User talk:Wwheaton

——————————————— Wwheaton ———————————————

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Info

Greetings. Wwheaton is Wm. A. Wheaton, of whom more can be learned at http://www.wwheaton.com/waw/index.html. I have also edited a few times as user 71.92.70.146 or user 66.215.4.91, when I was logged out accidentally. Thanks to all who have helped and commented, and to the Wikipedia community at large! Wwheaton (talk) 06:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Welcome!

Hi there. I've noticed the edits you've made to Bevatron and I must say, good show! If you have anyquestions, please feel free to ask on my talk page. And welcome to wiki! --Falcorian ^(talk) 23:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, appreciate it. I must say I really Love Wiki, but the dangers of spreading bad information, and meaningless conflict, are a bit daunting too. So I appreciate the hand-holding, and may well turn to you for advice in the future. Wwheaton 18:07, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

{{helpme}}

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to make constructive contributions to Wikipedia, at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to Talk:Mass Driver 1, did not appear to be constructive and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. In fact, please do not add {{helpme}} to talk pages; it is designed to be used by you when you need help. In fact, it is designed to be used if you have any questions, not to attract attention. -Goodshoped 02:30, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: vandalism

Saw your post on Alex's talk page and decided to butt in. WP:VANDALISM is the page explaining vandalism and how to deal with it in detail.

The easiest way to deal with vandalism is to use the "history" tab at the top of the page, which shows you a chronological (newest first) list of edits to that page. "Cur" and "Last" on the left-hand column will produce a report showing the difference between the page as of that edit and the current page, or the page as of the prior edit, respectively. You can also manually select two revisions with the radio button and hit "compare selected".

Once you have a diff, you can use the "Undo" feature to, well, undo the edits. Or, from "history" you can click on the date of the edit, which allows you to bring up the "edit this page" as of that version, so you can restore the page to the last pre-vandalism edition. Just be careful not to nuke legitimate edits made since the vandal struck.

Finally, when a user vandalizes a page, try adding a user warning template to their talk page, such as Template:uw-vand1. If they already have a bunch of templates from before, or they are doing something really awful like moving 20 pages at once to "pagename ON WHEELS!", then add them to the administrators' vandalism noticeboard which will result in them being blocked in short order.

Hope that helps. <eleland/talkedits> 20:05, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

It looks like ClueBot - and everybody else - entirely missed the vandalism at issue, which is why your changes were not restored. The next person to edit it only removed the gibberish without re-instating the "list of uses", and nobody noticed. In this case, fortunately, nobody else came along and edited the article productively since then, so it's safe to revert all the way back a couple of weeks, which I just did. <eleland/talkedits> 20:36, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Pu-238

Merry christmas, thanks for the question regarding RTGs and Pu-238. The first thing to understand about Pu-238 is that it is far more active per gram than Pu-239, this can cause it to behave in a very different way. The self damage due to radiation which occurs in PuO2 pellets is much faster with Pu-238 pellets than with Pu-239 pellets. As a result a pellet of Pu-238 will be more likely to fall apart at an early time than a Pu-239 pellet. I would expect that all Pu RTGs would use PuO2 as the chemical form for the Pu. While Pu metal would be more dense it is very reactive towards air/water, and Pu corrosion is very complex.

Now the good news, the RTGs made using Pu are oftein made in such a way that the Pu fuel is packaged in such a way that it is likely that the package will tolerate the heat of re-enetry. Also Pu(IV) is very insoluble in pH 7 water, but be aware that collidal PuO2 could be very mobile under some conditions, also insoluble Pu in the air is more harmful to the lungs than soluble Pu while in the case of oral Pu the reverse is true. It is also important to bear in mind that the fuel and the package only have to contain the Pu for about 900 years, after this time 99.9% will have decayed away. I am not able to say with authority if a RTG which has reentered will be safe or not. You would need to do more literature research, anyway "what is safe" ?

By the way you got my colour code in the Trinityglassactivity bar chart almost perfectly right, the green bars are for activation products, the red for a fission product and the blue for natural radioisotopes.Cadmium (talk) 15:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Reporting vandalism

WP:UAA is for reporting usernames that violate our username policy. To report users who are repeatedly vandalizing, please go to WP:AIV. However, before reporting there, vandals must have a full set of warnings. Let me know if you have any questions. Regards, Lara❤Love 17:08, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

You can create the talk page when it does not already exist. I looked over their edits and, not knowing much about VeggieTales, I'm not sure if the edits are vandalism or not. Much of it appears to be good faith editing to me. Whether the additions are relevant or not, I can't say. But I'm sure the article custodians will sort it out. Lara❤Love 18:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, you may be interested in our adoption program. Lara❤Love 18:29, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I guess I am not certain either, I thought we were under attack. Live & learn. Wwheaton (talk) 21:13, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Regarding Talk:Solar power satellite, my apologies for deleting a lot of stuff. I clicked on a "diff" or an old version button in the history page, and stupidly edited what I saw and saved, discarding subsequent stuff including more of my own comments. I was just not paying attention to what I was doing, I did not intend malice. Sorry for the inconvenience. -- WillWare (talk) 16:16, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey

Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, adding content without citing a reliable source, as you did to Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey, is not consistent with our policy of verifiability. This is especially important when dealing with biographies of living people, but applies to all Wikipedia articles. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. If you are already familiar with Wikipedia:Citing sources, please take this opportunity to add your original reference to the article. Thank you.Groupthink (talk) 22:09, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Here is where they actually first created the interpretations article. Dreadstar † 08:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the "raw work", heh, I'm actually refining the raw ore into a more polished article..I hope! I look forward to your return to editing the article! Although, your project of 70um infrared star photometry sounds fascinating! Dreadstar † 08:19, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Tedious; but important I guess, like much else. See http://web.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/waw/mips/70ufot/index.html for a taste -- I hope to have 50% more observations processed and up by later today. Anyhow, I am just delighted with the work you are doing in the sandbox, and do hope I can contribute usefully (and "legally") later in the week. BTW, while it seems sensible to chat in one user's talk space or the other (rather than in both), how can I notify you when I've responded? There ought to be a way, WP has tools for everything.... Best, Bill Wwheaton (talk) 15:25, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment! I think it's starting to look pretty good. I'm trying to finish up sourcing for the Monolith and HAL sections, then I think it'll be ready to go! Dreadstar † 01:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Since there was no further comment on the Draft version, I asked that the page be unprotected and moved the draft into place. Let me know what you think! I'm still working on the HAL segment, your assistance with that would be most welcome! Dreadstar † 23:06, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm glad you like it! Unfortunately, Groupthink decided to remove everything he disagreed with, edit warred over it instead of discussing and crossed the line into WP:3RR territory. I reported him and he was blocked for 24 hours. The last version before he started removing sourced material is here. Dreadstar † 00:20, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Reply to talk page comment

In addition to the Wikipedian core values that have been vociferously discussed on the Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey talk page, another one of WP's doctrine's is "don't bite the newbies". In other words, be welcoming and patient with newer users who have good intentions. Well, I bit you, and I apologize for that. Your heart is definitely in the right place, and I'm eager to see if you can in fact write a well-sourced article that establishes the topic's independent notability. If you can, then I will be that article's staunchest defender. Best of luck. Groupthink (talk) 16:58, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Welcome!

Hello, Wwheaton! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 17:25, 9 February 2008 (UTC) Getting started A tutorial • Our five pillars • Getting mentored How to: edit a page • upload and use images Getting help Frequently asked questions • Tips Where to ask questions or make comments Request administrator attention Policies and guidelines Neutral point of view • No original research Verifiability • Reliable sources • Citing sources What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons Manual of Style • Three-revert rule • Sock puppetry Copyrights • Policy for non-free content • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The community Build consensus • Resolve disputes Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • No legal threats Community Portal • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Writing articles Be bold in editing • Develop an article The perfect article • Manual of style Stubs • Categories • Disambiguation Pages needing attention • Peer review Miscellaneous User name • User pages • Talk pages Clean up: General - Spam - Vandalism Join a WikiProject • Translation Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

Re: List of basic space exploration topics

No need to wait for me. I look forward to seeing your developments. Have fun. The Transhumanist 07:06, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

2001 article

Just to let you know that the draft has been put into the mainspace: Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Groupthink has disputed the sources and content, so your input would be welcome in that discussion. Preliminary details on the dispute are in the section above.Dreadstar † 02:03, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

All these HAL materials are yours, except Europa, attempt no landings there.  :) Dreadstar † 02:52, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

GRO J1655-40

Hi, I noticed your edits at GRO J1655-40. At first I was scratching my head wondering why this was on my watch list. Then I realised that I created the talk page. There might be something useful in there as it came from an old submission AfC. Perhaps you could take a look when you have time. Cheers. MSGJ (talk) 01:09, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Combustion instabilities/screeching

As I understand it, the combustion instabilities like screeching don't usually cause damage by mechanical means (although they could do in principle, particularly at very low frequencies, but screeching is much higher frequency).

No, the main problem is that they thin the boundary layer down, and that means the heat flow (which is normally stupidly high anyway) goes up massively. The wall then usually suffers from catastrophic burn through.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 15:56, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Continued from the Black Holes page

However, there is no disputing the smallest "observability" of our universe as given by the size of a photon (i.e. the planck length). This limit is well known to exist and is accepted by quantum mechanics. I agree, that there could be something smaller than the photon, but it would be fundamentally unobservable to us even if there was.

If you would be so kind as to read the gravastar article, I explain much of my reasoning behind the need fix to the black holes theory. Please tell me what you think. Much of the info is directly from published research, however the interpretation of it is my own work. Does it sound plausible?--MaizeAndBlue86 (talk) 14:28, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Interp 2001

Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey has been unprotected, so improvements and additions can resume! Dreadstar † 22:09, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Good to see you editing again! With the attention given to this article's sourcing, it would be good to provide references for edits like this. Otherwise it looks like the editor's opinion, which would violate WP:NOR. Dreadstar † 19:44, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

If you're quoting or paraphrasing Clarke, that's good, but it looks like an original opinion - so identifying where it comes from is important if it's challenged. Dreadstar † 21:44, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Question On The Particle Wave Theory

I luv you, seriosly that message you sent me, I have limited expertice, your just an astronomer and a physicist, aka what I want to be and What most of my questions are in. How exactely do photons superimpose themselves into quanta. Just dum the math down a little and I'll figure it out. Thanks! 11341134a (talk) 19:22, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Images

Which one do you like better? I had to do these from scratch to avoid any copyright complications.

• details
• plain

Dreadstar † 03:34, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi!

Hullo, Bob -- I'm a physicist, working in high-energy astronomy for long, and lately in IR on Spitzer space telescope in Pasadena. I have enjoyed and appreciated your labors lately on Cygnus X-1, which is an old friend of us gamma guys. I am fairly new to Wikipedia (& maybe a slow learner to boot...), so looking to meet the more experienced professionals working the turf. Cheers, Bill Wwheaton (talk) 17:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi Wwheaton. Thank you very much for your comments on the Cygnus X-1 article. I'm hoping to make the page more comprehensive and bring it up to FA quality, but it may take a while. Unfortunately my professional field isn't in astronomy, although I have had a life-long interest in the subject so hopefully I know enough to make it an interesting read.

Most of the astronomy-related discussions take place over at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Astronomy and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects, so you might consider visiting. I'm sure they'll appreciate your comments. Thanks again.—RJH (talk) 18:45, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice work on the Cygnus X-1 article. It will take a long time to review it (and the references) as carefully as they deserve. We are still working with the earth-occultation BATSE data, and now have the full nine-year stretch of the CGRO data for it. We seemed to see a ~1 MeV flare in [HEAO 3] data in 1979, and our BATSE occulation project at JPL was above all motivated by the desire to try and find other similar instances. Best, Bill Wwheaton (talk) 21:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Good luck with your search. I hope you find some interesting results.—RJH (talk) 22:06, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Planck time

Hey Bill, would you mind reading something of mine at talk:Planck time. I'm interested to hear what you think.--MaizeAndBlue86 (talk) 17:23, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Godel/Physics

Thanks for your vote of confidence, but then why do I still feel so ignorant? My view on the question you raise is that the theory of everything is string theory, and it tells you how matter interacts fundamentally, while Godel's theorem is about computations and tells you that you can't predict computer program behavior arbitrarily far into the future. I wrote a blurb along those lines on Theory of everything a while ago, but it got erased. There is no contradiction between knowing all the rules of nature and not being able to predict how a computing system will behave, because computing systems can always surprise you by learning your methods of predicion and defying them. The distinction is between physical laws, which are like the instruction set of the computer, and computer programs which are combinations of those instructions into complex programs. You can know the instruction set but you can't know the eventual behavior of every program. Hope that helps.Likebox (talk) 04:49, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I used to be a student in string theory, but I am not in the field anymore. It took me a very long time to understand any of it, because I started out completely skeptical. But I am not skeptical anymore, and anyway, it's easy to keep up with stuff when there's arxiv. The main point which changed my mind personally is that black holes have a semiclassical entropy which demands that their dynamics is described in certain dimensions and limits by a field theory in a dimension one less--- a principle called holography. This leads to physical limits on the charge and mass of particles, which are true because of general thermodynamic principles, not because of strings. In order to work in quantum gravity, these principles demand certain light winding modes in certain cases, and this is provided in string theory by the string extension, or by membranes, or by other extended objects.

The strings themselves should be viewed as quantum-size extremal charged extended black holes and string theory describes the scattering of strings as a deformation of the black hole surface, just as 'tHooft suggested for thermal point black holes in the eighties. I think (as do a lot of people) the theory itself is more or less well defined by now, and I think it is the correct framework. What the details of the theory predict for our universe is another matter. I hope you find out more about the axiomatization program of Hilbert, although I think you should keep in mind that the interesting questions in mathematics are all in the limit of infinite future, what happens when calculations are done forever, and in physics, that's not usually true. Cheers.Likebox (talk) 23:32, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about the comments I made on the black hole page. I had just failed an extremely hard Biology test and was looking for a vent. I have replaced those comments with less inflamitory ones. Dont worry I wont be failing any bio tests any time soon. I beg your apologies, 11341134a (talk) 00:37, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Colonization of the Moon

Hi - friendly question for to answer if you would please :). I've seen your edits around Wikipedia and have just looked at your pages at Caltech. I must say it is nice to be able to ask your opinion on something. Your work with Gamma Rays is awesome. I am an "armchair" astronomer...

So, I saw the edit that you made {then undid}. My question revolves around that.

What is your take on including these sorts of (non-inline) types of references in Wikipedia. You know, the "generic" ones. Just curious.

E_dog95' ^{Hi '} 00:39, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

OK - I was under the impression that you'd been contributing for some time. Good to have you here. Welcome to Wikipedia! E_dog95' ^{Hi '} 05:22, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Arthur C. Clarke

please note that references in talk pages are supposed to be written thus:[1] —Cesar Tort 02:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Still learning my way around this strange place. Bill Wwheaton (talk) 03:36, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

You can still edit your previous post and convert the https so that other editors may see the links you added. —Cesar Tort 03:44, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! —Cesar Tort 04:29, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! I may even remember the next time the occasion arises, but mostly I delighted to find your Karellen page. (At work I am waw@karellen.ipac.caltech.edu.) I consider him the best real hero in all Clarke's work [but you may think otherwise?] I hit CE when I was 13, in 1955, after I had been an atheist for long. It convinced me that dogmatic atheism was untenable, as Clarke takes a straight materialist path and gets quite plausibly into deep deep mystery, something as vast as the galaxy and as mysterious as the brain. So, I am a church-going agnostic, and Clarke gets a good bit of the credit or the blame. Wwheaton (talk) 05:15, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Automated Transfer Vehicle

Hey Bill - Thanks for restoring the article. As it turns out Onsly has been making working in some articles. I had let him know about using the edit summary on March 16th (8 days ago) because of a similar situation.

What he had done is reduce the amount of content in the Automated Transfer Vehicle about the Jules Verne ATV. User GW Simulations split the article on March 9th.

So to you it looked like a questionable edit. I encountered nearly the same thing previously. It's all about the edit summary. If he'd left a note, this wouldn't have happened. I restored his edit as it looks like that was a good thing to do. I looked & it doesn't look like GW Simulations reduced the original ATV article at all since the creation of the Jules Verne article. I left Onsly another note on his talk page regarding the use of the edit summary & how it's necessary being that this is a very large collaborative project.

Thanks Bill & good to have you on board. Cheers! E_dog95' ^{Hi '} 08:23, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking care of it -- I forget the edit summary myself sometimes. I could tell it was not malicious. Cheers, Bill Wwheaton (talk) 02:39, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Edit conflict on "Accretion disk"

Hi, I left the raw text of my version on the talk page. BTW, I have been trained (? ApJ style, I think) to hyphenate "X-ray" when it is used as an adjective, but not as a noun. No idea how this fits with external conventions. -- Bill Wwheaton (talk) 23:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry my edit summary is lost, but you'll figure it out I guess. I started with the figure caption & couldn't stop once I got going. B Wwheaton (talk) 23:47, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I've asked at the reference desk about the correct usage of the hyphen. It wouldn't surpirse me to find that it may have already been discussed at some point.—RJH (talk) 15:22, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

7001 Noether

Thanks for your reply. I've responded at the place. Cheers! – Scartol • Tok 11:36, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Tag

You mean the one at the top of the talk page? If so, that one stays to show that the article went through an earlier AfD. If there's another delete tag, let me know - I can't seem to see one.

If the source is in relation to the subject of the article (interpetations of 2001), then it wouldn't be OR. If you want to give me the links, I'll take a look and see...say, have you seen this site?

Oh, yes! Dial F! I remember that story very well...read it ages ago..great stuff....as with all of Clarke's ideas; and yes, he does seem to have a penchant for either killing us off or evolving us out of existence..;) Dreadstar † 05:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Misleading link?

Hi, Is that even the case for a link to a section?! Doesn't seem reasonable. (There is even a subsection for sounding rockets, but I wasn't sure how to link to that.) Live & learn.... Bill Wwheaton (talk) 23:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi. In the past I've had criticism for wikilinks that appear to point to one article but instead go to an entirely different article. So I'm careful not to make that mistake. In this case, the intended subject of the "suborbital rocket launches" link seemed like it should be pretty clear: rockets that do not reach orbit. Instead you had it changed to the topic of X-ray astronomy observation. I'm very sorry, but I tend to be a little aggressive in my editing when a page is up for FAC; the reviewers are super picky about every little detail. Anyway, I tried putting in a compromise statement.—RJH (talk) 15:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Re User:Josephmd

That's fine - I'll defer to your judgement on that. SparrowsWing _(talk) 20:53, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The Center of The Surface of a Sphere.

The surface of a sphere most certainly has a center of mass. If the surface is uniform (you don't say this)throughout, the center of mass of the surface will be approximately, if not exactly, in the common center of the sphere - somewhat in the manner of the doughnut's center of mass being in the hole of the doughnut.

Never mind all the professed good intent - if you really meant well you'd remove that 'unscientific' shall we say, comment from the end of my theory.

