Talk:History of physics/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

To boldly conform...

I've reverted the two most recent changes [1][2] by Til Eulenspiegel: while not perfectly consistent, it's unclear that the few odd instances of BC should trump the far more numerous BCE era format, given the article's history and subject matter. The article began without the need qualify the era, (as opposed to using AD). A single instance of BC was subsequently added, and remained the only era qualifier until Jagged 85's edit introduced 10 BCs, 1 AD and 1 CE. If there's been a previous discussion on this article's talk page, I'm not aware of it... MOS:ERA is not a mandate to unilaterally change the format of articles and I find it uncompelling to suggest that this unilateral change should not be undone pending discussion... despite running contrary to what has been, by far, the most dominant format for quite some time, as one might expect... arguably the de facto consensus.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 21:17, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

What I did was consistent with MOS, and your revert was inconsistent with it. MOS says the same style should be used throughout, it is now using both styles intermittently. In the event of a dispute, we go with the earliest format introduced, which you have just demonstrated is "BC/AD", until such time as there is a discussed agreement to change it. Not only that but your blanket revert also reintroduced several other MOS problems that I tried to improve, such as repeating the same format twice in the same date span (eg 287-212 BC, not "287 BC - 212 BC". And Ashoka was around 250 BC, so I had also changed the caption that vaguely dated him to the "1st millennium BC" to be more precisely "3rd century BC". Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 21:32, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

LOL, what you did, was revert the editor who corrected the 5 aberrant BC/AD era qualifiers. Next, you insisted that no one stop you from changing the other 22 instances of BCE/CE to the minority format you prefer. Finally, despite my objection, you enforced your bold contention by reverting me too.

I'm sure you know perfectly well that I was not advocating keeping 5 of them in BC/AD format indefinitely... I do regret allowing your revert to stand per BRD, so I'm now willing to revert all three of your edits (to all 27 BCE/CEs) because naturally, WP:ERA does say the same style should be used throughout. Of course, it says nothing whatsoever like "In the event of a dispute, we go with the earliest format introduced..." presumably, a former loophole you're attempting to exploit? You've followed none of it's advice about gaining consensus to change the established era format.

Don't whine if you're going to start an edit war when someone calls your bluff, and yet you still be can't be bothered to separate them yourself from the contentious edits... frankly, they were so minor I missed them completely.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 11:24, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Well I have been editing wp since early 2005, I was here when the massive site-wide edit wars broke out in '06, and I am quite familiar with the solutions as consistently enforced since then to prevent this type of edit war, and they are not ambiguous. I am not a "hypocrite", nor am I "exploiting" anything, but I am going to give you exactly one friendly warning not to insert further personal attacks into your argument. I have followed the 'great 2006 compromise' on this matter to the T with regards to attempting to establish consensus, which is what we should be doing on this page, not sniping. That compromise reached with input from a vast number of users including thousands who hate BCE (it has always been highly unpopular and still is) and thousands of others who favor it, has not been undone, and it is still in place. It never has said anything about the most "dominant" or "predominant" style at any given fleeting moment; that seems to be entirely your own invention. Rather the sitewide consensus agreement was made specifically to go with the "first introduced style" in a given article, at least until local consensus could agree otherwise. Are you pretending you never knew any of this, or for real? Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 14:11, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Take your own advice. False accusations of personal attacks are personal attacks. Your own musings on the "great 2006 compromise" not withstanding, you're clearly ignoring both the current WP:ERA guideline and what stands as a two to one consensus against, thus far.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 03:57, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Also, although "dominance" is quite irrelevant, I think it's unfair to suggest that BCE/CE was previously as "dominant" as you asserted above (22 vs. 5 instances of AD/BC) I don't know how you counted, but I see five instances of AD alone, and nine for BC, for a total of 14. CE was used only twice, and while there were 21 instances I counted of BCE, this figure is double where it should be because it kept repeating BCE twice in the same date span. So it would be fairer to say that in the most recent version before this came to our attention, the article was an inconsistent mish-mash with neither style really "predominant". But again what matters in application is the earliest used format unless agreed otherwise on this page. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 14:45, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Your focus on the word "dominance" (your quote, btw, not mine) is indeed quite irrelevant. Don't try to confuse the fact of the matter... as I detailed above, you reverted the 5 aberrations (that had been corrected) back to BC/AD and then you changed the other 22 instances of BCE/CE to BC/AD. I imagine they've removed the former problematic suggestion regarding earliest edits because it was being abused in exactly this fashion. WP:CCC, deal with it.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 03:57, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Stop this edit warring – both of you. If Til Eulenspiegel was being WP:BOLD in changing everything to BC/AD, and then was reverted by Machine Elf, that brings us to the "Discuss" phase of WP:BRD. And you don't get to choose your preferred version while discussion takes place. I've reverted to the version that existed 2 days ago, before any era changes, and reapplied the intervening non-era change edits, and also did some minor copyediting and MOS related edits – my apologies if I missed anything. Yes, the era style is now inconsistent. Time to start discussing. Mojoworker (talk) 15:30, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

