Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Speed of light/Evidence

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The RfAr
The RfAr that led to this case can be found at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case&oldid=312701083#Speed_of_light.

Brews ohare's incivility, disrespect, and bad faith toward others

 * "probably four or five editors who cannot tie their shoes steamrollering a flatly incorrect statement into the intro."
 * "There is no consideration for sources, logic or whatever: you just have to round up a lynch mob and away it goes."
 * "simply subject to sneers from the civilized persons pretending to be editors."
 * "dealing with completely intransigent editors suffering from both idée fixe and groupthink, and no concept of sources."
 * "It's probably tendentious of me, but I attribute this to a lack of desire to really engage the issues (and the brain) and instead a preference for adrenalin and artful put-down."
 * "A number of them are incapable of thought, and the rest are uninterested"
 * "It is a really disgusting display of mob rule. The only reason to remove it is vendetta, I am afraid."
 * "It was a bit of an eye-opener to find that some cannot understand plain English, and that some want only to attack me personally, nevermind the topic."

Tendentious editing by Brews ohare
These are just ones involving me. The pattern has gone on for months with others.
 * Baiting me to get involved in an obsessive argument. Compare before and after my article edits to see that Brews ohare's "commentary" did not address anything I changed. I did not alter the first paragraph in any way.
 * Purposefully misrepresenting my comment by changing indenting levels and position, thereby altering context. See my original context. Yes, I certainly did undo this gross abuse by the "page owner", as explained in my edit summary.

Concerns from others about David Tombe's original research

 * "This is a difficult situation, because Mr. Tombe backs off when administrators put a foot down hard, but he does not ever seem to get up his goal of inserting his version of the truth (which is not even a notable fringe view as far as I am aware) into centrifugal force and related articles."
 * "I suggest you submit your physics reasoning to a physics journal, so that after it is published we can use it to explain to the readers of the wikipedia how David Tombe overturned basic physics"
 * An editor inserting a section heading to indicate that the contributions are Davis Tombe's original research

Fringe views of David Tombe

 * "the old real physics", before "the new nonsense physics" of Einstein's theory of relativity.
 * "It is likley that Einstein misunderstood Maxwell's equations."
 * "Einstein on the other hand appears to have totally failed to grasp anything that Maxwell said at all."
 * "[t his most important chapter of scientific history has now degenerated into the abominable post-1983 new physics that is summed up in the lead to the vacuum permittivity article."]

Obsessive editing during this case by Brews ohare is indicative of WP:OWN problems
Edit counts in this case:

Edit counts to Speed of light talk page during this case: Brews ohare has made more edits to the article talk page during this case than the next five editors combined (as of 14 September), even accounting for only edits not marked as minor.

Part of the reason for these high edit counts is Brews ohare's careless editing style and refusal to use the preview button correctly, but a larger part is evidence of his desire to dominate the discussion, as I learned so clearly while making my nine total edits to the article talk page. Brews ohare has gone so far as to say I ought to be disqualified to edit "his" article due to a innocuous comment I made on my talk page.

Brews edits super-aggessively to push his idiosyncratic points of view
Brews attacks one article at a time, totally dominating both the article and the talk page if he doesn't get his way. When he directed his attention to Wavelength starting June 10, I stood up to him, and it was a painful four weeks, with support from User:Srleffler. His edit stats there tell the story: wavelength stats and the corresponding talk page stats.

The pattern has been repeated on various other articles, but probably none with numbers as big as what we currently see on speed of light: and, where he edits about as much as all other editors combined.

Stats or histories for articles and talk pages at Centrifugal force, Centrifugal force (rotating reference frame) (1943 edits on the talk page there!), Electromotive force, Matter, Wave, Frame of reference, and many more. Most of the dominant edit counts indicate edit wars.

As another example, here in 112 consecutive edits, he rewrites and bloats Electromotive force, focusing on one use of the term and adding unsourced assertion that other uses are "confused". When I noticed and tried to fix it to represent other points of view in a balanced way, edit warring ensued as he dug in to defend his particular POV. He summarily removes sourced information that doesn't fit his POV as "confusing material and incorrect statements".