Show me something with no center. If you were any kind of scientist, that should take you about five seconds.

Pete Lamont, Author:- The Black Hole at The Center of The Universe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.39.252.217 (talk) 21:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

"Strong" in Cygnus X-1 article.

Greetings. It looks like you introduced the word "strong" into the lead of the Cygnus X-1 article. Unfortunately this conflicts with Wikipedia:MoS#Unnecessary_vagueness, so I would appreciate it if you could either use more precise language or revert to the way it was. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 15:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Real Physical Models

Thanks for your message and commentary. I only hope that interested people like you will acquire a few neodymium magnets and try to assemble up to what would be 10Ne20 and see what the models tell you. The magnets continue to collect (very forcefully) but the logic of the series expansion numbers is simpler to understand with the checkerboard logic protocol. My modified Nuclide chart doesn't provide much data for the 8th level construction details except to note that every element has 2 categories of nuclides and that in each element the even neutron number category is more stable (with some irregularities. So if you'll make that test, maybe I can change your conception of the 2He4 nucleus. And Thanks.WFPMWFPM (talk) 21:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)PS 66 is just a young squirt why I'm old enough to be a fervent Isaac Asimov reader.WFPMWFPM (talk) 21:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm curious enough to be interested in what your point is, but I don't know enough nuclear physics to have the concept. I remember going to a talk Pauling gave at UCSD on a "sphereon model" (? I think it was) that argued that alpha particles significantly retain their identity in at least some nuclei. I guess the Ne was 5-alpha's. Anyhow, I have almost no idea what you are talking about, so don't get your hopes up.... Have you got the article somewhere in your user space where I can see it? (I think that tends to be permitted when it is not abusively excessive. I believe you can get a copy of a deleted article e-mailed to you if you want it.)

Asimov was my favorite after Clarke, maybe tied with Stanislaw Lem. Good minds, all. Cheers, Wwheaton (talk) 22:42, 19 May 2008 :(UTC)The deleted article that I'm trying to promote under the category Real Physical Models is what I submitted together with a picture in Talk Nuclear Model. WFPMWFPM (talk) 00:05, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

RE Pauling I hope he said that Alpha particles constitute the core of the nucleus around which additional deuterons and excess neutrons are accumulated. Thus 6 Carbon consists of 2 alpha plus 2 deuteron particles and if you use the magnets to try to make 4Be9 you'll find that the magnets wont bond 2 other magnets side by side but only 2 other magnets that are end bonded to each other. The implication being that 4Be8 consists in one alpha particle end bonded to another. WFPMWFPM (talk) 00:33, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

As far as storytelling capability in science matters I like Clarke and Michener, but I think you underestimate the capability of Asimov to supply scientific (and mathematical) information to readers. And I thought that's what Wikipedia was all about, particularly since they're against original thinking. WFPMWFPM (talk) 19:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

How about you and your cohorts there at Caltech building and checking out the indications of stability of the models relative to the available nuclear data and saying "Gee this points out where additional study and data checking might improve our concepts about this subject matter." And then you could blame for having an original idea. Would that be legal? It only took about 5 years to build the models and my curiosity as to the correlation between their symmetry indications and and the nuclear data stability indications still exists. Regards WFPMWFPM (talk) 21:03, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

PS And I do have a copyrighted article and a copyright on the "structural models", but I'm afraid I cant prove or contribute anything mathematical because I'm only an Engineer. WFPMWFPM (talk) 22:13, 21 May 2008 (UT)

That's all right. I once drove over 1000 miles (round trip) to show a person my models to see what he thought and he said that it couldn't be right because it's supposedly impossible for nucleons to come in contact with each other. But I still think the models point out things like that there ought to be stable EE isotopes more massive than OE83Bi209 because I can build models of them and I cant find any theory that they cant exist. And I get agravated when I read that not only there isn't any but also that there cant be any. So thanks and lots of luck and keep it up on Wikipedia. WFPMWFPM (talk) 00:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Re-formatting fixed, I think Wwheaton (talk) 01:29, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

==Big Bang Theory== I just wanted to mention to you that now we maybe have permission to discuss alternate theories as to how the universe got started besides that it was created out of nothing. Do you think it worthwhile to pursue that? I've got ideas. Regards WFPMWFPM (talk) 14:16, 13 October 2008 (UTC)PS I appreciate your info re ISS time lag factor had no idea it was so small.WFPMWFPM (talk) 14:27, 13 October 2008 (UTC) == Oh yes and about this idea that the space continuum expansion factor is added to the c velocity factor in deterimining the size of the universe: Are you up on that? .WFPMWFPM (talk) 22:44, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

= I've been thinking about your "escaping" theory and note that according to the E=Mcsquared and the SR mass expansion theories the Mass of the escapees would be expanding to infinity as they approached the velocity of light. This casts doubt on their ability to constantly accelerate, as well as for the suns of the Universe to be expanding at c velocity, as I added in my Talk Page. Do you have any comment on this?. WFPMWFPM (talk) 12:16, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

" I also added a Catch Up section which more or less says the same thing. WFPMWFPM (talk) 10:12, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Orphan Asteroids

Responding to --

Could some people from this wikiproject please watchlist these, as I am currently the only person watching them! Also,I hope to be able to continue this work in a few weeks, and I expect that the early stuff will include a lot of asteroids, etc. Can I ask if I am able to continue trying to offload these onto you? Best wishes Fritzpoll (talk) 22:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

For talk:WikiProject Astronomy I have signed on to watch the following:

• 10004 Igormakarov
• 10007 Malytheatre
• 10009 Hirosetanso
• 10021 Henja
• 10024 Marthahazen
• 10029 Hiramperkins
• 10034 Birlan

with the thought that I will keep track of "interested editors", who make substantive non-minor changes to their articles, and solicit them to be watchers if any get too frisky. My hope is that this will be a very boring task. Wwheaton (talk) 23:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Granat

Thank you so much for doing that! I really appreciate it, please feel free (and by that I mean I want you to :P) to update/correct any info. As you correctly guessed I don't have any expert knowledge at all (20 year old literature undergrad) but I've always been fascinated with astronomy to the point that I built my own reflector. Anyway, the content from the instrument section came from HEASARC and was basically copy/pasted since their content is PD. I had realized that the information they have had some problems, and in a few cases when writing the lead and filling in the infobox I found information there that was contradicted by the Russian sources (written in English) I used. When that happened I always gave precedence to the Russian papers. Unfortunately though, I was forced to rely to a great extent on HEASARC because there simply aren’t many English sources about Granat available online (I live in brazil, and the grand total of books about soviet satellites in the libraries I have access to is probably 0..). I was particularly frustrated at not being able to use the IKI website in Russian which appears to be full of useful information, and is certainly a lot more reliable. So yes, if you can go over the article in more detail or know another astronomer who could, I would be most grateful! Acer (talk) 22:18, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, If you could get other astronomers to contribute, even if just to proofread, that would be fantastic. Feel free to point them my way if you need somebody to teach them the basics or to properly format any content contribuitions they make. Also, thanks for dropping NASA a note, I feel its really important that reference sites get their facts right since in many cases they're the only sources people have access to. (as another exemple of incomplete information there, I'm quite positive that Granat had 8 instruments instead of 7, by using automated translation I found mention in some russian papers of a "KS-18M" device. I never added it in since I didnt trust myself to make sense of autotranslated technical text) I truly hope that your message forces them to review that page, especially since it came from a professional astronomer Acer (talk) 23:11, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

By 'Center', I meant Center of Mass

It's my fault, I didn't make that clear, I guess. When I said 'The Center', I definitely meant the Center of Mass. So the question is - does the Cosmos have a Center of Mass, like everything else?

It sure used to have a Center of Mass. According to the Big Bang Theory, the Cosmos was once a Singularity. But didn't this Singularity, representing the Cosmos, didn't it have a Center of Mass?

Or imagine a short time after the Big Bang, with everything in the Universe flying away from everything else.. didn't it have a Center of Mass then?

A Center, from which everything was leaving. By suggesting the Cosmos has a Center of Mass, just like everything else, I do not feel I am stepping outside of the bounds of Science. I rather think my suggestion has some merit, and should be allowed as a 'possibility', at least.

It's my fault too that I came across, to you, as 'hostile', it was certainly not my intent. I know exactly what it was that 'irked' me. I laid out my Cosmology to you, and you responded by questioning me on the Surface of a Sphere.

And I still maintain the surface of a Shere, or any part of the surface, assuming that surface is a real, three dimensional object, has a Center of Mass. If, of course, the 'Surface' is a mere 2 dimensional illustration, that would make finding its C of M difficult.

I am also maintaining that the Cosmos still has a Center of Mass, that it came with one and that it didn't lose it. And that we are in a Big Crunch situation, and that a Singularity has evolved there, at the Center (of Mass) of the Cosmos, since the beginning of Time.

I would very much appreciate a mention of my Theory - which follows naturally from all the known laws of Science - depends on them, really, in Wiki, somewhere. I believe Science needs to know. Please respond. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.39.252.217 (talk) 15:27, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Teleology

Thanks for the input and now I know about Teleology and must be a metaphysicist. But being an Engineer, I cant think of any compelling reason to worry about why water was designed to run downhill. And as for the Big Bang theory I'd rather think the water was uphill in the first place. And as for dark matter/energy, how about a little more research and verification re the stability of the neutron in free space? Regards WFPMWFPM (talk) 11:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I dont have anything against neutrons in the sun or n+p capture gammas. What I need in the Central Whirlpool scenario concept is a way for accumulating atomic structures to get rid of excess angular momentum, And I think that might be done by changing some of the neutrons into protons that have something (an electron whip tail?) That can get rid of the radiation particles that you call gamma rays. And we could call the research "The negatively charged universe?" and think about Newton's first rule of Philosophy. And my apologies to Hans Bethe and Regards, WFPMWFPM (talk) 17:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Center of Mass & cosmology -- continued

Hi,me again. In response to your message to me, it does seem to me that the Cosmos certainly started out as a finite body - a singularity, according to accepted understanding - if I'm not mistaken. It still must have been finite shortly after the Big Bang, I'm inclined to believe.

My first question, therefore, would be - at what time did the Cosmos 'go infinite', or did it? How does one 'go infinite', anyhow? Is it a sudden thing, or does it occur only slowly.

I prefer to think the Cosmos is finite, with a Center of Mass like every other finite thing. I am not interested in 'winning' any 'arguments', but I always appreciate any opportunity to explain my side.

My second and last question to you is, 'Do you think there is room for my theory, that there is indeed, a Black Hole at the Center of the Universe, in Wiki - anywhere?

Maybe, I thought, it could serve as an example of 'Fringe Science' - a Theory, that while it conforms to the Laws of Physics, actually depends on them, could never hope to compete with the established 'Heavyweights', The Big Bang, for example - the mirror image of which - this is. 72.39.252.217 (talk) 19:16, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Any place in Wiki for my Theory?

Hi, it's me again. Thank you for your last reply. It does seem to me that the Cosmos started out 'finite', according to accepted Theory, when it was just a singularity. I think it was still finite some time after the Big Bang. I think it's still finite.

I'm not interested in 'winning' any 'arguments', but I always appreciate an opportunity to present my side.

Is there any place for my Theory? I thought, maybe in 'Fringe Science', it could be briefly presented as a Theory which, tho' it conforms with Gravity and all the other Laws of Physics, could never hope to compete with the established 'Heavies', the Big Bang, or 'String Theory', for example.

If, however, there is no room for 'The Black Hole at The Center of The Universe', in Wiki, please tell me so that we can move on. 72.39.252.217 (talk) 19:37, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll take that as a 'no'.

In light of what you have told me, I'll have to take that as a 'no' to my theory, 'The Black Hole at The Center of The Universe.'

I think it's sad, that in an encyclopedia that claims to hold 'the sum' of the world's knowledge, that this particular piece of 'knowledge', should be repressed.

However, I must stand by your decision - sorry for having wasted your time so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.39.252.217 (talk) 18:08, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

User:Dauphinee = DavidYork71 ??

I thought so, but so far I am unconvinced. Watching, however, and it's good to know I am not the only one aware of this! --Rodhullandemu 22:42, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Re WarOnRugs = pretty transparent, from here. Same use of dodgy sources, same addition of LGBT project. No doubt at all. I'm here 20/24 or so at present so will usually catch things pretty quickly. --Rodhullandemu 18:20, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Secret handshake

Thanks for your message! It is nice to know that I am not the only one who is like that!! If I may ask, which denomination do you attend? My family has been Presbyterian since before my ancestors settled Ireland from Scotland in the 17th century. Despite my own ambivalence on the topic, I find centuries of familial tradition to be a powerful allure. --Kralizec! (talk) 02:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Replied

Hi, sorry for the late reply, but I've replied on my talk page. ^Khukri 10:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Much Appreciated!

Hello! Thank you for your comment on my talk page. The video you showed to me was extremely interesting. As you noticed, i am very interested in physics and astronomy to which you have a very impressive background. :] If you're interested in any topic in particular, i'd love to take a look. I appologize for not responding quickly. I'm on wikipedia nearly every day but i'm not logged on as often. Best, John Taftgod (talk) 21:04, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Arthur C. Clarke

User:DavidYork71 is not going to go away, so I have semi-protected the article for a week. That only leaves his new accounts, which can be blocked on sight. He will run out of steam before we do. --Rodhullandemu 03:22, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome

I have yet to meet any scientist, involved in the LHC or otherwise, with the slightest concern about the LHC causing disasters. A few people seem glad that the LSAG is doing its very conservative report, just so we can be sure, but most see it entirely as an exercise in explaining to the public why there's no cause for concern. Admittedly, we don't always do public relations as well as I wish we did, but I think the report is a step in the right direction.

If you're interested in quantum field theory, I highly recommend this textbook, which gets across many of the key concepts at the upper-division undergraduate level. -- SCZenz (talk) 17:26, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Physics participation

You received this message because your were on the old list of WikiProject Physics participants.

On 2008-06-25, the WikiProject Physics participant list was rewritten from scratch as a way to remove all inactive participants, and to facilitate the coordination of WikiProject Physics efforts. The list now contains more information, is easier to browse, is visually more appealing, and will be maintained up to date.

If you still are an active participant of WikiProject Physics, please add yourself to the current list of WikiProject Physics participants. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 16:21, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

LHC

Hi, I noticed that you copied the "legal challenge" section to the "Safety of the LHC" article. I suggest that the section either be removed from the "Safety of the LHC" article, or that the "Legal challenge" section in the "LHC" article be merged with the "Operational safety" section. Either way is fine with me. Thanks. --Phenylalanine (talk) 13:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

It seemed to me the legal information needs to be retained in the safety article, as it is so closely related to the safety subject. Yet I also think it is useful to keep the bare status of the legal challenge in the LHC article while it remains current. Personally, I am mostly opposed to loading the main article with all the details, (imaginary...) risk scenarios, fault-tree analyses, legal motions and counter motions, and references without end.

I agree one section is enough in the LHC article, and intended to merge it all into one there, but I ran out of time. Also, it seemed to me "Operational safety" is not such a good section title, as it sounds like concerns about workers getting run over by a fork-lift, something small-scale and local. I didn't want to make it too sensational, but also not quite so mundane sounding, and gave up in the event. At the moment the best I come up with is "Planetary safety concerns". Best, Wwheaton (talk) 18:36, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I support the merge in the LHC article. Also, I think just "Safety" would be fine for the heading, or maybe "Safety reports and reviews" or "Safety assessments". I don't like "Planetary safety concerns" as it puts undue weight on the "concerns" and there are also local safety aspects such as environmental impacts, radiation, etc. Thanks. --Phenylalanine (talk) 03:32, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I left a message on Khukri's talk page. I accept that I can not compete with the lot of you. If you force me to concede, without a functional dispute resolution process I guess I may not have much choice. --Jtankers (talk) 02:25, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

X-ray binary

Hello. Saw your edit on the that page. I guess I need to site the "Massive X-ray binaries". Sorry about that. Thanks, Marasama (talk) 17:59, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I only wrote it because the AJ papers I read states that Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients are a subgroup of Supergiant X-ray binary and Be/X-ray binary is a subgroup of Massive X-ray binary. And Massive X-ray binary is a subgroup of HMXB. If it is not an issue, I can put it back the way I first wrote it when I find the papers to site that. Thanks, Marasama (talk) 03:44, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Physics Poll

There is currently a poll about WikiProject Physics in general. Please take some time to answer it (or part of it), as it will help coordinate and guide the future efforts of the Project. Thank you. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 18:24, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

How now?

you were right i was busy w/ end of year stuff, i havent been on wiki in so long! I am now doing research on microfinance for a Model United Nations Conference, I am helping to wright the briefing paper. its tuff! I am also busy learning about Casmir's force and how vacums work. If casmir's force works here with virtual particle popping in and out of existence wud particles here pop into existance in another dimention that the virtual particles are supposedly found in and make up casmirs force ther?! Have a great summer --Josh 00:58, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

HEAO-3

I saw you on the interstellar travel discussion page. You wrote about HEAO-3 too. I worked on that in Ed Stone's lab. Were you there too? DonPMitchell (talk) 05:20, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorta, I was at JPL with Bud Jacobson's group on the Ge spectrometer, C-1. I'd love it if you could beef up the discussion of the C-3 experiment (or point me to some easily accessible references I could read and comprehend myself in a short time). I'm working on Spitzer Space Telescope at Caltech now. Were you a student or postdoc there? What are you doing now? Cheers, Bill Wwheaton (talk) 05:51, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

You might find this interesting.

