Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Josiah Willard Gibbs/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 15:40, 1 January 2013 [1].

Josiah Willard Gibbs[edit]

Nominator(s): Eb.hoop (talk) 07:00, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Over the last year or so, I've put in a substantial amount of work into improving this article on a very important but not very well known scientist. It was promoted to "Good article" in June and received a favorable peer review in August. I have also implemented the changes requested during that review, including finding more suitable images to illustrate the article. - Eb.hoop (talk) 07:00, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Concerns I actually know who this guy is (how I loved thermodynamics...) and I was thinking of reviewing, but from an initial glance I thought the article showed clear signs of under-preparation. The following comments are without reading any of the text. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:40, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There are nearly 40 duplicated links in the main body of the text (ie, excluding lead section and captions)

The reviewers and I looked into this. Of course, further improvement might be needed, but repetitions are mostly because: 1. A link appears in both the main text and within the infobox, references, etc., or 2. A name recurs in the text after several paragraphs and in a different section. I don't think that there are significant link redundancies within the same section of the text. - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have gone ahead and removed most of the duplicate links in the main text. I left a few that seemed sufficiently important and far enough from the previous link. - Eb.hoop (talk) 00:32, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The lead seems very brief

I personally don't see how it could be significantly expanded without introducing technical detail that might discourage an average reader without university training in science. Both the GA and the peer reviewer expressed satisfaction with the lead. - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

~~The last four references lack page numbers (may be more, only checked these)~~

For ref. 78, this is because it is a web document. For the other three, it is because they are refs. to the complete book, as is clear in the context. - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't discern what the ordering principle was for the primary sources.

They're in chronological order with respect to when Gibbs produced the material. - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Article name shouldn't normally appear in captions, we assume the photos etc are of Gibbs unless you tell us otherwise

I prefer more stand-alone captions, for clarity. But if this is not the accepted usage, it should be an easy fix. - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"See also" shouldn't include items already wikilinked in text

In that case, much of the "see also" should be cut out. But I think, as it is, it's of much help in conceptually organizing the areas in which Gibbs worked. Perhaps a solution would be to call it something else. (The "Named for Gibbs" could be eliminated, though, since it includes mostly links that are also in the infobox.) - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on referencing – you should be consistent in whether the first name of an author is listed before or after the last name.Aa77zz (talk) 20:15, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:06, 19 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

More Comments This is a fine article which I enjoyed reading. I knew nothing about the man (although I've worked at Yale and taught both vector calculus and the concept of free energy). I'm close to supporting but I still have some nit-picks on the referencing:

The Bibliography section includes publications that are not cited in the article. These should be moved to a Further reading section. It might be also be useful to include a separate list of Gibbs' more important publications.

I'm not sure that it's necessary to separate the works in the bibliography that are used as citations from those that aren't. It others think this is necessary, it should be easy to do. As for identifying Gibbs's more important publication, I don't think this is needed. By far his most important works are also the longest: "On the Equilibrium of Heterogenous Substances" and Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The volume containing Gibbs publication "On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances" is dated 1874-1878 (not 1875-1878) as one can see here.

Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It would be helpful if the article included links to scans of early publications that are now in the public domain. For example Hastings 1909 is here. Note that the first page is 374 (not 372 as given in the article). The two volumes of Gibbs' collected works (published by Longmans and Green in 1906) are also available: Volume 1, Volume 2. Aa77zz (talk) 13:27, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The full citation for Klein 2008 is not required in the References section as it is included in the Secondary section. Aa77zz (talk) 14:06, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ref 5 is to Bumstead 1928 – but the editors of the 1928 edition of "The Collected Works" are given in the Primary section as W. R. Longley and R. G. Van Name. Is this correct? I notice that the 1906 edition of "The Scientific Papers" has an intro by Bumstead with the identical page numbers: xiii-xxviii. Is "The Collected Works" simply a reprint of "The Scientific Papers" Aa77zz (talk) 14:24, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is a reference to the same obituary that Bumstead first published in 1903. It appeared with some additions in the Scientific Papers. I think that the version in the Collected Works is just a reprinting of that extended version. I've added the page numbers from that reprinting to the entry in the bibliography. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support This is an accessible article about an important scientist. Technical details of his achievements belong in more specialised articles. Clearly all FAs can be further improved after promotion but this is already a high quality article. Any remaining issues with the prose are likely to be minor – and perhaps to some extent a matter of personal taste. Aa77zz (talk) 17:02, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support: A beautiful article on a beautiful man. I really like how it read pleasantly and how it told me something of the mystery of the man. (I only knew he was super famous for thermo but not appreciated in his day.) Think you do a great job of showing the man's personality as well as giving the general reader understanding of his (pretty hairy math) contributions to thermo. It really reads "slick" (meant positively).

I do agree with the previous reviewer about cutting most of the see also (I would leave perhaps the lists). Although it is a style thing and I don't mind if you want to keep them.

I like the short lead. And the organization of the material seems pretty smooth.

The primary and secondary sources is kind of cool too. Little more info on what is going on...