My view is that the rule of using the chronologically first style when agreement cannot be reached on the talk page applies here, so the AD/BC style should be used. I see nothing about this article to suggest that one style or the other is inherently more suitable for this article. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:14, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

While that rule was once part of the MOS, it no longer exists. MOS doesn't give us any guidance other than the following:

• Do not change the established era style in an article.
• Seek consensus on the talk page before making the change.
• Use the notation consistently within the article.

So, the established era style is inconsistent and we should use the notation consistently within the article. Thus, we need to seek consensus on the talk page before making the change. The following is the current wording of WP:ERA:

• By default, years are numbered according to the Western Dionysian era (also referred to as the Common Era).
  • AD and BC are the traditional ways of referring to these eras. CE and BCE are common in some scholarly and religious writing. Either convention may be appropriate.
    • Do not change the established era style in an article unless there are reasons specific to its content. Seek consensus on the talk page before making the change. Open the discussion under a subhead that uses the word "era". Briefly state why the style is inappropriate for the article in question. A personal or categorical preference for one era style over the other is not justification for making a change.
    • BCE and CE or BC and AD are written in upper case, unspaced, without periods (full stops), and separated from the year number by a space (5 BC, not 5BC). It is advisable to use a non-breaking space.
    • AD may appear before or after a year (AD 106, 106 AD); the other abbreviations appear after (106 CE, 3700 BCE, 3700 BC).
    • Do not use CE or AD unless the date or century would be ambiguous without it (e.g. "The Norman Conquest took place in 1066" not 1066 CE nor AD 1066). On the other hand, "Plotinus was a philosopher living at the end of the 3rd century AD" will avoid unnecessary confusion. Also, in "He did not become king until 55 CE" the era marker makes it clear that "55" does not refer to his age. Alternatively, "He did not become king until the year 55."
    • Use either the BC–AD or the BCE–CE notation consistently within the same article. Exception: do not change direct quotations.

So, per WP:ERA, I'm opening the subheading below. Mojoworker (talk) 15:58, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Era change

As mentioned above, per my interpretation of WP:ERA, the currently established era style is inconsistent and we should use the notation consistently within the article. Thus, we need to seek consensus here before making the change. Arguments so far have been that BC/AD was used first, and countering that, the current consensus version (albeit "silent consensus" but consensus nonetheless) has 18 instances of BCE/CE and only 14 instances of BC/AD, so that should prevail. Please discuss further. Mojoworker (talk) 15:58, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

At the moment there is no consistent style. The first style was AD/BC. The first time there were a substantial number of dates was in 2006 with this edit and they were AD/BC with one exception. Since then editors have been careless and there was no established style. One point of view is that the careless action of the editors from April 2006 until recently should not be allowed to disturb the established style, and the article should be repaired to restore the 2006 style. The other point of view is that a style established a long time ago but not maintained has just disappeared, and there is no established style. So any editor is free to come along and make the style consistent. Til Eulenspiegel did this with this edit, using the AD/BC style. In this particular article, both arguments lead to the same style, AD/BC. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:23, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

After giving it some thought, here's my reasoning... It doesn't seem like there are strong reasons specific to the article's content to favor one style over another, so I'll dismiss that. While the "earliest version" rationale was once part of WP:ERA, it no longer is, so I think that argument is a non–starter since it's not based on any current policy or guideline. I'm not sure when BCE/CE came to predominate, but looking back from the current version to August 28, at the end of the first page of history 50 edits ago, the count was 23 BCE/CE vs. 16 BC/AD. Comparing that to the version two days ago, before the era changes and edit warring started, there were 23 BCE/CE vs. 14 BC/AD, indicating that the ratio has been fairly stable in the recent past, even though some of them were redundantly used and removing them gets to the current 18 BCE/CE vs. 14 BC/AD after my cleanup. So, the question is, given the inconsistency, is any editor free to choose a style? If there were one case of BCE/CE and 100 cases of BC/AD could an editor change them all to BCE/CE? I wouldn't think so. If the ratio is more evenly distributed, where is the cutoff? I don't think that argument can be supported by policy. On the other hand, there is a relevant policy, and that policy, WP:Consensus#Reaching consensus through editing taken together with the current wording of WP:ERA, convinces me that the existing consensus is slightly in favor of BCE/CE (about 3/5 to 2/5) and so it's the correct style proscribed by current Wikipedia policies and guidelines in this case. But, I'm willing to be convinced otherwise. Mojoworker (talk) 17:21, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Please read it again. Consensus in this case should only be established here on the talk page, "consensus" is not artificially established by counting the number of times someone edited the article with BC or BCE. I can happily abide by any consensus outcome so long as it is established by due process. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 17:41, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I did read it again, and perhaps you should too (since I had it Wikilinked incorrectly, now fixed: WP:Consensus#Reaching consensus through editing). The point being there was (and is) already a consensus. That is a Wikipedia policy. See my further comment below. Mojoworker (talk) 20:30, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

