Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2014 February 17

= February 17 =

Transformer
According to the transformer article, an ideal transformer has no resultant flux in the core. How, then, does the primary induce a voltage in the secondary by virtue of flux linkages and the induction law? This has always puzzled me.--86.168.108.70 (talk) 01:59, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I may be misunderstanding something but the transformer article says about ideal transformers: Flux is confined within the magnetic core. Therefore, it is the same flux that links the input and output windings. Is that the same thing as saying "no resultant flux"? Vespine (talk) 02:36, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * It does say Permeability of the core is infinitely high which implies that net mmf (amp-turns) must be zero, which means that H (magnetic field strength) but not B (magnetic flux density) must be zero. This may be what you were thinking of, and does not introduce the flux linkage problem that you refer to. —Quondum 06:12, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Er, B=uH doesnt it? So no H gives no B and hence no dB/dt so no flux lnkages so no sec voltage. So that cant be how a transfprmer works, can it?--86.168.108.70 (talk) 15:32, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The implication here is that u is infinite so that B has a value. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 19:59, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes but from previous assumption of zero H (becuase mmf=0) then B= ∞*0. Work that one out!--86.168.108.70 (talk) 22:02, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * It is not my interpretation that B is zero, so we still have well-defined nonzero dB/dt, which couples the voltages in the primary and secondary. H is zero, which corresponds the currents in the two windings matching exactly. —Quondum 00:34, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * If you have a problem with the indeterminate expression, simply think of µ as very very big. That sidesteps the calculation problem while giving you "almost ideal" results. —Quondum 04:22, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah. So if u is very very big (ie tends to infinity) and H=0, what is B then? The fact that B is caused by H and H is zero should make it obvious that B is also zero.--86.168.108.70 (talk) 15:40, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * it is my intention to try to move this discussion onto thr Transformer article talk page. Does anyone object to this? 109.144.132.3 (talk) 01:56, 19 February 2014 (UTC)j
 * It would not be appropriate to do so. An article's talk page is for discussing the article content, not for tutorials about its interpretation. You do not appear to have grounds for suggesting changes to the article. —Quondum 04:59, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * But the above discussion does have a bearing on the articles content: namely that the explanation of operation of a transformer is wrong because it states that induction is the method of energy transfer. There is no induction when the secondary is loaded as flux linkages are miniscule in such a system.--86.168.108.70 (talk) 13:28, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The maximum flux in the core occurs when the transformer is idle (open-circuit secondary). As load is taken, the flux in the core reduces, ideally to zero when impedances match.  There is still a flux linkage between primary and secondary, even when the flux in the core is zero, or when there is no core present.    D b f i r s   09:36, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Desert agriculture
In general, is it common for non-cold deserts to be productive farmland if irrigated? With amusement I note locations such as 26.31667°N, 43.53333°W, massive areas of center-pivot irrigation in the Saudi Arabian deserts. However, like anywhere else, you have to consider the soil: do most temperate or tropical deserts worldwide have the right nutrients and other factors to permit extensive agriculture when water is added, or is it more common that the soil simply can't be farmed productively? I didn't see anything on the subject in Desert farming or Arid-zone agriculture, let alone in the broader Desert article. Nyttend (talk) 02:46, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * California's central valley is sometimes described as an irrigated desert - especially now that our state is in severe drought! So, (knowing that our best resource for regional agriculture outreach is at Davis), I went straight to University of California at Davis's soil science webpage.  A few clicks on the site brought a wealth of great resources, not the least of which are an easy-to-use interface to California, Arizona, and Nevada statewide soil quality databases.  They even have an iPhone app so you can check the soil where-ever you are!  The raw data is also available for the lower 48 states, from the United States Department of Agriculture's NCSS database, but that data is harder for me to interpret (untrained as I am in soil science).  Point is, they've put together a very high quality set of tools, software, web services, and reports and maps - and they even define terms (like soil water capacity and soil pH, in the context of agricultural soil quality).  Nimur (talk) 05:46, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Desert soils are commonly high in phosphate and potassium, two key nutrients. They tend to be low in fixed nitrogen, and often have factors that impair plant growth, such as salt, highly alkaline soil, or poor drainage.  The upshot is that in most cases it isn't simply a matter of planting things and watering them, but the soils can be made productive if treated correctly. Looie496 (talk) 14:58, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * A large part of desertification in North Africa, Central Asia, and the Levant was caused by overgrazing by goats and livestock which led to soil erosion. Lebanon was once densely wooded, and Canaan was the land of milk and honey.  As Looie mentions, the lack of fixed nitrogen is an issue.  There have been projects to use things like mixing in crude oil to stabilize what soils there are so the will hold seedlings and moisture, and to plant crops that fix their own nitrogen.  I suspect the low return on agriculture in oil rich oligarchies compared to the ease of just importing food has been the main cause this has not succeeded, but agriculture in Israel should prove a profitable comparison. μηδείς (talk) 17:22, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * In many of the drier parts of Australia, adding water worked for a while, then massive problems arose because of salinity. Large areas of land are now less useful than they were before water was added. HiLo48 (talk) 23:40, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Note that there may well be a difference between true desert (rolling sand dunes and such) and xeric shrubland, which, unlike desert, has more plant life and is probably more useful as cropland once water is added. StuRat (talk) 03:38, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Proof of Earth going around Sun (serious)
26% of Americans were unsure and there is a smug backlash from armchair scientists.