Hi Bill, Just found this which I thought you might personally find this interesting, outside of our shenanigans on the LHC articles. It's a 2 hour interview with nobel laureates, including Carlo Rubbia, David Gross, Hooft, Veltman, George Smoot and a few others and their thoughts on the LHC. There are also some discussions about the LHC safety and Wagner. cheers ^Khukri 09:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I'm interested. Don't know where I'll find two hours, but send me the link (? I don't see it above?) and thanks. Bill Wwheaton (talk) 09:43, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Damn, sry I thought I'd included the link. http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=36712

Enjoy ^Khukri 09:46, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Hope everything is OK, and see you when you get back. ^Khukri 07:02, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I expect all will be well. Wwheaton (talk) 17:56, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I am back, more or less. Thanks again. Wwheaton (talk) 06:09, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Welcome back, hope all is well? ^Khukri 06:37, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I've had my first encounter with back surgery, three weeks in the hospital (only expected 4-5 days). Results appear promising, but it will be a while before I really know for sure. This is just another chapter of a lifelong orthopedic saga (diastrophic dysplasia), mostly just a big nuisance. -- Bill Wwheaton (talk) 06:04, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

of Casmir effect and romantic piano music

Hi bill hope ur back 'll be ok. Thanks for the book recommendation ill start on that after i finish a book on einstiens most important theories. I love the concerto too. I got in an AP History class this year! 1st test on summer reading average D but I got a C! On hte scale thats an A - A+. Sorry i havent exactly kept in touch end of school was hectic. I worked over the summer too so not much time spent on computer. Tell me more about the place u work at as a teacher, Caltech is it, I might go there fr college. My best regards Josh 00:29, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I am a sophomore in High School Bill. I would love to apply to Caltech for thier astronomy program! I want to go to Yale but that might not happen. So yeah im syched about the idea.... How bout u Bill how r u doin these days???????? Josh 18:46, 24 September 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 11341134a (talk • contribs)

Large Hadron Collider‎

This [2] is much better. Thank you, sir! --Kralizec! (talk) 12:52, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Wwheaton (talk) 15:43, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the mention(s) of String Theory. (I am a String Theorist.) — Orion11M87 (talk) 03:36, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely, Brian Greene wrote the best article on the LHC. Also it was outstanding that the fact it was published in the New York Times, so a lot of people got an excellent insight. On the Superstring theory, one of the biggest difficulties are that there are lot of possibilities in what ways strings can vibrate, which makes it even harder after the fact that they work in the Calabi–Yau manifold dimensions (which are sometimes very difficult for many people). So I have been thinking on to really revolutionize it in having more physicists on board and making high-efficiency collaborations possible. One of the main problems are that it has a long learning curve, and the physicist's collaboration on it is not so state of the art. About 2 years ago, I seriously started looking on to the idea of having special operating system of science for learning, and for scientists to share ideas and equations in realtime. I have started working on its architecture and interface. I am hoping on developer release in late 2009. So it will be finally great to have a science dedicated operating system, short learning curve (advanced realtime interactive architecture), and very high productivity with science and math. I have been looking forward on visiting JPL, so will meet you there. Cheers. — Orion11M87 (talk) 05:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I will be writing an email to you, and my apologies for not replying in a timely manner (I have been very busy and hadn't had much time on the computer). Thanks and cheers! — Orion11M87 (talk) 05:33, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I actually want to be at JPL/Caltech right now, but in the time I have, I have to wait until 2009. I hope everything is fine there, after the surgery. — Orion11M87 (talk) 02:49, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Could you review the Quark article?

I've seen that you're listed as an active participant in WikiProject physics, and particle physics is listed among your areas of interest. The article Quark is currently a featured article candidate. Could you please review it and express your comments at the nomination page and/or the talk page of the article? Thanks in advance, A r m y 1 9 8 7 ! ! !  16:09, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Wheaton

For mentioning the talk mistake. It was hardly something important, and I'm sure anything that got deleted was an accident. It is now restored to the talk page. Eebster the Great (talk) 22:45, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Rindler and speed of light

I dont know if you had an answer to your question at Talk:Introduction_to_special_relativity#Minkowski_diagram. As I had a copy of Rindler's book to hand I looked it up. Robinhw (talk) 16:59, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Current Vandalism in Progress

I am really appalled that you do not comment on Verbal's vandalism of the discussion on the Safety of the Large Hadron Colllider. Don't you realize that he is censoring content? He has already destroyed my other contributions and blocked me from edits ... do you seriously think I'm the only one?? It is irrelevant whether you agree with my point of view or not, this person is wading through Wikipedia and deleting or destroying other people's work simply because he doesn't approve! DasV (talk) 09:41, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to comment here. If you feel my editing has been inappropriate please let me know here or on my talk, however I really don't think anything needs to be said at this point. I have been removing off topic discussion and personal attacks per WP:TALK, and asked DasV to centralise discussion on his talk page. I haven't blocked, banned, or otherwise barred DasV from sensible and on topic editing (I'm not an admin!) All the best, Verbal chat

Personally I like to give the discussion on talk pages pretty wide latitude, as long as it is not abusive, which I don't think DasV's was. But the official guidelines were certainly bent, and we should pay attention to them. So I was beginning to think that it was time to take the discussion off to our personal talk pages, as we (myself included) were beginning to repeat ourselves in a tiresome and non-constructive way. I myself would have just archived the earlier material under the "biased" heading, left the later section (from DasV's "article is a joke" post), called for further talk to be carried out on our personal pages, and later taken action to cut off the argument if it had continued much further. So I don't think Verbal's action was really wrong.

You must understand, DasV, that we've had similar arguments for about a year, and it gets wearisome. User:Jtankers did an heroic job of defending the contrarian position for several months, and I thought that was at least within Wiki guidelines and pretty civilized, even though we disagreed. (He seemed really convinced that there was a ~50% chance of disaster (which I believe over the top by a factor of probably a trillion), so I had some sympathy for his honest terror.) Your argument seems more general, broadly dismissive of the benefits of scientific research in comparison with the costs, considering both dollars and risks. This is a deep and difficult issue (I think) and probably worthy of an article (tho my own prejudices are clear), but huge, far broader than our LHC context allows. Anyhow, I'm sorry if you felt censored, but ultimately it really is necessary to make serious suggestions for changes to the main article, and back those suggestions up with reliable sources. You might want to review the archives from 2008 Jan to September to see where we've been with that. Best, Wwheaton (talk) 19:04, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your well stated case Wwheaton. There is no point to deletion of remarks on discussion pages unless they are abusive and/or vandalism. It is nothing more than censorship of the discussion, and many many now on Wikipedia have a penchant for 'deletion'. I understand the repeated nature of the discussion at times, but the alternative is to simply regurgitate government sources. I agree that the LHC risk is minimal, and I said so; the point was that there was no admission in either article that the cost to benefit was minimal also. The discussion pages serve to document such exclusions, particularly in the case of the topic being revisited. In that sense Verbal's actions were indeed wrong, and served no purpose other than highlighting his own personal desire to eliminate any contra-Cern communications. It would have been different if I had simply changed the article unilaterally. As to the degree of risk I point to Herbert Dingle's book Science at the Crossroads, also maligned by orthodoxy and dogma, yet nevertheless prophetic regarding the possible costs for a lack of scientific understanding. Verbal might have understood this had he read the most recent object of deletion that I posted, then again censors do not read that which they do not understand or agree with. Thank you for addressing this. DasV (talk) 14:23, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

About archiving of Life Talk page

--Faustnh (talk) 16:13, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Bill, thank you for your notification. Yes, I completely agree with you on the question that archival procedure of Life Talk page should be given a better treatment. I will express my opinion there.

By the way, in my last check of Wikipedia I've made a change to the article I wrote. I've made some additions I've been intended to write since some time ago, and I would like you checked it out.

Thank you and best regards.

Life

Hello Wwheaton. I just noticed the contributions you have done in Wikipedia and I realize you are in a different league than user Mitra. In the past I have had to fend off religious zealots (offended to their very soul), creationists, Intelligent Design dudes, just plain vandals and miscelaneous comming out of the wood works. I see you are looking at life from a serious physics perspective and you have the background to do so. I applaud that and look forward to learning some tricks from you; I am a cell & molecular biologist. Surely you have noticed during your ample scientific writing experience in Wikipedia of the need to quote previously published papers. Although your kernel information ratios concept is interesting, I do not believe it has been published, and I can not honestly say it is a mainstream biology concept that can be used to support the presented definition of life. Sincerely looking forward to constructive dialogue, BatteryIncluded (talk) 07:55, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Dear Wwheaton, FYI - I'm in fact in a different league. Consider me just a foolish kiddo. I've not bothered to check the talk page archive before writing that 'definition' [and when I did I've disliked 'pink unicorns' right away]. Nor have I tried to do any research in the subject in the past ten years. The idea is not original and have been present in the literature for quite a while. Really, I think, I took the idea from Harry Potter. That Rowling person is talking about the information transfer throughout the whole series. To the point of being boring in fact. --Mitra (talk) 07:59, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Hey Wwheaton. Thank you for being logical in your arguments and for listening mine as well. I think that biologists are to high up in the food chain to define life :) And forget that chemistry and in its term physics drives all that funky cellular machienary. I doubt they even know the notion of the thought experiment.  ;) --Mitra (talk) 08:05, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Dear Wwheaton, I know that at first it seems ridiculous and unfair that independent scientific thinking is not allowed, and it is even discouraged in Wikipedia. However, restricting the material to previously published papers (peer reviewed), helps ensure the veracity and reliability of the information presented. Remember it is an open encyclopedia and anyone has access to the edit button, whether they understand the subject or not. If all editors had a degree in science/technology/etc. it would not be such a big handicap as this population -in general- takes time to understand the Wiki rules and investigate the topic prior to editing; but reality shows that not all editors have the understanding or the intelectual honesty expected; for example, during the past I have had to delete statements claiming that fire and certain computer softwares can be considered to be alive. In this context I had a first impresion that your information theory was heading toward some kind of electronic memory and artificial life. Anyway, I apologize for my rudeness, and as a researcher, I appaud your curiosity.

Regarding the information kernel ratios, at an everyday practical level the links between information entropy and thermodynamic entropy are not close. When attempting to detect life, physicists and chemists are apt to be more interested in changes in entropy as a system spontaneously evolves away from its initial conditions, in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics. So I think that your proposed system may be an additional perspective to assist in the description of life, not to define it.

I strongly suspect that one reason biologists have not produced an oficial-looking sentence that defines life, is that we don't want to be boxed in to a pre-established concept of the many ways life manifests, or could manifest. Creating a one sentence definition, whether narrow or wide, would be either too vague or limiting. If you look around in competent literature, it is more likely that you will find descriptions or characteristics of known life, as very few will adventure to actually produce a definition. Although my cell & molecular background is on heath care (humans), I spend time reading on characteristics of life because I am very interested in the subject of astrobiology, and I keep a close eye on what they are looking for as a sign of past or present life. There are several suggestions for things to look for, and mostly they all come down to questioning the physicochemical data for an anomaly. Although thermodynamic entropy seems to be the prime "red flag" at the moment, signs of metabolism like 12-C, 13-C, 14-C incorporation ratios in gases and biomolecules, are high on the list. The good news is that none of these asume that the processes are being carried on inside a cell.

As you know, as the scientific fields expand, people become very specialized. I have not read anything about biological information ratios but I will keep an eye open and will get back to you if I do. Take care. With much respect and friendship, -BatteryIncluded (talk) 03:12, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

PS: As a piece of interesant trivia, the human genome contains about 3 billion base pairs. The Van Dyke's salamander has about 70 billion base pairs. The uni-cellular amoeba dubia has 670 billion base pairs. How does DNA information relate to structural complexity? Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 03:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment

( --Faustnh (talk) 21:55, 20 January 2009 (UTC) ) Hi Bill, you will probably know, but in case you don't, you could take a look at Knol service. It's not perfect, but it's a resource to consider. Best regards.

International Space Station

Hi! You might be interested in the discussion at Talk:International Space Station#The Failed FAC. Thank you. Colds7ream (talk) 22:35, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Welcome

Welcome to WikiProject Space Colonization! I noticed you were making improvements to the ISS article. What areas of space colonization are you interested in? Wronkiew (talk) 08:44, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh! This is nutty. You came to my rocket launch out in Irwindale last year. I think we've met in Ventura too. Small world! Wronkiew (talk) 06:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Asteroid stubs

Hi there! I would take it to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting or Wikipedia talk:Stub types for deletion asap. Dr. Blofeld, Waacstats, Grutness, et al can probably advise or help. Cheers, Pegship (talk) 00:17, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Cotton gin

It looks ok to me, what were your concerns? No porn stars in it now so far as I could see. dougweller (talk) 07:35, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi, two things, I guess. First, I was surprised to see that folks have been making cotton gins for 2,000 years, with no hint in the article as to how Whitney's improvements seem to have made the key difference. I understand that the documentation from the first century CE may be a bit thin, but still, there ought to be some indication as to what the important improvements were. Second, in Whitney's patent, lacking any textual discussion, it is not at all clear how it works. The museum photo helps a little maybe, but both illustrations need some explanatory text to tell where and how the critical events occur. I see there has been a lot of editing since my rather harsh criticism, but unless I have missed it, mostly on the subject of the relation to slavery and like social/historical issues. Somehow the naive reader (such as me; coming out of California's south Central Valley I have at least separated a boll or two by hand, and seen people in the fields hand-picking back in the mid-50s) ought to come out of the article with some clarity about the problems involving seeds and fibers and the bolls' covering, that Whitney's gin addressed successfully, in a way that seems to have revolutionized the industry. The patent illustration at least should have some text in the accompanying caption explaining where the raw bolls are put in, exactly where and how the actual separation occurs, and where the seeds and separated fiber are collected. (? Are the boll-covering shells removed by hand first? Must be I guess, but they are brittle once the cotton is dried [nowadays I believe this is done by treating the field when it is green with some kind of chemical I think, then letting it dry out? But what about in 1790?] and tend to break into fragments I think, so that step must be tedious and delicate. Probably happened in the field, while picking?) It looks in the patent diagram like important things happen at two places, at least, but what those are, and how, is mysterious. The museum photo helps a little, but I think it does not correspond one-to-one to the patent image, and it still does not really make it obvious.

I confess I have only studied the article for a few minutes, but I was struck by how little clear explanation there was about the actual mechanical issues and how Whitney's improvements solved them. My impression is there has been little done about this since my (bad-tempered—apologies) rant. The social impacts are obviously of huge importance, but the central mystery of the "gin in itself" remains obscure, and almost unexplained. Wwheaton (talk) 18:26, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Good points. So many articles on my list to work on! And this isn't my field, but the archaeology of it, I will try to find time to look into that. Thanks for the detailed explanation. dougweller (talk) 19:10, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, me either obviously. I suspect experts in the technology are rare, all died a century ago. We do the best we can. Sorry to be a troublemaker. I'm a physicist myself. Several of the earlier contributors to the talk page at least seem to know something about cotton. Cheers, Wwheaton (talk) 21:58, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: Asteroids

Hello, Wwheaton. Thanks for mentioning that on my talk page. To answer some of your questions, I believe that there are somewhere between 13,000 and 15,000 asteroid articles on Wikipedia at the moment. I am uncertain of the exact number as I only created about a tenth of those asteroid articles. Most were created by User:ClueBot II before I came along and filled in some holes. Others have been created by different individuals over times. As for why I missed so many articles, that is because I used many different pages to get links for the asteroids. I initially used pages such as List of named minor planets (A-C), then went on to Meanings of minor planet names and later used List of asteroids. Sorry about any redlinks that I missed. I could go and create them, but I haven't done any asteroid article created for nearly a year partially due to the (apparently mistaken) belief that I had gotten all the named asteroids as well as the whole notability controversy on the astronomical objects wikiproject. I like the look of your table and think it is a good idea. One question that I have is if you intend to create the table to supplement the articles or to delete or merge the articles to the table. I would suggest keeping the articles and then having a table with minimal information to keep it neat with more specific information on the articles on the asteroids themselves. If you would like, I can go ahead and create the articles of the asteroid redlinks or if you would rather have me wait until the question of asteroid notability is solved, I understand that as well. Once again, thank you for contacting me regarding these new developments. Captain panda 04:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Usernames

I almost blocked you per our policy of 'no celebrity names' - but hey, it is your name, so okay.

You're doing some damn good stuff; keep at it. DS (talk) 00:30, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Greeting

Dear Wweaton, I was checking on a vandalism on article Omid and suddenly read your message to an IP user and I was overwhelmed. It is great to know people like you. By the way, I noticed that you are interested in Physics and space. There is a funny article about space that would like to send you if you are interested. I will email it to you. Have a great week. Kind regards Parvazbato59 (talk) 16:47, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Soddy

Thanks for the interesting input on the Soddy articles. Your new finding was another good information link to have http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/opinion/12zencey.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=opinion

If you have not seen this very short video you may find it interesting. M. King Hubbert who I am sure you know of, made use of Soddy's work. Soddy did not take things a step further as Hubbert and friends did, but his work pointed in somewhat the same direction... Hubbert on peak oil http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImV1voi41YY&feature=channel_page - Regards skip sievert (talk) 01:00, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I do not know anything, actually, especially about economics, and especially about money or banking. I do have a slight understanding of thermodynamics and entropy, and have just begun to pay attention to Soddy's ideas, but I have to think about them, maybe for a long time. Best, Bill Wwheaton (talk) 05:48, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

My apparent edit

Didn't edit the Mass Driver page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.155.155.66 (talk) 21:35, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Mass Driver

I have just read your help me mesage on Mass Driver 1 page. I am not an expert wikipedian and I do not really know how to help, but I want you to know that I sympathise with you and I have a few general suggestions:

1. List the things that you think ought to be on the page, from your point of view. That has to be reconciled with what ought to be on the page from the point of view of us users. Our view should be paramount as wiki should be there to answer our questions, but then again, we do not neccesarily know what there is to be known, whereas you do.

2. List some sources of information that others could use. Even if they are obscure books, so long as you give proper references, it is up to us to look into them and decide what we want.

3. You are absolutely right that you should not write the page yourself, but provided you make it clear who you are, you are reasonably OK putting a few notes down and I support this.

4. I will jot down a list of things that I mgiht expect to see on this page too, to inspire others. Thanks for being there anyway. IceDragon64 (talk) 21:19, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I was slightly involved (I designed the capacitive discharge circuits that powered the drive magnets), and have been hoping to get more info from some of the others, but without much luck. Kevin Fine took lots of pictures, Eric Drexler was around, Gerry O'Neill's book mentioned it in some of the later editions, and there are probably lots of design notes and details in his personal papers at the Space Studies Institute, and Henry's papers would also be a good place to look. The problem is human time: Gerry is dead, Henry is 85 or so, I am up to my neck in Spitzer Space Telescope stuff in Pasadena, etc, etc. I would like to see some details about the design: a good line drawing of the overall layout, a diagram of the "bucket", information on the drive coils (number of turns, inductance L, wire size (it was large Cu stuff the Magnet Lab had around, maybe 2x3 mm or so in cross section), the theoretical vs obtained performance, etc. This was practically the first thing I did for Wikipedia, and my memory is fading fast! I will put a copy of this on the article talk page, and maybe draw in some interest. Wwheaton (talk) 22:44, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Bevatron

Hi, I seem to be edging towards an edit war with an IP User:79.166.105.190 editor over that Georgios Giolvas edit you also reverted. Am I proceeding correctly? Any advice? Thanks. Wwheaton (talk) 16:30, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi there. My first piece of advice is to make sure you don't revert more than three times, or you'll be hit with WP:3R regardless of whether you're right or not. :-/ If he continues to revert, possible bring it up under 3R, or take it to the admin notice board? Or possibly the Reliable Sources Notice Board... I'm not really sure where is best, as my previous experience with official processes to sanction editors has lead me to conclude that they're a lot of talk and little else. But maybe I'm just a cynic. ;-) --Falcorian ^(talk) 18:40, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I will take due care about 3RR, this is as close as I've been, or ever expect to be. Maybe I'll try reason on his talk page before going to any of the WikiCops. I am right, I hope, that a web page in Greek is really not satisfactory as a source? No idea how credible the claim may be. Wwheaton (talk) 19:41, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Seems like it's all going well. Cheers! --Falcorian ^(talk) 05:08, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

A request for Bill Wheaton and colleagues

Hi Bill Wheaton. I see that you are a physicist and astronomer. You got my attention with your wikipedia page on particle accelerators. It was very well written. Accelerators are a recent interest of mine, as is particle physics as a whole. I was wondering if you could read a wikipedia entry that I have been working on and maybe make some constructive critisms. Here is the title of the article, and, I hope, the internal link for it: The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?. The article is about the book with that title. You might be familiar with it.

