Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive April 2010

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Potential problems with Jack Sarfatti article

While cleaning up other articles, I noticed that Flash.starwalker (talk · contribs) was adding editorial-style comments into several articles on my watchlist. He appears to be acting in good faith, and the usual mechanisms for editing/revising content should work for those articles. Where they might not be working is Jack Sarfatti (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), which this user devoted a substantial amount of time to earlier in the month. I'm am not familiar with the article's subject. Could someone who is please take a look at this set of changes? Based on the editor's past efforts, I consider it likely that the changes will need vetting. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 18:53, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I took a look at this. This editor certainly has an interest in the subject of this article. It appears some of what this editor has added is WP:SYN. Even more added material is unsourced. And at least one entry in the infobox is superflous. My sense is the editor is pushing POV, up to point, and how much POV is hard to say. It is also hard to say how much is synthesis without spending more time going through the article and correlating content with sources.
I just had a thought that this article may fall under the purview of another Wikiproject because Mr. Sarfatti is obviously not a main stream physcist. I was reading an article used as a reference ( here) , and in the interview it appears that Mr. Sarfatti equates himself, somehow, wtih Richard Feynman. Feynman was a renown physcist. Sarfatti appears to be a renown New Age - consciousness - proponent. It is apples and oranges. My opinion is the article needs to be fixed. Hope this helps, Christopher. Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 14:39, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
I just read something on the "Jack Sarfatti" talk page, from which I infer (indirectly) that he may not have a Master's degree or a PHd. Since this information was recently added in the info box it probably needs to be backed up with sources. As a matter of WP:BLP policy anything that is not sourced can be removed. I suppose this includes synthesis. According to WP:BLP "whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable [it] should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." All it takes is an editor to step up to the plate who wants to deal with it for awhile. Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 00:21, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Creationist material at Pioneer anomaly

Please review the talk-page thread at Talk:Pioneer anomaly#Russel Humphreys. An editor added a section titled "creationist explanation", I removed it, another editor re-added it, and that's where the situation presently stands. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 19:30, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, then, add the Pastafarian explanation, and be sure it involves invisible noodles of space and time. It is April 1, so all religious explanations are equivalent, and valid. SBHarris 22:49, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
It's already been adequately resolved. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 23:27, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Electromagnetism

There's a dispute brewing at Talk:Vacuum permeability which affects that article and also Ampère's force law. Does the force per unit length between two current-carrying wires vary as the inverse-square of the distance between them, or simply as the inverse of the distance? Common sense would suggest the former, but Wikipedia states the latter. Physchim62 (talk) 16:28, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

