Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive May 2019

Maybe AfD: Cartan formalism (physics)

This is a pre-AfD or pre-prod notice for Cartan formalism (physics). I spent the entire day staring at that article, trying to figure out how to make it less pathetic. I drew a blank. Please see Talk:Cartan formalism (physics) for more. In short -- the first delete suggestion arrives circa 2006, and a few more get tossed on, and a review of the article history shows many many edits, attempting to clean it up, but with zero substantive change. The worst crime of all: it never actually talks about "Cartan formalism"! But rather then immediately plowing it under with an AfD, I figured some advanced notice to provide time for rumination might be more polite. (Oh, and to be clear, actually, I'm proposing that it be just a redirect to tetrad formalism, not an actual delete. i.e. just blank it.) 67.198.37.16 (talk) 06:10, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I made it into a redirect to tetrad formalism. XOR'easter (talk) 15:19, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Draft:Hertz Vectors in Electromagnetic Theory

A review of this draft is requested. Should it be accepted? (The mathematical content is beyond my level of remaining knowledge in this century.) Robert McClenon (talk) 16:09, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

As this is just a redirect from a page that has been moved, and the target page is well developed, I think it should be accepted.—Anita5192 (talk) 16:15, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

It looks like another reviewer accepted while I was asking for advice. Okay. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:17, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Draft:Magnetic diffusion

Requesting a review of this draft. Robert McClenon (talk) 11:28, 3 May 2019 (UTC) Should I accept it? Robert McClenon (talk) 11:34, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Looks OK on a first skim. XOR'easter (talk) 18:05, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Accepted. Thanks. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:37, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Draft:Mori-Zwanzig formalism

Will someone please review this? If it should be accepted (and I have forgotten the physics and higher math that I learned in college), please ping me so that I can move it. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:31, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

The article looks neutral and with reasonable content to me; it is about a well-established theory and the references seem good at first glance. It looks like a translation of the German Wikipedia article Mori-Zwanzig-Formalismus. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 22:43, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Accepted. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:38, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Time articles

An IP editor is adding unverified claims about music theory to the articles on Imaginary time (latest edit) and Multiple time dimensions (latest edit}. I have reverted a couple of times but am getting a typical warrior response. Even if the claims are significant to musicians ("Imaginary Time" seems a popular title for musical works), I do not see them as significant to these topics. Could some more folks take a look? Many thanks. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:27, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

This is a case where Cardan's labeling of the parts of the solution of a cubic equation, while unambiguous for mathematicians, has caused those without a background in algebra to conclude weird things. As the article on imaginary time states, imaginary time has an entirely different meaning to a mathematical physicist than it does to a poet (and lyrics are poetry). If this were a registered editor, I would suggest discretionary sanctions for pseudo-science. As it is, I suggest semi-protection. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:50, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

I have forgotten all the math that I learned in college, but this is intermediate algebra. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:51, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Draft:Acuña-Romo equation

Please review this draft, and let me know whether it should be accepted. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:33, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

I'd advise against acceptance. The work was only published last fall and has attracted no attention that I can find from researchers other than the authors. WP:TOOSOON. XOR'easter (talk) 17:19, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

The draft must be accepted it describes a analytical close form solution of a problem with more than 2 thousands years without solution, the problem has a long history and relevance. Major scientist like Issac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz failed to solve the problem. Compare the problem mentioned in [4] and the problem in [1], it is the same problem of [2], 9:09, 6 May 2019 (GMT+2)

I have declined the draft. The unsigned statement above by the author persuaded me that I needed to decline the draft, because Wikipedia is not a medium for original research, and, if not original research, this is very close to it. The tone of the unsigned response makes it clear that this is a good-faith effort to use Wikipedia for a purpose that is not our purpose. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:53, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

This seems like a straightforward case of WP:TOOSOON to me. I do expect this result to be notable. We just need more time for secondary sources to cover it.--Srleffler (talk) 01:13, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Portal:Gravity

Portal:Gravity, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Gravity and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Portal:Gravity during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. UnitedStatesian (talk) 13:07, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Portal:Electricity

Portal:Electricity, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Electricity and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Portal:Electricity during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. UnitedStatesian (talk) 13:07, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Do you expect this site may be trusted?

Look at talk:Atom #Incorrect mass of neutron, other threads, as well as archives. This miserable crap causing a dense stream of complains for many years—at latest, since 2013—is still listed as a featured article. Whereas you are preoccupied with portals and other toys. If there are no changes-watching eyes and brains among en.Wikipedia’s physicists, then where on the site can one expect to see them? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:28, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Merger discussion at Talk:Classical limit#Discussion on proposed merger??

This concerns the proposed merger of classical limit and Newtonian limit. Please participate. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:04, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Jean-Pierre Petit

Please see Talk:Jean-Pierre Petit. There was an RfC started, but it should probably be removed as too vague. But there are all sorts of back-and-forth claims of conflict of interest, socking, fringe science edorsement, etc. It's a pretty tangled mess, and I don't know this stuff well enough to really help, so I thought I'd post a notice here. It seems related to this bimetric gravity stuff that's been posted about a couple times here recently as well. Thanks, –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 22:52, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

I was about to make the same request: for someone who knows physics to take a look at that page and its talk page. There is a very new user who claims Petit is a fraud promoting fringe science; there are long-term editors defending Petit who seem to have spent their entire career here writing about Petit; there are accusations flying around including possible doxxing which I had to remove; it really needs expert input. I found it at Requests for page protection and the argument spilled over to there. I am going to decline the RFP as a content dispute; if you think full protection would help let me know. Thanks for any input. -- MelanieN (talk) 23:40, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Update: I have full-protected the page for 2 days because of edit warring. -- MelanieN (talk) 00:07, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

@MelanieN: I just did a substantial cleanup job on the article Thibault Damour, which had a Petit-related "controversy" section that violated WP:DUE, WP:FRINGE and (due to substandard sourcing) WP:BLP for starters. I can easily see an edit war spreading there, too, however.

