User talk:Schunck

April 2011

Welcome to Wikipedia. It might not have been your intention, but your recent edit removed content from Nuclear structure. When removing content, please specify a reason in the edit summary and discuss edits that are likely to be controversial on the article's talk page. If this was a mistake, don't worry; the content has been restored, as you can see from the page history. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia, and if you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 03:43, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Please do not add original research or novel syntheses of previously published material to our articles as you apparently did to Linus Pauling. Please cite a reliable source for all of your information. Thank you. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 05:06, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Linus Pauling. Users are expected to collaborate with others and avoid editing disruptively.

In particular, the three-revert rule states that:

1. Making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24-hour period is almost always grounds for an immediate block.
2. Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes; work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you continue to edit war, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 05:06, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to Wikipedia, at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to Atomic nucleus, did not appear to be constructive and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and read the welcome page to learn more about contributing constructively to this encyclopedia. The reverted edit can be found here. Thank you. ► Philg88 ◄ ^talk 02:59, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate the reactivity of Wikipedia, but this can be seriously annoying sometimes: I had just finished modifying the page Atomic Nucleus and was about to justify my edits in the talk page, when I received the message that my modifications were not constructive.

I would like to draw your attention on the fact that several references to the book 'Models of Atomic Nucleus' by Norman D. Cook, ISBN 978-3-642-14736-4, have been added to Wikipedia pages related to nuclear structure. This book has been withdrawn by the publisher as "new external and internal scientific evaluation of this book revealed severe scientific errors in its content. This book does not meet scientific standards of Springer and does not meet standards of the scientific community. No reference to this book should be given. Springer cordially excuses this faulty publication, it should never have been published. Detailed analysis shows that the author uses methods and conclusions outside scientific standards". For more information, contact Prof. Thorsten Schneider, Senior Editor at <Thorsten.Schneider@springer.com>. You may also contact Prof. Achim Richter, <ar@ikp.tu-darmstadt.de>.

A number of pages on Nuclear structure, Atomic Nucleus and Linus Pauling (non-exhaustive list) have been modified by quoting this book. My attention was drawn to the problem by a colleague and I have been trying to correct all this non-sense ever since. My name is Nicolas Schunck, I am a nuclear theorist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. I would welcome any discussion, but I would also appreciate if changes were not reverted seconds after some modifications are made. Why don't you wait until I log out, or after 1 hour? On that note, I wish you a good night.

Hi, thanks for taking the time to explain. I know it can be frustrating when edits are reverted (but don't worry, they are recorded in the page history and can be reinstated later). First though, you need to get concensus on the relevant article's talk page before making significant changes. I checked the talk page for Atomic Nucleus and there is nothing in your name posted there. Maybe if you were to post the information above about the source being discredited might help. Let me know if there is anything more I can do to assist as you clearly have a contribution to make. I will not revert any more of your edits. Best ► Philg88 ◄ ^talk 03:34, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Source of information re "Models of the Atomic Nucleus"

Hi, I see that you have removed references to the above book, based on information from Thorsten Schneider of Springer Verlag. I checked online on Springer's website, where this book is still on sale. Since no reference to a verifiable reliable source for this information has been given, I think that it would have been better to have brought this to the attention of other editors on the talk page(s) before making edits. I'm not suggesting that the statement is untrue, just that no source has been provided to back it up. Thanks. --TraceyR (talk) 22:13, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Developments around the book "Models of the Atomic Nucleus"

Hello Tracy, Philg88,

The situation has become a little bit more complicated. The book 'Model of Atomic Nucleus' does not meet accepted scientific standards, and I must say, in a very spectacular way. It contains innumerable factual errors about nuclear physics in general, and nuclear structure in particular. Even the introduction manages to reveal how ignorant the author is of nuclear physics. It is sufficient to read the first chapters of the textbook by Nobel Prize winners Bohr and Mottelson to realize that what Mr. Cook writes goes against 80 years of nuclear physics. It ignores or dismisess results of thousands of inambiguous experiments, as well as the most visible applications of nuclear science, from nuclear energy to medicine to weapons. In itself, this would be somewhat harmless if Mr. Cook, or some colleages of him, had not also started the process to inseminate these very peculiar theories about the nucleus in all relevant Wikipedia pages (in particular Nuclear structure, Atomic Nucleus and Linus Pauling, there may be others).