The force which each piece of wire A exerts on each piece of wire B varies as r^{-2}, but the total force which A exerts on B varies as r^{-1}. ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 16:36, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
One way to look at it is you're integrating the force over a line (an infinite length, in the general case), so the r^2 term becomes r^1. FellGleaming (talk) 16:49, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but if you have a pair of infinite etc. conductors separated by distance d, and you then take your infinite-conductor moving machine (that you keep handy for such occasions) to separate them to a distance 2d, what happens to the force? It doesn't drop by half, surely? It drops by a factor of four, no? Or am I missing something in the line integral (or elsewhere)? Physchim62 (talk) 16:59, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
The total force indeeds drops by a factor of 2, not 4. It may feel counterintuitive...but then so are infinite conductors (though you can approximate the result with any two wires; if they're above non-trivial length, the boundary effects don't change the results that much). FellGleaming (talk) 17:08, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
...as I could/should have guessed by dimensional analysis! Thanks anyway :) Physchim62 (talk) 17:13, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Here's a way you can picture it graphically. Consider an infinitesimal (a point) section on one wire. Now, if you move the other twice as far away, its distance to the "nearest point" on that other wire doubles, true. But the increase in distance between it and points further away on the wire drop by a much smaller margin. In fact, for points which were already "infinitely far" away, the increase in distance is effectively zero, meaning the force doesn't drop at all. The actual result from the line integral essentially is just 'averaging' the contributions ranging from r^2 to r^0 into an r^1 term (and yes, I know millions of calculus professors are shrieking in their graves over that statement) FellGleaming (talk) 17:23, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
The usual fast derivation is to use Ampere's Law to find the magnetic field around one wire, which drops off as 1/r (current passing through a loop around the wire remains the same, circumference is proportional to r, so magnetic field is proportional to 1/r). The more general derivation is to use the Biot-Savart law to integrate the contributions of every segment of the first wire to get the magnetic field at any point near it (producing the same result). In both cases, the magnetic field at distance r gives you the force per unit length on the second wire (current and magnetic field are perpendicular, so the product gives the force per unit length). The situation is symmetrical, so the forces on both wires have the same magnitude. I'd have thought this would be summed up already in the articles in question. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 21:26, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I can see it now from Ampère's circuital law, and also from FellGleaming's description. I just got lost somewhere going from the full differential version of Ampère's force law to the short version, telling myself "but this has to be an inverse-square law, we're talking forces in electromagnetism here!". It's twenty years since I last did this stuff, and obviously it shows! Physchim62 (talk) 21:58, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
The way I think about this is: if we have two parallel infinitely long straight wires, essentially the problem is two-dimensional (translating the system along the direction of the wires does nothing), and in d dimensions forces have to go as r−d + 1 (except when they don't). ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 00:37, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Quantization of the free electromagnetic field

I have tried to find but I cannot find an article that describes E and B in terms of annihilation and creation operators of the field. Do we even have an article on the quantization of th free electromagneic field and space time commutation relations of the field [E,E] [E,B] and how the Heisenberg eqution of the field gives the Maxwell's equation. This is quantum optics. If this kind of information is not there, then I will make a new page and put it in. Kanwarpreet Grewal 19:23, 2 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kp grewal (talk • contribs)

What to do about articles describing a theory held by just one academic

If someone creates a page to promote their new theory of Abso-Relative Hydro-Kinetic Gravity, it's short work to dispose of it. But I believe there are a large number of pages describing physical ideas by university academics, which go into the details of the idea but which don't mention that almost no-one else accepts the idea. Dark energy star and Algebraic holography would be examples.

Abso-Relative Hydrokinetic Gravity can revolutionize the world as we know it! I'm struggling with the same issue at Induced gamma emission: Hafnium controversy, where an editor believes the only reason we're not all flying hafnium-powered skycars is due to massive government conspiracy. FellGleaming (talk) 13:41, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

At Talk:Dark_energy_star#Almost_no-one_is_interested_in_this_concept I have suggested a way to deal with this, namely, redirects to pages of the form Alternative theories of .... Is there anything like this policy already in effect? Mporter (talk) 10:14, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Per my comments there, I don't see a problem with having individual articles about these ideas as long as they've been published within the scientific community and have either gotten a bit of citing or gotten a bit of press (demonstrating notability), and also are not presented as being mainstream (satisfying WP:NPOV). In the past, there have been many problems with pseudoscience articles claiming to have solved the world's problems, but they failed the above on both counts (no peer-reviewed scientific publications, not presented in a neutral manner). I'd support making an index/summary article to keep track of all Proposed alternatives to black holes, but I'd be against merging everything into that article (it'd either end up at 200k, or any given description would be simplified to the point of meaninglessness). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 15:53, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Sounds good, Chris. We already have Alternatives to general relativity, but descriptions of alternatives in that article should be reserved for those which have been taken seriously (at some time) by more than just a handful of kooks. JRSpriggs (talk) 18:52, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Discrete Field Model

The Discrete Field Model (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article could probably use attention from experts in the field. A skim suggests that it's mostly WP:SYN, attempting to unify GR and quantum mechanics, but I could be misreading (it might instead just be describing some commonly-used technique/approach for constructing such theories that I'm unfamiliar with). The article appears to be mostly the work of one editor. There's been talk page chatter about the quality of the article, but nobody on any side in that discussion seems to be making useful statements ("the article is horrible"/"the article is great", vs. "x, y, and z are problems"). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 22:50, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

It looks like a fringe synthesis. It could go to AfD. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:04, 31 March 2010 (UTC).

