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Gen Rel Intro

Introduction to general relativity has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

Indeterminacy problem

Has anyone heard of this? I've nominated the article for deletion. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 12:04, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

7d Physics at AfD

The article seems to be complete OR. For as far as the ideas themselves go, it seems to be just a particular case of Kaluza-Klein theory. (TimothyRias (talk) 15:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC))

Electron hole

Hi. My first visit here. One new wiki experience for me.

I'm concerned with the article title Electron hole. I haven't seen this term used anywhere except the Wikipedia and derivations thereof. I think the correct term is Hole but it needs disambiguation if it is to be the title. I considered moving the article to Hole (solid state physics) but then I had second thoughts because this may not be the proper or best way to disambiguate it. Some other alternatives would be Hole (charge carrier) or Hole (quasiparticle). I'd be interested in others' thoughts and suggestions regarding this. Thank you. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:17, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

How 'bout Hole (physics and chemistry)? -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 17:26, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes the term always struck me as odd on wiki. I never changed it, but I think it should. Hole (semiconductors) seems a natural fit shoe-in to me, but Hole (charge carrier) and others might also do the job.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 17:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

One thing I'm uncertain about is using a disambiguator like "solid state physics", "physics and chemistry", or "semiconductors", because a hole is neither of these. Whereas a hole is a "charge carrier" or a "quasiparticle". So it's partly a matter of my ignorance of Wikipedia naming conventions as to what is preferred or allowed. --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:14, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and welcome on the Physics Project. If you have any question just ask 'em here or contact any of us on our talk pages and we'll do our best to help you.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 18:00, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:14, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Based on this section, I have started a discussion at Talk:Electron hole#Rename?. - Eldereft (cont.) 01:26, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Phenomenological thermodynamics at AfD

Anyone ever heard the phrase used? Djr32 (talk) 18:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I've never encountered anything like that. Granted I'm a master's student, so I can't say there's not such things, but that really sounds to me like something that a single author wrote because he dabbled in philosophy.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 03:48, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

From the article in question, "Generally, phenomenological thermodynamics, being synonymous with classical thermodynamics...". It looks like the originating editor got confused or something and started a new article instead of editing the existing article Classical thermodynamics. --Bob K31416 (talk) 06:09, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Your contributions at the AfD article would be useful! I suspect that most people contributing there are not experts in this field. Djr32 (talk) 14:57, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for vector spaces

The vector space article has recently passed its Good Article nomination. I think it has a reasonable state and I'd like to get broader input, especially on accessibility, balance and completeness of the article for a possible FA nomination, so I am nominating it for Peer Review. Thanks for the review, Jakob.scholbach (talk) 14:40, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Predictability at AfD

I'd appreciate it if people knowledgeable in statistical mechanics could take a look at this article, which is up for AfD. I hope the issues with it are obvious. -- The Anome (talk) 16:22, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

What do you all think about the title of Euclidean vector?

Don't you think that some other title might be better? -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 20:35, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. When I saw it, it wasn't clear to me what Euclidean was meant to specify. Better is Vector (physics) but I wouldn't be surprised if I liked something better that someone came up with. That's because abstract vector spaces are used in physics too, like the bras and kets in quantum mechanics. Although, I think the vast majority of people would think that Vector (physics) meant direction and magnitude rather than abstract vector. Maybe Vector (direction and magnitude). Good luck. --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:10, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

A (not-too-serious) problem with "direction and magnitude" is that, given a vector v of any normed vector space, no matter how abstract, one might refer to ||v|| as the "magnitude" of v, and to v/||v|| as its "direction". (Or mightn't he?) I like Vector (physics) because they are the ones a physicist is most likely to be referring to when using the term vector without adjectives (e.g., as for kets, I prefer to call them "state vectors" or even just "states"), but I'd be happy if someone was able to come up with a better title.

As for the current title, I think Euclidean vector space also applies to abstract spaces (I guess it applies to any finite-dimensional inner product space over R isomorphic to Rⁿ with the dot product). -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 21:52, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Re "A (not-too-serious) problem with "direction and magnitude" is that, given a vector v of any normed vector space, no matter how abstract, one might refer to ||v|| as the "magnitude" of v, and to v/||v|| as its "direction"." - "One might" but does one? --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:08, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

From experience, I've seen many people and books that would refer to direction as v/||v||, especially in generalizations to higher dimensions. It was relatively common in my 3rd and 4th year of my bacchelor's degree and in my master's classes. About as common as writing a central force F = kr / ||r³|| instead of F = ku_r / r². I would not expect people to immediately recognize it as such however. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 06:29, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Relativistic heat conduction?