Members of the nuclear physics community grew alarm by this genuine risk of spreading of pseudo-science. Profs. Schneider's and Richter's attention was drawn to the blatant failure of Springer's refereeing process. After some examination, they decided to proceed to the withdrawal of the book. I was granted the use of a letter by them to support any modification I would have to make on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, this was done a little hastily: Springer has some strict criteria to remove a book from sale. In particular, an additional independent review of the book must be done before any decision is made. This review is in process right now.

So the situation is rather bad, because at first sight, it may look like it's pretty much my word against Mr. Cook's word (or whoever made modifications in his name). I can only say that I am myself a nuclear theorist with 12 years experience in the field, that I speak pretty much in the name of the nuclear physics community, that the aforementioned textbooks clearly show the flaws and inconsistencies of Mr. Cook's opus... but I am also aware of the technical nature of the problem: who's going to read these books, and who (apart from people with a very decent background in quantum mechanics) will understand them?

I would therefore like to know what we should do: can we 'remove' temporarily only those parts of the 3 articles Nuclear structure, Atomic Nucleus and Linus Pauling that quote the book by Cook (or the close packed spheron model, which is a toy model proposed by Pauling in his old age, not predictive, totally irrelevant in today's science, and which is presented by Cook as the cornerstone of nuclear physics)? Is it sufficient to place a tag on these articles questioning their validity (the english version of Nuclear structure originates from the translation of the article I wrote for the French Wikipedia, so I would be a little embarassed by this :-)

I need the help of more experienced users of Wikipedia.

I don't see a problem here. Wikipedia doesn't allow original research in articles: everything has to be backed up by references to reliable sources. At the moment, Cook's book satisfies the criteria for being a reliable source, so the references to it are valid Wikipedia content. If Springer's referees decide that the book does not satisfy their criteria and Springer withdraws it from publication, then (I suppose) the situation changes. I introduce the element of doubt in this last statement because the situation is new in my experience here. It may well be that references to it would still be permitted, e.g. to illustrate that some aspects of current nuclear theory are not undisputed. It would be a brave man who claimed to speak for the whole nuclear physics community on this matter, since there are many different models of nuclear structure and still no consensus, i.e. a lot of theory but little agreement. At the moment it would be incorrect to remove references to this book from Wikipedia. We must wait and see. --TraceyR (talk) 06:18, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I agree with TraceyR that the references should stay for now but there are a couple of things you can do. You can qualify the information you believe to be incorrect, e.g. "Other scholars argue ..." but you will need to back up such edits with references. Alternatively, you can place the {{Disputed}} template at the top of the relevant article and make your points on the associated talk page. Hope this helps, Best ► Philg88 ◄ ^talk 06:36, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, we'll wait and see.

TraceyR, I can't help from commenting on your statement about nuclear models. While there are lots of models around, the misconception is that they are independent of one another, or even contradictory with one another. This is incorrect: these models complement themselves, and the logical connection between all of them is perfectly well known by theorists. As an analogy, imagine looking at a rock at different resolutions: whether you look at it with your eye, with a lens, with an optical microscop or with a tunnel effect microscop, you don't see the same thing, and you don't use the same 'models' to describe what you see, and make quantitative predictions. Yet not only is it the same object, but there is a very logical hierarchy between these different resolutions and therefore between these different models. It's a bit the same with nuclear structure: the liquid drop model works at the grossest resolution and misses the so-called shell effect; the phenomenological nuclear mean-field theory works at a finer resolution because it captures these missing shell effects while retaining the liquid-drop features; the self-consistent mean-field theory is one level more fundamental because it computes the mean-field (instead of parametrizing it) starting from some 2-body interaction; the nuclear shell model is even more precise because it goes beyond the independent particle model implicit in mean-field approaches and adds correlations, etc, etc. Sorry for the little course, I couldn't resist :-) The point is, all of this is no original research at all: it has been known for at least 40 years. This is really basic nuclear physics, of the kind you learn in Graduate School at the University. This is this well-known corpus of science that Cook attacks in his book. It is also the reason why I dared say that I spoke in the name of the nuclear physics community: certainly, there are lots of disputes in the community about this theory or another. There are also many areas of nuclear structure where I am not qualified to make any statement. But in spite of these differences, we all agree on 2+2=4, and we all agree on a certain number of basic facts. All except one, apparently...