That makes the consensus thus far 3 to 2 in favor of BCE/CE.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 18:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Once again I think you are being a little over-eager in your enumeration, since only four editors total have even responded here at all so far. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 19:11, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

No, obviously the IP, who's contribution you're attempting to revert, should be counted in favor of BCE/CE.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 19:44, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

This is the discussion where we are supposed to be establishing consensus (which can take time) and the anonymous IP, who could be anyone logged out, hasn't expressed an opinion or chosen to take any part since then, so I don't see how he or she can be used already to sway a consensus that isn't quite clearly established yet. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 19:54, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

• I keep WP:ERA on my watchlist, and within the past few weeks, took part in a huge consensus discussion there. The overwhelmingly agreed consensus was to keep what I call the "2006 compromise" in place, and if anything, to tighten the wording and make it less open to ambiguous interpretation. The purpose of this compromise is supposed to be to obviate precisely the type of hostility, wiki-lawyering and edit-warring we have seen lately, by establishing a clear convention to go with the earliest established format in event of a dispute. I can assure you that on no calendar date that anyone can point to, was there ever any consensus to do away with this convention. The current wording therefore represents a flaw, by introducing more ambiguous language that a wikilawyer can exploit and argue for the exact opposite of the common understanding. This more ambiguous language is liable to create more disputes than it solves until it is tightened up, so I will also point this out on WP:ERA. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 17:36, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Nonsense, WP:ERA doesn't reflect what you're saying.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 18:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Unlike Mojoworker, I don't think inconsistent usage in an article can be used to determine consensus (by counting instances of the various styles). I think inconsistency only demonstrates that the editors didn't care about style; if they cared, they would have made the style consistent. I do agree, however, that when the ratio is around 10:1 or more in favor of a style, the outliers should be regarded as errors rather than a lack of interest in style. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:51, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Like it or not, there was (and is) already a consensus before we started this discussion. And that consensus based on the policy WP:Consensus#Reaching consensus through editing was (and is, despite my cleanup) that there were 23 instances of BCE/CE and 14 instances of BC/AD in the article (See also WP:BRD). Now the fact that this state of inconsistency runs afoul of the era guideline in the WP:MOS is problematic, but it most certainly doesn't trump policy. Whether or not we can establish new consensus remains to be seen. Mojoworker (talk) 20:30, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

The present consensus reflected in the editing of the article is that there is no need for consistency in expressing the era of dates. This consensus is in conflict with the encyclopedia-wide consensus found in the "Manual of Style/Dates and numbers" guideline. Therefore the local consensus, that consistency is unimportant, should be overridden. I deny that there is any consensus in favor of CE/BCE (or for AD/BC either). Jc3s5h (talk) 21:06, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

No matter how we might try to divine an 'established' consensus from the editing history, which doesn't lend itself to that effort, surely that would still be rendered moot by any consensus established here on the discussion where it is supposed to happen. We should keep this question open a reasonable time, maybe a few days, for more editors' preferences, and only then try to determine if there is broad agreement one way or another. In the meantime, technically the precedent has always been to go with the older style while waiting, no big deal, but that could again become an issue if consensus remains divided without general agreement one way or the other. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 21:27, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

You are, of course, correct that a new explicit consensus would be the best outcome. We'll see if that's possible. I had some time waiting for something to complete, so I did take a look at the editing history. It appears that BCE/CE was used uniformly in the article text (with the exception of the 2 to 3 entries in timeline table at the end of the article) from this diff [3] on 21 February 2010 until the first instance of BC was inserted into the text with this diff [4] on 3 July 2012, nearly 2.5 years later. And it was actively maintained that way as in this diff [5] with the edit summary "I think a modern, non-religious, neutral historical dating system is prefereable". Whether or not the initial edit was correct, or what kind of consensus there was back in 2010 isn't possible to say, but that long period of era stability seems to point to a consensus for it. And I note that Til Eulenspiegel made a number of edits during that period without raising any objection to the era style. In the last six months however, the style has become increasingly inconsistent. Not pointing any fingers, since drive–by era changes by IPs are certainly a common problem, but it appears that in this case, the edits by 178.121.208.130 may have been the correct action. Mojoworker (talk) 22:01, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

