Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive November 2011

The man who had proven the superluminal speed of the neutrino

You may want to check the admissibility of Guang-Jiong Ni, and most of all the truthfulness of its content. See fr:Discussion:Guang-Jiong Ni if you read French. Skippy le Grand Gourou (talk) 16:46, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm impressed that none of the 350+ watchers of this page did not have a look at the mentioned article for a week. Skippy le Grand Gourou (talk) 08:30, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

What did you expect us to do? It is outside the my area of knowledge. JRSpriggs (talk) 09:29, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I did have a look at it, even before you came here —see my reply at the related Talk:Faster-than-light#Guang-Jiong Ni measurements. I guess this is one of those articles originally written in Wiki_L1 and translated to Wiki_L2. A bunch of others put some serious effort in making it better in Wiki_L1, but understandly nobody feels like doing the same routine in Wiki_L2. So Wiki_L2 ends up —for a while— with a bad article. It can take some time before this is put straight. It looks like Azurfrog (talk · contribs) is already (somewhat) taking care of this — see his his comments at Wiki_L1. - DVdm (talk) 09:58, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

@JRSpriggs : The topic is also far out of the area of knowledge of the main contributor of the article. Just have a look at the sourcing and you'll get an idea — I believe it will be enough.

@DVdm : Indeed the article is translated from WP:fr, where a bunch of others tried to put some serious effort to make its main contributor understanding how to source correctly, but he does not want to hear. I myself tried to make the article better on WP:fr, but it ended up with all my changes reverted by the main contributor and him requesting for admins to judge my case (which was obviously refused). I don't want to move the conflict from WP:fr to WP:en, hence this request for new people to have a look. BTW Azurfrog also came from WP:fr. Skippy le Grand Gourou (talk) 10:10, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Right. See also User talk:Bastien Sens-Méyé. Keywords are effort and patience. - DVdm (talk) 10:17, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by indicating his user talk page, is it for me ? If so I was already in touch with him on WP:fr and the subject has been extensively discussed with him here, here and here. As for patience, the article is up since ten days (one month on WP:fr) and nobody reacted to my message here within one week… The point is that while not understanding anything about how scientists do work this contributor believes he has found the next Nobel prize and tries to promote him (he refers himself to the article as "itching powder"…). And the problem is that he does so by using primary sources (i.e. ArXiv links and database lists of articles (I mean, the list itself as a source of being recognized, for instance)) and by interpreting them as he wants. I mean, just read the article, it's an obvious case. Now it's up to people on WP:en to deal with it : as previously mentioned, this user already believes he is in conflict with me on WP:fr so I won't edit the article here. Skippy le Grand Gourou (talk) 10:41, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Patience explaining how Wikipedia works. DVdm (talk) 15:47, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I think you'll find that most of us are tired of dealing with contested articles; as you've already found, it's a long and frustrating process (part of the reason I'm on semi-sabbatical). If you feel that the article as-is is terrible and not supported by its sources, take it to AfD. If a good article about the topic could be written, and people can demonstrate that at AfD, "delete without prejudice against recreation" is the likely outcome. If people fail to demonstrate that such an article could be created, plain old "delete" will likely result. If the threat of deletion motivates people sufficiently, it might get improved to the point of a "keep" by the time the AfD finishes. While I get the impression that this isn't likely for this article, it's happened for others in the past. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 23:37, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, content-wise, there have been measurements indicating FTL and/or negative-squared-mass neutrinos for many years. I don't see why this particular researcher's one is relevant. The CERN experiment is the first to have confidence intervals sufficiently narrow that the result can't be ignored. Previous experiments weren't sufficiently convincing (and arguably neither is CERN's; that's why they've asked every scientist on the planet to help figure out what they did wrong). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 23:47, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

That statement in the article will vanish without us here having to take any action. We just have to wait until the Opera results are shown to be wrong. Count Iblis (talk) 02:51, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

You'll have to admit it would be very interesting if it was correct though! ;-) Dmcq (talk) 14:05, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Query raised at Original research noticeboard

I have raised a query at:

Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard#Can new formula be put in to a scientific article?

about an issue at Planck's law and the interpretation of Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines#Examples, derivations and restatements Dmcq (talk) 12:45, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Bibliography of physics

I just want to let the community know that an editor has moved "List of important publications in physics" to "Bibliography of physics" [1]. I am not sure this is a good idea. The new title may be too general. Also, perhaps the criteria for inclusion still needs to be reviewed. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 23:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I've moved it back. This was a unilateral move with zero discussion, initiated by wikiproject created less than a week ago. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 23:49, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Discussion has now been started at Talk:List of important publications in physics#Move. I encourage project members to comment as they see fit. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 00:48, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Help needed at Planck's law

For some reason, there's a bunch of disagreements on things that IMO, should be pretty obvious. I'm getting the impression that 2-3 real life friends are ganging up to have the article written as they want. They keep making the conflict personal, and try to "discredit" me for not being a "real physicists" or something.

Not saying I'm 100% right on everything, but when people claim that the wavenumber symbol isn't k, and that the Boltzman constant should be written k rather than k_B, even though it can and will be confused with the wavenumber, or that we should include a 1.5 page-long proof that $J=\int _{0}^{\infty }{\frac {x^{3}}{e^{x}-1}}\,dx={\frac {\pi ^{4}}{15}}.$ in the article, despite WP:TEXTBOOK, it's like stepping in the Twilight zone.

For a bit of context about what exactly is fought over, see "their" version vs "my" version. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:37, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Possible sock puppetry? IRWolfie- (talk) 18:17, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

The thought crossed my mind, but both editors have different enough edit histories, and the accounts aren't recent creations, so I doubt that it's the case. Could be a case of WP:MEAT, but that still seems a bit of a stretch. I just think it's a few people who edited wikipedia here and there, and happened to stumble on the page at the same time I was doing a rewrite, and approach the article in a different way than we usually do. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:37, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't look like sock or meat puppetry. It could be possible that they know each other in RL but no real evidence to suggest it. It does, however, clearly demonstrate the fine line between arrogance and ignorance. The personal attacks they made and suggestion of collaborative breaking of 3RR is disruptive. Polyamorph (talk) 19:31, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

It isn't a big deal, I don't care about such irrelevant issues as notation etc., but Wiki-history shows that such issues can trigger huge conflicts (I know of two ArbCom cases where such issues played a role). That's why I think the best thing is to go about things in the least obstructionist way. E.g., when I was rewriting the Helmholtz free energy article, I changed A to F, because that is how most physics text denote it. But I was asked to put it back to A. I did have the feeling that F is better and my urge was to stick to F and defend that, but I had the feeling that people wanted A and not F for not so objective reasons, simply because it's the standard in chemistry (so the argument would degenerate into whether its a cemistry or physics subject, and I'm not really interest such debates). So, I didn't bother arguing that issue, and put it back to A.

