User talk:Maschen/Archive 6

Clarification
When you write
 * You're confirming exactly what the sources say, that the wavefunction can be written as a complex vector, which is fine, but Yohan is saying...,

then it is easy to read it as if Yohan is saying something else than what the sources and Cuzkatzimhut exactly agree on. You bet I'll reply to that. YohanN7 (talk) 22:09, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


 * What? I was referring to the discussion on the wave function talk page. M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 22:12, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Citations' purist
I am off base in Mexico at present, without the time or gumption to deal with a tendentious "you do it for me" citations' purist: Talk:Uncertainty principle. Would this be of any interest to you or any well-meaning contributor? There is an unsurprising undercurrent of fractious debatability and denial of the obvious. Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 17:07, 23 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the pointer, will comment there. It seems there isn't much I need to do though. M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 19:52, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Wave function
Hi!

I'd appreciate if you could chip in a bit more on that talk page. I have too many times been sucked in by cranks and goof-bags, and I don't intend to be sucked in anymore. It is a waste of time and makes me look more unpleasant as a person than I really am if I write the truth. (Granted, I am unpleasant, not just that unpleasant.) Without support, I must leave the page to its destiny. This airbags edit history is full of disruptive editing of talk pages, and it is clear that his knowledge is close to zero. Once in a while he makes reasonable posts, but it seems to be solely for the purpose on setting up some crankery to come. (See e.g Talk:Quantum Mechanics.) This is true especially since he claims he has a PhD in a scientific subject. He'd know when he is messing around and when he isn't. He's not here to be productive. YohanN7 (talk) 17:07, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I have looked around a bit more. This user is about to totally rewrite a number of articles from ground up. He is also in the habit of saying on talk pages that reverts of huge whimsical additions of his must be discussed on the talk page. This is typical of a crank. (The usual procedure is to discuss first, then add.) He seems to hate precise descriptions in the language that all of physics is couched (mathematics) and, as a substitute, uses close to infinitely long incomprehensible ramblings.

Something must be done or the QM section of Wikipedia will quickly become a disaster. YohanN7 (talk) 20:40, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree to some extent, and stayed away temporarily partly as a break from the other week, partly real life. Armed with my copy of Dirac's principles of QM, I'll try and contribute later. Thanks for posting, you've also been very patient and not "unpleasant". M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 22:29, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I just posted on his talk page. I will not edit that article or talk until tomorrow, falling asleep. M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 23:22, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you!

Affected articles are quantum mechanics, wave function, quantum state, Copenhagen interpretation, Virtual particle, interpretations of quantum mechanics, quantum superposition, causality, ontology, + more + a number of articles on thermodynamics.

Some edits (to the articles themselves) have been reverted (not by me), but other articles are now incomprehensible (and extremely long, see quantum superposition that ought to be crisp and short). He chooses a language that avoids anything related to mathematics, even the word observables. For that, he chooses in many places the phrase "quantal analyser" (presumably an "apparatus" taking part in an experiment of thought he sometimes describes at length) without any sort of explanation. The list is endless. YohanN7 (talk) 23:37, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I stole a few minutes to roll my eyes at Hamilton's optico-mechanical analogy with its undiluted authorship list. I have no creative ideas about the situation, though...Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 00:23, 27 January 2015 (UTC)


 * We already have an article on Huygens' principle. (The article got the apostrophe right (I believe), but the proper redirect has it otherwise.) In addition to his plain English interpretation of it, he adds (my wikilink)
 * This is wave–particle duality for a single particle in ordinary three-dimensional physical space or for a wave of some property of a logically dense spatially distributed medium...
 * The duplication is enough for deletion. I don't want to request its deletion. I'm at war with enough people (including a valuable editor I do not wish to be at war with (he is definitely reading this)) just because I can't resist pointing out, ..., well, don't know how to formulate it diplomatically. Severe misunderstandings of the subject at hand? YohanN7 (talk) 01:52, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Updated list: Affected articles are quantum mechanics, wave function, quantum state, Copenhagen interpretation, Virtual particle, interpretations of quantum mechanics, quantum superposition, causality, ontology, matter wave, wave function collapse, Quantal translative momentum transfer, Minority interpretations of quantum mechanics, energy and Hamilton's optico-mechanical analogy.

