Portal talk:Physics/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Old discussions

--Dataphiliac 22:08, 30 October 2005 (UTC)Anonymous user, perhaps you are working in a different resolution than I am and my length settings look bad for you, or is there another reason for your edits? --MarSch 09:45, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

There seems to be no reason to create a blank field - alignment/layout should not constitute the creation of one and should be added only if information is intended to be added directly. --User: 24.253.120.206

I'm using the Firefox browser v1.0 and it seems to have trouble renderizing the wikinews. Has anyone experienced the same thing?

--GTubio 21:32, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Featured article

It's gone more than a month now, I'm switching FA now. Let's keep track of those that have been. — Sverdrup 20:24, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Good idea. +sj + 28 June 2005 20:15 (UTC)
Here's some anniversaries in our FAs that we could celebrate by featuring here:
The current physics FAs that haven't been recently featured and aren't on the above list are:
Hopefully this'll get the ball rolling on picking new ones. — Laura Scudder | Talk 07:05, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
I've added some of this to Portal:Physics/Past featured articles. Karol 10:41, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Past featured articles

Shouldn't we move the above to lists to separate pages, Portal:Physics/features or something. When people start discussing things on this talk page, they'll get lost. Karol 06:33, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree. It could get confusing. Updated the DYK, by the way. I'm having troubles uploading pictures though, maybe one of you can find something relavent? --Dataphiliac 01:33, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
OK, I'm simply putting the list at Portal:Physics/Past featured articles. Where can a link go? Karol 10:31, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm also adding the infromation in from the previous section. Karol 10:34, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Featured pictures and table formatting

It seems that using large pictures (350px+ in width) breaks the table formatting on lower-resolution machines. We should probably take steps to avoid that, if we can. --Dataphiliac 22:08, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Physical oceanography is a current candidate on the Science collaboration. Vote for it if you want to see this article improved. --Fenice 07:18, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Radiaiton, an article needed

This is an article request for Radiation. At the moment it is a disambiguation page, but I think something so fundamental needs an article. Even a couple of lines would be good, I'm sure other good encyclopedias have dedicated "Radiation" aritcles. You can move the disambigaution page to Radiation (disambiguation), or I'll do that for you.--Commander Keane 05:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

"Topics in Physics"

Hi folks, I just had a suggestion. Can someone whose expertise is Physics create a table of “Topics in Physics” just like what Mathematics Portal currently has. I think that table is awesome in showing a general view of the disciplines within Mathematics to the users. I think Physics Portal needs the same thing. Thanks. what is software Engineering? I think there is something close to that in Physics, but this might be a chance to include things like "math lab", that physicists might not consider fields of physics. What I came here to say is that it seems that the word "physics" at the top should be a link to the main physics page, but I don't at present know enough about the purpose of this page to make that change myself. David R. Ingham 02:07, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Contents list

It's a real eyesore, is there a way to fix it (or otherwise remove it)? Neither of the "edit" links nearby seem to allow me to edit it, it it done in some other way?

It should be gone now. Not sure what change introduced it, but I didn't like it either. — Laura Scudder 15:34, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

List of Major Findings by Date

Can someone list the major achievements of physics and their dates. I'm particular curious to see a major accomplishments of the past 25 years... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.188.97.139 (talkcontribs) 01:53, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Colour Scheme

The blue doesn't really work, seeing as the blue hyperlinks are hard to read. Maybe the background could be changed. . . some pastel colour? Arcette 03:11, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

The review of Physics continues at Talk:Physics/wip

Some time ago a group of editors set up a "work in progress" page (at Talk:Physics/wip) to hammer out a consensus for the Physics article, which for too long had been in an unstable state. Discussion of the lead for the article has taken a great deal of time and thousands of words. The definitional and philosophical foundations seem to cause most headaches; but progress has been made. Why not review some of the proposals for the lead material that people are putting forward, or put forward your own, or simply join the discussion? The more contributors the better, for a consensus. – Noetica 01:52, 6 November 2006 (UTC) Update: Concrete proposals have now been put forward, arising from recent discussion aimed at producing a stable and consensual lead section for the Physics article. We have set up a straw poll, for comments on the proposals. Why not drop in at Talk:Physics/wip, and have your say? The more the better! – Noetica 22:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Need Help