I did not nitpick the formatting. There may be some small issues, but the overall look seemed smooth.

I liked this caption "Portrait of Prof. J. Willard Gibbs, taken around 1895. According to his student Lynde Wheeler, of the existing portraits this is the most faithful to Gibbs's kindly habitual expression.[31]". Very helpful...

Outstanding job and I really can sort of "feel" that you really researched the fellow in books and such (and reading the previous talk, I see evidence of comparison of sources and the like).

TCO (talk) 23:34, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I left only a couple of lists under the "See also." The rest I put into a different section, as an Outline of his major work. I cut out the "named after Gibbs" altogether, since most of it was in the infobox. - Eb.hoop (talk) 00:35, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

File:Josiah_Willard_Gibbs_-from_MMS-.jpg: when/where was this first published? Should use publication rather than upload date, and translate source identification if possible
File:Jwgibbs_sig.jpg: can source be more specific than "from original"?
File:Thermodynamicist_Willard_Gibbs.jpg: when/where was this first published?
File:JWGibbs.jpg: if the author is unknown and the image was created in 1895, it's quite possible that the creator died less than 100 years ago - licensing needs fixing here. Also, page number for source?
File:Wykres_Gibbsa.svg needs US PD tag for Gibbs. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:30, 25 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that I've addressed the issues raised by Nikkimaria. It's difficult to figure out the first date of publication of the portraits, since they're reproduced without attribution in the biographies by Rukeyser and Wheeler. There's certainly no issue with the first image, since it's also used as frontispiece in a book published in 1906, along with the signature, which in any case isn't subject to copyright. The diagram (File:Wykres Gibbsa.svg) is from a paper published by Gibbs in 1873. The two other portraits were used in the bios without any claim of copyright and must've circulated in Gibb's lifetime or shortly thereafter. - Eb.hoop (talk) 06:07, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, signatures are subject to copyright in the UK (you give two publication locations for the original, one of which is London), but given the age this wouldn't be an issue. File:Thermodynamicist_Willard_Gibbs.jpg, though, might be - though it was certainly taken well before 1923, there's no indication it was published that early. This would apply also to File:JWGibbs.jpg. What have you done to try to locate initial publication date? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:11, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The earliest source I can find for both of those portraits is Wheeler's book, from 1951. Neither has any copyright notice or indication of the author or source. File:Thermodynamicist_Willard_Gibbs.jpg is simply labelled "Gibbs the tutor", which dates it to 1863-6. File:JWGibbs.jpg is used by Wheeler in the frontispiece. In the list of illustrations it is only labelled "Gibbs in the Mid-nineties". On p. 179 of the text, it says "the best likeness of him is in my opinion that shown in the photograph taken in the early nineties and reproduced as the frontispiece of this book". I also checked the preface and the appendices, and there's nothing about where the pictures came from. There's only a thanks to "my colleague Dr. Greenleaf Whittier Pickard, to whose advice as a photographer in getting the most of old and faded prints is due the excellence of certain of the photographs." The pictures must therefore have circulated after Gibbs's death or Wheeler would've thanked Gibbs's family for them (as he thanks them for providing him with letters and other personal documents). The book by Seeger, from 1974, uses the same frontispiece as Wheeler, identifying the picture only as "J. Willard Gibbs (photograph about 1895)", with no other explanation. - Eb.hoop (talk) 04:29, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support, with suggestions: Gibbs was painfully isolated, yet much appreciated after passing. Perhaps to tie him into his time the article could mention distant work at points where Gibbs made his statements. For instance his pruning of the quaternion product into two separate "products" has the pragmatic basis of staying in three dimensions. The article raises his vector analysis three times, but might better describe its evolution from pamphlet to Nature to the Wilson book. Mathematical physics as a proper university subject in the US perhaps begins with Gibbs.Rgdboer (talk) 00:56, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Rgdboer: Thanks for your comments and support. I'm not quite sure what you mean by mentioning "distant work at points where Gibbs made his statements". Also, I think that it's not easy to reconstruct Gibbs's line of thinking on any subject, including vectors, because of his characteristic reticence. But I'll try to say a bit more in the article about his motivation for separating the quaternion product into a scalar and a vector part. Also, please feel free to edit the article yourself as well, to improve the treatment of this or any other point. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:11, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