Thanks for taking the time to explain the above. My reference to original research links to the Wikipedia basic principle of "no original research", i.e. everything in Wikipedia must be backed up by reliable external sources. In the context of this thread I was interested in the source of the information that Springer was withdrawing the book, which would have justified your removal of content from the various articles. You have since explained that this is not yet in the public domain; the consensus here seems to be that the deletions are not (yet?) justified. As far as Wikipedia is concerned, the edits should be reverted while we await the outcome of Springer's review.

I have been looking online for more background to this matter and see that there is a recent (Jan. 2011) arXiv paper by Cook called "The Inherent Geometry of the Nuclear Hamiltonian" (here), which mentions that the idea of an fcc nuclear model was first suggested by Wigner in 1937(!) and that it has been developed by other physicists (as well as Cook) since then. I can't imagine that Wigner was involved with "pseudo-science"; the above paper doesn't mention Pauling's spherons - the claim that Cook thinks that Pauling's work is the "cornerstone of nuclear physics" seems to be a misunderstanding of his position. I also came across the abstract of a presentation in Zakopane in 2002, which you co-authored with Dudek and Gozdz (here), with the title "Atomic Nuclei with Tetrahedral and Octahedral Symmetries" and wondered whether there might be some common ground between your work and the fcc models (which, as suggested by Wigner, Cook et al, display such symmetries). I'm surprised by the mention of "innumerable factual errors" in the book; do you mean that the nuclear physics community knows what the structure of the nucleus is and that Cook just gets it wrong? --TraceyR (talk) 15:50, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Update: The last time I checked the Springer website, the second edition of 'Models of Atomic Nucleus' was still available from Springer Verlag and sample pages could be downloaded. Indeed, the statistics suggest that many downloads have taken place over the last 90 days, indicating significant interest. Can you tell me the state of the review process? It is now several months since you wrote that it was being reviewed but nothing has happened. Have the complaints been withdrawn, or is the review just taking a long time? Thanks.--TraceyR (talk) 22:43, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Hey Tracy: I don't know about the status of the review process. I assume that it is on-going: referee reviews can take months for just a regular article, so for an entire book, it may be longer. I can try to get some info. About the downloads: is it the only book where download info is available? User:Schunck 4 September 2011

No, downloads of samples pages and/or chapters are available for many Springer titles. You mentioned earlier that many members of the physics community complained to Dr, Schneider and Prof. Achim Richter about this book and demanded its withdrawal; I gather from your comments that Prof. Richter agreed with their complaint. Do you know how who else complained about it? Is it fair to assume that the book cannot be spectacularly unscientific, if it is taking so long to review it? Thanks. --TraceyR (talk) 16:23, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

"Atomic Nuclei with Tetrahedral and Octahedral Symmetries"