However what simple experiments can we do on earth to prove it.

The Faucault Pendulum will show the spin of the earth but not prove that the Earth goes around the Sun.

I am after a simple earth based experiment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.171.59.115 (talk) 11:18, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I suspect the answer to this will depend on your definition of 'proof'. For astronomers, the fact that a heliocentric model explains the observed motion of planets in a simpler way than a geocentric one is good enough - especially if one assumes that the motion can be (near enough for most purposes) explained by a Newtonian understanding of gravity - and this needs no experimental apparatus beyond ones own eyes, good 'seeing' (i.e. away from light pollution), the ability to recognise specific planets and stars, and plenty of time to accumulate the data. With a good enough telescope, it should also be possible to observe stellar parallax - and you could do this over six months or so. I can't think of a 'simple earth based experiment' that doesn't involve astronomy though. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:37, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * If you want to know how to educate 26% of Americans about any misconception, and you find a way to do it, you should at the very least be appointed as secretary of education, if not elected president. If you encounter one or two people who aren't sure if the Earth orbits the Sun, you will have to clarify exactly what their conception of the solar system is. The experiments needed to resolve their misconception will depend on what misconceptions they hold. Observations of the phases of Venus and Mars with a reasonable telescope could demonstrate those planets orbit the Sun; lots of people, after seeing that, would be willing to make the leap to the conclusion that Earth does too. Jc3s5h (talk) 11:45, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Andy, Stellar Parallax is the best answer I think. The phases of the planets could be described by the Ptolemaic model. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.171.59.115 (talk) 12:33, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * It would be really cool if a high school could manage to tune into a space probe on another planet and (among other things!) measure the change in lightspeed delay as Earth moves in its orbit. Unfortunately, this really seems to be at the high edge of the best amateur radio capabilities . Wnt (talk) 13:40, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Looking through a telescope at the moons of Jupiter might help to show the possibility. I am a bit sad that nowadays children never see the workings of an actual motor, don't mix chemicals together and a computer is just a black box. No wonder they have no idea of the need for physical laws as well as the social ones of Facebook and Twitter. Dmcq (talk) 13:50, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

The fact that heliocentrism wasn't generally accepted until he 18th century shows that it isn't that easy to prove. The measurements of solar parallax taken during the Transit of Venus prove it but it's not that easy to convince a skeptic using that sort of proof. Are we talking about people that don't believe it or does that figure include those who are just confused? Richerman   (talk) 14:10, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