Update: This now has an AfD, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Discrete Field Model. Please take a few minutes to review the article and comment at the AfD. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 04:47, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Astrodynamics terms

There is a merge suggestion at WT:AST about merging Central body and Orbiting body among other terms that have really short articles, into a Glossary of astrodynamics.

65.94.253.16 (talk) 05:05, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Notification regarding Wikipedia-Books

Hadronic Matter
An overview
An example of a book cover, taken from Book:Hadronic Matter

As detailed in last week's Signpost, WildBot has been patrolling Wikipedia-Books and searched for various problems in them, such as books having duplicate articles or containing redirects. WikiProject Wikipedia-Books is in the process of cleaning them up, but help would be appreciated. For this project, the following books have problems:

The problem reports explain in details what exactly are the problems, why they are problems, and how to fix them. This way anyone can fix them even if they aren't familiar with books. If you don't see something that looks like this, then all problems have been fixed. (Please strike articles from this list as the problems get fixed.)

Also, the {{saved book}} template has been updated to allow editors to specify the default covers of books (title, subtitle, cover-image, cover-color), and gives are preview of the default cover on the book's page. An example of such a cover is found on the right. Ideally, all books in Category:Book-Class physics articles should have covers.

If you need help with cleaning up a book, help with the {{saved book}} template, or have any questions about books in general, see Help:Books, Wikipedia:Books, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia-Books, or ask me on my talk page. Also feel free to join WikiProject Wikipedia-Books, as we need all the help we can get.

This message was delivered by User:EarwigBot, at 00:44, 8 April 2010 (UTC), on behalf of Headbomb. Headbomb probably isn't watching this page, so if you want him to reply here, just leave him a message on his talk page. EarwigBot (owner • talk) 00:44, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Rewrite of Particle accelerator

A large-scale rewrite of Particle accelerator (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is occurring, by a user who appears to have returned to it after a long absence (reactivating threads that went stale 2008-ish). The rewrite isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the discussion could use extra eyes. I'm hoping to take a look at it over the weekend, but my track record with that isn't very good (as I'm quite busy off-wiki). Furthermore, the editor in question seems to take lack of response as agreement, so a more prompt review might be in order. They're acting in good faith and with knowledge of the subject; my concern is that they're unilaterally making changes without what I'd consider to be sufficient discussion beforehand. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 08:11, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

AfD: Standard assumptions in astrodynamics

Standard assumptions in astrodynamics is at articles for deletion. It is somewhat unusual for an article, yet there are lots of pages that link to it, so I thought I would mention it here for anyone interested. Johnuniq (talk) 07:23, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Light-like, null...

While looking for a suitable link target for "null path" in "The speed of light [...] is [...] the speed of a null path in relativity", I found the following absurdities:

Something must be done about that, especially Light-like and Lightlike going to different places. Any ideas? (BTW, I've pointed the link for "null path" in that sentence to Null geodesic, but I'm not convinced it was the best choice.) ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 16:04, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

You could disambiguate "light like". Redirect both to light like, and create a dab page there to point to the two pages. 70.29.208.247 (talk) 05:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

SILEX nuclear enrichment by lasers

The Silex Process article is currently rated as low-importance on the WikiProject Physics importance scale. This may be correct; I don't know. I had never heard of SILEX until a few days ago. However, given the recent (cited) update to the article that "concerns were raised the process poses a threat to global nuclear security, being 75% smaller and consuming considerably less energy than current enrichment technologies, it is almost undetectable from orbit potentially allowing rogue nations activities' to go undetected by the international community.", I would suggest that it would be good for more physics-oriented experts than I reassess the importance classification. That is my suggestion. Cheers. N2e (talk) 01:05, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