Things have been quiet for a few days, so I thought I'd ask you about the tetrahedral and octahedral symmetries you wrote about. Are these "real" in the sense of being characteristics of the nucleus, or are they used in computational algorithms because they make massive simulations easier to program (or for some other reason)? Reading "Models of the Atomic Nucleus", and seeing there the correspondence between the Schrödinger equation and the co-ordinates of the lattice model, it made me wonder whether the use of tetrahedral and octahedral symmetries in nuclear theory was a coincidence or not. I'm not a professional physicist, so if you have time to answer this question, please keep it simple! I'm also puzzled by the references to factual errors and poor science in the book; I found it very readable and accessible to the non-specialist - can you tell me what sorts of errors you and others are concerned about? Thanks. --TraceyR (talk) 14:03, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Dear Tracey, my apologies for not answering earlier, I have been quite busy recently. First, the quick and easy answer about Wigner: in 1937, people knew very little about nuclei. What looked like a great idea in 1937 may be laughed at in 2011, no offence intended. And even if it is not the case for Wigner, who's one of the greatest mathematical physicists, geniuses are sometimes misled: think of Newton and his alchemy experiments.

The the not-quick-at-all but still easy answer about the tetraheral and octaheral symmetries. I have to start with some historical remarks. Back in the 30ies, people first thought of the nucleus as a sort of quantum liquid drop (Bethe-Weiszacker, 1935). By making such a hypothesis, they could reproduce all nuclear masses, within 10-20% I reckon. At that time, that was already a great achievement. In fact, that was good enough to design nuclear weapons that worked (for good or bad, that's another debate). In the fifties came a major breakthrough with the realization by Goeppert-Meyer and Jensen, that a nucleus possesses a so-called shell-structure: if one assumes that nucleons (protons and neutrons ) inside the nucleus can only have discrete energies, then one can explain qualitatively and quantitatively why some nuclei (16O, 40Ca, 48Ca, 56Ni, 100Sn, 132Sn, 208Pb) are much more stable (= more bound = larger binding energy) than others.

At this point, all this was still very empirical and primarily motivated by the need to explain existing data. Among the open questions: what was the reason why nucleons were staying together to form this mysterious liquid drop? What explained this shell structure? Could we compute all this accurately and precisely? Could we actually reconcile these two pictures of the nucleus?

The late 50ies to the mid-70ies were definitely the Golden Age of nuclear theory.

• People combined the idea of the shell structure with that of the liquid drop and invented the so-called macroscopic-microscopic models. Roughly speaking, one computes the energy of the liquid drop as before (with a few additional parameters to capture a bit more physics), and one adds then a 'shell correction' which is itself computed separately based on basic quantum mechanics techniques. To make that work really well, people realized that most nuclei should be deformed instead of spherical. Big names: Myers, Swiatecki, Nilsson. It's still in use today, because it has been fine-tuned over the years and has reached a good level of precision.
• From the moment nuclei are deformed, they can in principle undergo rotation (in quantum mechanics, one can demonstrate that a spherical object can not rotate) and vibrations. People designed the so-called collective model to describe these phenomena and were able to explain the excited states of many nuclei. Big (huge, actually) names: Bohr and Mottelson who both got the Nobel prize in 1975.
• In parallel, a lot more was gradually being discovered about the interaction between nucleons. This was the beginning of more microscopic approaches to nuclear structure: instead of starting from basic experimental data and trying to reproduce them with some model like the liquid drop, the macroscopic-microscopic models, etc., wouldn't it be better to start with what makes all that possible, namely the force between the neutrons and protons, and derive/predict all the properties that are observed experimentally? Only thing is: such a program is a formidable challenge

1. because the interaction between neutrons and protons is not an elementary interaction, but derives from the strong force of QCD. Nucleons are composite objects made of quarks, and it is the 'averaging' of the strong interaction among the quarks that generates the interaction between the nucleons. Back in the 50ies, very little of this was known.
2. because there aren't just 2 nucleons interacting in the middle of nowhere, but several dozens of them (208 for the most common Lead isotope): even if we knew perfectly the interaction between 2 nucleons only, which we don't even now, we would still have to deal with the fact that these 2 nucleons are in the middle of a big crowd of other nucleons, with which they interact, etc.: the problem is a (quantum) many-body problem.