About the appendix, I only reverted it back once, the arguments on the talk page about that discuss legitimate issues. It is a notable integral evaluation as far as this topic is concerned, less so as a general math topic. One can't say that just because it's a an integral evaluation, it doesn't belong to the topic area. It does, because that's how the sources treat this. One can, of course, say that it takes up too much space given that it's just a single integral, so one can think of creating a new article where several related integrals are treated. But there isn't an edit war going on about this, so people who are not interested in this (or are interested but agree with the present version) can ignore it and focus on other things. Count Iblis (talk) 21:05, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Please note (as I have mentioned on the talk page); Notability is not used as a criteria for article content. Also, rather than creating multiple sets of the same discussion it's best to keep the discussion to the talk page. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:30, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

It's gotten to the point that we're arguing about whether E = hν is the Planck relation, if it has a valid physical meaning, and if Claude Cohen-Tannoudji should be considered a reliable source... I am honestly rendered speechless. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 08:56, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

From the statement "The first section consisted of concerns raised by Chjoaygame, PAR, Q Science, and myself (all of whom have made substantial contributions to this article over the years)" it appears they may have ownership issues with the article. IRWolfie- (talk) 08:58, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Can I please make a suggestion, don't rise to the bait in any of these discussions. Remember WP:CIVILITY and try and be nice in the things that you say. Some of the discussions are getting out of hand because they are getting too personal. It might also be good to just stop editing the article for a bit and for all editors to discuss (major) changes before making them. Just an idea. There do appear to be some ownership issues but there also seems to be some inexperience in dealing with conflcts. I've spoken to one of the editors about this and they seem to have taken note. Hopefully they will be able to work more collaboratively now. Cheers Polyamorph (talk) 09:14, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Overall I think I side against Headbomb in this. If one is going to edit a well developed article one should have ones equations and facts well formed and thought out before starting rather than using it as a scratchpad and chopping and changing. The appendix calculating the integral shouldn't have been in that article though it might be notable enough for somewhere else, but one should explain things like that, in a textbook having the appendix would be perfectly alright. Dmcq (talk) 12:33, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I just had a look at Bernoulli number and Riemann zeta function which would be the obvious places I think for the integral but didn't see a derivation in either, the Riemann zeta function one did give the explicit integral though. Dmcq (talk) 12:59, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

About the integral, PAR has created a new article (which is now a redirect to a section of the article on polylogarithms). The integral evaluation will be put there, together with the more general cases of Bose-Einstein related integrals. I guess one can create a similar Wiki articles about evaluations and approximations of integrals related to Fermi-Dirac distribution. Count Iblis (talk) 14:33, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems once again there is an issue at the page. It appears attempts are being made to remove the history section with no discussion and dump it into a separate article. (and also move the history section to the bottom of the article). IRWolfie- (talk) 22:14, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Planck revisited

The editors now claim that expression Planck's law in terms of the wavenumber k is "obvious WP:OR". Editing that page is like stepping into the twilight zone. Help would be greatly appreciated in making sure the article reflects sane physics and not the delusions of a minority of people disconnected from reality. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:57, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I realize this isn't ANI, which is where this discussion really needs to go if it comes to that (though I hate adding to their already full plate). But when it comes to "reality," I have to say I'm very impressed by Polyamorph's physics credentials, and am therefore particularly inclined to take him seriously when he says, "It might also be good to just stop editing the article for a bit and for all editors to discuss (major) changes before making them. Just an idea."

Amen to that. Credentials aside, this is what I have been asking for at the Planck's law article for two weeks, thus far with no success whatsoever. Headbomb continues to charge ahead replacing entire sections with creations spun out of his vivid imagination. So far you've only been hearing Headbomb's side of things, for the other side you could do worse than look at this section of the talk page.

Headbomb's report of "the delusions of a minority of people disconnected from reality" raises the interesting question, where is the majority supporting Headbomb's utterly unique view of physics? Headbomb has never had much success sourcing his extravagant claims, and if he can't produce his implied majority of people on his side, it shouldn't take too long to figure out who's the delusional one.

In the meantime, the main contributors to the Planck's law article over the past few years have in the past two weeks been prevented from going about their work because Headbomb has judged them to be colluding friends and has maintained a steady pace of replacing their contributions with his own fictional extravaganzas (in plainer language, utter rubbish) while insisting unilaterally that he's right and they're wrong.

While I've had some interaction with Q Science in the past in connection with lapse rate issues, I've never run into Chjoaygame, PAR, or Count Iblis before, even though PAR had been contributing to this article several years ago, even before me. Headbomb's accusation of "colluding friends" is at the very least paranoid if not actually delusional.