~~Oppose~~ on prose, citation, and MOS concerns, an independent copyedit is needed. There are other minor issues as well. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:47, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm striking my oppose since the article has now improved sufficiently since its nomination, [2] and I don't have time to review and strike every issue I raised. The lead has been expanded, the prose has been tightened, and most MOS issues have been addressed; I haven't checked citations for consistency. I did not do a thorough review of the article, so I am not in position to support. Thanks to the nominator for the effort, and best of luck here! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:51, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all of your input. It's certainly been very valuable. I think that the article is in good shape. Hopefully we can get another experienced FAC editor to look at it now. - Eb.hoop (talk) 03:17, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is uncited information in the infobox (see for example Rudolf Clausius)-- that is, information that is given in the infobox but not mentioned or discussed anywhere in the article. If they aren't cited somewhere, they shouldn't be there, and if they are worthy of being in the infobox, the mention should be in the text and cited. Please check all of them.
Done. I added a mention of the fact that Gibbs wrote an obituary of Clausius. All the other people mentioned in the infobox are also in the article. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The Bibliography does not use a consistent style; sometimes editors are given before title, sometimes after. Would you not rather list last name first on authors to make it easier for the reader to locate the corresponding biblio entry for a reference, since they are last name first?
Done, as far as position of the editor's names. I personally prefer to give author names as initials followed by surname, which is what I'm used to from scientific journals. I could change that, if necessary, but I'd rather not unless others feel strongly on the subject. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'll review later, but no-- don't feel strongly about one format or another, just that they are consistent. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Minor citation inconsistencies (looks like different citation methods used by different editors ?); pls review throughout, samples only.
- Yale scientist featured in new stamp series", Yale Bulletin & Calendar, May 20, 2005 Missing accessdate, volume, and number.
- The format used for dates within citations should be consistent ... there is one format for dates, and another for accessdates. (Sample: Samuelson, Paul A. (5 Sept. 2003). "How I Became an Economist". Prize in Economic Sciences. Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 16 June 2012)
I had already gone through all of the citations to standardize them, using templates. I'll go over them again tonight, but other than things like different format for the access dates, I don't think there's much of a problem. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"As a mathematician, he invented modern vector calculus (independently of Oliver Heaviside)." The lead should stand-alone, and the reader should not have to read the rest of the article to understand the lead. The reader doesn't know at this point who Heaviside is or why he is mentioned here. Mention of Heaviside should either be dropped from the lead, or a few words of explanation of who he is and why he is mentioned here should be added.
I'm not sure how to address your concern. Heaviside is mentioned here because he invented vector calculus, at around the same time but independently of Gibbs. It would be unfair to say just that "Gibbs invented vector calculus" and leave Heaviside out of the picture, but I don't think any further explanation is needed here of who Heaviside was. If I'm wrong about this, please suggest how to clarify. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK, there are many ways to fix this, I don't want you to necessarily do it this way, but one suggestion (and the parenthetical is unncessary) is something like:
As a mathematician, he invented modern vector calculus, working independently of and at around the same time as British Oliver Heaviside, also credited with the invention of vector calculus.
My suggestion is wordy and awkward, but the point remains-- either we don't mention Heaviside in the lead, or we explain to the reader who he is and why he is mentioned. Don't obligate the reader to scan down to understand why Heaviside is there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~as "the greatest mind in American history."~~ See WP:MOSLQ-- the punctuation in that case should be outside of the quotes. Pls review throughout.
I will look a this later tonight, but I think it's rather a minor issue. - 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
~~The WP:LEAD is short. The "greatest mind in American history", with a substantial article, warrants more than two short paragraphs. Per WP:LEADLENGTH, it could be three or four paragraphs.~~
I added half a sentence about his work on optics. I really don't think that a significantly longer lead would be a good idea. Gibbs had almost no public or private life outside of his scientific work, which is extremely important but rather abstruse. I think that the only way to lengthen the lead would be to add technical details about his work, and that this would probably discourage casual readers. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest expansion to give more context to why he was described as the "greatest mind ... " ... the article is worthy of a longer lead, and the reader is left wanting. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~"Gibbs was the fourth of the five children,~~ ... " the five?
Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~" soon after his graduation for college"~~ ... graduation for college?
Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~"Gibbs's principal mentor and champion appears to have been the astronomer Hubert Anson Newton, a leading authority on the subject of meteors."~~ Why "appears to have been"? What is the issue? Appears to have been according to whom and who disagrees? The reader is not given information to understand why the "appears to have been". ... leading authority on ~~the subject of~~ meteors (prose redundancy).
The documentation on Gibbs's life, especially his early life, is very sparse. We don't even know for certain which classes he took at Yale, or from whom. When the article says that Newton "appears to have been" his principal mentor, it's just paraphrasing what the citation says. Otherwise, I eliminated "the subject of". - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But don't explain this to me here-- that won't help future readers. These kinds of things need to be clarified in the article (and they are only samples, not an exhaustive list). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"This, as well as a defect in his eyesight, probably explain why he did not volunteer to fight in the Civil War of 1861–65. His name was never reached by the Connecticut draft and he remained at Yale for the duration of the war." This ... probably explain? grammar. His name was never reached?
I fixed the first concordance issue. I'm not sure what your concern is about "his name was never reached" by the draft. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's not an English construct I'm familiar with-- I don't know what it intends to say, so can't explain any more than that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~(This was also the fifth Ph.D. granted in the US in any subject.)~~ No need for the parens.
Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
After his term as tutor ended, Gibbs travelled to Europe with his sisters, spending the winter of 1866–67 in Paris, where he attended lectures at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France. From there he went to Berlin, where he attended the lectures of Magnus, and to Heidelberg, where he was exposed to the scientific work of Kirchhoff and Helmholtz. At the time, German academics were the leading authorities in chemistry, thermodynamics, and natural science in general.
- This paragraphs is uncited, it appears to be the basis for some of the names in the infobox (influenced by Kirchhoff and Helmholtz) so the paragraph should be cited (and the influence explained if worthy of inclusion in the infobox), and we should use full names, not just last names.
Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'll check in on these things later to see what I can strike. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~"It was probably also around this time ... "~~ Why probably? What is the debate or confusion? A statement like this should be attributed in text to the author who holds the "probably" opinion. Something like, according to historian Joe Bloe, it was probably ...
Again, this is just a paraphrase of what the citation says. The reason for the confusion is the scant documentation. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Then we should tell the reader that. "There is little published information (or whatever), but historian so-and-so says it was probably also around this time ... " Sample suggestion, awkward, but you can get the idea. Don't leave the reader wondering what you mean. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~"In 1871 he was appointed Professor of Mathematical Physics at Yale, the first such professorship in the United States. His position was unpaid, a situation common in Germany ... "~~ What does his position at Yale have to do with Germany?
I'm not sure what the concern here is. The point of this sentence is that it was common in Germany at that time to appoint unpaid professors. Germany provided the model for the organization of research universities, especially in the US, but I'm not sure that we need to spell that out here. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Again, he's at Yale, which is in Connecticut, USA. Why are we talking about Germany? The reader doesn't know. Tell the reader something like:
His position was unpaid, a situation common in Germany which provided the model for the organization of research universities ...
Don't leave the reader wondering why information is there. This is an issue in several instances in the article, and it can help to get someone to copyedit who has some distance from the text and can point out similar. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:00, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's as far as I read: a copyedit is needed for basic grammar issues and the other list of issues-- particularly citation-- needs attention. It's a fine start, an excellent article will result, and I'd be glad to read further once the copyedit is done. I agree with Jimfbleak that the article appears underprepared for FAC~~, and suggest that work might proceed more efficiently off-FAC, with a return to FAC once an independent copyeditor has been located and citations and MOS issues have been addressed~~. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:51, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I urge you to reconsider your vote to archive the current FA nomination. I really don't think that the remaining issues are very significant. I've been working on this for many months and have put it through both a GA and Peer review already. I don't believe there are significant issues with the writing or the organization, whereas remaining inconsistencies in the format of the refs., the placing of punctuation marks with respect to quotes, and any other typos, can be easily fixed. It's doubtful that, outside of the context of an FA nom., this article would be likely to attract the level of scrutiny from an experienced editor that you've just given to the first few paragraphs, so I think we should make the most of it while we're at it. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I will look in again later today or tomorrow (out of time for now), but I hope my non-exhaustive list of concerns gives you enough to chew on in the meantime. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've struck the suggestion to withdraw as the article is now within striking range of FA standards; I'm still in the process of reviewing and striking other resolved commentary. Nice progress! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:13, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Second visit