When Brews can't put his stuff one place, he'll put it another
See Talk:Dispersion relation. Material that was rejected as off-topic at Wavelength was then put in this place where it's even more off-topic, with a new stated purpose. None of the cited sources there mention the article topic.

Brews ohare's contributions do more harm than good
For example, in 10 days last November (this net diff), Brews expanded Capacitance from 10 KB to over 28 KB, largely by the addition of the wonderfully complex and idiosyncratic section Capacitance. The article was desparately in need of a cleanup and simplification of the lead before he touched it, and it remains so; but this new main section, the first section after the lead, is wonderfully inappropriate and such a great illustration of what he like to do.

In Speed of light, he was not content to put his junk in a section; he continually pushes to influence the lead, and even the first sentence of the lead with his unique POV; sometimes like here he buries his idiosyncratic unsourced complexifying asides in footnotes.

In Centrifugal force (rotating reference frame), he added extensive (that is, bloated) quantities of examples and explanations that make the article the steaming heap that it is today. I had to start a new summary-style article, Centrifugal force, to give the typical reader a place to go to learn about centrifugal force (initially this 5 KB article), and then had to defend it vigorously against both David Tombe (e.g. this POV push) and the Brews bloat for several months; with edits like this one, Brews and David pushed the article to over 46 KB before I was able to spin off some of their stuff as subsidiary articles and get it back down to 24 KB, which is still bloated for a summary-style article, and it further expanded the system of Brews-created articles around this topic. The history shows that numerous other editors (FyzixFighter, Woodstone, Headbomb, ...) tried to help me hold back both Brews and David.

I tried for several months to talk with Brews about the problems with his editing style and contributions, culminating in my rather negative assessment on his talk page at User_talk:Brews_ohare.

There is very little disagreement about the speed of light
As far as I can tell, the only substantive disagreement is whether there are two different concepts called the speed of light; Brews says there are, and David Tombe agrees; that the speed of light that is the defined value in SI units is not the same thing as, or is conceptually distinct from, the "real, physical speed of light". So far, as far as I've been able to find, he hasn't produced any source that represents this point of view. Everthing else seems to be understood and agreed by all, in spite of Brews repeatedly asserting that nobody understands him or the issue. For examples, search for "real, physical" in Talk:Speed_of_light/Archive_8 and Talk:Speed_of_light/Archive_9. In Talk:Speed_of_light/Archive_9 he expounds at length on his "two different meanings" idea; his sources are all OK, but they don't appear to support the interpretation that there are "two different meanings", or even that the detailed meanings before and after 1983, due to subtleties of what the standards organizations chose to do, deserve more than a brief comment in a section. It seems clear that everyone hears and understands his point; but it's his idiosyncratic interpretation of sources, not something that any reliable source actually says; nonetheless, he dominates the discussion and the editing to try to get wikipedia to represent this weird POV of his.

Remarkably, in spite of my extensive comments directed to him and his edits on Talk:Speed of light (now Talk:Speed_of_light/Archive_8 and Talk:Speed_of_light/Archive_9) and my filing a plea for help at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics/Archive_August_2009, Brews says he doesn't recall disagreements between us on speed of light. Maybe it's because the disagreements were about his editing, not about physics. Dicklyon (talk) 06:18, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Brews ohare and David Tombe have a long history together of disruptive article and talk page editing
See list of previous complaints in the RfA, at my section: . And esp. the one of Nov. 2008:. Dicklyon (talk) 02:45, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by David Tombe
Tim Shuba removed an important sub-section from the history section at speed of light, hence leaving a gap in the chronology. I did not insert that sub-section in the first place, but I substantially modified the paragraph about James Clerk-Maxwell's role in linking the measured speed of light to the measured values of the electric and magnetic constants. That was virtually my only contribution to the article.

Martin Hogbin removed material from the history section concerning Maxwell's 1861 paper and replaced it with confusion that was written by somebody who didn't know the difference between Maxwell's 1861 paper and Maxwell's 1865 paper. In doing so, he stated in the caption "No crackpot physics". This material was eventually restored, but it was removed again a few weeks later when Tim Shuba removed the entire section. David Tombe (talk) 15:43, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Specific issues
My attempts to insert a sub-subsection into Speed of light have been resisted by reversion without comment and generalities not related to the actual content of the submission.