Nanog (talk · contribs) just wrote a new article, Relativistic heat conduction. Take a look at it. JRSpriggs (talk) 00:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Spin-statistics theorem

Could someone expert in QFT take a look at that article? It is written so poorly that it can only be understood by someone who already knows the stuff being "explained". -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 18:17, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Interesting - I thought I did know the spin-statistics theorem very well, but the mathematical context in which I know it*) is not even hinted at in the article, and on the other hand I've never seen the arguments given there (and find them confusing or misleading at places). So, yes, for me it seems that a complete rewrite is warranted - but wouldn't that rather lead to some disagreement with the previous authors? --B. Wolterding (talk) 21:01, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

*) Streater/Wightman, "PCT, Spin and Statistics, and All That" (Benjamin, 1968)

If the proof given is really due to Schwinger, then I'm sure it's correct, or at any rate could be made correct. But it's not explicitly cited, so it's hard to check. It's certainly not the most common proof, but it seems potentially shorter and more transparent than the most common proof. It might make sense to put in the more common proof, but leave the current one in as well--after citing and clarifying it. --Steve (talk) 22:38, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Odd template

What do you think of the template below?

I've fixed the most blatantly wrong things with it (adding italics and links, etc.), but I consider it somewhat misleading:

• It seems to imply that gravitation is not part of classical mechanics;
• A theory of quantum gravity worthy of the name would be relativistic (I guess that quantizing gravity in Galilean space and time would be much less funny, and much less useful), and hence it would include c; the actual difference between QG and TOE is not that the latter uses the speed of light, it is that the latter would describe electromagnetism, strong interactions, and weak interactions, too.
• I think that one could probably find many "Other (c, G, ħ) subjects" other than Planck units and Hawking radiation (even though I can't think of one right now).

Do you think this template can still be useful for anything, provided it's fixed, or shall I take it to TfD? -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 17:09, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd say it's best deleted. Second best would be to link only to things (like string theory) that are actually theories of everything, maybe plus standard model and either quantum gravity or general relativity as the background components. We already have templates for {{Beyond the Standard Model}} and {{Theories of gravitation}}. :-) --Steve (talk) 23:20, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Inconsistency in titles such as kilometre, milliampere, etc.

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Article titles about multiples and submultiples of units. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 17:53, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Centrifugal Force

The situation at centrifugal force is still in a bit of a mess. We have a special article called 'Reactive Centrifugal Force' which caters for this subject. But the term 'reactive' is a misnomer. In a circular motion caused by tension in a string, the string causes the inward centripetal force. But it is the outward centrifugal force that causes the tension in the string in the first place. The centrifugal force is pro-active. It is not reactive.

There is more about centrifugal force in another article entitled 'Centrifugal Force (rotating frames of reference)'. In co-rotating situations we have centrifugal force.

These two articles need to be joined together into one, and grossly simplified.

We need a simple introduction. "Centrifugal force is the outward force that arises in connection with rotation". We then need a few simple examples including Keplerian orbits and the centrifuge. David Tombe (talk) 06:04, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Particle overview

I've built this image to give an overview of the various families of particles etc... Any comments on accuracy and possible improvements? Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 06:33, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Some remarks:

• You might want to include in someway that atoms are actually bound states of nuclei and leptons. The chart at the moment seems to suggest that atoms and molecules consist of only quarks.

• Yes I've been looking for a way to indicate that. Perhaps adding Baryons --> Nuclei and have nuclei and lepton point to atoms (then atoms to molecules)? However I'm wondering if some of the "exotic atoms" have been something other than bound states of baryons and leptons (such as bound states of lepton and antileptons?).Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 13:42, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

• Certainly, exotic atoms do not necessarily involve (hadronic) nuclei, but can also involve a lepton-antilepton pair (positronium) or can involve hadrons electrically bound to a nucleus. Some people even consider stuff like excitons involving quasiparticles as exotic atoms. Fortunately exotic atoms tend to play a very small role in nature and I think we can get away with atoms referring to just normal atoms in this chart. (TimothyRias (talk) 14:00, 6 January 2009 (UTC))
• (e.c.) Yes, see muonium, but I don't think the unqualified noun "atom", without adjectives, is usually understood to include those. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 14:14, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not sure about onia being referred as atoms... It's a shame no one bothers defining this terminology precisely. It wouldn't be a hard thing to do, and would go a long way into making things more accessible to the public.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 17:01, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