As an indication of just how disruptive Headbomb's edits have become, a score of sections on the article's talk page are the direct result of Headbomb's aggressive editing style over the past two weeks. What better indicator of disruptive behavior does Wikipedia have to offer? As I said at the beginning, this is more ANI material than WT:PHYS. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 09:04, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Yet again having looked at it I side against Headbomb. A main basis of Wikipedia is verifiability. Insults of fellow editors is disruptive whatever one might feel about them. One needs to be able to very solidly base ones facts on sources and show other people's sources are less good before indulging in running down other editors and even then it is normally a bad idea even with fringe pushers. Here we don't have good sources. The material being put in isn't well developed and the other editors are not in any way fringe and they do have good sources. Things like 'We could probably add the peaks of those distribution to the tables, but it's getting late here and I don't feel like crunching numbers at this hour' I find quite worrying. We should not be crunching numbers except in our own made up examples or illustrations and such examples should be easily distinguishable from the main text of an article. Dmcq (talk) 12:55, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes I agree. I think Headbomb is trying to do the right thing and improve the article. However, I don't think steamrolling into the article and making large changes over a short space of time is a good way to go about making important improvements when they are not necessarily popular with a number of dedicated editors who have worked on the article over a number of years. Usually, when content disputes escalate to personal attacks and repeated reverts the best course of action is to protect the page and discuss on the talk page until the issue(s) are resolved. I think that such action would be a little drastic in this particular instance, however you must talk to each other amicably. There were some personal attacks from both sides. Please remember WP:CIVILITY and comment on the content, not on contributors. Then let sleeping dogs lie and move on. One solution could be to make the changes in a userspace draft and then offer that for discussion before implementing it. It could also be good to make a list of improvements that can be made to the article and work together to implement them. Polyamorph (talk) 15:49, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I just had another look at the talk page and this Talk:Planck's_law#statements_hopefully_more_consensual raises a huge red flag for me. I think we need some admins to have a good look at what's happening there. I think an AN/I is called for. Dmcq (talk) 17:58, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Based on what I've seen at AN/I, they'll say "content dispute, sort it out on the talk page", at this point. They only generally intervene by imposing blocks (much like the administrators who are members of this project), and that will only happen if it becomes extremely clear that Headbomb is editing against consensus. For that (or the absence of that, or the presence or absence of other editors editing against consensus) to be determined, more editors from this project will have to read through the changes and comment on the talk page, to make it very clear to outside observers what consensus is for that article. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 18:52, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I very much disagree with that characterization of the issues. I certainly don't deny there is opposition to whatever I've been doing, but that opposition is completely groundless and are based on misunderstandings of what our policies and guidelines actually say. Three topics have been under debate. The first is whether k or k_B should be used to represent the Planck constant. The answer here is obviously that k cannot be used, because k is already used for the wavenumber k. The second is that expressing Planck's law in terms of angular wavenumber k = 2π/λ consists of WP:OR. This is also obviously nonsense, since it's a simple rescaling of the formula for the spectroscopist's wavenumber (1/λ) by a factor of 2π. And the last issue one is whether one may call E = hν "Planck's relation", which I hope I don't need to justify on this page out of all places, but that last one seems to be the current "hot issue".

The actual issue IMO is mostly that certain editors on that page are more interested in drama than resolution, and are completely uninterested in compromise or hearing what the other side has to say. I've been busting my ass off to incorporate whatever suggestion they made, or address their concerns, but you certainly don't see any of that acknowledged on the talk page. Every time one tries to steer the debate on the actual article, Chjoaygame or others try to crucify me. It's extremely frustrating to spend time dealing with the huge walls of texts about the most trivial of issues or work towards a consensus with people who aren't interested in finding it. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:15, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, that is not the way I see it. So far you have produced perhaps one reference that uses k_B for the Boltzmann constant in that set of formulas, all the other references use k. To date, I have never seen a single plot of Planck's blackbody formula where the x-axis is the "angular wavenumber". I have looked repeatedly, but can not find any examples. Apparently, you can't either. Yet, you insist on including an equation that is apparently not used in the field even though there is a clear consensus to leave it out. As for E = hν, the great majority of references that use that equation don't actually associate it with a name. Of those that do, I have seen 3 different names. Yet you repeatedly edit war that one, and only one, name can be used. On top of that, you have completely rewritten and severely messed up the references without any discussion at all. You talk about "huge walls of texts", but what about the hundreds of edits you made in 2 days and the fact that you refused to discuss any of them, preferring instead to simply delete the edits made by everyone else. I agree with the other editors who consider your edits to be very disruptive. Q Science (talk) 22:27, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

You cannot use the same variable two different quantities, so you need to distinguish both. k_B for Boltzmanm constant and k for wavenumber is the usual way to write this when confusion is possible (and that's something that's trivial to establish as common practice). Concerning references, I'm not aware of any edits that "messed them up", especially since I spend hours providing complete citation information for each and everyone of them. And likewise for E = hν being known as "Planck's relation" (the other names can be mentioned at Planck's relation, but are out of place in the article about Planck's law). As for relations with hbar instead of h, this too is trivial to establish as a common practice [e.g [2]]. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:01, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Has a citation been produced showing angular wavenumber being used in the same context? As to the relation I though the problem there was that searches indicated that another form was ten times as popular as the 'Planck's relation' now in that article? Dmcq (talk) 02:01, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

It's a trivial derivation, hardly in need of a reference per WP:SCG. But if you absolutely need one, there's always Gerhard Kramm and Nicole Mölders (2009). "Planck's Blackbody Radiation Law: Presentation in Different Domains and Determination of the Related Dimensional Constant". Journal of the Calcutta Mathematical Society. 5 (1–2): 27–61. arXiv:0901.1863. which tackles the very issue of the various forms of Planck's law (see equation 40 for k, although they call it n_p). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:14, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

My impression was that the correctness of the derivation isn't being challenged, but that its use as a notation convention is. Remember, we're not writing textbooks, here - that's what Wikibooks and Wikiversity are for. Wikipedia articles for physics and math topics should reflect the conventions, notation, and so forth used in its sources, even when those conventions result in less elegant content than an original restatement would.--Christopher Thomas (talk) 03:03, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Quite right. I would consider that as one of the two main reasons for not introducing the novel notations B_ν̃(T), $B_{\omega }(T)$, $B_{y}(T)$, and $B_{k}(T)$ into the article, which exist nowhere in the literature.

