Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Redshift/archive1
Appearance
This article has gone through the ringer: an RfC, a peer review and some yucky edit wars. But it appears now that we have a consensus version that looks pretty good. This is a partial self-nomination, since I wrote much of the article, but there are a few other editors who deserve credit as well. --ScienceApologist 02:44, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- Just for the record:
- I do not accept that we have a consensus for the reasons I give on the Redshift talk page
- Iantresman hopes to include more perspective from non-standard cosmologies than should be included in an article. This belies consideration of the Undue weight clause of the NPOV page. --ScienceApologist 15:59, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- I believe the article is exclusive, focusing on Astronomical redshifts, despite the intro claiming that it is an "optical phenomenon"
- Indeed, that's where the term is used the most. There is mention made twice in the article that there is an informal usage associated with scattering processes. --ScienceApologist 15:59, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- You're awefully fixated on this nonsense, guess that's what you get for calling yourself an apologist--Ytrewqt 04:11, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
- Indeed, that's where the term is used the most. There is mention made twice in the article that there is an informal usage associated with scattering processes. --ScienceApologist 15:59, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- That the article includes little on (a) The history of redshift (b) How to measure redshifts (c) How you know the wavelength emitted from a distant object.
- (a) is covered under observations and causes of redshift.
- (b) is covered in the definition of redshift in terms of measuring the differences in wavelengths and frequencies associated with z.
- (c) is already discussed as involving comparison to lab spectra.
- There is no mention of:
- Anomalous redshifts
- "Anomalous redshifts" is a subject that seems to be the sole promotion of Halton Arp. We can leave that to his page. --ScienceApologist 15:59, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- Intrinsic redshifts
- Again, a Halton Arp POV. Intrinsic redshifts are not generally accepted by the scientific community and so by undue weight do not belong on this page. --ScienceApologist 15:59, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- Theoretical redshifts
- I don't even know what this means. This is, I think, an invention of User:Iantresman for frequency shifts that haven't been observed. He has lumped together all kinds of ideas surrounding redshifts including some novel and interesting ones associated with neutrinos and some which are already discussed on the page as being discounted tired light.
- Examples of optical redshifts
- Perhaps Ian can expand on this one. --ScienceApologist 15:59, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- Solar Redshifts
- Already discussed in terms of helioseismology. --ScienceApologist 15:59, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- Redshift quantizations
- Shown not to exist by recent studies of 2dF. --ScienceApologist 15:59, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- --Iantresman 12:58, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- Just for the record:
- User:Iantresman is a well-known POV-pusher of various non-standard cosmologies. He is of the opinion that physical cosmology does not conform to a neutral endeavor and that articles in Wikipedia that deal with this subject should include the extreme minority objections. This is similar to claiming that the Evolution article should include information on the objections derived from Intelligent design. I do not claim that to say that there aren't a vanishingly few number of people who dispute mainstream cosmology and the definitions given for redshift on the redshift page, but their poo-pooing does not belong on a page that is about a subject which is actually studied in depth by scientific consensus. We make mention of "alternative theories" of redshift in the article in an approrpriate amount of space. As Ian himself points out, redshift is a bigger topic than just cosmology and astronomy, and so to bog down an article with the wranglings of Arp or some other pathological skeptic is to violate the NPOV sense of the redshift article. --ScienceApologist 16:15, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- Object until a relatively stable version is acheived. Given that there's an RfA over this, I think we should hold off on featuring the article. -- stillnotelf has a talk page 16:13, 17 December 2005 (UTC) I have relisted this vote, as the subsequent edit deleted it, probably by edit conflict. -- stillnotelf has a talk page 16:22, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- If you look in the edit history, you'll see that this is a pretty stable version (it hasn't changed substantially for some time). Actually, the RfA isn't really over the article itself but more over me. I think it's Ian's disruptive designs to cast a bad light on an article that should be judged by the content of its character and not by the slander of a superfluous RfArb. This is the second RfArb that Ian has submitted and the first one was roundly rejected. I have no reason to believe this one will be accepted either. In any case, this doesn't give any indication for what it would take for you to support the nomination, so could you outline a timeline or a criteria you would need to support the nomination? --ScienceApologist 16:29, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- There have been more than 100 edits since the start of December, and it has recently been through an edit war. Even if the current version matches older versions, it's not stable, just unchanged. This means it clearly fails criterion 2.