There is an article, Aryabhata's relativity principle which is up for AfD. While I think that the article is poorly worded, it seems to me that the basic information is sound. It's just that pop-culture associations with the term "relativity" creates the misconception that Aryabhatta came up with Einsteinian relativity (whereas here he is talking about a qualitative form of Galilean Relativity). See this eprint paper here, and my response to the AfD [1].I think that the article (title included) needs a major rewrite but the basic information is sound.What do you think?Hkelkar 08:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Faster Than Light

I think this page Faster-than-light needs some serious improvements! I have fixed a few of the most glaring things. Rotiro 03:51, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Simple Introduction

Some science articles are starting to produce introductory versions of themselves to make them more accessible to the average encyclopedia reader. You can see what has been done so far at special relativity, general relativity and evolution, all of which now have special introduction articles. These are intermediate between the very simple articles on Simple Wikipedia and the regular encyclopedia articles. They serve a valuable function in producing something that is useful for getting someone up to speed so that they can then tackle the real article. Those who want even simpler explanations can drop down to Simple Wikipedia. What do you think?--Filll 23:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Physics as FP?

It seems that this portal has quite a lot of new content presented every week, and I must say that it generally appears as a great introduction to the field of physics. Shouldn't we try to make it a featured portal? Snailwalker | talk 13:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I've done a serious amount of work on the portal over the last few days, and am now nominating it to be a Featured Portal. The nomination is linked to in the bar at the top of this page. Mike Peel 21:18, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Appeal to restart the improvement process at physics

As you might know, there has been a slow article improvement process ongoing for the last few months at Talk:Physics/wip. One of the tasks understaken was a "vote" on several proposed leads for physics at Talk:Physics/wip/leadvote. However, the process has ground down to a halt. We need input and possibly a moderator to assist us.--Filll 15:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Some trouble at Zero-point field

which was and most likely should be again a redirect to vacuum state. Now it has become a strange mixture of history of QM, Haisch-cruft and worse. See tal page. --Pjacobi 16:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Are their two principles named after d'Alembert? My (German) books on theoretical mechanics only know the one about Zwangskräfte (constrain forces): Forces caused by system constraints don't do work for virtual displacements of the system. But our article also talks about one about Scheinkräfte (fictious/inertial forces). Is this a common nomenclature in literature (which?) or is this only caused by the article in the Britannica, which explains is this way? Perhaps one of the few cases where the Britannica got something wrong? Pjacobi 11:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Without digging into it, my references show the d'Alembert's principle article is following Herbert Goldstein's Classical Mechanics(1950) pp 14-16, 30, 305. Britannica's Micropædia entry does not disagree with the article either, in that no second principle is mentioned. Meriam's Dynamics p175 ISBN 0-471-59601-9 states the same thing as the article. It appears that there is but one d'Alembert's principle. Goldstein notes that James Bernoulli first thought of the idea, and that d'Alembert developed it further. The statement about the engineering textbook (like Meriam) might be modified to say "application of d'Alembert's principle", which is how I would have interpreted it anyway. --Ancheta Wis 15:04, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm confused. I'll have to look into some English textbooks in the library. I've tried to outline the discrepancy between the article and Landau/Lifschitz on Talk:d'Alembert's principle. --Pjacobi 18:15, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Standardizing unit systems and conventions

It's quite annoying to navigate through links on wikipedia and finding that each page has it's own conventions, units, metrics, etc... I think it's probably the time to suggest some preferred ones and impose them as an etiquette rule or something. It would clearly improve the utility of wikipedia's articles about physics. Let me be the first to suggest the use of international system of units and the metric . I hope this is the correct place for making this kind of suggestion...

