User talk:Michael C Price/Archive 3

Why not put back the MegaSociety article?
Hi!

I read your MegaSociety article. Why don't you put it back where it belongs? It seems to have been a while since it was deleted, so maybe it's time to let it have another go... Algotr 23:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Have to be someone else that does that -- I've no doubt I would be accused of having a conflict of interest (nonsensical, I know, but it happened before). Unfortunately Wikipedia doesn't work well in areas that arouse the ire of the herd.--Michael C. Price talk 07:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Request for Mediation
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MichaelCPrice's vandalism of solar wind article
MichaelCPrice, please defend your edits to the solar wind article in the talk pages. As I noted in my changes to the article, it is widely-established that to accelerate charged particles, you apply an electric field in the opposite direction. This is a firmly-grounded principle of particle physics and is verified routinely in laboratory experiments all over the world and it is the only known way to accelerate charged particles. If you are capable, please try to defend your removal of this material from the article in the talk pages. In the future, try not to be so reckless with your reverts. Your edit summary says "fringe material" and "gravity bending light". Nothing I changed in the article makes any reference to anything "fringe" or to gravity affecting light. Please re-read my changes, because it's clear you didn't understand them. SteakNotShake 15:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Why did you remove a mention of escaping "the sun's gravity "? If you insist on pushing garbage on various pages the bar will be lowered for your other edits. --Michael C. Price talk 15:55, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Ebionites
There is a proposal now to pursue community enforcable mediation on the Ebionites article. Please indicate whether such would be agreeable to you. Thank you. John Carter 17:13, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Again it would depend on the scope of the mediation, which would have to include the issue of misconduct, and especially the repeated assumption of bad faith and avoidance of substantive debate by editors. Moot since Ovadyah would not agree. --Michael C. Price talk 21:28, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, he already more or less did, until he recently indicated that he was going on a break for some time. I have contacted him and asked if he would send me an e-mail. Also, please note that the last one failed because you would not agree. To date, I think he has shown himself willing to be open to mediation. However, if you decide that you would not be willing to do so, thus ruling out the possibility of mediation, ArbCom can be contacted and they do not require having people agree to their involvement. I would prefer not having to go that far, however. John Carter 21:53, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * My comment about Ovadyah was made in the light of his "departure". And yes, I withdrew from a mediation where my issues were all rejected without discussion. I can't see why anyone is surprised at that. Go right ahead and contact ArbCom if you feel that's appropriate. Personally I would prefer just reasoned debated on the talk page, but that's your call. --Michael C. Price talk 03:46, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
 * BTW, it might save you some effort if you review the results of the previous ArbComm (referred to at the start of the Ebionite talk page), which I had no issues with at all. --Michael C. Price talk 06:09, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Please indicate to me the exact link to the ArbCom discussion to which you are referring. I found no reference to one. There is a profound difference between Arbitration Committee, commonly abbreviated ArbCom, and the RfC archived in the dispute page. If you are unaware of the differences between the two, I think you might be well advised to become familiar with them. John Carter 14:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
 * No exact link to hand, but Arbcom is how other editors referred to it. --Michael C. Price talk 17:09, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Ebionites
An administrator has reviewed your additions on the Ebionites article, and has found your conduct to be significantly less than ideal. He has, based on your additions and your source citations, concluded, and I quote, "You have forged the evidence, and fobbed it onto Eisenman, with a combination of circular methodology, illegal synthesis, misattribution, and misinterpretation." This raises potentially very serious questions regarding your conduct and/or judgement. If you have any defense to this conclusion, I believe you would be well served by presenting it, presumably on that page. Oh, and, by the way, that same admin is the person who you personally attacked when you referred to the "demented ravings of someone who thinks that scholars can't be vegetarians". I do believe that at the very least a formal apology for this extremely objectionable, and I believe deliberately misrepresenting comment, is very much in order.John Carter 23:39, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It is not a misleading comment. N said: "scholarship has no place for a vegetarian Keith Akers" --Michael C. Price talk 05:46, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Which is yet again another attempt on your part to purposefully misconstrue the words of others. And your attempt to try to tell others what you believe are the few points you will allow them to discuss was reverted. If you wish to see that the material regarding John the Baptist and other unsubstantiated speculation of academics be included in the article, then I believe, as the person seeking the inclusion of such material, by policy it is incumbent upon you to find a specific source which indicates that such a disproportionate amount of attention be placed on what is basically a completely unsubstantiated hypothesis. Given the rather unique nature of this matter, I believe any reasonable party would think that simply repeating WP:NPOV, and in the process completely ignoring, WP:Undue weight, will not be enough. On that basis, I believe that the obligation is yours to justify why this fringe theory] should receive as much attention as it does. Should you not do so, I believe that I would be completely justified to demand just as much attention be given to any and all other similarly hypothesized theories. And, in all honesty, if the article is to lose FA status on the basis of the largely conjectural additions which have already been added to it, and which you insist on keeping, there really wouldn't be any reason not to include them, would there? [[User:Warlordjohncarter|John Carter 22:31, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You're dodging the issue of why N included the adjective "vegetarian". I see you're still claiming that Tabor er al are fringe, despite dab's judgment to the contrary.  As for undue weight I already explained that this is addressed by Tabor's notability.  The claim that the application of such fair-minded inclusion criteria (which are what Wikipolicy requires) would swamp the article is absurd: there are not that many qualified authorities on the Ebionites in existence.  Finally the use of "purposefully misconstrue" indicates that you're still are assuming bad faith. --Michael C. Price talk 06:11, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Your above statement also clearly and explicitly does nothing to address another requirement of wikipedia, that any content be given only appropriate weight, as per WP:Undue weight. And I think under the circumstances that the word "vegetarian" was included to indicate that the party involved has explicit biases and does not necessarily qualify as a reliable source. I also personally see your insistence on this point as once again attempting to focus on the behavior of others, and thus try to avoid directly responding to the questions regarding your own conduct. In fact, your focusing on this point to the exclusion f the rest of the questions raised at the same time I believe is yet another indication of your refusal to pay attention to the substantive comments made, and instead insist on once again trying to derail conversaion so as to avoid directly responding to the substantive points made. You have never once that I have seen addressed this particular matter of undue weight, which basically forces those who disagree with you to conclude that you are either incapable of understanding its significance, or are intentionally ignoring it. There is fundamentally not a lot of difference in terms of how those two cases should be handled. If you are even aware of the requirements of undue weight, something you have honestly never demonstrated to date, it would greatly help your case to at least directly address why you think that those particular policy rules are being followed. Again, to date, you have seemingly completely and utterly refused to respond to any attempt to get you to address those matters. It is hard to assume good faith of someone who refuses to directly respond to questions asked of him repeatedly. If you were to actually demonstrate good faith by doing so, it might be possible to assume that you are acting in good faith. However, as long as you continue to completely ignore a question which seems to have a strong concensus of all editors but yourself as being relevant to the subject, there can be no assumption that your flat refusal to address that issue even remotely qualifies as acting in good faith. I don't think anyone wants to not assume good faith of anybody. But strident, intransigent refusal to address concerns raised, and repeated attempts to sidetrack such conversations, make such conclusions inevitable. John Carter 15:43, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I have frequently addressed the undue weight issue: Tabor's views are notable (his "Jesus Dynasty" is a best seller, he is consulted often by documentary makes) ergo his views need reporting here, and not just mentioned in passing. --Michael C. Price talk 20:51, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
 * And yet another direct evasion above. You used the phrase "undue weight" once, and then directly went to "notability". The two are not even remotely identical, although you seem to think, as per your statement above, that they are literally interchangable. Do you understand that the two terms are different, I wonder, or are you simply refusing to face that possibility? John Carter 21:25, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
 * sigh* of course they are not interchangeable. I never said nor implied they were. --Michael C. Price talk 21:29, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
 * A conclusion no person who read the above interchange would come to, based on your apparent view that the two are equal. I am beginning to wonder if you are capable of perceiving the difference between the two, though. And if you can, then your statement could be taken as yet another attempt to try to avoid directly responding to a direct question by yet another attempt at dodging the issue or "rephrasing" the question, or whatever other terms you use to try to avoid directly responding to material, relevant questions. In neither circumstance, though, do you come out giving the impression of someone who can be trusted, either to understand something or because of an absolute unwillingness to address salient points. John Carter 21:45, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
 * This is silly. You wonder if I understand whether notability and undue weight are identical / interchangeable, I say no, they are not and somehow I am accused of continued evasion. If A justifies B, that does not mean A=B, okay?????? --Michael C. Price talk 21:50, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
 * No, this is based on your own apparent unwillingness or inability to see the difference, or indicate that you do accurately perceive the difference. It is not now, and never has been, the case that anything that does deserve to be covered in wikipedia as per notability rules deserves to be covered at length in the "central article" on a given topic. Were that the case, the article on the United States would probably be in the neighborhood of millions of pages. While these "theories" could easily be included in the articles on the books themselves, there is a very real question whether they deserve to be covered at the existing length in the main article, particularly as there has been no particular evidence ever put forward by you or anyone else that they are relevant to the subject that the amount of article "space" they currently have would indicate. I agree, your refusal to even apparently recognize the difference between what you said above, and what I and pretty much everyone else has said elsewhere, which is more or less what I summarized above, could be seen as being "silly". But I don't think that if that is the case that it is I or the others who disagree with you who are being "silly". John Carter 22:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I see you now have shifted to a new argument: categorisation. Would not the same argument also apply to the Jewish view of Ebionites, the Islamic view, the Catholic view etc, namely that they deserve their own separate articles?  Instead they have subsections in the central article.;  BTW you may not know that I advocated a "Tabor"-subsection awhile back, but this was rejected.--Michael C. Price talk 22:28, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
 * No actually, that was the argument we were always making, although you have once again tried to shift the argument yourself, and at the same time seemingly placed these two scholars on the same level as the entire Islamic or Catholic culture over the centuries. Are you so completely incapable of perceiving the concept of proportionality, or due weight, that you cannot perceive the differences there? John Carter 22:38, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
 * If Tabor (et al) was (were) the only one(s) who ever analysed the concept of Jesus as a non-divine but not necessarily false prophet you might have a point, but his work builds on the scholarship of others.--Michael C. Price talk 22:45, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Ebionites
Please note that a request for Arbitration from the Arbitration Committee regarding the above article has been filed here, in which you are named as a party. John Carter 16:01, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Required quotations for Ebionites article
You have clearly and explicitly failed to do what was indicated as required for the content of the above article which has been challenged to remain in place. I have therefor placed a page number in the location of every quote required for certain citations and content to remain in place. As per earlier conversation, and per the rules of WP:V, these quotations are required in cases where information is challenged. I have also added a new section to the Ebionites talk page at Talk:Ebionites describing the placement of these templates. Once again, please note that what is being requested is not only the page numbers, but the exact quotation which is being used as the basis for the included citations and content. As noted in the new section, considering you had been told that this content was considered dubious some time ago, and have consistently failed to do what is required as per WP:V, any citations which are not adequately sourced within one week will be removed, as will the content which those citations source. Thank you. John Carter 23:54, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Ebionites
Hello,