(e) of Wikipedia:What is a featured article. The edit war is, of course, over whether or not the article is NPOV and comprehensive, meaning that 2.(d) and 2.(b) are at least under debate. My serious concern is, as I said, stability, which can only be proven over time. Wait 6 months, after the controversies have hopefully ended, and nominate it again. -- stillnotelf has a talk page 22:46, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- I don't think there is any difference between unchanged and stable. Do you have a proposal to change the definition of such? I believe that criterion 2e is satisfied as shown through all the wranglings in the past few weeks we still have pretty much the same article. The NPOV disputes seem to be dying. To make a comparison, the evolution article often has people come by claiming that it isn't NPOV, but that doesn't make the article not NPOV. So I think your objections are both unreasonable. --ScienceApologist 15:18, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
- Look at the talk page. There has been so much discussion and argument over the content of the article that FOUR archives were generated in the last couple of months. I think the dust needs to settle before we can decide whether it is stable or not. You comment that "[t]he NPOV disputes seem to be dying", and I agree completely. Let's let them die completely. -- stillnotelf has a talk page 23:35, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
- Object My RfA was started mainly because of the Redshift article. --Iantresman 19:52, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- Now that the RfArb has been withdrawn, I expect that this vote will still remain as shown on the talkpage. --ScienceApologist 15:18, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
*Object Given the current content dispute sorrounding this article this FAC seems more like an attempt of the nominator to get his version of the article "approved" by the community. Even if that isn't the case, it looks bad to submit this article to FAC with a RfArb pending. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ | Esperanza 20:03, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- The submission was done before there was an RfArb. --ScienceApologist 15:41, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
- I retract my previous objection and wish to apoligize to ScienceApologist for it. Keep fighting the good fight. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ | Esperanza 18:29, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
- The submission was made 36-hours after Joshua unilaterally decided to end the Requestion for Comments, and had specifically asked for any objections, which I both made, and provided supporting evidence. See the discussion section Close RfC. --Iantresman 22:17, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
- I don't believe the closing of the RfC was unilateral as you seemed to be amiable yourself to closing it as long as we abided by the results which were ambiguous at best. --ScienceApologist 15:18, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
- Object
on two unrelated grounds. First, I should weigh in with the comments above—the article just doesn't appear stable enough. (The RfArb is a side issue, as far as I'm concerned,since I'd say the same thing just looking at this month's edit history.) However,the content of the article looks pretty good. I wouldn't quite rate it up to FA standards, but once the edit-war dust shakes down, I'd be happy to support if a few things were fixed:
- Inline references, of some sort, just so the reader can tell which paragraph traces back to which source. Much of this article appears to be the sort of stuff which is largely the same in many textbooks, so I see no need to be fanatical about footnotes, just slightly more comprehensive than the article is right now. At present, the single external hyperlink in the body text sticks out garishly.
- I'd like to hear your suggestions on this matter. Which parts are now without footnote that you would like to see with footnote? --ScienceApologist 05:39, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
"...and was first observed in the Pound-Rebka experiment.""This letter has been considered to be the first prediction of gravitational redshift."- "...a method first employed in 1868 by British astronomer William Huggins."
"Currently, the highest measured quasar redshift is z = 6.4, with the highest confirmed galaxy redshift being z = 7.0 while as-yet unconfirmed reports from a gravitational lens observed in a distant galaxy cluster may indicate a galaxy with a redshift of z = 10."- "Measuring the redshift is often easier than more direct distance measurements, so redshift is sometimes in practice converted to a crude distance measurement using Hubble's law."
- "Vesto Slipher was the first to discover galactic redshifts from ~1912, [which I presume means "circa 1912"] while Hubble correlated Slipher's measurements with distances he measured by other means to formulate his Law."
