User talk:XOR'easter/2021

Wikibreak
I'm really tired, and I don't have time to work on content, which is generally what has made me optimistic about contributing. I've finished off a last few things, and even that was a struggle. I don't know when I'll be back. I might need a short break, or a long one. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 00:34, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Good luck. I hope you will be back soon. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:35, 5 March 2021 (UTC).
 * Thanks. I'm not optimistic — my last round of checking in on things was a discouraging experience — but who knows what the future will bring? XOR&#39;easter (talk) 02:55, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry to see you go. Take your time, relax, get better. Tercer (talk) 09:28, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I think you've been doing great work, I thank you and hope to see more of your contributions in the future. A the same time, I'm sure your other projects are worth it, enjoy your time off, — Paleo  Neonate  – 09:41, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * You know that I appreciate everything you do here! (I completely hear you on tired, OTOH.) Russ Woodroofe (talk) 13:27, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Ditto and ditto! --JBL (talk) 23:51, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Briefly popping back in for the evening to help with a cleanup job, since as much as Wikipedia bothers me, Wolfspam bothers me more. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 07:17, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
 * When I advertised to WPM, I thought, "Gosh it's too bad XOR&#39;easter's taking a break, they've been really good at similar things in the past". And lo, this morning my watchlist shows my prayer was answered! :) --JBL (talk) 13:39, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, it's nice to know that I was in your thoughts! I think I have done most of what I'd be useful for in that regard, so I will probably disappear again after today. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:03, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Wolfspam cleanup
Thanks for your work on cleaning up Wolfspam. However, in at least one case, I find your edits over-aggressive. In this edit, you removed material about Grassmann's contribution to the axiomatization of arithmetic, which was footnoted to NKS. I certainly agree with your edit summary that "NKS is a poor source for any historical claim" (though sadly we have many equally poor sources in many articles), but you didn't notice that that paragraph was a rewrite of a previously existing paragraph. Floridada provided a poor source when there was no source before, so they arguably were moving in the right direction. That doesn't seem like a good reason to remove the content.

It would have been more constructive to restore the old text and ideally to add a source. It turns out that finding a good source was not hard, and I used it to add a better version of that paragraph. As for "text is placed disjointedly", the paragraph is in the chronologically correct sequence, even if the wording could be improved.

May I ask that you be a bit more careful and look for good older versions, and for better sources, rather than just removing material that is footnoted to a Wolfram source? --Macrakis (talk) 17:20, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comment, which I do take to heart. My own take, which may be highly idiosyncratic, is that a poor source can be worse than no source, since it may point future improvement efforts in the wrong direction. Poor text compounds the issue, I find, as it can lead to wasting time with small modifications when what is needed is a wholesale rewrite. In other cases, like context-free language, I have refrained from removing the material since while the source was poor the text seemed fine, and it looked like the source could simply be swapped out for a better one. (The books I happened to have on hand when I was evaluating that example had less on that topic than I had hoped, so I haven't done anything with it yet.) XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:57, 18 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Sure, but in this case, the new source and the new text were pretty recent (and easy to find). I'd have thought reverting to the previously existing text would be better than deleting, even if you didn't have the time to find a better source. Maybe I spend too much time review article histories.... --Macrakis (talk) 20:22, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Thank you! XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:01, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Million Award for Quantum mechanics
Thanks for improving this vital article!
 * , much appreciated! XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:26, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Cheers, — Paleo Neonate  – 18:44, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

DYK for Quantum mechanics
Cwmhiraeth (talk) 00:02, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Congratulations. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:30, 13 April 2021 (UTC).
 * Thank you! XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:08, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Refactoring
See No personal attacks. It's Kafkaesque to tell people that they shouldn't make personal attacks, and when they've refactored them themselves, put them back in again. Uncle G (talk) 21:32, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Special:Diff/1017634346
 * I debated internally about the right course of action there, since I could see arguments for both ways (as the policy page says, there is no official policy). Eventually I decided that hiding the evidence of one's misdeeds is the kind of behavior we should have limited tolerance for. Per the "removing uncivil comments" section of the Civility policy, rewriting oneself is Usually only a good idea if you think better of it before anyone objected to it. If someone has already reacted, you should acknowledge the change in a quick comment after the changed text, for instance, Comment removed by author. Their first comment was a specific personal attack, which they later changed to a generalized ad hominem that still counts as a PA. Then they removed their comment altogether, which is probably a good enough outcome. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 23:49, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Warp Drive Source
Okay, I've given up at guessing, what exactly do you want for a third party source for the Warp Drive peer reviewed paper by Erik Lentz? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.165.195.17 (talk • contribs)
 * How about in-depth discussion in other peer-reviewed scientific papers not from predatory publishers? In other words, the same standard we apply for all scientific subjects: at a bare minimum, an indication of the kind of attention that can't easily be bought with flashy subject matter and a good PR team. And preferably, some sign of lasting or sustained interest, suggesting that it hasn't sunk into obscurity after the glitz had passed. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:23, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

So what like a published review article that talks about it? Would that be sufficient? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.165.195.17 (talk • contribs)
 * That would be a good start, yes. But it's an uphill task to argue that any new bit of theorizing is worth including in an article that's mostly about the idea's use in fiction. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 14:51, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing up the Dumbing of Age entries
Admittedly, the descriptions I had written before were from my inferences from the official website mostly (mainly the cast list), so I'm not at all surprised that there are errors, to be honest. So thanks for doing that. I haven't read the comic yet, but I will try to sometime in the future. I'd also think the Dumbing of Age page should probably be fixed with those new descriptions too. Some additional sources for Dina, Carla Rutten, and Booster Sanchez would be nice. --Historyday01 (talk) 17:25, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll try to dig up some specific strips when I get the chance. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:27, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Great. Thanks for that. --Historyday01 (talk) 21:01, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions alert
Politrukki (talk) 19:51, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Groups
Hi XOR!,

thanks for helping with the citation requests etc! I have started adressing Femkemilene's second set of issues. If you could continue helping out there I would be really grateful! I can spend only very little time on WP these days, but it would be a shame to have this article demoted.