The other is arguably that the four functions they are asserted to denote are all constant multiples of the two functions $B_{\nu }(T)$ and $B_{\lambda }(T)$ standardly used in the literature. This is obfuscated by giving elaborate formulas for each of these constant multiples, creating the unfortunate impression that Wikipedia doesn't know what it's talking about. The editor who introduced them has made the extraordinary claim that multiplying a function by a constant shifts the function's peak, which does nothing to mitigate that impression. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 09:12, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I just gave you multiple sources for it. Are you blind? And as a side note, the formulas are no more elaborate than they are for B_ν, B_λ, or $B_{\tilde {\nu }}$, they take exactly the same form, but with $\hbar /4\pi ^{3}$ as a common factor rather than $2h$. And nowhere did I claim that multiplying a function by a constants shifts the peak. Stop making shit up.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 09:52, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

How is asking people if they are blind, or telling them that they have a "fundamental reading problem" or that they are "making shit up" conducive to developing a collaborative environment. Really I understand some some of your frustrations Headbomb, and understand how difficult it is to respond to a "wall of text" etc. but you're not making it easy on yourself continuing with this incivility, it's not on. Unfortunately even if your arguments are 100% valid, you nullify them when you make these attacks, provoked or not. Polyamorph (talk) 11:44, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

You can't have a collaborative environment if people refuses to acknowledge reality. They claim the B_k distribution is unsourced, which it isn't. They can't accept the fact that some people work with h, others with hbar, so they try to discredit me by claiming I fail at basic calculus (aka claim I believe multiplying a function by a constant shifts the maximum), which I didn't. They then interpret statements of "in general, the the peak of a distribution depends on the chosen variable" to mean "the peak of each distribution will always differs from each other". It's one thing to have a good-faith disagreement with someone, but it's pretty clear that this isn't a good-faith disagreement they have. None of the "facts" someone bases themselves are found in reality. So yes that is making shit up, have fundamental reading comprehension problems, and being either blind or willingly ignore inconvenient truths. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:54, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Your precise wording was "We could probably add the peaks of those distribution to the tables, but it's getting late here and I don't feel like crunching numbers at this hour." You had agreed earlier that all these functions were simple scalings by a constant of the two basic functions $B_{\nu }$ and $B_{\lambda }$, whose peaks are at two distinct locations in the spectrum, and hence should have been aware that the peaks of the other four functions were at one or the other of those two locations. There was nothing to crunch. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 20:01, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

What I see here is that Headbomb has introduced a formula as a common form which has no citations. The justification for this is a policy which was about examples, derivations and illustrations that does not cover results, only WP:CALC covers new results. They have to be pretty simple like converting miles to kilometers. The new result that was introduced used the variable k which otherwise would be unused in the article because no use for angular wavenumber has been found in the same context. This has justified changing many other formulae to look more cluttered. Personally I have noi problem with k_B but there was no good justification for starting to insult other editors when the consensus did not indicate it was a welcome addition. WP:Scientific citation guidelines#Examples, derivations and restatements does not justify sticking in new end formulae as if they are results used in the field. Only things close to what can be found as citations should be so documented. If a person wants to write new formulae and present them to the public they should get their own book accepted by a publisher not stick random extra formula into Wikipedia that they think should be there but no one else has bothered to stick into a publication. We are not in the business of original thought. Dmcq (talk) 12:06, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

These are not "new unsourced" formulas, these are well-known form of Planck's law (and yes, they are sourced, see arXiv:0901.1863, equation 40 which you somehow refuses to read). You believes that making variable substitutions (such as replacing ν by ω = 2πν) consists of original research, when it clearly does not. Converting formulas from ν to ω = 2πν is no different than converting them from miles to meters. Substitute and multiply by |dν/dω|, a method which is both uncontroversial, and yes, sourced ([3], bottom of page). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:58, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

(a) If this difference is so trivial, why is it necessary to tabulate all these trivial variations on a theme? (b) Where is the source for this system of giving names to these four functions? Certainly not the Kramm et al article you cite, since that has just the one function B taking two parameters; equation 40 gives the result of substituting an expression for the first argument. And Kramm et al use k only to denote the Boltzmann constant, so you can't claim Kramm et al as the source of your name $B_{k}$ for that function. The functions $B_{\nu }$ and $B_{\lambda }$ are genuinely distinct in the sense of having different shapes, and as such warrant having their own notations. The four names for the other four functions can be found nowhere in the literature, and it would not make sense for them to do so since they have the same shapes as one or the other of $B_{\nu }$ and $B_{\lambda }$. (c) Does the journal in which Kramm et al appear have an impact factor? If not, what is Wikipedia's policy on sourcing from journals that don't have an impact factor? One can get anything published in those. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 20:01, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

A) Because different people do things differently. Some people work with h, others with hbar.

B) Names are trivial. Calling them B_k(T) or B(k, T) or whatever is irrelevant. The article picked B_k as its convention, so we're sticking with that.

C) Are you saying that Gerhard Kramm is a fringe mathematician (global warming views aside), or that the Calcutta Mathematical Society is a fringe group? And Wikipedia is can cite from whatever journal it wants, as long as its reliable, regardless of impact factors.

Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:22, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

A) Some people work with h, others with hbar. Please forgive me if this comes across as a "personal attack," but this is just yet another indication of your very limited grasp of the subject matter, among a great many earlier ones that I would be happy to go into on request. The same people that work with h work with hbar. It's not a personal choice, it depends on what you're doing. With thermal emission one almost invariably works with h, with the sort of extremely rare exception that I noted a week ago based on waveguides (but I could come up with even rarer exceptions). That's true even throughout this Kramm et al article, whose equation (40) seems to be nothing more than gratuitous padding of an already content-free article and is never actually used, because it has no use in this context!

B) The article picked B_k as its convention, No, you picked it. So we're sticking with that. Where "we" means you. I'm not saying User: Damorbel is a cocker spaniel (apropos of the raging debate over whether a single particle can have a temperature), but if he were you'd be a pit bull. Starting two weeks ago, you decided you own this article and have been innovating like crazy while deleting everything of substance anyone else wants to add on the ground that you're right and they're wrong, countering every objection to your editing with contradiction, profanity, and/or insult. You also claim that "names are trivial," on which basis if you decided p was a more appropriate name for Planck's constant you could use that instead of h and if anyone complained you'd just say "names are trivial."

