User talk:Michael C Price/Archive 4

Thanks, happy to work with you
Hi, Michael. Thank you for sharing my interest in the topic. It has always been a pleasure working with you on these articles. I remember the time more than a year ago when we had very satisfactory collaboration on the same topics. I was dismayed when I learned post-factum that you have been punished on unrelated topic. I tried to argue this punishment to be lifted because your absence was a blow for the GR articles. There were no tangible results of this appeal. Anyway, I am glad you are back again and we can discuss these topics of mutual interest.

My interest in this is a case of a profession turned into a hobby. My original education and MS thesis is in theoretical physics, and the 10 LL volumes were the staple courses in university. Later, in order to earn a living, I had to focus in another field: molecular biology, calculation of molecular conformations, etc. and I made my Ph.D. diss in molecular biology; however, the interest in GR remained and turned into a hobby. I am interested in several topics in GR: one is the pseudotensor in connection to the energy localization and conservation, relation between matter and geometry, and so on. The calculational difficulties in obtaining 96,8 and 96,9 piqued my interest in the math/technical side of tensor calculation, and algorithms for tensor simplification, which is basically computer programming stuff. Another topic of interest for me is the quasi-isotropic model, and particularly the gradation of kinds of matter in it: from vacuum through radiation to several types of matter. Again the math aspect, and the feeling of some uncanny order connected with combinatorial sequences, is very intriguing. A third topic of interest are singularities, and the many enigmas connected with them. In this respect, the surprising generality of the BKL model (BKL singularity) is a very attractive topic to work on and discuss. Another interest are some purely math/geometry topics, as Curvilinear coordinates, Pseudotensor, Covariant derivative, Eigenvector, eigenvalue, and eigenspace. The challenge there is didactic: how to present them to the general public to be understood, and at the same time not to lose generality and rigor. I am interested also in some history topics (as a hobby) and finding the objective truth in some historic events. However, I dislike very much the passionate discussions that inevitably arise around these topics, personal charges, etc. that obfuscate the truth. So several months ago I decided not to be involved in history, and also in any topic that requires pouring charges and countercharges and becoming too much personally involved. I like to be more positive and helpful than threatening and disruptive. Because I see the same features in you too, I am very glad when I see your contribution in a discussion or an article. --Lantonov (talk) 07:22, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Lantonov, thanks for the reply.

I seem to be a slower learner than you, especially in regard to the futility of updating historical articles here. I naively thought that history would easy to work on in Wikipedia; frustratingly it seems to be one of the hardest. That's a shame because I find history fascinating, especially ancient history. The editing restriction I incurred for stepping on the toes of a few historical/ religious bigots did seem disproportionate in that it was all encompassing; if ArbComm felt my actions were disruptive to one article, why place a broader restriction? In the end, though, it made little difference; the reason for my reduced involvement over the past few months was/is mostly due a couple of breakdowns in my health, which I am only slowly recovering from. Studying GR was a very diverting distraction when I felt unwell; very much a case of every cloud having a silver lining.

Like you I enjoy the didactic challenge of explaining something rigourously but with clarity. And as a side benefit, as you have found as well, you end up understanding the subject better. GR is a hobby of mine now (I didn't understand it very much when I was at college, despite having Michael Duff as lecturer. Thankfully I took down a comprehensive set notes!). One of things I like about GR is way it illuminates, and leads you off into, other areas (a recent diversion of mine has been into the Dirac equation).

Finally, let me share an insight which has slowly penetrated my skull over the last 25 years. GR is a tensor theory because we wish to impose a general co-ordinate covariance on our equations. But there is an additional invariance that we expect any physical equation to satisfy: to be locally lorentz covariant -- and for that we have to use frame fields or vierbeins. Rewriting the equations or lagrangian in terms of the vierbein, by replacing the metric with the vierbein instead:
 * $$g^{\mu \nu}=e^\mu_a e^\nu_b \eta^{ab}$$

leads to many simpler expressions, e.g.
 * $$e=\sqrt-g$$

You can raise and lower indices with $$e^\mu_a$$
 * $$T^a=T^\mu e_\mu^a $$ etc

just as you can with the metric, but both invariances are encoded with the vierbein since:
 * $$T'^{\mu a} = \frac{\partial x'^\mu}{\partial x^\nu}T^{\nu a}$$

under a general co-ordinate transformation and
 * $$T'^{\mu a} = \Lambda(x)^a_{\ b} T^{\mu b}$$

under a local lorentz transformation. Strangely, MWT hardly touch on the subject. --Michael C. Price talk 13:35, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I haven't dealt much with vierbeins mainly because I studied from older LL editions in University. Lifshitz found vierbeins to be important enough to include in the newer editions (section 98. The tetrad representation of the Einstein equations). I am (or was?) interested in Bulgarian Medieval History (Battle of Pliska among others) and other related topics. Nationalist sentiments in the Balkans run particularly high so I had very rough editing experience all the time. Political factions deliberately fill whole articles with falsified historical materials, Republic of Macedonia justifies its existence with newly invented history, Greece and Turkey deny whole history chapters, Romania pretends to have owned the non-Greek part of the Balkans, not to speak of Serbia ... In short, a can of worms. Whole sections, for which I have worked for months got deleted without explanation. When I tried to argue - first I got personal attacks, then admins got involved and so on, a living hell. In one moment, I sat and thought "I waste my time and web resources in order to be abused and punished. Why do I do it? I am supposed to have fun in the net." This realization helped me to quit. I am glad I did it because now I really edit happily and enjoy discussions with partners like you and JR. I see that you studied in Imperial College London. Three days ago (22/7) I passed by it along Queen's Gate on my way to the Natural History Museum. I am biologist by profession and was on a business trip in London.--Lantonov (talk) 14:26, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I hope you spotted the giant amphibian fossil (from Australia, Devonian Middle Triassic) Paracyclotosaurus davidi just off the central area; the only representative of its species (and probably genus, for all I know) . My favourite fossil.
 * I forgot to mention earlier the punchline with vierbeins: varying the action w.r.t. the vierbein field yields the standard Einstein field equations, but, additionally, varying the action w.r.t. to the spin connection gauge field ($$w_\mu^{ab}$$ in my response to JRSpriggs) yields an analogous equation for torsion, complete with a spin connection current density.--Michael C. Price talk 18:01, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your support on the "plagiarism" (sic) a few months ago. You are my true Wiki friend. Now I feel partly vindicated because the slanderer got punished for his incivility and POV pushing. Presently, I am working on my own web sites and it will take a lot more to induce me to edit again here.
 * Good to hear from you. I understand your frustration and sense of vindication. I use Wiki more as research tool since being burnt by some bigots awhile back.  (My current interest is Pati-Salam unification.)  I'm glad to hear the slanderer got punished -- I must look it up for my own amusement. --Michael C. Price talk 07:01, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

transition amplitude calculations
I've been trying to clarify the beginner's level explanation of Heisenberg's matrix mechanics and I can account for all of the basic information he used in his 1925 paper except for the transition amplitudes. There is some indication that he used the square root of measured intensities to provide experimental values, but he needs to have had a way of predicting these values on the basis of the electron energy states and other known information. Do you have any information or ideas of where to look?

Thanks. P0M (talk) 18:57, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I won't be able to look into it for awhile. All I can think of at the moment is that transition amplitudes weren't really understood until Max Born came along (?). So perhaps Heisenberg was guessing without any foundation at the time?  If you can't follow Heisenberg's reasoning you're in good company; I believe it was Steve Weinberg who said that he couldn't follow H's derivation /motivation in his matrix mechanics paper. --Michael C. Price talk 21:56, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Please do have a look at it when you get time. I'm pretty sure that he must have started from a classical equation that would allow the calculation of the amplitudes of harmonics of a fundamental frequency. His 1925 paper is in Sources of Quantum Mechanics by B.L. Van der Waerden.


 * Several people have commented that they can't follow the paper very well, but others have come along to explicate it to some extent. My guess is that one would be greatly helped by having great familiarity with the works of Kramer and others back to the path breaking work of Bohr. I just want to get readers to the point where they can see what the pieces were, and how putting them together into one coherent picture was a great advance. I think most readers will happily accept excuses if it turns out that to follow out the math in detail they might have to take up the life of a physics major for more than a year.


 * Some of the secondary materials I have seen might cause the high school readers to conclude that matrix mechanics is beyond their intellectual capacities.


 * Thanks.P0M (talk) 23:54, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The Steven Weinberg comment is on page 52-53 of his Dreams of a Final Theory. The footnote is about transition amplitudes.--Michael C. Price talk 05:22, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll see if I can find the book. There is something a bit quirky about how the intensities calculated can correspond to a single transition. I was hoping I could better see what might be going on if I could put some numbers to it. I took the square roots of the intensity values for the lines in the visible part of the spectrum, made up plausible results for the surrounding values, and was rather surprised when I got back results that are close predictions -- this despite instead of squaring a value I associated it with a number of adjacent values.  If I'd populated an amplitude matrix by random numbers of the same order of magnitude as a real amplitude number, did the math, and still came out with reasonably close numbers for the visual part of the hydrogen spectrum, then I'd think further about the probabilities of coming up with the result I did get.  So I am guessing that there was something worthwhile about the Heisenberg results even if they were a little ragged around the edges before his colleagues regularized matters. P0M (talk) 07:38, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

radical alterations to the intro to quantum mechanics article
Hi,

Just after I spent time with the QM professor at my university to try to get me past the point where I stopped editing the intro to QM article, i.e., past the matrix stuff I asked you about above, a new editor sent me some rather judgmental remarks on my talk page. Now he has radically altered the article.

Somebody else wrote most of the article, and there is much in what she wrote that I would like to get changed, but not at the expense of wiping the whole thing out and substituting some "understandable" text. The new editor informed me that the diagrams are "off-putting," for one thing.

I suggested to the editor that he discuss things before making radical changes, but he went ahead anyway.

On the subject of Heisenberg and his amplitudes, I have now gotten a lot clearer on what is going on. I was at least able to get confirmation about which of the equations in Heisenberg's article of 1925 are the jumping off point for a quantum theoretical method of predicting transition amplitudes. I may or may not be able to untangle all of the re-writing of equations in alternate form, possible omissions in the sequence of thought (the things that "everybody knows"), etc., but it is clear now that the math came first. He had the math worked out before others suggested that he put it into matrix form. It was the development of the difference equation way of calculating amplitudes (and thereby of calculating intensities) that opened up the new quantum mechanics.

I think the right way forward for the article would be to make it short and make sub-articles in which to explain things like the details about the matrices, how they were developed, and what they actually look like.

What the new editor would like to do is just have his explanations, no diagrams to explain things like interference, and then links to the major articles. But the novice who wants to understand quantum mechanics beyond the "gee whiz" level yet who does not have a couple of years of college physics and calculus will not find much help in either place.

P0M (talk) P0M (talk) 23:53, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for Rudeness
Hi Mike, sorry for being rude on the Higgs mechanism page. It's still superconductivity, but that doesn't mean I can stop being civil. The reason I had a personality change is because I have spent a long time arguing with an Australian guy on History Wars, and he is denying the massacre of the Tasmanian natives. It is infuriating, and I picked up bad habits. If you are interested in history, can you help out there?Likebox (talk) 15:53, 20 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Amazing the things people go into denial about. As I recall the British/Tasman authorities declared a bounty on Tasman natives, with the inevitable result.  Hard to see how it can't be described as a massacre, at the very least.
 * Thanks for the correction about charges. I guess I tend to forget that there are non-conserved charges as well -- one for every generator. --Michael C. Price talk 20:51, 20 June 2009 (UTC)


 * No problem. I responded on the talk page. If you're interested in this commuting Cartan subgroup, you can also look into dual superconductivity model. That's the noncovariant setup 'tHooft used to formulate the dual superconductivity picture. Also this is the pattern of Higgs breaking in Seiberg Witten theory, if you like the more modern business.


 * I was hoping you can help with History Wars (and Genocides in History and Black War and Black line, same problem)--- I can't get the page changed. Whatever I do gets reverted, and the denialist guy (Webley442) has administrator help (PBS, admin, Philip Baird Shearer).Likebox (talk) 23:17, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Your edits seems to be holding at Genocides in History. If I find a ref to the bounty claim,  I'll add it. --Michael C. Price talk 04:45, 21 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the sources and the help. This really is a thankless job.Likebox (talk) 17:00, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

summer and extra dimensions
Hi Michael,

I wrote something for you in the LHC talk page, I copy it here to speed up the process.


 * I see here the beginnings of an edit war, so we should cool down and wait for the intervention of other editors. However:


 * unless you live at the poles, summer is a roughly three-month period between spring and fall. The fact that the LHC was planned to be shut down in the winter does not mean that it would work only in summer. Is that so difficult? The fact that you dug up some old BBC article using the word summer is not relevant, BBC had a proven record of getting the LHC facts wrong. Try to find some public CERN page with that statement - believe me, you won't. (incidentally, if you write anything like summer you will be assailed by geographically-correct fanatics complaining that in their part of the world that is actually winter... ;-)


 * Concerning the extra dimensions statement, read the whole section: it is a list of key questions that the LHC will help physicists to answer. In the case of extra dimensions, the key question is indeed whether they exist, and the LHC might answer that question by finding them. It might however be the case that extra dimensions exist but are too small to be accessible at the energy scale of the LHC. This is the meaning of the second question in the sentence (are they detectable?). I presume that with your change you want to stress that the LHC cannot disprove the existence of extra dimensions that are only accessible at higher energy scales. This is true, but it is beside the point in the key questions list. Otherwise, the same argument could be applied to other items in the list (e.g. supersymmetry as well might be realized only at an energy scale higher than that reachable at the LHC).

Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 14:08, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

SUSY
Michael, stop this for a second. I'll send you tons of references to non-supersymmetric extensions of the SM. Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 08:36, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Have you seen the Sci Am source I cited? June 2003. --Michael C. Price talk 08:38, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Effective field theories
Hi Michael,

I see here the occurrence of a familiar pattern from the previous thread: you write something that denotes ignorance or misunderstanding of some basic concept of physics, I spend half a page explaining the physics to you and lose patience in the process, and then you drop the matter and move on to some other gripe (an example? gauge coupling unification). In the meantime, the thread grows to biblical proportions and other editors won't get involved out of fear of wasting too much time. Some posts ago, I suggested that you google the meaning of effective field theories valid at different energy scales, and I meant it. Please look for information until you are able to understand a trivial sentence like Strings do require SUSY at the Planck scale, but there could equally well be strings at the Planck scale without SUSY at the weak scale, or SUSY at the weak scale without strings at the Planck scale by yourself. Then we can discuss about physics. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 15:14, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * As I said, I made the mistake of thinking that you were trying to say something relevant. My mistake.  I see now that you like to go off on long irrelevant tangents, for no particular reason.  We all know what Hawking means; he obviously believes in string theory, which requires SUSY.  Therefore he would be delighted to see the existence of SUSY confirmed because that increases the credibility and probability of strings.  And a lot of other string theorists feel the same way. --Michael C. Price talk 16:29, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * increase the credibility and probability is correct in this context, but is not the same as confirm, which is a rather charged word in physics (another charged word that sometimes you use inappropriately is evidence, but that's another story). OED gives confirm (v) establish the truth or correctness of. Would you subscribe the statement that the detection of SUSY at the LHC confirms string theory? Hawking's star status does not mean that anything a BBC article reports him as saying is gold. We do know what he means, but it is certainly not well formulated in this quote and who knows if he really stated it that way. Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 17:07, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * If Hawking did use confirm incorrectly, it is probably because of the high level of expectation people have about SUSY (and strings) being correct and (hopefully) dectected at the LHC. When people regard a hypothesis as (almost) certainly correct they see any evidence in its favour as confirmation.  That's life, and that's how people use language.--Michael C. Price talk 17:23, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * That's life, but as free-willing agents we can choose which quotes we use and which we don't use, and as I said in physics some words are more charged than others. You still haven't said if you personally think that confirmation is used correctly in the quote (BTW, we should ask him, but I suspect that this is the reason why BenRG dropped it from the original paragraph). Ptrslv72 (talk) 17:44, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Being used to correctly is to some extent dependent on the beliefs of the utterer, as I tried to explain. However, I would not have used it that way.  As I said, I have no problem with attaching a explanatory rider saying that strings => SUSY but SUSY =/=> strings (which we can source quite easily). --Michael C. Price talk 19:30, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * OR, we could simply not include a poorly worded statement in the text, as BenRG wisely did. BTW, from your edits I still don't understand if you got this: strings => SUSY is true only at the very high energy scale at which string theory is relevant. It might be that SUSY is manifest at that scale but not at the scale accessible to the LHC. So, detection of SUSY at the LHC does not confirm string theory, and failure to the detect SUSY at the LHC does not disprove it. Nothing that we could see at the LHC would tell us what really happens at the Planck scale (this said, detection of SUSY would surely be encouraging for the string believers). Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 19:59, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * By "SUSY is true" do you mean "SUSY is unbroken"? I agree with the rest of your paragraph.--Michael C. Price talk 20:09, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I actually meant that the statement "strings => SUSY" is true only at the Planck scale (implying, indeed, that SUSY might be broken at a scale lower than the Planck scale but much higher than the weak scale). Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 20:38, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Then your language is sloppy. Be more careful, especially since you have the unpleasant habit of assuming anyone who differs with you is an ignoramus. You should consider that you are not quite as clear as you think you are. --Michael C. Price talk 20:50, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Come on, I was quoting verbatim from your post and indeed I would not say that strings => SUSY is a paragon of precise scientific language. I would have written that differently (actually, I did in my own post). But this kind of discussion is becoming childish. Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 21:13, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Regarding who knows if he really stated it that way, that is not something wikipedia is concerned with. Wikipedia does not concern itself with the truth, it concerns itself with was what is reported about the truth.--Michael C. Price talk 17:28, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Does this mean that if some bonehead reads on The Sun that the LHC will study time travel he is entitled to mention it in the article? Because this is precisely what dragged me into policing the LHC article... Ptrslv72 (talk) 17:44, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It means we should cite The Sun and then all the sources that refute this myth. We could even have a misconceptions section.  Lots of articles do. --Michael C. Price talk 19:21, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * This would open the gates to every crazy claim that appears only in one source and is rightly neglected by the others, as in the case I am talking about. There was only a tabloid article with the time-travel story, and obviously no news articles saying "the LHC will not study time travel". What I did was to give the guy links to conferences, workshops and scientific articles (sounds familiar?) to show him that nobody in the real world of particle physicists works on time travel at the LHC. He eventually gave up, but if you had been in his shoes I guess that you would have complained about drawing inferences from primary sources, and insisted that I provide a link to a news article that refutes your claim... Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 19:48, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The time travel story appeared in more than just The Sun. I think it appeared in New Scientist as well.  I don't read The Sun but I definitely read it somewhere.   Yup, as thought --Michael C. Price talk 19:52, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Even better, it appeared in The Sun AND The Daily Telegraph (the others seem to be blogs). Do you by chance think that this is a good reason to add it to the list of key questions that the LHC might help answer? Or anywhere else in the article? If that is the case, please add it as soon as possible, it will destroy whatever credibility you may still have with the other editors... Ptrslv72 (talk) 20:35, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Now you're being stupid again. Oh well. BTW here is the New Scientist from that list.  I see also the Wall Street Journal ran a story on it. --Michael C. Price talk 20:50, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * As a matter of fact, I now recall that the story was even trickier, because the news articles were based on an actual "scientific" paper which, under the catchy title "Time machine at the LHC", actually talked about wormholes (and, of course, had noting to do with the kind of time travel implied by the tabloid stories). The paper is now published in an obscure journal, has collected mostly self-citations and its authors were laughed at when they preseted their results at CERN (see here). No serious physicist would treat this story with any respect. But, had the editor been a bit more persistent, it would have been quite hard to keep the story out of the LHC article on any other grounds than an appeal to common sense (which I am not sure is a codified WP policy). Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 21:00, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * All that shows is that you still don't get Wikipedia.  Common sense dictates that it should be addressed somewhere in the article.  But I'm repeating myself, and I really can't be bothered to go on. --Michael C. Price talk 21:08, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that this story raises interesting questions on the quality of sources for science articles (but, I agree, now it's not the time). Anyway, the guy wanted to put time travel in the list of key questions, and I suppose that you would have talked him out of it as well. Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 21:59, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Inflaton/Inflation
"You must be kidding" is a nice way to answer people you disagree with, and I tend to (over)use it myself, but it has the problem that the person one is talking to could actually be baffled about your meaning. I feel that explaining in so many words that "inflaton" is not misspelt and so forth is somewhat condescending to the reader. In my opinion, we can and must explain where the suffix -on come from, but that there is no "i" is under everybody's eyes. Happy editing, Goochelaar  (talk) 08:26, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I could have explained it a bit better; the inflaton page exists only so that we can link to it from inflation, so as to stop people continually "correcting" the spelling by inserting an "i". --Michael C. Price talk 08:35, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I see, thanks for explaining. The fact is, I came there after reading about inflatons in a "Scientific American" article, so I had taken the word as a matter of fact, and I found it funny the stress on spelling (almost as when some facetious editor tried to write in the Hadron article that its name was not a misspelling for something else). Do you think that we might find a less patronising way to put it? If not, I shan't insist. Goochelaar  (talk) 08:53, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Everett article
Can I believe my eyes? An article on the history of this sorry episode that understands both Everett's position and Bohr's position? That's definitely a sign that humanity is getting smarter. When I was growing up, Bohr's position and Everett's position were understood only by a small subset of people, and the intersection was almost certainly empty. Now it's big enough to include a historian! Thank you.Likebox (talk) 08:28, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

gauge theory
Hi -- I would like to defuse the incipient edit war between me and Bakken on Nontechnical introduction to gauge theory. Could you help us to start a substantive discussion of the issues I raised on the talk page? I think the three issues I listed under "bad" are all serious ones that need to be discussed.--76.167.77.165 (talk) 00:54, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for stepping in. I think your participation on the talk page was very helpful. Sorry for letting it degenerate into an incipient revert war.--76.167.77.165 (talk) 01:26, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Hugh Everett III
Do you have a file which you would like me to upload, or do you just want a gallery? -- Avi (talk) 13:57, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know enough about the commons works yet to be sure, but I have one file in partcular I was going to upload with a view to uploading more.--Michael C. Price talk 14:05, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * If you are having trouble, you can e-mail me the file (and permissions) and I can upload it for you. -- Avi (talk) 22:55, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Like so: Hugh Everett III? -- Avi (talk) 14:35, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Edit to WP:Linking
I suspect that in this edit you accidentally edited an old revision, as you reverted some changes of mine without any explanation. -- _ _ _ A. di M. 11:29, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * My apologies. I shall rectify.  --Michael C. Price talk 12:04, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. -- _ _ _ A. di M. 12:12, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Mitochondrial Eve
I am following Wiki guidelines, and also from Jimbo himself by removing material that is improperly referenced. Improperly referenced refers also to material that improperly cited or a citation to information that is a representation. Simply stated the material was deleted because it is damaging to Wikipedia (it was a complete misrepresentation of Tishkoffs and Wilson's work and because it was POV and OR. I do not need to waste my time fixing a holo-misrepresentation of the science. You have the data, if you think its worthy of returning to the mainpage then do so, but read the references I provided first.PB666 yap 04:22, 23 August 2009 (UTC)


 * It is appropriate and within the wikipedia guidelines to edit controversial sections on the talk page such that they can be discussed before returning to the main-page. In addition sections can be edited in ones personal sandbox, you have until tomorrow, if the misleading information is still present then it will be removed again.PB666 yap 04:50, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Micheal, you should familiarize yourself with Wikipedia policies before making demands upon others. It is completely appropriate to delete material that is improperly referenced or cited, particularly material the is NPOV and original research. However, since you refuse to read the guidelines let me make this clear.

"If a claim is doubtful and harmful, you should remove it from the article; you may want to move it to the talk page and ask for a source, unless you regard it as very harmful or absurd, in which case it should not be posted to a talk page either. Use your common sense. All unsourced and poorly sourced contentious material about living persons should be removed from articles and talk pages immediately. It should not be tagged. See Biographies of living persons and Libel."

I see so you are playing WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. OK so that seems like a reasonable reason for me to refactor your contributions to those that are pertinent.PB666 yap 20:04, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

IOW, I am not trying to be an ass, I found something to be a complete misrepresentation of both the topic at hand and what was stated in certain papers, that is harmful to the encyclopedia. Since the statements were a misrepresentation, simply stated I could have deleted it without bringing it to the talk-page, I did conservatively interpret this guideline. Your rework of the section, including its title are still inadequate, however not inviolation of the above. and at somepoint since I am a member of the Human Genetics and Human Molecular Evolution I guess I am not obligated to repair this section.

Coalescent times is not a 'date' there are no Dates prior to written history and you cannot date Eve, she died ages ago. Calling it a date is overdumbing the topic. A coalescence time is an age estimate, a temporal confidence range based on molecular genetic divergence and geological age observations (geologically interpreted dating based on radioisotopic dating of fossils or the formations in which fossils are found). The coalescence times that are presented are not important in and of themselves. Let me make this clear, during long constrictions (in this case verified by the X-linked loci and the Human/Neandertal genome sequencing projects) fixation of low ploidy loci occurs frequently and repetitively. The previous fixation event may have been 15 years prior to mtEve or 15,000 year before mtEve. Within a cohesive species The last fixation event for a locus masks all previous events back to the point in which that species branches from its closest sister species, IOW this event was one of many;however it happened to be the event that was so rapidly followed by a population expansion that none of its subclades fixed in the population.

The 'Date' of mtEve that is presented in the section is presented as trivia and the date is and of itself not important without a decent explanation. The TMRCA can be indirect measure of the population size when ploidy and random processes(drift) and generation times are taken into account. In a given constrict population, quasi-fixation is determined by the 2N rule, however the actual fixation events fall into a probability versus time distribution that that is skewed backwards in time from 0.5X < T < 5X (at 95% confidence) of the mean fixation time X. Consequently the estimate of population size based on T is also a probability versus size distribution.

The two critical factors that makes the mtDNA-'Eve's' TMRCA 'not-trivial' within the section is not mentioned at all. The predicted effective female population size and the estimated date of the inflection of mtDNA lines that is consistent with a major population expansion (see Vigilante et al 1991). For example, we may find, as occurred wtih L0 when genomic sequencing was done, that there is an even more basal branch of mtDNA that pushes backwards the TMRCA 20 or 30,000 years, however if no major early inflection of branching of the new branch occurs then it does not change the inflection time, and while it does increase the TMRCA, it would not change the dynamics much of branching within the constricted time frame. This is why there has been little change in the estimate of effective population size. L0 for example was not spread ubiquitously in Africa and was enriched in a few isolated hunter-gatherers who were already suspected as being early off-branches of the human population that remained connected by low rates of transregional admixture (mostly recent). Therefore two important points come of this research


 * All credible studies to date place the effective size of the population between 3900 and 5000 effectively breeding females, with a proposed equilibrium constrict size of approximated 4400 females. As you mentioned Tanzania, albeit you should read Gonder carefully since they describe a region larger, the indirect importance of the TMRCA is that it creates a recent (relative to other paleoanthropological predictions) ancestral population for humans that is too small to be global or semiglobal in size. The study not only verifies the prediction of Brown(1980) that human population expanded after 180,000 years ago, more than likely from Africa, to Vigilant(1989,1991) that humans not only expanded from Africa, but from the region of Africa generally south of the Equator. However, it is the population size that came under critique because it could not exist globally and with great difficulty could explain human habitation in sub-Saharan africa, an area large for such a small effective population of bipeds who by definition had to be an effectively interbreeding population over a period of ~50000 years.
 * Although Browns work is seldomly credited, what Brown effectively delineated was the division between Out of Africa paleoanthropologist and Multiregional Evolution (the popular opinion of the era). Multiregionalist credited regional humans as descendants from the most early arrivals (erectus) from Africa and genetic admixture by small migrations and diffusive processes within this construct the expectation of TMRCAs for most human loci should be older than the appearance of hominid fossils in Eurasia, now dated to 1.8 million years. Therefore they postulated that Neandertals evolved into modern humans in Europe, Erectines in Asia evolved into modern Asians and Indigenous Australians. The prediction (Brown 1980) of population expansions 180,000 years ago from 'Africa' basically argues that regional contribution was smaller and migrations were more important. The work of Cann and Vigilante from ~1990 argues that the regional contribution was much smaller and that more recent migrations from Africa were very important, in addition the possibility increased that Neanderthals and Asiatic Erectines (now including Homo floriensis) were formally defined biological species (plural). Further molecular genetics has essentially verified that sources of non-constrict-Africa contribution were either minimal or absent. Paabos and Greenfeilds recent work on the Neanderthal genome all but rule out Neanderthal contribution to humans. The new studies of Tishkoff (there are two relevant papers) pushes the TMRCA of humans to specific regions of sub-Saharan Africa (A zone that does not include the most extreme regions of south Africa, nor regions beyond the rain-forest of central Africa), which basically means that all humans in Africa during the predicted coalescent time lived within a small (globally) and examples of other species found during that time frame in other parts of the world (e.g. Europe, N. Africa (Morroco), India(Narmada), E. Asia(Hexian, Zoukoudian, Sumatra, Flores) did not contribute substantive levels of genetic material, and most if not all of these were likely members of different biological species. Physical anthropologist of great number contest this exclusion, and are having to face the consideration that trait markers have been subject to subjective comparative research or comparative anatomy has been thwarted by large scale regional convergent evolution of humans and regional hominids. Because this genetic information is largely unfaltering in the opinion of recent African origins the resulting hypothesis have cause a revolution in paleoanthropology in which physical paleonotologist have dabbled in genetics trying to disprove the hypothesis, largely unsuccessful, and over time we have seen a major retraction of the scale and acceptance of Multiregionalism hypothesis. Even the most ardent supporters of the hypothesis argue from a basically Mostly Out of Africa (Wolpoff), or an Admixture/Replacement models (Trinkhaus). hence, Showing that there was no exo-constrict contribution to humans later is now beyond the scope of mtDNA studies, but was once the primary contribution of the early TMRCAs


 * Tishkoffs group (e.g. Gonder et al) further constrains the population to a geographic area were we would consider a bipedal organism, practically speaking, to be a part of a interbreeding population with an increased probability that by random drift a displacement of mtDNA clads might occur. Discontinuous diffusion created by large geographic distances or barriers inhibit effective interbreeding across those distances. It is not so important the place, but the area that is constrained. As you can imagine this L0 lineages are not found in broad regions of Africa (they are found in Arabia, but this is the result of slave trade and increased recent human transmigration), yet these lineages formed 180,000 years ago. Ergo, diffusive processes with cohesive interbreeding, with great difficulty, explain cohesive intebreeding in the entire SSA region. Behar attributes this population structuring to a small expansion and migration of Khosian ancestors to regions away from East Africa whereas Tishkoff attributes this to the migration of L1 bearer away from Angola (by extrapolation). IOW both authors attribute the end of the constriction to migration and expansion of a globally tiny distance (A few hundred miles to a couple 1000 miles) that effectively results in a population structure that persists for 150,000 years.
 * While this idea seems new, it was proposed almost 2 decades ago. The reading between the lines here is for pre-expansion humans to have persisted in an interbreeding population in Africa, unless human reproductive biology markedly changed (toward more exclusive breeding practices) the geographic area in which it existed had to have been a small fraction of Africa's total area. In contrast to the above the folks that are doing this work are no longer positing the origins of humans in Africa as an alternative the multiregionalism, what they are trying to do is gather strength in the 'other' genetics to indicate a set of constrained geographic coordinates where all humans evolved. Therefore the temporal distances between 'mtDNA-Eve' and two earliest subranches LOd,(abfk) and L1,2 and their geographic distribution will likely be refined by more genetic studies in (central Africas pygmoid peoples, hunter gatherers in Congo, Angola, etc).

Bottom line - mtDNA 'Eve' (TMRCA) compels us to search for tempero-geographic population structures. If this is not in someway stated then it is more or less trivia.

Prod on Timeline of physical chemistry
No pressure... but if there's no content within a week, I don't see much point in keeping the article. Thanks, Melchoir (talk) 07:19, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Re: Jack the Ripper comments on my talkpage
(from my talk page) I *have* talked first. And awaiting a response. See talk page. --Michael C. Price talk 12:14, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I understand, Michael; what I perhaps have not communicated properly is that - until the discussion has concluded as to the appropriateness of the included information - the info should remain out of the article, How many times must it be removed from the article before you relaize that you aren't going to be able to shoehorn it in by force of personality? - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  12:23, 29 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Not to put too fine a point on it, Michael, if you are waiting for a response, then WAIT for a response. Don't continue to edit regardless of the situation. All that will do is create bad faith and a history of pushing which, when combined with policy violations, can only exacerbate a block request. Two things to consider; One, Wikipedia is not a newspaper so we have no need to scoop anybody, there's no time pressure here. And two, the story is over 100 years old, it'll wait. Padillah (talk) 12:31, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I see from the above talk page comments that you are already familiar with the rules on WP:3RR, having been blocked for it in the past, so I won't bother with putting the edit warring template here for your actions on the Jack the Ripper article. Please also read WP:BRD for our rules on how controversial information is added: specifically, if you know something new you want to add is not accepted by other editors, you must demonstrate a consensus on the talk page to include it before adding it again. DreamGuy (talk) 12:35, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
 * But I don't know that something is against the consensus if there is no response. No response often does imply acceptance. --Michael C. Price talk 12:48, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll remember this if no other editor comments on my proposal for the LHC article... ;-) Ptrslv72 (talk) 16:58, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Just saw this rationalization. You knew there was no consensus because it was removed, and the talk page comments disagreed with you. Not having a response agreeing with you means there is an obvious lack of  consensus for you to make your change, this we default to the status quo. Repeating a change that was reverted previously under the claim that you didn't know anyone opposed it is simply ridiculous. This kind of argument is called WP:WIKILAWYERING and is frowned upon here.  DreamGuy (talk) 13:16, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I have no idea what your objection was to introducing sourced material, but your assessment above is incorrect. Lack of response on the talk page often does imply acceptance (and my points there have not been fully responded to).  Your behaviour re JtR was pathetic -- such as removing material without responding to issues raised on a talk page. Obviously you feel differently. --Michael C. Price talk 13:36, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Blurring of Planckian pixels
There is no original research. Everything is copied from the cited New Scientist articles based on peer-reviewed publications by a leading scientist.

The first sentence is copied and pasted verbatim from the cited New Scientis article based on the work of Craig Hogan, director of Fermilab's Center for Particle Astrophysics in Batavia, Illinois--Systemizer (talk) 18:44, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Planckian granularity is a hypothesis, not a fact and shouldn't be presented as such. --Michael C. Price talk 07:43, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Flat earth
I'm sure you are doing this in good faith, but could we take this to the talk page until someone can find a reliable source? I've removed that link as well from an otherwise unsourced paragraph which looks like OR. Our Flat Earth Society page also mentions the link but recognises that it's a parody. Dougweller (talk) 07:57, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, got it. Dougweller (talk) 08:04, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Schrodinger and Von Laue
I am not sure about the exact interpretation Schrodinger had. I don't think he saw hidden variables as the right answer, he might have just liked a pure-wave mechanics like Everett. Von Laue I don't know about, but is he one of the founders? What did he do?Likebox (talk) 20:50, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I've no idea, but Einstein cites von Laue in his letter to Schrodinger (see Schrodinger's cat) as rejecting the "it's just philosophy" approach everyone else plumpted for.--Michael C. Price talk 09:22, 27 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. That's interesting. I also am being accused of "OR" and "SYNTH" for presenting Dennett's mind-copying and many-worlds mind copying side by side in quantum mysticism (thanks for your supportive blurb). I am horrified, because I think that in the near future, Wikipedia might be run over by an unruly ignorant mob. It makes me appreciate the common sense and flexibility shared by the usenet-folk.Likebox (talk) 13:33, 27 August 2009 (UTC)


 * By its very nature Wikipedia is already overrun by The Marching Morons. Coping with this is tricky.  You might like to look at a recent attempt to inject some sanity at WP:ESCA. --Michael C. Price talk 14:32, 27 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Michael. I have explained the situation to OMCV, but he does not agree, and his arguments, in my view, are becoming specious. I got a supportive 3rd opinion from Count Iblis, but he is ignoring it. Can you offer a supportive opinion? (Only if you are supportive!)Likebox (talk) 17:30, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I was polite enough not use your own words against you in my latest post on the Quantum Mysticism talk page. I don't mind you fishing for opinions since I'm extremely confident of the position I'm representing, but I don't feel its fair for you to specifically ask for opinions that support your position.  I'll assume that "Only if you are supportive!" is an amusing joke.  As I stated on the 3O page I for one welcome any opinion you might offer Michael especially since you are an editor who often works with Likebox you might be more convincing.--OMCV (talk) 23:51, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * He wants to delete all mention of the Dennett argument. The talk page back and forth was only him saying "Synth" and me saying "not synth" regarding the argument about copying a consciousness. The arguments are annoying, because he is right in the letter of Dennett's argument, but I think he is wrong to the spirit of the argument.Likebox (talk) 20:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Place to extend life
How do your life extension assertions correlate with this:

(The Moreton Hall estate in Bury St Edmunds has once again topped national tables for having the longest life expectancy in the UK - with an average age at death of 93.4 years old.)


 * Looking at the links  it seems it is due to prosperity and less smoking. --Michael C. Price talk 10:19, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

You are right
You are of course right about WP:TLDR. But as I imagine you can see I'm exacerbated at this point. I would love to see what you would present as a fair rewrite. I will do my best to ignore the fact that we are working without sources.--OMCV (talk) 21:32, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


 * That's the spirit! --Michael C. Price talk 21:46, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Just wondering if you had any more thoughts on the Talk:Quantum mysticism I thought you doing great as an arbitrator of ideas.--OMCV (talk) 03:30, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Restored content in the MWI/Acceptance among physicists
I think there are many unverified claims in the chapter you've restored. Aside from that, the chapter is "Acceptance among physicists", while the referenced material Jeffrey A. Barrett "The Quantum Mechanics of Minds and Worlds" is a book by the professor of philosophy, not physicist. I have created a new chapter "Acceptance among philosophers" and moved that material there. --Dc987 (talk) 19:37, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Dunning-Kruger effect
Hi, I've reverted your change to the Illusory superiority article. I realise there are lots of Google hits for "Dunning-Kruger effect" but they all seem to derive from Wikipedia, where the terms seems to have originated. Hence it is original research that needed to be deleted. It would be misleading to give that made-up term the same status as terms that are actually used in academic literature. This have been gone over in Talk, and so far there has been a clear consensus. I hope this makes things clear. MartinPoulter (talk) 23:32, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't agree that there was a clear consensus, nor do I see the relevance of where the term originates from; it's how it is used now that is is relevant.--Michael C. Price talk 23:38, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
 * But the evidence that it's used now isn't academic literature but Wikipedia, copies of Wikipedia, and online posts based on Wikipedia, right? Isn't it misleading to use an invented term to talk about something in peer-reviewed academic literature, when that literature doesn't use that term? What if the academic community decides to name some other principle or effect after Dunning and Kruger? MartinPoulter (talk) 23:44, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Let's take this to the article's talk page. --Michael C. Price talk 23:48, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Quantum mind/body problem
If you think there is no conflict/problems regarding Likebox and his activities I request that you take some responsibility for his actions. He is already behaving non-responsively on the Talk:Quantum_mind/body_problem.--OMCV (talk) 14:01, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I read Likebox's response earlier today and I thought it quite reasonable and correct; lots of respectable physicists are mystics w.r.t. QM (and he named a few). Surely you realise that?  It shouldn't be necessary to add that I am not one of them and neither is Likebox, AFAIK.--Michael C. Price talk 14:20, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * So what I think you are saying is that this idea is SO obvious that while it could be easily attributed its better not to attribute. Please read Likebox's post again and tell me if that is what he has said.  The major problem with this statement is that all statements that begin with "It has been claimed" don't belong on an encyclopedia without attribution.  Because a complete statement would be that "It has been claimed that the theory meshes well with ancient Eastern mysticism and philosophy... as well as plethora other perspectives that agree, semi-agree, or contradict this assertion.  There are many who would vehement oppose this connection as suggested by Mobious (also true).  If it can't be stated as a fact or attributed than an assertion is hearsay.  Another problem is that its impossible to determine the value of a statement (WP:Note) with out referencing the statement.  This isn't a personal essay or even a paper.  We don't want to argue our personal opinion about the value of statements, just attribute them and move on.--OMCV (talk) 14:47, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * What I am saying is that this idea is SO obvious that while it could be easily attributed I am not going to do because I am not interested in the subject.
 * The other point to note is that the statement "it is claimed that ..." does not imply universal support nor that dissenters do not exist. I am one, for example. Citations are available for both POVs for people that can be bothered to use google.--Michael C. Price talk 14:55, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not asking you to work on the page itself I'm asking you to look at Likebox's activities. One aspect I hope to have in wikipedia is that we have better references here than can be obtained from a Google search.--OMCV (talk) 15:17, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

X and Y bosons
Can you provide some reference that X and Y bosons are sometimes called just X bosons? --antiXt (talk) 12:14, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. --Michael C. Price talk 15:52, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Weak isospin and weak hypercharge
Are you sure that X and Y bosons have weak isospin +$1/2$ and -$1/2$ respectively? Because if they do, then it seems no longer conserved, because everything X and Y decay into has total weak isospin +1 and 0 respectively, not +$1/2$ and -$1/2$. That would also mean that they have weak hypercharge $2/3$, and not $5/3$ ($5/3$ would also violate conservation of weak hypercharge, while $2/3$ would not).

If processes involving X and Y bosons do violate conservation of weak isospin and weak hypercharge, then this should be mentioned, and if they don't then X and Y bosons must have weak isospin +1 and 0 respectively and weak hypercharge $2/3$. --antiXt (talk) 07:34, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I assumed that weak isospin referred to the 3rd component of weak isospin, I3, but perhaps this was wrong. Is this where we are getting our wires crossed?  (The weak isospin article seems ambiguous.)  If so perhaps this should be added to the particle infobox because I3 is definitely conserved and definitely notable.
 * The thing to watch out for, and which I skated over, is that I didn't specify the chirality (physics) of the breakdown products. (In the UU example, one U is left handed (with I3=1/2)and the other is right handed (with zero I3).  Wasn't sure if the particle template supported chirality.) --Michael C. Price talk 08:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * See talk:X and Y bosons for my failed attempts to fix this. --Michael C. Price talk 09:42, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I've fixed the problem. However, "Third component of the weak isospin" seems too verbose; can you come up with something shorter? --antiXt (talk) 18:31, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Template problem fixed -- I was an idiot. Re, verbose description; I can't find anything shorter that is still accurate.--Michael C. Price talk 08:40, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Civility on Arbitration cases
Comments such as this are not appropriate for posting elsewhere on Wikipedia, and even less so at Arbitration. As the case clerk, I have refactored your comment to remove the attacks. Please refrain from further comments of this nature. Thank you. Hers fold  (t/a/c) 01:24, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Godel's incompleteness theorems in light of WP:ESCA
I think a good place to push for WP:ESCA is Godel's incompleteness theorems. I put up a quick and easy proof that follows Godel's original method, but modernizes the notation and streamlines the main thread of the proof so that it is comprehensible by anyone. This was challenged and removed twice already, but maybe ESCA will allow it in. I thought you might be interested, since you supported ESCA.Likebox (talk) 02:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Work (physics)
Happy fiftieth birthday Michael! Don't be too concerned - there is life after fifty, and I am here as living proof.

Eight days ago I asked a question at Talk:Work (physics). Sadly, no-one has responded. Perhaps no physicists have Work (physics) on their Watchlists.

I would be grateful if you would visit the above question and let me have the benefit of your wisdom, either on the Talk page or on my User talk page. Best wishes. Dolphin51 (talk) 04:09, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

"Evidence" for supersymmetry
Hi Michael, I stumbled on the supersymmetry article and saw that you added in the lead the sentence "As of 2009, there is indirect evidence that supersymmetry exists". To avoid a repeat of our never-ending debate (BTW, the "Purpose" section of the LHC article is still an eyesore but, sadly, nobody else seems to care) I think I would contact you directly before changing the text. As I had already an opportunity to mention, in particle physics "evidence" for any sort of new phenomenon is a highly charged concept. It means a deviation from the SM expectation that has less than 1% probability of being due to a statistical fluctuation. For this reason, nobody would claim that gauge coupling unification is "evidence" for SUSY, and while "indirect evidence" is somewhat murkier it still sounds very strong. I wish I could convince you that, in the physics community, an improved unification of gauge couplings w.r.t. the SM is certainly considered an attractive bonus feature of SUSY - together with other attractive bonus features, such as the facts that it allows for radiative breaking of the electroweak symmetry and for a natural candidate for dark matter - but hardly anybody would bet money on SUSY just because of that. The main reason for introducing TeV-scale SUSY is the fact that it provides a solution to the hierarchy problem, and as I already told you there are alternative solutions to the hierarchy problem in which gauge coupling unification is not an issue. In summary, I would remove that sentence from the lead: if you give "evidence" its usual meaning you are definitely misrepresenting the situation, and if by "indirect evidence" you just mean "an attractive feature" you are giving undue relevance to gauge coupling unification over other attractive features of SUSY (besides, the bit "As of 2009" sounds really out of place). Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 18:34, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
 * "Indirect evidence" is what Gordon Kane in Scientific American calls it. Fine? --Michael C. Price talk 19:23, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I am quite surprised that Kane would choose this wording but well, as you once said he is notable and I am not. But the context matters. I cannot access the SciAm article that you quote so I cannot judge what relevance was given to the issue of gauge coupling unification there. The sentence in the lead of the Wiki article, however, sounds very strong, as if gauge coupling unification implied that the existence of SUSY is practically beyond doubt (this BTW clashes with the clause "if it exists" in the subsequent sentence). Without entering a culture war on the word "evidence", I would propose to soften the sentence a bit with the following change:
 * So far, there is only indirect evidence for the existence of supersymmetry. Since the superpartners of the Standard Model particles have not been observed, supersymmetry, if it exists, must be a broken symmetry, allowing the superparticles to be relatively heavy.
 * What do you think? Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 10:01, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Since this wording makes no substantive change I don't care -- leave the links in, though. --Michael C. Price talk 12:10, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. BTW, sensei is not part of the guy's name, it's a title that shows respect in Japanese. Just as you don't write "The notable Prof. Dr. Zumino" in the Wiki article, I guess that you shouldn't use "sensei" either. BTW, the whole sentence "Supersymmetry was first discovered by H Miyazawa-sensei in 1966, but his work was ignored at the time" sounds suspicious to me, and I wonder if there might be some POV issue (it looks like the symmetry that this Miyazawa was proposing is quite different from what we now call supersymmetry, and from a google search most of his supporters appear to be Japanese, plus one Sultan Catto). Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 15:54, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah, I wondered if it was just a title. Re POV, Peter Freund also credits Miyazawa with SUSY's discovery.
 * If you felt like removing/trimming the section on Bunji Sakita I certainly wouldn't object. It sticks out like a sore thumb and is out of chronological sequence. --Michael C. Price talk 16:00, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not that into these attribution battles, but I softened the sentence on Miyazawa. Concerning Gervais-Sakita, we might just mention them together with the others in the sentence that follows Miyazawa's, and delete the dedicated paragraph. Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 16:32, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I unsoftened it :-) - Freund says Miyazawa wrote down the full supersymmetric algebra. --Michael C. Price talk 17:31, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I take your word for it, but in this case we can specify that the symmetry proposed by M. relates mesons and baryons, as opposed to elementary fermions and bosons. Otherwise, "a supersymmetry relating bosons and fermions" is redundant. Ptrslv72 (talk) 18:12, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi, the words "in a supersymmetric theory" at the beginning of the sentence imply that supersymmetry is unbroken, so your addition seems redundant to me. I think it makes sense to first state what would happen in a supersymmetric theory and then mention the necessity of breaking SUSY (as we do in the subsequent paragraph). Anyway it is too late to make meaningful changes without screwing up. I'll think about it tomorrow but I would be inclined to revert to my version. Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 01:44, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * We have a difference in terminology. I would say that a broken symmetry still possesses the orginal symmetry, whereas some people apparently do not, or at least use terminology that suggests it doesn't.  Saying that the masses must be the same and then later saying that they may be different is confusing, IMO.  One solution would be to remove all mention of masses from the first paragraph, although no doubt the problem would reappear again later.
 * If we adopt the convention that "supersymmetry" implies "unbroken supersymmetry" then we would have to replace many of the later occurences of "supersymmetry" with "broken supersymmetry".
 * --Michael C. Price talk 08:30, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see much ambiguity: when a symmetry is broken the theory is not symmetric (especially if the symmetry is broken explicitly - as is SUSY in the MSSM - as opposed to spontaneously, but the lead is not the place for these subtleties). Supersymmetry implies that superpartners have the same mass, and since this article is about supersymmetry (not about a specific model such as the MSSM) I think that the very first sentence of the lead should give this basic information without qualifications. Indeed, we say that SUSY implies that the masses are the same, and later, when we discuss the real world, we say that the masses cannot be the same, therefore SUSY must be broken. I t does not seem confusing to me. I am still inclined to revert to my original version, but if you really can't swallow it you might consider either replacing "in a supersymmetric theory" with "in a theory with unbroken supersymmetry" (still superfluous but somewhat nimbler than your proposal) or, on a different line, replacing "in a supersymmetric theory" with "supersymmetry implies that". Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 10:34, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The logical consequence of your opening sentence is that MSSM is not supersymmetric. Is that what you claim? --Michael C. Price talk 16:45, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * In the MSSM supersymmetry is explicitly broken by the addition of ad hoc scalar and gaugino masses and scalar interaction terms. Of course we can see the MSSM as the low-energy leftover (an effective theory - again) of a larger model in which supersymmetry is broken spontaneously, but no, the MSSM in itself is not, strictly speaking, supersymmetric. So what? Ptrslv72 (talk) 23:18, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Since SSB does not destroy the symmetry of a theory it follows that not all supersymmetric theories demand the same masses for the particle/sparticles. Academic now, though; I'm happy with the phrasing in the lead. --Michael C. Price talk 23:38, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Michael, I was reading a recent article and it made me think of you... You might have a look at the first (introductory) chapter, it is quite accessible and it will show you that, nowadays, not all mainstream physicists consider gauge coupling unification as ironclad evidence for TeV-scale SUSY (note that Hall is pretty much in the same league as Kane). I don't mean to reopen old discussions, I just thought that you might find this reference interesting and get a broader point of view (and that it might help dispelling some of the myths you picked up from SciAm ;-) Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 16:56, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Have only skimmed it so far, but of course the gauge coupling unification was only presented as indirect evidence, not ironclad evidence, so I see no problem at the moment.  But an interesting article, and I'll study it more later.--Michael C. Price talk 17:14, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, I see that Hall himself is quite liberal in his use of the word evidence... Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 19:18, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Unseemly behaviour
Please stop gloating and baiting ohare; it does you no credit. Abtract (talk) 17:39, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I genuinely wanted to see his answer to my question, but since my actions are misinterpretable I shall desist. --Michael C. Price talk 20:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Brews
It is one thing to be frustrated with Brews, but it appears to me that you are harassing him and trying to draw him into a conversation that would violate his topic ban. This is not productive. I see that the Clerk previously warned you about comments like this. The arbitration is over. Please stop it. Finell (Talk) 17:46, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I had not realised that a response would be actionable. Fair enough.  --Michael C. Price talk 20:52, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Editing scientific articles
Michael, I started up an AN/I thread about your recent remarks at Wikipedia talk:Editing scientific articles. See here. David Tombe (talk) 05:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I am on probation
Thanks for your words of support, and your attempts to make this a better place. But it seems that lawyers are taking over. Is this inevitable? Could the process not have gone the other way, towards less government? I am not sure. This is an place with a large number of people, and administrative decisions are made by a Wiki-nobility.

I believe in this project, but I have always been hesitant about contributing to something which has an uncertain political future. The idea of granting power to the administratively minded, as opposed to the technical contributors, doesn't sit well with me.Likebox (talk) 18:31, 26 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm very sorry to see the outcome, and I'm shocked at the speed and abitrary nature of the process. But it's done.  If there's anything I can do, you know you only have to ask.


 * One definite piece of advice: don't waste your time debating with the admins about the logic or unfairness of the probabation; it will only make matters worse. You'll dig yourself in deeper and deeper, as Brews is doing.


 * With hindsight it is clear that only the way to change policy is by working on developing the policy and guidelines articles. Changing it by direct action is never going to work.


 * There are several grounds for appeal (such as it being indefinite, for example) but, IMO, you'd best let things cool off for a few months, be on your best behaviour, etc first. Carry on developing material as you already have on your own subpages; I can't see how anyone can object to that. --Michael C. Price talk 01:26, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Observer in the QM universe
I saw that you are interested in physics, QM interpretations, etc and did quite a few very reasonable edits. I wonder if you could possibly review a tiny article I wrote on the subject of the observer in the quantum universe. It's on the Wikipedia sister project - Wikiversity - here: and the same article with some basic math is on my talk page:

--Dc987 (talk) 09:49, 1 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you, for your comment. I think I have a good answer. Please take a look if you can. -> Thanks! --Dc987 (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Any chance to get a reply? --Dc987 (talk) 07:24, 7 October 2009 (UTC)


 * "It's difficult because there are so many perspectives on entropy." - well... I was using oversimplified approach to QM entropy - something along the lines of the Von Neumann entropy  - entropy is a measure of entanglement. I also thought that the classical entropy is supposed to come from the classical limit of the quantum theory. Apparently it does not. Such a mess. --Dc987 (talk) 20:47, 7 October 2009 (UTC)


 * A related question for you. What do you think would be the outcome of the following thought experiment? [[File:dc987-exp00.png]]
 * Would counter A be different from the counter B? From the classical perspective the answer would be definite no. From the QM perspective, my guess that it would be something like $$N_{A}/N_{B} = e^{S_{A} - S_{B}} $$, where $$N_{A}$$, $$N_{B}$$ are the counter values and $$S_{A}$$, $$S_{B}$$ - total entropy in the space-time light cone (entropy 'visible' to the observer). --Dc987 (talk) 23:28, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Nice diagram, I like it. I think the entropic side arm makes no difference, since the operation of each photomultiplier is a high entropy process in itself.  (Each photon carries approximately k entropy.)  So for a low intensity source we would normally see the arrival of a bunch of photons at either A or B but not usually both. --Michael C. Price talk 23:47, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Is there any way to derive the answer from the quantum mechanics? My guess that counter values should be proportional to the resulting number of 'decoherence states' for each path (including states of the photomultipliers, counters, etc). Hence the entropy is in my answer. Is it correct?


 * Here is another diagram, illustrating the entropy exchange with the environment:
 * [[File:dc987-exp01.png]]
 * --Dc987 (talk) 01:51, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Correct as far as I can see. Divide the entropy by k if we're not using natural units.  Shouldn't the half-silvered mirror be rotated by 90 degrees? --Michael C. Price talk 10:45, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I've rotated the mirror :)
 * Hmm. You answer is not entirely clear to me. You think that $$N_{A}/N_{B} = e^{\frac{S_{A} - S_{B}}{k}}$$, where $$N_{A}$$, $$N_{B}$$ are the counter values and $$S_{A}$$, $$S_{B}$$ - total entropy in the space-time light cone (entropy 'visible' to the observer) is correct or simply that the diagram is correct? --Dc987 (talk) 19:03, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Note, that it creates all kinds of subjective FTL, casuality, observer effects paradoxes.--Dc987 (talk) 18:43, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Would you think it can be possible to see a statistically significant deviation from the 50/50 distribution in the real experiment?--Dc987 (talk) 18:43, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * BTW. Here is an extreme scenario. Let's assume that we've made some nice time-reversible photomultipliers and counters. So: $$S_{P} = 0$$, $$S_{C} = 0$$. Now the only possible way of interaction with the environment is the heater. Everything else is time reversible. With the time flow entropy can only increase (it can not even stay the same!). So the only logical conclusion here is that with the time flow all the photons would chose the path A. --Dc987 (talk) 20:18, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I had not realised that the set-up was meant to be paradoxical. I was treating the photomultipliers as irreversible, and will have to digest the idea of reversible photomultipliers.  Are such things conceptually possible?  Let me mull things over.--Michael C. Price talk 20:57, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * A completely reversible photomultiplier+counter can be replaced by a quantum harmonic oscillator. And the light source with an another oscillator with some initial energy. See: . I would think that every system is a little bit reversible. Release of the entropy into the environment (entanglement with the environment) would be the measure of IRreversibility. --Dc987 (talk) 22:15, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, I get the reversible counters now. I often get lazy: since all irreversible processes induce decoherence, which can act as measurements, I often slip into thinking that all measurements are irreversible.  This isn't the case and reversible measurements are possible (with a more advanced technology not yet available), as your idea of reversible counters / multipliers testifies.  Indeed the natural language for dealing with reversible measurements is via entanglement (more on this later).  Everett modelled measurement as a type or subset of "subject-object correlation", but that is basically what we now call entanglement.  However I don't think this changes the outcome of the experiment -- as the photon passes a counter it effectively induces wf collapse, so that we still would see only one of the counters recording a hit.  Reversibility only changes things if we try to reverse everything -- but that would involve wiping from our own memory which of the counters detected the photon, in addition to reversing the counter.  We could still retain a memory of one of the counters firing, but not which one.  If you have an entropic process triggered by one of the counters then you can't reverse the process -- but this is the only consequence, namely that the setup is irreversible.  It doesn't change the behaviour of the counters.
 * Returning to the subject of entanglement and reversible measurements. It occurs to me that reversible measurements are non-entropic (by definition), yet they still induce, or are the result of, entanglements (or correlations in Everett's language).  Therefore we can have entanglements and measurements without changes in entropy.  This also suggests that wavefunction collapse can be reversible, and not always associated with decoherence.--Michael C. Price talk 01:04, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I would prefer if the observer wouldn't look at the every counter value. This will create a lot of decoherence/entropy. Only once and after a very large number of elementary outcomes, with a lot of entropy released by the heater.--Dc987 (talk) 04:37, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * "Reversibility only changes things if we try to reverse everything" - Yes. Everything in the light-cone of the observer (including the observer in some QM interpretations). Hopefully it is not an infinity. That's why I've specified: "S - entropy, produced by the apparatus in the space-time light cone of the observer".
 * I understand the measurement-as-entanglement approach. I like it better, compared to the orthodox "collapse of the wave function" one, but it doesn't really matter here. In the Copenhagen interpretation we simply would not include the observer into the setup. The observer will look at the counter, and this will cause the "irreversible collapse of the wave function". --Dc987 (talk) 02:20, 23 October 2009 (UTC)


 * It looks like this thought experiment is interesting enough to deserve an article. At least as a fallacy, if not as a real thing. Tell, if you maybe interested collaborating on that. Either way, take a look at these extra nice diagrams that I've made to illustrate the main point of this thought experiment. See: --Dc987 (talk) 19:25, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It might make an article. Most of this stuff has been written about by Everett, DeWitt or Deutsch, to some extent, so we should be able to source it - just! Or do you mean a real article?
 * I would think real arxiv.org article. I think it is a nice thought experiment. Even if there is some fallacy in it, it is worth publishing as a 'common fallacy'. I've also made a small real-life experiment out of a 4Mbps QRNG, so there would be some real experimental results (likely not the effect itself, only a boundary on the effect). --Dc987 (talk) 02:20, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The whole point of this thought experiment is to illustrate how the probabilities on the outcome of a single quantum event can be influenced by the future entropy considerations. The fact that they are influenced is trivial. Simply consider the setup with the quantum harmonic oscillators.--Dc987 (talk) 20:12, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the effect of the (reversible) counters is to reversibly collapse / entangle the wavefunction. The effect of the entropy release is to make this entanglement irreversible.  But the transition from reversible to irreversible is not, it seems to me, immediately measurable.  We only see the effect of the entropy should we later try and reverse everything and we then find that we can't. --Michael C. Price talk 09:55, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * "the effect of the (reversible) counters is to reversibly collapse / entangle the wavefunction"?? Sorry, I don't understand what you are saying. Lets use Copenhagen. And assume that at the moment the observer looks at the counter - the experiment ends / wavefunction collapses. Before that everything is quantum mechanical. The photon is going all paths at once. OK? Now the idea: 50/50 beam splitter does not necessarily splits the beam 50/50. The equilibrium could be moved, if Path A releases more entropy than Path B.--Dc987 (talk) 03:05, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Can't think of how to explain this at the moment. Give me some time to mull it over....--Michael C. Price talk 23:43, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, try this: we are using or treating the counter readings as recordable data that we can refer to at any later time, this implies that we are dealing with an irreversible counter-observer combination. Therefore all the reversible stuff we talked about is a red herring (albeit interesting and informative); we can regard the counters as irreversible (even though they may not be) since the observer-counter combination is irreversible.  Therefore the wavefunction can be regarded as collapsing as the photon passes the counters.  This implies that we can regard the counters as highly entropic (dS >> kT).  Entropy releases further down the measurement chain have no additional effect on the earlier measurements, since you can't retroactively collapse the wavefunction twice.
 * Or, equivalently: the counter readings are permanent data (in our memories, on our notepads etc); anything that creates a permanent trace is, or can be regarded as, irreversible, which means it can be treated as highly entropic. Therefore the wavefunction can be regarded as collapsing as the photon passes the counters. Entropy releases further down the measurement chain have no additional effect on the earlier measurements, since you can't retroactively collapse the wavefunction twice.
 * --Michael C. Price talk 11:18, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Only final counters value (measured by the observer) should be treated as "recordable data that we can refer to at any later time". The observer don't suppose to continuously record or look at the counters. Just like if you have a quantum computer, the observer is not supposed to do any extra measurements as that would ruin the computation. Your argument (dS >> kT) still stands though. It looks like kT should be present somewhere in the equation.--Dc987 (talk) 23:51, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Oooopps : I meant dS >> k not dS >> kT ! --Michael C. Price talk 01:06, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
 * As long as dS >> kT is all that is important. So the later entropy has no effect since the kT threshold has already been passed.--Michael C. Price talk 12:02, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * If (dS >> kT) effectively disables the effect, some function of it should be somewhere in the $$N_{A}/N_{B} = e^{\frac{S_{A} - S_{B}}{k}} $$. Where would it be? (It could be nice to have a precise formula. I think that it could place some tangible limits on the observer effects, etc).
 * It is still seems counter intuitive to me, that we can create a large potential well on one path and somehow the nature doesn't really use the opportunity. Either way, I think we've beaten that horse to death :) Thank you for your comments!
 * If you maybe interested in collaboration/publishing a more or less real article on the topic - I've managed to realize the setup in a very precise fashion (optical QRNG, XOR with the MT199937 PRNG, plus practically no hardware bias). I will have a reasonable amount of data in a few weeks. --Dc987 (talk) 20:39, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

'On' vs. 'in'
then (a) that requires a citation, and, (b) you need to state that in the text, because, as i said, common usage is 'in' bed.Toyokuni3 (talk) 17:46, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay. --Michael C. Price talk 17:50, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Weight Diagram
You ask on my talk page about the SO(10) weight diagram. "I get everything except the vertical column of arrows and numbers on the right hand side. How do they work?" The arrows and labels to the right are just keeping track of the level of the different weights (By convention the levels start from zero at the top and grow as you come down the weight diagram). This is not a very important feature of the weight diagram and could be omitted for brevity. Do you have a similar diagram for the Pati-Salam model? The Pati-Salam group SU(4)xSU(2)xSU(2) is actually a maximal sub-group of the SO(10), so you can actually produce weight diagrams for the Pati-Salam model out of SO(10) weight diagrams. All you have to do is remove the connections labeled with a 2 (the yellow connections on my diagram) (That brings you down to the SU(4)xSU(2) sub-group) and add new connections for the second SU(2) component of the Pati-Salam. These will jump 7 levels down (more specifically you have to go down 1 connection labeled 1, 2 connections labeled 2, 2 connections labeled 3, 1 connection labeled 4, and 1 connection labeled 5 - not necessarily in that order). For instance, the anti-neutrino at the very top should be connected to the positron at level 7 (follow for instance the sequence: anti-neutrino--5--anti-up--3--anti-up--4--anti-up--2--up--1--down--3--down--2--positron), and the anti-ups on levels 1,2, and 3 get connected to the anti-downs on levels 8, 9, and 10. That way the SO(10) 16 representation breaks down into the Pati-Salam 4x2x1 + 4x1x2 representations. Dauto (talk) 16:21, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

If we keep posting at each other talk pages our conversation will end up split in two which may make it hard to follow later on. I will be answering you on my talk page from now on. Dauto (talk) 20:04, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Please be careful
Michael, Please be careful not to get blocked for being a disruptive editor. It seems easy in Wikipedia for editors to get too caught up in the heat of battle, and make errors in judgement. You may want to compare your actions to the actions of those that you believe behaved improperly in the previous turmoil on the article. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:22, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Why don't you take your concerns to the appropriate thread on the SoL talk page? --Michael C. Price talk 15:25, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Cat conflict
Thank you for joining the discussion. I know you well enough to believe that you would not be so sure without good sources, so I know now that I am really on to something. Those solid sources must have errors and we are in a position to point them out now. David R. Ingham (talk) 22:25, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * See my response on the talk page. Einstein a good enough source? :-) --Michael C. Price talk 00:18, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

mistaken revert
I almost reverted the guy who removed the Cherenkov section myself, but in checking into why the section seemed to be broken, I found that Timothy Rias had put it back double after removing it. The anon's mistake was mainly to not comment his edit; it was easily mistaken for vandalism. So, I repaired the punctuation and took out the duplicate that you restored. Dicklyon (talk) 07:53, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Hah! Thanks.  Too quick with the D key.  --Michael C. Price talk 08:01, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Making sure things settle down
Hello! I am guessing you know about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#Pdeitiker.27s_edits You might also want to see how it has developed, and keep this page in mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_Lancaster/PB666 The aim is never to need to use it, but for now I suggest we keep it up to date.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * No, I hadn't seen any of that. I disengaged with P awhile back, after some fruitless attempts to stop the juggernaut of destruction. He does seem to be posting fewer walls of text, which is a good sign. --Michael C. Price talk 22:35, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I'm going with the "nuclear" option now:. I believe it will take less effort to improve the article via an RfC or some other remedial route than it will by direct and fruitless dialogue with PB666. --Michael C. Price talk 04:06, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

BTW
Flicking through your edit history (and incidentally establishing you are fairly credible, even though you write in a rather irritated style... I cannot complain you failed to read my comments properly since it is obvious I also failed to read one of yours properly) I was curious about. Do you know Polkinghorne (or Paul Sheppard who is the other person I know who roughly overlapped with you)? --BozMo talk 19:29, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I admire the guy (Polkinghorne), but don't know him personally. I went to a talk he gave in early '80s, but, in truth, recall little of it now.  I guess you know him from his Cambridge days.  Lucky you (and I'm not being sarcastic!). --Michael C. Price talk 21:36, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I have met him a few times (over coffee when he was at Queens) but I don't think he would know me from Adam. I like him and I guess intellectually he was a significant influence on my religious views. Funnily the only bit I really disagreed with him on ref religion is obscure and to do with inflation which is your kind of area. --BozMo talk 23:21, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know what you mean by "on ref religion" but I'd be interested to hear more about how it relates to inflation. --Michael C. Price talk 00:33, 12 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry. I am not a great communicator and this may not make any sense at all. I have no idea if your Polkinghorne interest is religious or scientific so this may mean nothing to you. The issue was whether there is an argument for the existence of God based on the extraordinary nature of scientific fact. I think since the mid seventies (after Hans Wilhelm Frei published the Eclipse of Biblical Narrative) most Christians I know, seem to have accepted that "other explanations exist" for contemporary physical phenomena without needing an interventionist model to explain how God, people, free will etc relate to the physical world (i.e. science predicts without needing to invoke God or invoke people in an explanation), or if they did not accept it they realised it did not matter. I was still an atheist then so when I became a Christian a reasonable understanding of how the theory worked was already part of the package. Polkinghorne was absolutely on the money concerning the lack of need for scientific inconsistency and helpful in discussing the Resurrection (sorry, this would be a long note but its a bit of a special case) but was still arguing in the 1980s that coincidence in relationalships between physical numbers in the origin of the universe pointed to a God. At the time, aside the principle, some of Polkinghorne's coincident relationships looked within reach of scientific theories particularly inflation. Stephen Hawking, who was also on the edges of my acquaintence, and has similar religious views I think, made some comments on this after he heard a Sermon by P in Great St Mary's church, although he seemed to support the argument too at the time. I haven't followed the science since then. --BozMo talk 07:19, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 * IMO Polkinghorne is correct to argue in the 1980s that coincidence in relationalships between physical numbers in the origin of the universe pointed to a God. Except that I would add, or multiverse, which is how Martin Rees, a student of JP's, puts it.  As an atheist I opt for the multiverse. (I believe this is also Hawking's position.) Inflation doesn't really come into it anymore directly, although it is a fascinating process in its own right and (as you've noted) is something I try to follow. I think Hawking's comments were made in the early days of inflationary theory when rather less was understood about the formation of galactic superclusters than now, and it seemed necessary to invoke the anthropic principle to explain it.  Although I see that inflation and the anthropic principle still seem to have some overlap. --Michael C. Price talk 08:16, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, thats interesting. Hawking isn't an atheist though, but nor am I and I do not look for evidence of God in fundamental science so until something better comes along I ought to read about multiverses (I am probably more agnostic that JP though: I think I would be open to embrace a better world view point if one turned up)... --BozMo talk 08:35, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * SH's ex-wife Jane insists he's an atheist. Depends what you mean by that, I guess.  (Technically I'm agnostic, but I can't believe that a God would have any interest in humans over, say, slime mould.  So I think of myself as an atheist.)--Michael C. Price talk 19:09, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Never met Jane. Yeah, definitions are pretty much everything. Didn't Darwin say God must have an extraordinary fondness for Beetles? Perhaps they ate the slime mold. --BozMo talk 19:42, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Haldane not Darwin apparently. --BozMo talk 19:45, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Beetles and stars. Yes, an immortal quotation. Difficult to top. --Michael C. Price talk 19:49, 13 December 2009 (UTC)