Thanks and best wishes, Jakob.scholbach (talk) 18:56, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Glad to help, Jakob.scholbach. I'm working with limited time too, these days, but it feels nice to contribute to something constructive! XOR&#39;easter (talk) 03:09, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

RfC on racial hereditarianism at the R&I talk-page
An RfC at Talk:Race and intelligence revisits the question, considered last year at WP:FTN, of whether or not the theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is a fringe theory. This RfC supercedes the recent RfC on this topic at WP:RSN that was closed as improperly formulated.

Your participation is welcome. Thank you. NightHeron (talk) 20:51, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Morse potential
XOR&#39;easter, if you have time, I'd be interested in drawing upon your physics expertise. Perhaps you would look at the Morse/Long-range potential versus the Morse potential articles. Is the former separated enough from the latter and/or otherwise notable/widespread enough to justify a standalone article? I note that all the sourcing appears to be primary. Hope things are well with you! Russ Woodroofe (talk) 21:05, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Hmm. My first impression is that there's more that could be said about the Morse potential (e.g., its solubility by supersymmetric QM methods), so maybe it's a good idea to keep the variant in a separate article. The claim that the original is "not used in spectroscopy" seems overly strong (when does an old technique ever completely go away?) and needs an explicit reference to that effect. Perhaps the section in Morse potential should be adjusted to use main and give a summary rather than a vaguely spammy list. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:08, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I made the template change as you suggested.  I'm not quite certain how to de-spammify, but it sounds like it isn't warranted to take it to AfD.  The constellation of articles may yet wind up at COIN, but we'll see. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 19:35, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

List of computer algebra systems
You might be interested by the recent edits of JonMcLoone at List of computer algebra systems. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 17:37, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The website for Mathics itself says that it has Mathematica®-compatible syntax and functions, so that description is probably fair; I revered the other edit since SageMath includes NetworkX. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:15, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * XOR'easter, thanks for taking a look. The edits certainly called for some oversight from a neutral party, and I know you've been involved (a euphemism?) in sorting out some wolfram-related topics in the past.  I hope you're doing ok -- sending my best wishes your way. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 08:02, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Much appreciated. I am among other things trying to manage chronic pain, which is exactly as fun as it sounds. So, when I'm here, I'm well enough to be working, but possibly unwell enough to be needing a distraction. This probably makes me more harsh and snappy than I'd like to be, which is another reason to scale back my involvement. But maybe things will turn around and I can try pushing another article or two up to GA. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:04, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Get better soon!
I am sorry to hear you are feeling tired XOR'easter. I hope you get better soon. Get some rest! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lionel1984 (talk • contribs)

Hi! You don't have to respond if you don't want to.
I don't know how to do messages normally, but I appreciate the work that you have done! You are awesome! Stay awesome!

Caroline236 (talk) 14:38, 5 August 2021 (UTC) 

Confab
Hi XOR'easter: I hope you don't mind my broaching the subject here, but I thought you,, and should be aware that it is my attention to pull back from the The Language Instinct talkpage for a few days. For one, I'm not going to have the time to engage with the discussion at any length over the next half week. For another, I don't think I can say anything more than I have on the POV pushing: I've done my best to try to summarize the feedback our new wiki colleague has received, but it would seem this has only convinced them that I am the ultimate manifestation of their belief in a cabal of "darwinian generativsts" or some such. And frankly, the needling little personal comments are something that may necessitate an ANI if they continue, and I really haven't the spare time for that. So someone else may want to watchlist the article: if they re-add the content against consensus, this can just go to WP:ANEW for probably the easiest resolution.

For what it is worth, I am getting increasingly closer to being convinced that this is a case of an undisclosed COI editor (possibly a former or present grad student of one of the UB academics they are promoting in more glowing terms). At a minimum, they are clearly editing across these topics with an agenda that I think can be fairly described at this point as pretty much WP:NOTHERE. You all should also be aware that they are now spreading their efforts to additional articles, including Pinker's own BLP. As to that,, as the only editor who has kinda-sorta begun to engage with them there, you may want to be aware of this discussion, and the one currently taking place on another article talk page. Their new tact at the Pinker page is an especially problematic turn, in my opinion: it was bad enough when this editor was simply determined to push an extreme POV on the schools of thought that they love and loathe in this area, or to add a hagiographic aspect to the coverage of certain researchers and their work. But if they are now going to extend their efforts to discredit those they deem to be linguistic "darwinists" into unrelated BLP territory, the issues could become even more problematic and require a concerted response in a hurry.