To address some relevant factual errors and ambiguities:

• The IP correction on 15:01, 8 January 2013 had 36 era qualifiers total, of which 75% (27) were BCE/CE and 25% (9) were BC/AD.
• The original revert of that IP by Til Eulenspiegel with the edit summary (Revert to revision 527555957 dated 2012-12-11 16:41:19 by Machine Elf 1735 using popups), (coincidentally, back to a revert of section blanking I had made on 16:41, 11 December 2012), left the article with 36 era qualifiers total, of which 64% (23) were BCE/CE and 36% (13) were BC/AD.
• Til Eulenspiegel's next edit, was mislabeled as minor, with the summary m (→‎Early history: fix dates in this section per MOS, to be consistent with rest of article and earliest used format, should not be switched without discussed agreement), whereupon the article then had 34 era qualifiers total, of which 0% (0) were BCE/CE and 100% (34) were BC/AD.
• Til Eulenspiegel's next edit again labeled as minor with the edit summary m (MOS style), had 30 era qualifiers total, of which 0% (0) were BCE/CE and 100% (30) were BC/AD.
• At which time I reverted Til Eulenspiegel's non-reverts, per WP:BRD and WP:ERA, with the edit summary (rv 2x (not 3x) it's far from clear that the dominant era format has no consensus, see Talk:History of physics#To boldly conform), where upon the article, yet again, had 36 era qualifiers total, of which 64% (23) were BCE/CE and 36% (13) were BC/AD.
• Following Til Eulenspiegel's tendentious behavior, Mojoworker likewise reverted (while ostensibly incorporating minor "corrections") with the edit summary (Reverting to inconsistent WP:ERA style pending outcome of discussion cycle of BRD.), now leaving the article with 32 era qualifiers total, of which only 56% (18) are BCE/CE and, somehow, 44% (14) are BC/AD. Clearly, those so-called minor corrections begged the question.

Thank you Til Eulenspiegel, for accepting that your preferred outcome need not be reflected in the article prior to any "new explicit consensus", which needless to say, may or may not "be the best outcome", if you will not or cannot address why a change to BC/AD would be more suitable for an encyclopedia article on the History of Physics.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 00:09, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the minor corrections were to change things like (232 BCE – 220 BCE) which according to the MOS should be formatted as (232 – 220 BCE). But those were made after the initial BRD cycle started and should have no bearing on the discussion of the status quo ante – but I'll revert them if they are distracting from the discussion. To me what's germane is that the editors of this article kept the article text consistently in the BCE/CE style for 2.5 years until six months ago and since then it has become inconsistent, but still predominantly BCE/CE. Seems compelling to me. Mojoworker (talk) 01:06, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

We are still spending a lot of time counting every historical usage of every format style, when again, at the end of the day it is the preference that users will express on this page, that is the only explicit means of establishing current consensus. And we need to hear from more than just the four of us who all have made our views more or less clear so far. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 01:37, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

WP:IDHT... It's been made perfectly clear both that the current consensus is BCE/CE and that in order to change it, more than a "preference" would be required:

Do not change the established era style in an article unless there are reasons specific to its content. Seek consensus on the talk page before making the change. Open the discussion under a subhead that uses the word "era". Briefly state why the style is inappropriate for the article in question. A personal or categorical preference for one era style over the other is not justification for making a change.

— WP:ERA, emphasis in the original

As opposed to your personal and categorical preference, you have yet to provide reasons specific to the content of this article that BCE/CE is inappropriate and I doubt any such reasons will be forthcoming for the History of physics.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 03:02, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

No, it definitely doesn't work like that. In the event of a dispute, explicit consensus on the talkpage is essential, and so far there is none. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 03:05, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

As a semi-professional historian of science I personal think that all history of science articles should use BCE/CE dating conform with current international practice in the profession Thony C. (talk) 19:08, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Conclusion

This discussion has been going on for almost three months, and has petered out - with perhaps, less participation than may have been hoped for. Reading the consensus, I see the IP (178.121.208.130) that made the contested edit which started this discussion, has been supported by Machine Elf, Thony C., and me. While the edit was opposed by Til Eulenspiegel and Jc3s5h. When this discussion commenced, the article text had been maintained consistently in the BCE/CE style for 2.5 years until six months prior and since then became increasingly inconsistent. Therefore, I propose restoring the article to the last previous consistent style of BCE/CE. Mojoworker (talk) 22:22, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Y Done—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 21:35, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

PPT Bias

The contemporary section of this article seems to suffer the now near-universal syndrome of theoretical particle physics bias. What can be done to change this? 5.151.82.42 (talk) 12:39, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

This is a difficult one.

