User talk:Scientryst

This is a test post to my own talk page.Scientryst (talk) 19:55, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Three outstanding questions
Ok, I now have three outstanding questions for you on Talk:An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything. -- SCZenz (talk) 22:25, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Answered.Scientryst (talk) 22:17, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

"it was reported that"
Can we discuss this on the talk page? I don't understand why you insist on the language for the source you disagree with personally, right after a sentence is quoted without qualification that you like. -- SCZenz (talk) 19:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure, we can talk there.Scientryst (talk) 22:17, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Physics Poll
There is currently a poll about WikiProject Physics in general. Please take some time to answer it (or part of it), as it will help coordinate and guide the future efforts of the Project. Thank you. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 18:22, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

My thought on ESToE
Hi - you'd asked me earlier about my thoughts on the AESToE article. Right now, it has the POV template on top, "the neutrality of this article is disputed", and that might be the best you can get at this time. Personally, I think the article's summary sections have been chopped into a boring back-and-forth. Hard to read, and the POV tag highlights this well, I believe. For example in the introduction: I've read a lot of sources, and nowhere did I see that Lisi said that his paper is "to stand as a possible theory of everything". From what I read, he is merely proposing a framework in which he continues work on trying to fit a TOE in - and if this would eventually prove to be impossible, to find out exactly why. Or towards the end: "After peer-review by an expert panel involving Lee Smolin who has hyped Lisi's research,[46] FQXi awards Lisi a grant for further development of 'E8 Theory'." Smolin has been supportive, yes, and as far as I know he did make one (one) statement that went beyond neutral very early on ("... most compelling..." etc), which he quickly - within days - clarified as "premature", not to be taken literal. Very personally, I see Smolin as having been excited about a new opportunity, a new seed thought, that warrants further investigation. Why wouldn't he be excited?! Since when is excitement about a new opportunity forbidden, in particular in science?

From my end, I'm happy: Lisi has received funding. I want him to be able to pursue his thoughts, and find out whether it'll work or not.

On the same token, I'm following with great interest the many influences on this phenomenon: Lisi is a declared atheist, and one of his sharpest critics here in Wikipedia edits from Pepperdine University, which is declared Christian.

Lisi makes his work public on the arXiv, leaves everyone in the dark whether or not he ever pursued traditional publication (through a publisher with a strong editorial office), and flames up the dispute about what arXiv really is. Old animosities awake in the light of new publicity platforms: The value of peer review versus mere endorsement, the value of an editorial office versus contributor-driven freedoms, assurance of publisher's future operations through copyright versus author-driven not-for-profit "free" publication.

There are other contributors, which are more common or expected, maybe; but let me mention probably the most painful one: A perceived lack of progress in String Theory. That is a tough one, because it is not clear what defines "progress" (and even more so, "lack" thereof). From what I hear (and I have no reason to doubt this), String Theory is immensely complicated, if one were to try to model our current universe with it. A complicated theory like this requires time, and nobody can expect quick results. I do understand that a large part of research funding is (and should be) directed towards String Theory. I want to know if it works at the end. But then again, just as an example, I've looked around at many universities in the U.S., and found that you either study String Theory in your postgraduate studies, or you simply don't study elementary particle physics at all. That is quite odd. Why would one be forced to put all eggs into one basket, if it is not entirely clear whether it'll work out or not at the end? What has, in the past, created this perceived pressure to follow work in a field that most peers work in? I've checked and didn't find "mainstreamism" being a required part of the Scientific method ... Ok, that was cynical.

... Well, I guess I didn't write anything yet about what could happen to the Wikipedia article. Honestly, the amount of references you (and others) have collected, since I last laid hand on the article in January this year, is great. Personally I find the article now waaaay to detailed, and can't find many of the diagrams sourced elsewhere. Summary statements now contain a back-and-forth type of flow, that which is hard to read. It would seem better to separate summaries into three sections: (1) a neutral overview, (2) support, and (3) criticism. The timeline at the end of the article seems to create an undue focus on mere sequence of events, but does not editorially digest these events properly, based on importance. Ideally, these issues should be addressed. Can they, at the current time? I have my doubts.