• What exactly are you referring to with quark-lepton complementarity? And why is it the only thing marked with a question mark? (I would think that there are much bigger puzzles in particle physics. GUTs, ToEs and Quantum gravity would probably be bigger question marks in this diagram alone. (TimothyRias (talk) 08:29, 6 January 2009 (UTC))

• My impression is that ToE, GUT, Quantum Gravity are simply placeholders names for whatever theory will manage fit the "job description", while QL complementarity is more of an "open question" than a "placeholder name" for something. The question mark isn't to indicate unsolved puzzle, but rather to indicate whether the concept is something that will be found in nature. Now I my impressions may be wrong, and this usage of the question mark is possibly confusing or misleading.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 13:42, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

• Anyway, quark-lepton complementarity is a very technical topic (and its article was awfully written last time I checked). I'm not sure it is very useful to include it in the diagram. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 12:57, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• One more qustion, what exactly is the purpose of this chart. (i.e. where do you want to use it?) (TimothyRias (talk) 14:00, 6 January 2009 (UTC))

• Well right now it's on Elementary particle but I can think of other places it might add something (such as composite particle, fundamental interaction, etc...Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 17:01, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

• I think Higgs boson should be added to this diagram. Particles predicted by MSSM may be also included. Ruslik (talk) 09:04, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

x[t]

In several articles (Hamiltonian mechanics#Relativistic charged particle in an electromagnetic field, Lagrangian, and some other ones which I can't remember), I've seen square brackets used to denote function arguments. I think that they look quite weird, and when nested they can become awkward to read (e.g.

$0=-{\frac {d}{dt}}\left({\frac {m{\dot {\vec {x}}}[t]}{\sqrt {1-{\frac {v^{2}[t]}{c^{2}}}}}}\right)-q\nabla \phi [{\vec {x}}[t],t]-q\partial _{t}{\vec {A}}[{\vec {x}}[t],t]-q{\dot {\vec {x}}}[t]\cdot \nabla {\vec {A}}[{\vec {x}}[t],t]+q\nabla {\vec {A}}[{\vec {x}}[t],t]\cdot {\dot {\vec {x}}}[t]$,

it's hard to read with all the vertical lines which are part of the brackets, would look much better with round parentheses, at least for the innermost ones:

$0=-{\frac {d}{dt}}\left({\frac {m{\dot {\vec {x}}}(t)}{\sqrt {1-{\frac {v^{2}(t)}{c^{2}}}}}}\right)-q\nabla \phi [{\vec {x}}(t),t]-q\partial _{t}{\vec {A}}[{\vec {x}}(t),t]-q{\dot {\vec {x}}}(t)\cdot \nabla {\vec {A}}[{\vec {x}}(t),t]+q\nabla {\vec {A}}[{\vec {x}}(t),t]\cdot {\dot {\vec {x}}}(t)$.)

It is just me? -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 16:14, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Well it is often done the distinguish a functional as in the following case from Lagrangian,

${\mathcal {S}}[\varphi _{i}]=\int {{\mathcal {L}}[\varphi _{i}(x)]\,\mathrm {d} ^{4}x}$.

In such a case it can be quite useful. However, this does not seem the case in the examples you quote. Those might just be a severe case of mathematica'rites (mathematica puts function arguments in square brackets). (TimothyRias (talk) 16:33, 6 January 2009 (UTC))

Total energy

Does this topic deserve its own article? Wouldn't it make more sense to merge it into Energy? -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 17:27, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Capacitors and related articles

Hi there,

I started a discussion here about articles related to capacitance. At the moment, we have several very long articles with huge scope, which all overlap significantly. I think we need to decide on a better way to divide up the subject matter, which may involve some page moves. Please join the discussion! Papa November (talk) 15:03, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Merge/redirect Sum-over-paths into Path-integral formulation?

Discuss here. JocK (talk) 04:12, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Assistance with copyright matter?