C) Neither, I'm saying it's an unpublishable article. Everything in it is either not new (sections 2, 3, 4 and 6) or not true (section 5 repeating Gerlich and Tscheuschner's interesting claim that the Stefan-Boltzmann constant "is not a universal constant" -- they say it "depends on the geometry"). Unpublishable articles nevertheless make it into journals, but never into reputable journals. In this case the first author (Kramm) is also an editor of the Journal of the Calcutta Mathematical Society, which helps greatly with otherwise unpublishable material. (In February I gave an invited talk in Orissa which is just west of Calcutta, had I known about this connection back then I would have inquired into it.) --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 03:19, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Has it even been published yet never mind per reviewd? It is hardly a well-known form if this is where it has to be got from. And it doesn't justify the bold letters about "You cannot use the same variable two different quantities, so you need to distinguish both. k_B for Boltzmanm constant and k for wavenumber" above as it doesn't even use k_B. Dmcq (talk) 20:12, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's published (J. Calcutta Math. Soc. 5: 27), and yes it's peer-reviewed (and is indexed cover-to-cover in both MathSciNet and Zentralblatt MATH). How many times do you need to be told that before you decide to hear it? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:28, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I was unable to find a contents list on the web for issue 5 published in 2009 and no issue seems to be published since. In fact first time I searched I could only find references for the first four issues.. I do not have easy access to paid for databases. It does not seem to be even a medium impact journal and this topic is way out of its remit. I fail to see how this justifies saying it is a common form.And it does not justify all the bother about k_B either as that isn't even mentioned in the paper. Dmcq (talk) 20:42, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The journal is alive and in its 7th volume (2011). That it is alive or defunct, that you have access or not to a paid database, or that it has low or high impact is irrelevant w.r.t reliability, which is the only concern here. It's a fucking scaling by a factor of 2π and we're having meta-debates on notation and impact factors... What a fucking joke this project has become. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:16, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Sticking in things which you think should be in rather than things which are actually described and used in journals is what you've done and that makes a mockery of what WIkipedia is about. WP:V and WP:OR are about stopping people having wonderful ideas while eating their breakfast and sticking that in. Not only did you stick in things because you felt they 'should be' in and stir up arguments with others over notation in a formula where the notation isn't even used in the little known journal about maths were the authors just stuck in the formula as their own derivation to compare to others. And you call that formula common usage. If you would adhere to WP:5P and write an encyclopaedia about what 'is' rather than your own ideas about how it should be then we would not have this hassle. You would not then be saying 'fucking' and and what a joke things are. People who stick in their own ideas rather than what is out there and then rant against people who oppose them make a joke of Wikipedia. The only bits of WP:5P that have been adhered to in those edits and the comments above are that Wikipedia is free to edit and there aren't any rules. Dmcq (talk) 22:15, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Expressing Planck's law in terms of hbar is not [me] "having wonderful ideas while eating their breakfast and sticking that in", and how you can manage to say that with a straight face is beyond me. I gave multiple sources for that, and you're still claiming that I'm [or maybe you're generalizing the claim to "me + several other scientists and mathematicians"] some kind of idiot with a dunce hat one that goes "herp-a-derp" all over the place. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:34, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Citation needed for the B_k showing it is a common form please. Dmcq (talk) 23:10, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Or anything else besides the two common forms $B_{\nu }$ and $B_{\lambda }$. Besides these two differently-shaped functions, there is a third very useful shape which however the literature does not give a third name because it is easily named in terms of either of the two common forms, namely as either $\nu B_{\nu }$ or $\lambda B_{\lambda }$, commonly encountered. There are the same function, namely the one to use with a logarithmic abscissa. Situations commonly arise where this third function is the only one that works, for example any time two radically disparate temperatures are involved such as those of the Sun and the Earth. Each time I try to say this, Headbomb swoops in and immediately deletes me.

While I don't normally apply four-letter words to people, at this stage I no longer have any compunctions against applying Headbomb's favorite four-letter word to him. Is there some way of totally banning him from the Planck's law article? If not then there's no justice on Wikipedia! Coping with Headbomb's antics has easily been the most counterproductive episode of all of 2011 for me. This is the epitome of "disruptive behavior" on Wikipedia. A troll could not wreak more havoc! --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 03:47, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I assure you whatever displeasure you have with me, dealing with you is hundreds of times worse. Reaching in my personal library, I have 5 books which work with hbar (many of which work exclusively with hbar). Charles Kittel's Introduction to Solid State Physics, 8th edition. Neil Ashcroft and David Mermin's Solid State Physics. Hans A. Bethe's Intermediate Quantum Mechanics, A. A. Sokolov, Y. M. Loskutov, and I. M. Tenov's Quantum Mechanics (English ed.), and Frederick Reif's Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 11:36, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

So why couldn't you stick to what was in your books rather than making up your own stuff? Dmcq (talk) 12:22, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Because I didn't "make up my own stuff up" anymore than someone who doesn't have immediate access to their books is "making something up" when they express kinectic energy (K) in terms of momentum (p) [aka K = p²/(2m)] by making simple substitutions based on the formula they remember (K = 1⁄2mv²). I don't know about you, but I learned how to substitute and derive back in high school, and it's certainly something I'd expect a physicist to know how to do with both hands tied behind their back. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:43, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Obviously you didn't learn it well and should have kept both hands in front as you got it wrong. Anyway TimothyRias has titled the section more correctly as 'Different forms' which fixes part of the problem. I think perhaps the ones with ​ℏ should be put in a separate section so the actual more common form mentioned above can be put back in without the hassle the current table has engendered. Dmcq (talk) 13:39, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Please provide a source to back up your claim that form using h and ν is more common than the form using hbar and ω. ;) Such claims are almost impossibly hard to source. (And I'd be surprised if there actually was a significant difference in their usage. The latter form is probably the form of choice for most theoretical physicists.) I think having a table listing the various forms is fine, even if it includes some for completeness sack which hardly ever get used.TR 14:00, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

In the context of Planck's law the evidence from searches of the web is against you. But you misunderstood what I was suggesting, I was not talking about putting back the 'common forms' heading, just putting them into separate sections which would remove the inclination to fill in empty boxes in tables with people's own calculations. It would also I feel make it more accessible to people to not mix the two. I've said this at the end of the talk page. Dmcq (talk) 14:47, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

No one is disputing the prevalence of $\hbar$ and angular units in physics texts, to do so would be to show extreme ignorance. But the article under discussion is not about solid state physics, or general quantum mechanics, etc., it is about black body radiation, more specifically Planck's law. It is easy to cite examples arising in other contexts, what Headbomb hasn't done is cite examples of the use of $\hbar$ and $\omega$ in the expression of Planck's law, which is usually stated for h except when someone sets out to give a list of possible units and for each to derive the corresponding formula for Planck's law stated in full without regard for whether the unit is ever actually used in practice in connection with Planck's law. If there are counterexamples arising in the field then I stand corrected. Are there?