Oppose. Physics did not start with SI. Each new field evolves its own units of measure: for example, when the nuclear magnetic moment of the proton was first measured, it was anticipated to be 1.0 nuclear magneton, but was first measured to be 2.785 +/- 0.02 nuclear magneton[1] in 1939 by I. I. Rabi. In my opinion, these values are more illuminating than the SI value. In each field, we evolve and use the natural units, which of course are expressed symbolically in terms of the fundamental constants. These don't necesarily mean SI values, which serve only convention, and which do not necessarily improve our insight. --Ancheta Wis 03:31, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
  1. ^ John S. Rigdon Rabi p. 115.
What are you against of, SI or the whole idea of standardizing conventions on wikipedia pages? Would you really use as a textbook or reference book one that on each chapter or even each page changed the units or its conventions? I don't think so...
I know SI units are not the best fitted for doing theoretical physics, sure they don't give so much insight about the physics involved as natural units, for example. But following one convention seems to be necessary. And SI units are the de facto standard on many textbooks.
It's still posible to cite the equations in other typical systems used on that field in the same page.
Added a handy table of links to the multifarious units one might encounter. They typically include the range of values and orders of magnitude, which are basic to the science. --Ancheta Wis 15:39, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree. There is a tremendous amount of overlap here due to the use of lack of standard language. I think in principle wikipedia should try to follow the conventions established in 1987 by IUPAP in the Red Book. However, that one is twenty years old now. It uses the word permittivity and relative permittivity. Here on wp, relative permittivity redirects to dielectric constant. The redirect is in agreement with the terminology most researchers now seem to use. But there is tremendous overlap between these two articles, and with other articles like electric susceptibility , displacement current, electric displacement field, polarizability, polarization density where usage may be confusingly varying. There are dozens of redirects, sometimes to surprising places. So it is quite a mess.
What I think is missing right now is a separate article about [[ε0]], without anything to do with materials. There actually exists an article page ε0, but nobody is linking to it because wikipedia makes it start with a greek capital Ε. There is also epsilon nought, but that is in mathematics. CODATA call this the electric constant /Pieter Kuiper 09:47, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Lithium Titanate

http://www.altairnano.com/documents/NanoSafe_Datasheet.pdf Someone want to make an article about it? --84.61.38.191 16:18, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Reference for nomenclature

With the chemists of IUPAC, I found a reference article about nomenclature:

It would be best if wikipedia conformed. I will start with an article about the "electric constant", and changing existing redirects so that they conform to the guidelines. After that there remains the problem of merging. /Pieter Kuiper 14:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

"Electric constant" may be used in photochemistry, but in physics and engineering "vacuum permittivity" is far more common (and is also used in your reference). (I do research in classical electromagnetism, and I don't recall ever seeing "electric constant". Of course, I'm a theorist so I usually set the vacuum permittivity to 1 anyway.) I would suggest using vacuum permittivity as the more universal term. —Steven G. Johnson 16:22, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I am certain that electric constant is the recommend term in physics. See NIST as an authoritative reference. /Pieter Kuiper 17:16, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
See Talk:Vacuum permittivity: just because you found a NIST page that uses "electric constant" doesn't mean it is the "recommended" term. If you google site:nist.gov, you can easily find other NIST pages that use "vacuum permittivity" etc. —Steven G. Johnson 18:15, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Please take further discussion of this particular issue to Talk:Vacuum permittivity so that we don't have to carry on the same discussion in multiple places. —Steven G. Johnson 18:15, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Selected article/Selected photo

We have run out of selected articles and selected photos at Selected articles and Selected photos through the end of the year. I commented out the auto selector and put up September until this is corrected. Since physics is a very rich subject I would recommend going back to the once a week photos and articles but leaving off the year, so that they start over again each year. That way if someone forgets to put up a new selection we won't have a broken link to look at. I would suggest adding 10 or 20 ahead at a time and just changing them whenever to whatever seems interesting at the time. 199.125.109.27 20:12, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I've now selected an article and an image for October, and when I get the chance I'll find some more for upcoming months. I'm wary about switching to a weekly system that repeats each year, as the quality of the articles here seems to go up and down over time. Plus, hopefully we should be producing at least one good physics article a month. Such a system might work well for the images, though. Mike Peel 19:05, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
New images and articles are still needed for November and December, as well as January. Currently still using October until new ones are selected. 199.125.109.136 21:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Help needed: Gamow factor

I wrote a stub about the gamow factor – some kind of quantum mechanics probability formula for two nuclei overwinning their Coulomb barrier (??). But: I'm not a physicist, I'm a kinda-other-nerd-type, (computers, astronomy, psychology etc..) so I need someone taking a look at it, and maybe give some hints on the interpretation of a formula G(η) = 2πη/(1-e^(-2πη)), that can be found at the second external link. I found this Gamow factor when pondering about energy formulae to be used in star modelling. Said: Rursus 10:33, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Physics wiki