The article ARPES has been listed again as a copyright concern (earlier today I removed the duplication I saw, but evidently multiple sources are involved). Presuming that the IP contributor who tagged it is correct, the article was clean at this point. There's been a lot of work since then, and I am by no means in my field. Is there anyone at the project who would be willing to help clean this text by revising problematic material rather than its being simply gutted? (It's tagged "low" importance, fwiw.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:18, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I found quite a few sentences that were copied verbatim from those publications. I reverted to an old revision that does not contain any copyright infringements. Ruslik (talk) 09:15, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your assistance. I'll mark this one resolved at the copyright problems board. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Electron FAC

This article has been proposed as a featured article. It is listed under the Physics WikiProject, so please take a look and comment here. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 23:00, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Uhs (167) - Ust (173)

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unhexseptium. Elements 167 to 173 have been sent for deletion as pure speculation. Note that even the chemical properties cannot be predicted, since some theories say that no electrons can be added to the electron shells beyond 139. 76.66.198.171 (talk) 00:50, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Quality assessment done!

As of 13:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC) all 11,962 articles in this project have a quality rating. Well done everybody. There are however still 4,548 articles awaiting an importance assessment. (TimothyRias (talk) 13:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC))

Very nice. I'm sorry I haven't much in the last weeks, but good to know others were at work. Thanks to all who helped.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 19:38, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Image in dire need of modification

See Wikipedia:Help desk#Image in dire need of modification Nil Einne (talk) 12:19, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Featured article nomination

The article on vector spaces is up for featured article nomination. Please opine here. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 16:00, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Italicizing the symbol for the "gee" unit?

Please take a look at Talk:G-force#Italicizing and subsequent sections of that page. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 17:17, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Einstein, acceleration and g-forces

Could we have some knowledgeable input at Talk:G-force#Disputed tag please? --John (talk) 23:38, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Does an accelerometer measure the vector sum of gravitational and accelerative forces? --John (talk) 07:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

As Wolfkeeper said, it measures the part of the acceleration which is not due to gravity, that is, the total acceleration minus the acceleration due to gravity. JRSpriggs (talk) 09:36, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't that contradict general relativity? How does an accelerometer "know" what part of the force it measures comes from gravity and what part from acceleration? --John (talk) 14:14, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

No, it doesn't contradict GR. For example imagine the simplest case where an accelerometer in space next to the Earth. From the accelerometer's point of view, it isn't moving at all.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:57, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

But you shouldn't worry about GR for this, it's completely unnecessary; very much the same thing is predicted by Newtonian Mechanics at the speeds and masses we're talking about here; you can't feel acceleration due to gravity according to Newton's laws either.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:57, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

GR encourages one to use a free-falling reference frame...in such a reference frame, an accelerometer measures acceleration. Intro physics / Newtonian mechanics encourages one to use an "inertial reference frame"...in such a reference frame, an accelerometer measures acceleration minus gravity. There are a lot more readers who know intro physics than readers who know GR, so the article should stick with the Newtonian point of view. No one's taking an accelerometer into a black hole anyway. :-) --Steve (talk) 02:51, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, that just about makes sense to me (please be gentle as I am 20+ years down the line since my Physics courses). I come to this from a flying perspective, and I know that some planes are fitted with a 'g' readout. On the ground this definitely reads +1.0 g, and also when flying level. Pull back the stick in a turn and the number increases. If you push forward on the stick it decreases. Push too hard and it will go to 0.0 g, meaning you are in a ballistic parabola downwards. Push even further (not commonly done on purpose) and it will go to negative values. Is there any way this simple, real-world understanding can be a good addition to the article? I really want to avoid a detailed treatment of Mach, Einstein or Newton as I feel there are other articles on which this can more appropriately be done. --John (talk) 03:03, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

That's exactly what he just said though, g-force/what an accelerometer measures is acceleration minus gravity. That's been in the article before, but Greg_L or somebody took it out, multiple times, including when I referenced it to an inertial navigation textbook.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 10:55, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

To John: What general relativity requires is that one be unable to distinguish between an acceleration due to gravity and a "fictitious" acceleration due to inertia in an accelerating reference frame. This is the equivalence principle. This is precisely why gravitational acceleration is non-measurable. An accelerometer is not affected by one's choice of a reference frame, so it cannot be affected by gravity either. The acceleration measured by an accelerometer sitting on the ground is just the result of the Earth pushing upwards on the accelerometer. That is, not the weight of the accelerometer, but the reaction to that weight. JRSpriggs (talk) 10:25, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, and accelerometers can't measure any fictitious force(acceleration), including centrifugal force/acceleration or coriolis force/accelerations. They read zero on them, because fictitious forces are really momentum and not force/accelerations at all.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:36, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

dark fluid

It needs some attention. Uncle G (talk) 01:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I added some references. It may be non-notable, but at least it's not flagrantly non-notable...At the very least, I found three Phys. Rev. articles on this topic by three different groups. Maybe there's a lot more, maybe not. But so far, I haven't seen anything that definitely establishes notability, so it may be a good candidate for deletion. --Steve (talk) 04:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Vital article replacement

