User talk:Woodstone/Archive 5

Requests for arbitration/Date delinking
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On behalf of the Arbitration Committee,  Ryan Postlethwaite See the mess I've created or let's have banter 23:49, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Meteorological deflections are visible from the inertial frame
Woodstone, why did you remove the reference to the fact that deflections in meteorology are visible from an inertial frame of reference? You must know fine well that cyclones can be viewed from outer space. We don't need to be in a rotating frame of reference to observe these deflection effects.

You have hence left the introduction incorrect. I am trying to segregate effects that involve constrained co-rotation from effects that don't involve co-rotation, to show that the only true cases of Coriolis force occur in cases of constrained co-rotation.

Surely you can see the difference between a ball flying overhead a rotating turntable as observed from the turntable, and the atmospheric deflections in a cyclone. The former is a pure circular motion illusion as observed from a rotating frame of reference. The latter is a real effect that is observable from any frame of reference.

The examples in that article are going to have to be segregated on that basis if there is ever going to be any understanding of the topic. We need to start by bringing the issue to attention in the introduction. David Tombe (talk) 14:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * All effects of Coriolis forces are visible from the intertial frame, since the physics is always the same, regardless of reference frame. Only how the formulas appear in the frame is different. There is no distinction between meteorological or other "co-rotational" objects and unrelated objects. A "superimposed" rotation that you mentioned in an earlier comment does not appear out of the blue, but is driven by the pseudoforces. That is exactly their task. If you have a reference frame rotating with Earth even the path of the Sun and stars is governed by Coriolis and centrifugal forces. Their daily path (ignoring the added fraction by orbit) is just an inertial circle driven by them. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 15:50, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Woodstone, Let's first of all deal with the circles that the stars trace out in the sky due to the Earth's diurnal rotation. There is no Coriolis force involved in that. That is just an apparent circular motion.

Secondly, if you say that all effects of Coriolis force are visible from the inertial frame, then why are you supporting the current introduction which states that these effects are only visible from the rotating frame?

You deleted my statement that meteorological effects are visible from the inertial frame. So now you are contradicting yourself.

Thirdly, there is a difference between a constrained co-rotation and a free motion. A cricket ball flying over a roundabout will have a circular motion imposed on its path as observed from the roundabout, but not as observed from the inertial frame. This is because no Coriolis force is involved, despite what it says in the main article about these kind of free situations.

However, an element of air in the atmosphere which is being constrained to rotate with the Earth's rotation, will undergo a deflection if it tries to move in a radial path relative to the Earth. That deflection is visible from an inertial frame. It is clearly a different kind of situation than that of the cricket ball flying over the roundabout.

I think that the problem on the main article is that the authors don't even know what a Coriolis force is. They have got the mathematical expression for it, but they don't seem to know much more about it. They can't tell the difference between a real effect and a fictitious effect. David Tombe (talk) 16:37, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * David, try to imagine you are on Earth rotating with it, and you don't know you are rotating. You observe the Sun revolving around you and know the distance of the Sun, its mass and the gravitational constant. According to Newton's laws, the Sun should revolve around you in one year, but&mdash;surprise&mdash;you measure a period of one day. How can that happen? There must be another, much bigger, force in play than gravity. Easiest to see is the case at the equinox. The Sun moves in a concentric circle around you. There must be a huge force on the Sun, directed to the centre of the Earth for such a small rotation period. In order to get one day revolution period, the magnitude can be calculated. (It would turn out to be equal to the mass of the Sun times the distance to the Sun times the observed (= once per day) rotation speed of the Sun). In order to make the equations of motion match observed reality, you will have add that force.
 * You may now step back from being bound to the rotating frame. The mysterious force just added is the sum of the centrifugal force (outward) and the Coriolis force (inward, double size). For positions of the Sun not over the equator, there is an intricate interplay between centrifugal and Coriolis forces, the latter making the Sun bend off to the right (on the Northern hemisphere). It comes up in the East, starts rising, then veers to the right to set again in the West.
 * David, I hope this clarifies the situation. Please try to follow the logic and see that there is no special role for co-rotation. The inertial forces are fully generic. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 23:06, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Woodstone, I now see exactly what your argument is. I had a prolonged argument about this matter on the talk pages of centrifugal force. You think that a stationary particle, as viewed from a rotating frame of reference, traces out a fictitious circle. Correct. But you also think that this fictitious circle can be mathematically accounted for in terms of a combination of centrifugal force and a radial Coriolis force.