So, I'm sorry to have renewed the discussion and then turned to drop it like a hot potato just now, but my off-project circumstances over the next few days have just become pretty complicated. However, if this does end up going before a noticeboard, please feel free to notify me if you feel there is anything I can add: I promise I will respond as quickly as I cna find the time, if not necessarily at length. Failing that, if the debate is ongoing on any of the involved talk pages when I return, I will again contribute my perspective, where appropriate. Though I'm going to try to take a back seat from here even then. I don't want to foreclose the possibility of converting this editor to someone who can contribute in their area of expertise without the POV (unlikely as that seems at this moment in time) and I think I have become a lightning rod for them and that my words in particular will probably not be the most effective way to try to reach them. Regardless, good luck to those of you who decide to keep an eye on this. XOR'easter, if you don't want this discussion here, please feel free to remove it without any concern that I will take offense. I chose your talk page merely because you were the first person to respond in the most recent thread. SnowRise let's rap 13:38, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for stopping by! I can definitely sympathize with the need to step away (I was once gone for nearly a month due to Life Things, and I've taken many shorter breaks as well). I will try to keep an eye on things, though I don't know how good a job I'll do at that. I've left a couple of what I hope are friendly comments. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:08, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the ping and note, your assessment of the situation also seems fair... — Paleo  Neonate  – 23:08, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Hello
Hello friend, could you check if the improvements to this article Draw My Life are good or something is wrong. Thanks Nasty bits (talk) 21:03, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Si.427
Hello XOR'easter! I am not sure how this edit improved Si.427. Why did you blank the "Early work" section? Infinity Knight (talk) 18:26, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
 * As my edit summary stated, WP:COI. Wikipedia is not the place for people who are heavily involved in promoting their own work on a topic to shape the perceived background of that topic. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:54, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Just for the record, I have no COI with this subject. WP:PRESERVE applies. Infinity Knight (talk) 19:00, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:PRESERVE applies to appropriate content. I operate under the presumption that COI material is inherently untrustworthy; as it was originally added by an editor with an evident COI, that concern is in force here. You're welcome to disagree, but that's where I'm coming from, i.e., a position informed by long experience with academics not just trying to puff themselves up but also shape the public perception of the whole area in which they work. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:14, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
 * To me, this is cited relevant content, therefore it is appropriate. If you have sources that describe Early work differently please add those. Best regards, Infinity Knight (talk) 19:20, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
 * It's not just a matter of whether other sources exist, but whether we can trust that the sources which were included were represented fairly. We can't. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:32, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

For editors
Dear XOR'easter,

I am professor of theoretical physics and hope you are PhD as well. My russian students are very dissapointed to know that the article "Fock symmetry..." is removed (redirected). I don't want to edit and critize the article "Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector". It is of high quality and good written.

Nevertheless, author did not read Fock's original paper. It is a reason why the basic content in section "Fock symmetry" doesn't concern to the subject totally and why the separate article is written. I will allow myself to point out following grounds for the new article:
 * Fock theory is done for the momentum space where Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector is nonexistent. Why :author does consider it there?
 * The Schrodinger equation in momentum space is integral one,
 * Fock theory is applied to integral equation that is not discussed in the section,
 * Fock's symmetry is mathematical result for momentum space turned into 3-D sphere.

Physical interpretation is valid in physical coordinate space only. So,following words from the section are inaccurate-"Vladimir Fock showed that the quantum mechanical bound Kepler problem is equivalent to the problem of a free particle confined to a three-dimensional unit-sphere in four dimensional space". Here,reader is deceived. No free particle in physical space here in the problem. Fock doesn't give such interpretation.

Kindly try to calm my students and restore my article "Fock symmetry in theory of hydrogen". I would appreciate Yours help  composing perfect English as far as I was not graduated from Cambridge as probably You are.

Sincerely Yours

EfimovSP (talk) 19:05, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your input and perhaps you can help further.
Thank you for your input and perhaps you can help further. I have written this on David Eppstien's talk page. He hasn't answered, perhaps you will. thanks

Why would you remove the link on the Redding California page that I re-inserted. The local information provided had been provided on this very page for many years and recently updated. And while you were at it you removed others from local subjects that again were providing information and photos of the beauty that surrounds our area.

Redding CA “Places of Interest” with images and information of the surrounding beauty. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ejlewis (talk • contribs) 20:53, 9 September 2021 (UTC) You are a spammer and I am removing your spam. The match between your editor name and the name of the realtor listed on those links is telling. In addition, by failing to declare your conflict of interest in this matter, you are violating Wikipedia's policy on undeclared paid edits. You should not be promoting your real estate company by spamming links to it to Wikipedia articles. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:05, 9 September 2021 (UTC) I am not a spammer, feel free to contact me! Just a local resident who has spent a great deal of time putting together helpful information for people who are interested in the Redding area. Did you take the time to look at the link?? This is exactly the type of content that I am regularly complimented on and it has been a part of the Wikipedia site for many years for good reason. NO one is being paid and I am not self serving in trying to sell these natural wonders.

If you want to see spam take a look a the "reference" section that includes a link to a gambling site. That is no added content for visitors at all. "City of Redding Flag". Retrieved August 19, 2017. As well as real estate based link with no value to the visitor.

Does your concept of self-serving also include c-span link directly above? It is a private enterprise showing local information, yet it is allowed stay?? How about Bethel Church making their own page to self serve. How far down this rabbit hole is reasonable? Apparently, you and I differ on this. Value added for a visitor is the goal of internet pages worth reading and this is what I have provided on this page and previously many others that are included in the “places of Interest” portion of my website. I’m sorry if you don’t see the helpfulness in this type of content. You are the first in all these years on Wikipedia to do this so I’m a bit flabbergast!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ejlewis (talk • contribs)