My views on the 1983 definition of the speed of light were supported by Steve, but drew a barrage of criticism from many based upon not what was written, but what people imagined was written. For example, Finell took the opportunity to chastise me for bringing the subject up at all and accused me of "spewing pseudo-scientific nonsense all over WP" (a substitute for specific critique of specific statements), TimothyRias read into it a treatment of general relativity that was amazingly off-topic (GR is not involved at all), and Dicklyon interpreted it as "idiosyncratic synthesis", although he could not support his claim because the entire thing is sourced at every point.

Recent example of Talk: Speed of light behavior
An interesting recent example of behavior on Talk: Speed of light may found at Subsection: Meter defined in terms of the speed of light. Here a rather mild proposal to change the title of the subsection begins with a sourced preamble that explains why the change. The responses to this proposal consist of:
 * 1) a catcall by Martin Hogbin,
 * 2) a putdown by TimothyRias,
 * 3) a helpful comment by A. di M.,
 * 4) a complete misreading by Finell,
 * 5) blatant cheerleading by Wdl1961,
 * 6) a replacement of the proposal by a fabricated false position then scornfully dismissed by Dicklyon,
 * 7) an explanation for the present title by its author 140.247.242.101, and
 * 8) finally a change in the title to a more sensible one by Timothy Rias.

At this point the work of this section was complete: the subsection title was changed. Other matters then came up for discussion, which still continued in a combative, rather than collaborative atmosphere, concluding with Finell's analysis, rewriting history to no purpose in an inflammatory manner. In my responses during the above exchange, I drew attention to asides and interjections not directed at the topic but at raising the temperature of discussion. I suggest the arbitrators here consider how to suppress such behavior likely to lead to derailment. Brews ohare (talk) 15:46, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Editor Tim Shuba's mistaken view of my activity on Speed of light
Editor Tim Shuba made what amounted to a major rewrite of Speed of light ending approximately here. I mistakenly concluded that the page now met his approval, and referred to it as "his" page. His response was heated and from that moment on it was downhill. He accuses me of baiting him to involve him in debates he wished to avoid, but I have never had any such intention. He reverted my edits on the talk page with the Edit summary "undo dishonest editing by Brews ohare. I never answered him. More tendentious editing". I was amazed.

Editor Tim Shuba has linked to a number of my comments made on other editors' Talk pages, where I was complaining to those editors about my treatment by others on Speed of light. None of these comments was directed at the editor to whom I was speaking, and none appeared on Talk:Speed of light. Brews ohare (talk) 05:25, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Problems with editor Physchim62
Physchim62 attacks my views using violations of WP:NPA and WP:Talk. A recent example is his intemperate interjection concerning Speed of light set by definition section, responded to by me at this link. Another example is here, where Physchim62 actually attributes to me the ludicrous view that most of physics was destroyed by the decision of the CGPM to fix the speed of light in SI units in 1983, a notion never expressed or supported by myself, all to justify a threat that is way beyond WP:NPA. He makes another completely unsupported, unsupportable, erroneous, outright fabrication claiming I hold that everything is FUBAR since 1983 and nobody else has noticed., for which outrageous statements some evidence was requested here. That request was ignored entirely, despite the reasonable expectation that some apology might follow. Other examples of this behavior are pandering to vociferous soapboxers, if you don't shut up I'll ask that you be banned & so forth. The comments of mine linked in his evidence below are not nonsense as he depicts them, but perfectly reasonable statements. Brews ohare (talk) 15:07, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Problems with editor Martin Hogbin
Martin Hogbin continually violates WP:NPA and WP:Talk, using personal attacks and refusal to address content (dismissing content with the one word "nonsense" is not critique, and though technically directed at content is really a personal attack.) Examples are endless nonsense (I admit to not even reading it this time);crackpot test; panders to Brews' misconceptions; stop putting your nonsense in the article; waste of time including ludicrous claims of an ongoing edit war over the adjective "relative" to qualify an error bar, responded to here. In addition, he deleted a sourced contribution without comment or Edit Summary and steadfastly refuses to critique it, or even read it. My plea for consideration is here. Editor MartinHogbin also uses catcalls like this & this to discourage discussion, and cheerleading to support a polarized atmosphere. Recently, Martin suggested that I am a good faith editor who is, unfortunately, the cause of all the problems on this page, which assessment of responsibility seems somewhat exaggerated: see, for example, the behavior here. Brews ohare (talk) 16:55, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Distortions of editor Finell
Editor Finell repeatedly attributes positions to Brews-ohare that Brews_ohare does not have and has never expressed. A recent example is Brews objects to the 1983 definition of the metre. Others are: contrary to physics and to all experimental observation & you have managed to discern a fundamental flaw in the foundations of physics that has eluded the best minds in physics & Brews contends that the "real, physical speed of light" is now decoupled from any statement of its value (or at least from the statement of its value in SI metres). I suspect these misattributions are a result of Finell's inability to follow the discussion and his desire to echo his favorite editors, rather than malicious intent, but it would be desirable if he were required to support his attributions by reference to actual statements by myself. Brews ohare (talk) 20:14, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Peripheral involvement in threads with User:David Tombe
Since David Tombe has chosen to accuse me of malicious behavior as part of his statement of evidence (diff), I'm responding here. A typical summary of his accusations towards me would be the latter half of this post(signature).