In spite of these difficulties, there were major advances, which have led over the years to the development of:

• the so-called self-consistent mean-field theory of nuclei and its various extensions (a few mysterious acronyms for some of these extensions: RPA, GCM, TDHF, etc.)
• what is now known as the Nuclear Shell Model (very little to do with the historical shell model of Goeppert-Meyer)
• in the past 20 years, the Ab Initio approaches to nuclei (no-core shell model, coupled cluster theory, many-body perturbation theory).

By the way: these are the 3 main families of nuclear theories today, and one could even argue that the ab initio approaches should be merged with the Nuclear Shell Model. Many many big names here: Brueckner, Skyrme, Thouless, Bethe (Nobel Prize), Hill, Wheeler, and I only stop at the end of the 60ies.

After this very long introduction, why tetrahedral nuclei? I mentioned that nuclei could be deformed. In the macroscopic-microscopic model, this is simply an observation: for the model to match experimental data, we must introduce deformations so that masses, quadrupole moments, low-lying excited states can be reproduced. Most of the time, we are talking about nuclei that look like an american football with very rounded tips (not very deformed). But in the pure microscopic approach, where we start from the interaction between the nucleons, we can actually demonstrate that there is a mechanism which generates automatically deformations in precisely the right nuclei where experiment indicates deformations! This mechanism is called spontaneous symmetry breaking, and is at play in many other areas of physics. The idea of tetrahedral nuclei stemmed from this observation: we showed that tetrahedral deformation led to an increase in binding energy in some nuclei. So far so good, but we worked within a certain theoretical framework (macroscopic-microscopic models, as well as the self-consistent mean-field theory). In particular, we did not take into account additional correlations, described by some of the mysterious acronyms I listed above. These additional correlations may either cancel this energy gain, or more likely, contribute to blur the signature of tetrahedral shapes. Experiments performed so far failed to give any clear-cut evidence for these shapes... and I've been working on different things for the past 6 years now...:-)

Critics of the book 'Model of the Atomic Nucleus' by N. D. Cook

Now the very difficult answer to what is wrong with Cook. I would paraphrase you by saying "the nuclear physics community knows a lot more what the structure of the nucleus is than Cook and [..] Cook just gets it completely wrong". [By the way, Cook is a computer scientist, not a nuclear physicist by formation].

Overall, his book does not present the most important theories of nuclear structure like the self-consistent nuclear mean-field theory and its various extensions (RPA, GCM, etc.), or the nuclear shell model (the contemporary version of it, not the one of 60 years ago). It also does not discuss the problem of determining nuclear forces from the underlying QCD. Worse, when Cook does touch upon some of these issues, he makes enormous mistakes. Take Fig. 7.2 page 144. The Woods-Saxon, square well and harmonic oscillators shown in Fig. 7.2a are not effective forces but one-body potentials. The Hartree-Fock potential is also a one-body potential and to compare it with a nucleon-nucleon force as Cook book is totally wrong. I don't know how familiar you are with mathematics, bur roughly speaking, the curve of Fig. 7.2b should not be compared with the curve of Fig. 7.1 (comparing apples to bananas) but with the folding of the curve in Fig. 7.1 with the density of nucleons (shown e.g. in Fig. 6.3a). At least that wuld be correct mathematically, but would still be meaningless physically because Fig. 7.1 shows (old) examples of the bare nucleon-nucleon force, i.e. two nucleons interacting in the vacuum, while Fig. 7.2 is obtained from an effective nucleon-nucleon force, i.e. two nucleons interacting in the nuclear medium (=inside the nucleus). To make a bold analogy, such a mistake is like writing latin without knowing there are declinations...