Please don’t erase quotations from the founders of Quantum Mechanics
Like Lee Smolin, I have written books on the origins of Quantum Mechanics. When I quote a lecture at the Solvay Conference it is an exact quote from the original sources. I can give ten more references if you like, but it is silly to let your biases cause you to continue the general ignorance concerning the foundations of quantum mechanics. The public is ready to hear the realities of history. So please do not delete direct quotes from Heisenberg or any other founder. If your want more references, I can give them. I have all of his writing available and his books. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Voyajer (talk • contribs)
 * I've published on the history of quantum mechanics, too, though since Wikipedia doesn't run on personal authority that's pretty much irrelevant. The plain fact is that serious historians and philosophers of science accept that there is no single "Copenhagen interpretation", and there never was. Direct quotes from the founders do nothing to dispel this; indeed, they substantiate it. Smolin is a popularizer, and pop-science treatments about the interpretation of quantum mechanics are nearly universally dreadful. Wikipedia should not rely on them, especially when the serious academic literature is right there. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:34, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I note that you have inserted lengthy text copied directly from a source. Please do not do that, even if you indicate the source. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:49, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Regarding your delete on the history of Quantum Mechanics
Boltzmann along with Maxwell were both working in one area: specifically the proof that atoms exist. All their work on statistical thermodynamics hypothesized the existence of atoms before they were generally accepted. So all mention of “discrete” in Boltzmann has to do with matter being made up of discrete atoms NOT discrete radiation. Boltzmann didn’t work on radiation. The person who wrote the paragraph I edited did not understand what they were studying. Planck didn’t believe in atoms either. He thought matter was indivisible or continuous. The desperate action of Planck was to incorporate the atomic theory of Boltzmann into his radiation theory making radiation atomic or as discrete as atoms are. Einstein called him out on this in his 1905 paper for using proof of atoms to create a radiation law. There is too much proof of these facts to elaborate here. Read the Boltzmann part of Wikipedia to understand what I’m saying. I was explaining this. It is important. Wikipedia is explaining it incorrectly. It needs to be factual. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Voyajer (talk • contribs)
 * Whatever point you were trying to make, you wrote sentences that were very difficult to follow, in addition to having a sensationalist and unencyclopedic tone. The section before you edited it did not claim that Planck believed in atoms, and Boltzmann definitely "work[ed] on radiation", since he deduced the fourth-power dependence of radiated power upon temperature in 1884, so I'm having a hard time understanding your complaint.
 * Please sign your comments on talk pages, in order to facilitate a clear conversation. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:23, 30 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Boltzmann committed suicide because people wouldn’t believe in his theory of atoms. Voyajer

Boltzmann is famous for his theory of entropy. He worked on statistical thermodynamics. It was all about atoms being discrete. Wikipedia says

“ In 1877, Ludwig Boltzmann suggested that the energy states of a physical system can be discrete,”. He was talking about atoms of matter. NOT radiation. Voyajer
 * Boltzmann proposed energy discretization as early as 1872, in the course of proving his H-theorem. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:44, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Original Boltzmann paper shows he was not talking about radiation energy in 1877, but kinetic energy of atoms because atoms create heat through kinetic energy. His whole theory was about using statistical methods to explain the kinetic energy of atoms and their existence. “ kinetic energies between molecules, or because the distributions don’t depend correctly on the average kinetic energy (temperature” from 1877 paper. https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/entropy/entropy-17-01971/article_deploy/entropy-17-01971.pdf. Planck was at his wits end when Wien’s law failed. As a last resort he turned to Boltzmann’s entropy law for the kinetic energy of atoms. That is why Planck’s paper includes Boltzmann’s constant k for the kinetic energy of atoms. Read Einstein’s 1905 paper where he calls Boltzmann out on using an atomic entropy gas molecule formula for radiation. It’s the light quanta paper of Einstein. Read it and the Planck 1900 paper. Read where Planck says it was an act of desperation. Whoever wrote that Boltzmann created discrete radiation energy is just wrong.— voyajer
 * The article didn't say "discrete radiation energy", it said "energy states of a physical system". And indeed, the paper you link to has a lengthy section where kinetic energy is discretized for purposes of approximation, starting on page 6 (section title "I. Kinetic Energy Has Discrete Values"). XOR&#39;easter (talk) 21:02, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Exactly. Wikipedia suggests that Boltzmann’s discrete energy is the same as Planck’s. It is not. Before Planck, all radiation was described by Maxwells wave equations. Smooth, classical, not quantized. This didn’t work for Planck when he used Wiens Law, so he introduced Boltzmann’s entropy law S = k(log W) which explains the discrete atomic states. Planck says so in his 1900 paper, “I suspected that one should evaluate this quantity in the electromagnetic radiation theory by introducing probability considerations, the importance of which for the second law of thermodynamics was first of all discovered by Mr. Boltzmann. This suspicion has been confirmed. I have been able to derive deductively an expression for the entropy of a monochromatically vibrating resonator.” http://hermes.ffn.ub.es/luisnavarro/nuevo_maletin/Planck%20(1900),%20Distribution%20Law.pdf. But blackbody radiation was not about resonators but electromagnetic waves from infrared to ultraviolet. Planck invented imaginary resonators and then used Boltzmann’s entropy law for kinetic energy of atoms and molecules to explain electromagnetic waves. Planck was talking about wave energy. Boltzmann was talking about molecular kinetic energy. Planck fudged the two theories together. That doesn’t mean Boltzmann led to the quantum. It means Planck used something contrary to known scientific rules combining contrary sciences about contrary things. Wikipedia should not describe it as a smooth transition as if it were the next inevitable step. It was radical. Actually what Planck did, he explained as against the rules many times including the proceedings of the 1911 Solvay conference. These facts are so well known that Wikipedia is very misleading. Also, there are no references to show that Boltzmann said energy is discrete. I can show the exact places in the long paper to show that entropy was about statistical atomic systems, but that is first year physics. — voyajer
 * I have no substantive comments on this interesting discussion, but, in order to sign a post on Wikipedia, type four tildes ( ~ ) at the end and the software will automatically sign and date it for you, with helpful links to your own user and talk pages. It would also be helpful if you would read this page, which explains the local conventions for threading posts in a discussion via indentation.  --JBL (talk) 22:13, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * If Planck relied on an idea that was first introduced by Boltzmann, then Boltzmann led to quantum mechanics. He was an immediate predecessor. That's all the article was saying. Nothing was described as a "smooth transition".
 * For a reference on Boltzmann introducing discontinuous energy levels in 1872, see here. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:24, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

