Talk:Willard Libby

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Willard Libby has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
October 22, 2015	Good article nominee	Listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on October 26, 2015.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Willard Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960 for his role in the development of radiocarbon dating?

Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on December 17, 2019, and December 17, 2023.

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Place of Death[edit]

All other encyclopaedias seem to point to Loas Angeles as the place where he died. Can someone check this? I don't not want to alter Cambridge without a written (printed) high class source. --DrJunge (talk) 06:30, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Spontaneous fission[edit]

According to [1], Libby tried to find spontaneous fission in 1939 and found the upper limit of its partial desintegration constant to be 10^-22 s^-1. --217.21.43.22 (talk) 17:23, 8 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review[edit]

This review is transcluded from Talk:Willard Libby/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs) 17:37, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I propose to undertake this review and will read through the article in detail shortly. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 17:37, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

First reading[edit]

The first half of the article has a number of careless errors while the second half is much better:

"He sided with Edward Teller on pursuing a crash program to develop the hydrogen bomb, help the Atoms for Peace program, and defended the administration's atmospheric nuclear testing." - the tenses in this sentence are a bit muddled.
Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"When he was five, Libby's parents moved to the Santa Rosa, California" - "the" not needed.
Y Deleted word. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"When he was five, Libby's parents moved to the Santa Rosa, California. Libby began his education in a two-room Colorado schoolhouse." - These two sentences need to be reversed to make them chronological.
Y Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"... independently of the work of George de Hevesy and Max Pahl" - I suggest you put this phrase at the beginning of the sentence.
Y Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"He became and assistant professor of Chemistry there in 1938" - typo.
Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"and the fissile uranium-235 made up only one-hundred and fortieth of natural uranium." - Couldn't you express this as a percentage, or say "less than one percent"?
Y Done. I thought one part in 140 was easier for people to grasp than 0.7% Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
" a heavier one. In fact," - sentence structure.
Y Joined sentences together. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"In addition to the developing a suitable barrier," - typo.
Y Deleted word. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"had to assist in design an industrial gaseous" - a couple of words missing here.
Y Added words. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Only a few tests by Libby indicated that the Norris-Adler they were working indicated that it would." - This sentence is a bit garbled.
Y Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Wikilink or explain "Norris-Adler"
Y That's an idea. Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"He remained confident that with an all-effort," - "all-out-effort"?
Y Added words. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
He was working on using gaseous diffusion and finding problems. It is not clear to me whether he was successful in the end, or whether the isotopes were eventually separated by a quite different method, in a new process developed by Kellex.
Y He was successful in the end, but the the isotopes were eventually separated by a quite different method, in a new process developed by Kellex Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"a professorship in Chemistry Department at the " - typo.
Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's all for now. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:59, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for reviewing the article! Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

GA criteria[edit]

The article is well written and complies with MOS guidelines on prose and grammar, structure and layout.
The article uses many reliable third-party sources, and makes frequent citations to them. I do not believe it contains original research.
The article covers the main aspects of the subject and remains focussed.
The article is neutral.
The article is stable.
The single images is relevant and has a fair use rationale.

Final assessment - I am satisfied with the alterations made and believe this article meets the GA criteria. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:29, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]