There may also be WP:BLP issues with that article, with claims and counter-claims about academic misconduct cited to unreliable primary sources. This isn't a good week for me to put time into sorting out a mess like that, though. XOR'easter (talk) 20:44, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Now they've brought up the "right of reply", which as a legal concept has in my experience the dubious distinction of only ever being invoked by physics crackpots. XOR'easter (talk) 21:46, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Honestly, if anyone wanted to melt the article down to slag, I wouldn't object. But it's end-of-semester time, and not a great season to get stuck in interminable wiki-drama.... XOR'easter (talk) 20:57, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

I think that my comments on that Talk page represent a substantial fraction of the attention that the physics community has paid to the "Janus cosmological model". And now: a time for ANI. XOR'easter (talk) 20:36, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Room-temperature superconductor

Room-temperature superconductor was just mentioned over at WP:FRINGEN as an article that needs some cleanup. XOR'easter (talk) 16:08, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

"Conductive" redirect

Many pages currently link to Conductive, which redirects to Electrical conductor. I wonder whether it ought to redirect to Electrical resistivity and conductivity, which is a separate article. Michael Hardy (talk) 14:58, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

On the other hand, Conduction redirects to the Conductor disambig page and Conductivity is another disambig page. All of "conduction", "conductive" and "conductivity" have other usages as well as electrical, for example thermal. I would suggest that Conductive be updated so that it also points to one of the disambig pages. The pages that link to it can then be more readily disambiguated at source. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:00, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Depends on context, but I lean towards "conductive" being better in general because it's a less-technical article on a less-technical topic. I feel like non-technical people have a good chance of understanding the concept of "things that conduct electricity", whereas resistance and conductance are more obscure. --Steve (talk) 00:51, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

2019 redefinition of SI base units#Uncertainty of fundamental physical constants

2019 redefinition of SI base units#Uncertainty of fundamental physical constants is marked as being WP:OR. Does anyone have any sources for the uncertainties listed?

The redefinition of the base units for the metric system happens on 20 May 2019. I am hoping to get this article mentioned on the main page on that day. Alas, I also have a hot project and if I don't make my deadline because I spent too much time on Wikipedia the toy I am working on will miss Christmas. :( --Guy Macon (talk) 15:35, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

That table has apparently been hanging around for years, getting edited back and forth ... given the deadline, would the simplest course of action be to provisionally remove it and restore an improved version later? It doesn't strike me as a particularly illuminating or judiciously-chosen list of quantities. XOR'easter (talk) 18:05, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

The table is based on the 2014 CODATA release, but this article is about the 2019 redefinition, which will change all the uncertainties. I agree we should remove this table. There is a planned CODATA release on May 20 with updated values, so an updated table could be created then. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 19:50, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Since discussion is also happening over at Talk:2019 redefinition of SI base units, let's go over there to discuss provisional trimming. XOR'easter (talk) 19:59, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Variable speed of light

The article Variable speed of light looks to be a miscellaneous heap at the moment, and it could probably stand a good going-over with an eye to WP:DUE. XOR'easter (talk) 22:36, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Redefinition of SI units: now in effect

According to the BIPM, the 2019 redefinition of SI base units is now in force: https://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/SI-statement.pdf

I have created a hatnote tracking template {{2019 SI redefinition}} and associated tracking category Category:Articles affected by SI redefinition to try to track articles that will need tweaking to reflect these changes moving from future to present tense. -- The Anome (talk) 11:36, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

As a note, {{physconst}} has also been updated, so while we're updating future/present things it might be worth updating any outdated "manual" values. Primefac (talk) 12:53, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Gell-Mann in the news

Murrray Gell-Mannn death is being considered for the main page Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates#RD: Murray Gell-Mann--MaoGo (talk) 17:55, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

I filled in most of the missing citations and did some other cleanup work. I have to go do other stuff now, but the last couple citations shouldn't be too hard to fill in. If anyone wants to take a crack at organizing the paragraphs in a better ordering (the reason for separate "career" and "scientific contributions" sections is not at all clear), that would help a lot. XOR'easter (talk) 21:08, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

A possible Science/STEM User Group

There's a discussion about a possible User Group for STEM over at Meta:Talk:STEM_Wiki_User_Group. The idea would be to help coordinate, collaborate and network cross-subject, cross-wiki and cross-language to share experience and resources that may be valuable to the relevant wikiprojects. Current discussion includes preferred scope and structure. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 02:56, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Physical constants - rounding question

The subject of rounding physical constants in {{physconst}} has come up again. Please feel free to join in the conversation here. Primefac (talk) 13:16, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Eddington experiment

Dropping a note off here in case any editors are interested in helping out at Eddington experiment, an article I recently put in mainspace - it is the 100th anniversary of the eclipse observations in two days time. The article may seem a bit disjointed, as it is an old draft I started over ten years ago. Any help improving the article would be much appreciated. Carcharoth (talk) 13:50, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Resistive skin time

Hello, digging through orphaned articles and came across Resistive skin time. Should it be merged somewhere, possibly Magnetohydrodynamics? It looks a bit stubby to be off on its own, but I don't understand enough about the topic to make the call myself. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 07:36, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Better to merge it to Magnetic Reynolds number. Ruslik_Zero 20:44, 31 May 2019 (UTC)