The intention of this project has turned out to be twofold. One is to give a summary of the chapters focusing through the lens of making this book and article interesting to the general reader. The second intention is to impart an understanding of particle physics based on this book. It is written by Leon Lederman who is a Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his work with neutrinos. Obviously this has not been his only accomplishment. He has been right there on the leading edge of particle physics.

I see also that you are a participant of WikiProject Physics. Perhaps you could get some of your fellow members in WikiProject physics to look it over as well. It would be much appreciated.

Also I must add that it is not quite complete - but it is almost finished. However, now might be a good time for some feedback - I guess any feedback from physicist community on the article's talk page would be welcome. Thanks in advance. Hope to hear from you.

Ti-30X (talk) 02:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually it is probably three quarters done, not eally almost finished. I want to add more to Chapter 4 and Chapter 9. Ti-30X (talk) 11:30, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Move to end from begining, to preserve chrono ordering. Wwheaton (talk) 13:12, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Edit on Template:Welcomeh

Hi Wwheaton. You might not have realized this, but your this edit to Template:Welcomeh was undesirable for the template's true function. I've reverted the edit now. Please be careful in your future edits. Thanks. ^LeaveSleaves 17:30, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Uh, no, I was unaware that I had edited it at all. I found a mangled welcomeh instance on a talk page, and tried to fix it, but must have edited the template page itself somehow. Sorry 'bout that. Wwheaton (talk) 03:56, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Matter

Thank you Ww

I helps a bit...

Can you maybe introduce me to someone who spesializes in Electrical engineering (Power)?

Regards CJ--Kroucacj (talk) 00:55, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Our discussion on interstellar travel

I wanted to know if you had wanted to comment on my talk page when you had left a message, you said you would keep it watchlisted (I added a bit too) The snare (talk) 13:53, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Catherine Chipembere

Hi,

Thanks for your note on my talk page. I have been making sections on various characters from Malawi history and adding to them as I find out more -- a fascinating subject, for me, anyway, as I grew up in Nyasaland. There is surprisingly little material on Henry Chip, still less on Catherine. The best general source is Colin Baker, who has published a lot on the period -- a whole series of books which you can no doubt find referred to on the web. Among them is one on Henry Chip -- the "Missing Years". I was recently in Rhodes House, Oxford, doing some historical research, but all they have is one letter from Henry to his supporters.

There is actually a guy at Cal Tech in Pasadena who once wrote quite a lot on the subject -- Edwin Munger, who knew Chip's nemesis, Dr Banda. I e-mailed him a while ago asking to see some private papers apparently in his possession (I am nearby, in LA), but he didn't reply.

Sorry I can't really help on Catherine. I'm not aware of anything other than passing references to her existence, with no detail. Let me know, though, if I can help with anything else in the general subject area -- I have a reasonably good collection of assorted books and documents.

Oliver —Preceding unsigned comment added by Olivercorlett (talk • contribs) 18:12, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Wwheaton. You have new messages at Malinaccier's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Hello, Wwheaton. You have new messages at Malinaccier's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Integral field spectrograph

I would suggest that you keep it as a subpage of your account, without categories, until it meets WP:N. Otherwise it is likely to be deleted again. Given the topic, you should be able to get two references from technical journals or news sources. I'll also add that the number of Google hits does not establish notability. Check out {{cite journal}} or {{cite new}} for including the formatted references. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:24, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Paulkint

See what I meant about the original research: [3]. Since there is no source, the info cannot be verified by others and very likely contains mistakes. Do we really need this? Offliner (talk) 13:25, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Chauncy Maples

Thank you for your work on dividing the article: it looks much better now.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 16:28, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Hello again, this matter has got messed up as far as I can see. What you did in July has been edited by myself to remove more duplication (though the length of the articles in itself makes changes more complex). After that the original editor Anments has reverted what I did and it is not possible for me to work on it again this week. His/her view is I suppose that it was an excellent piece of work so change makes it worse (I only guess that since I got no reply to a message). The article titles which only differ by "SS " need to be supplemented by hatnotes and an Infobox Ship on one and an Infobox Person on the other perhaps. What is on the Talk pages has stayed the may I did it but the articles have not. No hurry, and please don't feel an obligation.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 15:44, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Hello, everything you have done has meant clarity and coherence are much better and I am very grateful. I would have returned to it eventually but could not just now. There is an essay-like quality and perhaps three articles (1) clergyman (2) ship (3) early Christian missions in Nyasaland are possible that is more than I can undertake. I find it useful to wander off into unfamiliar subjects sometimes, otherwise editing can feel rather boring and onerous. I have even made slight contributions to the history of science e.g George Sarton and a few others. Thank you again.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 19:46, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Robert Bunsen

The last few days have been very busy on the this article: perhaps you could have a look.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 03:56, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Supermassive black hole

From your user page it says you are a physicts and a astronomer. Then just tell me that does supermassive black hole have a lower density? I have read on the article such thing. Please answer it on my talk page. --Extra999 (talk) 13:23, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I have now understood. Thanks. --Extra999 (talk) 09:06, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Hey

Hi Will, Hope you are doing good? Thought you might like this. Take care ^Khukri 17:17, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Saw that, it was also in yesterday's NY Times. Thought it was hilarious, but the two authors seem to be reputable guys, so I better not laugh too loud. And I do believe that the universe will surprise us in almost every possible way, after all. Thanks for patrolling the LHC article this past year BTW. I am still slowly recovering from back operations in July 2008, and scrambling to catch up at work, so have to curb my impulses to pontificate on Wikipedia. I gather you guys are about ready to start circulating beam again—what a huge job that "incident" has been. Hope all the loopholes have been successfully closed, and good luck! Cheers, Bill Wwheaton (talk) 19:18, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Alot of testing going on and the whole machine is now cooled down to within a couple of Kelvin of operating temperature. I've not seen any exact start up dates yet, but it will be within the next month and then hopefully it'll just be sit and watch it all go like clock work. First time it started up there was so much excitement, to be honest this time there is a palpable sense of nervousness. For a 6 billion dollar machine to start up the way it did the last time was damned near a miracle and for it to all come to an anti climax a week later was gutting. This time everyone is approaching it with a certain amount of realism, we want to bounce around the room but .......... anyways, watch this space. Take care ^Khukri 21:49, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Rodger Doxsey

Hi, I got the year of birth from the Discover magazine blog, but I'm happy to wait for a more detailed reference. --Canley (talk) 00:50, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Found a reference for his full birth date from the New York Times. Also added an infobox and a public domain image, and his full name from his doctoral thesis. --Canley (talk) 04:19, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Rodger Doxsey

On October 27, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Rodger Doxsey, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Wikiproject: Did you know? 02:14, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Need for help

I have created a portal named star and I need help from you for making it good. -- Extra999 (talk) 20:45, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Then can you suggest a helful user and is good in astronomy. -- Extra999 (talk) 05:19, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I have posted. Thanks !!! -- Extra999 (talk) 05:40, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Forbidden Planet

In reference to your recent edit to Forbidden Planet, please consider that WP:FICT guidelines (WP:FILMPLOT) advise 400-700 words for a plot summary, and in that article we are now at 729 words (per a real quick wc) for the plot summary. —Aladdin Sane (talk) 05:11, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

ISS FAC4.

Hello there! As an editor who has posted a comment in one of the recent Peer Reviews, GANs or FACs of International Space Station, or who has contributed to the article recently, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind commenting in the current Featured Article Candidacy with any suggestions you have for article improvements (and being bold and making those changes), whether or not you feel any issues you have previously raised have been dealt with, and, ultimately, if you believe the article meets the Featured Article guidelines. This is the fourth FAC for this article, and it'd be great to have it pass. Many thanks in advance, Colds7ream (talk) 16:47, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Debate on the "Purpose" section

Hi Wwheaton, I saw your latest edits and I really appreciate your effort to put the debate on a productive track. Unfortunately this week I am quite busy with other stuff so I cannot guarantee a quick reaction. Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 19:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs

Hello Wwheaton! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 2 of the articles that you created are tagged as Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to ensure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. If you were to bring these articles up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current 7 article backlog. Once the articles are adequately referenced, please remove the {{unreferencedBLP}} tag. Here is the list:

1. Edward J. Lofgren - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
2. Edward C. Stone - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 23:48, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Paulkint, again

Paulkint (talk · contribs) is active at Interstellar travel (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) again. I reverted one attempted change a few days ago due to it removing references and muddying the example. I'm holding off on examining his most recent change. Would you be willing to take a look? I want to avoid doing anything that could come across as edit-warring or article-ownership, so a second opinion would be handy. The difficulty is that as near as I can tell, he's a single-purpose account relentlessly pushing one viewpoint on that article. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 00:25, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Your removal is clearly based on personal animosity since my contribution was only made clearer the magnitude of the energy and you do not dispute the accuracy of my edit. Yes I have had one viewpoint: to correct much of the falacious or false information in the "Interstellar Travel" article. Obviously that it not going to be permitted.User: paulkint —Preceding undated comment added 18:07, 20 February 2010 (UTC).

Safety of the LHC

Hi Wwheaton, could you please keep an eye on the "Safety of the LHC" article? It's being modified by one "Oldnoah", but it's time to go to bed for me... Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 01:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi William, could you please moderate Ptrslv72, whose intentions might be good, but who is somewhat ignorant of physics. I've just posted a response to his response in the User Talk page of Oldnoah. Thanks! As I recall, we had a few interesting chats a while back, too! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oldnoah (talk • contribs) 14:30, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I will do the best I can to keep the discussion friendly and helpful, but am not enough of an expert myself to do much more than speak soothing nothings. As I said a month ago, I believe the probability P of disaster cannot reasonably be claimed to be truly (exactly) 0.0, though I think it is very very small, <10 ^-12 , I guess. I also think only bona fide experts are qualified to estimate the limits on the range of P, given that it must satisfy 0.0 < P < 1.0. It seems crucial to me (and a bigger issue than just the LHC, ultimately, as such problems will inevitably come up again and again in other fields of scientific research, with the danger of disasters on one hand, and the danger of halting scientific progress on the other) that we learn to accept such difficult realities, and then deal with (a) trying to understand what P could reasonably be, and (b) what value is acceptable in a broad analysis of likely costs and benefits to society as a whole.

Ptrslv72 (talk) may be "somewhat ignorant" of physics, but we all are, and he clearly knows much more of the current state of the subject than I. (My theoretical particle physics education more or less peaked around 1967, when I took my PhD qualifying exams at UCSD; I worked on some experiments at BNL/AGS & LBL after that, but got out of the field in 1969, just before the big breakthroughs.) I think you Oldnoah (talk), probably know at least as much as I do, and I appreciated our interactions a year or two ago, that helped me to get up to speed a little on the subject. As I say I cannot do much during the next fortnight; I hope I will be more available after that. All the best, Bill Wwheaton (talk) 18:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Bill, for your input. I also agree that P > 0, and P < 1 with our current state of knowledge. However, I am unable to calculate a probability. I suspect you have a 'gut feeling' that you believe it is as small as you report. I don't do that, because a 'gut feeling' is exactly that, a feeling not based on reasoned calculation. I don't know how to do a calculation, and I don't know of anyone who reliably does. Ergo, I would agree that one should therefore simply split the difference. I'm not the only one who uses that method as the 'best guess'. That is because, I suppose, that if we do Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC, that is something that does not happen in nature except possibly in the deep reaches of intergalactic space when an occasional Pb cosmic ray runs head-on into another Pb cosmic ray at COM equivalent energies to the LHC. Since we don't have prior factual evidence from nature to rely upon, we instead have to rely upon guesswork. I find it interesting that Ptrslv72 seems to be taking a hostile tone, yet he was ignorant of the recent LHC data?! One would think that if he is going to be a 'guardian of the gate' he would at least have already been apprised of the recent CMS data (which I inserted into the article because it is quite interesting, I believe, as being the FIRST data from 'new physics' of the machine.) ~Oldnoah

How to estimate a reasonable range for P seems a difficult problem. My gut feeling was based on multiplying various factors out in the tree of possibilities to get contingent probabilities, and then adding those, in a very rough and ready way. Some of the probabilities can be computed more or less reliably, eg the life of neutron stars against ultra HE cosmic ray-produced black holes, given a reasonable estimate for the possible BH production cross section; or the characteristic growth time (exponential tau, I presume) for a BH orbiting in the Earth. But I do not have the expertise to do any of this right, and I think only a very few (tiny fraction, modest number of) people really do. One thing I think we should not do is simply take an arithmetic average of people's gut feelings (being dominated by a few large estimates). A geometric average seems more reasonable to me (more scale invariant), but still must be cut off below to avoid domination by absurdly small estimates. We do many things in science that have never been done before, and we clearly need to be cautious about reasonable possibilities, yet if we do not develop some methodology for dealing with these matters, where 0 < P << 1, we will eventually be paralyzed by fear, which I think would be very dangerous in its own right (as well as no fun at all!) I sometimes wonder: if all natural causes of death were conquered, would people simply stay in bed all the time, to avoid all risk? Yuk! Bill Wwheaton (talk) 02:06, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Oldnoah, how ironic that, of all people, you should call somebody else "ignorant of physics". Of course I know the CMS article (check the timestamps, I mentioned it on the talk page of the Safety article well before you did it on your own talk page). The point is, I am also able to read plain English, so I know that the CMS article has nothing to do with strangelet production at the LHC. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 16:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Away

I will be away for a week, with little or no computer access. I expect to return March 5. Wwheaton (talk) 16:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Atom smashers

While I certainly agree that professionals and academics in the field of physics don't like the term "atom smasher", it is still a widely used term. See Talk:Particle accelerator#Terminology for more sources; hundreds of others could be provided. It may not be the preferred scientific term, but it is still used. This is a general encyclopedia, not a textbook or technical manual, so the terminology we use is not restricted to what the academic world would prefer. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 22:13, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Terminology should still be correct. It is the responsibility of professionals and academics to guide sloppy usage towards accuracy without being too obnoxious. And even a "general encyclopedia", especially one that aspires to make "all knowledge" available to all, needs to be correct. It is inherently an academic exercise, after all. The term atom smashers was a journalistic vogue that went out of date with the Cosmotron, when fundamental physics advanced from nuclear physics to elementary particle physics, nearly 60 years ago. No doubt the term is still misused thousands of times, as it was once very popular, but it is still inappropriate, and potentially confusing. We are under no obligation to perpetuate it. The lead as I left it explained this accurately and needs to be restored, which I have now done, except for changing "1950s" to "1960s" (to be generous).

So, I request that you obtain consensus on the article talk page, and on the physics project page, before reverting. Thanks! Wwheaton (talk) 04:04, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

We do use the correct terminology. Hence the title of the article. But it's untrue to say "atom smasher" isn't used; like it or not, it is. And the sources provided demonstrate that - they are from the last ten years. That's not a matter for debate, and Wikipedia is not a democracy. If it cites reliable sources, it's in. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 04:29, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

That closed the door on that debate then. I understand Bill's argument though Kafziel has stated "if it's reliably sourced it's in" is maybe a tad too black and white, as the source has to be in context. I for one have no problems with it being in the article, but I am surprised that is of such importance that it is in the lede. The lede should lay out the structure of the article and it's context, and I don't see the terminology of Atom Smasher as a defining point for the article or particle accelerators in general. Reading through the article it jumps straight from the lede to it's uses and types of accelerators, whereas the article could be served by moving the History section up and expanding on the development of accelerators from their infancy to things like the LHC, Tevatron and maybe in the future CLIC, this in my opinion would be the perfect position to include the section to show how technology and terminology has developed. Regards ^Khukri 07:23, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

New from WFPM

Hi! I've had a brainstorm since I last talked with you about an atomic fusion device consisting of a Boiler containing Lithium fuel and a helium heat transfer medium, and equipped with a number of your atom smashing (accelerator) devices to fuse the lithium to fast helium particles. We could shape it like a Chianti bottle and put a hydrogen fuel cell recovery system in at the top and then we would be in business. We would, of course, give credit for the discovery to Cockcroft and Walton, but there ought to be enough room in the technology for a patent or two. So what do you think? You can be the Scientist and I'll be the Engineer.WFPM (talk) 18:47, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes! And we can put a pebble bed heating system under the Chianti bottle and use Berkeley's and even Cal Tech's garbage as a heating fuel source. That would probable sell the idea.WFPM (talk) 21:52, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

You might also note that in the Nuclear model article someone has introduced a category of model that he named the Linus Pauling Close-Packed Spheron model. And since you mentioned that to me one time I thought you might want to contribute something to that.WFPM (talk) 22:06, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I've been too busy to think much about this. The problem I would worry about is that if the target temperature is much lower than the beam energy (which it must be unless the target is confined without touching the container), then unless the fusion cross section is about as large as the cross section for elastic (mostly Coulomb) scattering, then beam will simply heat the target and quickly lose energy itself, cooling to the point that Li/He fusion is impossible. That needs a calculation to see if the fusion rate on the first collision could be high enough to give a net energy release compared to the loss due to scattering. I am not prepared to undertake it myself at the moment, but I am pretty sure it has been done, and that the results were not promising. Remember that if the target is dense and thick enough for a good fusion probability, and the temperature of the target becomes anything like the 10⁸ K (~10 keV) needed for fusion, then the pressure must be enormous and you effectively have a hydrogen bomb fireball in your bottle. Probably some of the texts (? maybe Introduction to Fusion Energy, J. Reece Roth, 1986, Ibis Publishing ?) on fusion energy would outline this calculation, well enough that you could try to verify it yourself? These was also an interesting article in Science, by Rostocker, Binderbaur, and Monkhorst, "Colliding Beam Fusion Reactor", Vol 278, p 1419, 21 Nov 1997 that might be relevant. Rosktocker was one of the old-time pioneers, and should know the major pitfalls and dead-ends in this business (as I, alas, really do not). I did attend a talk by Pauling around 1967, on his spheron model, which I barely understood; I think that would not alter the basic problems and issues, though it must affect the cross-sections that go into it. Good luck anyhow! Wwheaton (talk) 02:41, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

As usual, you're technically way over my head. But I'm pretty sure that Cockcroft and Walton didn't have have a too complicated supply of 3Li when they made the discovery. But as an practical matter, you may be right. And I'm not talking about a completely Nuclear Fusion facility, just a souped up lithium containing boiler, that would at least have enough nuclear fusion activity to merit trying to study and try to improve the technology as a beginning. Do you know what happens if 3Li is put into the thermal neutron flux section of a LWR? I know it's pretty transparent but isn't there some amount of reaction? And no fast neutrons! That would definitely be a plus.WFPM (talk) 14:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC) Also, in my boiler I could argue that the target atom was confined within the liquid and yet would still be practically stationary with respect to the velocity of the approaching proton. All I have to do is to get it out of the accelerator to a nearby location to the liquid 3Li surface, and I consider that to be an Engineering problem.WFPM (talk) 17:24, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Since you're interested in Telescopes, you might want to join the discussion in Talk:Photon about the existence of a pilot wave that tells the photon where to go. I'm trying to use an image of the Whirlpool galaxy to argue in favor of direct propagation of photons as a means of explaining the incredible details of the image and I'm sure you could contribute to that.WFPM (talk) 15:54, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually I guess I blanked out and was thinking of the D+3He -> p+4He reaction, so I'm not quite sure what reaction you are talking about. Are you thinking of

⁶Li + n + ²H -> ⁴He + ³H + ²H -> 2⁴He + n ?