~~Dates are still inconsistent in citations; in some, we find Month day, year and in others Day month year, and there is a (1904/6).~~
I couldn't find the inconsistencies, but I did change the 1904/6 to just 1904 in the ref. to Poincaré. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please review page ranges for consistency and WP:ENDASH.
I've reviewed this, but perhaps a more experience editor would like to re-check it. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There are still incomplete and inconsistent citations, here is one example:
~~Bibliography on J. W. Gibbs, The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, School of Mathematics and Statistics.~~
Missing date (Feb 1997) and missing accessdate.

Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Logical punctuation mentioned above still needs attn, sample:
"for his contributions to mathematical physics."[2]
Ditto for the Einstein quote in the lead, and the last quote in the lead-- pls review the info on logical quotation above.
Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

These are minor stylistic matters, but nonetheless they need to be addressed on FAs. Perhaps the nominator can enlist someone familiar with citation styles, dashes, page ranges, date formats, logical punctuation, etc to collaborate to clean up the above. Once the prose is clean, and if I have time later in the week (that's a big if), I will try to help. Moving on to prose, I'm happy to find the lead now expanded, nice job of fixing the Heaviside matter, and that people mentioned in the infobox all appear to be cited within the text-- nice improvements!

~~Together with James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann, he created statistical mechanics (a term that he coined), explaining the laws of thermodynamics in terms of the~~ ... term, terms ... it would be optimal to find another word to vary the prose ...
Done (by Dirac66). - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~Gibbs was the fourth of the five children, and the only son, of Josiah Willard Gibbs ...~~
Still "the five children"? Why the commas for "and the only son"?

Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Still seeing some redundancies, sample:
He was ~~also~~ an active abolitionist and is ~~now~~ chiefly remembered

Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We still have "He was an active abolitionist and is now chiefly remembered ... " Now is redundant ... there is no difference between he is now chiefly remembered and he is chiefly remembered. Also see WP:MOSDATE#Precise language (review throughout?). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:39, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not wholly convinced that the "now" here is meaningless. I think that the point is that in the 19th century Gibbs Sr. might've still been remembered chiefly for his books and his teaching, while his role in the Amistad trial was then only a footnote to his career. More recently, the situation has been reversed. That, at least, is my reading. I need to think a little more about how best to convey this in the article without too much of a digression. - Eb.hoop (talk) 17:14, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ok (unless another reviewer disagrees. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:19, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Why the comma?
Gibbs was educated at the Hopkins School and entered Yale College in 1854, at the age of 15.

Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
" ... Gibbs's principal mentor and champion appears to have been ...
"Appears to have been" is still unexplained, so I'm guessing the nominator is still working. I stopped there, and will revisit again in a few days to see if a copyedit has been completed.
Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:50, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Third re-visit;

This article still needs an independent copyedit. I am not going to go through line-by-line highlighting issues so the nominator can indicate "done" and wait for more; that is not the purpose of FAC. Here is but a sample paragraph-- randomly picked scanning down the page-- fixing this will not resolve the need for a copyedit throughout:

Gibbs's first published work, which appeared in 1873 when he was already 34 years old, was on the geometric representation of thermodynamic quantities. That work appeared in the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy, which had few readers capable of understanding Gibbs's work, but he shared reprints with his correspondents in Europe and received a particularly favorable response from James Clerk Maxwell, at the University of Cambridge, who made three plaster casts illustrating Gibbs's construct with his own hands and mailed one to Gibbs (see Maxwell's thermodynamic surface). That model is still on display at the Yale physics department.[24]

Why "already" 34 years old? unnecessary
Why "That" work? How about "It"?
Why the parenthetical (see Maxwell's ... many of these parentheticals are indicative of poor prose flow
Why "particularly"?
"Still" on display is redundant.
The second sentence goes on forever ... it should be three sentences (run-on).

Please find someone to copyedit. I will unwatch for now; please ping my talkpage when an independent copyedit has been performed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:07, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how I would look for someone to copyedit this. Where am I supposed to ask for it, and from whom? I submitted this to a GA review in June, which it passed, and then to a peer review in August. I did what I could to improve it, waited a while for input from others, and submitted for FA when I thought it was ready, which seems to me to be the indicated procedure. I notice that very recently A. Parrott (who was the peer reviewer) has done some copyediting. But I can't tell whether this is what you are looking for or not. I don't really think that any of the points you raise about the paragraph quoted is a major concern. At best, there might be disagreements between editors about what is the most elegant phrasing. (And in the first instance I'd strongly object to removing "already", since 34 is an extremely unusual age for a major scientist to publish his first paper and the issue has been raised at the end of the previous section.) I understand if you don't want to do the copyediting yourself, but that leaves me in the dark about how I should proceed with this or any future nomination. - Eb.hoop (talk) 03:40, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. I increasingly worry that I'm not stringent enough as a reviewer and tend to see small issues but not larger ones. As far as this article goes, it's definitely stronger than it was after my peer review. Since reading Sandy's comments I've tried to examine the article more carefully and edit it on that basis, but I really do not see major problems with the text. From Sandy's example, the most serious issues seem to be the long sentence and the parenthetical links. I could go over the article again while on the lookout for those types of problems, but I doubt she'd be satisfied with that. Sandy's accustomed to copyeditors with extensive FAC experience, like User:Dank or User:Tony1. They're usually in high demand and (unlike the variable-quality volunteers at the Guild of Copyeditors, to which I belong) aren't listed in any one place. A. Parrot (talk) 06:37, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fourth revisit;

Peeking in, I see the article is slowly improving (but my list above is too much for individual review and striking-- such work usually proceeds easier off-FAC). I found a few issues that should be addressed and left sample edits-- see my edit summaries. I'm still seeing convoluted prose and wordiness-- no suggestions on how to fix these, but samples:

In the course of this effort ...
... and intense focus on his scientific work were such that he was generally unavailable personally

I responded to Ed.Hoop on my talk page about ways to find copyeditors who might collaborate on this article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:59, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support This article is a model biography which does a very good job of covering the life and work of a scientist who is not as well known as he should be. Including it as a featured article would both help to show how scientific biographies should be presented on Wikipedia, and also make J.W.Gibbs a little better known to the general public. Dirac66 (talk) 04:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Gibbs and Charles Sanders Peirce have been said to have been the greatest US minds in the 19th Century, and a FA article on either would be a monumental undertaking, because of the comprehensiveness requirement of FAs. In this case, there should be an expansion of the scientific and mathematical discussion. (Incidentally, Peirce's discussion of the vectors versus quaternions is worth reviewing.) The legacy discussion seems adequate, although there is no indication that the Gibbs lectureship is the premier recognition by the AMS of applied mathematics---it is not just another lecture, but is comparable to the von Neumann lecturer of SIAM. More copy editing is needed, also. The Peirce article gives an idea of appropriate comprehensiveness. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:29, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It seems odd and counterproductive to require such a level of comprehensiveness for FAs that the articles about important topics are unlikely ever to be featured. This is, after all, an encyclopedia for general readers, not a forum for specialized discussion. In any case, the work of Leonhard Euler, on math, physics, and engineering, is much vaster, and probably also more important than Gibbs's, yet the Wikipedia biography of him is featured, while presenting only a general and mostly nontechnical treatment of his scientific work. That, it seems to me, is the more sensible approach. - Eb.hoop (talk) 01:11, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps Euler's article should not have featured article status, then....