It might not be bad to take a step back and double check whether this is a meaningful belief in the first place. After all, if we leave out the rotation, the Earth is pretty much an object at rest in spacetime, with various things moving relative to it, or vice versa, as is the Sun. Sure, if you want to be a stickler about it there's half a part in ten million of solar tide fouling things up, but the Sun is not completely free from tides either. Sure, the other objects in the system revolve essentially around the Sun, with very little contribution from the Earth, but that's not actually the same as saying that the Sun is "the stationary body", it's just saying it's the one with the gravity that pulls things around. I wonder if the 25% are reflecting to some degree thinking like this, which I don't think is ignorant, even if they haven't thought about it much or put it into words. Wnt (talk) 14:47, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * (ec)If you're setting out to prove this fact to 26 percent of the American public, you would first need to prove to them why it matters. Does the issue of a geocentric vs. heliocentric system have any impact on their daily lives? I suspect the answer would be No. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:48, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Sherlock Holmes expresses a similar view in A Study in Scarlet. “What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.” MChesterMC (talk) 15:37, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * And what's the counter to that argument? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:20, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The counter argument is the accumulation of knowledge for its own sake is what makes us fundamentally human. If you're only concern is survival (and for some it genuinely is, see Maslow's heirarchy of needs), then no, it isn't important.  But insofar as being a genuine person and one who wishes to live the human live to the fullest potential, then knowing stuff to know it is enough of a motivation.  -- Jayron  32  16:28, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree. The question is, how do you convince the 26 percent? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:58, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Set up a society where they have their lower-order needs met, per Maslow. To be fair, more than about 100 or so years ago, that 74% of the population had advanced to the point where they were prepared to be lifelong learners rather than living at a subsistance level is quite an advancement.  Before we get to the 100% point, people need to be more secure in their day-to-day life situation, and their basic physical needs should be able to be met.  -- Jayron  32  17:29, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I'd say to Holmes (who may not care much about being "fundamentally human") that it's impossible to know that some datum will never be useful; and that understanding any system can improve your repertoire of metaphors, which are an important tool in forming conjectures. —Tamfang (talk) 20:06, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I suppose the most obviously direct way to do this is to look at the motion of the other planets. If you look at the path they take across the sky over many months, it's a very bizarre looping pattern.   If the Earth was at the center, then the planets would be undergoing some pretty amazing forces to cause them to slow down, stop, reverse direction and so forth.  If we believe in Newton's laws of motion, then we'd have to ask where these enormous forces (enough to stop Jupiter in it's path and make it go backwards!) are coming from.  When you place the Sun at the center and plot the motion of the planets from it's perspective, then they all go around the sky in nice nearly-circular paths.


 * This image, for example: http://www.nakedeyeplanets.com/jupiter.htm shows that (from the perspective of Earth) last last year, Jupiter started slowing down - it halved in speed from September to October, halved again by November, stopped dead in the sky in mid-December, then moved BACKWARDS through January and February this year - stopping again in March, and then accelerating away in April and May.  If the Earth is not accelerating, then the force required to do that has to come from somewhere...and the amount of energy required is an ungodly amount because Jupiter is by far the heaviest object in the solar system after the sun!


 * The problem with that is that it requires people who need DIRECT proof to look at where some particular planet is in the sky at the same time every night for maybe a year and carefully plot that against the background of the stars in order to see these reversals. It also requires that they understand Newton's laws of motion - and that they actually believe in them.  The people who have trouble believing all of this stuff have trouble understanding that you can't extract energy from magnets to get perpetual motion and that evolution and global warming are "real".  If you can't grasp the difference between a force and energy or a velocity and an acceleration - and if you can't pursuade them of the value of careful scientific observation - then you simply can't teach them what they need to know to do the experiment and interpret the results.


