Talk:Gravitation (book)

Physics Today review

It would be good to add a reference to the original Physics Today review (if one exists). If anybody has access to a library, please look up the month/year, issue number, reviewer, etc. Jason Quinn (talk) 17:37, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Disruptive editors pointlessly reverting

I made some obviously necessary and utterly uncontroversial edits, which have been reverted for no sensible reason. It seems scarcely believable that someone would question the necessity of the changes. Nevertheless, for the hard of thinking, here are explanations of the changes.

1. "In physics..." This formulation is typically used when introducing a concept with a specific meaning in a specific field. It does not make sense when introducing a book. It's a book. It's not a book only when thinking about physics. It's a book.
2. "well-known" - to people who have heard of it, maybe, but they aren't actually many people at all. And who ever asked them? We simply do not use such language. It expresses an opinion which adds nothing useful to the article.
3. "already thorough main text" - a grotesque violation of NPOV. We do not judge the thoroughness of the book's contents.
4. "an example of how the book can be cited" is not encyclopaedic.

Reverting these obviously necessary changes was utterly pointless and highly disruptive. 82.132.227.38 (talk) 18:20, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Your edits were very good ones. Assuming you were the same person at all IPs, you certainly did not deserve an edit summary saying the material had been "thoughtlessly removed". All your reasoning appears to be valid to me. I analyzed the diffs in the edit history even before I finished reading your message above and I independently arrived at the same justifications for your edits as you gave so I concur that the edits seemed fairly obvious self-explanatory. JRSpriggs and Maschen, I'm not sure what happened here. Maybe you just had a knee-jerk reaction to seeing an IP editor remove information. If so, please be more careful. While you both seem to be experienced editors, it is possible you are missing some key ideas from our content and editing guidelines that prevented you from seeing the rationale of these edits. Regardless, JRSpriggs, remember to assume good faith, especially worthwhile when an editor may be demonstrating keener editorial judgment. I'm certainly willing to hear counterarguments to 82.132.227.38's reasoning but those changes look like they ought to be made, and perhaps apologies given. Jason Quinn (talk) 19:32, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much indeed for your thoughts, Jason Quinn. I wait to hear what the reverting users have to say. In the meantime, let me just say how nice it is to read that someone actually looked at what I did. If my tone above was not very convivial, it's because here as do often, it was clear that people were not actually looking at the edit before reverting.82.132.227.38 (talk) 21:12, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Replying to the IP:

1. "In physics" is to state the subject. Every article should state the subject(s), and better yet followed by subdivisions (general relativity, quantum theory, whatever). Is this a book aimed for applied mathematicians? Experimental astronomers?
2. "Well-known" in the subject stated, because in physics it is a well-known widely used book. The term "well-known" is set by the context (physics, not all knowledge).
3. "already thorough main text", I'm indifferent to this, but it is a "thorough" text because it covers a lot in detail, and it is a "main" text since so many others refer to it and it is a definitive reference.
4. "an example of how the book can be cited" contains all together the information about the book. People can refer to this instantly. Normally the refs are left to the end in a bibliography section, but this article is about the book itself. There is no reason to tuck it away at the end out of view in the references section.

All of these are encyclopedic. But given the IPs extreme obsession of fighting over the silly removal of useful/correct information, on top of his rude accusations to others like "rude disruptive behavior" and "hard of thinking", I give up. An apology to the IP is not called for. M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 21:42, 17 February 2016 (UTC) Amended M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 11:47, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Maschen. Let me just clarify a couple of points.

The "main text" consists of the part of the book which is not in the boxes. Someone who wants a less thorough understanding can simply skip over the boxes (reading only the main text) and the book still makes sense. The division into main text and boxes occurs in both the first (regular) track and the second (advanced) track.

The citation was originally given as a reference, but someone complained that it was not a source about the book, but the book itself. However, I wanted to keep it in the article because many of the people who might read this article are likely to want to use this book as a reference. Why not make it easy for them to do so by giving the form of the citation instead of making them work it out the hard way? JRSpriggs (talk) 16:43, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

@Maschen. You are right that the IP's could have avoided those phrases. Their frustration is completely understandable, however, and they did everybody the courtesy of initiating a discussion. So let's all agree to forget about the incivility, move on, and discuss the content of the changes.

@All. The edit initiating the discussion is this one and its components have been numbered above.