I have proposed the replacing of Kinetics (physics) with Newton's laws of motion on the Vital Article list. My reasoning is on that talk page, but basically boils down to Kinetics being a little-used term anymore, and being an article designated "Low" importance. Comments would be greatly appreciated.-RunningOnBrains 16:52, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Emission spectrum + related articles

The merger proposal at Talk:Emission spectrum has received little comment, especially from people who would be likely to perform any significant changes. –OrangeDog (talk • edits) 17:50, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Hydrino theory → Blacklight Power, Inc.

Hydrino theory is up for renaming again... 76.66.198.171 (talk) 04:24, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

verification of edit in g-force

Could somebody verify my use of a source at: [1], it's being claimed that I'm misrepresenting the source, but I don't believe that to be the case.

There's a copy of the important part of the source at: [2].

Many thinks.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 09:11, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

You are correct. JRSpriggs (talk) 09:37, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks!- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 10:57, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Forwarded from OlEnglish's talk page, new contributor seeking help.

I have written a rather absurd interpretation of quantum mechanics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fx303#Vector_Energy_Interpretation_of_Quantum_Mechanics which, however, is based on solid math and science references. The purpose of this interpretation is not a serious attempt to explain QM, rather to provide a means for alternate views to be expressed through semantic games over "real" and "imaginary" numbers and when to toss the imaginary component. This is for the purpose of helping someone see it in a new light and come up with a real explanation.

The VEIQM would run like: The missing atoms are not missing. They converted to negative vector energy photons and went to the universe's bank of energy-time uncertainty from which other parts of the universe can borrow. Somewhere, a bunch of atoms were needed, so that void borrowed from uncertain energy-time and brought them into existence there (wherever there is). To conserve stuff, whatever was needed took place (like creating a neutrino - hah) and all laws were satisfied. As silly as it sounds, maybe someone finds a new line of inquiry and actually figures it out from reading this.

I propose the idea to you as last editor of that article, the above is my contribution and explanation of intent.

Your call what to do with it, as a newcomer I would request to defer to you on this issue. Fx303 (talk) 14:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Welcome, and thanks for contributing! I was the last editor of that article however I only did a minor formatting edit of the layout to conform to Wikipedia's Manual of Style and I have no knowledge or expertise on the subject. I forwarded this message to Bosenova's Talk page and to WikiProject Physics' Talk page where I'm sure someone can help you with this. Sounds like it could be viewed by some editors as violating Wikipedia's Original Research policy however you mentioned it was based on "solid math and science references" so just be sure to cite your references, and go ahead and be bold! I'll help with any copy editing or formatting you may need. Expanding stubs is in my opinion the most productive way to contribute to Wikipedia so I'm grateful we have knowledgeable editors such as yourself that can do that. OlEnglish (talk) 22:05, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

CP-violation

It has been proposed below that CP-violation be renamed and moved to CP violation. Though the vote counting listed at WP:RM is false, because consensus can change thus the "votes" from 2007 and 2008 don't really count. 76.66.198.171 (talk) 14:57, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't quite get what you're trying to do by dismissing the 2007/2008 "votes". Everyone's agreeing that CP-violation should be unhyphenized.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 19:56, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

They're old, so people might have changed their minds, which means that they don't usually count towards the determination of consensus, even if it is commonsense. It would have made more sense to close the old discussion and start a new section. The consensus can change has been used several times at WP:RM to exclude excessively old opinions from the current discussion, other than in reference to the older discussions. 76.66.198.171 (talk) 04:36, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Besides, the hyphen makes no gramatical sense. it really shouldn'y be there. Dauto (talk) 03:01, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

This article is edit protected for some unfathomable reason... 76.66.198.171 (talk) 08:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Nomenclature of particle related articles

Throughout wikipedia, various particles are given various names. For example, for example pion and pi meson are the same particle, positron and antielectron are the same thin, tau particle, tauon and tau lepton are the same particle, etc... So how about naming them all consitently?