Here are all of the edits that I've made related to these threads. There aren't many:


 * At the WT:PHYS thread:
 * Attempted to clarify for Mr. Tombe what the basis of the dispute with his statements was:
 * Request for more comments at AN/I:
 * Other editing:


 * At the AN/I thread:
 * Drawing attention to Mr. Tombe's talk page behavior, in response to requests at AN/I for evidence of disruption and of people trying to mentor him:
 * Brief responses to Mr. Tombe's accusations:
 * Other commentary:

I decided to refrain from further involvement, as continued participation in the threads did not seem likely to be useful. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 20:49, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Time wasting accusations even after back-handed admission of error
Brews argued that the speed of light cannot logically be defined in metres/second, presented this "disproof" here and demanded a refutation, claiming that he would apologise and go away if disproved. After much wrangling he finally, although indirectly, admitted that the metre-based standard definition of the speed of light was correct, but continued to argue and further waste time over an issue he has accepted was his mistake, now claiming that others didn't undertstand this now-obvious point. --Michael C. Price talk 10:48, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Refusal to engage by Brews Ohare and David Tombe
David Tombe claims that the core of his position is that the speed of light is a defined quantity and therefore can't be measured."No definition can make a measured quantity the same thing as a defined quantity. I hope that the arbitrators examine your statement above very very carefully because this is the very kind of thing that I have been strongly objecting to." But when presented with a counter-example  that meets with approval from others  Brews sneers and refuses to answer and David not only explicitly refuses to engage but also eggs on Brews not to substantially respond either. Brews and David are quite brazen and unapologetic about their unconstructve and disruptive behaviour - these examples are drawn from these very arbitration proceedings where, presumably, they are on their best behaviour. --Michael C. Price talk 08:51, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Brews ohare has tendentiously edited from at least 15 July 2009
has accused me of misrepresenting his views both on his own talk page and also at the workshop of this arbitration. Now this editor has made over a thousand comments to the talkpage over the last two months… not easy to show which diff corresponds to which statement, or even to keep track of every statement posted! Still, I will post those that I can find again which support my initial summary that Brews has freely and publically supported views which go contrary to all modern mainstream physics. Whether he or she actually believes these views is something which I feel should not be a matter for this Committee (given the obvious problems of verification); I leave it to the committee to decide if such statements are actually helpfully in improving our encyclopedia. I apologise if I haven't the best "Brews quotes" that everyone wants, but I have started at 15 July, so I still have a lot of work to do. If one wishes to see how a single "editor" can influence a talk page, this diff is quite instructive.
 * you are confusing defined behavior in unrealizable free space with actual observation on real media
 * The statement that free space is dispersion free is a defined property of the unrealizable, ideal medium of free space. To claim that this defined property is experimentally verified is a logical error, as one cannot measure a defined property: its value is what the definition says it is. All that experiment can do is confirm whether some realizable medium, like outer space say, has this property. Such confirmation serves to support the notion that "free space" is a useful model, but it cannot change the model. It can only support its utility. These statements in the article should be replaced with something like: "According to classical electromagnetism, the speed of electromagnetic radiation in free space is the same for all frequencies. This behavior has been verified by experiment to a high degree of accuracy for media such as outer space or ultra-high vacuum, showing that in this respect these media are good approximations to free space."
 * "Theory" does not predict anything about free space. It is a hypothetical medium with permittivity εo and permeability μo. With these postulated values, of course it has no dispersion. Where is the "theory" for this medium? There isn't any: not in say, continuum mechanics, nor quantum field theory. It's an unrealizable, ideal medium, untouchable and unreachable by experiment.
 * You can ask some fundamental questions, like how do we know that the speed of light hasn't changed since the last time we did this? That could be answered by repeating the measurement. One might ask whether we got the number wrong for c? The answer is: that is a dumb question, we've made up our minds. We could have picked 100,000,000 m/s to make the math easier, but we didn't because there are so many bolts and nuts out there with standardized sizes it just would cost too much in dollars and in nuisance. We could ask if it wouldn't be more fundamental to say the meter is x wavelengths of some atomic transition? The answer is, been there done that. The error analysis is better at present doing it this way, but that might change if some other measurement becomes more accurate. More basically, one might ask if the speed of light is "really" the limiting speed in relativity? Or does the limiting speed of light apply at a Planck length? Those are interesting questions. They don't depend upon free space, or what definition is taken for the numerical value of c.