Despite the fact that there is indeed some backing for this argument in the literature, I have made it clear that I am strenuously opposed to the idea. I did also point out that most reliable textbooks only concentrate on worked examples that involve co-rotating situations, and indeed evidence was provided in relation to Goldstein's 'Classical Mechanics' that a considerable degree of revisionism in relation to attitudes towards centrifugal force had appeared in the 2003 edition.

The correct theory is to be found in the Kepler's laws of planetary motion talk page. But the problem there is that there has been an attempt to block any correlation between the equations that are listed there, and the equations that are listed in fictitious forces articles. You can read that debate yourself and also on the talk page of user Bo Jacoby, just to educate yourself on the degree of opposition which is encountered when trying to apply the names, centrifugal, Coriolis, and angular, to their rightful terms in the Kepler problem.

If you see the point that I am making, you will see that a Coriolis force can only be in the tangential direction. As such, there is no Coriolis force acting on the stars, as viewed from the rotating Earth, or on a cricket ball flying over a rotating roundabout. In order to get Coriolis force, we need to have a constrained co-rotating radial motion, such as we observe in a non-circular Keplerian orbit, and such as can be contrived by mechanical means, or indeed in the case of the vXH force in electromagnetism.

I will finish with one simple question. Yesterday, you said that the Coriolis effect can be observed from the inertial frame. I would agree with that, providing that we actually have a Coriolis force force to be observed. Do you still stand by what you said yesterday on that point?

If you do still stand by what you said yesterday, then I'm sure you will see my point that meteorological deflections are real and can be observed from outer space, whereas deflections of unconnected free projectiles can only be observed from within a rotating frame of reference.

I will copy this letter to the talk page of Coriolis force, where the debate should be continued. David Tombe (talk) 05:45, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Faraday's Law
Woodstone, OK, let's forget about Coriolis force. That debate is going nowhere. I want to change the subject to Faraday's law. You made an intersting edit recently where you suggested a total time derivative version of Faraday's law. I since showed you how that can be justified by taking the curl of the two separate aspects of electromagnetic induction and adding them together.

I have just added that theory and a reference to the Faraday's law page. It was deleted by FyzixFighter for reasons which weren't altogether clear. He claims that I have misrepresented the author but he doesn't explain how. At any rate, I came up with that exact same theory twenty four years before I ever heard of the Stratton reference. So if Stratton is saying something different, then I can't see how he could be right. I suspect that what I wrote was substantially the same as what Stratton wrote. Can you please take a look at that recent edit and see if you can find a way of reinserting it, because it is factually correct, it is sourced, and it is highly relevant to the section which it has been placed in. It explains the unity in the very issue which has been raised. David Tombe (talk) 13:38, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposal for new Manual of Style for Thailand-related articles
A drafted new version of the Manual of Style for Thailand-related articles has been started here. Still at issue are specific naming conventions for Thai royals and nobles and settlements. As contributor to previous discussions on the guideline, you are welcome to contribute to the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Thailand. Paul_012 (talk) 18:49, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

EU gini
This is not the average, eurofound is an EU agency (site server www.eurofound.europa.eu), data from eurostat, only 3 years are shown, if it just an average why they didn't bother to do it for the other years?

"data for EU15 and EU25 (2003-2005) are Eurostate estimates."

CIA world factbook gives a very close number for EU, 30.7 for 2003.

--217.112.178.21 (talk) 13:58, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Thai language talk page response
Dear Woodstone,

As a courtesy, I'm leaving a message on both your talk page and Rikker's talk page to let you know that I've written something in response to a discussion between the two of you on the Thai language discussion page.

(Feel free to delete this courtesy message from your talk page after you've read it.)

63.214.229.41 (talk) 21:03, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The Fourth Inertial force
Woodstone, you were right to correct me on my response to Brews. I now want Brews to go over his interpretation again. If I recall correctly, Brews was trying to say that the r double dot term was centripetal force. I instinctively opposed that idea in so much as that there is no inertial term that is a centripetal force.

But after you corrected me, I scrutinized the full equation again. I have always said to Brews that there is no point in trying to ascertain any physical significance behind the polar coordinate equation in isolation. I always tried to tell him that we first need a physical context, such as Kepler's laws, and that we then model the equations accordingly, borrowing the terms from the polar coordinates, which are meaningless in isolation.