What better way of finding examples of Planck's law stated using hbar instead of h than a Google search for "Planck's law" in conjunction with either hbar or h-bar on the same page? Trying this turned up a lot of irrelevant hits as expected, with the first relevant one being the question "Why do the formulas for planck's units use h instead of hbar?" Further down, an article by Vic Dannon looked promising until it turned out he was attacking Boyer's derivation of something that turned out not to be Planck's law.

Eventually I found an article by Clay S. Turner deriving the formula for Johnson-Nyquist noise (the noise in all electrical conductors) from Planck's law. He says "To derive Johnson’s formula, we will take a modern Physics approach." He begins with the hbar formulation on page 2, then at the bottom of page 3 carries out the algebra for converting to the h formulation since that seems to be what he needed in the first place. Elsewhere Turner describes himself as "chief scientist for Pace-O-Matic, Inc. He has over 30 years of experience in digital signal processing and mathematical and embedded programming." POM describes itself as "Pace-O-Matic develops skill based redemption software for use in trade-mark games, both domestically and internationally and we currently offer over 40 varieties of video games for use in marketplaces worldwide." I guess one could count this as evidence for the thesis that the hbar formulation is used in the field, though under the circumstances this instance seems awfully thin as evidence. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 20:19, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, conveniently ignore the five sources I just gave. And the J. Calcutta Math. Soc. article. And .... After all, if you don't acknowledge their existence, it means they don't exist, right? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:31, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I would say you're the one doing the ignoring. You wrote "I have 5 books which work with hbar (many of which work exclusively with hbar" and listed their titles and authors. I acknowledged that when I wrote "No one is disputing the prevalence of $\hbar$ and angular units in physics texts." What does that have to do with Planck's law? What would be nice to see, and what I went searching for without success, would be someone actually using Planck's law in the angular wavenumber form (what you're calling $B_{k}$ and Kramm et al call $B(n_{p},T)$), or reasoning from it, or anything other than compiling lists of derived variants of the main formulas using various units, which is what you're doing, and what Kramm et al did. What I want to know is, has the function you've christened $B_{k}$ ever showed up in any context in the world except in lists of sterile derivations? You may well have an example somewhere on your bookshelf that would refute my "sterile," but so far you haven't produced it.

While on the subject of ignoring, you've also ignored my complaint that your statement "The radiation emitted is the same in all directions" is wrong. Anyone using that statement to integrate Planck's law over a hemisphere will get $2\pi B_{\lambda }(T)$ for the spectral radiant emittance into the whole hemisphere when the correct answer is $\pi B_{\lambda }(T)$. Lambert's law says that "the radiant intensity observed from an ideal diffusely reflecting surface (a Lambertian surface) is directly proportional to the cosine of the angle θ between the observer's line of sight and the surface normal." What you wrote implies that the radiant intensity is constant in all directions, which would only be true if cos(θ) were independent of θ. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 02:19, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

What does that have to do with Planck's law? Oh I don't know, perhaps the fact that all these books use hbar for Planck's law? Or did you think I was saying those books used the reduced planck constant (and its associated quantities) to calculate lunar cycles? Lambertian stuff can be tackled on the article's talk page if there's a need for that. And BTW, it's the first time you mention Lambert's law here (or elsewhere, AFAIK) so, again, please stop making shit up about me "ignoring" something that never even was brought on until now. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:00, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

1. You're still the one doing the ignoring. What I asked was "has the function you've christened $B_{k}$ ever shown up in any context in the world except in lists of sterile derivations?" and your response was "all these books use hbar for Planck's law." You're evading the question. So far your only source for this function (let alone the name) is an unused equation in a math journal, with the only new result in that article being a proof that the Stefan-Boltzmann constant 5.67×10⁻⁸ is not a universal constant of physics by showing that integrating a substantially different law than Planck's law yields a substantially different constant, namely 1.75×10⁻⁸. You applauded this result, called it "completely mainstream," and claimed that Wikipedia's Stefan-Boltzmann law article says "the exact same thing." I leave it to those knowledgeable about the Stefan-Boltzmann constant to judge Headbomb's physics competence, which has been at this level for the three weeks since he arrived at this article. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 22:17, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
2. Please stop with the profanities.
3. Regarding my "making shit up," had you looked for "Lambert" on the article's talk page before insinuating that I'm a liar you'd have found exactly one occurrence, whose context reads, "In the process of replacing the "Common forms" section with his table, he's also deleted a number of important facts in what was there before, and has replaced them with false statements such as "The emission does not depend on direction" which contradicts Lambert's cosine law." It would be helpful if you would take a little time off from your editing to read the complaints about it, suggestions to "slow down," etc. As you wrote above, "You can't have a collaborative environment if people refuses to acknowledge reality." --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 22:17, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

The hbar form with omega is reasonably easy to find in well used textbooks. I'll have a look for an instance on he web. They do this so as not to confuse things by mixing hbars and h's and they deal mainly in areas where hbar is used. So it may not be the most common form or the form actually used in earnest but it should definitely be in Wikipedia. Dmcq (talk) 11:15, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

[4] and [5] aren't exactly what I wanted but I hope they demonstrate that hbar and omega are used for Planck's Law. Dmcq (talk) 12:09, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Your "in areas where hbar is used" is exactly right. Those areas using hbar for which Planck's law is relevant presumably involve interaction of thermal emission with matter. As I pointed out several times, for example at the talk page at 18:38, 18 October, this article treats simple thermal emission, where angular units complicate the formulas unnecessarily with no benefit.

Here's my understanding of what determines whether to use periodic or angular units (2π radians being one period) in applications of Planck's law. If anyone has a different understanding I'd be very happy to compare notes.

Personal preferences don't appear to play a big role. Rather, when thermal emission interacts with matter, a wavevector perspective becomes important and trig functions enter, often in the form of exponentials of complex variables. In this case angular units are more convenient to work with because the derivative of $\sin _{\omega }(\omega )$ (what we normally call sin, with period 2π) is simply $\cos _{\omega }(\omega )$, whereas the derivative of $\sin _{\nu }(\nu )$ (the version with period 1) is the more awkward $2\pi \cos _{\nu }(\nu )$ (1 is less than 2π so $\sin _{\nu }$ has to rise faster to cycle through a period). Absent interaction with matter, trig functions don't arise and in that case it's much simpler to use periodic units which avoids all those powers of π in the denominator and the exponent of e.