Ownership issues
Maybe I am totally naïve in such things, but an on-wiki agreement between two parties to this dispute to "hand the article over" to a third editor is hardly something which fits with normal editing practices. I would summarize the root of the problem as being that and  believe that they own the article about the : must I present evidence that they do not?

Intolerant attitude toward Brews and David by some editors
I think this is the main problem. This causes minor disputes to explode. You just have to see the negative language used by Dicklyon when he writes about Brews, his desire to see Brews "to be stopped", etc. etc. to see that there is a problem.

Instead of thinking about editing the wiki (physics) pages, the mindset of some editors is more driven by ways to get Brews banned. Example, Dicklyon starts a attack thread on the wikiproject physics talk page. Note that the wikiproject talk page is specifically intended to discuss physics, it is not the place to vent anger against another editor. I wrote in that thread:

I think that one can either complain about flawed physics being edited in articles or one should shut up. If Brews is editing a lot and if that somehow causes "Brews to get his way", then it shouldn't be difficult to come here and show specific examples of erroneous edits that one has difficulty correcting because Brews (allegedly) doesn't give anyone the chance to do so.

The focus of discussions here should be on the physics. But the complaint now is 100% about Brews' editing style and 0% about any problems related to the physics of the topic. I think that's unacceptable and the next time we should simply delete such attack threads here. Count Iblis (talk) 18:00, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Then I got support for my point of view by editor User:TStein and he wrote these recommendations to constructively address and solve the problem. But, as you can see, Dicklyon was not interested in contributing to that thread.

I can testify from my own experience here at wikipedia, that the attacks that Brews is subjected to will certainly be perceived as extemely insulting by anyone. This is where I was attacked in a very similar way in which Dicklyon and others attack Brews. This caused me to become really angry.

Count Iblis (talk) 15:04, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Editing style
Others have provided ample evidence of his incivility and bad faith but this is not, in my opinion, the major problem with his edits. Brews appears to have two issues with the subject. One is related to the fact that standards and theories refer to the hypothetical medium of free space but actual experiments are performed in real media and the other to the fact the the definition of the meter in terms of the speed of light means that the speed of light, when expressed in SI units, has an exact value. This would not be a problem if it were not for the sheer volume of edits that he makes in these subjects, as can be seen from the edit statistics.[] These edits are done in batches of many edits ranging from a complete section rewrite to minor corrections. This editing style makes cooperative editing impossible.

Many of my edits have been removal of material added to the article to make these points endlessly over a period of many months.

Arguments pursued in the article itself
Brews has pursued many of his arguments in the article itself itself with long rambling expositions often accompanied by quotations from sources surrounded by whitespace.[]

Ignoring consensus and poll results
After this discussion and consensus on the subject [] Brews continued to raise the issue on the talk page starting only a few days after the poll [], [].

He has also abruptly dropped discussing the issue on a page that I set up in my user space [] but continued on the talk page.