Hope this helped .... Thanks! Jens Koeplinger (talk) 03:18, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi - the article has become much better since, as far as I can tell, namely the timeline has been condensed into a readable section (without losing all the references). That's great. Quick question: Do you know of any publication, presentation, or blog where one could reference the diagrams here in the article more closely? I understand they can be extracted from the primary sources, and see them as a gift to Wikipedia from experts; and I understand that time is scarce, which makes me appreciate them even more. When there's criticism, it is often better to have Wikipedia reference material from secondary sources. Just a thought. Thanks, Jens Koeplinger (talk) 13:54, 14 November 2008 (UTC)


 * No, I don't know where the diagrams came from originally.Scientryst (talk) 22:09, 15 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok - I don't think there's hurry. I'll keep my eyes open; I'm sure something will eventually turn up somewhere when the dust settles (will it ever?). Thanks! Jens Koeplinger (talk) 00:05, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Could you please review the Quark article?
I've seen that you're listed as an active participant in WikiProject physics, and particle physics is listed among your areas of interest. The article Quark is currently a featured article candidate. Could you please review it and express your comments at the nomination page and/or the talk page of the article? Thanks in advance,  A r m y 1 9 8 7 ! ! !  16:06, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

LHC
Thanks for fixing that embarrassing error in the Particle accelerator article (that the LHC is a proton/antiproton collider), which I apparently put in back in May 2008. Aggh!! Wwheaton (talk) 19:24, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Exceptionally simple...
I'm a bit worried by your reversion on An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything; as far as I can tell, your version was the one that introduced a POV, by failing to include the key fact that Lisi admitted a failure of the model; it also removed information from a quotation, and seemed to intentionally soften the criticism. Please explain on the talk page why you consider your version to be neutral; I could be wrong on this, but simply reverting back and forth isn't helping. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:16, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I disagree that I have introduced POV, since my edit was essentially a revert to an earlier version, to avoid some POV introduced recently by a different editor. But in the revert I may have accidentally dropped something important, so I'll look at it in more detail and discuss.-Scientryst (talk) 15:38, 27 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the response on the article's talk page; I've added my own followup there as well. I see that in order to really parse which version is NPOV requires some physics knowledge, so I've asked for help from Wikiproject Physics. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:34, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Scientryst, it's funny that you say that your edit was essentially just a revert to an earlier version when your user contribution are essentially JUST on Lisi's paper. Somebody in the past even accused you to be Lisi. Certainly your attitude isn't helping. We can discuss as much as you want about physics in the appropriate discussion page, but I will revert including the quotation until somebody finally starts a discussion. 98.244.55.28 (talk) 03:01, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

98.244.55.28, who are you anyway?
Terry Bollinger (talk) 07:32, 25 December 2011 (UTC) here, I'm one of those folks who likes using my name if I state my opinions strongly. Doesn't mean I'm right, but just seems a more sporting way to criticize others. That's especially if you seem to be undertaking some sort of effort that is more focused more on erasing history than on documenting it.

So, Mr or Ms Comcast 98.244.55.28, who are you, and why exactly are you wrapped around an issue that should be mostly past and gone history by now? The overall level of accusation in your edits and discussion would be downright amusing if you intended them as a good, solid satire on how mean-spirited science and math discussion can get at times. Maybe I'm misreading you... you really could just be trying by example to show how both science and Wikipedia never, ever should be done. That would be cool pretty cool if it is your real intent, and if so I must give you credit for having a superbly subtle and refined sense of absurdity!

