromagnetic unit would do the job in the table, because it is setting k_e that is precious, since it establishes a correlation between charge and gravitation, which is fundamental in the study of extremal black holes. But we have seen that the literature tends to prefer the charge to all other electromagnetic units as “base”. And there is probably more than one reason behind that. Besides a similar tradition shared among all natural units systems, besides the obvious parallel between charge and mass (the gravitational parallel of the Planck current instead would be the Planck mass flow rate), there is one final point that explains why the Planck charge is more precious as a “base unit” than the Planck current: as with Planck resistance and Planck magnetic flux, the Planck charge does not depend on G, while the other electromagnetic units do (namely the Planck current and the Planck voltage), and therefore their value cannot be known with the same high level of precision of the Planck charge. The opposite holds instead for the SI units, where the ampere can be measured with much higher precision than the coulomb and where the choice of having the former as a base unit can be partially justifiable (although it doesn't drive me crazy). Outsider unit or not, in my opinion this discussion has shown that there is enough good literature to keep the Planck charge in the Wikipedia article exactly where it is. --Grufo (talk) 10:48, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

To my eye, there are at least three positions that could be defended given the extant literature: first, that the only Planck units that should be called "fundamental" are mass, length, and time; second, that mass, length, and time should be supplemented with temperature; and third, that an electromagnetic unit should be included along with those four. The third is the most marginal, the second the one with the longest history, and the first is what I would hazard a guess to be the most widespread. XOR'easter (talk) 21:54, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: If you talk about “fundamental”, then you have to include also the charge. If you talk about “base” instead, we have seen that there is choice (although there is also literature's tendency to prefer the charge to other e.m. units). If you talk about “history”, there is also the temperature from the beginning, and only later the charge. If you talk about “widespread”, the topic per se is a little bit hardcore and appear often in niche applications that tend to focus, but I would rather say that the sources that want to be complete always mention both charge and temperature. Finally, if you talk about what Wikipedia should do, my opinion is that it should only expand the History paragraph (I have started by the way). --Grufo (talk) 12:27, 3 June 2020 (UTC)