The mainstream view (my version) of this subject can be found here or an independent view can be found at the Usenet Physics FAQ.

Other editors' stated views
When I came back to the page after a short break I suggested that it was time to try to get it back into shape. The problem was summed up by CrispMuncher as, 'I do not wish to be uncivil but the reason for this can be summed up simply: Brews Ohare', []. Also he was proposed for a topic ban [].

David Tombe is a fringe physicist
David Tombe has opinions about many aspects of physics (as far as I know, all aspects of physics) that are completely fringe, and has been going on about them since early 2008, (partially under other accounts, and ). By "fringe" I mean universally rejected by every serious physicist in the past 50 years. For example, he:


 * Believes the Biot-Savart law is false
 * Believes that gauge theory and gauge transformations are nonsense
 * Believes Einstein's theory of special relativity is false, and that 19th-century aether theory is true instead.
 * Believes centrifugal force is a real force, essential to explaining circular motion. (This is such a well-known misconception that it's debunked on a children's television show, "Bill Nye the Science Guy"!)

He promotes his fringe physics point of views in real life as either a full-time profession, or at least an extremely intense hobby. See for example.

To be clear, he's sane, and he's capable of logic, and sometimes he's even capable of some mathematical and physical reasoning. You should imagine trying to discuss the death of John F. Kennedy with Jim Marrs: You would find him to know a lot of details, evidence, arguments, and rebuttals, and to have a generally sound mind, and yet he's completely wrong about everything. That's what it's like to discuss physics with David Tombe.

David Tombe pushes his fringe views in the article namespace
As I argue above, David Tombe personally holds many views where it's totally obviously to anyone that the views are fringe (e.g., "special relativity is false"). He has never (as far as I know) overtly argued these obviously-fringe views in articles (only talk pages, project pages, and real life). But he nevertheless pushes his fringe views in articles, in more subtle ways. Here are some edits that I view as examples of this. (I'm not really sure how clear some of these examples will be to non-physicists.)

(By the way: Please don't interpret this section to mean I think there's no problem with David Tombe's edits outside the article namespace. Quite the contrary.)

Brews Ohare is unwilling to follow Wikipedia conventions
This includes "no jargon in the lead paragraph", no surprise links (such as linking Vacuum to free space), the lead paragraph should specify the most important information in a way accessible to a non-specialist, etc. See for example

TLDRs and deadhorse beatings
I agree with others saying that what's written above (or anywhere else for what matters) by Tombe & Ohare is nothing more than powder to the eyes. There's not two different things ("conversion factor" vs. "real, physical speed of light") called "speed of light", and anyone with a physics education worth anything will be able to tell you so. Anyone arguing otherwise is simply flat-out, and demonstrably so, wrong. I've tried to explain it to them several times now. See for example Talk:Speed of light/Archive 9: 04:57, 19 August 2009 (UTC); 07:21, 19 August 2009 (UTC); 07:29, 19 August 2009 (UTC); 21:03, 21 August 2009 (UTC); 08:07, and 22 August 2009 (UTC). See also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics: 07:45, 17 August 2009 (UTC); 13:29, 17 August 2009 (UTC); 00:50, 18 August 2009 (UTC); 22:33, 18 August 2009 (UTC); 02:24, 19 August 2009 (UTC); 15:54, and 19 August 2009 (UTC). But at one point you just have to realize that you cannot engage in meaningful discussion with people whose replies consist of TLDRs and deadhorse beating. The WikiProject Physics members will attest to this. Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 18:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

David Tombe is a POV-pushing fringer
David Tombe usually pushes his work through the General Science Journal, (deleted for being a non-notable fringe journal!) rather than through peer-reviewed journals. Wikipedia is his newfound baby, it allows him to be read by more than a handful of people, and saves him the trouble of getting a door slammed in his face since real science journals don't want to publish stuff that's not even wrong. This is detailed in other posts, so I will not waste my time (nor the arbitrarors') resposting the same evidence. He should be permanently banned from Wikipedia. Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 18:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Brews Ohare is not a bad person, but simply doesn't get it
Brews Ohare is not a fringer, but he simply doesn't get it. He comes across (to me at least) as someone who understands 95% of something, but pushes (in good faith) for things based on the 5% he doesn't understand. Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 18:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Brews makes overwhelming amounts of posts, making it impossible to review things even on a daily basis
Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 18:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Speed of light (Since 1 July 2009)
 * Talk:Speed of light (Since 1 July 2009)
 * Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Speed of light/Evidence
 * Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Speed of light/Evidence
 * Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Speed of light/Workshop
 * Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Speed of light/Workshop
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics (Since 1 August 2009)
 * Wavelength
 * Talk:Wavelength
 * Centrifugal force (rotating reference frame)
 * Talk:Centrifugal force (rotating reference frame)