Another, perhaps simpler, example: Cook's assertion that the nuclear mean-free path is small at about 3 fm, the main conclusion of Chap. II.5 of his book. Actually, this chapter is nothing but a long litterary dissertation about the mean free path, where Cook cherry-picks isolated phrases from a large number of often prestigious references to support his claim that the mean free path of nucleons inside the nucleus is a big issue, that has been avoided by the community, etc, etc. The point that he totally misses is not whether the mean free path is 3 fm, 4 fm or 10 fm, or even 1 fm: it's that it is of the order of magnitude of the size of the nucleus. To make it more striking: imagine a circular room of 6 meters of radius so packed with people that they are actually litterally on top of each other. Then a single guy runs into the room for 3 long meters (or 2 or 5) before finally hitting someone: do you call that a short run? To be more accurate, let's not forget that the mean-free path is essentially a classical concept. To extend this concept to quantum mechanical systems is dangerous and subject to misconceptions. This is why the textbooks that Cook lists to back his claim that the issue has been neglected (Sec. 5.1, bottom of page 96) often talk about the mean free path at the beginning, in the introduction, as a way to introduce the reader with some important qualitative facts about the nucleus. But they don't stick with it, because they know that this concept is ill-defined in a many-body quantum system like the nucleus.

Finally, one last example on fission. One of Cook's statements is that current models can not explain assymetric fission without mysteriously fiddling with some parameters. I am sorry to say that this is total non-sense. Both the macroscopic-microscopic approach, which alas Cook persists to call the shell model, and the self-consistent nuclear mean-field theory explain assymetric fission very satisfactorily qualitatively and to some extent, quantitatively. For the macro-micro approach, the paper by Moller that he quotes is the best reference. It does not resort to "'manipulations' of multi-dimensional nuclear potential well" (actually, 'nuclear potential energy surfaces' would be the correct expression here). Instead, it is using one of the most fundamental principle of physics, which states that the energy of a system tends to be minimal. The fission pathways are obtained by computing the energy of the nucleus over a large number of deformation degrees of freedom: the multi-dimensional surfaces thus obtained display valleys (regions of local minimum energy) that drive the nucleus to various scission configurations (scission= the point the where the nucleus breaks in 2 fragments). Ideally, one should actually consider *all* possible shapes and sizes, but this is of course impossible to implement. Five-dimensional deformation spaces appear to be the minimum to reproduce experimental data, and this is Moller's point. To call this a manipulation is a gross display of incompetence at best, and deceitful at worst.

In conclusion, my problem with Cook is that he basically ignores about 50 years of progress in nuclear theory. To the 'expert' eye of the nuclear physicist, he also shows several stigmas of pseudo-science... as defined by Wikipedia (in particular points 3.1, 3.4 and 3.6):

   3.1 Use of vague, exaggerated or untestable claims
   3.2 Over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation
   3.3 Lack of openness to testing by other experts
   3.4 Absence of progress
   3.5 Personalization of issues
   3.6 Use of misleading language

Sorry I haven't replied before; thanks for the lengthy explanations above. Judging by the criteria for pseudo-science you cite from Wikipedia, many of the works which Cook cites in his chapter about the Mean Free Path would seem to qualify. ;.)

Fun aside, I don't understand the analogy about a (single) guy running into a 6m diameter room so full that "people are literally on top of each other" (i.e. a very densely-packed room); if he gets 3m into the room before banging into someone then (a) the room really isn't full or (b) he stops somehow as soon as he gets in or (c) they're all moving in the same direction as he is and he manages to slot in without a collision (unlikely but not impossible). I thought that the MFP concept applied to the steady state of the people in the room - are they able to circulate (as party etiquette requires!) or are they so packed that movement (orbit) is impossible? From a common-sense point of view, to speak of an orbit as being less than the circumference of a nucleus seems to be a contradiction in terms! The first manned space flights in the US Mercury programme were "sub-orbital"; it wasn't until John Glenn made three orbits around the earth that the term "orbit" was used! OK, it's just an analogy but a mean free path of 3fm doesn't make an 'orbit'.

I suppose my main problem is the way that scientists are reacting to Cook's ideas. There doesn't seem to be any objection which couldn't be addressed in a revised edition. Is this the way science deals with ideas which don't conform to current mainstream dogma? Trying to get the book banned rather than addressing (and possibly refuting) its ideas seems not to conform to the noble scientific tradition. --TraceyR (talk) 12:55, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I try to adress your 'main problem' below.