That said, I see no harm in pointing out the existence of contexts where angular units are preferable, and to simply state that the angular counterpart of $B_{\nu }$ is obtained by making the obvious substitution, namely $\omega /2\pi$ for $\nu$, and dividing the result by $2\pi$ (since the spectral quantity B is a derivative). That's a lot easier to grasp, and is also more explanatory than forcing the readers to infer this simple connection for themselves by staring at a wall of formulas. If we find reputable sources for Planck's law in terms of either angular wavelength or angular wavenumber those can be handled the same way, always remembering to divide by $2\pi$ after the obvious substitution. Is this better or worse than the current table? --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 22:41, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the preceding three paragraphs should be duplicated on the talk page as the more appropriate place for them. I can just cut and paste a copy, but maybe Wikipedia has a more high tech way of linking it in? (Above my pay grade.) --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 22:41, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Boltzmann constant

I'd be grateful if some kind soul could take a look in at Talk:Boltzmann constant. I've done my best, as have SpinningSpark (talk · contribs) and Sbharris (talk · contribs), but it seems none of us are making any impact. If anyone can get through to Damorbel (talk · contribs) and help him out, I'd be so grateful. Jheald (talk) 22:33, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Best to talk to Damorbel on his talk page. He has been making similar points on other thermodynamics related pages for several years now. The only way to let him understand things is by persuading him to study the topic. Not sure how to do that, what sometimes works is to invent a problem that he will get wrong using his ideas, and he would accept that what he gets is indeed wrong. Count Iblis (talk) 23:04, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Just spotted this. That's what I've done at the foot of the article's talk page, asking about the units of the average of the Boltzmann distribution, which given what he seems to think about the average he's likely to get wrong, and then it may be easier for him to see his mistake. Or not. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 02:35, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

The matter under discussion should be "the revision of the fundamental physical constants the Kelvin and the Boltzmann constanr by the CIPM" Jheald and others want the concepts of entropy and othe macroscopic concepts applicable only to gases into this article.

Since the contribution of Jheald and SpinningSpark are supported by personal attacks in place of arguments see diff "Now, as SpinningSpark noted above, and as I also put to you on the 15 September, it is not WP's job to teach you physics, nor -- see WP:TALK -- are the talk pages here to try to straighten out your personal misconceptions. If you can find what WP would consider a reliable source that contests this article's proposition that "temperature ... must necessarily be observed at the collective or bulk level", then bring it on. Otherwise this discussion is at an end. Jheald (talk) 19:48, 1 November 2011 (UTC)". And from SpinningSpark [6].

Such personal attacks do not advance Wikipedia, they degrade it. Further, resorting to this kind of contribution throws into doubt the usefulness of the contributions by Jheald and SpinningSpark.

As far as possible I have made technical arguments for which I would very much like a response; as yet there are a number of these which have not been answered by Jheald, SpinningSpark and others, my arguments, related to the Boltzmann constant and the Kelvin, are valid and relevant to the Wikipedia article. --Damorbel (talk) 07:40, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I regret that I'm unable to respond to Damorbel's arguments concerning this matter, as his many comments on other matters over the years have convinced me that I could never leap to his defense on any technical matter whatsoever. His evident enthusiasm on each matter has never rested on any solid technical ground that I was ever able to discern. Your mileage may vary, as they say. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 09:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I have also tried to reason with Damorbel, with no satisfactory outcome. See the long discussion about albedo on his user page. He wants his "technical arguments" to be answered, but pays no attention to the answers. Dicklyon (talk) 22:39, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Just for the heck of it I thought I'd try a different approach. At the foot of the talk page I asked him "what would you say the units are for the average of the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution?" Let's see where this leads. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 02:29, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Levitation

Hi all, I'm looking into cleaning up our articles on levitation and there seem to be some overlap in some of the articles. We have the main page Levitation in which several methods of levitation are detailed and/or linked to. I have then noticed that there are then two independent articles Electrodynamic suspension and Electromagnetic suspension, however that are not linked to from the main Levitation page. I'm just after some advice as to whether these articles duplicate content in some of the other levitation articles and if they need to be merged (or other articles merged into them). For example we have the article Magnetic levitation and there appears to be some duplication of content. How best can we cleanup these levitation articles? I think creating a list (which in the most part already exists) in the main Levitation article with the various different techniques and linking to the individual articles is the way to go, but we have to make sure content isn't duplicated so I just wanted some other editors to have a butchers. Cheers Polyamorph (talk) 11:53, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think it is as bad as it first looks. What I would do is go through magnetic levitation picking out all the links to the various types of levitation in that article, then make certain to include those links in the magnetic levitation section of Levitation. I don't think you want to expand that section too much if any. But you can either create a table or you can write a sentence enumerating all the possibilities with links, or you can have a series of one sentence 'paragraphs' that include the link and a very short description. To me, that would be sufficient to link the main article to the appropriate sub articles. From there, you can check that all the sub articles point back to the main article, etc. I did not see any articles in the ones you mentioned that I would recommend for merging. They all seemed separate articles and fairly good articles compared to some. TStein (talk) 04:45, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

This is polyamorph being somewhat oblique. He wrote the electromagnetic levitation article and in it he is claiming that it works by electromagnetic radiation, as opposed to being maglev (specifically electrodynamic suspension (EDS) maglev). If it was true that it works by electromagnetic *radiation* you would presumably be able to levitate a lump of metal by pointing directional aerials at a lump of metal in far field and pumping a few tens of kilowatts through them and get it to float. But that doesn't happen (all bets are off if you use terawatts or something, at some point photon pressure or surface vapourisation will give you levitation all right, but that's quite different!)- Sheer Incompetence (talk) Now with added dubiosity! 03:43, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