Disruptive editing style of Brews ohare
Here I am going to initially cite evidence that is not actually part of this dispute, since I believe it is the clearest demonstration of some of the issues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Electromotive_force#Ross_quotation (and the next section of page addressed to me). Here in my comments I indicate broad support for his position but disagreed with his actions on procedural matters.

The rapid complaint about my not discussing this reversion shows a of salient issues. As noted in that page I was actually in the process of documenting my reversion immediately after performing it. The inability to wait even for 15 minutes for a proper rationale to be given is something guaranteed to annoy other editors.

In the final section of http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Speed_of_light&oldid=295418126 Brews and I discuss what I believed to be a fairly straightforward issue: namely how a definition of the speed of light does not remove the requirement for a measurement of the speed of light. After a discussion the argument then morphs to arguing the premises of the BIPM definition, without reference to sources, and indeed advancing a view in contradiction to them.

However what was already a time-consuming discussion (albeit one that I was happy to take part in) was essentially completely ignored a few days later when Brews' began a new section in the same talk page bringing up exactly the same arguments again and in essentially identical terms. CrispMuncher (talk) 07:08, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

David Tombe has attempted to insert fringe views into scientific articles
This happens mainly on articles devoted to centrifugal force and related physics.
 * Centrifugal force (rotating reference frame):, , , , , , , ,
 * Coriolis effect:, ,
 * Reactive centrifugal force:, ,
 * Faraday's law of induction: ,
 * Kepler's laws of planetary motion: ,
 * Centrifugal force:, , , ,

Similarly, he tries to argue that there is a debate among modern scientists on certain points when in fact there is no debate in the vast majority of the scientific community:, , , ,

David Tombe has a pattern of attempting to bypass the standard dispute resolution process
Whether he does this knowingly or out of ignorance I don't know. When I first found myself having a dispute with David, he engaged in wiki-hounding tactics against those with whom he disagreed, reverting their edits (in many cases vandalism reverts) on other pages:, , , , ,

He as also gone on multiple occasions to AN/I: In all instances, the other commenting editors said that his accusations of wiki-hounding were unfounded. I can understand going the first time, as he felt that it was a behavior problem he was facing and not a content problem. However, he continued to post complaints and despite getting the same response every single time.
 * Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive190
 * Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive537
 * Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive540

He also attempted to bypass all dispute resolution by appealing to Jimbo Wales multiple times:, , ,

David Tombe has a selective approach to reliable sources
On numerous occasions, David throws out modern references arguing that they are rubbish or bogus, that they are part of a modern conspiracy to cover up the truth , and that they have no right to reinterpret the work of the masters. In the last case, often David is the one to have first introduced the source into the debate, only to later reject its other comments which support the other side of the debate.

Twice in my interactions with David I have followed up by checking the sources he provides only to find that the statement is not supported by the source. In both instances David accused me of removing sourced material. When the discrepancy was brought to David's attention he revealed that in the first instance he only had a third hand account of what the source said, and in the second stated that he provided the wrong source because he was working from memory. Despite these revelations, David still maintained the accusation of removing sourced material.

David Tombe has a long pattern of incivility when dealing with others
This behavior usually takes the form basic incivility and lack of assuming good faith, comparing other editors to the "thought police" or accusing them of editting as part of a conspiracy to cover up the truth: Only occasionally does it escalate to outright personal attacks: David has been warned about this behavior multiple times:
 * ,, , ,
 * ,
 * , ,
 * Wikiquette_alerts/archive67

David Tombe apparently engaged in sock or meat puppetry in this arbitration and disputes
During this arbitration, Tombe claims that circumstances can justify sock puppetry and block evasion. Tombe said using another "username" to evade a block was justified because he "didn't think that the three month block was fair. I felt that I had been victimized for being against a majority." Persuasive circumstantial evidence indicates that, consistent with this belief, Tombe sock or meat puppeted in this arbitration and in disputes.