Contemporary professional physics spans a huge range of topics, increasingly including interdisciplinary research areas.

Contemporary popular physics IS the LHC, pretty much. Laymen don't care about solid state physics, even though it is (arguably) far more relevant to the real world.

"History of physics" is not a technical article, it is a laymen's article. Therefore for the most part it should be pulling information from laymen's sources. Unfortunately it is Wikipedia's job to represent the sources, even when those sources are biased. Unless someone finds a load of popular science books about solid-state physics, but my bet is that won't happen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.55.220 (talk) 23:01, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree that physics articles seem to be weighted towards theoretical rather than experimental topics. I've always thought it was due to what graduate students do when they are stuck on a problem. Theorists sit and think and divert themselves by putting information into Wikipedia. Experimentalists have to deal with their problems by troubleshooting, repairing, and rebuilding equipment, and rewriting the buggy data processing programs.

However "History of physics" is not a "layman's" article. It is a serious historical article. Most of the references are not the latest popularizations but serious historical work. The article just hasn't had editors who are interested in the missing areas. You don't have to wait for someone to write a popular book. The Center for the History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics supports historical work. For example, see Hoddeson, Lillian (1992). Out of the Crystal Maze : Chapters from The History of Solid State Physics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-534532-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help). StarryGrandma (talk) 20:37, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Tesla among the greatest?

Tesla was not a physicist. He didn't give any theroretical contribution in any field. Most of his invention had already been developed by others. His role in the development of radio technology is utterly overestimated http://earlyradiohistory.us/tesla.htm I don't really understand why he was inserted in that list. Magnagr (talk) 08:27, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

There is also a redundant version of this list (with different members) at Physicist. Do we need two lists? Do we need any list in either article? More at Talk:Physicist#List of Important Physicists but, yeah, Tesla comes off more as a fan based WP:ILIKEIT than a reliable sourced list member. WP:LIST requires WP:RS for member inclusion. List tagged for cleanup. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 14:40, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Marconi

Marconi created the first working radio apparatus for long distance communication, definetely the first succesful wireless telegraphy system, not the first succesful commercial wireless telegraphy system.Magnagr (talk) 20:19, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

True, reworded it to match what can be referenced re: there was much experimentation by the "Maxwellians" but it was all physics experiments, they seemed to have little interest in communication. The wording was a little off in that Marconi's was the first radio based wireless telegraph not the first wireless telegraph (there were many others). Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 22:21, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Fountains of Bryn Mawr Magnagr (talk) 19:00, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

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POV list

The "Influential physicists" list has no selection criteria as per WP:SOURCELIST, making the members of the list WP:NPOV, people add their favorites. Probably the list should be deleted, its redundant to the history sections and just bloats out the article. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 01:57, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

In support of including Chen-Ning Yang, first regard the importance of the basis for the Standard Model, refer to the Wiki entry on Gauge Theory. The photos in the upper section suggest the later inclusion of "favorites" and the list could easily be updated to include Ed Witten, Steven Weinberg and others. Should there be some criteria for removal, some source for lack of notability? Sources for supporting the inclusion of C.N. Yang is a question on Quora:

"Is Chen-Ning Franklin Yang the best physicist alive? Many Chinese say his accomplishment is much higher than Steven Hawking, and his position could be top 5 in physics history. Is it true?" https://www.zhihu.com/question/27209078 (72 responses) One answer from Warren D Smith, Ph.D. Mathematics, Princeton University (1988) Answered Oct 14

"I’d certainly rank Yang above Hawking. And I think it is reasonable to say he is one of the top 5 or 10 theoretical physicists up until now."

Also of interest is "An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output" "In summary, I have proposed an easily computable index,h, which gives an estimate of the importance, significance and broad impact of a scientist’s cumulative research contributions. I suggest that this index may provide a useful yardstick to compare different individuals competing for the same resource when an important evaluation criterion is scientific achievement, in an unbiased way." & "The highest h among physicists appears to be E. Witten." J.E. Hirsch (UC, San Diego)Aug 2005 Proc.Nat.Acad.Sci. 46 (2005) 16569.

According to http://inspirehep.net/author/profile/C.N.Yang.1 ... has an h-index

Chen-Ning Yang 58, & a few others Abdus Salam 58, John Wheeler 25, John Bardeen 7, Edward Witten 165.