The importance ratings are a way to prioritize work in the project. A low-importance does not mean the the subject is unimportant, it simply mean that compared to other articles, "lacking" an entry on SILEX is not as bad as "lacking" an entry on say the Calutron (rated "mid-importance"). Personally, I feel that the rating is appropriate (others could differ however). See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Physics/Quality_Control#Importance_scale for more details. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:24, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
I added a little about the history of laser-based enrichment. Fell Gleaming(talk) 19:11, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Thank you FellGleaming! N2e (talk) 03:46, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Toroidal ring model and undue weight

Main page: Talk:Toroidal ring model § Undue weight

I read this article, and I just can't help but feel that it is arguing "for" this model based, trying to associate it with big names in physics, rather than present the model and it's current acceptance (i.e., little, if at all). Many questionable (at best) sources at used, such as fringe journal Galilean Electrodynamics are used, and the history section seem to be original synthesis, rather than be based on reviews of the model. There is also a jarring discontinuity of tone when getting to the "current status" (which I think is fine, if a bit short), since the reader has been primed all the way to think this is an accepted model, confirmed by experiment.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:05, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

A gentle proposal to WikiProject Physics

I make this proposal with all due humility, and I recognize that it is not my place to criticize, as I have not, to date, made any contributions to Physics articles in Wikipedia.

I propose that authors and editors of relatively arcane physics articles, such as that on Scalar field theory (as opposed to one such as atom) be written on two levels, elementary and advanced. To see the benefit of such an approach, I recommend a review of the book Gravitation by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler. Basically, I think articles on topics that are likely to be over the heads of most readers of Wikipedia should have an alternate track, or several paragraphs in the way of an elementary introduction that explains the topic on the level of, say, a science article in the New York Times, or Scientific American. (I admit that this task will be far from trivial for many topics in physics that are normally discussed largely in terms of the equations.)

The alternative is articles that are not useful to nearly as many readers as they could be.

I experienced this same phenomenon in reading the 15th edition of Encyclopedia Britannica. I actually had the hard-copy of this tome in the '80s. It included a one volume Propædia, a one-volume 'topical organization' of the encyclopedia, an Outline of Knowledge which one might use as a guide to studying any and all fields of knowledge contained in the encyclopedia. I opened it to the first two sections, which were Matter and Energy >> Atoms >> Structure and Properties of Atoms & Energy >> Atoms >> Atomic Nuclei and Elementary Particles. I don't remember which of these two articles I got into, but I believe it was Atomic Nuclei. I started reading, and within a page or two, I was lost. I could not really follow the article. This was within 10 years of my receiving a BS in Physics at MIT. This article had been written by a physicist, but not in such a way that it could be understood by an intelligent layperson. Perhaps if I'd gotten a Master's Degree....