In Tombe's Kangaroo Court discussion, 3 IPs argued for Tombe: Jehochman asked #1 to "declare any affiliation you may have with any of the parties to this case, such as if they asked you to comment here". Despite obvious concern about puppetry, Tombe objected: "What is amazing is the concern that has been expressed regarding the identity behind the mask." He equated questioning the IP with asking for TotientDragooned's realworld identity.

Added 13:11, 7 October 2009 (UTC): At Workshop, under the heading "Grievous personal attacks", IP popped up out of nowhere to post a sarcastic comment in support of Tombe's position at 03:29, 7 October 2009. This IP address is not in the same range as Tombe's so-called "Lone Ranger". The probability is vanishing small that a second previously uninvolved IP user would find the Workshop page in this arbitration unless guided here by an involved party, or unless it is Tombe' sock puppet. PLEASE NOTE: I struck this out because the Clerk thoroughly investigated this incident and concluded that it was neither sock nor meat puppetry. Finell (Talk) 00:52, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

In the August 2009 AN/I leading to Tombe's page ban
 * diatribed against Jehochman, then edited the Speed of light lead, contrary to consensus and physics as we know it, to injected Tombe's pseudoscientific POV that the 1983 metre definition ("international agreement" in the edit) changed the speed of light's role as a physical constant, and that relativity is disputed in science ("different interpretations of" modern physics).
 * posted [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=309589752 this. Not even Wikipedia's worst critics would agree with this condemnation of the project, and certainly not that "the conspiracy of editors is to keep the errors and misstatements in the articles".

Others traced the "Kangaroo Court" and AN/I IPs to Virginia. Despite geographic separation, Tombe's England and VA are neighbors with technology, including remote control of a computer in VA (sockpuppetry) or meatpuppetry by emailing or phoning someone in VA. Neither Tombe nor the IPs answered Jehochman's question about affiliation "such as if they asked you to comment here".

Virginia IPs supported Tombe in other AN/I's and disputes over centrifugal force when he was outnumbered by administrators and consensus:


 * 18 July 2009:
 * 15 July 2009:
 * 23 July 2008:
 * 23 July 2008:
 * 29 April 2008:

The content is classic Tombe, but more vituperative.

Tombe attributes all this to someone he calls the Lone Ranger. Probability is small that, without guidance, a casual IP with no other known Wikipedia participation would find this arbitration's Workshop subpage talk, AN/Is, or Tombe's talk page disputes.

Sock or meat puppetry when the chips are down would be consistent Tombe's proven sock puppetry (see next section).

David Tombe's proven sockpuppetry and block evasion
David Tombe had multiple episodes of proven sockpuppetry and block evasion February 2007 – 30 September 2008. Tombe's block log shows that 9 days after the last incident, his last pre-arbitration block was lifted. Therefore, lack sockpuppetry for the past year does not evidence a renunciation of the practice.


 * 28–30 September 2008: Used 3 IP socks to evade his indefinite block for block evasion and sockpuppetry!


 * 25 August – 4 September 2008: During same indefinite block, used to masquerade as an anon complaining about sanctions against Tombe and edit other pages.


 * 25 August 2008: Blocked indefinitely for checkuser-confirmed block evasion using sockpuppets:


 * 15–18 August 2008: Used following IPs here to evade block and masquerade as anons opposing Tombe's block:
 * Ned Scott answered, "From what I've read so far, Fyzix isn't doing anything wrong, and David got blocked for edit warring over some unsourced information."


 * 10 March – 24 April 2008: Sockpuppeted using .here.


 * 10 February 2007 (before he retistered): Found to have used multiple IPs to edit war (at Centrifugal force and Fictitious force), evade WP:3RR, and evade block at AN/I. This AN/I also sums up Tombe's disruptive editing, belligerent attitude toward admins and editors, and fringe point of view about modern physics.

Although not confirmed, during 21–23 May 2008, Tombe apparently used as  sockpuppet to pretend that "another" editor supported Tombe position in disputes.

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