 * These people (in essence) reject the scientific method - and that makes proving anything VERY difficult indeed. If everything is taken on faith, and on the basis of what you simply imagine to be true - then you're going to be wrong about most things most of the time.  That's sad - but it's how humanity operated until sometime in the mid-1700's when the power of observation and deduction really took hold.  It's unfortunate - but unsurprising - that a percentage of our population still doesn't "get it" - despite their revelry in the results of the scientific method.   If the Earth didn't go around the sun, then the laws of physics would have to be completely different in order to accomodate that - and things like television, cell phones and cars wouldn't work the way they do.  The people who disbelieve in the scientific method, oddly seem very happy to believe that all of their modern high-tech gadgets work - while simultaneously denying that the very science that produced them is correct.  You might argue that despite some engineer's profound lack of understanding about the laws of physics, that this person was none-the-less able to accidentally discover a way to make a cellphone - but the continued success in people making such high-tech gadgets while (in the view of the science-denier) simply stumbling on amazing things like flash memories (which rely on quantum effects) - defies logic.


 * Science must be VERY close to being 100% correct for such advanced engineering to actually work. If our ideas were 'off' by more than a tiny amount, we'd still be using horses and carts to get around and lighting fires on mountaintops to get rapid long distance communications.


 * I can't understand that mentality - but it's alarmingly common!