- I suppose how thoroughly one footnotes depends upon how many sources one wishes to place in subsidiary articles like Hubble's law, Vesto Slipher and so on. As for myself, I tend not to trust that such articles will in fact have their own sources listed. Anville 16:12, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
- Thanks for your suggestions User:Anville. I have struck-through the ones that I have quick-and-ready references for. The other ones are a bit difficult. William Huggins is widely quoted with discovering the spectroscopic redshift of Sirius in 1868, but I cannot find the letter he wrote that shows this. Brittanica doesn't cite this and just makes the comment. As for using the Hubble Law as a distance measurement, this practice is so commonplace that it will be quite difficult to find any one citation for this. I'm not sure if this is actionable. Finally, the Vesto Slipher discovery is in the same boat as the Huggins discovery: widely known but difficult to cull out the primary source that shows this to be the case. Would you be satisfied with the current list of citations, or can you help out with the ones not struck-through? Thanks, --ScienceApologist 23:34, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
- Well, striking out another user's comments is just a bit peremptory (see the discussion on Featured Articles Talk, going on now), but I was actually just about to strike out those bullet points myself, so I shouldn't be too miffed. (-; On the whole, I find the additional references satisfactory. It would be nice to have a pointer to a good secondary source where one could find Huggins and Slipher; certainly, I'm familiar with textbooks using information as "general knowledge" (who ever gives a footnote for the Maxwell equations anymore?). If there is a particular textbook, say, which gives more historical information than the others, then pointing to that source for the Slipher and Huggins sort of things would be a good idea. Anville 23:40, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
- Thanks for your suggestions User:Anville. I have struck-through the ones that I have quick-and-ready references for. The other ones are a bit difficult. William Huggins is widely quoted with discovering the spectroscopic redshift of Sirius in 1868, but I cannot find the letter he wrote that shows this. Brittanica doesn't cite this and just makes the comment. As for using the Hubble Law as a distance measurement, this practice is so commonplace that it will be quite difficult to find any one citation for this. I'm not sure if this is actionable. Finally, the Vesto Slipher discovery is in the same boat as the Huggins discovery: widely known but difficult to cull out the primary source that shows this to be the case. Would you be satisfied with the current list of citations, or can you help out with the ones not struck-through? Thanks, --ScienceApologist 23:34, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
- I'd like to hear your suggestions on this matter. Which parts are now without footnote that you would like to see with footnote? --ScienceApologist 05:39, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
The section on "scattering" is one paragraph, and the section on "redshift surveys" is essentially one paragraph broken into choppy pieces. Both of these could use elaboration from the "main articles" on those topics, which would make them more substantial and flow more smoothly.
- The scattering paragraph describes wavelength shifts due to scattering, but that is only an informal usage of redshift. Elaboration would be somewhat tangential to the main purpose of the article.
- Except that all the scientists who write about scattering, make no indication that they use the term informally, as is demonstrated by the numerous peer-reviewed citations. Unless of course you have ANY citations which suggest otherwise? --Iantresman 22:17, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
- Perhaps you'd like to quote a scientist who makes the claim that they aren't using the term informally when dealing with scattering? --ScienceApologist 05:39, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
- I've struck out my request for the scattering section, since it now looks adequate to me. Anville 23:42, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
- Do you have any ideas for what to include in the redshift survey paragraph?