NEW 10/3/2021 I believe the problem with Wikipedia is the same as the problem with school textbooks. A 2018 study showed that most English language textbooks are biased. Also, Boltzmann and Maxwell did do work on radiation as you said, but that is not what Planck used in his formula as stated explicitly by Planck in his paper. My recent post explains this. There are many references to this, far more than I put here, but this is first year physics and anyone familiar with Boltzmann’s theory of entropy would understand that it is atomic, so I did not go into detail in the revisions you erased. S=k(log W) is a constant related to the number of states that atoms can take and shows statistically that atoms tend toward a higher number of states. K is the constant used in the Ideal gas law PV=nRT and this constant can be rewritten using Avogadro’s number and Boltzmann’s constant for the number of atoms in an ideal gas. See Ideal gas law. Planck uses Boltzmann’s entropy formula for atoms as I quoted from his paper. This is well-known. Most of Wikipedia on Physics is biased toward the same textbooks leaving out key discoveries and important details. I’m taking out time from work to try to put in some important details that are missing due to students who write Wikipedia not having read anything but their textbooks. Most quotes come with references from textbooks and encyclopedias that are very incomplete. History is written by the winners. As if George Washington never told a lie because of the cherry tree, Newton had an apple fall on his head, etc. It is written all by rote. Most of the very interesting articles by more advanced physicists and historians on jstor are missing from Wikipedia. I only write what I know is correct from multiple jstor articles, peer-reviewed papers, and original papers from AHQP.

This is how Planck came to use Boltzmann although Planck said in 1882 that he did not believe in atoms and he continued up to 1900 repeating this belief.

The facts are these:

Gustav Kirchhoff was Max Planck’s teacher and surmised that there was a universal law for blackbody radiation and this was called “Kirchhoff’s challenge.”Pasupathy, J. “The Quantum, Its Discovery and the Continuing Quest.” Current Science, vol. 79, no. 11, Temporary Publisher, 2000, pp. 1609–14, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24104871. Planck, a theorist, believed that Wilhelm Wien had discovered this law and Planck expanded on Wien’s work presenting it in 1899 to the meeting of the German Physical Society.Pasupathy, J. “The Quantum, Its Discovery and the Continuing Quest.” Current Science, vol. 79, no. 11, Temporary Publisher, 2000, pp. 1609–14, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24104871. Experimentalists Otto Lummer, Ferdinand Kurlbaum, Ernst Pringsheim, and Heinrich Rubens did experiments that appeared to support Wien’s law especially at higher frequency short wavelengths which Planck so wholly endorsed at the German Physical Society that it began to be called the Wien-Planck Law.Kumar, Manjit, Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the great debate about the nature of reality, 1st American ed., 2008. However, by September 1900, the experimentalists had proven beyond a doubt that the Wein-Planck law failed at the shorter wavelengths. They would present their data on October 5. Planck was informed by his friend Rubens and quickly created a formula within a few days. Stone, A. Douglas, Einstein and the quantum : the quest of the valiant Swabian, 2013, Princeton University Press. In June of that same year, Lord Raleigh had created a formula that would work for short lower frequency wavelengths. Remarks upon the Law of Complete Radiation, in The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Vol. XLIX, January-June 1900, pp. 539-541, Rayleigh, Lord (John William Strutt)< So Planck submitted a formula combining both Raleigh’s Law and Wien’s law which would be weighted to one or the other law depending on wavelength to match the experimental data. However, although this equation worked, Planck himself said unless he could explain the formula derived from a “lucky intuition” into one of “true meaning” in physics, it did not have true significance.Planck, Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (New York: Philosophical Library, 1949), 41.Planck said thereafter followed the hardest work of his life. Planck did not believe in atoms, nor did he think the second law of thermodynamics should be statistical because anything statistical does not provide an absolute answer, and Boltzmann’s entropy law rested on the hypothesis of atoms and was statistical. But Planck was unable to find a way to reconcile his Blackbody equation with continuous laws such as Maxwell’s wave equations. So in what Planck called “an act of desperation,”Hermann, Genesis of Quantum Theory, 23. he turned to Boltzmann’s atomic law of entropy as it was the only one that made his equation work. Therefore, he used Boltzmann’s constant k and his new constant h to explain the Blackbody radiation law which became widely known through his published paper.Max Planck, On the Theory of the Energy Distribution Law of the Normal Spectrum, Verhandl, Dtsch, phys Ges, 2, (1900) Physics World, “Max Planck: the reluctant revolutionary”, 01 Dec 2000. Quote: “According to Boltzmann’s molecular-mechanical interpretation, the entropy of a system is the collective result of molecular motions. The second law is valid only in a statistical sense. Boltzmann’s theory, which presupposed the existence of atoms and molecules, was challenged by Wilhelm Ostwald and other “energeticists”, who wanted to free physics from the notion of atoms and base it on energy and related quantities. What was Planck’s position in this debate? One might expect that he sided with the winners, or those who soon turned out to be the winners – namely Boltzmann and the “atomists”. But this was not the case. Planck’s belief in the absolute validity of the second law made him not only reject Boltzmann’s statistical version of thermodynamics but also doubt the atomic hypothesis on which it rested.” https://physicsworld.com/a/max-planck-the-reluctant-revolutionary/ Voyajer (talk) 00:40, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but I don't see how any of that has to do with supporting the text you added to quantum mechanics here. It's true that physicists often learn oversimplified accounts of history, that these can end up in textbooks and eventually accumulate in Wikipedia, and that many of our science-history pages accordingly need an overhaul. But that doesn't make any modification to those articles automatically good. In fact, by relying upon an oversimplified description, you introduced exactly the kind of error that we should avoid: the history of cathode rays really does go back to Faraday. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 14:52, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
 * If I may say so, you seem to be running two risks simultaneously. Wikipedia is not the place to study primary sources and use them to advance a new thesis (e.g., about who was radical, where a subject should be said to begin, etc.). See WP:NOR and in particular WP:SYNTH. It is also the case that Wikipedia articles on technical topics should not be based on pop-science sources (e.g., Gilder and Kumar), as those are frequently sensationalized and almost always oversimplified. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 08:58, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