Speaking of amusing, your comments about others not knowing math really do come over as a bit hilarious, and I just have to assume you really are trying to be funny there. If you are by chance a strong advocate of string theory -- are you? uh, what was you name again, I think I missed it? -- I cannot as a computer person think of a more delightfully bad excuse for claiming math expertise than claiming it by being an expert in string theory. In computers we just call that kind of decades-long, layer-by-layer accumulation of poorly verified micro-logic "assembly code," and try hard to wean newbies away from falling into such bad habits of obscuration and noise generation. In retrospect, over the last couple of decades computer science has seem a big decline in assembly-language level thinking, so I'm beginning to suspect that all the folks with that inclination went over to string theory instead, where such exercises in accretion are better appreciated... :)

Notice of discussion at the Administrators' Noticeboard
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 * Hi Scientryst, I've replied at User_talk:John Vandenberg/Archive 13. Hope you had a good nye. John Vandenberg (chat) 01:27, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit warring on Antony Garrett Lisi
Please stop reverting. You are edit warring and playing with words (again). ~GT~ (talk) 04:10, 25 January 2012 (UTC) Reported for edit warring. ~GT~ (talk) 04:19, 25 January 2012 (UTC) You know I back up most of the defenses against making those page look like the theory isn't science or Lisi not being a scientist, but those last changes are frankly so obviously POV that I didn't know what else to do, there has been way too much changing things over and over. It's time for other editors to choose the words, as long as the meaning is correct, which it is. ~GT~ (talk) 04:21, 25 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The wording you are insisting on is defamatory and doesn't belong on a BLP without strong and precise sourcing, which does not exist.-Scientryst (talk) 04:24, 25 January 2012 (UTC)


 * We'll see.


 * Also, that wording isn't mine. My wording was simply what has precise sourcing. And I'll go back to that one, for sure. I thought this one was better accepted. But certainly your wording makes no sense. And it makes blatantly apparent the POV attempt. ~GT~ (talk) 04:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Me culpa, I overreacted because I thought you had done a straight revert. Your revision makes it slightly less blatantly slanderous, so I will consider that a step in the right direction.-Scientryst (talk) 05:39, 25 January 2012 (UTC)


 * That's good, but I would suggest to stop thinking that "is not widely accepted by the physics/scientific community" means something slanderous. Because, like I said in the talk page, not even string theory or loop quantum gravity are accepted theories, and they are accepted ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more than Lisi's theory. Do you deny that? Now, there must be a way to clearly state that Lisi's theory is not widely accepted (and less widely accepted than those theories too) without being slanderous in any way. Your identification of not accepted with crackpot is borderline trolling. Let's assume for a second that Lisi's theory was proven 100% wrong. It would become officially and fully (not only widely) not accepted by the scientific and the physics community, and yet it would not be crackpot physics. There is plenty of reasonable attempts that are wrong, and it doesn't mean that they aren't work of science, why do you insist to identify these two interpretations? These two aspects seem to have a conflict in your mind. But their distinction makes perfectly sense in my mind. ~GT~ (talk) 06:03, 25 January 2012 (UTC)


 * You're wrong. Go write in their ledes that string theory and loop quantum gravity are "not widely accepted by the scientific community" and see how that goes.-Scientryst (talk) 07:39, 25 January 2012 (UTC)


 * They are widely accepted in their own communities (which are very large), but I would hardly believe that any of those would ever say that either one has been proven to be the right theory and that the scientific community believes that either one is the right theory. Also, if you go to the string theory page history, you can read this sentence that was in the lede for a long time, months or more (it's funny that the page was removed shortly after I quoted it in one of Lisi's page, I wonder if some of the lurkers/editors attacked it right after): "The theory has yet to make novel experimental predictions at accessible energy scales, leading some scientists to claim that it cannot be considered a part of science." Not sure what happened after that moment, if an edit war or something. Now the statements have been smoothed out and changed, but something like that was there indeed for months. Plus, this doesn't invalidate at all all the points I make above, especially the ones about any wrong theory still being part of science works. ~GT~ (talk) 08:03, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Fortifying wikiquanta
Hi, I seek volunteers for this. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 17:45, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Question about Elitzur-Vaidman bomb tester/MZ Interferometer
Thanks for your contributions! I hope you can clear this up for me. In regard to the above experiment:

If the bomb is a dud, can there ever be no photon detected at either detector?

In other words, if the bomb is a dud, and the photon remains in its superposition until it reaches the end of both the lower and upper paths and the second half-silvered mirror, can it interfere with itself destructively, resulting in no detection? Or does it always interfere with itself constructively, resulting in a detection at one of the detectors, but never the other one?

Thanks again. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 02:02, 17 August 2017 (UTC)