Again, no disrespect meant. I applaud you who have taken the time to write physics articles for Wikipedia. I just think they could be made more accessible. — Paulmlieberman (talk) 17:15, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Note that this already happening to some extent. For many topics there are introduction to ... articles. A good example is general relativity an introduction to general relativity. Of course, these do not exist for all topics. For one writing accessible technical articles is a lot of work and there just so many editors. Second, it does not make sense in all cases. Some articles (like atom) should just be written in an accessible way, while others are just so arcane that writting an accessible version makes little sense (and would be impossible without violating WP:OR. For example, the article Schwarzschild metric is just not going to make sense to anybody who does not know what a metric is in the first place. Anything on a more accessible level should already be available in the black hole article. TimothyRias (talk) 18:20, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
I agree with most of what you said, but it should be possible, for example, to write a lead section for "Schwarzschild metric" such that even a lay person would understand that it is a kind of a mathematical description of the spacetime curved by a massive object, which allows to theoretically study its gravitational effects. In this particular case, it appears that the article lead already does that; but I once saw a guy believing that it was impossible to do such a thing on Euler–Lagrange equation, and I proved him wrong.[1]
On the other hand, I believe that the amount of information about scalar field theory which a layman could understand would fit in no more than three or four paragraph, so there's little point in writing a separate article "Introduction to scalar field theory" when such an introduction could just go in the lead of "Scalar field theory". ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 13:57, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
I heartily agree. Feynman himself once said that if you can't at least broadly summarize a topic without the math so that a layman can understand it, then YOU don't really understand it! He himself made many mighty attempts at following his own dictim, such as all the intro parts to pretty hard math in his Lectures on Physics, and his little book on QED, which is physically correct (save for polarization effects) but has no math at all. We're not writing articles for scientific journals, here. It's an encyclopedia. EVERYTHING should be intro'd in plain language.SBHarris 17:34, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
All I can ask is that we please not go overboard with this, as in the past there have been changes made in the name of understandability that either dumbed down the lede to the point of uselessness or even made it factually incorrect. There are topics that a layman won't be able to understand much of, simply due to lacking the background. That's what inline wiki-links are for (pointing them at the required background). The math articles tend to have more of this than the physics articles, but it's still the case for a significant number of ours (and I don't see a serious problem with this). Why should we be surprised that we can't quickly summarize for a layman something that's normally only taught to people with many years of specialized training in the tools and concepts used to describe it?
So, by all means remove unnecessary obfuscation or complexity, but please don't get rid of the details that really are important. Otherwise half of the physics ledes will be "this is a type of mathematical model showing how things relate to other things". --Christopher Thomas (talk) 17:49, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, but often people don't even try to write comprehensible intros. While I don't think I could explain my sister what the hell Wick's theorem is about (but then, it's highly unlikely that she hears of it in the first place, and wants to know about it), I think that a good rule of thumb is that if you've heard of a topic before getting a degree, writing a comprehensible but factually correct introduction on it is not impossible. ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 19:33, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the thoughtful responses to my concern. I agree that it would be very easy to dump ledes down to the point of uselessness. I also agree that we need to remember that this is an encyclopedia for the (English-speaking?) world, and the fine details of mathematical physics may not be understandable by most, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. I concur with SBHarris's point. It's not easy to present physics to the uninitiated. Viki Weisskopf used to tell the story of how he tried to teach electron spin to a class of undergrad physics majors at MIT. He gave what he thought was a brilliant exposition, only to be met by a roomful of blank stares. He went home and thought about it, and came back two days later with a different approach; no joy. This recurred twice more. His fifth attempt was different. After giving the lecture, Weisskopf reminisced, "finally, I understood electron spin". Paulmlieberman (talk) 17:27, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I completely agree. In fact I think there should only be ONE version, but with a gentler and clearer introduction of concepts. For example the page on "Quantization": Quantization (physics) is lacking in the description of the actual PROCESS itself. Following other links to "Canonical quantization" does not help either. Perhaps some kind of EXAMPLE and an algorithm will make it easier to grasp? All Computer Science articles excel at this, see: Bubble sort. Drozdyuk (talk) 02:04, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Missing physics topics