I had never actually given any thought before to the vector equation r(double dot) equals zero. On close scrutiny, it would now seem that there is indeed a fourth inertial term that is a centripetal force. But I don't think it's the r (double dot) term. I think that it's the term that Brews and I had agreed is the centrifugal term. Do you have any thoughts on this? David Tombe (talk) 19:48, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi David. Although I have done a lot of work on differential operators and geometry, my maths are a bit rusty now. I'm not always able to follow your reasoning precisely. My impression is that you attach existing names (Centrifugal, Coriolis) to slightly other phenomena than usual. It might be that you look at the acceleration components in polar form and see them break up to show "force terms". For example in the simple straight line case:


 * $$\frac{d^2\mathbf{r}}{dt^2} = (\ddot r - r\dot\theta^2)\hat{\mathbf{r}} + (r\ddot\theta + 2\dot r \dot\theta)\hat{\boldsymbol\theta}$$


 * You look at $$\ddot r$$ and consider $$r\dot\theta^2$$ as the centrifugal force. Likewise in the angular component you consider the part $$ -2\dot r \dot\theta / r$$ as he Coriolis force.
 * I have no time right now to delve deeper in checking and comparing this to your earlier comments. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 22:03, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Woodstone, Thanks for that. I'll copy this equation into the talk page of centrifugal force and open up a discussion on what exactly the four terms on the right hand side mean. Until a couple of days ago, I would have agreed with what you have guessed my analysis to be. But now I think that in the absence of a gravitational field or other applied centripetal force that it is actually the $$\ddot r$$ term that is the centrifugal force and that the $$r\dot\theta^2$$ is an inertial centripetal force which is not officially recognized as a concept at all.

And just to complicate things, when we use the Leibniz equation, with the gravitational field included, the physics of the situation changes substantially such that the $$\ddot r$$ becomes the variable term and the $$r\dot\theta^2$$ becomes the centrifugal force. David Tombe (talk) 23:04, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Dutch /ɣ/ and /x/.
Im can't agree with you /x/ is the primary sound the Dutch letter "g" stands for when it comes to the standard Dutch pronunciation. As it's mentioned on the page about the Dutch alphabet, lots of people in the Randstad area and even more so in the province of Friesland tend to devoice the [ɣ], the [z] and the [v] sounds. This mustn't mean, though, this kind of pronunciation, though widespread and widely accepted in certain areas, is a part of the standard language. Ideally, [ɣ] (as well as [z] and [v]) is devoiced due to assimilation or at the end of a word. Otherwise it's the letter combination "ch" and not the letter "g" that stands for the [x] sound in Dutch. Claiming the letter "g" as the counterpart of the {x} sound is the same as proclaiming Estuary English as the new British English standard. It's probably a bit too early for that. 87.210.232.221 (talk) 14:47, 7 August 2009 (UTC)


 * You are mistaken. The IPA handbook has /χ/ (even going further than /x/) for g as in its explicit example "gat". The pronunciation of g as /ɣ/ is relatively rare in contemporary standard Dutch in the Netherlands. You will need to come with a source more authoritative than the IPA handbook to have any ground for revert. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 18:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Suffering rude posts
As much as it pains me to say it, Greg is perfectly within his rights to pour his mockery on the positions of those he disagrees with so long as he steers clear of mocking them personally. Of course it hinders rational discussion, but that's never stopped him yet that I know of. Many intelligent people choose to ignore social conventions simply because they can. I would not infer from his rude posts that he is juvenile or senile or any other cause. I simply accept that his posts will often be rude and dismiss such rudeness as essentially meaningless. If it's ignored long enough, he usually returns to rational discussion. I commend the duck's approach to rain.LeadSongDog come howl  19:35, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Comparison of the 12-hour and 24-hour clocks
An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Comparison of the 12-hour and 24-hour clocks. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Articles for deletion/Comparison of the 12-hour and 24-hour clocks. Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ).

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Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:15, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Inflection table edits
Hello Woodstone, what's happening with the table formats? Don't you like aligned tables?Dave (talk) 19:55, 23 October 2009 (UTC)


 * It's customary to stick to the "wikitable" style and not to add excessive local modifications to it. That way WP makes a more professional impression. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 19:58, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, you see, it was not even in the wikitable style. It was I who added the class=wikitable. Moreover, it is in no way customary to stick to the wikitable style. Table design is one of the ways to get creative on Wikipedia. My modifications were only of width and borders; I made it look like a wikitable. You wiped out the design of past editors. What do you want to do here? Did you like those colors or not? What are you doing here and why are you doing it?