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened: Requests for arbitration/Ebionites. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Requests for arbitration/Ebionites/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Requests for arbitration/Ebionites/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Newyorkbrad 15:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Quantum Insomnia
That was a joke. I thought you were going to erase it. But it's a serious joke, because it is not clear how to count conscious paths. Even if you awaken later, why didn't your conciousness "veer off" into the 'still awake' path? These questions are thorny, and sort of philosophical. I thought it would be nice to insert some levity into this somber discussion of killing yourself. You don't have to kill yourself to make your consciousness stop for a while.Likebox 15:45, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hawking_radiation&diff=163603451&oldid=163592521
What's it mean that black holes have "thermal properties"? They give off heat?

PS: You should archive your talk page. William Ortiz 17:38, 15 October 2007 (UTC)


 * It means they radiate like black bodies with a temperature.--Michael C. Price talk 12:10, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee
A member of the Arbitration Committee has indicated that he would be interested in seeing some input on you regarding the matter before them in his edit summary here. You may wish to provide some commentary regarding the matter as indicated. John Carter 23:34, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Ebionites
This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The Arbitration Committee found that has engaged in sustained edit-warring and is subject to an editing restriction for one year, he is limited to one revert per page per week and must discuss any content changes on the article's talk page. Should any user subject to an editing restriction in this case violate that restriction, that user may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the event of repeated violations. After 5 blocks, the maximum block shall increase to one month. For the Arbitration Committee,  Cbrown1023   talk   04:54, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to Hear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Ebionites#Statement_by_MichaelCPrice

It seems the problem is that you are a few orders of magnitude more intelligent than the masses, and on Wikipedia, masses win. Ryoung122 06:51, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is full of Louises. --Michael C. Price talk 13:41, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, those idiots who insist that policy be followed are so annoying, aren't they? :) John Carter 14:48, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You mean me? --Michael C. Price talk 14:52, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The people who insist that policy be followed are ArbCom. Who did they say didn't act according to policy? By the way, as indicated below, you are welcome to add comment as to why you think your Ebionites draft should be kept, if you can think of any good reason to do so. Sorry I'm too busy to chat, though. There seem to have been several articles which may have placed too much emphasis on certain "fringe theories". John Carter 14:56, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * ArbCom is not infallible, as you've demonstrated. --Michael C. Price talk 14:58, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * And, as your own blind denial of your own repeated failures to abide by policy has clearly demonstrated, neither are you. Unfortunately, your ego seems to possibly be too big for you to ever even consider that possibility. John Carter 15:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, the usual ad hominems. --Michael C. Price talk 15:42, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion
The page User:MichaelCPrice/mega2 is being considered for deletion in accord with wikipedia policy. Please feel free to take part in the discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:MichaelCPrice/mega2. Thank you. John Carter 15:47, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Reverting on Tachyon
As you know you are on an editing restriction from the Arbitration Committee. Your edit to Tachyon here at 10:50 on 12 November (UTC) is a revert, as is this edit of 12:11 on 13 November (UTC). You are only supposed to have one revert per week, and you do not seem to have discussed and explained these changes on Talk:Tachyon. Sam Blacketer 14:49, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The first edit was not a revert: I added to the previous content to clarify and address the stated concerns (and I subsequently added two references to the new text). 2nd edit was a response to abusive anon editor. This issue has been extensively discussed by myself and others and a consensus was reached. --Michael C. Price talk 00:07, 14 November 2007 (UTC)


 * That the first edit was indeed a revert is made obvious by the fact that you removed words which were only added in the edit immediately preceding. Previous talk page discussion may have taken place, but you should expect to provide a full talk page explanation if you want to establish that you are not in breach of the revert parole. An abusive editor may still be making a reasonable edit, and the only exception is 'obvious vandalism' - make sure that you only revert vandalism which is obvious even to someone unfamiliar with the field. I'm just giving you a warning that these sort of things are likely to be looked at as breaches of your revert parole unless you give clear explanations. Sam Blacketer 00:51, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Eh? "That the first edit was indeed a revert is made obvious by the fact that you removed words...." I didn't remove any text; as I said, I added text and clarified the explanation.  And immediately afterwards added refs. --Michael C. Price talk 01:00, 14 November 2007 (UTC)


 * You are right to the extent that it was you adding content which had been removed by the immediately previous edit. I'm sorry for not being clear but it was a revert. Sam Blacketer 19:04, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