• Issue 1... The phrase "In physics," should simply not be there. Grammatically, the phrase is introducing a subtopic of physics. Instead, this book is about physics, which is entirely different. While natural language has some leeway and ambiguous semantics, it's pretty clear here the phrase tends to suggest the book is literally contained within the subject matter of physics, which is nonsense. Both JRSpriggs and Maschen have an interest in logic so I think this grammar issue should be clear to you both upon further reflection. To satisfy all, perhaps writing "Gravitation is a well-known physics book on Einstein's theory of gravity..." is an acceptable solution. (Here I've also used the word "book" instead of "compendium", which I think is awkwardly used. Almost all physics/math books I think would qualify as "compendiums" under this usage but nobody talks this way.)
• Issue 2... The term "well known" here begs the question "by whom?". It is true that the book is well known by relativists but it is false that it is well known by the general public. Why unnecessarily introduce a fuzzy term with questionable encyclopedic value? The term also seems to have been used to emphasis that the book is important but the very fact the book has an article means the book is notable by our guidelines; so in that sense the phrasing is redundant.
• Issue 3... Even just "thorough" would unnecessarily adds a layer of subjectivity to a sentence where it's not needed but "already thorough" strengthens the subjectivity. "Thorough" according to who? Research relativists wouldn't call the book "thorough" these days. Maybe it looks thorough to students but there's just far too much sub-subjects missing for it to "cover it all", which is kind of what "thorough" may suggest to some.
• Issue 4... The bibliographic material. The person who originally removed it was me. It was originally in a Further reading section, which clear makes no sense. But no matter... it simply should not be here by our usual guidelines. All content on Wikipedia should be verifiable but it's unlikely we can find sources to cite the citation itself, so it fails at least part of our usual litmus tests for inclusion. That said, the idea for its inclusion has some merits; so maybe it's a case where Ignore All Rules would make sense

The way I see it, we have two people in solid agreement over these four issues while the two others seem only mildly interested in opposing one or two of the changes. Perhaps the cleanest way forward is to make the changes, and then discuss individual issues in detail if either JRSpriggs or Maschen wants re-inclusion for them. Jason Quinn (talk) 18:41, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Sure, moving on, rewording or permuting sentences/phrases to retain the same information is fair enough and I don't object. But the repeated deletion was disruptive.

Let's talk about what's disruptive. "JRSpriggs" has reverted my clearly described changes four times, three times without any explanation, and twice with personal attacks in the edit summary. "Maschen" has reverted my changes twice, both times without any explanation. Undoing edits without having the basic courtesy to explain why is rude and disruptive; doing so while making personal attacks as well is extremely childish in addition.77.47.80.202 (talk) 06:12, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

About the citation, which is the special case, look at Course of Theoretical Physics. There every volume of the course has its title, editions, publication dates, ISBN, and all. Should all of those be deleted? Likewise, should detailed information collected in one place for immediate reference, say infoboxes for chemicals (like the table at the beginning of nitric acid), or psychological disorders (like the beginning of schizophrenia) be deleted? Simply stating the information is not unencyclopedic, and deferring to guidelines saying the info should not be there even when beneficial is unhelpful. Yes, ignoring the rules when common sense is enough is better. M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 20:55, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

A list of editions of a book is entirely unencyclopaedic and should certainly be deleted. Info boxes containing encyclopaedic information should not be deleted. 77.47.80.202 (talk) 06:12, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

It was stated plainly and early enough on user talk:JRSpriggs#Reverting for no reason is highly disruptive that the information was useful (hence reverting your edits), and the reasons I had would not fit into the edit summary. The fact that you continue to complain (intersecting my comments in the process) illustrates childish opinionated defensiveness on your part. You have "won" this argument, now let it go.

Later I might try to tweak the article, without inserting the citation even though its useful. M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 10:05, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

The only thing that was plain on user talk:JRSpriggs#Reverting for no reason is highly disruptive was that "JRSpriggs" made a highly insulting personal attack rather than (as he should have) apologise for his disruptive editing and discuss the content. I am complaining not about the content here but about your conduct, which fell and continues to fall below the standards required. If you actually had a reason to undo my edits, you were obliged to explain what it was. If it was too long to fit in an edit summary, then you say "see talk" and explain it there. Not explaining a revert is not acceptable. 2001:4C50:19E:EF00:C180:2C90:9A91:3A01 (talk) 13:03, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Summary of new edits, more to add

To summarize the recent additions I have made to the article (here is the current version at the time of writing):

• about the book itself, particularly about
  • typography, someone reading may have an interest about the fonts used but not know the name of the sans serif font (it is not arial, but univers),
  • retaining and adding more on sign conventions
  • since it is stated the book covers much of GR, for neutrality we should include a topic which is not covered: gravitoelectromagnetism (linearized gravity is discussed in depth, including gravitational waves, but there isn't anything on GEM)
• inserted quotations from other authors about their opinions of the book. I have tried to be neutral and balanced giving some with slightly negative/neutral thoughts, but as expected most are positive. More could be added. The quotations were in the citations, but I took them out so readers can see them instantly instead of hiding them in the references section, and blended them into prose and a new "criticism" section. A sample of other popular books which cite MTW are also given.
• added a "popular culture" section, since this book has a very nice example appearing in a recent film (Interstellar) which actually uses GR to make the special effects as realistic as possible, and one of the authors was a consultant for the film.

For those looking in the edit history confused about these two edits, which were chaos on my part, the explanation (not excuse) was that my computer was slowing down and it was agonizingly difficult to edit and I thought Foster & Nightingale had been removed but it hadn't, it was just in the wrong place. Anyway its sorted now.

