Portal talk:History of science

Welcome to the discussion page for the History of science portal! If you would like to make suggestions regarding portal content, you may do so below, or on one of the following pages:
 * Selected articles: Portal talk:History of science/Article
 * Selected pictures: Portal talk:History of science/Picture
 * Selected scientists: Portal talk:Science/Featured biography (This is part of Portal:Science)
 * Selected inventors: Portal talk:Technology/Selected biography (This is part of Portal:Technology)
 * Did you know?: Portal talk:History of science/Did you know

For general discussion of history of science content on Wikipedia, try Talk:History of science or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History of Science.

Structure of this portal
This portal is built using a series of subpages&mdash;one for each of the boxes. For details on this see Portal. These subpages may be found at The box formatting pages are
 * Portal:History of science/Intro
 * Portal:History of science/Article/Week, 2024
 * Portal:History of science/Picture
 * Portal:Science/Featured biography (part of Portal:Science)
 * Portal:Technology/Selected biography (part of Portal:Technology)
 * Portal:History of science/Portals
 * Portal:History of science/Did you know
 * Portal:History of science/Categories
 * Portal:History of science/Opentask
 * Portal:History of science/Topics
 * Portal:History of science/box-header (This page specifies colors.)
 * Portal:History of science/box-footer

Archives of the featured articles, pictures, and factoids may be found at
 * Portal:History of science/Article
 * Portal:History of science/Previous pictures
 * Portal:History of science/Did you know/Archive

merging
This page should definitely be merged. It has no purpose as its own portal. Deano 18:20, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree with that. Merging into Portal:Science would seem sensible. Worldtraveller 21:01, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Disagree - there's plenty of subject matter to keep this portal well maintained. All that's needed are a couple interested editors.  Go for it! 18:08, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Disagree - There is also a lot of history of science content that isn't yet categorized like it should be, and a lot of history of science that has yet to be included in Wikipedia. It's only going to diverge even more from the content of Science.  It definitely needs to remain separate from the Science portal.  It could be greatly improved, though, with links to history articles instead of science articles.--ragesoss 23:27, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Disagree - lots of material can go here and may be more interesting to many readers than pure science Anlace 17:42, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Layout
Can someone who knows HTML better than me fix the imbalance of the two columns for this portal? The picture box and the "did you know" box can be moved to the right, which would make the page considerably more attractive.--ragesoss 01:02, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Scientific peer review
A scientific peer review has been started and we're looking for Wikipedians who are members of the scientific academic community to run for the board. If you want to give it a shot come over and post a little about yourself. New nominations are being accepted until the 00:00 on the 17th March.

The project aims to combine existing peer review mechanisms (Wikipedia peer review, featured article candidate discussion, article assessment, &c.) which focus on compliance to manual of style and referencing policy with a more conventional peer review by members of the scientific academic community. It is hoped that this will raise science-based articles to their highest possible standards. Article quality and factual validity is now Wikipedia's most important goal. Having as many errors as Britannica is not good–we must raise our standards above this. --Oldak Quill 18:18, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Selected article suggestions
Please suggest history of science articles (non-biographies) for future selected articles for this portal. You can summaries for ones you like to Portal:History_of_science/Article. You can also suggest future selected pictures at Portal_talk:History_of_science/Picture. --ragesoss 07:39, 19 March 2006 (UTC) Possibilities:
 * Conflict thesis
 * Natural philosophy
 * Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids
 * History of evolutionary thought
 * Big Science
 * Atomism
 * History of mathematics
 * Manhattan Project
 * Science and technology in China
 * Paradigm shift
 * History of ecology
 * Bohr-Einstein debates
 * Lysenkoism
 * Deutsche Physik
 * Vienna Circle
 * History of the periodic table
 * Longitude prize
 * Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy (after merging)
 * Tychonic system
 * Galileo affair
 * Inherit the Wind
 * Tests of general relativity

==minor redesign== I've prepared a somewhat redesigned version of the portal, mainly just aesthetic. Here is is: User:Ragesoss/template. I'll implement it in a few days if there are no objections.--ragesoss 02:02, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Images
I went and promoted this without rechecking the portal. There are some things that, had I noticed them, I would have objected to. The images in the selected articles boxes are far too large; they should keep to 100px or less, just as on the Main Page. However, because you are using thumbnails and have given the excessive captions, such a reduction would still result in the image occupying significantly more space than its accompanying text. I also can't see a reason to thumbnail the selected picture; why inhibit its description? Instead of being limited as a small-text caption, why not let it stand free? The other concern I had was that the selected articles were not linked at first mention. Thanks, --cj | talk 04:20, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I've shrunk the images in the selected articles to a max of 150px and smaller when it doesn't obscure the image too much; I think the main page convention is too small, and the inability to caption such small images is too restrictive. However, I've trimmed some of the captions as well, to partially address your concerns.  I prefer the thumbed style for the selected picture, but since its a minor thing and all the other prominent portals do it without thumbs, I've let that caption "stand free," as you say.  The first mention links are now included.  Thanks for all your helpful comments.--ragesoss 05:04, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Medicine in Ancient Greece
I wanted to inform you all that Medicine in Ancient Greece is this week's Medicine Colaboration of the Week. I would like to ask for all your support and contributions for this important scientific historical article. --Francisco Valverde 18:15, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Science and Technology Studies
History of science is currently a subfield of the much broader interdisciplinary field called Science and technology studies, or STS (please visit the article). I noticed the History of Science portal as a "subportal" on the Portal: Science page. Is this simply because this is a well developed portal, and simply that the STS portal does not yet exist? (and maybe since fewer people know about STS?) HPS is one of the founding disciplines of the interdisciplinary STS field, so I wanted to start some discussion now as the STS articles on Wikipedia continue to multiply and expand how a functioning STS portal would fit into Wikipedia's portal organization scheme. Would an STS portal link from both the science portal and the technology portal, just as the biotechnology portal is now set up? - Doubleg 20:30, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * How might other portals change? For example, the definition of "technology" currently in the technology portal isn't necessarily agreed upon by those who actually specialize in the study of technology.  Is taking STS into account helpful or necessary for conforming articles to Neutral point of view or WikiProject Countering systemic bias? - Doubleg

Standards
Please keep an eye out for red links. As a featured portal, they should not be occurring as they presently are in Selected scientist. Also, Things you can do needs a trim so as to keep the portal columns balanced. Thanks, --cj | talk 22:57, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

French project
Hello,

In the french Wikipédia, we lauch the fr:Projet:Anniversaire et commémoration dans les sciences about the anniversaries of scientists.

Best regards ! --Valérie75 09:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Technical education of engineers in History
Is there any article about the education of engineers in the 18th and 19th century especially in English speaking countries within this portal? Kind regards--84.173.239.97 12:51, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

There is something wrong
I am developing a Systems science portal at the moment based on this featured portal... and I'm hereby copying some of the data to make a start with the systems science portal. Now as far as I can see I have made no edits at all in the history of science - portal related articles. My actions however do seems to have effected the current state of the portal: Maybe someone can take a look at this and let me know if you are experience the same things ? - Mdd 14:55, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems like on the portal webpage, the selected articles section does strange things.

I made a two step experiment to fix the templates lay out... by removing the  function, see. This is off cause only a temprate solution. I have no idea (yet) what is causing this. - Mdd 15:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * That's weird. That /div tag shouldn't have been there in the first place; it's not there in the other selected articles.  If you need any help getting something working on the new portal, let me know.  And if whatever problem you saw is still happening, also let me know.--ragesoss 16:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your feed back. I'm glad that "your" History of science portal is working all right again also. It remains weird. I just copied the Portal:History of science/Article/1 article and then both portals didn't work properly anymore. Thanks for the offer also. -- Mdd 17:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Weird in what way? These things often appear differently in different browsers and screen configurations, so if you're still seeing a problem (after making sure to clear your cache) then I'd like to track it down; I'll flag down some people with more technical skills if need be.--ragesoss 17:53, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

New problems
Sorry for the expression "It remains weird". This is something I would say in Dutch, meaning "I'm still surpriced it happened."... so this meant nothing... however: At the moment I have a same problem with the WikiProject Systems webpage. In the first WikiProject Systems/Presentation part the image used to be beside the text and not above the text. Now I used the WikiProject University of Oxford website as an example and there the same thing has happend. I here definitly think this is browser related... I'm working with Vista... Maybe you can take a look at both sites and tell me if you find the same things. - Mdd 18:11, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I removed the "none" parameter from the image and it made the text wrap beside the image.--ragesoss 19:41, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Now it is again as I remembered. - Mdd 21:18, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Science and medical illustration website
from today's Scout Report

Pictures of Science: 700 Years of Scientific and Medical Illustration

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/?collection=SeeingIsBelieving700&col_id=197

Brought together originally in 1999 for an exhibition held at the New York Public Library's Gottesman Exhibition Hall, this set of intriguing images covers the fields of astronomy, chemistry, geology, medicine, and physics taken from different engravings, lithographs, and manuscript illuminations. The images here range from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and they are culled from works such as the 1798 volume "Elemens de la philosophie de Neuton" and the important 1830 volume "Principles of Geology" written by geologist Sir Charles Lyell. All told, visitors can browse through ten crucial texts in their entirety, and they are all wonderful meditations on the skills and talents of unique scientists (and artists) throughout the ages. Finally, visitors looking for specific materials can also search through the entire collection, or even click on the "See all Images" button. Mccready (talk) 15:46, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Science in the Middle Ages
Hello. You are invited to take part in the discussion on Science in the Middle Ages. The question is should we keep or remove the section on the Islamic world. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 09:34, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Leonardo da Vinci Group?
I recently found in an old German book sketches of Leonardo da Vinci that seems to be unknown to recent writers, Nothing like it I found in curent books in print or on WP. For example, a study of Magnetic inclination measurements by him - 100 years before the common date. I placed images on Commons with categories. But I fear that may got lost in counts. I found no active page. Is somewhere a page where I can find people willing to deal with it? I may be able to give scans and references but my main interest is elsewhere. -- Portolanero (talk) 09:23, 22 November 2012 (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,    &mdash; The Transhumanist   07:32, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Giuseppe Piazzi
Portal:History of science/Selected anniversaries/July is giving the date of birth of Giuseppe Piazzi as 7 July, 1746, but on his Wikipedia page, it says he was born on 16 July 1746. I can't find anything on the page to connect him to a portal. Kylenano (talk) 14:38, 7 July 2021 (UTC)