As you requested
To refer to anyone as "hysterical", particularly in a judgemental manner as you do, is I believe something which any reasonable editor would describe as being a clear and explicit violation of the official policy of No personal attacks. I have not yet reported these comments, giving you the benefit of the doubt, even against my better judgement, given your clear history of misconduct in this regard. You do seem to have a remarkable ability to justify such statements of clearly unsupported insults in your mind, despite the fact that policy does not recognize such differentiations. Frankly, your regular abuse of other editors is contemptible. Please cease doing so, or I or some other party will be forced to take action. John Carter 15:28, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It is as least as bad to accuse some one of fraud.--Michael C. Price talk 15:32, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Which is irrelevant to the current situations, and frankly that was basically demonstrated when you said "all" the page numbers you gave said the same thing, which is clearly unlikely in and of itself, and then were found to have had not a single one even remotely say what you had said they "all" said. The fact that you had been given specific indications on this page itself that what was being requested was the specific quotes, which you arrogantly refused to give, very likely yet another demonstration of your failure to abide by even minimal standards of conduct, is yet another point. However, I do believe that any reasonable party would describe your misstatement of what was said as "fraudulent misrepresentation", which is virtually synonomous with fraud. There is really no question that you did indulge in such fraudulent misrepresentation, so use of a virtual synonym is not something inherently objectionable.
 * I'm sorry your conduct got you into the situation you are now in. However, I believe any reasonable adult would acknowledge that, however blinded by your own opinion of yourself you might be, several independent parties reviewed the evidence presented, which as my own evidence was incomplete was not all the evidence available, and placed you on probation on the basis of the clear evidence of misconduct presented therein. Given your history of violation of standards of conduct in several ways, it is reasonable to assume that people will follow you to see if the problematic conduct continues. In fact, whether you know it or not, I was drawn to the tachyons page by a complaint filed against you by Ovadyah on the WP:ANI page. I acknowledge that this might be a subject about which you can put facts before your own opinions, which you seemingly could not on subject of religion, which is why I tried to ensure that you not engage in conduct which could result in a complaint and/or block. However, I think you should know that there is a specific page at Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement to place further sanctions, and, yes, Ovadyah reported you there as well. I personally have no objections to seeing you edit articles where you seem to have a solid, non-partisan background. However, you seem to continue to indulge in your problematic behavior.
 * Please try to realize that no one really has it "in for you", whatever you might think. We want the content to meet the requirements of content in wikipedia. If you can and are willing to improve content according to those requirements, well and good. If you are not, or if you violate the terms of your probation, I imagine that comparatively few admins would cut you much slack. Try to avoid violating any policies, and you'll probably be left alone. But any indication of misconduct might well be enough to block you again, and I don't think anyone wants to see that happen if it can be avoided. If you can cease holding grudges against others, and desist in making snide comments about others based on the previous case, I imagine others will as well. If you persist, then expect the same in return. John Carter 15:48, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * P.S. In fact, Ovadyah has recently adjusted his comments on the WP:ANI page to take into account your recent insults and attacks. John Carter 15:54, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I have to laugh at "If you can cease holding grudges against others, and desist in making snide comments about others based on the previous case" since that seems to be exactly what you're doing. As for being "found" to have cooked up fraudulent citations, I would remind you that I was not found guilty of any such thing.  It's a shame that Arbcomm didn't judge source content, but they didn't.  Instead they were swayed by the hysterical mob psychology that Ovadyah and others  contributed to stoking up and ignored the long-standing practice of the assumption bad faith which Ovadyah, Loremaster (and more lately you) indulged in.  This made rational debate impossible. --Michael C. Price talk 21:47, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Tachyon
You know, if you persist in these petty little snide comments of yours, there really won't be any reason to not let you at least potentially face consequences of your actions, right? If you could be bothered to read what I said above, you'd note that I'm trying to keep you from facing further sanctions. If this is the way you respond to people who are trying to keep you from trouble, simply because of pure unthinking emotionalism on your part, there's no reason for anyone to make any effort to keep you from further consequences. John Carter 21:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I did read what you wrote. I note that if I accused you of "pure unthinking emotionalism" that you would no doubt accuse me of violation of WP:NPA. But there we are, people are always blind to their own faults. --Michael C. Price talk 21:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Feel free to file a complaint then. And regarding people being blind to their own faults, you still seemingly think that your actions were all completely above board, and that it was some sort of grand conspiracy that got you where you are. I doubt many people would know more about the subject of being blind to their own faults. John Carter 21:55, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The "grand conspiracy" sounds like your fertile imagination at work. Projection. --Michael C. Price talk 21:57, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * And I note that once again you have completely refused to respond to any points made in this thread, or the one above, and instead made comments regarding others. Here is a simple, direct question which I pose to you: Why in the world, given your "standard of behavior", should anyone make any effort to assist you here? I look forward to a clear, direct response, if you are in fact even capable of doing that, which does not seem to be even remotely indicated by any available evidence. John Carter 22:01, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Can you recognise a loaded question? --Michael C. Price talk 22:05, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, and I also note once again that you are somehow apparently constitutionally incapable of directly responding to a question. I guess at this point I have to take your answer above as a "No" to my question, and from this point forward I will act on the basis of your apparent wishes to not have any help to avoid any further consequences for your current actions. John Carter 22:08, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * If it is a loaded question, don't expect a response. Your choice. --Michael C. Price talk 22:13, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Template:Quantum
Hi MichaelCPrice, I notice you have made significant contributions to Template:Quantum. Over time the template has become very large and I believe this is part of the reason that so few of the articles listed include the template. I have created a compact version which you can see at Template_talk:Quantum. I would be interested to get your feedback on this. --DJIndica (talk) 18:08, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Hello
To Michael Price, I am Ron Maimon. About 15 years ago, I got into an argument online with you over whether boundary terms in the action show up in Feynman diagrams. I argued no, because the plane wave states conserve momentum, and the momentum laws make any topological vertex give zero strength at any order of momentum space perturbation theory. You insisted that yes, so long as the Feynman diagrams are defined for a finite region, the topological terms show up. I kept on insisting too, because I couldn't make sense of the finite region condition, and I finally concluded that you had some hidden agenda that made you refuse to concede.

I now understand your agenda, and I want to say I'm sorry I was so thick. I can see now that particles can be defined either as plane wave states, or in locally by a path-integral that reproduces the quadratic Lagrangian of the fields, so that Feynman diagrams in localized regions can include interactions produced by topological terms, and this is not in contradiction with the fact that the effects vanish in the plane wave limit. At the time, I still subscribed to the Wignerian idea that particles were global constructs, and could not account for local tangled-up-field effects. probably due to the brain-damaging effects of too much formal education.

Just to let you know that I admit that I was wrong.Likebox (talk) 01:51, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Ron,

thanks for the message. Yes, I remember the fruitful discussions we used to have over at sci.physics. I had noticed Likebox's contributions at some of the mathematical articles but not realised who you were. Glad to see you have maintained your interest in physics. Recently I've been getting back into it again.

It always disturbed me that many expositions of the Feynman rules require the assumption of infinite space-time to enable easy switching between configuration and momentum pictures. I think that Green's reduction formulae work over finite domains as well, and this was what I was trying to explain (poorly, no doubt). Anyway, good to see that we are now in agreement.

--Michael C. Price talk 12:54, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Iconic equation of QM
Hello Michael,

I initially instigated the change from the eigenstate equation (often called the TISE) to the dynamical equation, a while back. There was a small discussion regarding it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Quantum_mechanics#Compact_template, in which you've participated, but much later (and to an earlier part of the discussion). Instead of bloating the thread (and adding to any confusion), perhaps we could discuss it here.

My initial reasons for changing it were that the TISE is simply an eigenvalue equation. It is not really that interesting: the only reason it might be is because the operator in that equation is the same one that generates infinitesimal time evolution (which itself is a consequence of the TDSE, in fact this statement is almost equivalent to the TDSE). Therefore if the system is in an eigenstate of that operator, the eigenvalues are constant over time. In that regard, I viewed the TDSE to be far more general and important than the TISE.