It would be nice, if possible, to know about the editorial development, and the history of the book's creation and publication in general.

These changes qualify as encyclopedic, but just in case others object they can say so here. M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 22:06, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Citation

I have reluctantly removed the citation from the lead, and put it into a separate section where editions, reprints, and translations into other languages can be described and listed. I did want it to stay near the beginning, either the lead or first section, but it will keep being removed and the edit wars will be ongoing. Hopefully this satisfies everyone. M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 12:50, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Yet more annoying deletions

Yet more annoying deletions have occurred from this edit onwards by the same/another IP who effectively owns this article, deleting things he/she does not find interesting or useful, but others may. I will not be adding them back. M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 11:05, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Try reading the edit summaries. If you still can't understand why these edits were necessary, try asking. 77.47.80.202 (talk) 18:40, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Note This user has been blocked for similar behaviour on another article. _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 19:10, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

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Comment

It is necessary to note in the article that in § 43.4, p.1192 "Fluctuations in geometry", and in § 44.2, p.1200, of readers are misleading. Indeed, in the book, by analogy with electrodynamics, the following formula (43.29) is obtained for the fluctuations of the gravitational potential:

$\Delta g\sim {\frac {\ell _{P}}{L}}$

Here $g$ is the gravitational potential, $\ell _{P}=1.6\times 10^{-33}cm$ is the so-called Planck length, $L$ is the region of dimension.

However, the analogy of geometrodynamics with electrodynamics is erroneous (because of the equivalence principle). A detailed analysis shows (see T. Regge, Nuovo Cim. 7, 215 (1958). Gravitational fields and quantum mechanics) that the formula for the gravitational potential fluctuations should have the form:

$\Delta g\sim {\frac {\ell _{P}^{\,2}}{L^{2}}}$

This formula also follows from the Bohr-Rosenfeld uncertainty relation (see here, chapter 5, p.12): $\Delta g\Delta L^{2}\geq \ell _{P}^{\,2}$.

178.120.10.65 (talk) 07:21, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Persistent WP:OWNership and slow motion edit warring

Sigh. There's been a slow-moving edit war occurring on this page for some time now. User:Nerd271 insists on keeping the section "Table of contents (2017 Edition)". This section is just a list of the table of contents, with zero editorial commentary or significance, and has almost no encyclopedic value. I informed them such a list should not be included per the Wikiproject guideline, but they remain unconvinced and continue to re-add the section. Pinging Diannaa who seemed to share my view last year. Sro23 (talk) 01:11, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

When talking about the book, including its table of contents is a good idea. It is also useful for those thinking about whether or not they want to purchase the book (assuming it is not required for a course). Nerd271 (talk) 01:39, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

But Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, nor a shopping guide. Sro23 (talk) 01:50, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

It is not, but it is still an encyclopedia. So we are free to include any relevant information. This is only a table of contents. It contains no sections or subsections, only the chapters and appendices. By your reasoning, one might as well delete the whole page because any information about the book, from scope to reception, could appear in a shopping guide. Remember, Wikipedia can be used as a learning tool. It may not be the best, but it is highly accessible. So why not make it as useful as possible? Nerd271 (talk) 01:57, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I think that's great if people find Wikipedia useful as a teaching or learning tool, however the ultimate purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not teach. I still fail to see the encyclopedic value of the section. Sro23 (talk) 02:17, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Is there a significant difference between presenting facts and teaching? Isn't one way to present facts about a book is to give its table of contents? Nerd271 (talk) 02:20, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I also disagree with the inclusion of the table of contents. It's not something we ordinarily include in an article about a book, and it's not very useful for our readers. You should not repeatedly reinsert content in an article over the objections of multiple people (it's called edit warring, and it's disruptive). Four people have objected: myself, Sro23, and the IPs 193.177.201.226 and 178.106.252.217. Please don't re-add it again unless you can get consensus to do so on the talk page.— Diannaa (talk) 11:32, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I should note the IP's are actually sockpuppets of banned user WP:BFKIP, so their objections don't count. But that's still 2 editors against inclusion versus 1 for. Sro23 (talk) 18:56, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Personally I think the table of contents should be removed, because the notion that this is something an encyclopaedia article should provide is absurd. But I'm afraid I see a consensus against this view. User:Favonian ([1]) and User:Sro23([2]) have both added it. So that makes 3 users adding it, 2 removing it. Quite why User:Sro23 is in both camps, I can't imagine, but either way it's a majority for including it. 46.233.112.99 (talk) 21:17, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Struck comment by banned user Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Best known for IP. Like I already said, in those diffs, we were reverting a banned user per WP:BMB. Sro23 (talk) 21:33, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

The IPs removing content appear to have a point

Doesn't "widely adopted", "highly valued", and mentioning specific editions strike anyone else as being overly promotional?   –Skywatcher68 (talk) 17:48, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

No. It is not promotional, it is just a simple statement of fact. Also the vandal is removing important information on how to cite the book. JRSpriggs (talk) 21:51, 13 April 2023 (UTC)