Anyhow, current reactors (eg, JET) already achieve many megawatts of fusion power output, only still less than the necessary power input. Accelerators are probably the best way to study the microscopic details (cross sections for the reactions vs energy & angles), only the cross sections are very low (& therefore hard to measure, I think) at the low energies (10-100 keV) of interest. Anyhow, I think quite low voltage accelerators are all you need. Sorry I don't have more time to ponder all this now. I don't think there is any problem with QM and the beautiful M51 image; pure classical E-M wave theory is good enough for radio astronomy imaging down to micro-arc-seconds, and routine these days using intercontinental baselines. But EM is maybe still a helpful way to think about QM, because the photon wave function is exactly the EM field I think, and "photons are just like electrons" [quoth Feynman] in QM (except for spin/statistics). Wwheaton (talk) 21:17, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm just thinking OE3Li7 + p to EE4Be8 to 2 x EE2He4 + Energy. I threw in the question of (OO3Li6 + OE3Li7) + n because in that case the OE3Li7 would eventually get to OO3Li8 and eventually change to EE4Be8 and would thus allow energy extraction from a LWR. And I keep thinking about it as an Engineering project where I want to extract fusion energy from 3Li. And in the boiler Li the waste kinetic energy would help heat the fuel, so I should have a net gain if any of it got fused. It sounds to me that they're having the same problem as I did when I was trying to design a pile type Ni-Cd battery for Laser Power applications, namely lack of efficiency. I'm trying to be be sneeky, and let my Energy Process take a free ride on a more conventional system.WFPM (talk) 04:03, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The Whirlpool image is not only beautiful but informative. The details of the image argue for "line of sight" propagation, and show the transparency of the medium. And what we're watching is what I call a phase 2 + 3 process of accumulation of matter (2:Nucleons into Atoms)and (3:matter into a black hole). Now all we need to know is (1:how the nucleons were created in the first place), and of course Why????. But I can see some guy telling me "No your not watching the end of the process but rather the beginning, and you would understand it better if you were on the other side of the energy passageway keyhole." And could I dispute with him on that? How about the Andromeda galaxy? Is it contracting or expanding?WFPM (talk) 01:54, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, as I said, I think your problem will be that the beam particles will mostly scatter (just two positive charged particles repelling one another, and bouncing off) before they get within the range of the strong force where they might fuse. That would heat the target, I think to the point where it will melt/vaporize before significant energy is released. As I say, it takes a calculation & depends on the cross-sections. Wwheaton (talk) 01:27, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

That's the problem I thought that Crockcroft and Walton had discovered and overcome. I could still utilize any vaporization waste energy. But like you say it would have to work and have some efficiency. And they got credit for doing it. Cest la Vie.WFPM (talk) 02:13, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

---

:Another question about interplanetory communications. The fundamental question is whether it is electromagnetic particles or a modulated wave type of transmission. Of course I think it must be particles, since I cant see how you could send the structure of the wave that you want to modulate. And what type of antenna? I studied the Yagi and the Parabolic in the navy. Maybe a link? and Thanks.WFPM (talk) 15:28, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Of course, per quantum mechanics, light is neither a particle nor a wave, but has some properties of both. At radio frequencies, the wave picture is almost always the relevant one, as the photon energies are ~1e-5 eV (~1e-17 erg) or less, and we only observe large numbers of (coherent) photons together, like a water wave in the ocean. So I think your Navy experience is appropriate. Parabolic (with diameter D >> wavelength λ) is most directional if you want a narrow beam, but at lower frequencies a Yagi is cheaper than a huge dish. It's a practical, economic, question I guess. Wwheaton (talk) 16:05, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes but waves in the ocean have a medium of conveyance. And I just got arguing about that in gravity waves which I called waves of a nonexistent medium. So I'll stick with particles and am promoting a "Planck particle", which allows a photon to be a radiation's frequency number stream of planck particles which are crowded into a wavelength's distance of the stream. I got a preliminary estimate of the mass of the particle at 1.32e-47 grams but that could stand scrutiny, But at least I don't have to worry about the matter of the wave medium, and still have a line of sight capability of transmission. Is that what they're using from Mars.WFPM (talk) 18:42, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, good luck, but I think you are beating a dead horse. Maxwell's E-M eqns are indisputable, and predict waves. That is all that's needed for low frequency behavior. Wwheaton (talk) 23:15, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like your talking about Marconi antenna tranasmissions, But then you have electrons going at the bottom and a a theoretical wave radiating laterally off in all the horizontal directions, and the electrons have the problem of getting rid of energy at the top, where it has to decellerate. Why cant that be materialized into the emission of a stream of planck particles, likewise in all directions.WFPM (talk) 00:34, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

The electrons oscillate back and radiate a wave as Maxwell described. The oscillating E & B fields carry energy away at the speed of light, just as the Navy taught. The wave is composed of discrete packets of energy hν, but the packets propagate as a wave until they interact according to the quantum mechanical rules. Then you have to go to the interpretations of quantum mechanics, which is still not really well understood, and controversial. If you enter there, I wish you well (do not abandon hope), but the argument has been on for many decades, so the ground is well plowed. Meanwhile, we do the calculations with waves and particles, as appropriate, and the answers come out right, checked to ~12 digits in some key cases. Do think about the deeper issues, but don't let that stop you from doing the calculations as Maxwell, relativity, & QM (= QED) teach us, they work. But I don't have the skill to do QED, you'll have to talk to smarter guys for that. Wwheaton (talk) 05:18, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

But you know about the methods of intelligence conveyance within a transmission, which is not my forte. Is it dot-dash or FM or what? And the center fed half wave antennas can also be tied into the concept and I'd have to dream up a sophisticated explanation of the wave guide properties of the Yagi. But like in the Spitzer data transmission problem, how do you cram all that information into the transmission package.WFPM (talk) 12:29, 7 May 2010 (UTC) Me too on QED, except that I believe that an electron "is where it is" like I said in Talk:Atomic theory.

Mostly FM I think, though phase modulation (shifting phase of carrier for each bit or character) may also be common. Modems cram a lot of bits per sec into a telephone voice channel, and I think clever phase modulation is used there. You want the bit stream to look random (50% 1's & 0's) like noise, so each carries maximum surprise -> maximum info. Then add some redundancy in a controlled way for error correction.

Read Feynman's Lecture's (first chapters of vol 3, or appendix of vol 1) to get excellent explanation of the shocking core facts of QM. You just have to know and accept those facts. Wwheaton (talk) 13:53, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I think I can live with that, because I'm down into a small enough particle and spacial distance such that I can do practically anything with a particle stream that you can do with a wave, plus I don't have to worry about the medium of the carrier. If you want Phase modulation, I'll just subdivide the spacial distance further and control the distance between a particle or between groups of particles. And that's the only way that I can imagine for the light image details like in the Whirlpool Galaxy to get from there to here without loss of detail. Because after all, I don't think it has a sophisticated technique of detail communication, but rather is just doin' what comes naturally.WFPM (talk) 14:23, 7 May 2010 (UTC) I had to study Fourier analysis as part of my EE curriculum. So maybe there's a use for it after all.WFPM (talk) 14:40, 7 May 2010 (UTC) Reading the article on Feynman I am reminded that my Calculus professor at the time was doing his doctoral thesis about the vibration of a drumhead. And note where he says that it"s mostly about particles in space plus a bunch of details. WFPM 15:16, 7 May 2010

I really do recommend the Feynman Lectures (Addison Wesley, 1963 I think) for you (and everyone); they are records of his beginning physics course at Caltech, but have been recommended for graduate students preparing for their qualifying exams, as they are accessible but deeply insightful. I should reread them myself. The introductory material on QM is at the beginning of the 3rd volume, but reproduced at the end of the first, being "easy" but profound. Anyway, just vol 1 is the place to start, although vol 2 covers E-M theory. One of his memorable quotes is "electrons are just like light!", as far as the essential wave/particle duality goes. Wwheaton (talk) 21:49, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I've got it and read some along with his Alamo lore. And I would agree about the similarities of light to electrons, except that we've got the Fourier and polarity factors with the photon, and the skin effect and standing wave factors with the electron, and Feynman's verbal generalizations about those similarities makes me want to get up and interrupt the class discussion. And I like the old IBM generalization about the computer's explanation being a battery and ground situation and then marching on toward a lot of interesting details, while at the same time keeping you with a feet on the ground conceptual position. And I understood most of that. But Feynman's discussion about summing the multiplicity of light paths without having a concept of a basic light particle like the planck particle makes me wonder if I'm not ahead of him rather than behind him. And I don't like events that occur during a zero time interval, because as Asimov pointed out all events are actions within a scenery situation during a maybe small, but not zero or negative time interval, and the permutation of the possibilities related to that lead up to large numbers, and he was writing about the Skewes number. So I'm trying IBM's method and floundering around hoping for the best. And I thank you for listening.WFPM (talk) 14:02, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. Note how with 2-slit experiment with light, we see interference pattern on screen, and how we see darkness at interference minima; how dark minima get brighter if we block one slit, and how all this remains true even if we lower intensity until only one photon can go through at a time (although we then have to run experiment, counting hits, until we get enough to see the interference pattern). Kind of weird particles, no? Wwheaton (talk) 14:51, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, I keep thinking about the merging of two particle streams, and how we could get frequency doubling. and don't believe in one photon at a time, since in the receiving process were merely tapping the stream. And of course with only one slit you've got the Huyhgen's distribution factor related to light's turning around corners, about which I don't know all the details. But I still don't have to worry about the wave carrier medium, which they leave out of the discussion. It's kind of like talking about ghosts even if you don't believe in ghosts.WFPM (talk) 16:04, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Hello, once again

Hello, how are you? Just to remind you about the star portal. I have completed it. I also present you:

This editor is a Journeyman Editor and is entitled to display this Service Badge.

This editor is a
Journeyman Editor
and is entitled to display this Service Badge.

--Extra999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 12:08, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the star; I had no idea. I'll check out the star portal. Wwheaton (talk) 13:24, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. --Extra999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 01:42, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I made my guestbook. Please sign there. --Extra999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 09:01, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for signing. --Extra999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 15:10, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

		The Extra 999's Guestbook Barnstar
		This user has signed Extra 999's guestbook, and deserves this star. If you have not signed yet, be sure to sign. extra999 (talk)

Talk:International_Space_Station#Proper_Noun_.22International_Space_Station_Program.22

Thought this discussion might be of interest to you. Aalox (talk) 11:09, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Awesome Wikipedian

Awesome Wikipedian Wwheaton has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, and therefore, I've officially declared today as Wwheaton's day! For being such a beautiful person and great Wikipedian, enjoy being the Star of the day, dear Wwheaton! Keep up this work, --Extra999 (Contact me + contribs) 04:10, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Good thoughts, dear. But are you going to end up your career. --Extra999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 05:15, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, better. I will help improve your userpages and all, if you want. Just give me a green light. --Extra999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 05:19, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Yikes! That is very kind, and probably needed, but what if I don't like it? I obviously have not put much time & effort into it, so anything you did would probably be a big improvement. So I guess if you want to try it, I'm likely to be grateful, possibly with slight modifications we could discuss.

Re. my career, the money for the Spitzer Space Telescope cryo mission (I'm working on the 70um part of MIPS) runs out 30 September (what with LHe exhaustion in May 2009), and I am scrambling to do as much as I can before that deadline. But a worse issue is that I have a congenital skeletal condition ("diastrophic dysplasia", five artificial joints—I'm a featured example in Betty Adelson's book "The Lives of Dwarfs") that is catching up with me lately (back problems), so that I am far more disabled lately than ever before, and cannot really see how I can carry my weight at Caltech beyond that date.

Since it looks like we are friends, can you tell me a little about yourself? I see you are Indian. There is more about me here. I spent a year teaching in (then) Tanganyika in 1962-63, at a school for refugees, but I never got further east. Are you a student? I am currently tutoring a Sri Lankan high school student here physics one night a week. And I am reading a book to my wife ("Three Cups of Tea") about Greg Mortenson's efforts to build schools in the poor villages of the Karakoram near K2. But that is on the opposite side of India from Bihar. Are you near Darjeeling perhaps?

And thanks, of course! Bill Wwheaton (talk) 07:16, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Correct, I am a Indian, a student too, living in Patna, a million city and the capital of Bihar, Darjeeling lies in West Bengal. You seem to know much about India too :D I will put a sidebar like mines.. just wait --Extra999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 07:27, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Howz this?? Should I prepare a guestbook for you?? --Extra999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 10:42, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Pretty nice, thanks. I have no strong feeling about the guestbook either way. Of course I like to present a friendly and welcoming face to all, but it also seems like a bit of a distraction if it is not actually useful. Let me know how you have experienced it. Wwheaton (talk) 17:34, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, if anyone signs I generally get a good experience because it makes you feel like you get another friendship. By the way, if you like the sidebar please put it on the the top of you userpage, talk and others. --Extra999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 03:37, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

 Done Wwheaton (talk) 05:51, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Please add __TOC__ at the top of this page after the sidebar. --Extra 999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 10:38, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Gee, I recognised you here --Extra 999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 05:28, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, at that point in my life I was mainly fascinated by steam locomotives. It's a horrible scan of a good print, I have to learn how to do it better. BTW, why don't you communicate by e-mail via wwheaton.com, as it's really more convenient than conversing here. Thanks -- Wwheaton (talk) 19:06, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't know how to converse each other with different email sites, as my in orkut, nor i know how to use outlook. At the site it was written bill wwheaton has died?? and your nationality?? --Extra 999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 09:06, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Bill Wheaton was my dad, died in 2002 at age 84, alas. Read the family history (front page) for all that. Our names are almost the same, except I have the middle name "Ashley". Then this is my own page, with some links and connection info. My e-mail is bill@wwheaton.com, and that should work for you. I use the Thunderbird mailer (free software, runs on almost all computers used nowadays) myself, but any mail program should reach me OK. Wwheaton (talk) 13:52, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Tks, I have downloaded but how to send emails. --Extra 999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 12:42, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Good. If it's Thunderbird, run the program, get up your inbox window, and click on the "Write" icon at the upper left. That should give you a message window, with a panel above, to type my address into, and a big window area below for your message. You can set your preferences (explore the various menus along the very top) to put any addresses you send to into your address book automatically, so you will not have to type them in each time. "Be bold!"....  :) Wwheaton (talk) 21:07, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Better..but where's the button or something alike to have a final "send" option. --Extra 999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 16:57, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Upper left corner of the Compose window, for Thunderbird. Wwheaton (talk) 17:06, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

It is sending an error message:

Sending of message failed. The message could not be sent using SMTP server smtp.gmail.com for an unknown reason. Please verify that your SMTP server settings are correct and try again, or contact your network administrator. --Extra 999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 03:22, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, no idea. Have you used gmail before? I hope I have not led you on a wild-goose chase with Thunderbird, but it seems like Orkut has problems in the US. Maybe we should just fall back to messaging here until/unless you can send regular e-mail somehow. It may be a problem with your gmail setup if you have not used that before. Wikipedia talk is not as convenient, but it's possible. Do you have an e-mail address? I could try sending to you if you like, and see if that works. Wwheaton (talk) 05:32, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, i have used gmail before. I am also having an email address: Sawarnik123@gmail.com. I posted this problem here.

Why don't you come now? --Extra 999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 08:21, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Reply: Childhood's End

Hello, Wwheaton. You have new messages at Steve Quinn's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Will, in case you missed I replied to you one or two days ago. I know that you are busy, so you may not have seen it.----Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 04:46, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Malalai Joya

Thanks for the correction - I was in a hurry. I try to keep up on the news about her, especially concerning the scheduled parliamentary elections this year.--JanDeFietser (talk) 14:24, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Gamma spectroscopy

Hi, I saw your post to Talk:Gamma_spectroscopy. I'm a physics grad student and stumbled across the talk page while writing-up lab instructions for a nuclear spectroscopy experiment for my department's undergrad advanced lab class. I was thinking about making a few minor edits, but I agree with you that the topic could use a bigger reworking and I liked the breakdown you suggested between the two nearly parallel articles on the topic. I've never done any large editing for wiki, but I think that this summer might be a good time to get into it since I might have a bit of extra time. I think I could write up some of the new topics you suggested, but I'd ask for your guidance/critiques since I'm knew to editing and I'm also learning about the topic for the first time myself. Catfisherguy 08:13, 1 June 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Catfisherguy (talk • contribs)

You are now a Reviewer

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, is currently undergoing a two-month trial scheduled to end 15 August 2010.

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under pending changes. Pending changes is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial. The list of articles with pending changes awaiting review is located at Special:OldReviewedPages.

When reviewing, edits should be accepted if they are not obvious vandalism or BLP violations, and not clearly problematic in light of the reason given for protection (see Wikipedia:Reviewing process). More detailed documentation and guidelines can be found here.

If you do not want this userright, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. Courcelles (talk) 18:53, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Entropy

You have new messages

Hello, Wwheaton. You have new messages at Chzz's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{user:chzz/tb}} template.    File:Ico specie.png

 Chzz  ►  06:22, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

IPBE removed

Hello, Wwheaton. Just so you know, I've removed your IP Block Exemption as it appears it is no longer necessary; the block that was previously affecting your account has since expired. Should you still have difficulty editing, please let me know or post an unblock request as before. Happy editing! Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 17:01, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Chipembere

Hello, Sorry if I have this wrong, My intereactions on Wiki havent been people to people.

Im still new at this. Thanks for your feedback. My interest has been to increase the information on Malawi on Wiki. Particualry content on women that often are in danger of being 'left out' of history albeit playing vital and significant roles!

I am relatively new to adding contributions on Wiki so Im learning as I go along... as a result, I dont have any idea about the permissions for the photos, but they would be a great addition. If I found out anything Ill let you know...Thanks.

~ Tinga —Preceding unsigned comment added by MsTingaK (talk • contribs) 02:03, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Spaceflight portals

Hello! As an member editor of one or more of the Spaceflight, Human spaceflight, Unmanned spaceflight, Timeline of spaceflight or Space colonisation WikiProjects, I'd like to draw to your attention a proposal I have made with regards to the future of the spaceflight-related portals, which can be found at Portal talk:Spaceflight#Portal merge. I'd very much appreciate any suggestions or feedback you'd be able to offer! Many thanks,

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Human spaceflight at 08:56, 9 November 2010 (UTC).

