Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Structure of the Physical Universe


 * 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 delete. No evidence of notability of this book has been found during this discussion and their are good arguments against keeping even a redirect. Given the lack of sources, merging content to the article on the author does not seem to be a good option either (although it can be mentioned (as opposed to discussed) in that article, but for that it is not necessary to keep the history of the present article. Randykitty (talk) 10:38, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

The Structure of the Physical Universe

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book of no importance whatsoever, possibly a redirect to the author but I thin it would be a confusing redirect, and therefore best deleted altogether. Despite some cleanup, the article is still a paraphrase of, which the copied material merely put into quotation marks.  DGG ( talk ) 23:08, 30 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment - DGG, may I know why you consider The Structure of the Physical Universe to be a "book of no importance whatsoever"? If we are going to have a discussion rather than an arbitrary decision by a higher-level Wikipedian, I would hope and expect opinions to be backed up by facts. SPU is a rare and rather obscure book, indeed, but one of key importance in the history of science. Yes, I have paraphrased the key quotes, which explain how the book came to be written. The point is that the starting point was the very modest goal of deriving observed inter-atomic distances from theoretical premises and the conclusions about the fundamental relationship between space and time, which became the basis of Larson’s later work, was the result of that decades-long labor, and laborious it was before the age of the calculator; Larson only had a slide rule to work with. The idea that space and time are reciprocals of one another, and hence that time is three-dimensional, like space is not something he just dreamed up one day; it was a consequence of those decades spent with his slide rule, and he ran into many dead ends, after years spent pursuing hunches that turned out to be mistaken, and had to start all over. I can go further in the process of describing the origins of the theory without quoting the preface if that is deemed desirable. But the book is without exaggeration on the level of Newton’s Principia in importance as far as the advancement of physical theory is concerned. It is very condensed and rather tough going, admittedly, but the Principia is not easy going either. At least SPU is written in English. :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pictorex (talk • contribs) 23:40, 30 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep, the book seems to be opus magnum of an author who appears to have some ardent followers, even if niche - but article itself needs serious work per WP:IINFO, book summaries alone are not sufficient to keep. Redirect to author and summarise there, per arguments of other editors here.  kashmiri TALK  23:59, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete Worldcat has it in only 259 libraries worldwide. Not a 'major work' nor widely held. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:03, 31 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep, though issued in a small print run and was not widely distributed, it was not self-published; it was published by subscription, i.e., based on advance sales. Its notability consists in marking the public emergence of a new axiomatic system of physical theory, which by the 1970’s gained a sizable following, when a society was founded that held annual conferences and published a quarterly journal. Some of Larson’s lectures at these conferences are available on youtube.User:Pictorex


 * Weak delete - if the work truly is, "on the level of Newton’s Principia in importance as far as the advancement of physical theory is concerned" then sources attesting to that fact, citing the book and summarising it to explain other related concepts should be easy to find. If such sources can be produced then I will reconsider.  St ★ lwart 1 1 1 02:14, 31 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete. If this was serious science, it would have been published in reputable journals such as Physical Review. It is therefore pseudo-science. We do have articles on pseudo-science topics, but they have to have widely noted and this one does not seem to be. Some of it could be in the article on the author, but I agree with the nominator that a redirect is not justified. -- Bduke   (Discussion)  03:49, 31 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep, as it is not the mission of Wikipedia to pass judgment on the correctness of a given publication or theory. For example, the many worlds interpretation of QM is rank pseudoscience by any conceivable criterion, but still deemed respectable and worthy of inclusion due to its notoriety. The Reciprocal System is sufficiently widely noted to meet Wikipedia standards, and I will edit the article in the next few days to document the fact.User:Pictorex
 * You've already said "Keep". Don't !vote multiple times. &mdash;Al E.(talk) 19:24, 31 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Redirect to author with history. I found one review in a peer review journal, but not really anything else. The other sources in the article aren't really usable to show notability since one is a primary source and the other is an interview that doesn't appear to have been through any place we could verify. In other words, we can't entirely tell if it was by a follower, a journalist, or so on. All I can really use to show any sort of notability is the review, which isn't enough to salvage the page. There are some things here and there that assert that the book is influential, but none of these would be considered reliable sources as they're all essentially self-published or reprints of past Wikipedia articles. At this point in time the article for the author does brush upon the overall theory that Larson pioneered (Reciprocal System of Theory), which is really what he's known for. The 1959 edition of the book was the start of this, but the RST is what he's pretty much known for. Until we have more sources to show notability for this specific book, I don't know that this really warrants an article outside of the main article at this point in time. However I see no harm in letting this redirect with history, since there is the possibility that there are sources in RS that do exist but aren't on the Internet. If/when those sources surface and pass muster, there would be an article history to pull from. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   05:18, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Redirect to author (changed from delete above, per User:Tokyogirl79). Stuartyeates (talk) 07:20, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to agree with DGG that such a redirect might be confusing but I have no strong objection to that course of action.  St ★ lwart 1 1 1 09:36, 31 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment: I've just tagged the author's article for notability and needing third party sources. Stuartyeates (talk) 18:54, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

I am continually editing the article to take account of criticisms on this forum. In particular the introductory summation has been shortened and all quotations removed. A review by a prominent Italian astronomer in a peer-reviewed publication has been added, with a link to the original journal page. I shall be making further changes over the coming days so that the article meets all relevant Wikipedia criteria.Pictorex (talk) 22:12, 31 December 2014 (UTC)Pictorex
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:32, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:33, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Good, that's one of the uses of deletion discussions. However, the way you added the citation makes it next to impossible to trace to the journal - it would be helpful to put all such citations in the   format. Regards,  kashmiri  TALK  14:06, 2 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete and question the article on the author. This book has been cited 17 times in GScholar, but 3 of those are by the author himself, and the remaining cites are from a "journal" (actually a web site) hosted by the author himself. He also has an "international Society of Unified Science" that holds an annual meeting with six people. I can find no reliable sources about this person, the organization, or the book from third-party sources, other than the Journal of Molecular Structure book review. IMO, it's not enough to know that the book review exists - we should see what it says. Could someone with access post it somewhere? Also, according to Highbeam, North Pacific publishers "Publishes principally the books and papers of Dewey B. Larson. Reaches market through direct mail and International Society of Unified Science. Presently inactive. Currently distributes the books and papers of Dewey B. Larson. Does not accept unsolicited manuscripts." In other words, it's Larson himself, publishing his own works. LaMona (talk) 18:02, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Rather his ghost. The guy has been dead for 25 years now.  kashmiri TALK  18:17, 2 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete: Lack of substantial coverage in multiple reliable independent secondary sources. Coverage in reliable sources is rather scant, and my own searches turned up nothing promising. Seems to be mentioned almost entirely by unreliable in-universe fringe sources. Nothing worth merging or saving. Also think the article on the author should be deleted as well for the same reasons. Wikipedia is not a WP:SOAPBOX for proponents of fringe "science". Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:00, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Redirect to author I have to agree with DGG, it has no scientific value and is an example of crackpot theory. It is nevertheless interesting and I hope someone briefly describes the contents of his books within the context of the author's article. --I am One of Many (talk) 07:19, 6 January 2015 (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.