An objection you raise in the thread is with the lack of generality of the equation: why the Schrodinger equation and not the Dirac/Proca etc. you say. However, the Schrodinger equation with the Hamiltonian left unspecified is indeed general. The Dirac equation is really the specification of a specific Hamiltonian (the EM Hamiltonian) and applied to a specific kind of state (i.e. the Dirac spinor). The Proca equation is a specific Hamiltonian acting on vectors. QED is a specific Hamiltonian acting on a state (which is usually represented in the Fock space, e.g the vacuum state |0>).

I personally object to the equation you have replaced the TDSE with. The uncertainty equation is really a result of the non-zero commutator between the operators. And so the commutator may be seen as more fundamental, in my opinion, since that boils down the essence of the theory without recourse to a specific system. If we choose to take this route, we may end up discussing which is more fundamental, the (anti-)commutators of position and momentum fields or the commutators position and momentum operators. We may also end up discussing the importance of the commutation relation (and resulting uncertainty principle) of the Pauli spin operators. We may then decide that spin-1/2 particles aren't general enough... Perhaps we should start looking at the generators of the Poincaré algebra, since it is from there we get the commutation relations of the operators, and hence the associated uncertainty principles in the variances of the observables.

It appears to me, that the generality of the TISE, which applies to every system, deserves the spot more than the uncertainty relation between position and momentum of a single quantum particle. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.

--Masud (talk) 01:59, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The technical points you make are true, although I hesitate to call it the Schrodinger equation in the form presented; wasn't the equation Schrodinger presented the world with the one with the explicit form for the Hamiltonian? (If it wasn't, the explicit form is certainly how it is taught in colleges today.) But the issue is really one of notability and accessibility.  Heisenberg's UP is vastly more famous (more iconic, if you like), and is more accessible to the general public.  If we start putting generators of various transforms up as the lead on the template then I think we are going to lose most the audience straight away.--Michael C. Price talk 02:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Of course, I was being slightly tongue-in-cheek about commutators of generators, and it wasn't an entirely serious suggestion. Surely the equation used in the template is not about what's more recognisable to the interested reader - they can use the template title etc. for recognition. Surely, to do the subject any kind of justice, we should use the most general set of symbols possible? In any case, isn't the choice up for debate, as opposed to a unilateral edit?


 * --Masud (talk) 16:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I still think the HUP is more iconic and therefore fits the bill better than the other suggestions; it's eye catching in a way that the various forms of the "SEQ" are not, and I do think that that is a relevant point. (For the same reason I replaced the KG equation on the QFT template with a Feynman diagram).  Yes to your last point, which is why we should really be debating the subject on the template talk page. --Michael C. Price talk 01:51, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The template talk page attracts all sorts of uninformed opinion. --Masud (talk) 03:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Hawking radiation protection
Semi-protected for now. I happen to have been on; in the future, you will likely get a faster response at WP:RFPP. Good Luck. -- Avi (talk) 17:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. --Michael C. Price talk 17:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of List of people who have disappeared
An editor has nominated List of people who have disappeared, an article on which you have worked or that you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ).

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Thanks!
Hey Michael thanks for the reccomendation, other recommendations I got were very expensive and hard to find. I appreciate it :-) 11341134a (talk) 19:16, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for contributions to Chaotic inflation page
Hi Michael,

Glad to see I'm not alone in contributing to the article on Chaotic Inflation theory. It would be nice to know what section you'll be working on, so our edits don't collide. It looks like that hasn't happened yet, but we came close to trying to save edits on the opening paragraph at the same moment. I'd rather hang back a bit, if I know you'll be actively contributing and improving the page, but I've begun a systematic clean-up of this topic. I'm going top to bottom, and I intend to make everything like a proper encyclopedia entry. I have a pretty thorough knowledge of the subject, so I could go on like a freight train, but I don't want to bump heads.

So it would be nice to agree on who is editing what section first, and we can do that on the discussion page for that topic. At some point, we'll have to agree on a tone, or style for the article, we can both live with (if we're both editing that page). What was there when I adopted the topic was too contentious, and not so readable or thorough. We also have to agree on a consistent style for references, as it appears you have obliterated some of the info I put in for Guth article Ref, by following a different convention or syntax.

Let's find ways to cooperate, rather than competing over who can complete their edits the fastest. I can just move to another section, for now, but I wanted the opening paragraph to be a detailed and unifying overview of the subject. Making a distinction between Chaotic and Eternal inflation, right off the bat, seems divisive. I don't think it would fly on the Wiki, to split this topic into two entries, right now. Instead, we should make this topic a really good article, then make it two when there is too much material for one entry. Perhaps we can make the distinction between the various offshoot theories further down the page.

I want to make the process work, and the article better. Please work with me.

JonathanD (talk) 14:30, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Jonathan,
 * it's probably best if you go ahead and do your stuff -- I feel a bit off colour / under the weather at the moment, and probably will not be up to any sustained activity for the next month or so.


 * BTW please don't feel that I was in any way "competing" with you -- I just saw that the article had been updated and felt moved to continue the process.


 * PS whilst you're around, do you understand Guth's objection to past eternal inflation? It makes no sense to me (and I tried discussing it with him and got nowhere).  The past-incomplete geodesics he complains of seem to be an artifact of the red-shift induced in the de-Broglie wavelength (or blue-shift if we look back in time), and without physical significance. --Michael C. Price talk 14:59, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

European windstorm
FYI Aatomic1 (talk) 09:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

FYI 1703: The worst storm in British history --Michael C. Price talk 10:44, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

States Aatomic1 (talk) 10:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * It remains difficult to directly compare the ferocity of 1703 with other storms that have delivered havoc across the UK, such as that of 1987
 * Which does not disprove the assertion. Look at the title.--Michael C. Price talk 10:54, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Precisely - it is an assertion not a verifiable fact. Aatomic1 (talk) 10:57, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * We are not interested in "facts", only what is reported. See WP:OR, WP:RS --Michael C. Price talk 11:02, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * WP:RS points to Check your facts- Have you checked yours?Aatomic1 (talk) 11:10, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Wiki-"Facts" are what is reported in the various media. You know that.  Stop pretending otherwise. --Michael C. Price talk 11:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:OR This is your argument - not what has been reported. Lose the ad-hominems and stick to the facts. Aatomic1 (talk) 12:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * As I said, both the refs support the claim as stated. --Michael C. Price talk 18:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Four-current, continuity equation
Hi Michael,

The section on the four-current in Continuity equation has a definition in terms of charge density and current density, and the links clearly imply this is electric charge and electric current, not general charge/current. The same thing is true at Four-current itself: There's a parenthetical in the first sentence that says it applies to "any conventional current density", but then a definition which is unambiguously electric. I'm not sure what the best approach is here: For example, it seems like overkill to start a separate article for "Electric four-current". Perhaps in Four-current, the bulk of the article could be siphoned into a section called "Electric four-current", and then an extra section could be appended after that on how you can define and use a "four-current" for any other locally-conserved quantity.