I am going out on a limb here to invite other wikipedians to take a look at a physics and mathematics wiki that I have been maintaining for about a year and a half. It is not meant to compete with Wikipedia, which I view as encyclopedic and meant to be accessible (in scope) to everyone. Rather, it is meant to be chiefly academic in nature. I hope that perhaps that some people would like to contribute to the project alongside their involvement in Wikipedia, and welcome exchange between the two projects (the wiki is also released under the GNU FDL). The chief difference (besides scope) is that some form of accountability is required in order to prevent vandalism and the like, but other than that editing is open to anyone. Some immediate answers to your questions may be found here, though feel free to contact me. I hope this message is received in good faith --Lionelbrits (talk) 16:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Relativity link disambiguation

For the record, I disambiguated the link relativity in Portal:Physics/Textbook#General_information to theory of relativity. It seems more appropriate to link the latter because it is a physics page rather than a disambiguation page, and it covers both special relativity and general relativity. I hope this change meets with your approval. - Neparis (talk) 23:56, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Editing

I'm unable to edit the "Neutron" section. An "and" is missing before "no electric field". Can someone please help? Thanks. Amit@Talk 09:20, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. The edit link is at "More selected articles"/"Edit selected article". - Neparis (talk) 18:42, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Can you keep an eye on this article. There were some strange changes in the last few days. Now the first sentence reeds: "Gabriel Audu Oyibo is a Nigerian mathematician who solved the Grand Unification Theory", which is not true at all. And the notability template was removed several times (1, 2). Maybe it's better to delete this article. I think no one would miss it, except for Oyibo ;-) --Ephraim33 (talk) 08:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

John Bardeen

The name of John Bardeen should also be included in the portal. Bardeen is the only person to win two Nobel Prizes in Physics. I have included his name in the 'General information' section. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 12:15, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Domestic AC power plugs and sockets and Nuclear fusion are both currently rated A class but both are quite poorly referenced. I think that they are worth to be nominated to be FAC, if better referenced. However, without additional references they should be downgraded to the B-class. Please help with adding missing references.Beagel (talk) 07:41, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Magnetic water treatment

The Magnetic water treatment and Klaus Kronenberg need a look of an expert, who is not afraid of pseudoscience!--Stone (talk) 23:24, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Chaos!

The subject of Physics is SO big, complex, and has such a long history, making a physics portal is truly difficult. Not to be against it; contrary I love the idea; a possible salvation for this failed math major. The problem is: The portal works agains itself, leaving the non-expert reader lost and confused. My brilliant idea: "Founding Experiments". A List of crucial experiments AND THE ENTIRELY NEW FIELDS OF PHYSICS THEY INSPIRED. An ultra primitive starting up list: EXPERIMENT FIELD/THEORY -. Newton's prism experiment [light corpuscles] - bad idea not foundational -. Galileo's pendulum [Clasical mechanics] -. Planetary orbits [Keplers laws; Newton's laws] -. Michelson-Morley [Special Relativity] -. Precession of Mercury [General Relativity} -. Planck's Black body [Quantum physics] -. DeBroglie waves [Shrodinger equation] -. Electron/electron scattering [Diracs theories] -. Face of Alfred E. Neuman [String theory] .... with links to everything. I FIGURE MAYBE 100 FOUNDING EXPERIMENTS. OH YES, photo mass in MIT bell tower.... -Harry Wertmuller HarryWertM (talk) 21:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC) Ultra primitive list above needs a lot of work. Just a start. HarryWertM (talk) 21:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC) I like the idea. Beast of traal T C _ 03:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)Beast of traal The idea is interesting and I like it. --perseus the awesome 101 (talk) 01:49, 23 May 2008 (UTC) Perseus101

List of Baryons

The list of baryons is currently a featured list candidate and we cannot get much people to support/oppose/comment since people are probably afraid to tackle such a technical list. Help would be appreciated. If you don't know much about particle physics, this is an opportunity for you to start learning, and you can contribute by mentioning what you didn't understand, or what got you confused. Thanks. Headbomb (ταλκ · κοντριβς) 16:33, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

New Projects of the Week section on WikiProject Physics

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Projects of the Week It's in construction and ANY help would really be appreciated.Headbomb (ταλκ · κοντριβς) 23:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Edits to the Physics portal

I don't think this Portal is as functional as it could be. For instance, the stuff that is most needed is at the bottom such as the Categories. I want people to be able to come into the Portal and find what they want quickly preferably without scrolling too much. The more useful we make it the more people will come the more they will click on the other stuff and maybe even join our project. (The last may be wishful thinking.) Proposal:

