Talk:Archibald Hill

Name

(1) According to Nick Humphrey his grandson, "Archibald Hill" was never called this but always either Vivian or simply A.V. Perhaps the page to reflect this should be moved to "Archibald Vivian Hill".

(2) On the 3rd - 5th December 2008, the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics celebrated its 75 years of being founded with a conference at the Royal Society "In Defence of Learning: The Past and the Present". Professor Paul Weindling gave a talk ‘The Royal Society and Refugee Scientists: the Role of A.V. Hill.’ This is not yet out. But when it is I shall add a references. LittleHow (talk) 18:20, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I've only ever heard this person referred to as A.V. Hill. So, I think it's appropriate to include his middle name in the article title. Noca2plus (talk) 22:04, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Receptor theory

"Hill's first paper, published in 1909, was remarkably prescient, anticipating by many years the emergence of receptor theory."

This is not true. The father of the chemical receptor theory is John Langley, Hill's post-graduate supervisor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lenov (talk • contribs) 22:35, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Blue plaque

… regular guests at the house included 18 exiled Nobel laureates, his brother-in-law, the economist John Maynard Keynes, …

…and friends Stephen Hawking and Sigmund Freud

This could be a joke, or a hacking of the page. It requires at least a robust reference, or better, several references (with precise page number) inserted just after the names of these two illustrious persons also called here "friends". It is impossible that Stephen Hawking (8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018) have met Sigmund Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) at this place. The time span is too large. However, if Hill really met both of them there during the course of his long life, this sentence should be first verified, and if proven to be true, carefully rewritten in such a way that it does not sound like a joke as it is presently the case. The places where Hawking and Freud respectively lived, should also be carefully verified before to assert that they were "friends" of Hill, but probably at best his "guests" at a particular occasion. The strange end of this sentence inspires the highest doubts, certainly on a freely accessible wiki. Strong claims requires strong evidences — Carl Sagan. This must be supported by multiple strong and independent sources, or deleted if it cannot be proven. All the three references given at the end of this section are inaccessible or dubious. The reference now renamed "English_Heritage_2015" has a dead link, while the two other ones do not prove anything, and worse do not show the same house on their respective pages. Information of "thetimes.com", showing an ancient home with a grey front and a visible blue plate, is behind a paywall, while the page of "thejc.com" shows a totally different home with a red bricks facade and it sounds like a real estate advertisement.

@DuncanHill, I have seen your revert when I was copying the text of my hidden comment to paste it in the Talk page, just as you have suggested. Please, add more robust references, or help to rephrase the end of this sentence which sounds like a joke. Thank you, Shinkolobwe (talk) 00:44, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

@Shinkolobwe: As the editor who inserted the paragraph about the Blue Plaque in 2015, with sources, (as you can check from edit history) I can confirm that 'joke', 'hacking of the page' and 'dubious' are all strong claims made without evidence. On this occasion scepticism is misplaced. This further link may be of interest: https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/lifestyle/21360015.prize-property-10-million-highgate-mansion-home-nazi-fighting-nobel-prize-winner/ GooglerW (talk) 11:34, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

@GooglerW: Thank you for your fast reaction. You are the second person who promptly reacted to my comment on this talk page and I appreciate that. Now, I have searched more information and I am now able to confirm that, as incredible as it can appear at first sight, this is true: Both Sigmund Freud and Stephen Hawking were friends of Archibald Hill, even if their existences never overlapped.
You do not need evidence to doubt and the questioning attitude is the driving force behind scientific discoveries and all the human knowledge.
The content of this sentence was so unexpected, and weakly written (i.e., without reference directly inserted there at the right place), that I directly added two templates (dubious and citation needed) behind it. You can note that I took care to not delete the information and therefore, I also immediately added an hidden comment to explain my surprise and my first scepticism. None of the 3 references at the end of the section allowed me to confirm this quite unexpected information.
DuncanHill also immediately reacted before I had even the time to copy my hidden comment from the page to the discussion page. He was also kind enough to repair a dead link and to confirm the information given by the Times behind a paywall.
In the meantime, I have tried to find more robust references and also to insert them at better places directly into the body text of the section. I have also slightly adapted the text to make it more robust and to avoid to badly surprise the reader.
Before making an edit, usually, I systematically verify the 3 to 5 last edits in the page history to detect jokes, attempts of defacing, or hacking, of Wikipedia pages. However, it is too tedious and prohibitive to screen all the page history.
Unfortunately, too often, nowadays, in a post-truth world full of alternative facts, one encounters everywhere on the web fake news and disinformation (social networks and artificial intelligence do not help!), so it is essential to protect the truth, the integrity and the quality of Wikipedia articles. The only way to do that is to systematically practice the skeptical attitude, today more than ever.

Once again, the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle (WP:BRD) has proved to be efficient thanks to your reaction and that of DuncanHill, and our collaboration.
Thanks again for your prompt reaction and sorry if I have shocked you: it was not my intention.
I hope that the page about this extraordinary scientist is now a little bit better and more robust.
One can only rely on what is really resisting. 🙂 Shinkolobwe (talk) 15:09, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

@Shinkolobwe: We had edit conflicts, and part of my edit summary got lost. Freud lived nearby, as you could easily check, and anyway one can have friends who live further away. I haven't checked all Hawkings's addresses in London, but he did live in London. The Times ref (I can send you a pdf if you email me) clearly supports the statements. The text did not suggest that Freud and Hawking were friends, but I have clarified it. I have updated the English Heritage link, which took seconds of research time, sadly unavailable to you. Both the Times and the JC articles mention several houses, not just Hill's, and the Times does have a picture of Hill's house, but you'd need to read it to to know that. If you have difficulty accessing an article, for example because of a paywall, you can get help at the Resource Exchange. DuncanHill (talk) 00:54, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

@DuncanHill: Thank you for your answer and for having updated the link of the reference I named "English_Heritage_2015". I also could have done it also, but I was quite busy verifying the information and writing my comment directly in the code of the page. I was to the point of going onto the Talk page to discuss this point when I received the WP alert of your revert.

The fact of having be friend of both Sigmund Freud and Stephen Hawking at different moments in his long life is an extraordinary coincidence, probably reserved to an extraordinary person like Archibald Hill. I did not say in my first hidden comment it was not true, but in the present world full of disinformation and fake news, reading this sentence immediately woke up my skepticism as illustrated in my comment here above and previously added as an hidden comment directly in the text of the page. Yes, I would appreciate a PDF copy of the article of the Time I have no access to. As I am not familiar with emailing another Wikipedia user, I have still to learn it. I just had a first look at Wikipedia:Emailing users and I will do it tomorrow, because it is already late now in Europe. I think this extraordinary coincidence still deserves some more explanations in the section with a better placed reference to overcome the skepticism of the attentive reader. Thank you for your suggestion and assistance. 🙂 Shinkolobwe (talk) 01:44, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Recommended reading

The bibliographical memoir of Katz (1978) about the work and life of A.V. Hill is remarkable. Look at <ref name="Katz1978">:

• Katz, Bernard (1978). "Archibald Vivian Hill. 26 September 1886 – 3 June 1977". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 24: 71–149. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1978.0005. JSTOR 769758. PMID 11615743. S2CID 46444782.

Shinkolobwe (talk) 21:06, 29 August 2024 (UTC)