Sound okay? --Steve (talk) 20:43, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I've generalised four-current and current density. Instead of linking solely to electric charge they now point to charge (physics) as well. Hopefully that's enough for the present? --Michael C. Price talk 06:13, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yea, enough for the present :-) --Steve (talk) 15:34, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Precise dates
Hi Michael, I won't quibble with you about the fact that you changed "mid1950s" back to "1955", it's not worth it. I am just surprised that you with your scientific background can't see, given the circumstances, that in this case "mid1950s" may actually be more precise than "1955". Are you sure, for example, that the Saga writer actually spoke with Buster about all the events that he wrote about. So many articles are cobbled together from other articles, including what they read in Wikipedia, padded with an answer or two from a press event. If you look carefully at the interviews, you see that Buster himself often doesn't give absolute dates, only relative ones - "when I was 10", "the year after", "for 35 years". It's the journalists and the copiers of articles who convert it into "hard" dates. And they often get it wrong. In a CNN report, for example, they flashed his birth year as "1907" over the screen - well, someone obviously thought if he is 101 in 2008, he must be born in 2008-101. Not so. Likewise, if I say I married at 14 and my marriage lasted 35 years, it did not necessarily end in birthyear+14+35. It could be also birthyear+14+35+1 or even birthyear+14+35+2.--Kathlutz (talk) 11:14, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Kath/Kathlutz,
 * Yes, of course we can't be sure of the facts (in this case more than others probably!) but we can be sure about what has been reported by the media; 1955 has been reported and so this is what we should report -- which tallies with the marriage lasting 35 years, BTW. Although of course your point about being out by a year either side is correct.  Nevertheless, 1955 is the only date reported for Iriana's death, so let's go with it.--Michael C. Price talk 16:59, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I am totally ok with leaving it as it is but it was in the most recent Times article that "mid1950s" was used instead of "1955". That's why I changed it. They did not find a record of her death in the official marriage database, not for 1955 and not for the years close to 1955. --Kathlutz (talk) 17:53, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * My point is this: Wikipedia articles should be based on original research (the recent Times article shows some original research has been done) or original interviews (like the Independent article from last year where the 35 years of marriage were mentioned - but not 1955), not on write-ups like the recent Saga article. You must be aware that journalists produce articles that sound as if they had thoroughly interviewed someone when all they did was just collect information from many second and third hand sources and put it together in a way that makes it sound as if they had done an in-depth interview.--Kathlutz (talk) 18:11, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I hadn't noticed that the Times explicitly says "mid1950s" -- and the Times is a more reliable source than Saga, so perhaps it should be changed back or perhaps both "dates" should be mentioned and attributed. BTW I agree that journalists often produce articles that look like they are based on a personal interview, when this is often not the case.--Michael C. Price talk 20:49, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Inflation
Hi Michal--- no it wasn't that. I just wanted to separate the causal patch picture from the exponentially separating geodesic picture, which is complementary. I tried to reinsert your discussion in its own frame, but I couldn't figure out how to do it.Likebox (talk) 20:03, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Aquaman
Plots should be succinct. Wikipedia is not a substitution for watching the show. Most of the wording in that addition is very POV to begin with, and the details themselves are not relevant to the plot of the episode as a whole. There is no reason to be wordy when you can cover the same idea in a more tightened sentenced.  BIGNOLE     (Contact me)  18:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * And if someone misses an episode? Fuck'em, eh? --Michael C. Price talk 18:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * We aren't a free substitution. If they miss it, they can catch it again. If they want to watch a movie, then they should either go buy it or wait for it go appear on TV. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not your home to catch up on everything you missed in your favorite television show.   BIGNOLE     (Contact me)  18:16, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Strange, I thought an encyclopedia was where you could look things up. Seems I was mistaken. --Michael C. Price talk 00:01, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Look things up? Why would you look up what happened in an episode of a show for any other thing than to get a basic idea of what happene? Why would you come to Wikipedia to find out every little detail that happened on television? There are better places for that, places that aren't encyclopedias, like the actual television you would watch said show.   BIGNOLE     (Contact me)  00:10, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Can't you understand that Wikipedia has uses other than you can comprehend? I guess not. --Michael C. Price talk 00:15, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, I must have touched a nerve, because you're becoming quite hostile. I guess I shall leave you alone so you don't get too upset. BTW, Wikipedia's purpose, as I have stated repeated and which you are apparently failing to "understand", is not to be a substitute for reading, listening, watching, or whatever other flavor or practice you choose to enjoy your entertainment. Notice how I said "entertainment" and not simply generic "reading, etc etc." It is for reading, but not for reading everything that happens in a book. It is for listening, as we have articles that have been recorded and can be played back, but it isn't for listening to your favorite songs (hence why any samples we have are limited to about 20-30 seconds). Now, we have viewable content as well, but we don't provide clips from shows because we aren't a substitute for watching them. We don't substitute the experience of watching a show with a literary version of everything that happens. ALL fictional topics must contain a succinct version of the fiction itself, in order to provide the context a reader needs to understand the real world information present in the article. It is not there for readers to "catch up" on their shows. The fact that some people use it for that is irrelevant to the fact that it is not the intention. Now, maybe since you're approaching half a century on this planet everything becomes difficult to fully comprehend, but maybe ever repeated readings you'll eventually understand yourself. Regardless, my part in these conversation is over. You have yourself a nice evening. :)    BIGNOLE     (Contact me)  00:24, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * No, the obsession some people have for deleting information here has never made sense to me. Has nothing to with age.--Michael C. Price talk 00:28, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Request for ArbCom clarification
This is to advise you that a request for a clarification of an earlier Arbitration Committee decision involving you has been requested at Request for arbitration. Thank you for your attention. John Carter (talk) 22:03, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!
Those were interesting. I think you might be right about this proto-Everett thing. Maybe later Schrodinger might be more like Wigner than Einstein.Likebox (talk) 20:07, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Fish liver oil
Firstly, don't reinsert the crap-load of unverified and PoV material I removed because you disagreed with one aspect of my edit. Please be more selective. Secondly, the fish liver oil was removed because it was WP:SYNTH, not because it was untrue. Jefffire (talk) 11:30, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You ask me to be selective, yet you are not. Follow your own advice and be selective. --Michael C. Price talk 13:25, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Great!
You read Born's paper! I always wondered what it was he was thinking. Is it online?Likebox (talk) 19:20, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for plowing over that paper, it sounds interesting. Even if it isn't so mathematical, there might be something precise in there that he is trying to say. Those guys communicated by telepathy.

If I had to blindly guess Born's argument before you described it, I would have guessed that it started from Heisenberg's radiation formula: Heisenberg tells you half-semiclassically half-matrix-mechanically but mostly by correspondence principle and instinctively that the rate of radiative emission from a large orbit goes like (E_m - E_n)^4 |x_mn|^2. So the ratio of photon emission to different states with the same frequency difference is like |X_mn|^2. After Schrodinger, you understand that there's a wavefunction there, so you can start the wavefunction in state m and ask what is the amplitude to end up in the different lower energy states. The rate of amplitude leaking goes like the dipole matrix element, x_mn, ignoring the frequency factors, so the transition probability should be proportional to amplitude squared. Then you have to think about the frequency dependence to see that this rule is actually right. From your description, it sounds like Born did a lot more philosophizing than I expected.

About Everett--- I remember how misunderstood he was in the dead-tree world, but his stuff is doing fine today. But there's a lot of other great stuff which ended up beached when the ocean of presumed common knowledge shifted. Take S-matrix theory and early string theory, that's even more cryptic for the modern reader than early QM. But I think all it takes is one or two wikipedia articles explaining the basic idea, and from then on all that work will remain accessible for as long as humanity has an internet.Likebox (talk) 22:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for giving me the reference--- I looked up Born's paper. As you said, it is a different argument, rooted in wave mechanical scattering not matrix mechanics transitions. Although I think you might have been a little uncharitable to Born when you say he thought psi was the probability, because the wording is ambiguous--- he said that psi "gives" the probability, possibly meaning that the probability is determined by the psi, but not a precise formula, except in the footnote, where it is right. The |psi|^2 is more or less clear by thinking about scattering intensity. But I don't know what the original German said. Anyway, cheers.Likebox (talk) 14:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Changes at "Schrödinger's cat"
I've added a discussion section for my changes on the article's talk page; however, it did seem inappropriate to me that you reverted my edits for the sole reason that they were "undiscussed". Thanks in advance for working things out with me, and sorry if there's any misunderstanding. ~W i k i mancer X  *\( ' ' ^) 07:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My apologies - I see the expert tag was only about the introduction, which I missed. The intro does need a clean up. --Michael C. Price talk 08:47, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks also for bringing the expert attention in question in your clarifications; I was going to say the article probably as much needed the scholarly expertise of someone familiar with explaining physics as it did scientific know-how. ~W i k i mancer X  *\( ' ' ^) 21:27, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Physics participation
You received this message because your were on the old list of WikiProject Physics participants.

On 2008-06-25, the WikiProject Physics participant list was rewritten from scratch as a way to remove all inactive participants, and to facilitate the coordination of WikiProject Physics efforts. The list now contains more information, is easier to browse, is visually more appealing, and will be maintained up to date.

If you still are an active participant of WikiProject Physics, please add yourself to the current list of WikiProject Physics participants. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 15:57, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Image:Schroedingerscat3.jpg listed for deletion
An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Schroedingerscat3.jpg, has been listed at Images and media for deletion. Please see the to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Lokal_Profil 19:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi the reason the image is up for deletion is beacuse it's licensed for non-commercial distribution and modification. Images used on Wikipedia must be available for commercial use as well. More info can be found under "Please read this important message first". /Lokal_Profil 16:17, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Article on Everett
As I wrote on Everett's discussion page, we've send an english, much improved, version of the portuguese article, but it's being reviwed so it might take a few more months before it gets accepted. In the meantime, you can read the english abstract of my master thesis, ask me anything that you might be interested and I may also send you, probably next week, my talk for the HQ2 conference. You can read the abstract of it on the page at the discussion page of Everett's article.--Fabiofreitas (talk) 12:41, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Lystrosaurus - please review
Since you've taken an interest in Lystrosaurus, I'd be grateful if you'd review it. If I get enough encouragement and Dutch courage I might go for GA. Please leave comments at Talk:Lystrosaurus -- Philcha (talk) 20:47, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Just a question
I was curious if mega has anyone in their twenties? Second question is how many people join (or qualify) per year? Do the people who join follow any age distribution? Am I correct to think that even if there are few people who are young, that this should be the largest growing segment? With the birth and growth of the internet, I would suspect that in my lifetime, all members will eventually join or qualify in their 20's.

Thanks 76.4.128.40 (talk) 08:54, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd be guessing -- Canon should be able to say for sure. --Michael C. Price talk 15:26, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

BBC programm
A lot of errors in this programm. Please read this: http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2008/10/oldest-bible-in-news.html It will better if you will remove link to it. Only on talk page is place for this kind of information. You need read what Skeat wrote about the codex. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 14:22, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It would be better to provide both the links to the BBC programme and to the critical blog. --Michael C. Price talk 23:35, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Weak Hypercharge and B-L
Hi Michael. They aren't identical, but they are similar. They are both conserved charges in the standard model, but Weak hypercharge has a "photon" associated to it, which is half of the actual photon. The electromagnetic photon is a mixup of the weak hypercharge photon and one of the three weak SU(2) "photons". B-L is a conserved charge in the standard model which does not have a photon, there is no associated gauge boson, although some people used to speculate that it does have a gauge photon, but that its really weakly coupled, meaning all the charges are really really teeny ( that's one of the motivations for establishing bounds in string theory for weak charges--- to show that this isn't true).


 * Hi Michael, just wanted to say--- the "some people" in the sentence above isn't me. It's some people whose name I don't remember. I tried to prove they were wrong by finding a limit on how weak charge can be in quantum gravity.Likebox (talk) 20:09, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

The way people say it usually is that the electroweak standard model is SU(2) cross U(1), and weak hypercharge is the U(1). B-L is just a global conserved quantity.Likebox (talk) 21:32, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi --- I just saw why this is confusing--- somebody wrote that weak hypercharge is B-L over at the weak hypercharge page. That's not true. You can't write weak hypercharge that way because it's not really a conserved quantity because the vacuum is full of higgs field. That means that the only "conserved quantity" corresponding to weak hypercharge is the electric charge, and that's mixed up with the SU(2). The Higgs mechanism makes it hard to see that weak hypercharge (or weak SU(2) charges) are conserved.Likebox (talk) 21:41, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
 * That somebody was me, so just as well I checked with you. I don't really see the distinction between the two -- I'll have to mull over the matter.  I understand your explanation about SU(2) and the various photons and so on, but am going adrift about not equating that with the global B-L symmetry.--Michael C. Price talk 21:53, 28 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Michael--- sorry it took a while. B-L is a conservation law, but weak hypercharge is not conserved (meaning its not apparent that there is a conservation law). The reason is that weak hypercharge has a higgs field.


 * Think of living inside a superconducter. Would you think that electric charge is conserved? you wouldn't know that it was, because there would be no Gauss's law, no long range fields, and charge would slosh in from infinity to neutralize any region with extra charge. That's the same as the Higgs mechanism--- weak hypercharge is (partially) higgsed, so you can't identify it with any conserved quantity.


 * For specific examples--- the Higgs field has weak hypercharge 1/2 (the actual value depends on convension--- I am not sure if the one I like to use coincides with the usual one), and the Higgs isn't a baryon or a lepton, so B=0 and L=0. The quarks have weak hypercharge 2/3 and 1/6 depending on the chirality, and there's no relation between this and B or L. B and L are not chiral, meaning that they are the same for left and right handed stuff, but weak hypercharge is different for left and right handed leptons. The left handed electron-neutrino doublet has a different weak hypercharge than the right handed electron singlet, but they have the same lepton number (and no baryon number).


 * The similarity between weak hypercharge and B-L is that they are both important U(1) quantum numbers in the standard model, but B-L is a global symmetry, while weak hypercharge is coupled to a gauge field, which is half the photon. Hope it clears things up. Good luck with the article.Likebox (talk) 22:20, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi Michael--- yes the weak hypercharge U(1) charge is still conserved, but it's not trivial to see that its conserved because there is a background of charged particles. For example, in regular electrodynamics in vacuum, there is exactly zero amplitude for a proton to turn into a neutron, because they have different electric charges and charge is conserved. For this reason, if you ignore the Higgs mechanism, there is zero amplitude for a left-handed electron to turn into a right handed electron, because they have different hypercharge (and different SU(2) representation, but ignore that for the time being). An electron mass term takes a left-spinning electron (where spin is measured along the direction of motion, so it's really chirality) and turns it into a right-spinning electron. That's impossible, because the left and right spinning electron have a different value of the charge.

But the electron has a mass, so what gives? What's going on is that a left-spinning electron can absorb a Higgs from the background and turn into a right spinning electron. Without the Higgs, the electron and the quarks would have to be massless just from charge conservation, because the two chiralities have different hypercharge. This is a really important point, because in general, if a field can be massive all by itself, without the Higgs getting involved, then you would expect, just by dimensional analysis, that the mass would be of order 1 in natural units, meaning that the particle would have a mass approximately equal to the Planck mass. We would never observe a particle that heavy. So the only particles we can see are those which are forced to be massless by charge conservation, in other words, where the different helicities have different values for the weak hypercharge and weak isospin.

The Noether procedure works fine--- you still have a conservation law. But because there is all this Higgs everywhere, the conserved quantity doesn't look like its conserved. Particles with one value of hypercharge have nonzero amplitudes to turn into particles with another value of the hypercharge, and we would never know that hypercharge is conserved.

Sidney Coleman used to say that there are three ways to figure out a conservation law which is that badly broken:
 * 1) High energy (meaning energy high enough to produce a Higgs boson)
 * 2) High temperature (meaning high enough for the symmetry to be restored)
 * 3) High IQ

he then pointed out that historically, we used method 3! Meaning, Nambu, Goldstone, Glashow, Anderson, Brout, Englert, Higgs, Kibble, Weinberg, Salam etc. figured out that the weak interactions have a badly broken charge with hardly any experimental input other than the parity violation in weak decays and the observation that the Fermi theory needs to be made renormalizable. That's kind of amazing to me.Likebox (talk) 18:25, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi again--- I noticed a while ago that the standard model pages doesn't describe any of this stuff very well. I had a vague impulse to rewrite that once, but I couldn't make my mind up whether to use 2-component spinors, which make writing down the most general Lagrangian easier, or 4-component spinors, which require complicated looking (1+/-gamma5)/2 factors to project out the two helicities. The gamma5 way is standard in the world of phenomenology and experiment, but it is ugly and I found it hard when I was first learning the stuff. On the other hand, the Feynman diagrams for 2 component spinors are not done in books, and the two-component identities are not as well-known as the gamma trace identities. So I couldn't decide, and I never did anything. Maybe you have an idea.Likebox (talk) 16:54, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I did something on standard model, to at least explain that the fields with weak hypercharge and weak isospin are the chirality components, not the "positron" and "electron" (that's a terrible way to say it. That's the particle data book for you). The chirality of the standard model is one of the most salient aspects. Could you tell me if the stuff is comprehensible?Likebox (talk) 22:44, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Fringe theories noticeboard
You are invited to join the discussion here.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 13:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Your edit to RMS Titanic
My apologies for the terse edit summary: fingers on autopilot. See the talk page for the proper version. --Old Moonraker (talk) 13:17, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Quantum Immortality = Travel Between Universes?
I`ve no idea how someone would go about navigating or directing the travel, but does it not stand to reason that, should quantum immortality hold true (admittedly a big if), then one could use that as a way to get to a better (or far worse!) universe? Could this effectively amount to time travel? I mean, if in the multiverse, all times are happening `now`(ie: the snapshot hypothesis of reality, that each instant is its own `now`), and your mind `carried over` to those worlds, would that not for all intents and purposes BE time travel?

Thanks!

Ghostface26 (talk) 17:49, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * No, since the way it would manifest itself is that the subject's existence would be preserved by a series of unlikely events. No time travel or universe hopping, though.--Michael C. Price talk 18:45, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I understand that part. This jumps into the pseudo-science range now, but how would you KNOW that your experiences are the same? I mean, even what you remember now could be being changed all the time (hypothetically). If we extrapolate from that, we realize that because QI is only testable to observer being killed (and therefore not killed), everything could change and they`d have no externally independent source to corroborate the truth of the matter.

And doesn`t it imply universe hopping if the existence is preserve? If I die in this universe, but survive in the one next door, and I`m still aware of being alive, it could be said that I`ve jumped universes, correct?Ghostface26 (talk) 22:47, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You're thinking too deeply; it's much more simple. You load a gun, put the barrel to your head and pull the trigger.  You only survive in those universes where something happened to stop your brains being splattered across the wall (e.g. mechanism jams, or you discover the bullets were duds after all or whatever). In those universes your memories are still consistent with your environment and history.--Michael C. Price talk 11:55, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

TNS
Yes, but where is the evidence that they are members of TNS? -- Avi (talk) 23:11, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * No idea -- it was just the lack of notability I was contesting. --Michael C. Price talk 11:06, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I was asking for reliable verification of TNS membership. Would you mind if I restore the tag? -- Avi (talk) 14:58, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
 * No problem, although it might be better to tag the names individually so that it's clear what you're asking for. --Michael C. Price talk 10:21, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

What about wormholes to access parallel universes?
Did Sidney Coleman not publish a paper about how the existence of wormholes would be enough to negate the cosmological constant? Could they not be used to access these universes?Ghostface26 (talk) 11:41, 5 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I recall reading something in New Scientist to that effect, but the parallel universes reached via wormholes are a different category of parallel universes (completely different spacetimes, no common history) from the Everett parallel universes (same spacetimes, but different histories after a certain time).--Michael C. Price talk 10:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Cantor's theorem
I think this edit may make the matter more complicated than it is. That Cantor's theorem is true of finite sets is obvious even if you've never heard that the number of subsets of a size-n set is 2n, simply because there are as many one-member subsets of A as there are members of A, and in addition to the one-member sets there are others as well. Michael Hardy (talk) 14:16, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Whether that explanation is more "obvious" is debatable, but it is useful to point out that the size of a finite power set is 2^n. Makes the subject more comprehensible.--Michael C. Price talk 08:12, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Codex Sinaiticus
Why did you add in this edit material without any examination. It is not true Codex Sinaiticus contains these verses (only some words, or phrases of these verses). In the future use sources. Now I have a lot of work. I did not realize that before. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 04:09, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

John 9:38 and John 16:15 existed in the manuscript. Only small part of Act 15:34 existed in some not numerous Greek manuscripts, the other part only in Latin manuscripts of late Vulgate. Erasmus many readings took from Latin manuscripts. Rea this please: Novum Instrumentum omne. You used Bible verses not included in modern translations? This article is not reliable and has wrong title. It should be titled "Interpolations of Textus Receptus". Some readings you can not find in a Greek manuscripts, some other only in late and corrupted Greek manuscripts. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 05:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)


 * FYI I merely expanded the bible citations already present into fuller quotations to make the article more reader-friendly. If the quotations were/were not in the CS in their complete/incomplete form then this is an error that was already present in the article before my edit.  For example, you say that John 9:38 and John 16:15 are in the CS.  Fine, but that was not what the article said originally, since it was listed under the section that claimed they were omitted (as the  edit diff you cited shows).  Let's concentrate on improving the article, which is frequently ambiguous and unclear.--Michael C. Price talk 09:49, 4 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Of course you are right, they were added in this edition . But before your expanding edition I did not see these added verses. Sorry. It take me a lot of time to verify all of these verses. Some of them we can find in the in the codex, some in a shorter version, and other only in Latin, not Greek manucripts. By the way, I afraid that these article will vandalize in the future more often. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 12:38, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That's ok, I understand it takes awhile to verify whether each verse appear in the CS (which I have not checked). Thanks for your work on the article.--Michael C. Price talk 14:55, 4 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your contribution (October 2008 - Codex Sinaiticus). Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 22:13, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Read WP:MEDRS
The wall street journal is NOT a reliable source for medical articles. And if you actually read the medical article about the complete and utter failure of multivitamins to do anything but make expensive urine, you'd see that the authors speculated that Folic acid should be used by pregnant women and Vitamin B has well known activities for cardiovascular disease, but these were not part of the study. Good luck in your POV pushing. Orange Marlin Talk• Contributions 00:47, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Since you've also misrepresented another source (re "conclusive") I think you are rather less reliable than the WSJ. --Michael C. Price talk 08:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Apparently, you have failed to read what constitutes a reliable source. I am not a source, so therefore, I cannot be more or less reliable than the WSJ.  Popular press is not a reliable source for medical articles.   Orange Marlin  Talk• Contributions 12:28, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The WSJ and especially the oncology site are not popular press. The latter in particular is well suited to pass commentary which should be reported here.--Michael C. Price talk 13:53, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not peer-reviewed. Case closed.  Orange Marlin  Talk• Contributions 00:58, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Take it to the OM talk page. --Michael C. Price talk 01:05, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Orthomolecular medicine
Please try to remain WP:CIVIL and on-topic. Posts like this one really do not help anything. Thank you, - Eldereft (cont.) 14:00, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I trust you will offer OrangeMarlin a similar bit of advice, since he is much more in need of it? --Michael C. Price talk 14:24, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If they make personally directed or otherwise anti-productive comments after my general admonishment towards civility, yes of course. - Eldereft (cont.) 15:47, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * We'll see. --Michael C. Price talk 15:50, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Y'see, this is what I am talking about. Accusing another editor of mendaciously inserting untruth? That is really no way to build an encyclopedia. I am not saying that Orangemarlin is making it easy to maintain a collegial atmosphere, but surely you can do better than that. You also edit in physics - would you be willing to help me add references to Spin-charge separation or Double electron capture? Neither has any at the moment. WikiProject Physics/Cleanup listing is pretty extensive, so just pick an article and you and I can bring it to something resembling an encyclopedic standard, what do you say? - Eldereft (cont.) 21:05, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I am accusing OrangeMarlin of lying -- a claim that others have made before. Editors are allowed to question the good faith of others where there is evidence, and there is plenty of evidence on this score.  He is not engaging in substantive debate and (even worse) frequently misrepresents facts and data.  I responded to his requests for studies and just got more abuse from him.  BTW, I see you have not reprimanded him for his uncivil behaviour, so, yes, we have seen. Your advice seems very one-sided. Show me that I err in my judgement of you and we can work together. --Michael C. Price talk 21:16, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not reprimanding anyone, just trying to calm down that page so we might eventually get a coherent article out of it. Which particular edit did you feel to be egregiously uncivil? I interpreted OM's recent edits as abrasive but not in violation of WP:CIVIL, but if you explain how you felt personally affronted, I would be willing to try to broker some manner of truce. - Eldereft (cont.) 21:25, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, for starters, and setting aside the abusive and non-substantive nature of his talk page contributions, there is the matter that he refuses to allow sourced commentary about PMID 19204221 into the article. The grounds for rejection are bogus: the 3 refs I've provided are reliable sources for simply reporting what the original study says.--Michael C. Price talk 21:39, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That is an issue of content, not behavior. Talk page comments that are non-substantive are governed by the talk page guidelines; comments that cross the line from heated or dismissive to constitute an attack should be referred to Wikiquette alerts. From my admittedly limited experience at WQA, low-level carping accompanied by discussion over sources usually results in a reminder to all parties to stay focused on improving the encyclopedia.
 * Are you referring to these sources? The grounds for rejection seem to be Reliable sources (medicine-related articles), which discourages use of popular press articles as the root source for medical issues. Linking to an accessible summary along with the actual reference is good style and serves our readers. Such a summary should not be used alone, except when it provides details not treated in the article, such as biographical details. Is the original study inaccessible for some reason? - Eldereft (cont.) 00:27, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Those are the sources I refer to. The full-text of the original study is inaccessible to me (says in progress on PubMed), hence I have to rely on the secondary sources. The same section you highlighted (Reliable sources (medicine-related articles)) allows the use of high quality popular press, as I've just commented on on the OMM talk page. --Michael C. Price talk 00:35, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Do you mean On the other hand, the high-quality popular press can be a good source for social, biographical, current-affairs and historical information in a medical article.? If so, I believe that we are interpreting that sentence differently. I read it as indicating that whatever information is actually in a peer reviewed journal article should be cited to the article itself, with popular press articles being used only for ancillary information or for an accessible summary. - Eldereft (cont.) 01:21, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * So we can resolve this citing the original article as well? --Michael C. Price talk 01:25, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I would have no problem with putting that as a lay summary, yes. I would be somewhat leery of citing a result that the authors did not think important enough to include in the abstract, but that is a matter for articletalk. Try bringing it up there? - Eldereft (cont.) 02:00, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Might be better if you say it, since nothing I say is going to be rationally processed. --Michael C. Price talk 02:44, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Done. - Eldereft (cont.) 23:52, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. First summary the best. --Michael C. Price talk 07:47, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Continued violations of WP:NPA
See this. Orange Marlin Talk• Contributions 00:17, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Medea Hypothesis
I have nominated Medea Hypothesis, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Articles for deletion/Medea Hypothesis. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Orange Marlin Talk• Contributions 00:57, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Please do not make personal attacks. Wikipedia has a strict policy against personal attacks. Attack pages and images are not tolerated by Wikipedia and are speedily deleted. Users who continue to create or repost such pages and images, especially those in violation of our Biographies of living persons policy, will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Thank you. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 18:42, 23 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Michael, thank you for your reply and question. As I stated in my edit summary, I was referring specifically to your repeated insistence that a "cabal" is controlling the article. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 18:52, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I didn't read the edit comment. And since you're being polite, I shall desist. --Michael C. Price talk 18:57, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Orangemarlin
The continual sniping at Talk:Orthomolecular medicine is really boring and counterproductive to actually building an encyclopedia. There are enough editors there that it should be possible for the two of you mostly to shun interacting with each other without negatively impacting discussion. Would you be willing to try this? - Eldereft (cont.) 18:33, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Difficult when he makes changes like this--Michael C. Price talk 02:18, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

You've been mentioned at WP:ANI
Hello,. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. EdJohnston (talk) 06:35, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

GRT
This is the only text in the deleted article:

Good Luck! -- Avi (talk) 01:18, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Further changes in AC article
Hello Michael, I'm not sure I understand your comments regarding the BT sentence at "Axiom of choice". Why would it need further changes? Godelian (talk) 22:54, 11 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I wanted to leave in the explicit relevance to B-T, so I reverted the change. However the non-measurable stuff looked relevant and perhaps could be re-added as well.  But I wasn't sure how. --Michael C. Price talk 23:22, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Higgs Business
I didn't mean to be dismissive or offensive, I'm sorry. I just got annoyed with the constant haggling over such little things. Of course you have a respectable point of view: I know you are a reasonable person, with valid points to make. I am frustrated that we can't seem to come to agreement over such minor quibbles.

The thing I wanted to do on this page is make the Higgs mechanism accessible to a person who thinks in physical terms, not in terms of mathematics. For such a person, a transformation of the Lagrangian is not a great way to understand mass generation. The Feynman way of thinking, where the shift in the Lagrangian is a scattering of particles, is not a 100% great explanation, because the scattering is strange in this case, it involves "eating" of massless modes into massive modes.

But there is a way of thinking about it which is physical, and clear, and it is the one that I was trying to put in the lead. I am worried that the article will bury the physics of the mechanism once people mathematize and jargonize it.Likebox (talk) 17:54, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I do understand your frustration, and I share your aim of making the concept accessible. An idea has occurred to me, which might mesh well with your approach: perhaps, instead of making the analogy with superconductivity, should we be thinking in terms of superfluidity?  If the Higgs condensate is a Bose-Einstein condensate, then perhaps the condensate behaves as a high temperature BEC?  The high mass of the Higgs would enable the Higgs BEC to function as a superfluid even at room temperatures and much higher.  (This might be the same thing as you are saying, since my (limited) understanding is that superconductivity is enabled by the cooper-pairs forming a superfluid.)  Superfluids are frictionless, which would help the layman get a physical picture of why we can't detect the Higgs condensate by conventional methods.--Michael C. Price talk 23:59, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, when I said "superconductivity" in the article, I just meant "charged superfluid". The two terms are almost synonyms. The difference between a superfluid and a superconductor is that when a superfluid is charged, all fluid flows cost energy, even the longest wavelength ones. That's called the "mass gap" in condensed matter physics and the Higgs mechanism in high energy physics.Likebox (talk) 00:18, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * What I mean is, that, yes, charged superfluid is fine, but the essential property is not that there is zero friction, but that there are no flows at all below a certain frequency. In other words, a superfluid is not exactly like the vacuum, because there are superflows which you can excite. But a superconductor is like the vacuum, because all the flows are mixed up with the photon to make a massive gauge field which is short ranged.Likebox (talk) 00:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I also wanted to clarify the "almost" in "almost synonyms". In Landau's original description, a superconductor is a charged superfluid, or a charged BEC. This picture is not 100% correct for real metals, because the pairing of electrons is so weak. So electrons are far apart from each other in the pairs, the cooper pairs don't look like point particles.


 * But for the Higgs mechanism, the elementary field describes bosonic point particles. So the analog of a cooper pair is just a point! So there's no subtlety. A superconductor made out of charged points is exactly the same as a Higgs mechanism for a scalar field with a VEV, and changing between the two pictures is just the usual particle/field duality.Likebox (talk) 00:24, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Many worlds interpretation
Hi. I have been looking at the article on the MWI, and while it is undoubtedly comprehensive, there are a number of quibbles I have with it...but rather than jump in headlong and start uprooting long-standing content (much of which is of good quality), I have left a message on the talk page there, outlining the first of my quibbles. I thought I should point this out to you, since it seems you have a bit of an editing history there and are an afficionado of the theory judging from the blurb on your userpage. Byrgenwulf 15:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I have just started answering your question on the MWI talk page. See over there shortly.  Have you looked at universal wavefunction as well?  --Michael C. Price talk 15:17, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Dear Michael, I've discussed with you at the Hugh Everett page some time ago and I've just published an article about it that I'm sure you will be interested. Write to me at fabiofreitas at gmail.com so I can send you the article. Best —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.128.60.79 (talk) 21:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)