By the way that paragraph you prevented me from deleting, I didn't mean to delete the whole paragraph, which supported the subsequent table. Thanks for tipping me off about that. However, the first part is all wrong. I gave you the opportunity to rewrite it your way by putting on the tags. As soon as you do that we can take them off if what you write is correct. There is no similarity at all between IE and Japanese. If you say that you need a reference, someone credible who says it. If you choose not to respond I will have to do it my way.

By the way you can leave discussion on the discussion page of the article. To leave discussion on my discussion page click the link to it and enter your message at the end. I will get a yellow have-message tag. If you need any help on how to do things here I will be glad to help as far as I can.

In general this article and others like it are incomprehensible to the general public and many have noticed it. I wish I could say the problem was the public's ignorance of linguistics but I find numerous factual errors in them as well as misconceptions. Just because someone can talk the talk does not mean they can dance the dance. I'm trying to improve the Latin-related ones. Why don't you take a look at these articles and see if you can write them better or clean them up? We need to lose the gibberish aspects, the pseuso-technical patois that really reflects confusion and error and can't be understood. See discussion on article.Dave (talk) 20:41, 23 October 2009 (UTC)


 * You are talking to the wrong person. I did not prevent you from editing. I appreciate your work on removing gibberish from the the article. The only thing I did was to use the standard WP table style instead of unnecessarily complex formatting by a mass of local styles. We had an "edit conflict" (editing at the same time) after which I merged our edits, perhaps overlooking some of your edits. I apologise if I reverted them. And thanks, I know how to do things here. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 21:58, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, Woodstone, I just left you a message in the article discussion that may have been a little severe. I think you may really believe your version of your tabular changes. Do you really believe that? Think now. I did only two things to those tables. First, I added class=Wikitable. That put borders on the table. Second, I added width parameters to align the tables. The only thing of mine you changed are the width parameters! How are width parameters unnecessarily complex? What mass of local styles are you talking about? Since when are variable table widths the Wikipedia standard? Do you need some sleep, Woodstone? I can't say that I understand you. All right I am willing to believe you that in reverting the table you also reverted the edits. Now we have another problem. An experienced editor would have seen what I did at a glance and have been able to change a couple of words in the table instead of reverting the whole section. That is why I concluded you needed help. I am sorry if I stepped on your toes. There is no way at all to work on Wikipedia without stepping on toes. So. If you are not going to revert my edits then I can address those tags myself and take them off myself. I'm interested in relevance, clarity, accuracy and proper format. I started at the bottom and fixed all the links and citations. Now I'm doing content. I'm going through word for word, concept by concept. I may be on the article for weeks off and on. The articles I go through in this way are generally treated with respect. It isn't random. I have directions and reasons of my own for developing certain lines. I've been hindered by the incredibly low quality of Wikipedia articles (with many exceptions of course). Now it is time get the linguistic editors to make some sense. No doubt a lot of them do already. I never touch the good articles, only the ones that need me. So, if you are not going to block me then, just ignore my somewhat heated message in the other article. I will listen to you if you think I am wrong and can say why in an intelligible and convincing manner. That requires talk. I will be looking up ideas on the Internet and providing references where warranted or requested. That is my process for articles I select. I am also working heavily on Latin articles. I just finished Late Latin, Classical Latin and am working on Old Latin. I put myself on the Latin committee. Take me seriously or leave me alone. You could have just said, you prefer variable-width tables. You mistake my age and qualifications. Well I've said all there is to say. I will resume my plan assuming that you are going stop reverting me unless I get your reasons. If that is not true I will go on with the tags requesting an expert if I have to (which is ironic, as sometimes I've been the expert). I know you don't feel too good about this right now. Sorry. Excellence has to be won, it is never for free.Dave (talk) 03:20, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Cool
OK. Pals. Ciao.Dave (talk) 18:49, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

United States Geographical MOS
A while back ago, you were involved in a discussion about how to refer to the United States Geographical locations on wikipedia. A similar discussion is taking place here. Any comments on this topic would be helpful.--Jojhutton (talk) 00:45, 10 December 2009 (UTC)