- --ScienceApologist 15:40, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
- Hmmm, the "detailed article" on this topic isn't any larger than the section here, which means that I'd have to do some further research. I'd be happier if this section gave a sentence or two to each survey, saying what its aims were, what it discovered and maybe who operated it. Anville 16:12, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
- Best wishes, Anville 11:33, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Objecton the grounds that redshift has six alternative meanings, and that's even before I get around to adding Redshift the electronic music band to the disambiguation page. This is not to impugn the quality of the article, which is excellent. Endomion 19:58, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
- Expansion of my reasons for objecting per ScienceApologist request elsewhere:
- The Featured Article is Wikipedia putting its best foot forward. Suppose there were two very good articles, one about Berlin the city in Germany, and the other about Berlin the synth-pop band, and suppose the former was selected for FA. Instead of a very concise summary of the article on Wiki's front page, the reader would first see, "This is an article about the city in Germany. For the band fronted by Terri Nunn see 'Berlin (band)'. And the impression conveyed would be a Wikipedia that is awkward to use. Endomion 22:59, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
- First, the text on the Main Page isn't taken automatically from the article's lead. Raul654, the ratified FA Director, puts it together manually, condensing the text as needed and choosing the most appropriate picture to accompany it. If the article on Berlin made the Main Page, the text would probably begin, "Berlin is the capital of Germany and its largest city..." Only by clicking on the hyperlink would the reader become aware of the disambiguation page ("for other meanings of the word Berlin, see Berlin (disambiguation)"). I note in passing that wikilinking to "Berlin", with no parenthetical modifiers, takes you to the article on the German city, which seems an entirely reasonable choice to me: I've climbed cathedrals and seen doubled rainbows, I've seen Potsdamer Platz at night, I've eaten ice cream, slept and dreamt in the German city, and I've done none of these things within the synth-pop band. (-;
- Second, and this may be a fallacious reductio ad absurdum, but wouldn't this rationale forbid any article with a disambiguation page from becoming Featured? Anville 23:31, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
- Comment Um, is that an actionable objection to the Redshift article? At most, it sounds to me like an argument for moving this page to Redshift (astronomy) or some title like that. Anville 23:00, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
- Changing vote to Support after education of FA process from young master Anville. Endomion 02:01, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- Agreed. The redshift article already accepts that the term redshift is used (a) in the so-called bathochromic shift (b) in scattering phenomenon (of which there are serveral, but for some reason unnamed), claiming that this use of redshift is informal (no evidence provided) (c) And then further ignores other peer-reviewed usages of 'redshift' (such as "intrinsic redshift", "Compton redshift"); these forms of redshift may or may not be verified, but the terms are in use.
- It is quite a conceit to suggest that "redshift" means only Doppler, Cosmological or Gravitational redshifts, and marginalises the use of the term by all other scientists. --Iantresman 00:03, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- What are you agreeing to? That wasn't what I was talking about. I find the division between frequency shifts caused by geometry (Doppler) and frequency shifts caused by interaction (Raman, Compton, etc.) to be entirely reasonable. Confusing these two types could lead to gross errors—does the Sun turning red at sunset mean that it is speeding away from the Earth? I was not suggesting that this page be moved to Redshift (astronomy); instead, I was trying to parse Endomion's objection in a reasonable way. As I indicated above, I believe that objection is probably inactionable. Anville 00:32, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- Of course there is a difference between Doppler redshifts, and scattering redshifts. Just as there is a difference between Doppler redshifts, and Cosmological and gravitational redshifts. Because the article does not explain all this is the reason it is confusing. But you bring up another interesting point, the sun turning red at sunset; I didn't think this was a redshift? Is there a measured spectral shift? The scattering redshifts I have mentioned previously all produce actual spectral shifts. --Iantresman 09:33, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- I have explained myself more fully on the article's talk page. In my judgment (never perfect, of course), the section on "Scattering" explains this distinction fully and clearly. My only remaining objection to this article's FA candidacy is the lack of exposition on the 21-centimeter hydrogen line and Olbers' paradox, as I explain below. Anville 10:26, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- Support. I just read the article and looked at the edit history. The article is stable and it is informative. Phoenix2 00:20, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- Comment In all the fuss, it slipped my mind that the article should really talk about the 21-centimeter hydrogen line. Doppler shifts of this line, of