I did not write the comprehensiveness criterion, which does not allow for importance: I voiced this concern in the Signpost interview with the mathematics project. (However, the last year's badly managed attempts to redo FAC will make any change impossible for a few years....)

The article is a great achievement, but I don't think it is comprehensive. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:58, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Gibbs as a pioneer with multivariate convex functions by mathematical physicist (personal computing writer, CalTech prof) Barry Simon with lots of comments on the historical importance of Gibbs.
Lemar'echal and Hiart-Urruty on Gibbs as a benchmark
Wightman's paper in the Gibbs centennial(!!). Wightman's books is the best source, according to the previous 2 books, but I don't see it via Google. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:01, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Kiefer, Thanks for the refs. I've now added a mention of Gibbs's influence on convex analysis, citing Simon. The article already included references to Wightman and even gives a long quote from his talk at the Yale Gibbs symposium. - Eb.hoop (talk) 17:06, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I try to help, a bit. :) Wightman wrote a book on convexity and statistical mechanics, which probably has much more. I would think that the Centennial Symposium would be one of the best sources for Gibbs's importance.

There should be a discussion of partition function, which is of great importance in physics, material science, and mathematics.

BTW, your citation cite-doi doesn't list Edwin Hewitt with Edwin (only with E.); Edwin Hewitt was an expert on abstract harmonic analysis and Hilbert's fifth problem, and his authorship would be interesting information to list.

I would like more discussion of Gibbs's phenomenological physics and statistical mechanics, and their influence on macroeconomics and Paul Samuelson. Perhaps there was influence on Asimov's Foundation trilogy? Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:45, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Kiefer, I would again argue against significantly extending the article or the technical discussion of Gibbs's scientific impact, since this is supposed to be an encyclopedia for general readers, not a repository of specialized knowledge, and this is a biographical article. For instance, I don't think it's a good idea to bring up the partition function here. Wightman mentions it in his Gibbs Symposium lecture (p. 29), but it would appear that Gibbs did not call it that and did not make much of it as such. Working in terms of the partition function is more natural in quantum systems, which Gibbs didn't know about. In any case, we've already discussed his work on ensembles at a level appropriate for a general encyclopedic biography, and I don't think that mentioning the partition function or trying to disentangle its history is a good idea. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You should use the book on Convexity and statistical mechanics (with an introduction by Wightman) by Israel, a student of Simon's. Perhaps Wightman did not write another book on the topic. The Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society would be good for finding statements putting Gibbs's work in perspective.Kiefer .Wolfowitz 17:50, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Kiefer, Thanks for the suggestion. I read the book review by Lenard from the AMS Bulletin, but about Gibbs it only says what is already in the article: that his early papers on thermodynamic potentials contain important ideas that were later rediscovered by mathematicians and incorporated into convex analysis. The introductory essay by Wightman to the actual book sounds fascinating and when I have access to a university library again after the winter break I will try to get a hold of it. If there's something in it that can be summarized in this general biographical article, I will incorporate it then. But I don't think this should hold up the current FA nomination. I insist that, in my opinion, a Wikipedia bio. is not the place for a detailed technical discussion such as you would like to see. - Eb.hoop (talk) 19:03, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wightman's introduction to Israel seems to be the reference for Gibbs's influence on statistical mechanics and convex analysis, and I don't think that the article can be passed at FA level with an admission that it has been ignored. I am glad that you can look at it in January. Gibbs discussion of multiple subgradients for the primal was important too. (Some general discussions of variational principles for a general audience include L. C. Young, previously mentioned Strang, Tromba and Hindenbrandt's Mathematics and Optimal Form [Scientific America library].) Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:56, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Kiefer, I added the intro. by Wightman to the bibliography. I'm not using it as a citation because a. I haven't been able to read it yet, and b. I think that the issue of Gibbs's influence on convexity is adequately summarized already, with a citation to Simon. Also, please note that the influence of Gibbs on statistical mechanics (as opposed to convex analysis) is very well known and is discussed in all textbooks. From what I can tell from Simon and Lenard, the intro. by Wightman to Israel's book has nothing to add on that. - Eb.hoop (talk) 20:52, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Convexity and Legendre transforms appear in more places than just statistical mechanics. I would check these references for discussions of Gibbs:

Barndorff-Nielsen, Ole (1978). Information and exponential families in statistical theory. Wiley Series in Probability and Mathematical Statistics. Chichester: John Wiley \& Sons, Ltd. pp. ix+238 pp. ISBN 0-471-99545-2. MR 0489333.
Dharmadhikari, Sudhakar; Joag-Dev, Kumar (1988). Unimodality, convexity, and applications. Probability and Mathematical Statistics. Boston, MA: Academic Press, Inc. pp. xiv+278. ISBN 0-12-214690-5. MR 0954608. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
Pečarić, Josip E.; Proschan, Frank; Tong, Y. L. (1992). Convex functions, partial orderings, and statistical applications. Mathematics in Science and Engineering. Vol. 187. Boston, MA: Academic Press, Inc. pp. xiv+467 pp. ISBN 0-12-549250-2. MR 1162312. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |1= and |2= (help)
Entropy, Large Deviations and Statistical Mechanics by R.S. Ellis, Springer Publication. ISBN 3-540-29059-1
Large Deviations Techniques and Applications by Amir Dembo and Ofer Zeitouni. Springer ISBN 0-387-98406-2
Martin-Löf, Anders. Statistical mechanics and the foundations of thermodynamics. Lecture Notes in Physics, 101. Springer-Verlag, Berlin-New York, 1979. ii+120 pp. ISBN: 3-540-09255-2

I also listed some more books from statistical mechanics and large deviations theory that have lots of convexity. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:43, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

~~Reluctant oppose~~ I commented very early on this, with the intention of doing a detailed review, but walked away because I felt the principle editor's initial responses were on the lines of "well, I like it as it is". On revisiting, I see that in fact there has been considerable progress, but there are still prose problems. A few examples from a random dip into the text Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:43, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pulmonary — despite the significant overlinking of thermodynamic terms, no link here

Well, the thermodynamic terms are very important if a reader wishes to follow to meaning of Gibbs's work. I think that reading about the human lung would hardly add to the reader's appreciation of the text. The point here is only that doctors were afraid Gibbs might develop tuberculosis as a young man. - Eb.hoop (talk) 17:14, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have added this link to help readers who might just want to know what the word means. It is clear to French-speaking readers who know that poumon=lung, but not all readers of this article will understand French. Dirac66 (talk) 20:22, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

After his term as tutor ended, Gibbs travelled to Europe with his sisters, spending the winter of 1866–67 in Paris, where he attended lectures at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France. From there he went to Berlin, where he attended the lectures of Heinrich Gustav Magnus, and to Heidelberg, where he was exposed to...

I will go ahead and fix this. But I insist, in spite of the opinions expressed by you and SandyGeorgia, that this kind of issues are not really serious problems that are best deal with by archiving the nomination. If the nomination is archived, in all likelihood only I and the few other editors who've worked on the article over the past couple of years will stay interested in improving the article, and it is very unlikely that this will lead to fixing the prose infelicities that you've pointed out. This is, after all, an article on an important but somewhat difficult subject, and probably has a smaller readership than other FAC's. - Eb.hoop (talk) 17:14, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Gibbs's monograph is now deemed to be one of the greatest scientific achievements of the 19th century and one of the foundations of modern physical chemistry. — source for "now" dated 1928

This is followed, almost immediately, by a long quote from 1997 that says the same thing. If you prefer, we can use that ref. rather than the article by Bumstead in the first instance. - Eb.hoop (talk) 17:14, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Gibbs deliberately avoided speculating about the microscopic structure of matter, which proved a wise course in view of the revolutionary developments in quantum mechanics that began around the time of his death — Speculation from the author of what appears to be a fairly hagiographic biography doesn't turn his/her mind-reading or opinions into fact.