  • Drastically cut Physics section and/or move it to the bottom. I want a maximum of 1 paragraph description of physics at the top since it doesn't help it function as a Portal. Move rest to bottom in a What is Physics box.
  • Move link type stuff to center with most important at top (Category?)
  • Move featured stuff on the side and drastically cut.
  • Object of featured stuff is to get people to click to visit not to explain everything so they don't feel the need to click it.
  • Smaller means easier to maintain means more likely to be updated regularly
  • Featured stuff in order (top to bottom): Featured Article, Featured Image, Featured Physicist?, Featured Editor, Did you Know
  • Merge topics and textbook (Yikes! that looks scary) and push to near top
  • Update Things to Do block
  • Make all the Projects more visible
  • Remove and or push down Physics news until we can get someone to edit it daily
  • Consider a adding new article page then placing a link or section in Portal and at Wikipedia:Did_you_know/New_Article_Announcements (so we can better promote ourselves for did you know or at the very least look like we are trying to promote ourselves better.)
  • Alternative Proposal: Do something like what Portal:Religion does. Keep the main page pretty much the same but add a tab to go to a content page.

I am going on a vacation for 2 weeks soon, so I may not be able to do any of this soon. Which may be better in that I would prefer a lot of feedback before doing anything like this. TStein (talk) 05:18, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

New WP Physics Logo / Portal Image

I'm getting tired of seeing the waves and the black hole on the {{physics}} template. I say that for the portal, we find a cool picture/diagram/etc..., and that for the project, we make a logo. The logo could also be on the front page of the project/portal too (I guess what's one the front page right now could be the logo, but I wonder what people can come up with). What say you? I'll notice the physics portal as well. Headbomb {ταλκWP Physics: PotW} 21:27, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I suggest we list a couple candidates here and then vote. Beast of traal T C _ 01:39, 10 July 2008 (UTC)Beast of traal

It would be great if a few experts in the field would look this over. It certainly seems a most exciting issue, as the size of the article, its content, the strong opinions and some mentioned sources on the talkpage suggest that Tesla's concept of wireless energy transmission of industrial-level electric energy was and remains very feasible, but especially as they all suggest that Tesla obviously knew about stuff such as waves in plasmas, magnetohydrodynamics, the ionosphere, ELF transmission communication, intentional telluric current, Schumann resonances, planet earth's self-capacity and its use as a cavity resonator, and Zenneck waves as far back as around and shortly before 1900, and that his only problem was financial support as soon as his entrepeneur investors found out that he intended to provide free electricity out of thin air for everyone on earth as a quasi-socialist public service; J. P. Morgan asked Tesla, "Where do I put the meter?", but Tesla neither knew nor cared. --80.187.125.4 (talk) 21:26, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The unification theory - unification of gravity field with the electromagnetic field.

                      Imagine you Universe a "U" where it exist only the Observer "A" found in a box, equipped with various devices for testing and observation, together with an electric field (joint with electrical load floor box), and in one another box observer "B" has the same experimentation and observation apparatus, situated at a considerable distance one from the other. The two observers communicate between them using two devices, which don’t influence the experiment. 
             Initially, those two are rest one from other. 
             Communicating between them, will by: 

-- Observer A to B: I observe (I detect) only an electric field in this universe. -- Observer B to A: I observe also only an electric field in this universe.

              Consequently, the two, observe only a single phenomenon in the whole universe - an electric field. Without a light source, they will not be able to see between them. 
               At a given moment, the box to begins to move with a constant acceleration towards the observer B (how, it doesn’t matter). 
                         After a time (say ten seconds from the accelerated movement of box), the exchange of information between the two will be: 

-- Observer B to A: - I doesn’t know what you see, but for me things have changed and now observe an electromagnetic field with the accelerated source. -- Observer A to B: - And to me things have changed. Someone introduced me with the boxed in an acceleration field. For this acceleration field, I have two explanations: 1). -- box in which I am (along with appliances testing and observation and electric field) is accelerated; -- 2). -- I was introduced with the box in a field of gravity. The principle of equivalence says that I can’t make a distinction between these two cases. -- Observer B to A: - If things stay for you like that, it means that in order to explain the apparition of electromagnetic field with the accelerated source, the principle of equivalence do to have two cases equivalent between them: 1). -- when your box is accelerated, normal case (if an electric field is accelerated, it will radiation an electromagnetic field with the accelerated source);