course, were how a couple clever Dutch fellows figured out the rotation curve of the Milky Way. Oh yeah, and it's probably worth including a bit on Olbers' paradox. If these are addressed in more detail, I will likely change my vote to a support. Anville 01:01, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- 21 cm emission would be interesting to include, but I can't imagine more than one sentence on the issue (about the rotation curve). Olbers' paradox, in my opinion, doesn't belong in the article as it really doesn't have much to do with redshift other than the fact that in an accelerating universe, eventually all distant objects will be redshifted into the radio. Is this all you want? --ScienceApologist 14:14, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- One or two sentences on each topic would make me happy, as long as they're good sentences. (-; I got to play around with the 21-cm line as an undergrad, using the Haystack Observatory Small Radio Telescope (one of those many experiments which sound better in retrospect than they feel at the time), so for better or worse, the hydrogen emission line will always be with me. Anville 16:10, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- I included one sentence on the 21 cm line used in mapping the Milky Way gas distribution. I'm still not sure what you want to include with Olbers' paradox. Please explain. --ScienceApologist 16:18, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- I went ahead, looked it up and inserted the content I was asking for. My prose seems a little less than brilliant today, but at least the content is there and (I believe) reasonably clear. Now that the ingredients are together, I plan to let it simmer for a while; if no new issues arise and I don't think of anything else, I expect to change my vote to a support. Anville 19:48, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- I included one sentence on the 21 cm line used in mapping the Milky Way gas distribution. I'm still not sure what you want to include with Olbers' paradox. Please explain. --ScienceApologist 16:18, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- One or two sentences on each topic would make me happy, as long as they're good sentences. (-; I got to play around with the 21-cm line as an undergrad, using the Haystack Observatory Small Radio Telescope (one of those many experiments which sound better in retrospect than they feel at the time), so for better or worse, the hydrogen emission line will always be with me. Anville 16:10, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- 21 cm emission would be interesting to include, but I can't imagine more than one sentence on the issue (about the rotation curve). Olbers' paradox, in my opinion, doesn't belong in the article as it really doesn't have much to do with redshift other than the fact that in an accelerating universe, eventually all distant objects will be redshifted into the radio. Is this all you want? --ScienceApologist 14:14, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- Comment The Italian Wikipedia's version of this article, Spostamento verso il rosso, is Featured on their site. It gives three causes of redshift, namely Movimento della sorgente ("movement of the source"), Espansione dello spazio ("expansion of space") and Effetti gravitazionali ("gravitational effects"). If it's good enough for the Italians. . . . Anville 10:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- Strongly Object I agree with stillnotelf and then some. The article right now is the subject of a recent intense conflict between two people who seem obsessed with their opposition to each other in mulitple forums, and it seems to me that its nomination can easily be interpreted as just another tactic in that battle.
Obsessional peoplePeople who seem to be on an obsesssional mission should not be rewarded in this way.Go away.Come back in 6 months. Maybe a year. The article will still be here. Try again then. Flying Jazz 17:49, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- Suggesting that this is a "tactic" is extremely offensive to me, especially considering that this is an article, not a debate. I filed a peer review request which provided many helpful comments and then I proceeded to the FAC simply to improve this article which I have taken a personal interest in. I did this with the Big Bang article as well which worked fine. My contributions speak for themselves. User:Flying Jazz is making very daring and unsubstantiated accusations ("obsessed with their opposition to each other in multiple forums"), ("obsessional people") that border on personal attacks and do not address the rationale for having a featured article. The stability of the article is, I believe, well-proven in its edit history. I respectfully ask that this user reconsider his comments here. --ScienceApologist 18:13, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- I prefaced my opinion with the word "seem" because I freely admit that I may be wrong. However, as someone new to these kinds of debates, when I look at your user page User:ScienceApologist, I see an internet persona who has defined its very existence according to what happens with this one article and in this one debate with this one other person. Sometimes we harm things through overprotection. I think that people who are on Wikipedia "with one idea in mind" (even if it's an idea I support!), are here for the wrong reason. I don't know your real motives. I only know how it seems. I stand by my comments (except where noted). Flying Jazz 18:56, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- I respect your right to object, User:Flying Jazz, but it might be better if you asked someone to clarify their position rather than making assumptions such as this. I am involved in a number of Wikipedia projects, it just so happens that this one is the one I adopted right now. There are many different styles of editors. Some people like to spread their edits around. Others like to focus in on particular articles. I'm of the latter sort. I think you are of the former. I respect your perspective, why won't you respect mine? You can look back in my edit history to see the different projects I have been and continue to be involved in. You can check my edits to article namespaces and see what you think of them. But your painting of me in a corner is very rude, frankly, and seems a bit uncivil. --ScienceApologist 13:53, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