I can assure you that this is not speculation by Wheeler. We have a long quote under "Influence" by A. S. Wightman from 1990 that says the same thing. If you think it necessary, I can ether add that ref. there, or replace it for the citation to Wheeler. (Also, I've read Wheeler and it's not really an hagiographic account, despite its title. It's mostly a summary of Gibb's scientific work, with a few personal impressions from the author's time as his student.) - Eb.hoop (talk) 17:14, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As I read this paragraph, it seems to clearly attribute the opinion to Wightman. But if Jimfbleak insists, we could change "which proved a wise course" to (Wheeler and/or) Wightman has suggested that this proved a wise course", to clarify that Wikipedia does not present the opinion as fact. Dirac66 (talk) 20:22, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the effort that has gone into researching this article, and you appear to have made genuine efforts to engage with your reviewers. It's difficult to copyedit your own text, we all tend to be blind to our own infelicities, and I think it's asking too much to expect a full copyedit while it's at FAC. We had a similar problem with asymmetric hydrogenation, which was withdrawn on prose issues. We're working to get that up to FA, but away from the fires of FAC. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:43, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Jimfbleak; checking for extensive prose, citation and MOS issues on an article that appeared prematurely at FAC is the hardest way to do this work. Considering I felt I was copyediting the article alone, line-by-line, while Support was registered in spite of clear prose issues, I struck my oppose and called it a day (week). I'm curious to know why Supports are lodged when issues are easy to spot. Also, Nikkimaria should be pinged to doublecheck image issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I disagree that the issues flagged at this stage are serious, or that they would be best addressed outside of an FAC review. In fact, as I've said here, I don't think that all of the edits requested so far were really necessary, but I'm quite happy to comply with any reasonable requests that do not affect the meaning, and to defer on issues of prose and style to more experienced editors. But I'm afraid that if this nomination is archived, it will be very difficult to attract enough attention from the right quarters to modify it so that it would be likely in the future to meet the standards of SandyGeorgia, Jimfbleak, et al. - Eb.hoop (talk) 17:14, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You aren't getting the point. I still haven't read the full text, I dipped in at random, found issues. If I had read the whole article and these were the only issues, I would be quite happy, but I've no reason to think this is the case. It's like Sandy said, you're given some illustrative examples, you fix those and wait for more instead of getting the whole article copy edited. to meet the standards of SandyGeorgia, Jimfbleak... it's quite clear the that the FAC criteria include prose criteria as well as content. In the end, the delegates will decide what weight to give to the supports and opposes, and it's not unknown for articles to be promoted with "oppose" comments — it's not a vote. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:26, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Jimfbleak: Just to clarify, I agree, of course, that prose criteria are very important. I am also happy to defer to experienced editor like you on such matter. Not only have I implemented every single one of copyedits suggested (even the ones I thought were not really necessary), I have made a substantial efforts by copyedit the entire article and to correct the text at other places where similar issues to those raised occur. And I have not been the only editor who's been working on this. (You can see that A. Parrot and Dirac66 have also been active in that regard.) It's just that I can't know if you or someone else will, on another dip into the text, find some other issue with the prose, which I hadn't noticed or where I thought it was OK. If you insist in choosing a few passages that need copyediting and on those grounds oppose the FAC, then I don't see how the article can pass, in this or any future nomination. At least, I have no way of knowing how to improve the article to make it likely to meet your standards. - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:48, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I left you some tips on my talk page about how to find independent copyeditors to audit the prose. Sometimes people familiar with the topic or the article are too close to see the issues; an independent copyeditor is needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:14, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dear SandyGeorgia, Thanks for the suggestions. If this nomination is archived, I will try to see if someone else can audit the prose. But I expect that it'll be hard to find someone willing to do it, especially someone new to the article, and there's no assurance that such an audit would be more effective than the GA, peer, and FAC reviews that this article has been through already. I'd also like to say that I think that at the start of this FAC review, important issues were raised: consistency in the format for the refs., use of "see also", overlinking, length of the lead, use of punctuation in quotes, some typos, and a few redundancies. These have been fixed. I really can't see that the remaining prose issues are very significant, at least not from what you and Jimfbleak have flagged in your most recent visits, or from what I can see myself upon rereading the article. - Eb.hoop (talk) 17:43, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Maralia - In a departure from my usual method, I read this article after having scanned over the concerns raised here. I did not notice significant remaining prose issues or MOS concerns, but the number of issues raised above gives me pause and I'm not quite ready to support. A few quibbles:

I really, really dislike the left-aligned images at the beginning of sections; the break in continuity while reading is so very jarring. FWIW, MOS:IMAGELOCATION advises against it for this reason. Something to consider.

Done. -Eb.hoop (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The handling of the school names (in respect to their changing over time) is bothersome. The lead anachronistically uses Yale University, but the Early years section properly uses Yale College (although it refers to "the University" which confuses things). Then we have Samuel Willard anachronistically referred to as President of Harvard University before it became such, but the College of New Jersey appropriately described as not-yet-Princeton University. Can these perhaps be resolved by simply shortening to "Yale" and "Harvard"? The lingering mention of "the University" would need altering as well.

Done. -Eb.hoop (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It would be easier to follow the trail from a short-form cite to the corresponding long-form cite if the latter also used lastname, firstname format.

Is this really necessary? I'd be happy to do it, but I had used only the surname on the short-form because it seemed to me to be in accordance with the Harvard-style format I've seen used in other articles. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well no, you needn't solve it in the way I've suggested. The underlying issue is that the order in which the long-form cites are presented is somewhat inscrutable. They're not wholly in alphabetical order by author or title; they're not grouped by whether they have listed authors or not... I think I almost understand the order in the Secondary sources section after a few readthroughs—I guess you've ordered the sources with editors by the editors' names, but as the citation style you've used puts their names in the middle of the citation, it was hard to figure them out—but I remain completely baffled by the order of the Primary sources section. Perhaps you can explain? I don't want to impose any particular scheme here, but I truly had a hard time locating long-forms from the short-forms. Maralia (talk) 03:15, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The primary sources are in chronological order. I guess that the confusing part is that the first one was published in 1947, but it contains the earliest work that Gibbs did, while he was still interested in mechanical engineering. Perhaps I could add a sentence explaining that. The secondary sources were in alphabetical order by author. That was slightly obscured because at one point we decided to move the names of the editors after the titles. If you have a better solution I'm open to suggestions. - Eb.hoop (talk) 03:28, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the longform "On the Equilibrium" cite, the 'reproduced in' statement should read "Reproduced in both The Scientific Papers...and The Collected Works..." as "The" is the first word of both titles, as listed below.