• IMO, mesons and baryons should all follow the "[Symbol] meson" and "[Symbol] baryon" (meaning pi meson and k meson over pion and kaon), etc...
• The antiparticles should be named "anti[particle name]" aka positron would be renamed antielectron, positive muon (if it exists) would be renamed antimuon, etc...
• Charged leptons should be electron muon and tauon (rather than tau lepton), for uniformity reasons.
• Individual neutral leptons should be electronic neutrino, muonic neutrino and tauonic neutrino rather than electron neutrino, muon neutrino, tauon neutrino.
• The various articles on wikipedia should follow these conventions (or whatever is agreed upon in the end) by default.

What say you? The only real problem I foresee with this is converting positron to antielectron, but doing the conversion would IMO improve the understanding of non-expert readers.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 01:47, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd prefer the article for each particle to be at the name the particle is most commonly referred to by; it's true that muon vs tau lepton sounds inconsistent, but such is the English language, and it's not Wikipedia's job to fix that. But anyway, as long as each name in use for a particle redirects to the right article, I have no strong opinion about that. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 02:06, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

IMO, this is a bad idea. First of all it conflicts with the wikipedia'S NPOV. The wiki should report the terminology as it used, not as some editors think it should be used. It has been the long standing habit that when there exist different conventions that the editors of the article in question decide which one to use. (see citation conventions, english vs. american spelling, etc.)

Moreover some of the choices you are making are very unconventional and would actually produce more confusion because the wikipedia convention is very different from that used in the real world. Especially, the use of antielectron instead of positron would be weird since in some cases it has always been refered to as positron. But also your convention for the neutrinos is far from usual. (TimothyRias (talk) 11:02, 25 January 2009 (UTC))

Well the details can be argued on, but what I mean is have some kind of universality on Wikipedia. If someone reads tau lepton, then tau particle, then tauon, then one can easily get confused. If electron neutrino is found more often than electronic neutrino, then have all the neutrinos be refered to (by default) as electron/muon/tauon neutrino. What's above is a first draft. The "by default" in there means that when a topic hasn't strongly rely on a particular use of say "positron", then antielectron would be used, unless of course people agree that on that page, positron is prefered to antielectron for XYZ reason. For example, positron emission tomography would obviously still use "positron", but a random article such as the article on antimatter would use antielectron. Unless, of course, people agree one that article's talk page that "positron" is more appropriate than antielectron for that article. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 15:18, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it might be OK to write up a general guideline for a default usage of terms, but only if there is a quite general consensus on this within WP physics. It might be helpful for editors trying to find out what terminology to use in an article. However, suggest a guideline should be very explicit that it is just a suggestion. In the end the choice of terminology should be with editors of a particular article, and last thing I want is to be stuck people arguing with me because to such an so guideline said so. (We have enough of those as it is, note WP:BURO)

That being said I think the default usage should the usage that is most general in the rest of the world. It is IMO more important that we reach so consistency with the rest of the literature. Instead of some internal consistency between the naming of essentially different things. I would suggest (based on my own perception and some simple google counting):

• leptons: electron, muon, and tau (lepton). (searching for 'tau AND electron' yields a 100 times more hits on google than 'tauon AND electron' (the AND electron was added to ensure uasage in the right context))

• tauon vs. "tau lepton" yields 777,000 vs 75,500 hits for me, while {[xt|tauon +electron}} vs. +"tau lepton" +electron yields 10,400 vs 37,500. I don't know how you got that 100 times difference. Did you put tau lepton in quotes? (And yes google hits fights limitations and all that jazz applies). Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 05:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• Pion and Kaon over Pi-meson and K-meson. Google hits on these are somewhat evenly distributed (large depending of the search context),but I believe that the terms Pion and Kaon are much more likely to be known to 'lay' readers, with Pi-meson and K-meson being (relatively) more common in technical usage.
• neutrinos: (electron) neutrino, muon neutrino and tau neutrino. These are two orders of magnitude more common on google than the -ic version proposed before. Note that exact flavour isn't that relevant it is usual better to just say neutrino, because due to high mixing of flavours the different flavours can't really be considered distinct particles.