- I do respect the perspective of people focusing on individual articles rather than spreading edits around. There have been times in the past when I have focused on individual articles for some time. That was not the basis for my objection. I don't think your userpage and some of your comments elsewhere require any clarifications to be understood. The text speaks for itself. I think there is (and if not, there should be) a certain intermediate level of obsessiveness in individual conflicts between users that should neither be punished nor rewarded. I really don't mean to paint you into a corner, but I also don't like the idea of painting a gold star next to this article until ample time has passed. Flying Jazz 02:23, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
- I think there is (and if not, there should be) a certain intermediate level of obsessiveness in individual conflicts between users that should neither be punished nor rewarded. I'm not sure what you mean by this, but FA is not a reward nor a punishment. It is a way to improve articles. If you look at the progress that has been made since this FAC nomination was made in the editting of the article, I hope you'll see that it caused a lot of improvement. Please look at the articles themselves rather than the disputes on the talkpage to determine their worthiness for FA status. --ScienceApologist 07:57, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
- I also don't like the idea of painting a gold star next to this article until ample time has passed. -- I understand the concern about stability and that might not be applicable here, but I'm afraid you may be setting a fairly high bar here with your six months to a year criterion. Consider some FA pages like evolution which get many reverts a month. By your criteria, that article would be unstable and not worthy of FA status, wouldn't it? --ScienceApologist 07:57, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
- I do respect the perspective of people focusing on individual articles rather than spreading edits around. There have been times in the past when I have focused on individual articles for some time. That was not the basis for my objection. I don't think your userpage and some of your comments elsewhere require any clarifications to be understood. The text speaks for itself. I think there is (and if not, there should be) a certain intermediate level of obsessiveness in individual conflicts between users that should neither be punished nor rewarded. I really don't mean to paint you into a corner, but I also don't like the idea of painting a gold star next to this article until ample time has passed. Flying Jazz 02:23, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
- I respect your right to object, User:Flying Jazz, but it might be better if you asked someone to clarify their position rather than making assumptions such as this. I am involved in a number of Wikipedia projects, it just so happens that this one is the one I adopted right now. There are many different styles of editors. Some people like to spread their edits around. Others like to focus in on particular articles. I'm of the latter sort. I think you are of the former. I respect your perspective, why won't you respect mine? You can look back in my edit history to see the different projects I have been and continue to be involved in. You can check my edits to article namespaces and see what you think of them. But your painting of me in a corner is very rude, frankly, and seems a bit uncivil. --ScienceApologist 13:53, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
- I prefaced my opinion with the word "seem" because I freely admit that I may be wrong. However, as someone new to these kinds of debates, when I look at your user page User:ScienceApologist, I see an internet persona who has defined its very existence according to what happens with this one article and in this one debate with this one other person. Sometimes we harm things through overprotection. I think that people who are on Wikipedia "with one idea in mind" (even if it's an idea I support!), are here for the wrong reason. I don't know your real motives. I only know how it seems. I stand by my comments (except where noted). Flying Jazz 18:56, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- Suggesting that this is a "tactic" is extremely offensive to me, especially considering that this is an article, not a debate. I filed a peer review request which provided many helpful comments and then I proceeded to the FAC simply to improve this article which I have taken a personal interest in. I did this with the Big Bang article as well which worked fine. My contributions speak for themselves. User:Flying Jazz is making very daring and unsubstantiated accusations ("obsessed with their opposition to each other in multiple forums"), ("obsessional people") that border on personal