Reasons to withdraw the book

As far as Cook is concerned, the bottom line is that he is trying to sell a book called 'Models of The Atomic Nucleus'. With such a title, you would expect a comprehensive review of the various theoretical models of the nucleus. It could either be a high-level (meaning: pedagogical) presentation, or a technical presentation. In both cases, such a book would be very welcome. However, by ignoring 50 years of research in the field, Cook discredits himself entirely: how can he omit the theories that I listed above, which are the cornerstone of all modern nuclear structure??? If you were to present a complete history of the presidents of the United States and would stop your presentation after, say, Andrew Jackson, that would be a little misleading to your reader, wouldn't it? In addition, 50% of his book is anyway nothing but a manifesto for his own pet model, the lattice model (more on it below).

Now, the editors don't want to go through the withdrawal process just for fun, or because they are malicious: it is actually a pretty drastic step for them, which I suspect will cause them some kind of legal trouble, and I don't believe they are very eager for that. The reason for the withdrawal is, the book does not meet the publication standards of this textbook series. Simple as that. It had been reviewed by referees (1 or 2, I don't remember), yes, but they clearly did not do their job professionally, either by incompetence, lazyness, or because they were partial. Unfortunately, it happens. Now, when you say "There doesn't seem to be any objection which couldn't be addressed in a revised edition", I have to disagree: to meet the standard of a textbook in nuclear structure, it's an entire new book that is needed, not just a few revisions.

About the Lattice Model

Another matter is the model that Cook describes abundantly in his book, the so-called lattice model. The way modern science works, if you have some great idea about something, you first try to publish it in the appropriate scientific review, not to boost your ego, but in order for other specialists in the field to get to know about it and set about confirming/refuting it. For nuclear physics, that could be Nature (really major discovery in the field), Physical Review Letters (outstanding discovery), Physical Review C (excellent piece of work), etc. So you write an article, which is reviewed by independent referees, chosen by the editor as 'experts in the field'. These referees can accept the work 'as is', suggest revisions, demand revisions, reject the work. In each case, they are supposed to give the justifications for their recommendation. If the author disagrees with the verdict of the reviewers, (s)he can appeal to the editor of the review, who will usually try to contact another referee, etc. It can take several months, sometimes. Let's be honest: there is a human factor, and unfortunately, they are excellent articles which are turned down, and very poor ones which are published. Overall, though, the system works more or less OK.

Most importantly, though, if your great idea is actually really great (meaning it is correct), it will usually lead to new predictions later confirmed by experiment, or be able to explain experimental results that other models can't explain. In other words, it will be confirmed by experiments: It is therefore important that your theory lends itself to experimental tests. Otherwise, it's like philosophy: you may argue for ever, but there is no final verdict. This feature of scientific theories is the famous refutability clause of K. Popper. In the case of the Lattice Model:

• The model does not predict anything new. Period.
• Neither does it explain things that other models can not explain. Period.
• As presented in this book, it does not actually lend itself to experimental testing. Period.

In fact, I was searching for comparisons of theoretical calculations with experimental data in this book: I believe there are only 6 such figures, Fig. 11.8 - 11.10 (where fcc would fare very poorly compared to modern theoretical approaches), 11.19, 11.27 and 11.33. In the case of the last 2, I would actually be very interested in knowing the details of the calculations, not just the end product (I happen to be working on the theory of nuclear fission these days...): this is again the problem of testing new theories.

Conclusion: based on my reading of the book, my personal assessment on the lattice model is that, considering the state of the field in 2011, it is a totally useless contribution. Actually, the most astonishing piece is certainly Sec. 12.2, page 218, about... Peer Review. The author candidly gives a list of quotations from all the referees who reviewed the articles he submitted, and rejected them, and he laments about the lack of open-mindedness of the scientific community (point 3.5 of pseudo-science). I see it as a healthy confirmation that all in all, the system works. Actually, this section is a somewhat sad and pathetic, but fitting, conclusion to this book.