• Dropping the -ic versions seem reasonable, but I don't see what you mean by flavour not being relevant. Leptons don't mix (at least in the SM), and you'll never see a W decay into an electron and a tauon neutrino. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 05:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• Welcome to the 21st century ;). Look up PMNS matrix and neutrino oscillation. Not only do neutrinos mix, but two of the three mixing angles are near maximal. So although particle physics interactions will produce pure weak eigenstates, these are actually superpositions of the (physical!) mass eigenstates. Moreover, the lightest neutrino cannot really be by any right assigned to one of the weak generations. Hence there are many situations where it is just better to talk about neutrinos instead of talking about a specific flavour. (ie. nuclear reactors produce high amounts of neutrinos, etc.) However, there still will be situations in which the flavour is unambiguous and relevant. (ie. a W- boson can decay in a tau and tau neutrino.(TimothyRias (talk) 09:21, 27 January 2009 (UTC))

• I'm aware of all of that. But the fact remain that people want and do talk about individual neutrino flavours, and that any discussion of the conservation of lepton numbers and weak decays will involve specific neutrino flavours. And the fact that some detectors are sensitive to only some flavours of neutrinos rather all of them means that there's something meaningfull about the concept of neutrino flavours.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 10:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• The antiparticle issue is clear (anti(particlename)) with the exception of the positron vs antielectron issue. 'antielectron' is much more common than I had thought. So I guess it is open for debate. I would tend to let the context decide what to use.

I'm of course well aware of the limitations of google as a measure, but it does give some indication of its usage. (TimothyRias (talk) 10:12, 26 January 2009 (UTC))

Can dimensionful quantities be fundamental?

Please take a look at Talk:Planck units#Need to revise 'Planck units and invariant scaling of nature'. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 13:03, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Clearup of classical mechanics

RunningOnBrains's posting about replacing Kinetics (physics) in the list of vital articles reminded me that I had noticed a while ago that the whole area of classical mechanics could do with being sorted out.

The classical mechanics article describes mechanics as being divided into three branches: Statics, "Kinetics", and Kinematics. Modern texts typically combine Kinetics and Kinematics and call it Dynamics, or don't differentiate between any of the three branches, just using the term classical mechanics for the whole subject. (More on this division is here.)

Then, looking at what articles exist in this area, there are:

• Classical mechanics - overview article (B class).
• Statics - OK as far as it goes (start class).
• Analytical dynamics - pretty poor article, mainly concerned with defining dynamics (which it does inconsistently), and doesn't have any physics content. Doesn't ever explain why it's got "Analytical" in its title.
• Kinematics - fairly good article (B class).
• Kinetics (physics) - mainly points out that "dynamics" is the modern term in a mechanics context, also uses of "kinetics" such as reaction kinetics, growth kinetics, etc.
• Dynamics (physics) - link to Analytical dynamics, brief discussion of dynamics as the time evolution of physical processes
• (There are also disambiguation pages at Kinetics and Dynamics.)

So, I'm posting here to try to establish whether there's a consensus on how the area of classical mechanics should be divided up on Wikipedia? (Perhaps something that matches a standard division of the topic as currently taught?) Is it best presented as all one subject, two subjects, or three? Under what titles?

(Just to be clear, I'm not proposing that any of these articles should be deleted - even if it's felt that some terms are no longer used, the articles should probably explain their former use and point out the current terminology.)

Thanks! Djr32 (talk) 14:31, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

RfD on radio active

Radio active → Radioactive decay

This redirect has been nominated for discussion on WP:RfD 76.66.198.171 (talk) 06:57, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Casimir cones

I've nominated Casimir cones for deletion. Although I am 99.4% sure that it is a hoax, please take a look at it in case I'm wrong. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 17:42, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Does the Introduction to special relativity need massive reorganization?

See Talk:Introduction to special relativity#A radical reorganization of this could be useful. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 22:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Periodic table (extended)

Periodic table (extended) has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.198.171 (talk) 04:29, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Trying to make EPR paradox a little clearer

Hi all,

EPR paradox is very techical, so I've had a go at making the important part legible, although it clearly needs much more work. So I would be grateful if anyone could tell me whether my recent changes to the 'explanation of the paradox' section are an improvement, or whether they contain false statements. I've just tried to make things a little clearer, but I thought I'd better check it with some experienced people first. Mark J (talk) 20:19, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

A grain of truth in Biophoton?

I opened a RFC on the Biophoton article. Is it all pseudoscience or is there something worth keeping? Also see Talk:Biophoton. 129.177.30.18 (talk) 10:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)