attacks and do not address the rationale for having a featured article. The stability of the article is, I believe, well-proven in its edit history. I respectfully ask that this user reconsider his comments here. --ScienceApologist 18:13, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- Object. The looks are rather good now, but I noticed erroneous inconsistencies (perhaps originating from a confused text book) about relativistic redshifts, and there may be more. Modern journal papers agree with Einstein's 1911 logic that wave frequency can't change in space, in contrast with the nice looking but misleading "gravitational red shift" picture: in EM, the number of cycles that is emitted in free space is conserved; also the intro is affected by this. Sorry that I did not follow the development of this article, it was ScienceApologist who now asked me to have a look. But I do encourage to propose it again some time after these last glitches have been corrected. Harald88 21:56, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- Hmmm, you've got a good point. I'll go through the textbooks I have on my shelf now and see if I can devise an explanation that gets everything in the right place. Should the picture be removed, pending a fixed-up or clarified version? (Something seemed off about it, but I was too busy trying to find other stuff to include to figure out exactly what. Eit!) It's been a few years since my last relativity class, so I'll have to spend a moment figuring out just what can be deduced from what (though when it's done, it's all trivially obvious to the most casual observer). Halliday and Resnick was decent on this topic, I seem to recall, and one might be able to get something out of Taylor and Wheeler. . . . Errors found in popular exposition of relativity, film at 11. Anville 09:36, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
- Gravitional redshift is fully accounted for by gravitational time dilation between the clocks. The picture could be used to illustrate the increased wavelength due to the differing speed of light at different heights; but that has nothing to do with the subject (eventhough confusion exists about that too), and the colour change is misleading without an accompanying explanation that it refers to the locally observed colour due to different reference frequencies. All together it's more confusing than helpful in this article. Still, the picture is beautiful; maybe it can be recycled for the GRT article, accompanied by a correct explanation. Harald88 09:08, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
- Perhaps you could give us what you deem a "correct explanation"? I guess I'm not as much a stickler for the time dilation frame discussion as you. I think the assumption that there is a continuum of frames between the source and observer to be plainly obvious. --ScienceApologist 15:18, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
- Sure. Light doesn't physically encounter any "frames". I deem a "correct explanation" the very one given in the text: " the frequency of the source is actually lowered by relativistic effects". As it happens, that accounts for 100% the frequency difference. There is no apparent in-flight frequency change in GPS, as the clocks are corrected for that. I know of no other interpretation that makes sense. Harald88 17:25, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
- However, if you put detectors at sample intervals along the way and recorded the result, they would reconstruct an image of the photon shifting as in the picture. I think the distinction is arbitrary since no one specified how the observation is made in the image. --ScienceApologist 20:27, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
- Not so if you use Einstein's 1911 clock calibration method, which happens to be the currently used calibration method -- the only practicable one. The drawing suggests a continuously physically changing light wave and nothing warns a casual onlooker that it's mere appearance; thus it remains in this context either confusing, erroneous, or both. In any case counterproductive. Harald88 20:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
- That's not the only practicable calibration method. Let's say you had an array of spectroscopes stretching from the surface of your gravitating body out to some arbitrary point higher on the potential energy curve. If you shone a laser through the array of spectroscopes you could reconstruct the scenario in the drawing. The light wave would be "continuously physically changing" if you agreed that the laser always produced only one coherent frequency of radiation at the source. To deny this is to deny the fundamental continuity of free space. We aren't talking about two and only two frames here, we're talking about a spectrum of frames to arbitrary sampled precision. --ScienceApologist 21:28, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
- Comment on RfArb At present, three administrators have voted to reject hearing this matter, saying that it is a "content dispute", and that evidence does not show the parties involved attempted the previous steps in the dispute-resolution process. [1] I suggest with all due respect that this indicates the RfArb not be used as a criterion during this FAC. My standing objections are based on the article's content, which in my judgment is getting better but not quite there yet. Anville 20:13, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
- My objections are also not based on the RfArb, which I strongly opposed. Flying Jazz 02:23, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
- The RfArb has been withdrawn. Anville 22:45, 23 December 2005 (UTC)