 -- 2). -- when you (box and electric field) have been introduced in to field of gravity, very interesting case. If you (box and electric field) have been introduced in a gravity field, and I observe (I detect) the apparition of the electromagnetic field with the accelerated source, means that this new field that I see it, is actually the result of interactions between the electric field with gravitational field. Therefore, can say that a ensemble field of gravity with an electric field generates an electromagnetic field with the accelerated source. That is: 
gravitational field  + electric field = electromagnetic field with the accelerated source 

This represents "Unification Theory of the Electromagnetic Field with the Gravitational Field (TUCEG).

                     The principle of equivalence says that I can’t make a distinction between the two cases (1 and 2). 
                      Mach said that accelerations "felt" from a corps, it’s the gravitational attraction exerted by all the mass in the Universe on that corps. That means that gravity "generates" acceleration - accelerations doesn’t exist without gravity. So the two cases (1 and 2), is reduced to one. Therefore, the case connect to the gravity is real case. 
                     But, because is an equality, terms on the left should describe the same thing as the right of the equality. So to say that an assembly of gravity field with an electric field generates an electromagnetic field with accelerated source, it’s the same to say you can’t make a distinction between assembly of gravity field with an electric field (I called him electro-gravitational field) and (towards) an electromagnetic field with the accelerated source. Therefore the two fields are equivalent. 
                           We can observe also who sees the left side of the equality member (gravity field  + electric field) doesn’t see the right (electromagnetic field with accelerated source). 
                           Because equivalence between an acceleration field and gravity field is local, this character is transmitted to T.U.C.E.G. 
Mr. Mavriche Adrian
Str. Basarabiei nr.10
Loc. Mangalia jud. Constanta
Cod.905500
Romania
 mavricheadrian@gmail.com

adrianmaya217@hotmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.81.237.86 (talk) 09:03, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Image Change: .png -> .svg

The image that was featured in Week 50 of 2006 has been converted to a .svg file, per the request on that image's page. I changed it there, and it appears on the 2006 archive page, although the old image says it still links to the 2006 archive. If a robot doesn't change this automatically, whoever is in charge of making the modification should, as the archive page warns contributors not to change its contents. KJBurns (talk) 19:57, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

News article

Added a news article which entails the publication of a new gravity theory. Seems fitting since rarely a new theory is published after the dark matter and dark energy issues. Gravityforce (talk) 21:34, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

This page has the following error message: Cite error: < ref> tags exist, but no < references/> tag was found Unfortunately, i do not know how to fix this myself, it would be good if someone could fix this. 212.202.168.184 (talk) 13:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Dark Fluid

Just found this stub which has few external links and few links to other pages. Just wondering whether we should delete it or at least move it to the dark energy or dark matter page.--GundamMerc (talk) 13:53, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

unifide field

I am only a layman in the field of quantim theory i understand that gravity is the weekest of all the forces and this has always been a bit of a mystery but could this be due to the amount of energy the the plank field —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.183.134.209 (talk) 11:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

limit of super-heavy elements

At Extension_of_the_periodic_table_beyond_the_seventh_period#End_of_the_periodic_table, we say that the limit of neutral atoms is around Z = 176, and of nuclei at Z = 210. At untriseptium we state that 137 is the limit. Both require up-to-date referencing, and review by s.o. who knows what they're talking about (assuming that anyone knows what they're talking about on this subject). kwami (talk) 20:54, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Updates

I noticed that this page hasn't been updated so I've added some stufff, and will be working to queue up some featured articles and pictures. I'll try to get some news items too, but some help would be nice. Is anyone else interested in working to keep this page updated? User:FrankCarroll 30 October 2009 —Preceding undated comment added 00:09, 31 October 2009 (UTC).

First sentence

So the page starts with "Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter, and its motion through spacetime". I understand the wish to stress spacetime here but the sentence doesn't work, if you're picky. You can't talk of "motion" without a parametrisation, which then still describes a process in space, not spacetime.