______________________
 * All I did was summarize what is already written under the whole Wikipedia article under Planck’s constant. That article explains everything I said above.Voyajer (talk) 11:30, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Schrödinger Interpretation
What you erased: I am copying from the Wikipedia section under the Wikipedia article Erwin Schrödinger and from the Wikipedia article Wave mechanics under interpretation. Those are the main articles I was summarizing. I did not write those original main sections. Please read them so you can see that what I wrote was just a synopsis of known knowledge. Voyajer (talk) 11:30, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
 * It was just a synopsis, but it did not fit in Interpretations of quantum mechanics, which is about schools of thought that have had significant numbers of adherents and long-lasting influence, not positions held by one scientist for a few months before he realized he had to revise it (from $$\Psi$$ being a charge density, to $$\Psi^* \Psi$$ having some electromagnetic interpretation, and eventually to downright weird ideas that David Mermin once described as "global mass-solipsism"). An entire subsection on Schrödinger alone, as long as those on pilot-wave theories or many-worlds, is unwarranted. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:47, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

If you actually read the subsection “Interpretation“ under the Schrödinger equation, you will see that it led to the Many Worlds interpretation. And initially, Einstein, Ehrenfest, and most of the scientific community of 1925-1927 agreed with the Schrödinger interpretation. It was the first interpretation. Read Mara Bella, Helge Kragh, and the many other historians. This is all already in Wikipedia. The Schrödinger equation article points to Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics as the main article to explain Schrödingers interpretation and there is nothing there. Just because you personally are unfamiliar with the early history doesn’t mean you should try to erase it. Actually read the Schrödinger equation article under Interpretation. Actually read Mara Beller and the other historians. Don Howard’s article 2007 shows how the narrative started to change (toward the truth and away from textbooks) by Fine 1981, Stachel 1986, Howard 1990, Cushing 1994, then Mara Beller 1992, 93, 96, 97, and Fine in 1994. It is now widely acknowledged in the scientific community that the original interpretation by Schrödinger was the first accepted interpretation. Many articles both old and recent refer to this. For that matter, read Heisenberg. He states he was almost kicked out of the conference of physicists in July 1926 by Wilhelm Wien Arnold Sommerfeld and the other physicists who said “we are through with quantum jumps” because they had Schrödingers interpretation now. That is why it is already in Wikipedia.Voyajer (talk) 13:58, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I've read Beller, Fine, Howard, Kragh, etc. (Now that I think about it, I wrote most of the "Interpretation" section of Schrödinger equation, during the cleanup job we did on that page several months ago.) Saying that Einstein had the same interpretation as Schrödinger is not right, even though both of them disagreed with Bohr, Heisenberg, and Pauli (who also disagreed among themselves). Schrödinger took the wavefunction as real in a way that Einstein very much did not want to. For the former, it was something like a charge density, while for the latter, it was closer to a Liouville distribution, though neither kept holding exactly the same positions as the years went by. As Howard (2007) points out, as early as 1927 Einstein tried to devise a hidden-variable model for the Schrödinger wave equation, and he used the single-slit diffraction experiment to raise objections to the idea that a wavefunction represents the objective state of an individual quantum system, in favor of an ensemble-type interpretation. The Schrödinger equation article says that Interpretations of quantum mechanics is the main article for the section "Interpretation", which is true. And Interpretations of quantum mechanics already explained what Schrödinger's early view was.
 * Stepping back to get a broader perspective, the question becomes whether a view held in some form by some fraction of physicists in 1925–1927 (say, the period from Heisenberg's sojourn in Heligoland to Bohr's Como lecture) should be listed among the schools of thought that have had continuing influence through to the modern day. To me, that seems like confusing two different kinds of thing. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:11, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

The Schrödinger interpretation was more influential and more widely held than most of the other interpretations listed such as QBism and the others, so your argument is specious. In fact, the original Heisenberg interpretation should also be added, because it was different from Copenhagen. See Mara Beller, Matrix Theory before Schrodinger: Philosophy, Problems, Consequences Author(s): Mara Beller Source: Isis, Dec., 1983, Vol. 74, No. 4 (Dec., 1983), pp. 469-491 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/232208.

To give a full and complete article on “quantum theory interpretations,” they should all be included, especially Schrödingers because of the two July 1926 lectures where all the leading physicists of the day embraced it.