WikiProject Human spaceflight activity

Hello there! As part of an effort to determine how many active editors are present in the spaceflight-related WikiProjects, I have made some changes to the list of members of WikiProject Human spaceflight. If you still consider yourself to be an active editor in this project, I would be grateful if you would please edit the list so that your name is not struck out - thus a clearer idea of the critical mass of editors can be determined. Many thanks in advance!

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Human spaceflight at 19:12, 17 November 2010 (UTC).

where Dr Edward Anti Teller lives

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Archive 15#Anti-objects

Steigman1976 was very useful, as you can see. Thank you. Do you have any others? Uncle G (talk) 22:42, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Space Colonization activity

Hello there! As part of an experiment to determine how many active editors are present in the spaceflight-related WikiProjects, some changes have been made to the list of members of WikiProject Space Colonization. If you still consider yourself to be an active editor in this project, we would be grateful if you would please edit the list so that your name is not struck out - thus a clearer idea of the critical mass of editors can be determined. Many thanks in advance.

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Space Colonization at 16:10, 21 November 2010 (UTC).

WikiProject Space reorganization

Hello WikiProject Space member! A discussion has been started regarding the future of WikiProject Space here; any comments you might have would be welcome! There are mainly two competing ideas:

1. Centralize all the Space-related WikiProjects, such as Astronomy and Spaceflight, and merge them into WikiProject Space, or
2. Separate the Astronomy and Spaceflight "sides" of WikiProject, and remove WikiProject Space.

If you can think of other options, that's great too. Your contribution to the discussion would be much appreciated. Thanks! :)

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Space at 00:15, 29 November 2010 (UTC).

WikiProject Spaceflight reboot

Hello there! As you may or may not be aware, a recent discussion on the future of the Space-related WikiProjects has concluded, leading to the abolition of WP:SPACE and leading to a major reorganisation of WP:SPACEFLIGHT. It would be much appreciated if you would like to participate in the various ongoing discussions at the reorganisation page and the WikiProject Spaceflight talk page. If you are a member of one of WP:SPACEFLIGHT's child projects but not WP:SPACEFLIGHT itself, it would also be very useful if you could please add your name to the member list here. Many thanks!

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Spaceflight at 00:21, 6 December 2010 (UTC).

The Downlink: Issue 0

The Downlink
Your source for news on WikiProject Spaceflight	Issue 0, December 2010
Welcome to The Downlink · Reorganisation of Space WikiProjects · User Activity Checks Welcome to The Downlink Welcome to The Downlink, a new monthly newsletter intended to inform members of WikiProject Spaceflight about the latest developments in the project and its articles. Future issues will contain information on issues under discussion, newly featured content, and articles written by members of the project to appear in the newsletter. All members of WikiProject Spaceflight are invited to contribute any content that they would like to see in the newsletter. If you were not aware of being a member of WikiProject Spaceflight, membership of the former Human spaceflight, Unmanned spaceflight, Timeline of spaceflight and Space colonization WikiProjects was merged into WikiProject spaceflight during the reorganisation of the spaceflight projects, for more details, please see below. Reorganisation of Space WikiProjects The ongoing discussion of the future of Space WikiProjects has been making progress. WikiProject Space was abolished on 5 December 2010, with the Spaceflight, Astronomy and Solar System projects becoming independent of each other. On the same day, an assessment banner, {{WikiProject Spaceflight}} was created for WikiProject Spaceflight to replace the generic space one which had been used previously. On 9 December, WikiProject Space Colonization was abolished, with its tasks being subsumed into WikiProject Spaceflight. On 12 December, the Human spaceflight and Unmanned spaceflight WikiProjects became task forces of WikiProject Spaceflight, whilst WikiProject Timeline of spaceflight became a working group. A number of issues are still under discussion: Introducing better defined assessment criteria and an A-class review process Setting clearer importance criteria for assessing articles Establishing a joint task force with the Astronomy and Solar System projects to cover space telescopes and planetary probes Defining the roles of projects, taskforces and working groups, and processes for establishing new ones Improving the profile and activity of the project Much of the current discussion is taking place on the WikiProject Spaceflight talk page, however there is still some discussion on the original proposal page. User Activity Checks A series of checks are underway to establish the numbers of users who are still active within WikiProject Spaceflight, its task forces and working group. All usernames on the members lists were struck out, and members were asked to unstrike their own names if they were still an active member of the project. If you wish to do so, and have not already, please unstrike your name from the master list, plus the lists on any applicable task forces or working groups Published by WikiProject Spaceflight, if you have any content you wish to include in future newsletters, please contribute

You have recieved this newsletter because you are currently listed as a member of WikiProject Spaceflight, or because you are not a member but have requested it. If you do not wish to receive future issues, please add your name to the opt-out list.

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Spaceflight at 16:31, 16 December 2010 (UTC).

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of Extra999 (talk) at 04:04, 21 December 2010 (UTC).

You are welcome. Like you, basically now I'm semi-retired from Wikip. --Extra 999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 04:17, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The Downlink: Issue 1

The Downlink
Your source for news on WikiProject Spaceflight	Issue 1, January 2011
Welcome to The Downlink · Project News · News from Orbit · Article News · Space Stations and the Push for Featured Topics · Salyut 2 Welcome to The Downlink Welcome to the first full issue of The Downlink, a new monthly newsletter intended to inform members of WikiProject Spaceflight about the latest developments in the project and its articles. Below you will find information about happenings within the project, our recognised content, spaceflight in the news and events needing to be covered in articles. You will also find an editorial about the first concerted effort to develop featured topics related to spaceflight, and an article in need of your help and improvements. Project News will provide details of discussions about and changes in the organisation and structure of the project, newly recognised content, and changes in membership. News from Orbit will summarise spaceflight news and upcoming events, and list suggestions for articles in need of updating as a result. Article News will give details of requests for assistance within articles, and discussions regarding content. All members of WikiProject Spaceflight are invited to contribute any content that they would like to see in the newsletter, and we would particularly welcome the submission of editorials, or an article about an area of spaceflight which you are working on, or particularly interested in. Please see The Downlink page for more details. Project News A new working group has been formed. The space stations working group is expected to work towards creating Featured topics related to space stations. It currently has three members. Discussion within the project is still dominated by the reorganisation proposals. A discussion over the formation and roles of working groups and task forces has led to some clarification regarding working groups, however the roles of the task forces remain vague, and several proposals to abolish them have surfaced. The Human Spaceflight to-do list has been merged into the main project to-do list, with the combined list currently located on the Tasks page of the Spaceflight portal. A discussion regarding opening relations with the Aerospace biography task force of Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation was held, but no conclusions were reached. The Article Alerts bot has resumed operation, and a problem with the information the bot had been delivering was discussed and resolved. New assessment criteria for importance and quality have been implemented, and refinements continue to be made to the importance scale. The scope of the project was redefined to exclude astronomical objects explicitly. Although A-class criteria have been defined, a review process is yet to be discussed or implemented. Colds7ream conducted an analysis of open tasks related to the reorganisation which four major issues remain unresolved: Discussion concerning the existence and roles of task forces within the project; recruitment of new editors; updating guidelines and whether the project or the task forces should be responsible for maintaining them; and the continued existence of the Human spaceflight portal six weeks after consensus was reached to abolish it. Discussion about the structure of the project is ongoing, with several proposals currently on the table. One proposal calls for the abolition of task forces in favour of increased emphasis on working groups, whilst another calls for the task forces to become a list of topics. The idea of a formal collaboration system has been suggested, however opposition has been raised. One of the main open tasks at the moment is replacing the older {{WikiProject Space}} and {{WikiProject Human spaceflight}} banners with the new {{WikiProject Spaceflight}} banner. Articles which need to be retagged are currently listed in Category:WikiProject Spaceflight articles using deprecated project tags. ChiZeroOne is doing a very good job replacing them, but as of the morning of 31 December, there are still 1,424 left to be converted. Additionally, the implementation of a new B-class checklist built into the template has necessitated the reassessment of former B-class articles, which the template has automatically classified as C-class. News from Orbit On 3 December, USA-212, the first X-37B, landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base after a successful mission. On 5 December Proton-M with a Blok DM-03 upper stage failed to place three Glonass-M satellites into orbit, the first of three failures in less than forty eight hours. The NanoSail-D2 spacecraft was supposed to have been ejected from FASTSAT in the early hours of the next morning, however it does not appear to have separated. Finally the Akatsuki spacecraft failed to enter orbit around Venus in the evening of 6 December. The Proton launch was the maiden flight of the Blok DM-03, which does not currently have an article. On 8 December the Dragon C1 demonstration mission was conducted, with the SpaceX Dragon making a little under two orbits of the Earth on its maiden flight, before landing in the Pacific Ocean to complete a successful mission. The Falcon 9 rocket which launched the Dragon spacecraft also deployed eight CubeSats: SMDC-ONE 1, QbX-1, QbX-2, Perseus 000, Perseus 001, Perseus 002, Perseus 003 and Mayflower. The CubeSats do not currently have articles. On 15 December, a Soyuz-FG launched Soyuz TMA-20 to the International Space Station, carrying three members of the Expedition 26 crew. It docked two days later. The Soyuz TMA-20 article is currently short, and could use improvements to bring it up to the same level as articles for US manned spaceflights. On 17 December, a Long March 3A launched Compass-IGSO2. There is currently no article for this satellite. 17 December saw Intelsat regain control of the Galaxy 15 satellite, which had been out of control since a malfunction in April. The Galaxy 15 article is in need of serious cleanup and a good copyedit. On 25 December a GSLV Mk.I failed to place GSAT-5P into orbit. A Proton-M with a Briz-M upper stage successfully launched KA-SAT on 26 December. Barring any suborbital launches at the end of the month which have not yet been announced (a NASA Black Brant was scheduled for December but does not appear to have flown), 2010 in spaceflight concluded on 29 December when an Ariane 5ECA launched the Hispasat-1E and Koreasat 6 spacecraft. These do not currently have articles. Four launches are currently scheduled to occur in January 2011. A Delta IV Heavy is expected to launch NRO L-49 on 17 January. The satellite is expected to be an Improved Crystal electro-optical imaging spacecraft. Two launches are planned for 20 January, with Kounotori 2, the second H-II Transfer Vehicle, being launched by an H-IIB, and the Zenit-3F making its maiden flight to deploy Elektro-L No.1, the first Russian geostationary weather satellite to be launched since 1994. On 28 January Progress M-09M will be launched by a Soyuz-U. 28 January will also be the twenty-fifth anniversary of the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51-L. Article News It was requested that the article Walter Haeussermann be expanded. Haeussermann, a member of the von Braun rocket group, died on 8 December. Although the article has been updated following his death, a user requested that more information about the engineer be added. Another user requested that the articles Commercial Space Launch Act and Launch Services Purchase Act be created, to cover laws of the United States concerning spaceflight. Articles related to methods of taking-off and landing were discussed. The term VTVL currently has an article whilst VTHL and HTHL do not. It was suggested that the existing article should be merged, and each term be covered by the article for the equivalent aviation term, however some distinction between use in the fields of aviation and spaceflight should remain. Concern was raised that a large scale deletion request could cause many images to be lost from articles, help was requested to investigate whether any of the images were not subject to copyright, or if they were then whether they could be uploaded to the English Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. Concerns were raised about a large amount of content in the newly-created article deorbit of Mir duplicating existing content in existing Good Article Progress M1-5. A proposal to merge deorbit of Mir into Progress M1-5 was made, however objections were raised, and discussion has since stalled without reaching a consensus. It has also been requested that the article Mir be copyedited. The existence of separate categories for "spaceflight" and "space exploration" has been questioned, with a suggestion that some of the exploration categories, including Category:Space exploration iteslf, should be merged into their spaceflight counterparts. Missile Range Instrumentation Ship is currently listed at requested moves, with a proposal to rename it tracking ship. The only open good article nomination is of the book Mission: Earth, Voyage to the Home Planet, which is currently awaiting review. Editorial – Space Stations and the Push for Featured Topics There has recently been much talk about trying to increase the activity of the project. To this end, a major reorganisation effort has been undertaken, which has seen the space WikiProjects separated into the Astronomy, Solar System and Spaceflight groups, with WikiProject Space being abolished. We have also seen the child projects of WikiProject Spaceflight being abolished, with Timeline of Spaceflight becoming a working group, and the Unmanned and Human Spaceflight projects becoming task forces for now, with some suggestions that they should be abolished outright. The problem with the previous structure was that there were too many different groups of editors, and nobody was sure which projects were supposed to be doing what. Now there is only one project, this is somewhat clearer, but spaceflight is still a huge topic. Another way to improve the activity of the project is to attract more editors. Spaceflight is a topic which many people have at least a very casual interest in, and therefore it is strange that there are only about four or five people regularly participating in discussions on the project talk page. Evidently action is needed to raise the profile of the project. One way in which the project's profile can be raised is to have a major success associated with it. The creation of a featured topic could be one such success, and would also be hugely beneficial to articles in the area that it relates to. Space Stations are one of the most high-profile and notable areas of spaceflight, and are therefore a logical choice to spearhead such an initiative. To this end, in late December a working group was established to concentrate and coordinate efforts to establish featured topics related to space stations. An initial proposal calls for topics on Skylab, Salyut, Mir and the International Space Station, as well as one on space stations in general. There is currently an effort to get Mir promoted to Good Article status; the article currently requires a copyedit, after which it will be sent for peer review and then to GAN. This is by no means a short-term project. There are many articles, particularly for the larger space stations such as the ISS and Mir, which are currently nowhere near becoming recognised content. Skylab is the smallest of the proposed featured topics, but it still requires that three C-class articles, two Start-class articles and a redirect all reach at least Good Article status, with at least three becoming Featured Articles. The ISS topic is so large that it may have to be subdivided. I don't expect that we will have any featured topics by the end of the year, but I believe that a Good Topic, which requires all articles reach at least GA status, but does not require any featured articles, may be possible. I also believe that several articles on the subject can easily be improved to Good Article status, and some articles may be at featured level by the end of the year. In the long term, having featured topics will benefit the project and its content. Selected Article – Salyut 2 Salyut 2 was an early space station, launched in 1973 as part of the Salyut and Almaz programmes. It malfunctioned two days after launch, and consequently was never visited by a manned Soyuz mission. The Salyut 2 article describes the station: “ Salyut 2 (OPS-1)(Russian: Салют-2; English: Salute 2) was launched April 4, 1973. It was not really a part of the same program as the other Salyut space stations, instead being the highly classified prototype military space station Almaz. It was given the designation Salyut 2 to conceal its true nature. Despite its successful launch, within two days the as-yet-unmanned Salyut 2 began losing pressure and its flight control failed; the cause of the failure was likely due to shrapnel piercing the station when the discarded Proton rocket upper stage that had placed it in orbit later exploded nearby. On April 11, 1973, 11 days after launch, an unexplainable accident caused the two large solar panels to be torn loose from the space station cutting off all power to the space station. Salyut 2 re-entered on May 28, 1973. ” The article is currently assessed as start class, and is in need of attention. It consists of the above paragraph, along with a list of specifications and an infobox. The article needs to be rewritten in a more encyclopaedic style, and with more information about the space station. It has not yet been determined whether Salyut 2 would have to be included in a featured topic about the Salyut programme, or whether since it was never manned it is less integral to the topic, however if its inclusion were necessary then in its current form it would be a major impediment to this. Downlink readers are encouraged to improve this article, with a view to getting it to B-class and possibly a viable Good Article candidate by the end of the month. Published by WikiProject Spaceflight, if you have any content you wish to include in future newsletters, please contribute

You have recieved this newsletter because you are currently listed as a member of WikiProject Spaceflight, or because you are not a member but have requested it. If you do not wish to receive future issues, please add your name to the opt-out list.

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Spaceflight at 14:49, 1 January 2011 (UTC).