In relativity metrics or worldlines, once computed, don't evolve. The expressions only change as functions of their 4 coordinate parameters. So saying "the motion of matter in spacetime" implies that by "matter" you mean something fixed to a certain time - such a singular object would be for example delta(x-X(s)), where X is a 4-vector and s a free to choose parameter, independend of a physical time. Then delta(x-X(s)), for some s, only describes an event, nothing below or above (in a Minkoski-diagram). But particles in relativity should be viewed as an infinite 1-dimensional timelike string. Worldlines as a whole are fixed viewed in 4 dimensions so there is no "motion in (4-dimensional) spacetime".

It might be justified here to say this is not such a big of a deal and a typical case of "we know what we mean". But then just be aware that if you decide to refrase the term "motion" here this way, in the classical limit the resulting newtonian 4-velocity with zero-component always v_0=1 (due to absolute time) gives now an additional different and unusual notion of velocity and motion.

I'd say the term "Configuration" would be better than "motion" for example, although it sounds more technical. 212.186.99.222 (talk) 02:25, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Motion mountain

please consider adding and a reference for motion mountain book, because anybody can reed it and understand it or at least it is non-technical book.

(this is an article need to be improve)

Motion mountain is a free book about reality or the physics of this universe for anybody with no previous knowledge about science who wants to understand the universe and the planet that she or he live on.

Approach of the the book is non-technical and easy reading like the origin of species like Charles Darwin wrote. Book is divided on 6 parts from a wide range of topics since basic like mechanics to more complex knowledge like M-theory and it is suitable for everybody the author of the book is physicist.

external link to read the book is www.motionmountain.net/ or look on google for motion mountain — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scienficreal (talkcontribs) 22:12, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

The motion mountain book is not a good teaching source. It has many inaccuracies and promotes a crackpot theory of everything. StopTheCrackpots (talk) 08:27, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

First Paragraph

The first paragraph seems to me as being totally oriented to presenting an atomistic Newtonian single (external to the universe) observer frame of reference, which assumes the existence of universal laws, the interchangeability of particle of same category, and independence of all particles. This is in strong contrast to the Leibnizian view of a relational universe characterized by entanglement; and where all movement and position is relative to other objects, not to a fixed and eternal frame. This is obviously in need of a broader approach, as it encourages this view which has existed since Newton. although it has been moved in the other direction by Einstein, in for example the EPR theory which has been proven correct, and by John Bell's work.

Lee Smolin makes a fair presentation of both views in his "Life of the Cosmos" I refer those interested to it, as my own knowledge is insufficient to discuss it meaningfully on an expert level.

Idealist707 (talk) 18:59, 2 June 2011 (UTC)


  • ...that if we travel at the speed of light it would take us no time at all to cross the universe according to our watches.

The wording on this section seems just downright wrong, as we should all know that even travelling at light speed, it could take many many years to 'cross' the universe, if crossing the universe is conceptually possible . Also, which watches would survive the journey?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.45.34.40 (talk) 21:04, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Physics Portal Desc

I don't think that the definition of physics being said in the Physics Portal as the study of being matter and its motion through spacetime is appropriate, because physics does'nt just study motion through spacetime it also includes the study of dimensions and the mostion of matter through dimensions higher than spacetime. Physics is the study of how the universe works on a fundamental level: planets orbits, gravity, spatial dimensions, velocity, spacetime, quarks, star fusion etc.

Re: Physics Portal Desc

I took the liberty of changing it but if anythings wrong with my grammar or I miss some topics covered by physics in the description dont hesitate to fix it.

Standardizing format in news and anniversaries sections

Currently the formatting in these sections is very inconsistent and in some cases doesn't conform to WP:DATEFORMAT. Would anyone mind if I fix and standardize them? My suggested format for news items is: day month year (with no commas), spaced en dash, description of news, full stop, publisher of source (linked to source). For instance:

7 July 2011 – Neptune completes first 165 year orbit since discovery and the precise length of its day is determined. Nature News

Similarly, for anniversaries: day month year (with no commas), spaced en dash, description of anniversary, full stop. For instance:

12 April 1633 – Galileo Galilei's trial starts.

I am, of course, open to suggestions on the formatting, or indeed whether or not I should change things at all. I'll probably start implementing this in a week or so if I don't get any comments. 786b6364 (talk) 03:24, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I haven't gotten around to doing this yet due to dealing with real life stuff. No idea when I will, but I'd still love to hear other opinions on this. Currently I see two changes I'd make to my proposed format: (1) eliminate full stops except in cases where full sentences are being used; (2) use the date format month day comma year (i.e., July 7, 2011), mostly because of WP:DATERET. But again, any other suggestions are more than welcome. 786b6364 (talk) 15:41, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Quote by Cleveland Odom

One is loss because they do not understand life. -Cleveland Odom — Preceding unsigned comment added by IPodMaster12 (talkcontribs) 03:02, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

I found this logo today on Wikimedia Commons:

Maybe it can be of interest for anyone. —Kri (talk) 01:16, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

References in portals?