After Max Born changed both equations of Heisenberg and Schrödinger, not only was Schrödinger vocal about it, but Heisenberg wrote to Born “You have gone over to the other side”: WH-Born; Dresden, 75. Voyajer (talk) 20:21, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
 * There's simply no way to say that any view held by a portion of the physics community during 1926, when that community could fit into a single group photo, is as widespread as any major interpretation of the present day. The article already explains that Heisenberg's view was different from Bohr's (and Howard, Camilleri, etc., etc. make clear that Heisenberg, not Bohr, was the one who defined the positions that nowadays get called "Copenhagen"). Beller's article indicates that a majority — not a unanimous consensus — of attendees at the 1926 Munich conference agreed with Schrödinger's then-interpretation, and then she goes on to explain that even the physicists who agreed with his interpretation didn't want to carry on the conceptual arguments, and how support for Schrödinger's view fell away after Heisenberg, Bohr, Dirac, Jordan, Born, and Pauli all made their own contributions. (Even Lorentz, who liked the idea of Schrödinger's view, saw that it couldn't work as stated. See chapter 2 of Jammer's 1974 book.) Also, copying incomplete citations directly out of Gilder's endnotes is not the most helpful way to direct people to what you're talking about. And hunting down Gilder's own source, p. 75 of M. Dresden's H. A. Kramers: Between Tradition and Revolution, makes the story rather less dramatic than first advertised: Heisenberg in a letter to Born complains that "You have gone over to the other [Schrödinger's] side." However, Heisenberg soon recognized the significance of Born's work. His only remaining criticism was a methodological one; from Born's analysis it might appear that there was a freedom of interpretation of the formalism, while Heisenberg throughout insisted that the interpretation was a necessary consequence of the mathematical structure. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:52, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

RfA 2021 review update
Thanks so much for participating in Phase 1 of the RfA 2021 review. 8 out of the 21 issues discussed were found to have consensus. Thanks to our closers of Phase 1, and.

The following had consensus support of participating editors:
 * 1) Corrosive RfA atmosphere
 * The atmosphere at RfA is deeply unpleasant. This makes it so fewer candidates wish to run and also means that some members of our community don't comment/vote.
 * 1) Level of scrutiny
 * Many editors believe it would be unpleasant to have so much attention focused on them. This includes being indirectly a part of watchlists and editors going through your edit history with the chance that some event, possibly a relatively trivial event, becomes the focus of editor discussion for up to a week.
 * 1) Standards needed to pass keep rising
 * It used to be far easier to pass RfA however the standards necessary to pass have continued to rise such that only "perfect" candidates will pass now.
 * 1) Too few candidates
 * There are too few candidates. This not only limits the number of new admin we get but also makes it harder to identify other RfA issues because we have such a small sample size.
 * 1) "No need for the tools" is a poor reason as we can find work for new admins

The following issues had a rough consensus of support from editors: 1. Lifetime tenure (high stakes atmosphere) Because RfA carries with it lifetime tenure, granting any given editor sysop feels incredibly important. This creates a risk adverse and high stakes atmosphere.

2. Admin permissions and unbundling There is a large gap between the permissions an editor can obtain and the admin toolset. This brings increased scrutiny for RFA candidates, as editors evaluate their feasibility in lots of areas.

3. RfA should not be the only road to adminship Right now, RfA is the only way we can get new admins, but it doesn't have to be.

Please consider joining the brainstorming which will last for the next 1-2 weeks. This will be followed by Phase 2, a 30 day discussion to consider solutions to the problems identified in Phase 1. There are 2 future mailings planned. One when Phase 2 opens and one with the results of Phase 2. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here. Best, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:09, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

RfA Reform 2021 Phase 2 has begun
Following a 2 week brainstorming period and a 1 week proposal period, the 30 day discussion of changes to our Request for Adminship process has begun. Following feedback on Phase 1, in order to ensure that the largest number of people possible can see all proposals, new proposals will only be accepted for the for the first 7 days of Phase 2. The 30 day discussion is scheduled to last until November 30. Please join the discussion or even submit your own proposal.

There is 1 future mailing planned with the results of Phase 2. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here. 16:13, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Copenhagen Interpretations
Removing jstor referenced material is not according to Wikipedia standards. The current definition is incomplete. The jstor references show all the different meanings for Copenhagen interpretation by approved peer-reviewed jstor journals. It gives an overview of the meaning. All references are legitimate. Your current definition is not a definition at all. You provide no explanation of the origin while peer-reviewed articles do. Erasing jstor articles is against Wikipedia policy. If you would like to reword them, that is one thing. But erasing facts from peer-reviewed jstor references is eliminating the very foundations of Wikipedia.Voyajer (talk) 13:15, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
 * As I explained at Talk:Copenhagen interpretation, the text you added was a collage of miscellaneous quotations, not encyclopedic material. There is no policy against removing misused or irrelevant sources. No facts were "erased". The current version explains the origin; your addition merely confused it. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:29, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Maybe you could check
Again Harold White and his claims about warp and Alcubierre drive, I posted on the talk page too of that article my concerns and the most recent doubts about his claims. 93.86.200.213 (talk) 16:30, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Invitation to take part in a survey about medical topics on Wikipedia
Dear fellow editor,

I am Piotr Konieczny, a sociologist of new media at Hanyang University (and User:Piotrus on Wikipedia). I would like to better understand Wikipedia's volunteers who edit medical topics, many associated with the WikiProject Medicine, and known to create some of the highest quality content on Wikipedia. I hope that the lessons I can learn from you that I will present to the academic audience will benefit both the WikiProject Medicine (improving your understanding of yourself and helping to promote it and attract new volunteers) and the wider world of medical volunteering and academia. Open access copy of the resulting research will be made available at WikiProject's Medicine upon the completion of the project.

All questions are optional. The survey is divided into 4 parts: 1 - Brief description of yourself; 2 - Questions about your volunteering; 3 - Questions about WikiProject Medicine and 4 - Questions about Wikipedia's coverage of medical topics.

Please note that by filling out this questionnaire, you consent to participate in this research. The survey is anonymous and all personal details relevant to your experience will be kept private and will not be transferred to any third party.

I appreciate your support of this research and thank you in advance for taking the time to participate and share your experiences! If you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact me at my Wikipedia user page or through my email listed on the survey page (or by Wikipedia email this user function).

