Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John A. Smolin


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

John A. Smolin

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Notability not established against WP:PROF. A number of papers are listed in Google Scholar with Smolin contributing; none of these establishes notability. The Quantiki article does not establish that inventing the phrase mentioned makes "significant impact" in the field of Physics as would be needed to meet WP:PROF. Ash (talk) 13:47, 18 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. Quantum cryptography appears to be a significant field, and having performed the first experiment(s) in the field in association with a noted theorist should be enough to demonstrate notability. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 15:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * IF X "appears" significant and person Y "appears" to be a leading figure in X, that doesn't meet the criteria really. Are there a lot of third party sources that establish him as an important figure in this field?  Dmz5  *Edits**Talk* 21:14, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * That's one about twice the use of "appears" than I actually committed; the only reason I used the word is that I can't understand most of the quantum stuff and could be easily fooled by a hoax or a hobbyhorse. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 01:31, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * As a researcher in nearby topics, I can say that quantum crypto is a serious and fairly large field (e.g. search for the term on google scholar, or see the partial list of companies working on it in the wikipedia entry), and the Bennett-Smolin experiment was definitely important. However, Smolin is better known in the community for his theory work, and in particular his work on entanglement (some of which is mentioned below).  His personal contributions might not be obvious because of the convention of alphabetical author ordering, but the paper with 2000+ cites is mostly based on his PhD dissertation, so I think it's fair to credit him with that. (In case it's relevant I'll mention that I know both John Smolin and Graeme Smith (gsbsmith), and have co-authored one paper together with Smolin and two other researchers in 2002.) --Aram.harrow (talk) 21:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. His two most cited papers in Google Scholar ( and both in Phys Rev A) are cited 2196 and 1388 times, which compares favorably with the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (5556 citations) and Teleportation (4519 citations) papers. His H index as computed from Google Scholar is 28.   The most highly cited paper is referred to as groundbreaking and the cause of much subsequent research in the Wikipedia article on Entanglement Distillation.  Two extremely highly cited works together with a large number of highly cited works (as reflected by an H-index of 28) unambiguously establish notability according to criterion 1 of WP:PROF.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gsbsmith (talk • contribs) 14:22, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - He appears to have made significant contributions to his field. Thanks, Gsbsmith. Gary (talk) 23:33, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * This appears to be sock puppetry, no? This isn't necessarily a reason to delete the article, but it was created by a (so far) single purpose user who now appears to be trying to puff up this discussion.  - Dmz5  *Edits**Talk* 00:46, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * No. I think you've misread him. He's thanking Gsbsmith for writing the article, and has a long edit history of his own. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 01:33, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Ahh you're totally right. I completely misread it the signature.  I see so many clumsy attempts at ballot stuffing that I am too much on the lookout for them.  My apologies.  Could somebody cross out my comment, I forget how to do that!  Dmz5  *Edits**Talk* 02:33, 20 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  --  Fabrictramp  |  talk to me  01:36, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. On the basis of the GS cites this appears to be the most inappropriate article yet to be proposed for AfD. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:19, 21 August 2009 (UTC).
 * Keep. Per Gsbsmith, a clear pass of WP:PROF #1. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:23, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Official stats from Web of Science. The subject has three physics journal articles with 800+ citations (1663, 941, 859) over 13 years and 5,292 citations for all papers included in WoS. With all my intrinsic skepticism, I must acknowledge this as way beyond ordinary in physics. Materialscientist (talk) 03:48, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Snow keep per all of the above. --Crusio (talk) 07:44, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Snow Keep. Second Crusio's motion. Double-checked and confirm Materialscientist's WoS search. These stats put this guy in the very upper-most tier of physicists. If he stays on his current trajectory, he's likely to be elected to NAS in the future. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 17:30, 21 August 2009 (UTC).
 * Keep. I have tremendous respect for anyone who coins a term as brilliant as Church of the Larger Hilbert Space. On a serious note, his publications are highly cited. --Robin (talk) 18:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep as per Materialscientist. Edward321 (talk) 15:44, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.