Although the Wikipedia:Portal guidelines don't cover the point, I am surprised to see that the intro box here has been doubled in size with the addition of a references section. Most portals don't include the references, just as the Main Page doesn't. The reader can get at the references by following the "More about physics" link. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:23, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Make an article about the amplitude of sound of a passing aircraft

Please make an article on why a passing aircraft at cruising altitude sounds really loud at first, then dies slowly away. Yes, something of this can be seen in File:Dopplereffectsourcemovingrightatmach0.7.gif. Jidanni (talk) 05:53, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Feedback

I've made some major edits to the page Neutral particle oscillation in the last couple of weeks. Can anyone interested in the topic please give me his/her feedback on the talk page of the article? Your opinions or suggestions will be quite helpful and if you have any doubt regarding the matter, I'll be happy to explain as best as I can.

Soham92 (talk) 13:42, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to participate in an online Journal.

I was told that the apprpriate place for this conversation is Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics#Invitation_to_participate_in_an_online_Journal--Guy vandegrift (talk) 17:47, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Unknown reactor type

The reactor type used in Changjiang Nuclear Power Plant has no article. All other reactor types have articles. Is there nothing to be said for this type? --Ysangkok (talk) 16:38, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Article on Ron Maimon

Hi, I want to create an article on Ron Maimon, he is an internet personality and he is famous for his alternative and "think out of the box" ideas about mathematics and physics (not crackpotery ! ), but I'm not sure if the article would meet the relevance conditions of Wikipedia because it is really specialized about mathematics and physics and therefore he received no media attention or something. He wrote a LOT on physics/math/philosophy exchange/quora and physics blogs all over the internet. If someone is familiar with Ron I would work together with him to create a sensible article if possible. You just have to google his name together with for example physics exchange to find stuff he wrote.--Lexikon-Duff (talk) 00:10, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Would like to add that I have used Ron Maimon's excellent 'proof' (more of a demonstration than a proof) that kinetic energy is a function of speed squared (see Appendix A6.2 in The Lazy Universe, OUP 2017, and pages 340-1 in Energy, The Subtle Concept, OUP 2015). (By the way, it is evident from Maimon's posts that he is a serious physicist with a brilliant level of understanding. I don't give a hoot about his qualifications.) 29th April 2018 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:CB08:895A:400:F935:26BD:6EE7:DD57 (talk) 10:32, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Notice from the Portals WikiProject

WikiProject Portals is back!

The project was rebooted and completely overhauled on April 17th, 2018. Its goals are to revitalize the entire portal system, make building and maintaining portals easier, support the ongoing improvement of portals and the editors dedicated to this, and design the portals of the future.

As of May 2nd, 2018, membership is at 60 editors, and growing. You are welcome to join us.

There are design initiatives for revitalizing the portals system as a whole, and for improving each component of portals. So far, 2 new dynamic components have been developed: Template:Transclude lead excerpt and Template:Transclude random excerpt.

Tools are provided for building and maintaining portals, including automated portals that update themselves in various ways.

And, if you are bored and would like something to occupy your mind, we have a wonderful task list.

From your friendly neighborhood Portals WikiProject. Hope to see you there. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   07:41, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

I just attempted a translation from German to English of a wiki mini-biography on Ernst Bessel Hagen. For many folks Hagen is known (if at all) for the Hagen–Rubens relation. The Hagen–Rubens relation has its own entry in English language wikipedia already, so presumably there are people reading this who know what I am writing about. Sadly I don't. I was educated (if at all) in England where they make you choose early. I chose history. My loss, especially in the context of understanding the word-uses involved with conductivity.

So ... you're most likely ahead of me by now: Is there anyone able and willing to read this paragraph and replace the nonsense bits with sense? Help is accessible from this entry and the related sources identified at the bottom of it. Thank you much.

If you think there is a better place where I should place this request, please tell me (or better still, copy 'n paste it across).

Regards Charles01 (talk) 14:33, 4 June 2019 (UTC)