In reality, this is strictly near field, non radiative maglev, and works very much the same way as jumping rings and those levitating plate things. There's a vid of it here: [7]. It just works by induction, at high frequency you can induce a current with a phase delay due to the metals' inductance which forms a magnetic field which interacts with the magnetic field of the coil and generates lift. It doesn't work worth a damn at a distance (far field, radiative zone) because the magnetic field of both the driven coil and the levitated object decay exponentially with distance.- Sheer Incompetence (talk) Now with added dubiosity! 03:43, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Polyamorph has put it in a separate category than magnetic levitation at the levitation page, as well as written the article in the same way, but I'd appreciate others comments on whether electromagnetic levitation is magnetic levitation or not. (I have found a closed source by Professor Laithwaite who was actually a well respected world expert on maglev (although not gyroscopes, DEFINITELY NOT GYROSCOPES ;-) !!!) and he covered this topic as maglev.- Sheer Incompetence (talk) Now with added dubiosity! 03:43, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

There are no permanent or electromagnetics in electromagnetic levitation. It is still a seperate experimental technique! Sure it is a subset of magenetic levitation and works by induction, so I wouldn't be against including it as a subset under magnetic levitation. I have provided sources in the levitation page under the Electromagnetic levitation section and can provide more if needed. Polyamorph (talk) 07:59, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Also if you read the Levitation#Electromagnetic (which the article I created is now redirected to) you will see the physical process is described (and sourced to one the leading academics in the field of containerless condensed matter research [8]) and I haven't just made something up as you claim. I agree that all these articles can be grouped under one main "Magnetic levitation" heading and we need to avoid duplication across wikipedia. Cheers Polyamorph (talk) 08:09, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

TStein thanks for your comments, yes I think we can link all the various methods listed in Magnetic levitation in some prose describing the various methods. I still think though that the Electrodynamic suspension and Electromagnetic suspension articles could probably be merged? As far as I can see they are describing the same process. Polyamorph (talk) 08:35, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Our universe as a black hole in extra dimensions

I don't know if anyone has every conjectured this before but I will. What if our universe is a black hole in an extra-dimensional multiverse. Here are my lines of thought. Since the LHC is having trouble finding the Higgs Boson, one set of models to explain the mass of elementary without a Higgs is an extra-dimensional gravitational interaction. This would be in the vein of Randall-Sundram or large extra dimension superstring/M-theory. Our 4-dimensional universe is a brane in a higher (usually 10 or 11) dimensional universe. Some object in the extra dimensions would be gravitationally attracted to our brane outside our 4 dimensions. This would be interpreted as a mass on elementary particles. Secondly, the universe is being seen as holographic. That it the laws of physics maybe the same in one dimensionality as another. Some laws of physics have been shown to be the same inside a black hole (3d) as on the surface (a 2d hologram). What if our universe is a 4 dimensional boundary of a black hole 5 or more dimensions. For example a 5 dimensional universe would have a 5 dimensional black hole representation, but by the holographic principal it could also be a 4 dimensional hologram on the surface of this black hole. Maybe the gravity tangential to his surface could explain the elementary particle masses. The universe would be a definite closed boundary in the higher dimensional universe. Without invoking any new things like branes. Our universe as a black hole would act like a brane. One could propose a hierachy of blackholes as holograms in increasingly higher dimensional universes until you get to the critical 10 or 11 dimensions of string/M-theory. This way no process of wrapping up the smaller dimensions or creation of branes need be necessary. The universe would have a simple description in 10 or 11 dimensions and then brought down to 4d by a continuum of black holes as boundaries on increasing smaller d surfaces.

Thanks Chris Bolger — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.96.148.57 (talk) 21:56, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes people have considered that the universe may be considered as a black hole. Dunno about all the rest of what you've said. The science reference desk at WP:RD/S is really the best place to ask questions like this and get references to where to where it is written about, this place is more for discussing improvements and problems in the articles. Dmcq (talk) 22:24, 6 November 2011‎ (UTC)

Reaction mechanics for point objects

Reaction mechanics for point objects is a new article that is somewhat deficient in compliance with Wikipedia's conventions (less deficient than it was a hour ago....) an is an orphan, i.e. no other articles link to it. But besides those concerns, there is also the actual content of the article. Would those who are so moved opine about that? Michael Hardy (talk) 17:09, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

We have seen this article before: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics#Reaction_Mechanics. The author has gone to some effort to improve it, but I think the essential notability problem remains. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:29, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I nominated it for speedy and it's been deleted. It's a recreation of a page that was already nominated for deletion. The fundamental problem with the first version still applied to the second. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:53, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Don't look now, but they've just created Retarded interaction (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Advanced interaction (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Looks like the articles have been prodded, but I don't think this editor gets the point of WP:NOR. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 00:57, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I've tagged them for speedy since they are offshoots of his original deleted article. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:53, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

If more offshoots of the same topic which was deleted are created they should also be tagged for speedy. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:53, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Timeline of the far future

is currently undergoing FLC here. As this really needs reviewers I was hoping a member of this Wikiproject might be able to offer their opinion. Serendi^podous 20:31, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Ultrahigh energy gamma-ray

I noticed a red-link to UHEGR; I looked it up, and thus started writing Ultrahigh energy gamma-ray. However, I've quickly got out of my depth; I'm certainly no expert in this field and although it seems there is very interesting information available about these extraordinarily-high-wave radiation, I'm struggling to understand the papers. So I have a dilemma, because I'd like to make the article at least a little better, but I'm afraid I might not get it right.

So, can anyone please help a little? Apart from the one ref I've given, I was looking at "Ultrahigh energy gamma rays: Carriers of cosmological information" and...well, I'm sure there are many other things that could be mentioned, but you're probably better at finding them than I am.

Thanks, in anticipation, for any help anyone can give - even if it's just to make sure that what I've written so far makes sense. Best,  Chzz  ►  10:09, 26 November 2011 (UTC) I asked the astronomy project, too

It might be worth checking ultra-high-energy cosmic ray for additional information. The detectors usually pick up showers, rather than the originating particles. If I understand correctly an ultra-high-energy photon would produce much the same type of shower as a cosmic ray would at those energies (whatever it _started_ as, it'll become a jet of byproducts very quickly). So, there may be a bit of overlap in the detection and detection-history sections. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 10:50, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, there are a couple of observable quantities which allow us to guess the type of the primary, e.g. showers initiated by photons contain fewer muons in average than showers initiated by hadrons. Still, I think having subsections in the article Ultra-high-energy cosmic ray makes more sense than individual articles for each possible type of primary. ― A. di M.​  16:32, 29 November 2011 (UTC)