Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Schrödinger's cat in popular culture (2nd nomination)


 * 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. There's clearly no consensus for deletion here. Merging to Schrödinger's cat seems like a reasonable solution, one which should definitely be considered, but there's no consensus for that either. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 15:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Schrödinger's cat in popular culture
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This is monolithic listcruft. It's possibly the largest indiscriminate collection of incoherent trivia on Wikipedia. This article is just a catalog of instances of a popular thought experiment in popular media (as such, it makes about as much sense as a page like the sorties paradox in popular culture or the sound of one hand clapping in popular culture). Valuless, and impossible to make encyclopedic through revision, the article's fate must be: delete. Auspex1729 (talk) 02:51, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Not indiscriminate at all. Needs some format work, too much bold in it. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:31, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The article is a compilation of every instance of Schrödinger's cat encountered by the page's authors. That's the short definition of indiscriminate. The external links on that page are for LOLCats.  How is that "not indiscriminate"? Auspex1729 (talk) 03:46, 4 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep When notable cultural artifacts,  are used as significant elements in notable fiction and other notable cultural phenomena, then a discussion of them is encyclopedic. All that is necessary is to show that the activity or artifact is used in a significant way, and this can be appropriately referenced to the fictional work directly.   Many of the ones here are clearly   used in significant ways.  This argument is all the stronger  when the cultural artifact is actually of fundamental importance to the scientific world-view, and represents the popular understanding of it. Some may possibly represent an misunderstanding of the science, but that too is characteristic of popular culture.    "Just a thought-experiment" !  The most famous thought experiment since Heraclitus's river and Buridan's ass. Both of these i.p.c. would make good articles, as would the two mentioned by the nominator.  The nom claims on his user page to practice "extreme article deletion", and has apparently set out to prove it.  The appropriate response would be a snow close, which might help discourage him from carrying out the agenda found there.  DGG (talk) 03:42, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. Unless sources can be adduced that specifically and substantively treat the article's topic (the uses of Schrödinger's cat in popular culture), this is original research synthesized from primary sources. The only sources currently referenced in the article (aside from Schrödinger's own words) are a TV-show script and a bunch of Web comics that refer to the cat-in-a-box; none of them (including the Schrödinger source) establish the notability of, or discuss in any way, the article's topic. Deor (talk) 15:09, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Transwiki and delete as a violation of WP:SYNTH. None of the sources are about the article subject; they are examples of the article subject as per the personal judgment of Wikipedia editors, which is original research via synthesis. *** Crotalus *** 15:55, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Notable and encyclopedic. ChildofMidnight (talk) 16:03, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge to Schrödinger's cat. Argue all one might that Schrödinger's cat is a physics concept, it is (in my opinion) better known (and misunderstood) in the popular mind. Really, Schrödinger's cat should be merged to this article, but that would be too funny for Wikipedia. The Schrödinger's cat article must treat the popular conception of the idea, which it currently does not because of this content fork. Abductive  (reasoning) 22:13, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete WP:OR Wefa (talk) 22:38, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete, Nonnotable; don't be fooled by fake references to primary sources. Mintrick (talk) 00:39, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep but Merge - as abductive points out above, Schrödinger's cat is a popular interpretation of a physics concept. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:19, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. While the "merge" arguments are plausible, the existing article on the gedankenexperiment is coherent and well-focused, virtues that would be lost if material with such a disparate tone was to be added in. Agree generally with DGG. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 04:14, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete All of the prose that could merit this being its own article is unsourced and looks to be original research. Find sources that described the topic of "Schrödinger's cat in popular culture" first, then you have grounds for an article. Also, goes without saying there's tons of listcruft. WesleyDodds (talk) 07:43, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. Mostly unsourced list of WP:TRIVIA. Much of this is simply not notable. Some of this material could pass some criterium of inclusion to WP, and could perhaps be added to the main article, but the subject is not notable enough for its own article. Offliner (talk) 12:46, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - obviously notable popular culture concept from the vast number and reliability of sources. Agreed that it needs extensive trimming. Bearian (talk) 16:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, no. What is sourced in the article is the definition of what Schrödinger's cat is (whihc you should get from Schrödinger's cat), and some references in specific fictional works (mainly by directly linking webcomic pages). This does not establish the notability of "Schrödinger's cat in popular culture". WesleyDodds (talk) 22:44, 5 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete as cruft-laden, IPC trivia. Eusebeus (talk) 13:44, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep I had no difficulty adding a citation, so refuting the nomination's premise that the article cannot be improved. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:07, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * You may want to double-check that reference. Page 7 of the book you cited contains no mention of Schrödinger's cat, science fiction, popular culture, or anything at all in the sentence it's supposedly being used as a source for. Deor (talk) 20:25, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * It's page 34. Colonel Warden (talk) 22:28, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Usually Colonel Warden's sources aren't any good, but this one seems on the money. I still really want a merge, though. Abductive  (reasoning) 22:39, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * You get what you pay for. I usually only search for a minute or so and don't use expensive services like Lexis.  The point is not to turn up good material as AFD is not a GA review.  Instead, the point is merely to establish that a topic is not a hopeless case and so that deletion is not the best way forward, per our deletion policy.  If there are references to a topic out there then deletion is usually inappropriate because the article name is a useful search term and so redirection/merger is a better outcome than deletion.  If editors would follow our policy in this regard we could save an awful lot of time here. Colonel Warden (talk) 23:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep It could serve as a nice complement to a future "spoons in popular culture" article which consists of an exhaustive list of movies, television shows, books, and songs in which spoons are used in some manner.Ekwos (talk) 22:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep A valid popular culture article, showing how something notable has appeared in various notable works over time.  D r e a m Focus  00:51, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete or merge anything useful. Why can't people actually make proper sections out of these? Solid paragraphs with actual sources beat trivial lists any day. It already has a decent base that could be used. TTN (talk) 01:05, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * keep nicely done pop culture article about a major physics subject.--Paul McDonald (talk) 04:31, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * keep notable subject in popular culture. Artw (talk) 05:21, 7 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Notable, makes sense as an article-current content/cruftiness aside.  Chzz  ►  13:11, 7 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Merge to Schrodinger's Cat. Yes, it's important to note the physics thought experiment has penetrated the pop culture, but there's a good amount of WP:OR going on here - even if sourced. EG: just name-dropping Schrodinger is not a significant factor, though the fact it has been name-dropped is important, and about 50% of this list can be turned into a statement that "Schrodinger is often used as a name for a cat or other aspect in reference to the physics thought experiment" and that "Many popular culture works use the "Schrodinger's Cat" idea to gloss over the theory of quantum mechanics to the general reader." However, listing each and every name-drop of SC is just not discriminate. --M ASEM  (t) 12:03, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep although extensive trimming and copyediting is needed. The article starts out good then just fades into listcruft -- Cabe  6403  (Talk•Sign) 20:25, 9 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.