Talk:Distance of closest approach

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ion: While the results may be interesting, wikipedia is not the place for a researcher to create pages to advertise their own research - that needs to be left to others. Simplifix (talk) 08:52, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

This page was created in response to numerous request for information. mpalffy —Preceding undated comment added 19:41, 6 July 2009 (UTC).

The usual way of responding to requests for information is to send people copies of (or links to) the articles in question, rather than using wikipedia. Simplifix (talk) 19:58, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

The comment about numerous requests for information on this topic was not so much a plea for suggesions on how to respond to these as a statement about evident general interest in the subject. Mpalffy (talk) 01:52, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

How is this topic notable by the standards of Wikipedia? Do any secondary sources refer to it? Fences&Windows 22:34, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Not sure how best to respond here. The problem of the closest approach of two circles is trivial; the next simplest problem, of two ellipses, has not been solved until recently. Many people have worked on this problem, including Vieillard-Baron, who acknowledges the help and advice of P.G. de Gennes. V-B was said to have been extremely distressed at not being able to find a closed form solution. In addition to its fundamental interest, the solution of the problem is of considerable importance to people doing molecular dynamics and related computer simulations. Regarding secondary sources, in addition to the cited papers in Physical Review, there are a number of papers by other authors in peer reviewed scientific journals citing this work. A google scholar search will provide these. Mpalffy (talk) 02:02, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

The general topic covered by this article is Proximity problems. I'm not sure a redirect is worth it, as this is an unlikely search term. Is there a good reason not to delete this article? Fences&Windows 22:41, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Reasons for deletion are not apparent to us. The topic seems to us notable, since it has received significant coverage in scientific journal articles (see refs. in citations). The page does not seem to fall under other reasons for deletion. We see neither COI, or violation of citing oneself policy. Nonetheless, we would be happy to make changes to avoid deletion. Mpalffy (talk) 02:24, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

The issue is whether the subject is notable in itself such that it warrants an individual page on Wikipedia. If this is an important problem, there should be secondary sources - review articles, science news stories - that refer to it, not just primary research articles. Also, a conflict of interest when writing about something that you are personally involved in, which can affect adopting a neutral point of view, which includes considerations of notability and due weight. Why can't this topic be merged into Proximity problems, where it can be presented in context? Fences&Windows 21:18, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

We had careful look at the Proximity Problems page and considered the suggestion of merging this page with it. It seems that the problems are not very close; the proximity problem considers the nearest distance between points, whereas the distance of closest approach considers the problem of the least distance between two movable points (centers) subject to a constraint (hard particles). We have, however, put in a link from the 'distance of closest approach' topic there (which had no links) to this page. Mpalffy (talk) 04:15, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

To improve this page, as recommended to us earlier, we have now included an introduction section, which both clearly defines the topic, and places it into a broader context.Mpalffy (talk) 02:47, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

We have included mention of and reference to S. Torquato's paper on dense packings of the Platonic and Archimedean solids.Mpalffy (talk) 18:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC)