User talk:Paulkint

Interstellar travel
I think your additions fall into the routine calculations category, certainly for this article. There are, however, deeper objections that other editors might like to discuss, and we need to allow time for that. But you are of course absolutely correct that the specific kinetic energy (ie, energy per unit mass) needed for interstellar travel in a current human lifetime is millions of times beyond our present experience. I have left a note on Offliner's talk page asking him to hold off a bit.

The more serious objections have in part to do with the relevance of the calculation to interstellar travel, since this is a very long-term project, the cost of energy in space even thirty years hence is very uncertain, and the cost a century from now is probably beyond all knowing. There are also arcane tricks of the trade that might well come into play, such as the Oberth effect, etc, that may be relevant. But these deeper arguments need to be sourced externally, to avoid the original research issue.

I think you should read that OR policy carefully, as it is a serious issue for anything that goes into an article. Pay especially close attention to the WP:original synthesis issue, which says essentially that if you have sources for statements A and B, and C reasonably follows from A and B, it is still not allowable to put C in an article without an outside source that explicitly makes the logical connection. It is a tough hurdle, at times frustrating, but probably necessary for Wikipedia's scholarly integrity. We can assert C on the discussion pages, and hope some other editor can come to the rescue with a suitable source, but we really are not supposed to put C into an article. For objective scientific articles, poorly sourced material that is reasonably correct often survives for a long time. Personally I think this is reasonable as long as it is not controversial and contributes to the article, but it is strictly not allowed, and may be challenged and removed. There are a group of editors I think of as "Wiki-Cops" that go around strictly enforcing these rules. Sometimes they are irritating, but I think they are probably necessary to keep us rowdy folk in line.

Anyhow, welcome to the madhouse, I hope you find your place here. Cheers, Wwheaton (talk) 15:27, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Animosity ?
I am very sorry and apologize if I seem to harbor "personal animosity"; I truly hope and believe I do not. I appreciate your concerns about the difficulties, and I am sure they are sincere, but the distinction between "impossible" and "difficult" does have a fuzzy gray area between them that is a matter of opinion. You may not, according to clearly established Wikipedia rules, impose your own judgments about that distinction on other editors or on the article itself, unless there is consensus, which there is not. Simply coming up with various elementary numerical calculations of your own devising (which you can obviously create ad infinitum) does not address the issue, and does formally violate the rules about original research. I think I may have said it before, but someone estimated the size of a rocket needed to reach the Moon in the 19th century. His answer was, about the size of Mt. Everest. I believe his calculation was correct (based on an exhaust velocity of 1000 ft/s, appropriate for the black powder rockets then common), but it turned out to be irrelevant to the claim of impossibility.

I have chosen to regard the energy of nuclear fusion (~1% of mc2) as a reasonable limit to what we might attain in a few centuries. Together with the rocket equation, this leads to mission velocities possibly as high as 0.1c, if the helium produced is used as the reaction mass. I think this is not quite outrageous, and choose not to discuss more extreme solutions based on unknown physics (which could actually come to light at any time, and sweep all our discussions into the ashpile). But even though I think the Bussard ramjet is absurd, I am not free to say so in an article without quoting reliable external references, and I don't bother with it since the article about it does not make it sound so promising as to be seriously misleading.

I am sorry your experience has been frustrating. I think you might do well broaden your focus to other articles. The OR rule is harsh, I've had to struggle with it myself, but I am convinced it really is necessary to keep us focused and credible. There is a lot of good work needing to be done here, and skeptics are especially valuable. Best regards, Bill Wwheaton (talk) 23:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)