The Downlink: Issue 2

The Downlink
Your source for news on WikiProject Spaceflight	Issue 2, February 2011
Project News · News from Orbit · Article News · The Charts · Yuri Gagarin Project News A report on popular pages from December 2010 revealed surprising trends in readers' interests. Boeing X-37 was the most popular article within the project's scope, with SpaceX Dragon in second with Global Positioning System in third place. The top seven articles were all assessed as C-class, with the remainder of the top ten being Good Articles. It was noted with some concern that moon landing conspiracy theories was more popular than moon landing. A discussion regarding whether missiles warranted inclusion within the project scope was conducted, and resulted in the continued inclusion of missiles. The last remaining articles tagged with the banner of the former Human Spaceflight WikiProject were re-tagged with the WikiProject Spaceflight banner. The last banner was removed on 8 January, and the template has since been deleted. The project is thankful to ChiZeroOne for his work in this field. Concerns were raised that the new article reporting system was not working correctly, however it was noted that there is sometimes a delay before articles appear on the list. Discussion regarding the existence of the separate spaceflight and space exploration category structures led to a mass CfD being filed on 10 January to abolish the space exploration categories, merging them into their counterparts in the spaceflight category structure. This was successful, and the exploration categories have been removed. Several other categorisation issues remain unresolved. A proposal was made to standardise some of the infoboxes used by the project, the future of Template:Infobox spacecraft (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) was discussed, and design work began on a replacement. Template:Rocket specifications-all (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) was nominated for deletion and subsequently kept due to extant substitutions, however it was noted that the template had been deprecated by WikiProject Rocketry. Concerns were also raised that the existing infoboxes were not well-equipped to handle spacecraft which operated in more than one orbit, or whose orbits changed over the course of their missions (which in practise is most of them). Five members of the project gave interviews for the Wikipedia Signpost, and a report on the project, authored by SMasters (talk · contribs), is expected to be published in the 7 February edition of the Signpost. It is hoped that this will raise interest in and awareness of the project. News from orbit Four orbital launches were conducted in January, beginning on 20 January with the launch of Elektro-L No.1 on the first Zenit-3F rocket. This was followed later the same day by the launch of a Delta IV Heavy with the USA-224 reconnaissance satellite. The articles for USA-224 and the Zenit-3F rocket could use some expansion, whilst the Elektro-L No.1 satellite needs its own article. On 22 January, an H-IIB launched the second H-II Transfer Vehicle, Kounotori 2, to resupply the International Space Station. It arrived at the station on 27 January. Less than a day after its arrival, another cargo mission was launched to the station; Progress M-09M departed Baikonur early in the morning of 28 January, docking on 30 January. In addition to payloads to resupply the station, the Progress spacecraft is carrying a small subsatellite, Kedr, which will be deployed in February. Kedr does not currently have an article. Progress M-08M departed on 24 January to make the Pirs module available for Progress M-09M, and has since reentered the atmosphere. Its article needs to be updated to reflect the successful completion of its mission. The NanoSail-D2 satellite, which failed to deploy from FASTSAT in December, unexpectedly separated from its parent craft and began operations on 18 January, with its solar sail deploying on 21 January. Nine orbital launches are scheduled to occur in February, beginning with the launch of the first Geo-IK-2 satellite; Geo-IK-2 No.11, atop a Rokot/Briz-KM, on the first day of the month. Articles need to be written for the Geo-IK-2 series of satellites, as well as for Geo-IK-2 No.11 itself, and the Briz-KM upper stage that will be used to insert it into orbit. A Minotaur I rocket will launch NRO L-66, a classified payload for the US National Reconnaissance Office, on 5 February. The payload has not yet been identified, however once more details are known, it will need an article. Iran is expected to launch the Rasad 1 and Fajr 1 satellites in February, with 14 February the reported launch date. The satellites will fly aboard a single rocket; either the first Simorgh or the third Safir. Once this launch occurs, the satellites will need articles, and the article on their carrier rocket will require updating. The second Automated Transfer Vehicle, Johannes Kepler, is scheduled to launch on 15 February to resupply the ISS. Docking is expected to occur on 23 February. 23 February will also see the much-delayed launch of Glory atop a Taurus-XL 3110 rocket. This will be the first Taurus launch since the launch failure in early 2009 which resulted in the loss of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory. In addition to Glory, three CubeSats will be deployed; KySat-1, Hermes and Explorer-1 [PRIME]. KySat and Hermes require articles, whilst the article on Explorer-1 [PRIME] needs to be updated. On 24 February, a Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat rocket will launch the first Glonass-K1 satellite; Glonass-K1 No.11. Articles are needed for the series of spacecraft, as well as for the specific satellite being launched. It is likely that a Kosmos designation will be given to the payload when it reaches orbit. In the evening of 24 February, Space Shuttle Discovery will begin its final mission, STS-133, carrying the Permanent Multipurpose Module, a conversion of the Leonardo MPLM, to the ISS. Other payloads include an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier, and the Robonaut2 experimental robot. The first manned mission of 2011, Discovery's six-man crew will transfer equipment to the station, and two EVAs will be performed. The launch has already been scrubbed five times, before Discovery was rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building to inspect and repair cracks on its External Tank. At some point in February, a Long March 3B rocket is expected to launch two navigation satellites; Compass-M2 and Compass-M3, as part of the Compass navigation system. The date of this launch is currently unknown. Both satellites will require articles once more information is available. A PSLV launch, carrying the Resourcesat-2, X-Sat and YouthSat spacecraft, is expected to launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre towards the end of the month, probably between 20 and 23 February. Stop press: The Rokot launch was conducted at 14:00 UTC on 1 February, and at the time of writing it appears to have ended in failure, due to a suspected upper stage malfunction. The spacecraft is in orbit, it is not clear at the time of writing whether it will be salvageable. Article news Reaction Engines Skylon is currently undergoing peer review, its discussion page can be found at Wikipedia:Peer review/Reaction Engines Skylon/archive1. A user requested feedback on major changes which had been made to the article, however at the time of writing no responses have been offered. Following up on the issues covered in the last issue, the requested move of Missile Range Instrumentation Ship to Tracking ship was successful, with the article being renamed. The discussion concerning types of launch and landing resulted in a proposal to merge VTVL into VTOL, however this has been met with some opposition. Several other options have been suggested on Talk:VTVL. The large scale deletion of mis-tagged Soviet images on Commons went ahead, with most of the useful ones having already been backed-up locally under fair use criteria. Discussion was held regarding the naming of spaceflight-related articles. Concerns were raised regarding inconsistency in article titles and disambiguators. A project guideline was adopted to standardise titles, with the parenthesised disambiguators "(satellite)" and "(spacecraft)" being adopted as standards for spacecraft, and the exclusion of manufacturers' names from article titles was recommended. Issues regarding Japanese spacecraft with two names, the correct names for early Apollo missions, and dealing with acronyms and abbreviated names remain unresolved. A large number of articles were moved to conform to the standard disambiguation pattern. In addition, several Requested Moves were debated. A proposal to move SpaceX Dragon to Dragon (spacecraft), which began prior to the adoption of the standardised disambiguators, was successful. Atmospheric reentry was subject to two requested moves, firstly one which would have seen it renamed spacecraft atmospheric reentry, which was unsuccessful, however a second proposal shortly afterwards saw it moved to atmospheric entry. A proposal currently under discussion could see Lunar rover (Apollo) renamed Lunar Roving Vehicle Questions surrounding the transliteration of Russian names resurfaced, with a proposal to rename Vladimir Chelomey to Vladimir Chelomei being closed with no consensus, and a proposal to rename Yury Usachov to Yuri Usachev ongoing. Several long-standing merger proposals were closed. A proposal to merge Venera 15 and Venera 16 into Venera 15 and 16 was closed as no consensus, with the combined page being moved to Venera 4V-2 to reduce the overlap in the articles' scopes. Returnable satellite was merged into Fanhui Shi Weixing. Experimental Assembly of Structures in EVA and Assembly Concept for Construction of Erectable Space Structures was nominated for Good Article reassessment due to concerns over the article's quality. Doubts were also expressed over the thoroughness of the original review conducted upon its nomination for GA status. It was also suggested that the article's title may not be the most common name for the experiment, and that it might be necessary to move the page. Concerns were also raised regarding whether Space Interferometry Mission was up-to-date, however these are being addressed. Mission: Earth, Voyage to the Home Planet looks likely to be promoted to GA status. Help was requested for adding citations to List of Mir spacewalks. A request was made that STS-88 be reviewed against the B class criteria, and suggestions for improvements made. Another user requested improvements to the article Yuri Gagarin, with a view to having the article promoted to featured status in time for the fiftieth anniversary of his Vostok 1 mission. As a result of this request, Yuri Gagarin is this month's selected article. Questions were raised as to whether an article or category should be created to cover derelict satellites. The categorisation of spacecraft by the type of rocket used to place them into orbit was also suggested. In another categorisation issue, it was questioned whether Space law should fall under space or spaceflight. Stop press: Mission: Earth, Voyage to the Home Planet has now been promoted to GA status. The Charts There is no editorial this month as no content was submitted for one. Instead, we present the "top ten" most popular articles within the project, based on the number of page views in January. Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was the most popular article of the last month, up fourteen places from 15th in December. Space Shuttle Challenger was the highest climber in the top 40, up 42 places from 50th. December's most popular article. Boeing X-37, dropped 57 places to 58th. On a happier note further down the chart, moon landing is now ahead of moon landing conspiracy theories. № Article Movement 1 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster ↑14 (15) 2 Richard Branson ↑5 (7) 3 Neil Armstrong ↑2 (5) 4 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster ↑16 (20) 5 Global Positioning System ↓2 (3) 6 Apollo 11 ↑2 (8) 7 Satellite ↑4 (11) 8 Space Shuttle Challenger ↑42 (50) 9 Apollo 13 ↓3 (6) 10 NASA ↓1 (9) For the full list of the top 1,500 popular pages within the project, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Spaceflight/Popular pages (or the archived record for January). Selected Article: Yuri Gagarin Yuri Gagarin was the first man to fly in space, aboard Vostok 1 in April 1961. He was subsequently awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, and was training for a second flight at the time of his death in 1968. His article describes him and his spaceflight experience: “ Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (Russian: Ю́рий Алексе́евич Гага́рин, Russian pronunciation: [ˈjurʲɪj ɐlʲɪˈksʲeɪvʲɪtɕ ɡɐˈɡarʲɪn]; 9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968), Hero of the Soviet Union, was a Soviet cosmonaut who on 12 April 1961 became the first human to journey into outer space. On 12 April 1961, Gagarin became the first man to travel into space, launching to orbit aboard the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1). His call sign in this flight was Kedr (Cedar; Russian: Кедр). During his flight, Gagarin famously whistled the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" (Russian: "Родина слышит, Родина знает"). The first two lines of the song are: "The Motherland hears, the Motherland knows/Where her son flies in the sky". This patriotic song was written by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1951 (opus 86), with words by Yevgeniy Dolmatovsky. ” The article is currently assessed as C class, and had been assessed as B class prior to the criteria being redefined. Although a full reassessment has not yet been made, it seems close to the B class criteria, however details on his spaceflight experiences are somewhat lacking. It has been requested that the article be developed to Featured status by April, in time for the fiftieth anniversary of his mission. Published by WikiProject Spaceflight, if you have any content you wish to include in future newsletters, please contribute

You have recieved this newsletter because you are currently listed as a member of WikiProject Spaceflight, or because you are not a member but have requested it. If you do not wish to receive future issues, please add your name to the opt-out list.

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Spaceflight at 00:23, 2 February 2011 (UTC).

Overlord section?

How would you feel about writing a few paragraphs or a section on the Overlords and their planetary system, based on chapter 12 of Childhood's End? It would be interesting to mention its distance from Earth, time dilation and space flight (stardrive) and other aspects that would inform the reader about the Overlords and their technology, homeworld, etc. Aside from the novel as a primary source, there does appear to be at least one secondary source that talks about the physics of Childhood's End.[4] Unfortunately, I don't have access to it. Viriditas (talk) 10:17, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I'd be happy to do that, time and energy permitting. I originally learned about relativity from one of Clarke's non-fiction books, probably 'The Exploration of Space'. I have a signed, 1956 copy of that (which I think does still have its paper cover). I also have an original edition of 'Interplanetary Flight', which helped teach me calculus when I was a kid.

I had a question a year or two ago on the Childhood's End talk page about sourcing. Another editor had put some material into the plot section that I thought was really in direct conflict with the text. It seemed to me that the original text ought to be a reliable source for itself (?! since anyone can go look), without triggering OR issues, but the point was raised, and I never got around to fixing the article. I do not have time (or interest) to be an expert on WikiLaw, and was inhibited from diving into it. I'm getting a bit frail here, but do have a little more time since I retired in September. Do you have any wisdom on that OR & sourcing issue? I've noticed that some editors and admins are fiercely protective about such issues even when they have little interest or expertise about the actual subject at hand. This seems to happen in literature, etc, more than in "hard science" (where if something is "obviously correct" by consensus, people seem to be more relaxed about sources). I don't want to waste time and energy in a conflict like that. Wwheaton (talk) 17:55, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I understand. There won't be any conflict, and we have sources to support the material. Would you feel comfortable working in my user space at User:Viriditas/Childhood's End? If you have any ideas, share them with me and I'll find supporting sources. In fact, why don't I do that first and then show you? Would that be better for you? Viriditas (talk) 00:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

OK. My habit has been to work directly in the article space, with incremental edits of moderate size. But I'd be delighted to collaborate with you any way you would like to do it. I will reread the current article and collect my brains about it, I have not studied the current state for a while. You can be working at it in the meanwhile. I would not mind working in your or my user space. I suppose to avoid edit conflicts we might want to work on separate files. Are you also in California? I guess we are on the same side of the planet?

Having some support of other editors to help keep toil from disappearing in a stupid conflict is energizing, I must say.

BTW, we seem to have lost the talk archive after your edit in Dec 2010. It could be recovered using the history facility, but I don't know how to get at the original wikitext. I think it has to be out there somewhere, but I'm not experienced enough to know where. Can we get it back? It could be helpful in addressing other concerns, and it is probably a good idea to give a heads-up to historic editors (even though that may be asking for trouble...  :) ) Thanks very much for your interest in this. ACC is sort of my spiritual father in some sense, and CE was the work that really caught my attention, and probably changed my life, so I am eager to give back to him. Wwheaton (talk) 00:34, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

No worries, as the Australians are fond of saying. We could all learn something from them, I think. I am in Hawaii, but I travel back and forth to California. Is there something wrong with the talk archive over at Talk:Childhood's End/Archive 1? I am very excited to see your additions to the article. Viriditas (talk) 00:48, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I could not see any archive link there, and when I brought up the Dec 26 version, which does show an Archive 1, it only seems to contain boilerplate about how to archive, etc. I wanted to look up that discussion where I had the OR problem. I can do it from the history page, no big deal. Wwheaton (talk) 01:01, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, I looked at it (I thought it in much better shape than when I last peeked in) and did a few revisions. See what you think, make suggestions or change it yourself of course. There were some complaints a year or two ago that the plot summary was too long. It is shorter now, but I have no idea what is the right length. I am wondering if the peripheral biographical info on ACC should be moved over into his article, and correspondingly shortened here, though that was interesting to me. The ACC article has been a battleground in the past, I'm not sure what is there now.... Wwheaton (talk) 03:40, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

The plot section is ~843 words, which is a good size. Nice work! The bio info is generally best practice; when we describe the development of a work of art, in this case a novel, we discuss the work of the author during this period. If you have specific concerns, please raise them and I'll be happy to address them or consider your proposal. I'm just not clear what you have in mind. BTW, when you say that the children are the "penultimate form of human evolution" does that imply that the Overmind is the last? Remember, at this stage, they are no longer human, and that point is made several times. Or am I missing something? Viriditas (talk) 07:47, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Re "penultimate" etc, either is fine really. I was thinking of the Overmind as the end point in my choice of word, but "last" may be clearer, especially as we will have readers who are not very familiar with English. I suppose I imagine the children were still physically, superficially, human despite their empty facial affect. Of course Karellen or Rashaverak had explicitly stated they were "no longer human" much earlier, even before the tsunami. I thought the biographical material was good and interesting, except for two sentences not very germane to CE: "Clarke enrolled at King's College London .... editor for Science Abstracts." Perhaps those should be moved to the ACC article. (I think all of the bio info should be incorporated into the ACC article as well, if it is not there already.) Are the links to time dilation and special relativity sufficient for the physics explanation you wanted? Strictly speaking I suppose references outside Wikipedia would be better, but we would need to find something that is easily available, "reliable", permanent, and at an elementary, tutorial level. There should be good ones in the relativity articles, but I have not looked around yet. Cheers, Wwheaton (talk) 18:32, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I will leave the decision to use "penultimate" to you. As for the biographical material, it is standard practice to describe the work of the author in the historical context of their life. If you look at the GA and FA articles on works of art, this will become clear. This is also how it is discussed in the sources. But you ask, how is it relevant? Clarke wrote the original short story in 1946 before attending college and receiving his degree. You may then say, "Well, yes, but why all the detail about the BIS and Science Abstracts? I will then respond with, Clarke's experience in college and in BIS during this time grounded his fiction in science, and influenced the development of his space exploration narrative, using fiction to explore ideas and scenarios only hinted at academia at the time. At the same time, his work as assistant editor for Science Abstracts forced him to hone his writing skills, even while "Guardian Angel" was rejected and rewritten by another writer. So we can see that he was still learning, and still wondering whether writing would be his professional career, and this decision wasn't made until 1951, just after the success of The Exploration of Space. This information gives the reader an encyclopedic insight into the development of the novel. I believe there are additional sources that support the inclusion of the bio material as well, and I will attempt to hunt them down for you as time permits. If you still say, "Well, yes, but this isn't clear to the reader", I will be happy to make adjustments or remove material. Viriditas (talk) 21:51, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I really have no serious objection to this, but I still think it peripheral. Clarke's involvement with space, science, and writing goes far back, at least to his connection with Haldane in the 1930s, and with the British Interplanetary Society. All of his experience feeds into his unique world view and cosmic outlook, which is the soil from which CE grew. For a significant writer with so many important works, I would not put everything everywhere. But that is a judgment call, and I do consider CE his most important work. Best, Wwheaton (talk) 23:37, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I think it is important, but there is always room for improvement. Make whatever changes you think are best. I can always revisit the issue in the future. There's a lot to do to get this to GA and FA, and I look forward to working with you. Viriditas (talk) 00:16, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

GA & FA is a lot of work. I am normally not so ambitious, but I would be delighted if we could get it to that level. I can't do too much, but I'm eager to support the effort with kibitzing and bit-part edits. You lead, and I'll follow. Cheers, Wwheaton (talk) 15:57, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

GA will be fairly easy. FA will require a bit of work. BTW, I haven't disappeared. I found a mother lode of sources last week and I'm going through them one at a time offline. Viriditas (talk) 09:37, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Radiation belt

Hi; I saw your note on the WP:Spaceflight's talk page, and noticed that you posted the same thing on four different talk pages? While I appreciate you're trying to get as many people as possible involved, I think it's better to have a single coherent discussion.. so maybe choose a location, and tell others "Please contribute to the discussion .." and provide a link.

Anyway, thanks for pointing out this issue. Yes, it's generally a problem, and this is why Wikipedia should only be relying on really good sources who are known for fact-checking (hence the guideline WP:RS). And good work on taking the initiative and contacting Dessler! His reply pretty much wraps up the issue. It looks like Lir was the subject of this request for arbitration in 2004, so in a sense he is a "known" problem. He doesn't appear to have been very active after 2004.

As for your wider concerns, I think there's a lot of people who have had exactly the same ideas. That's what Wikipedia's policies and guidelines (WP:V and WP:RS in particular) are attempting to address. If you are concerned about a particular issue or questionable statement, then bringing it up on the relevant talk page, or WikiProject, is probably the best move, and other editors may be able to help. On the other hand, if you feel the policies and guidelines aren't sufficient in some way, then bringing issues up on the policy talk page is probably the way to go.

