Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of notable textbooks in statistical mechanics


 * 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, but the consensus seems to be it should be brought back here and deleted if the referencing issues are not immediately addressed. Yomangani talk 00:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

List of notable textbooks in statistical mechanics
This article is either an indiscriminate index (all statistical mechanics textbooks) or original research (deciding which is notable). Wikipedia is not an address book, a phone book, or a book directory, nor is it supposed to be an arbiter of what is notable, isntead relying on others to judge that. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:08, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom although it seems a shame to lose this list. Could it be transwikied to Wikibooks? --Richard 05:43, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment: such a type of information would be very useful if maintained by experts. Perhaps stable version will allow to keep such lists. Pavel Vozenilek 23:04, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep: providing a scholarly bibliography is encyclopaedic. Such a bibliography must necessarily be selective.  Note further that there are articles throughout WP on "important publications in subject X", and this is encouraged.  If Night Gyr has issues with the inclusion of particular titles, or the non-inclusion of other titles, this is a very valid matter for discussion, and the talk page provides an appropriate forum.  I believe that, with appropriate discussion, metrics could be established to solidify criteria for inclusion or non-inclusion.  Deletion should be reserved for articles which are not valuable and for which there is no likely prospect of improvement.  On the contrary, this article is useful; it is on-topic for WP; and IMO concerns raised about inclusion criteria can substantially be addressed.  It should remain, and be improved. Jheald 02:15, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment: Statistical mechanics, and its presentation, is important and practical; but it is also nuanced and subtle. Perspectives on these details are important: they can lead to new understandings, and gross misunderstandings; they can be really quite deep issues in the philosophy of physics and the history of science; and they can still lead to quite vehement debate (see some of the recent discussion on Talk:Entropy for example!).  It is scientifically interesting (and encyclopaedic) to see what were the dominant presentations in their time, and how different presentations have evolved.  Hence this list of references.  There might be other texts which could be added, but I would submit that, certainly up to 1970, all of the texts on the list deserve inclusion without a hint of POV -- being seen either as the very bible of the subject in their time, or at the very least as one of the lead texts for teaching it.  Many of them still are (on both counts).  For the titles afer 1970, IMO Penrose and Landsberg deserve inclusion for being very distinctive in their approaches; Ruelle for really opening up a new direction with the rigour of his approach and results.  The others are I believe a representative cross-section of the most cited, most prevalent and most recommended mainstream textbooks in leading teaching universities in this field.  This could be validated quantitatively with appropriate further investigation. Jheald 03:33, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment(2): One thing the article could perhaps use is sentences for titles to say what makes them notable, and worthy of inclusion. This might substantially resolve Night Gyr's issues with it. Jheald 03:44, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
 * That sentence needs to be a reference to another source, or else we are doing original research. All of the keep votes so far have spoken about the books from their personal experience, and no one has cited a source that identifies these as important works. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:10, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep - All the books on the list that I am familiar with are on my A list, and, as mentioned above, as long as it does not become a battleground, I say keep it. PAR 04:42, 8 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep. You bring up an interesting question of WP:NOR for such a list.  That is, who says these authors and books are notable?  We just kind of grow up with the idea that these authors and books are notable--because these authors and books appear over and over in the bibliographies of the books we use in our work.  Isn't that right?  I would be surprised if any of the listed books is not referenced and therefore notable in McQuarrie's 2000 Second Edition.  Should the WP:RS for the whole list be McQuarrie's 2000 Second Edition?  And surely McQuarrie's 2000 Second Edition is notable because it is already in the Second Edition.  A book with only one typo so full of mathematical formulas and proofs that sells so well to graduate students eager to find a typo makes it very notable, does it not?  The suggestion of a few sentences characterizing each book is a good suggestion.  Someone could quote the appropriate sentences from each author's own preface, explaining the author's particular concern and targeted audience.  What do you think?  --Rednblu 18:43, 8 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep or portalize (to a sub-page of Portal:Physics. --Pjacobi 19:43, 8 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep. Is there some way a sentence or two could be added about each work? While I'd like to see the list kept, and I am glad to see that others want to keep it as well, it's clear that lists are under pressure across WP and even this one may not survive future deletion debates... Just a few comments: (1) There are unreasonably many ISBNs for some works (like Kubo's). (2) It may be that someone will have the time to add pointers to book reviews for these books. That could make the list much more useful. Even a one or two-sentence summary of what some reviewer said could be helpful.  (3) Integrating the listed books into a history of statistical mechanics, while a great deal of work, would permanently forestall any criticism of its 'listiness'. EdJohnston 15:54, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'd have no problem with this list if we could cite some sort of review that establishes their importance. as it is now, all we have to go on is wikipedians' opinions, which is OR. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:02, 9 October 2006 (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.