Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive November 2022

Fluid dynamics

Would be great if someone can incorporate links to Leonid Leibenson from appropriate articles as it is currently orphaned. Shyamal (talk) 07:49, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Fock's sphere in theory of hydrogen atom

Hello, the new article Fock's sphere in theory of hydrogen atom appears (to my non-physicist's eye) to be a rewrite of Fock symmetry in theory of hydrogen. This was discussed and redirected a year ago, following discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics/Archive_August_2021#Fock_symmetry_in_theory_of_hydrogen. If this new article is a rewrite, then is it better than the original? Can and should the two be merged? Thanks, Storchy (talk) 10:19, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

It has now been moved to draft space. It was created by a known self-promoter. And to my inexpert eye, it adds nothing but a sort of oo-ah tone that does not belong in WP. What Fock symmetry redirects to seems to me to be more complete and considerably more understandable. IMO, it should have been deleted. —Quondum 12:58, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. Just noticed their sandbox, which clarifies how the "new" version is simply minor tweaks of the old [1]. Storchy (talk) 13:31, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Should my user page be deleted?

Again someone is trying to delete my user page. If you have an opinion on that, please express it at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:JRSpriggs (2nd nomination). JRSpriggs (talk) 02:43, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Closed as snow keep. Thanks for your support. JRSpriggs (talk) 01:41, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

AfD: Gravitational coupling constant

At Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gravitational coupling constant —Quondum 18:42, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Proton radius puzzle on Muon page

I don't know all the details of the papers on this topic, but this section of the page about the muon should at least be updated to reflect the details given at Proton_radius_puzzle. It currently only goes cites things to 2015, and quite a bit has changed since then. The Proton_radius_puzzle also feels out of date, being phrased as if this is still a significant issue, whereas I believe it's mostly resolved as of ~2020. - Parejkoj (talk) 08:38, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I significantly shortened this section and merged it with the previous one. Ruslik_Zero 20:20, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

ANI about a pseudoscientific theory of gravity

This was an interesting discussion at ANI: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Persistent posting of original research and pointless chat at Talk:Gravity. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 02:31, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Slip bands

We have an article titled Slip bands, which is terrible, and doesn't even define what they are. We also have an article titled Lüders band, which is much shorter, but is better written.

Are these the same thing? Should they be merged? Is there a difference? This is WAY out of my area of expertise, and I'm having trouble even making a dent in trying to wrap my head around the topic. PianoDan (talk) 17:32, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Policies on academic notability/mathematical OR?

Hi, I cannot seem to find any notability guidelines on academic subjects (as opposed to academics). A highly technical subject would be unlikely to meeet WP:N because nobody writes articles about, say, Gibbs free energy, but it is certainly a notable subject; on the other hand, applying WP:N to sources such as textbooks also doesn't quite work (something mentioned across several well-renowed but specialised textbooks, such as Method of virtual quanta, is clearly non-notable). There does not seem to be a clear equivalence that can be drawn from the existing policy. Is there any separate consensus to this matter (and if so is there a place where people can look it up)? Sorry if I'm butting into a discussion that's been had thousands of times.

Separate issue - a lot of physics or mathematics articles have sections of derivations or calculations marked with original research tags. While in many cases it would be possible to find a textbook in which the exact derivation is repeated, it should probably not be necessary to do so (as anyone who understands the derivation would be able to verify it). Is there any consensus as to the threshold for this either? Fermiboson (talk) 21:48, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

@Fermiboson, notable in the Wikipedia sense means already well-known as shown by the existence of multiple in-depth sources from reliable publishers independent of the originators of the topic. Specialized textbooks are fine. See Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (science). We don't expect academic topics to use sources from the popular press.

On the other issue, much of the core content of our scientific and technical articles was added before Wikipedia articles required sources. In fact material in textbooks was thought not to require sources in our articles because it was already in textbooks. We now recognize the need for sources in part because of the difficulties raised at scientific articles. People wanted to add their own theories of relativity or ideas about quasars. Current policy requires sources, including for derivations. We encourage adding sources to existing material in articles. StarryGrandma (talk) 22:15, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. Fermiboson (talk) 22:25, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Draft article

I have created Draft:Method of virtual quanta, and would appreciate anyone more knowledgable in the topic to make the article more accurate/concise and sound less like Jackson. Fermiboson (talk) 11:23, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Myriads of forever-to-be-stubs

What do others feel about the tendency to create a separate article for each variant of something instead of a redirect? It is not as though there is much to say about tera-, ronto-, quecto-, etc. (twenty-four of these in total!) that cannot be said at Metric prefix. These stubs also introduce a lot of duplication. Further, any examples that these might provide belong in the order-of-magnitude articles. —Quondum 20:20, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

I would prefer to see like stubs upmerged into a parent article from which they could be broken out again if content develops to justify that. BD2412 T 20:46, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

@Sheila1988: You might like to opine, given that you have recently added a few. —Quondum 21:17, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes I suppose they could all be folded into a single article. The only really relevant info is the etymologies. Sheila1988 (talk) 21:05, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, merge and redirect. Primefac (talk) 12:41, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that the etymologies are either valuable or accurate. At times, there may have been some mention of the thinking behind them, but I don't believe there is anything comprehensive or authoritative on this. Mostly it will be inference from the form. I have redirected the prefixes that look mostly the same (little content). Going through the more substantive ones (micro- to giga-) to see what should be merged will take a little more time. —Quondum 18:21, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Nomination of Density (energy or power) for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Density (energy or power) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Density (energy or power) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

–LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 04:56, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

This is a disambiguation page concerning three related physical quantities. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 04:56, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

AfD

AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Uniaxial crystal Fermiboson (talk) 05:47, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Unrelatedly, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mass–energy–information equivalence may also be of interest to the community here. XOR'easter (talk) 18:07, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

I see this theme come up repeatedly: quality of sources is very difficult to evaluate for most editors, and they tend to be swayed by volumes of hits. It seems to me that a tool that could flag each Google Scholar hits with the quality of publication would be a great benefit to editors. This is a bit of a dream, I suppose ... —Quondum 01:31, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

That's always been a problem with academia, and it kind of is impossible for laypeople to tell the difference (and I'm guilty of that too, having not actually read the paper in question before voting!) I suppose it has to be our (manual) job. Fermiboson (talk) 03:56, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

I will say that @XOR'easter's comment that "Conference proceedings don't count for jack" is only true in some fields. In accelerator physics, they are refereed, and actually the dominant form of publication, since there's so little journal space. That's an N of 1, but there may be other subfields where that is also true. PianoDan (talk) 17:15, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, I was probably in a snappish mood when I made that remark; what I said in a later reply (and in my general advice page, now that I check) was a bit more measured. I can think of a few specific volumes devoted to particular conferences that are good reading, but none of those exceptions are relevant to this case. XOR'easter (talk) 22:20, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Hypernucleus and subatomic particle notation

I've put this off for a few months now, but I am getting the final touches done on the article Hypernucleus. One sticking point is that I am as yet undecided on the use of names vs. symbols for meson and baryon names. For example, when referring to the lambda baryon in text, should I use:

• Λ exclusively in text, after identifying the Greek letter;
• "lambda" (lowercase) exclusively; or
• "Lambda" (capitalized) exclusively?

The symbols will still need to be introduced to shorthand more complex symbols, such as Σ⁺ vs. "sigma plus". –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 22:21, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Scientific articles usually use the Greek letters, even in isolation (random example, see e.g. "according to the Λ decay position", no "lambda" anywhere in the paper), I think we should follow that approach and just add an introduction to the letters. --mfb (talk) 09:37, 29 November 2022 (UTC)