Another question on Quora: "Is Ed Witten really the world's greatest living theoretical physicist?"

discusses the h-index. Should the article be updated to include Ed Witten? :Alphatronic (talk) 15:58, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

We do not do original research on Wikipedia trying to find out who is "more notable" and user generated sources such as Quora are considered unacceptable. Articles come from published secondary sources that cover the topic, so Chen-Ning Yang shows in The Oxford Guide to the History of Physics and Astronomy, Volume 10, but its not significant coverage. Chen-Ning Yang is also not in the history summary in this article, another reason not to include him in the list. He will be found in the "See also" links List of physicists and by following Nobel Prize in physics to List of Nobel laureates in Physics. Note even that last list is a breakout/sub - each article can not be about everything, they have a logical cutoff point. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 19:09, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

The argument about original research and user generated sources is unacceptable and not applicable to this discussion of just "favorites" and contradicts the statement above that the list has no selection criteria, "people just add their favorites." The sources in question provide the links to sources that would satisfy a strict selection criteria if it existed, but again, as stated above; these are just "favorites" discussed on the talk page and do not need the kind of notability conditions required for a normal article. Google Scholar shows Chen-Ning Yang with an h-index of 79, much higher than many of those already on the list. Chen-Ning Yang does not appear in the article and neither does Witten because the section on unified field theories is incomplete, which should begin with Gauge Theory, Yang-Mills and continue to Ed Witten and String Theory. Many Chinese physicists would consider, at best, the Oxford Guide ... to be an incomplete and biased source. Wiki editors without much knowledge or appreciation of the history of physics might consider the following sources (which could be added to the Chen-Ning Yang Wiki entry) to also be biased.

S.T. Yau's Chen-Ning Yang: A Great Physicist of the Twentieth Century, International Press of Boston, 1995. "In 1992, many of the world's most distinquished scientists gathered to honor Professor and Nobel Laureate, Chen-Ning Yang," includes papers from Chern, Dyson, Mills, Teller, Ting, Wu and Witten.

Symmetry and Modern Physics: Yang Retirement Symposium State University of New York, Stony Brook 21 - 22 May 1999 Ed. by Alfred S. Goldhaber et al. World Scientific, 2003. "A noteworthy selection of the papers presented at the symposium appears in this invaluable volume in honor of Professor Yang."

60 Years of Yang-Mills Gauge Field Theories: C N Yang's Contributions to Physics, Edited by Kok Khoo Phua & ‎ Lars Brink, World Scientific, 2016. "During the last six decades, Yang Mills theory has increasingly become the cornerstone of theoretical physics. It is seemingly the only fully consistent relativistic quantum many-body theory in four space-time dimensions. As such it is the underlying theoretical framework for the Standard Model of Particle Physics, which has been shown to be the correct theory at the energies we now can measure. It has been investigated also from many other perspectives, and many new and unexpected features have been uncovered from this theory. In recent decades, apart from high energy physics, the theory has been actively applied in other branches of physics, such as statistical physics, condensed matter physics, nonlinear systems, etc. This makes the theory an indispensable topic for all who are involved in physics."

Proceedings of the International Symposium on Frontiers of Science: In Celebration of the 80th Birthday of C. N. Yang: 17-19 June 2002 Tsinghua University, Beijing, China 1st Ed. by Hwa-Tung Nieh, World Scientific, 2003. "The International Symposium on Frontiers of Science was held to celebrate the 80th birthday of Chen-Ning Yang, one of the great physicists of the 20th century and arguably the most-admired living scientist in China today. Many of the world's great scientists — including sixteen Nobel laureates, Fields medallists and Wolf Prize winners — converged on Beijing from all corners of the globe to pay tribute to Professor Yang."

Proceedings of the Conference in Honor of C N Yang's 85th Birthday: Statistical Physics, High Energy, Condensed Matter and Mathematical Physics Singapore, 31 October – 3 November 2007. Ed. by: M-L Ge, C.H. Oh & K.K. Phua. World Scientific, 2008.

Yu Shi, "Brief Overview of C.N. Yang’s 13 Important Contributions to Physics." Int. J. Mod.Phys. A, 30, 1530069 (2015).

External links: famousscientists.org/chen-ning-yang and listed on famousscientists.org/top-physicists.