Happy editing, Mlm42 (talk) 04:21, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I did want to give a heads-up to all the folks related to that Van Allen article, but you are right that a centralized discussion is much better. I will put in links to the astronomy one. Wwheaton (talk) 04:28, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Great work on uncovering the problem with the radiation belt article, and on pointing to User:Lir so others might check out some of her/his other work. And I especially appreciate you taking the time to write up a really professional explication of the issue! Let's others get to work right away. Cheers. N2e (talk) 07:07, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

The Downlink: Issue 3

The Downlink
Your source for news on WikiProject Spaceflight	Issue 3, March 2011
Project News News from Orbit Article News Direction of the Project The Charts Europa Project News There have been very few discussions relating to the administration of the project in the last month, as things start to settle down after the merger. An invitation template has been created in an effort to attract new users to the project. Discussion was also held regarding the creation of a list of common templates, however no conclusions were reached. A proposal was made to implement an A-class assessment process, however editors are undecided about whether it would be best to copy the system used by another project such as WP:MILHIST, or to develop one specifically for the requirements of this project. User:ChiZeroOne has set up a collaboration page in his userspace, initially focussing on articles related to Skylab. Collaboration pages were at one point proposed as part of the structure of the Spaceflight project itself, however no consensus was achieved on the issue. If this collaboration is successful, it could open the door to a reevaluation of that situation. News from orbit Five orbital launches were conducted in February, out of nine planned. The first, that of the Geo-IK-2 No.11 satellite atop a Rokot/Briz-KM ended in failure after the upper stage malfunctioned. The Rokot has since been grounded pending a full investigation; the satellite is in orbit, but has been determined to be unusable for its intended mission. A replacement is expected to launch within the year. A general article on Geo-IK-2 satellites is needed, to supplement those on the individual satellites. A Minotaur I rocket launched USA-225, or NROL-66, on 6 February following a one-day delay. The second Automated Transfer Vehicle, Johannes Kepler, was successfully launched on 16 February to resupply the ISS. Docking occurred successfully on 24 February, several hours before Space Shuttle Discovery launched on its final flight, STS-133. Discovery docked with the ISS on 26 February, delivering the Leonardo module and an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier to the station. Following several delays, a Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat rocket launched the first Glonass-K1 satellite; Glonass-K1 No.11, on 26 February. It is currently unclear as to whether the satellite has received a Kosmos designation or not. Seven launches are expected to occur in March. On 4 March, the Glory satellite will launch atop a Taurus-XL 3110 rocket. Three CubeSats will be also be deployed by the Taurus; KySat-1, Hermes and Explorer-1 [Prime]. KySat and Hermes require articles, whilst the article on Explorer-1 [PRIME] needs to be updated. This launch was originally scheduled for February, but following a scrubbed launch attempt, it was delayed. 4 March will also see the launch of the first flight of the second X-37B, atop an Atlas V 501. An article is needed for that flight, which will probably receive a USA designation once it reaches orbit. On 8 March, Discovery is expected to land, bringing to an end the STS-133 mission, and retiring from service 27 years after its maiden flight. On 11 March, a Delta IV Medium+(4,2) will launch the NROL-27 payload. Whilst the identity of this payload is classified, it is widely believed to be a Satellite Data System communications satellite, bound for either a molniya or geostationary orbit. An article for this payload is required. 16 March will see the return to Earth of Soyuz TMA-01M, carrying three members of the ISS Expedition 26 crew. A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle is expected to deploy the Resourcesat-2, X-Sat and YouthSat spacecraft during a launch in March. The flight has been delayed several times, and was expected to have launched last month, however it is currently scheduled to occur no earlier than 20 March. On 29 March, an Ariane 5ECA will launch the Yahsat 1A and New Dawn communications satellites. Both currently require articles. On 30 March, a Soyuz-FG will launch the manned Soyuz TMA-21 mission to the International Space Station carrying three Expedition 27 crewmembers. On 31 March, a Proton-M/Briz-M launch will carry the SES-3 and Kazsat-2 spacecraft into orbit, in the first dual-launch of commercial communications satellites on a Proton. Several other launches may occur in March, however their status is unclear. Last month, a Long March 3B rocket was expected to launch two navigation satellites; Compass-M2 and Compass-M3, however this launch did not take place. It is unclear if it has been delayed to March, or further. The launch of the Tianlian 2 communications satellite on a Long March 3C may also be conducted in March, or possibly April. Both the Compass and Tianlian launches would occur from the same launch pad, which requires a turnaround of almost a month between launches, so it is unlikely that both will happen in March. A Safir launch, which had been expected in February, now appears to have been delayed to April, but given the secrecy of the Iranian space programme, this is unclear. Article news Discussion regarding the merger of articles on launch and landing modes seems to have stagnated, with no consensus being reached on any existing proposal. A discussion regarding changes in the sizes of Soviet and American rockets during the 1950s and early 1960s was conducted, with claims that rockets became smaller in that period being dismissed, however it was noted that smaller rockets were developed with equivalent capacity to older ones were developed, as well as much larger ones with increased capacities. Category:Derelict satellites orbiting Earth was created as a result of discussion surrounding the categorisation of derelict satellites. Concerns have also been raised that satellites are being listed as no longer being in orbit whilst still in orbit and derelict, and a discussion was held on how their status could be verified. An effort to categorise spacecraft by the type of rocket used to launch them is underway, however the categorisation of satellites by country of launch was rejected. It was reported that a sidebar has been created for articles related to the core concepts of spaceflight. Editors noted that it should only be used for core concepts, and not where it would conflict with an infobox. An anonymous user requested the creation of an article on moon trees. It was pointed out that the subject already had an article, and a redirect was created at the title proposed by the anonymous user. Concerns were raised regarding the quality of the article Japan's space development. Editors noted that the article appeared to be a poorly-translated copy of an article from the Japanese Wikipedia, although there have been some signs of improvement. Discussion regarding moving the article to Japanese space program is ongoing, however a move request has not yet been filed. A particular concern was raised regarding false claims in the article Van Allen radiation belt. In one case a scientist to whom one of the claims had been attributed was contacted, and clarified that he had made a remark to that effect as a joke in the 1960s, but was not entirely sure how or why it had been included in the article. Other concerns were raised before the discussion moved to WikiProject Astronomy. A question was raised regarding the copyright status of images credited to both NASA and ESA, particularly with regard to images of the launch of the Johannes Kepler ATV. The discussion reached no general conclusions, however it was found that the specific images that were suggested for inclusion in the article could be used, since they were explicitly declared to be in the public domain. A template, Template:Spaceflight landmarks (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), was created to cover landmarks in the United States that are related to spaceflight. Several sources of public-domain NASA images were also discussed, and it was noted that almost all NASA images are public domain, however there are some exceptions. It has been proposed that Leonardo MPLM be merged with Permanent Multipurpose Module since the two cover separate uses of the same spacecraft. A review of the article STS-88 has also been requested. Three new Good Articles have been listed: Mission: Earth, Voyage to the Home Planet, Bold Orion and SA-500D. Orion (spacecraft) was delisted after concerns that it contained out-of-date content. SA-500D is currently undergoing good article reassessment, using the community reassessment method, after the review of its good article nomination was criticised for being lenient and not sufficiently thorough. Mir, Mark E. Kelly and Reaction Engines Skylon have been nominated for Good Article status and are awaiting review, whilst List of Mir spacewalks is undergoing a peer review with a view to it becoming a featured list. Editorial: Direction of the Project Well folks, its now been more than three months since the discussion that reformed the space-related WikiProjects, and in that time we've had a number of achievements we can be rightly proud of; we've gathered members up to a total of 43, improved awareness of the project via an interview in the Signpost, and refreshed the spaceflight portal into an attractive, up-to-date and useful page. Meanwhile, User:ChiZeroOne has made a sterling effort in clearing up talk page templates belonging to prior projects, we've managed to sort out various policies, started work on rearranging our templates, and User:GW Simulations has begun this excellent monthly newsletter for us. However, there are a few areas of the project that seem to be passing by the wayside, specifically the areas dedicated to fostering collaboration on articles and article sets between the project members, so here I present a call for more collaboration on the project. Presumably, the lack of collaboration is due to folks not being aware of what's going on, so here's a quick rundown of some of the ways you get involved in the group effort. Firstly, and most importantly, it'd be fantastic if more members got involved in the discussions ongoing at the project's main talk page, found at WT:SPACEFLIGHT. There are several discussions ongoing there, such as the relaunch of the spacecraft template, requests for assistance with various assessment and copyright queries, and conversations regarding category organisations, which affect many more articles, and thus editors, than are currently represented in the signatures so far. Secondly, it was established earlier on in the project's formation that a great way to attract more editors would be to develop some good or featured topics. There are a couple of efforts ongoing to try to see this idea to fruition, such as the Space stations working group and ChiZeroOne's own collaboration page, currently focussed on Skylab-related articles. These pages, however, have been notably lacking in activity lately, which is a shame, as their aims, given enough editor input, would really see the project furthering itself. Similarly, there are a number of requests for assessment for articles to be promoted to GA class, among other things, on the Open tasks page, which lists all of the activities needing input from members. If everyone could add this page to their watchlists and swing by it regularly, we could power through the good topics in extremely short order! Other things that could do with being added to people's watchlists include Portal:Spaceflight/Next launch‎, the many templates at Template:Launching/Wrappers and the task list at Portal:Spaceflight/Tasks. Finally, I'd like to try and get people involved in finally settling the organisational problem we have with reference to the task forces and working groups. Whilst the Timeline of spaceflight working group is a continuation of the old Timeline of spaceflight WikiProject and thus is ticking over nicely and the space stations working group has been mentioned previously in this editorial, the task forces (Human spaceflight and Unmanned spaceflight) in particular are currently dead in the water. I'm unsure as to whether or not this is because people are unaware of their existence, they clash too much with one another and the rest of the project or because people don't see a need for them, but if interested parties could make themselves known and others voice suggestions for getting rid of them, we can decide either if they're worth keeping and get them running again, or do away with a layer of bureaucracy and close them down. Any thoughts on the matter would be much appreciated. In summary, then, we've got a great project going here, with a nice set of articles, a good editor base and lots of ways of getting involved. Thus, a plea goes out to everyone to get involved, get editing with the other project members, and hopefully we'll see ourselves take off in a manner not dissimilar to the trajectory dear old Discovery took last week. Many thanks for everyone's hard work so far, and poyekhali! :-) The Charts Since it is useful to keep track of the most viewed pages within the project's scope, it seems like a good idea to continue this feature, which was originally included in last month's issue as a one-off. Satellite was the most popular article of February, up six places from seventh in December. STS-133 was the highest climber in the top 10, up 78 places from 88th. January's most popular article, Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, dropped seven places to eighth. Moon landing remains ahead of moon landing conspiracy theories for the second month in a row. Of the top ten, two articles are featured content, two are listed as Good Articles, and the remaining six are assessed as C-class. № Article Movement 1 Satellite ↑6 (7) 2 Space Shuttle ↑11 (13) 3 NASA ↑7 (10) 4 Neil Armstrong ↓1 (4) 5 Apollo 13 ↑4 (9) 6 Global Positioning System ↓1 (5) 7 International Space Station ↑5 (12) 8 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster ↓7 (1) 9 Apollo 11 ↓3 (6) 10 STS-133 ↑78 (88) For the full list of the top 1,500 popular pages within the project, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Spaceflight/Popular pages (or the archived record for February). Selected Article: Europa Europa was a rocket developed by a multinational European programme in the 1960s. Consisting of British, French and German stages, it was intended to provide a European alternative to the US rockets used for the launch of most Western satellites to that date. Although the British Blue Streak first stage performed well on all flights, problems with the French and German stages, as well as the Italian-built payload fairing, resulted in the failure of all multistage test flights and orbital launch attempts. The programme was abandoned after the failure of the Europa II's maiden flight in 1971. The article Europa (rocket), describes it: “ The Europa rocket was an early expendable launch system of the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO), which was the precursor to the European Space Agency and its Ariane family of launchers. The programme was initiated by the UK and the first launch occurred in August 1967. Tasks were to be distributed between nations: the United Kingdom would provide the first stage (derived from the Blue Streak missile), France would build the second and Germany the third stage. The Europa programme was divided into 4 successive projects : Europa 1: 4 unsuccessful launches Europa 2: 1 unsuccessful launch Europa 3: Cancelled before any launch occurred Europa 4: Study only, later cancelled The project was marred by technical problems. Although the first stage (the British Blue Streak) launched successfully on each occasion, it was the second or third stage that failed. ” The article is currently assessed as start-class, and is missing a lot of information. It also lacks some basic features such as inline citations. Since Europa was a fairly major programme, enough information should be available to produce a much higher quality article, and it could probably be brought up to GA status with enough effort. Published by WikiProject Spaceflight, if you have any content you wish to include in future newsletters, please contribute

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Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of Spaceflight at 09:11, 3 March 2011 (UTC).

Re: Hi/Space exploration

Thanks! I plan to check the new updates out as soon as I get out of school for today. Unite believers, always hoping for a miraculous revival of Constellation and NASA's return to the moon and Mars. And about space exploration being outdated, I assume that it is due to the vastness of the article! Will get back to you soon, Rsteilberg (talk) 18:57, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Dear Wwheaton,

As a follow-up to your comment on both Rsteilberg and my talk pages, I have started the Nautilus-X article. I thought you might be interested in enhancing the stub of this revolutionary spacecraft.

Xionbox^₪ 11:44, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that would be great if someone directly linked to the project could enhance the article! Hopefully it may be possible to create as much enthusiasm around Nautilus-X as there was around the Apollo program. Who knows, maybe all this hype and start here on WP. Let's hope so! Xionbox^₪ 13:10, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Dear Wwheaton,

It's a great idea to send an email to Mark Holderman and David Gilman of JSC. Your email proposal is good. As you mentioned, I agree, there should be any WP:POV or WP:COI problem for technical articles, especially for brand new projects such as the Nautilus-X one. If that is okay with you, I would appreciate if you add me in copy (CC) to the email. I'll communicate you my email address and my name by sending an email to the email address on your webpage.

Sincerely,

Xionbox^₪ 07:39, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Rocketry activity check

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Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Rocketry at 19:06, 12 March 2011 (UTC).

Terrestrial Park Service?

Yep, we are agreed. (Tho I do like the idea of Earth as a gigantic park. ;p ) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 20:59, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I hadn't seen the "Nautilus-X" concept at all. Judging by intent, tho, it's aiming wrong (again :( ). We've trouble enough just getting to LEO. I've favored the proposed HLLVs (4 SRBs, 3 SSMEs, an MFT, & a payload module, or, if I had my way, 8 SRBs 8o ;p & much more payload). I do like the "DC-X" idea Jerry Pournelle mentions in A Step Farther Out (& I'm ashamed to admit I don't recall whose idea it was :( :( ); the book IMO should be required reading for everybody at NASA & should be beaten into every so-called "environmentalist". >( Along with a chart of population & GDP growth in Britain between 1798 (when Malthus wrote that notorious essay) & 1900. He couldn't see what was happening as he wrote; with over 200yr of experience since, what excuse do the "greens" have? :/ :/ :/ (Sorry, pet peeve. ;p ) Oscar T. Grouch ^{I'm in the can} 23:40, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you're probably right, technically, we are better set. Politically, there's no hope as far as I can see: the "greens" will fight it, & Congress is deeply hostile. (Unless we can persuade the greens on the Earthpark idea, which I seriously doubt. Their grasp of technical issues is so poor...& their hostility to "technology" is manifest. Which is damned odd, given their preference for PV cells... Go figure. {I can't abide the intellectual dishonesty there, so I've got a pretty strong bias. ;p})

You're right about exhaust velocity, but given SSP, beam-powered propulsion is the better option IMO. Which reminds me, I should have said my top choice for an Earth-based lifter is a laser, followed by a variety of linear accelerator (picture "subway to space" ;p ) up the side of, say, Everest. (Since that may be a non-starter, how about the peak in New Guinea, or somewhere in north Chile, or Kilimanjaro?) My preference for a launch site is Africa or South America, because it will encourage hi-tech, hi-pay jobs there, per breaking the Malthusian cycle. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 01:32 & 01:34, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, Kilimanjaro has advantages, not least a lake close (reasonably) for spacecraft returns.

As for education & WP, I can't help think the "no POV" gets in the way. ;p Oh, well.

Happy editing, too. Keep on keepin' on. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 03:37, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The lists of Thor and Delta launches

Hi Bill. You might be interested to know that after your rant for the incompleteness of the lists (e.g. the one in the 1970s), I finally get the time to do something on them, 11 months after your comment! For now, ALL 356 Delta launches are now in the relevant lists. I am planning to complete the lists in this order:
1. All remaining Thor-Agena flights (I believe several dozens are still missing)
2. All 31 (or so) Thor-Burner flights
3. All post-1965 suborbital Thor test flights (quite a few are still missing)
4. All 30-something Japanese Delta flights (the N-I / N-II / H-I series)

Thank you for your attention!

Galactic Penguin SST (talk) 02:43, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of Strong (relative detectability) for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Strong (relative detectability) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Strong (relative detectability) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:31, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Giant tube worm

Thank you so much for pointing this out to us by leaving a message both here and on the talk page of the article. I vaguely noticed this problem a little while ago, and I should have fixed it immediately. I had no idea that the article was about to be nominated for DYK or I would have gone ahead and made the fix immediately. Thanks so much again. Invertzoo (talk) 19:58, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

marking links as dead

In the future, when you find a dead link, please mark it as such with the {{dead link}} template instead of just commenting out the reference, as you did here. If it's hidden, no one can fix it! Even better, check if there is an archived copy at http://archive.org, and then you can use the {{Wayback}} template or the |archiveurl and |archivedate parameters in a citation template. Also, if you suspect the page has just been moved and you're reluctant to use an archival copy, you can search for an exact string from the archived copy -- sometimes you can find where it's been moved that way. I've fixed that one. You did the edit 2 years ago, so if you were just a new editor then and now you know all this stuff, never mind! =) Wingman4l7 (talk) 03:53, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I was fairly new two years ago, but have been almost inactive since due to some medical problems, so I've probably forgotten more than I've learned since. Anyhow, I will try to remember about the deadlink template next time I see one, and maybe have the wits to use it correctly. Cheers, Wwheaton (talk) 20:23, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

No problem; glad I could be helpful. Take care! Wingman4l7 (talk) 01:07, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

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Who was "Kurgan" ? on the Talk:Timur page

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Timur#Who was .22Kurgan.22 .3F. Peaceray (talk) 05:39, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Plum Brook Reactor concern

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Disambiguation link notification for May 21

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Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Plum Brook Reactor concern

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Please review this article

Hello! I have done a substantial rewrite of the Geiger-Marsden experiment article and would like to have it assessed. I submitted it for peer review but nobody took notice. Nobody ever takes notice. I am resorting to directly contacting Wikipedians with a background in physics. If you have the time, would you care to review this article, and tell me if it is worthy of being featured on the Main Page? Kurzon (talk) 16:44, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Draft:Plum Brook Reactor concern

Hi there, I'm HasteurBot. I just wanted to let you know that Draft:Plum Brook Reactor, a page you created, has not been edited in 6 months. The Articles for Creation space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for articlespace.

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Milton Rosen

Hi, I saw your edit summary at Milton Rosen but, per Wikipedia's policies on biographies of living people, unverifiable material on the pages of living (or possibly living) people must be removed. Has notice of his death been published somewhere in a third-party, reliable source (I couldn't find one with my own searching but maybe you would know where to look)? Alternatively, if you can forward the family's confirmation of his death to the Volunteer Response Team (I can help you with that if necessary), they can verify the information and add it to the biography. Canadian Paul 00:05, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 27

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Draft:Plum Brook Reactor concern

Hi there, I'm HasteurBot. I just wanted to let you know that Draft:Plum Brook Reactor, a page you created, has not been edited in 6 months. The Articles for Creation space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for articlespace.

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Your draft article, Draft:Plum Brook Reactor

Hello, Wwheaton. It has been over six months since you last edited your WP:AFC draft article submission, entitled "Plum Brook Reactor".

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Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. HasteurBot (talk) 02:01, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

"ultra high energy cosmic rays"

Particles can't possibly hit the earth at anywhere near the speeds that the LHC creates because the red shift alone means they will have slowed down way below .99999991 c before they get here. The claim that "this happens all the time in the upper atmosphere" is totally false. Jeff Carr (talk) 19:47, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

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ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

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navbox

Hi, i work on a navbox for ways of obtaining science in two related field, scientific method from philosophy of science and dikw pyramid from information science. i need help of some people like you to finsh this,

you can see a prototype of navbox in my sand box: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User:KPU0/sandbox Plutonium 16:27, 21 February 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by KPU0 (talk • contribs)

Mind a quick look?

I realize this is from a long time ago, but would you mind commenting on Talk:Synchrotron_radiation#Bremsstrahlung_again? Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:54, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Women in Red World Contest

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Beryllium-8

Hello.
[5] is a bad edit. [Save] pushed twice by mistake? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:13, 14 August 2019 (UTC)