I've updated my list of missing physics topics - Skysmith (talk) 13:31, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I appreciate all the work involved in creating this list and this page. However, when I try to load the page it takes much longer than normal. And after loading the page my computer gets "stuck". At the same time I am unable to navigate the page, because I cannot scroll smoothly from one letter to the next. When scrolling finally begins it jumps down or jumps up. After having stated all that, I am wondering if it possible to break this page down to a number of other pages where navigation through this list becomes possible. I don't have a slow computer, and the bandwidth I am using for internet access is supplied is large and fast. Just a request, and hopefully it is helpful. Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 04:09, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
There's a though. Would you have ane good suggestions of what sections could be split to their own pages - Skysmith (talk)
Sorry, it took this long to get back to you. I didn't really have a solution until just now. I propose setting up a directory page which have section links to the sections on other pages. Each page consists of one section on the original page. I am using sub pages of Wikiproject physics. So, for instance, here is the link for the directory page:
Directory
Here is the link for the first "missing physics topics page":
Physics terminology
On the directory page I have only set up links up to and including the section entitled "atoms". I thought this would turn out better, so I went ahead and started it. I am now wishing I kept this on my sub page and linked to that so people could check it out and comment. Well, is this a good idea?----Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 03:21, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
OK. I just linked the first two terms on the directory page -"Physics terminology" and "Measurments". The section link to "Measurements" might need to be fixed. So any ideas how to improve this? Should these just be on a regular name space page? I was thinking "no" because this is not really an encyclopedia topic, so it does not belong in a regular name space page. But that is my opinion. ----Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 03:33, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
The directory page now has several links to the other pages, which are now set up. So, everyone feel free to take a look. This is only the beginning. The directory page will be longer, of course, if there is a consensus of some sort to move forward. Now that it is set up I don't see that finishing this will take me too much longer. It was figuring out the set up for all the pages that took time. Anyway, ideas and edits are welcome. ----Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 04:20, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Good work for separating the list up - it was causing my computer problems too. How was the list generated? I think the process is throwing up a lot of suggestions that really shouldn't be turned into articles - I've summarised the ones that I think can be dropped from Physics terminology#Measurements (chosen as it was a fairly short section!) but I'm not sure how useful carrying on this process would be. Djr32 (talk) 09:50, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Djr32. The directory page is now set up with links that work all the way to and including "Air". The links will take you to the appropriate page. On the directory page there is a number of red-links. These are "placeholder" links until they are linked to the appropriate target page. Everyone feel free to give this set up a test run. Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 19:04, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Looks magnificent to me - Skysmith (talk) 09:57, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
So, to re-emphasise the question I asked a while ago, what should we do with this list? I've gone through a few sections and noted the entries which I think could be removed (which is most of them) - but what next? Djr32 (talk) 21:52, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
I took a look at some of the pages at random, I noticed some of your notes. However, it seems you are reccomending only a small number for some kind of removal, compared to the number of topics listed. Personally, I am not for a large scale removal. If you are confident in your small number of removals and redirects then I say I go ahead. At the same time, I did notice in some of your notations that you are unsure. It is OK to leave those alone. Looking at the list as a whole, I see it as something to be worked on, over a very long period of time, by whoever decides to choose a topic and write about it. For dealing with the whole list, or large parts of it, I reccomend waiting until some or all of the following users voice their opinion: User:Linas, User:Crowsnest, User:Headbomb, (User:Hugo99), User:Jheald, User:Sbyrnes321, User:Tassedethe, User:TimothyRias, User:Trurle & User:TStein
It appears to me that the above list of users were involved in compiling this list. ----Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 02:18, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
I didn't have any hand in compiling the list, but I've occasionally looked at it and commented on some entries.
The list I think has been compiled from the indexes of various sources, including (by the look of it) answers.com. A large number of entries on the list are, effectively, the head-phrases for scientific dictionary definitions. There is quite a consistent line at WP:AfD to say "no dicdefs" and "send them all to Wiktionary". So, pure dictionary definitions should maybe not have an article of their own. Nevertheless, as soon as there is scope for any wider discussion, eg of why the dictionary definition is as it is, how it relates to other material, or what the history of it is, then there may indeed be a case for a WP article on it.
However, even when the article is a pure dictionary definition, usually, in my view, it should still not be deleted from the list. Instead, the appropriate thing in my view is to look for the most appropriate article that we do have, and then turn the redlink into a blue redirect; so that somebody keying the phrase into the search box gets taken to an appropriate article. That is mostly what I have done, when approaching these lists. Probably one should also check that, having created the redirect, the new target article does contain and define the term, and ideally that it contains it in bold somewhere in the lead. I make confession that I haven't always done that, and I probably should have. Also it's possible that some of my redirects may not be quite right, for example nonrelativistic mechanics -> classical mechanics is arguable; though somebody else made the exactly same call in 2007 for nonrelativistic physics.
My view is that with appropriate re-directs, it should be possible to turn much of the list blue; and then what remains red probably does indicate an area we're not covering, which may have potential for at least an umbrella article.
But finally, even if there is an entry on the list with no hope even of a redirect to an appropriate article, my view would be not to delete it from the list. Annotate it, explain why it doesn't deserve an article, perhaps cross it out like this, but leave it (and your assessment of it) in the list. That way, the next time the list gets re-compiled including new sources, the entry will remain with your comments, rather than being re-inserted all over again, to have to be re-investigated again.
Anyhow, those are my thoughts on the question. Jheald (talk) 08:50, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Jheald. I guess that the list is most accurately viewed as a list of likely search terms that people might try to find in the search box that are redlinks. Many should probably become redirects. In some special cases it can be useful to make glossary articles for a number of closely related terms. TimothyRias (talk) 09:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
OK, I think that we're in broad agreement. I've tended to suggest possible redirects where appropriate on the sections I looked at (Measurements, Mathematics and Atoms) - it would be worth having a second opinion on these before I do anything further. Thanks! Djr32 (talk) 19:18, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Free electron models

Are the Nearly free electron model and the Free electron model the same thing? If so we need a merge. If not they need to be properly distinguished in both articles. --Bduke (Discussion) 22:56, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

They are not the same thing and the distinction is made in the articles. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:11, 25 April 2010 (UTC).
Well it is not clear to me that the distinction is made clearly. First, I think the former only links to the latter by calling it the free-electron gas. Second, I think the latter only links to the former under "See also". So the nearly free electron model is the free electron model with a weak perturbation. The nature of that perturbation is not clear to me from reading the article. --Bduke (Discussion) 06:31, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
It says in the first sentence of the article "a weak periodic perturbation meant to model the interaction between the conduction electrons and the ions in a crystalline solid". Xxanthippe (talk) 08:19, 26 April 2010 (UTC).

Moons of Saturn

I nominated this article for Featured List status. The review page is here. Ruslik_Zero 12:32, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Alert for Weight

An eager editor is overhauling the article Weight, thereby turning it into what seems a mess to me. Is weight a vector quantity or a scalar? Our article Mass versus weight states once that it is a vector, but then consistently treats it as a scalar. Weightlessness holds that it is a scalar ("the size of the force of gravity acting on an object"), as did Weight before the "Correction" began ("the magnitude, W, of the force that must be applied to an object in order to support it"). Whichever is the best approach, consistency across articles and inside articles is also desirable.  --Lambiam 22:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Template:Portal

As I described here, I want to activate my bot to add the syntax {{Portal|Physics}} in all the pages that is related to Physics. In this manner more readers will visit portal:Physics.

  • Do you agree?
  • I have to write "physics" (lower case) or "Physics" (upper case)?

--Aushulz (talk) 12:34, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

1) Most physics article already link to the Physics portal through the {{physics}} template on their talk page. I'm not sure there is much add value in adding it to the see also section as well.
2) A bot doing this would mess up the layout on a lot of pages. Such wanton bot power destruction does not seem warranted. TimothyRias (talk) 12:58, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Re:1) Talk page is not visible as page of namespace:0.
Re:2) In it.wikipedia we never assisted to messing-up problems, the code to add template:portal is really simple and secure.
If you don't believe that it increase visitors to portal page, see here: in a single day the visitors are doubled, and after a year they are about 7 times of original value! --Aushulz (talk) 13:13, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Note, usually these request are placed at WP:BRFA, along with a detailed summary of what is proposed (how it would work, the logic used, etc...). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:03, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
If you bot add a {{portal|physics}} to articles, it should be in the see also section. 70.29.208.247 (talk) 05:32, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit request on Physics

Could someone please take a look at the edit-semiprotected request in Talk:Physics#The_scientific_method (if it has not been done by the time you read this), thanks,  Chzz  ►  18:35, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

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