In conclusion, there appears to be no substantive support for the removal of C.N. Yang from the list. Uninformed personal opinion is insufficient reason for removal and borders on an act of vandalism by suspect sources. Alphatronic (talk) 16:59, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

You are missing one of the basic tenets of WP:SOURCE, "Base articles on reliable, third-party, published sources". We can take any physicist who won a Nobel Prize and come up with a pile of accolades given to him/her specifically. Third party would be a general book on the history of physics, a book not about a single person, and what it says. Trying to boil down Google h-index to reach an unstated conclusion is WP:OR and accolade "A" + accolade "B" + accolade "C" = greater notability is specifically WP:SYNTH. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 20:55, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Again, as stated above "The "Influential physicists" list has no selection criteria as per WP:SOURCELIST, making the members of the list WP:NPOV, people add their favorites." This is a talk page discussion about "favorites" and trying to show why Chen-Ning Yang is a favorite of many physicists themselves. Abusing Wiki rules regarding the implied "favorite" conclusion of the Google h-index is missing the point and irrelevant to the discussion, again it's about "favorites" not "greater notability". The proceedings themselves contain individual papers that have been published elsewhere and would qualify as third-party general sources if that were needed. Ignoring the key statements made also support the conclusion again: "there appears to be no substantive support for the removal of C.N. Yang from the list. Uninformed personal opinion is insufficient reason for removal and borders on an act of vandalism by suspect sources." Alphatronic (talk) 21:45, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

WP:BURDEN works the other way, you have to provide valid selection criteria for list inclusion. In this case, in a history article, that would be several reliable sources by historians on the history of physics. Please cite those to support inclusion. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 02:30, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Again and again, "The "Influential physicists" list has no selection criteria as per WP:SOURCELIST, making the members of the list WP:NPOV, people add their favorites." This is not in the Wiki mainspace, nevertheless try this for starters:

50 Years of Yang–Mills theory. G. 't Hooft, World Scientific, 2005.

History of original ideas and basic discoveries in particle physics. Eds. H.B. Newman and T. Ypsilantis. New York : Plenum Press, 1996.

A comprehensible world: on modern science and its origins. Jeremy Bernstein, Random House, 1967.

The Rise of the Standard Model: Particle Physics in the 1960s and 1970s. Eds. L. Hoddeson, et al, Cambridge University Press, 1997.

The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-century Physics R.P. Crease & C.C. Mann, Rutgers University Press, 1996.

The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery, Abraham Pais, Oxford University Press, 2000.

Inward bound: of matter and forces in the physical world. Abraham Pais, Oxford University Press, 1986.

Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Field Theory, Ed. Tian Yu Cao, Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Quote from WP:Burden - "Once an editor has provided any source that he or she believes, in good faith, to be sufficient, then any editor who later removes the material has an obligation to articulate specific problems that would justify its exclusion from Wikipedia (e.g., undue emphasis on a minor point, unencyclopedic content, etc.)." Was the C.N. Yang content considered sufficiently sourced before the removal in question?

Now please undo the removal of C.N. Yang from the list or submit this dispute for arbitration. Thank you. Alphatronic (talk) 15:05, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

WP:BURDEN - "The cited source must clearly support the material as presented in the article. Cite the source clearly and precisely (specifying page, section, or such divisions as may be appropriate)". So please note where in the sources you provided they list 57 "Influential physicists" with C.N. Yang among them. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 18:23, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Those familiar with the sources know C.N. Yang is clearly prominent, Yang-Mills theory features in the basis of the Standard Model, so page numbers or sections would be useless as support is pervasive except in Genius of Science there is only one chapter on a portrait of Lee and Yang. Specifically citing more direct accolades for C.N. Yang would just be repetitive of what is already state above. Also, a list of the other "influential physicists" is unnecessary. Repeatedly ignoring the essential statements above and abusing Wiki guidelines is not helping your uninformed personal opinion of C.N. Yang as an "also ran" as the sources clearly show he is definitely "in the running and a leader of the pack." A reminder: "now please undo the removal of C.N. Yang from the list or submit this dispute for arbitration. Thank you." Alphatronic (talk) 18:57, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

If you are saying this inclusion is obvious in your opinion and therefore supporting sources are not required, you really need to read WP:COPO. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 20:25, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

I am not saying that, support for the inclusion is obvious in the view of the historians of science presented in the supporting sources supplied. "In Wikipedia, verifiability means that people reading and editing the encyclopedia can check that information comes from a reliable source." Are you trying to "make things up" and say that I maintain that the information need not be checked as coming from a reliable source? Actually, in your own words: "list has no selection criteria as per WP:SOURCELIST, making the members of the list WP:NPOV, people add their favorites." ... ah um 2 + 2 ... "therefore supporting sources are not required." Alphatronic (talk) 21:07, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Nope, I'm saying the list should be deleted because: there is probably no obtainable selection criteria, its redundant to other lists, and its superfluous to the article. If you are saying "the list has no criteria so my addition is just as valid as any other addition".... err... no, that is not cleaning up the list. Our choices here are to come up with a selection criteria or delete the list - not to simply CRUFT more stuff on. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 21:37, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Satisfaction of reasonably sufficient criteria should be evident enough to undo the removal of C.N. Yang from the list.

Perhaps Wikipedia:Third opinion could help with a selection criteria. Alphatronic (talk) 22:02, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

Lack of criteria for a gallery—which is what I think this list should be treated as in its present form, not an embedded list—is clearly prohibited by the image use policy (at #Image galleries), as Wikipedia is not a collection of images. Should this gallery not contain images, it is still original research as standards for those included (being "influential and important") are not attributed to a reliable source. This still applies to the gallery, which is compiled indiscriminately – there is currently no difference between the scope of this section and List of physicists, which includes all physicists with Wikipedia articles (as they're notable, see WP:LISTPEOPLE). The creation of a list-class article for a particular subset of these notable physicists must have criteria that are attributed to reliable sources, such as List of Nobel laureates in Physics. @Alphatronic: this gallery doesn't seem to have been added very recently so I have not located who added it or when, but WP:UNSOURCED (which Fountains of Bryn Mawr linked for you) is quite relevant. The section is not verified by reliable sources, so it should not be reinstated following its removal without doing so. This whole gallery should be deleted as readers can be directed to appropriate list-class articles, and images and well-written summaries that are present here should be incorporated into those articles (like List of Nobel laureates in Physics, a featured list, already has). Rhinopias (talk) 00:07, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Bad categorization

Hello,

I just red the article.

Why should there be a section called "Muslim scientists" ? We can categorize physics's evolution by region. East, West, etc. But I am not sure what is the point of categorizing by religion?! What about an entry called "Christians scientists" ? And one called "Atheist scientists"? And one called "Indu scientists"?

This seems to also be the case in the article history of science from wiki. Very very strange.

I would suggest we create sections purely based on geography and time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.61.19.78 (talk) 13:21, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

The other sections in Ancient history are Ancient Greece, India and China and Medieval Europe, so Islamic world seems a better fit - and is also consistent with the declared main article Science in the medieval Islamic world. I have changed the title accordingly --catslash (talk) 17:57, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Boosterism

Some recent edits are reminiscent of the WP:Jagged 85 cleanup problems. Please see WT:Requests for comment/Jagged 85#April 2019. Johnuniq (talk) 11:18, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

The lede is a shambles

The opening of this article is pure, chauvinistic pablum. Let's break it down:

"Physics … is the fundamental branch of science." This phrase has no purpose other than to place physics in a value hierarchy with respect to other sciences. It is entirely irrelevant to understanding what the history of physics is all about.

"Physics is, in one sense, the oldest and most basic academic pursuit; its discoveries find applications throughout the natural sciences, since matter and energy are the basic constituents of the natural world." Utter nonsense, in several respects. What is the "one sense" in which this is the case? If we take "academic" to date back to the Platonic Academy, then philosophy is the oldest and most basic academic pursuit. Physics, in one way of understanding the term, was a feature of Aristotle's philosophy, but he in no way considered it the "most basic". Further, it's wildly ignorant to suggest that physics finds applications elsewhere in the natural science *because* matter and energy are the basic constituents of the natural world.

"The other sciences are generally more limited in their scope and may be considered branches that have split off from physics to become sciences in their own right." Breathtaking historical ignorance of the first order. In no sense did physics exist before other areas of science, and the notion that biology, chemistry, economics, "split off" from physics cannot sustain even the most cursory scrutiny. Note that Aristotle also pursued biology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.8.243.178 (talk) 12:50, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Bridging Classical and Quantum physics

The ideas of symmetry are mentioned in the description of Special Relativity and the descriptions of modern physics without citing the theoretical underpinnings Noether's_theorem or major experimental tests like the Wu_experiment. It seems a missed opportunity to connect particle physics with it's roots in Lagrangian_mechanics. Msmithma (talk) 20:06, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Revision 11/21/2020

@P,TO 19104: you tagged your reversion of the anon edit as "unexplained removal of content" when you were removing a vandalistic line. Did you mean to use a different summary, or were you also trying to revert the edits just prior to the last one? Footlessmouse (talk) 20:02, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

@Footlessmouse: Hi, it seems I may have used the incorrect edit summary (I recently changed my RedWarn preferences). Please see my current dummy edit. Thank you, P,TO 19104 (talk) (contribs) 20:05, 21 November 2020 (UTC)