The survey is accessible through the LINK HERE.

Piotr Konieczny Associate Professor Hanyang University If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:24, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Michael Frese
If you have any time and energy, would you keep an eye on the Michael Frese article, which you previously did a little work on when it was at AfD? We have a new not-quite SPA editor that is making extensive unsourced or undersourced additions. Some of them may be WP:DUE with sources, but I'm not seeing much that is not a paper by the subject. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 20:05, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, I've watchlisted it and will keep an eye out for un- or under-sourced material. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:29, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I'm now feeling hopeful that the editor will engage productively, but we'll see.  Hope things are well, and that you manage to relax over the new years! Russ Woodroofe (talk) 15:36, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Near retirement
I got into this because it seemed like a hobby where my bookish habits could, in some small way, help people. I've also been trying to manage chronic pain (it's much more boring than that sounds). Lately, when I've been here, it's because I needed the distraction. But the thing is: I'm tired. Discussions degenerate into wiki-lawyering and sealioning. One thing after another boils down to handling the consequences of somebody's petty ego. I'm trying to push through some cleanup efforts that seem overdue, and I've written up the practical advice I could think of for writing in my subject area. I am drafting (currently offline) a major revision of the Bell's theorem article — it's highly trafficked, and it's not in great shape. After that, or perhaps before, I may hang up my wiki-hat, or limit my involvement to helping with serious emergencies. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 04:09, 24 December 2021 (UTC)


 * If you're referring to the deprecated sources ANI for example, then while I know what you feel, it's a large project. There's a lot of less contentious areas where you can edit without any pushback, which I imagine includes most maths/physics articles. When my wikistress levels are high, I usually just edit in such an area, either in mainspace or projectspace, where the interactions I have are mostly collaborative rather than contentious. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:05, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It's not that, it's the majority of things that have happened for months, including trying to make headway on mathematics and physics articles. There is no subject obscure or erudite enough to stop people being awful about it. Believe me, I've tried to find one. It's a large project, but people are the same everywhere through it, and sooner or later, the same dynamic always plays out. And every time, I have a little less energy left to deal with the next one. If I didn't have a lingering sense of social responsibility telling me that a few topics in my own field really do need better treatment, I probably would have walked away by now. I've gotten exasperated with this place many times before in my years here, but at this point, the writing's on the wall. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:54, 25 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Friend, since I saw your note here yesterday, your "near retirement" has been on my heart. I've only been editing here a few years longer than you, and I understand the exasperation and discouragement that come from run-ins with hostile folks. In fact, when I participated in a graduate student's project last year on women editors in Wikipedia, I was asked whether it was a hostile place for women-- I answered that I thought it was somewhat hostile to everyone. I've survived 4 fairly obnoxious episodes, including one BLPNoticeboard, one DRN, one ANI, and one AFD that just went incredibly sideways. Each time, my anxiety and disgust were almost overwhelming, because I, like you and many other editors, care about accuracy and truth AND civility, all in the same breath. But I enjoy researching and creating new content, and for me, that pleasure outweighs the negative energy and unpleasantness, the acrimony that seems to plague this place. I'm so glad you created the lists of APS Fellows, and I will continue to turn some of those red links blue. I've been grateful for your other contributions, too, especially AFD discussions and of course, the Petit bio. What will we do without your cogent arguments, clear thought, and decisive actions? Please do focus on your health, manage your pain, and participate here in whatever capacity you find fulfilling. I'm hoping you will return to the niches here that are actually fun, and I look forward to your rewrite of the Bell's theorem article. Take care. — Grand&#39;mere Eugene (talk) 00:09, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the kind words. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 03:21, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Adios amigo
Sad to see you go. You've done a fantastic job cleaning out nonsense and junk, but the work is never truly done is it? Your crowning achievement is probably the work you did getting Quantum mechanics to GA, which will be appreciated by millions of readers for years to come. I wish you luck in whatever your future endeavours are. So long, and thanks for all the fish. Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:01, 29 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I've also found your comments in various discussions insightful. Even when we disagree, I do think you've advanced the discussion and provided something to think about. All the best in the future, XOR. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 05:07, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

RFA 2021 Completed
The 2021 re-examination of RFA has been completed. 23 (plus 2 variants) ideas were proposed. Over 200 editors participated in this final phase. Three changes gained consensus and two proposals were identified by the closers as having the potential to gain consensus with some further discussion and iteration. Thanks to all who helped to close the discussion, and in particular, , and for closing the most difficult conversations and for  for closing the review of one of the closes.

The following proposals gained consensus and have all been implemented:
 * 1) Revision of standard question 1 to Special thanks to  for help with implementation.
 * 2) A new process, Administrative Action Review (XRV) designed to review if an editor's specific use of an advanced permission, including the admin tools, is consistent with policy in a process similar to that of deletion review and move review. Thanks to all the editors who contributed (and are continuing to contribute) to the discussion of how to implement this proposal.
 * 3) Removal of autopatrol from the administrator's toolkit. Special thanks to and  for their help with implementation.

The following proposals were identified by the closers as having the potential to gain consensus with some further discussion and iteration:
 * 1) An option for people to run for temporary adminship ( proposal, discussion, & close )
 * 2) An optional election process ( proposal & discussion and close review & re-close )

Editors who wish to discuss these ideas or other ideas on how to try to address any of the six issues identified during phase 1 for which no proposal gained are encouraged to do so at RFA's talk page or an appropriate village pump.

A final and huge thanks all those who participated in this effort to improve our RFA process over the last 4 months. This is the final update with no further talk page messages planned. 01:47, 30 December 2021 (UTC)