The list is not complete, goes back to November, and does in particular not include a multitude of articles on thermodynamics (or endless ramblings on talk pages when he meets resistance). YohanN7 (talk) 03:02, 27 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Commented on Talk:Hamilton's optico-mechanical analogy. M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 10:13, 27 January 2015 (UTC)


 * List of articles created here....Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 16:04, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

New Shankar ref wave function
Hi!

You sure it's not Principles of quantum mechanics Amazon?

B t w, I have started moving references downstairs (see talk page thread) so that they can be reused for new citations. YohanN7 (talk) 13:31, 30 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, will fix (including to move the reference down and make consistent with the rest the article). M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 14:42, 30 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Tnx. Phew, this really is dirty work, almost done

Discussion about one of your illustrations
Hi, there is a discussion on one of your illustrations at Talk:Derivations_of_the_Lorentz_transformations. Your figure seems fine to me, but obviously some others find it confusing, so maybe if you join in you can figure how it might be improved for their benefit. Thanks! Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 15:38, 1 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for letting me know, best, M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 10:19, 2 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi M! Long time no edit. Hiding again? YohanN7 (talk) 11:53, 2 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Not hiding just little motivation and time for now, thanks for stopping by, M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 09:58, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Template:Dimanalblock listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Template:Dimanalblock. Since you had some involvement with the Template:Dimanalblock redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. —Quondum 20:35, 24 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks, commented there. M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 21:28, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Complex spacetime
Do you want to be putting effort into the article? I cannot see it surviving AfD. Do you think there is a reason for it to remain? —Quondum 22:01, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Why not? If the questionable editorializations from that author can be removed, and the article written to actually reflect the sources, then it could be an interesting and worthwhile article. M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 22:03, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I have yet to figure out what the topic is; without a clear topic, IMO it cannot live. Even if a topic is clearly identified, it must be notable.  Complex manifold says most of it; we'd need sources that use the idea in physics.  The last reference ([8]) interestingly does use a four-dimensional flat complex manifold as a tool on which to apply analytical continuation, but not as an "actual space"; that seems about as close as it gets, and the source is IMO not even remotely notable.  Why synthesize something from a few non-notable papers?  N has asked me to nominate it.  —Quondum 22:21, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * On second thoughts, it is starting to look a little more coherent, with the topic of a four-dimensional complex manifold for studying physics. The references to Kalusa and Einstein are probably not relevant, though.  —Quondum 22:29, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I thought so too about the Kalusa and Einstein references, but decided to keep them for now in case they're useful. They can always be removed sooner or later. M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 22:50, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Refs [1] and [8] definitely use complex spacetime as a mathematical tool. (The first may even be somewhat notable.) Einstein certainly used complex tensor bundles (to house a complex metric), but on a real spacetime. I think it belongs, and Kaluza & Klein started the whole business of somehow extending spacetime.
 * The topic is clearly fringe, but is it fringe enough to not warrant an article? I don't know. There is also this book: arxiv (it is actually published: Amazon). I'm not too sure about anything. This morning the article was in shape for deletion, which is why I asked Q to nominate it since I was involved in the editing (war). Perhaps we can ask for more opinions? YohanN7 (talk) 23:08, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Could do on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics but falling asleep now so will look at this tommorow morning. Cheers, M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 23:21, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * On the topic (which does not necessarily have to remain unchanged), if Kaluza–Klein theory is to be included, this is a broadening of the topic from what the current name suggests to essentially A survey of extensions to four-dimensional spacetime for theories of physics. What a mouthful, but may help you decide how you want to focus it.  Anyhow, I'll leave you to it.  —Quondum 01:42, 15 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Kaluza–Klein theory has absolutely nothing to do with quantum mechanics. It has decidedly nothing whatsoever to do with strings. Yet it figures in the article on string theory. What I am trying to tell you here is that axiomatizing the history of science isn't going to be quite as easy as you'd wish. YohanN7 (talk) 10:01, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

It seems like not more than a handful of people have looked into the subject, and that nothing notable has come out of it. (Exceptions are when spacetime has been complexified in order to obtain new results for the usual spacetime. (Just like we might use complex analysis or quaternions or whatever to facilitate finding solutions.) I think we should let this article go. YohanN7 (talk) 14:30, 1 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Indifferent. For now I would just leave it for a while, maybe someone (hopefully an expert) will expand it. If people want to delete at any time I don't mind. M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 17:47, 4 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't have Penrose's Road to Reality to hand now, but remember him talking about spacetime with complex coordinates (not speifically on twistor theory, but a complexified Minkowski space), the discussion is not in the article, maybe it could be added, and if he points to other references those could be worth looking into. Not essential though, and if the article is going to be deleted there is little point. When I get back I'll check back later today. M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 17:55, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

You've got mail
(regarding illustrations for TP) YohanN7 (talk) 23:42, 7 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Sorry about this but could you resend? The old address stopped working so I created a new one, now updated on WP. Thanks, M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 06:46, 9 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Sure thing. YohanN7 (talk) 08:04, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Except I can't. You forgot to enable email. YohanN7 (talk) 08:08, 9 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I did enable the new email in the preferences, the verification click didn't work the first time. M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 09:08, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for July 13
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Thomas precession, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Similarity transformation. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ* Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 08:57, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Analytical mechanics
I see you've been trying to rework the analytical mechanics article. I recently came across the Udwadia–Kalaba equation, which is an equation with vectors and matrices, but still makes a distinction between the applied forces and the forces of constraint. The discoverers of the equation refer to it as belonging in the field of "analytical dynamics" (a weak and possibly unnecessary article). If that's become the convention, then I would think that the distinctiveness of "analytical" is not that the equations of motion are derivable from a scalar but rather that the forces of constraint are not specifically accounted on the microscopic level. Thoughts? Teply (talk) 00:59, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * By the way, I've also DYK-nominated Routhian for you. Keep it up. Teply (talk) 07:48, 29 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I thought analytical mechanics was using scalar quantities (Lagrangian, Hamiltonian, Routhian, whateverian...) in terms of generalized coordinates (and their velocities and momenta), and vectorial mechanics was using the traditional Newton mechanics. I'll have to check back in the references for what they define the subject as. I agree the analytical mechanics article needs more work, but its a good overview, so worth keeping.
 * Never come across the Udwadia–Kalaba equation before, but the vectors and matrices just seem to collect the coordinates systematically, and it seems to take into account non-conservative forces. Somehow it seems to be intermediate between vectorial and analytical because the UK equations don't depend on a scalar function like L, H, or R, but use generalized coordinates in a way that resembles Newton's 2nd law.
 * Another article and concept to consider is Appell's equation of motion.
 * Thanks by the way for nominating Routhian! M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 07:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)


 * You can check your sources, but I'm not sure they'll help. I've been consulting the first few pages of Lanczos, where he has a small-print explanation of the inconsistent use between American and European authors, never mind the fact that he died 18 years before the original UK paper.  The UK approach seems much more Newtonian to me than the Lagrangian/Hamiltonian formulations.  There was an early "objection" to their formulation, to which they replied that it is equivalent to the other formulations and therefore all the problems with theirs were the same as the problems of the others.  What struck me the most, though, was that the traditional analytical mechanics all relied on D'Alembert's principle, as heavily emphasized by Lanczos, whereas UK can explicitly violate it, as of their 2002 papers.  That makes it much more general.  If it weren't for the ability to consider irreversible virtual displacements, I wouldn't have thought much of it other than as some computational tool.  This seems to me one of the exciting last frontiers of classical mechanics that only a few people study, perhaps because it is not obvious how it would generalize to quantum/GR/etc.  I've also made some recent changes to Template:Classical mechanics, which is perhaps what drew your attention to Routhian and Appell's equation of motion. Teply (talk) 08:23, 29 July 2015 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, it seems that USC had a press release about their work (see the whiteboard in the background) when they figured out the 'do' case (as in irreversible, which seems to be mistakenly described as 'do not' in the article). Teply (talk) 08:36, 29 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, for pinning down exactly what analytical mechanics is, the sources I have (Landau & Lifshitz, Kibble, Goldstein, Hand & Finch, Fetter & Walecka) are useless, they seem to simply toss off the definition of analytical mechanics as simply classical mechanics itself.
 * The UK equations are interesting, I'll have to look into the article and its sources more. It would be nice for the article to consider concrete examples where the UK eqns violate the D'Alembert principle, and include non-conservative forces like friction, currently it just has Kepler's problem.
 * I came across Routhian's and Appell's formulations a while back but didn't find them too interesting at the time. M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 08:53, 29 July 2015 (UTC)


 * If you're interested in variational principles and dissipation, you might want to look at this up-to-date paper. There's not a lot to say about the Routhian, pretty much explains itself to anyone familiar with Lagrangians and Hamiltonians.  Maybe there's more to say about Appell (or Gibbs–Appell according to some sources) because it's more closely related to Gauss's principle of least constraint.


 * Now if you allow me a brief moment to express my opinion... I think I've recently come to believe that the whole obsession over variational principles as fundamental is backward, from an educational point of view anyway. If you're going to go full-on classical mechanics, then the correct logic is to start with the principle of least constraint.  Yeah, Newton says F=ma, got it.  Now let's impose a constraint so that you can't quite stick to F=ma.  OK, then does Nature choose to be as "close" to F=ma as possible, and by "close" I mean in the usual least squares sense, which I probably already learned in high school statistics?  Yes?  That's great.  It's not that useful in practice, but at least I didn't have to learn the confusing, unphysical concepts like "virtual work" yet.  Only once you've established that intuition do you go on to introduce the calculus of variations and show that the principle of least constraint is equivalent to D'Alembert's principle, from which Lagrangian mechanics is derived.  Many of the traditional variational principles are really unintuitive to first-timers, which is why the top answer to a question like this paraphrases to "It's unintuitive so just get used to it."  They were all introduced on the basis of metaphysics as much as physics, and from people who never knew that quantum mechanics would throw all of their metaphysics into the trash.  It seems that history put the cart before the horse.  So if there is something more to be said about Gauss or Gibbs–Appell, then I'd like to see it.  I may add the one example (again from Lanczos) of a particle on a surface z=f(x,y) with an external force applied and just show how minimizing the constraint looks. Teply (talk) 00:51, 1 August 2015 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks I'll look into the papers.
 * While on the topic of analytical mechanics, I recently became side-tracked with Hamiltonian field theory, which I couldn't find clearly elsewhere on WP so decided to create it. Ideally Lagrangian mechanics and Lagrangian field theory should be their own articles, and Lagrangian a DAB page for the multiple uses of "Lagrangian", a proposal I made here. There is covariant Hamiltonian field theory to consider merging into Hamiltonian field theory also.
 * I personally find analytical mechanics and field theory to be interesting, because of their scope of applicability and how quickly equations of motion can be set up. On the minus side beyond classical mechanics and field theory (QFT etc.) the Lagrangians have to be guessed or reverse-engineered from the equations, and finding Lagrangians and actions using physical ideas to fit the equations seems silly. It would be nicer to have something physical which directly gives results. M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 06:50, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for August 30
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Position and momentum space, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Quantum theory. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ* Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:06, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Routhian mechanics
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:17, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for September 20
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Lorentz transformation, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Dyadic. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ* Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 12:29, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for September 27
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Lorentz transformation, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Reference frame. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ* Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 10:45, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for October 13
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Lorentz transformation, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Delta. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ* Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:21, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for November 21
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Dyadics, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Scalar. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ* Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 10:21, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:27, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for November 30
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Lorentz transformation, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Bilinear. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ* Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:26, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Many thanks as always! ^_^ Yes, the article is very almost the way I finally like it. At long last it gathers in one place the basics all the way up to the most general LT and the group theory behind LTs. It still needs trimming, but it would also be nice to include a bit more physics, and possibly a mention of the transformation laws of spinors (only in a sentence and a line/two of equations) after the tensors.


 * I'll try to reduce some of the excessive pedanticness on my part in the earlier sections; the fewer formulae the better (for typical readers, for the enourmous byte count of 100kB+, and to make it encyclopaedic). Cheers, 'M'&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 11:40, 30 November 2015 (UTC)