Talk:Jim Al-Khalili

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Jim Al-Khalili article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

This article was nominated for deletion on 2006-12-29. The result of the discussion was Keep.

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.

If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

Biography: Arts and Entertainment / Science and Academia

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by the arts and entertainment work group (assessed as Low-importance).
	This article is supported by the science and academia work group (assessed as Low-importance).

Science Low‑importance

	Science portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Science, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Science on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ScienceWikipedia:WikiProject ScienceTemplate:WikiProject Sciencescience articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

‹See TfM›

Physics: Biographies Mid‑importance

	Physics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Physics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhysicsWikipedia:WikiProject PhysicsTemplate:WikiProject Physicsphysics articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by Biographies Taskforce.

The following Wikipedia contributor may be personally or professionally connected to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view.

Phs1ja (talk · contribs) / Al-Khalili, Jim Al-Khalili, Jim

Muslim

If he is muslim, it should be mentioned. 87.101.224.234 (talk) 04:19, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the issue of whether I am a Muslim or not, my religious beliefs are private. In fact, I am not a Muslim. My father is, and my mother is a practicing Christian. I am an atheist. But I do not feel this is something that needs to be common knowledge on my wikipedia page.

Jim Al-Khalili Phs1ja (talk) 13:52, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WOW is that really you Prof.? I'm really honored. I'm a hug fan of you. I'm a 26 years old Iraqi Electrical Enginerr, I work in Saudi Arabia. Its a great honor to meet you online 77.30.26.97 (talk) 06:47, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, it's probably not a matter of privacy after it's been explicitly published in the Guardian. If you want it removed here for security or other reasons you would need to raise a wikipedia OTRS ticket on it, and they will delete it here and on the main page.- Wolfkeeper 22:19, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipidians can argue till the cows come home about these few words- the fact of the matter is that as a result of watching "chemistry" on bbci and coming to this resource to find out more, I, a two times Physics drop out from the '80s, have been inspired to go back to Physics and chemistry using the web resources of Prof Al-Khalili and others and begin again the journey of exploration for myself - from a school chemistry technician. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.158.54 (talk) 11:44, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Desert Island Discs (14th Feb 2010)

Prof Al-Khalili is speaking on BBC Radio Four as I type. I thought his first choice of music, She's Not There, was particularly appropriate for a theoretical physicist!

Worth of mention in the main article? R L Lacchin (Gloucester, UK) (talk) 11:37, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If that's the best you can do, don't. You're on the verge of religious mania - disproportionate worship of your fetish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.246.165.184 (talk) 21:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What a bizarre outburst! I'd never heard of the man until I switched on the radio and heard him speak. If it's not appropriate, please feel free to say so, but keep things in proportion! (I see someone has added it anyway.) R L Lacchin (Gloucester, UK) (talk) 11:52, 15 July 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.240.163.101 (talk) [reply]

ISBN numbers

I should probably mention at this stage a mild conflict of interest, in that my 11-year-old brother's best friend is the professor's nephew... is that important enough to be considered COI? Yes? No? Whatever. Right. OK. My point is, should we include ISBN numbers for Prof Al-Khalili's books as generally useful information, or remove them as being tantamount to advertisement? I've not been as active on Wikipedia as I used to be, so I'm out of touch with the relevant rules/policies/whatever.--Vox Humana 8' 01:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Until someone can answer my NPOV comments, I think there are many other things in this encyclopaedia you could better spend your time on. This article is a prime demonstration of why Wikipedia urges articles not to be written on living persons. Firstly, it's author is at the very least an acolyte of the subject, infringing NPOV. Secondly, just as mediaeval scribes didn't start copying until after the author's death (not least in case the author ended up on the wrong side of the Inquisition, putting the copyist on the spot), so we shouldn't until an independant authority has established serious history - we infringe original work. Thirdly, contentiousness: he's a theoretical physicist turned pundit, he has no qualifications as a historian. If you must, put a couple of links to Amazon, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.246.165.184 (talk) 21:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to have failed to understand NPOV. Neutral point of view is nothing to do with who writes the article or when, it's to do with matching the article to what is in reliable sources about the subject. You're also failing to understand that his work has been published by a broadcaster, and hence has been through an editorial process. These are the things that the Wikipedia requires, not whether somebody is claimed by you to be an 'acolyte' or not.- Wolfkeeper 21:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ISBN numbers are about "sharing the world's knowledge". They work just as well in your local public library and are not considered intrinsically commercial in nature.--66.240.163.101 (talk) 14:14, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Arabic

Does he know Arabic?--Aa2-2004 (talk) 15:14, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Programme on electricity

The section on science broadcasting could add details of the programme which he has began to present on BBC Four on electricity. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:23, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From Jesus Christ

Mr. Sad Dick sometimes is a simpleton (at the BBC atom documentary). Study deeper the probability theory. Particles are related probabilistic phenomena which are continuous in space, but their probabilistic density is harmoniously quantized. Harmony means least common multiple, but because of the renormalization deviations do occur in some cases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:410A:F300:D88F:F089:47F1:5C81 (talk • contribs) 08:14, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

probabilistically conditional probability — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:410A:F300:D88F:F089:47F1:5C81 (talk • contribs) 08:52, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bibliography

I have commenced a tidy-up of the Bibliography section using cite templates. Capitalization and punctuation follow standard cataloguing rules in AACR2 and RDA, as much as Wikipedia templates allow it. ISBNs and other persistent identifiers, where available, are commented out, but still available for reference. Feel free to continue. Sunwin1960 (talk) 10:26, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Start date of Life Scientific and duplication

There appears to be an editing glitch regarding the programme "The Life Scientific".

The first reference gives the correct year (2011) and features the first programme with Paul Nurse, the second states date to be the same as a preceding one of 2012. Can these be tidied as a single correctly-dated reference? ThanksPhysicistQuery (talk) 23:53, 29 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. There was duplication of "The Life Scientific" content; I combined it into one paragraph and there's no longer the mention of "in the same year" (meaning 2012). Schazjmd (talk) 00:01, 30 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]