 * SteveBaker (talk) 15:29, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't need to know how electronics actually work in order to use a cellphone - I just need to know that it will work, most of the time - and to know where to take it if it stops working. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:24, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * You're missing the point. The point is that it's impossible to design and build a cellphone without knowing a heck of a lot of science - and that science has to actually work.  Obviously you don't need to understand the science in order to use the thing - but you should (logically) understand that science must represent how the universe works to a fairly decent degree in order for cellphones to exist.  If science was so drastically wrong about such critical things as how the gravitational field of the sun pulls the motion of the planets into orbits - then cellphones couldn't possibly work.   For example, the GPS system inside a modern phone has to account for the consequences of gravitational fields in general relativity in order to correct the very precise time signals that come from the GPS satellite system.   If we misunderstood gravity to the extent that we were wrong about the Earth moving around the Sun rather than vice-versa - then there is really no chance that we could have made a working GPS system using those ideas.  SteveBaker (talk) 13:45, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * No, the point is that not everyone needs to know how something really works, only a relatively small percentage do. As James Burke told us, several decades ago, in the 1800s and earlier, pretty much everyone knew pretty much how to do anything they needed to do. With advancing technology came specialization. And as specialized as we were 30-40 years ago, it's much more so now. You and I are in the 74 percent who believe in science, and could learn the details of how a cellphone works, if we wanted to - but there's no compelling reason to do so other than curiosity. The 26 either lack that curiosity or are focused on day-to-day survival, as Jayron suggests. They may think the heavens orbit the earth, and they may be wrong, but if you're going to prove them wrong you first have to prove to them why it matters more than day-to-day survival. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:24, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I did not read all the preceding replies, but I thought of Urthecast.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 17:38, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Let's try another hack at this. What does it mean to say the Earth goes around the Sun?  Basically, it means that a) the Sun is heavier than the Earth, b) the center of mass of the Solar System is closer to the Sun than the Earth, c) all planets revolve in neat ellipses, near circles, with the center of mass at one focus.  With some mumble about the three body problem and what happens when you're making an ellipse around a wobbly center of mass, I suppose... no, wait, that isn't even accurate, because moons and Trojans and plutoids and such don't care so much where the solar system's center of mass is.  Basically it's chaos over enough time, planets migrating wherever they feel like, rogues slouching toward Bedlam, etc.  But the gravity of the Sun winning out in all of it.  Now if the 25% said that they think the Sun is a god riding around in a chariot, a hole in the primum mobile or something, I'd be very concerned.  If they said they don't think the Sun is very big compared to Earth, or don't know it has gravity, I'd be worried.  But I have a feeling if you asked them, they'd have some sense that the Sun is a giant, bright ball that could eat Earths for breakfast, and as long as they know that much, the rest is philosophical and semantic detail. Wnt (talk) 21:59, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * One is impelled to refer the honourable member to The Second Coming (poem) in the interests of quotation accuracy. Tevildo (talk) 22:27, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * There are much bigger fish to fry! According to a 2012 Gallup poll, 46% of Americans admit to believing that the earth is no older then 10,000 years!! Vespine (talk) 23:22, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * For most of that 46%, that's because someone they trust told them that was the case. It's not just a random individual belief. While those doing the telling continue to tell such tales, and the masses continue to trust them, there is little hope. HiLo48 (talk) 23:35, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The proof is harder than most people might think. There are several problems. First of all, as Einstein (and Galileo before him) pointed out, all motion is relative. From this point of view, the point of view of one being stationary rather than the other is just that - a point of view. One could also say that none are stationary, but instead use Mach's principle, as Einstein did. The next step is to ask, which is the most convenient Point of view that gives the most accurate predictions to the movements in our solar system. Here is where the crux was originally. The Point of view of a fix earth gave better results than the point of view of a fix sun with planets running in circles around the sun. From an empiricists point of view, Copernicus and Galileo where simply wrong. It was not until many years later that Kepler had the inspiration of making the planets go round in ellipses that the predictions matched the numbers better than the heliocentric model. I believe there may have been small relativistic improvements after that. The points here are : 1  There is not any one model that is more "true". Kepler model is the BEST because it gives better predictions AND is easier to envision.  2. It is not that easy to prove this to a layman, unless he is willing to put a lot of effort into it. I would just show a pretty and colorful movie of the planetary system and say : Isn't that pretty?  So the question then becomes: Why have  not 1 in 4 people seen this colorful movie, and how can one see to it that everyone does? Do some people in the the US have any objections to it? I would not know, since I do not live in the US. DanielDemaret (talk) 23:56, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Today, I started looking at "Heliocentrism" and noted that some of what I wrote about Galileo and Kepler is not in that article. My source for this was an article in Sciam written in the 1980's. My subscription there does not allow me to view Sciam that far back. Until I have found and researched my source, I find some of what I just wrote about Galileo and Kepler in doubt. DanielDemaret (talk) 12:13, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * If one really needs a simple proof, I suppose one could say "all astronomers believe it". If one wants real proof, it will take more than a simple chat. DanielDemaret (talk) 00:00, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * If anyone's interested, the 26% figure apparently comes from the National Science Board's Science and Engineering Indicators 2014, table 7-8, and their source is the General Social Survey's EARTHSUN question. -- BenRG (talk) 02:54, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * This isn't a simple experiment that you can do at home, but the idea is very, very simple. Pulsars are some of the best clocks we have ever discovered: if you watch one you will see a periodic flash of light (X-rays or radio) that has a very stable period.  People who do pulsar timing  monitor these flashes with a timing precision of nanoseconds over time scales of years.  Because the Earth goes around the Sun, you see these flashes up to 16 minutes (light travel time across the Earth's orbit) earlier when the Earth is in the part of its orbit that goes toward that pulsar.  That difference is absolutely enormous compared to the nanosecond precision of the pulsar timing experiments!  If the Sun went around the Earth while the Earth stayed in place, you shouldn't see this difference.  But you do, because the Earth goes around the Sun. --Amble (talk) 19:23, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * There are other astronomical clocks besides pulsars. Ole Rømer used eclipses of Io to determine that the distance between the Earth and Jupiter changed in a periodic fashion (well, either that or Io speeds up and slows down in a way that is mysteriously correllated with the length of an Earth year) and used this to estimate the speed of light. Presumably you could do the same with other planetary satellites. Of course, this only shows that separations between the Earth and planets/pulsars change in a periodic fashion, not that the Earth actually moves - but if you use multiple astronomical clocks then you can conclude that either the Earth moves or the rest of the Universe moves to and fro in an amazingly sychronised fashion. Then you apply Occam's razor ... Gandalf61 (talk) 17:09, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, Occam's razor tends to cut in all directions; ts support for any one point of view is dubious. To the unscientific observer, which is more fantastic and elaborate a claim -- that everything in the sky seems to move one way or another periodically over the course of a year, when they already see the other more obvious motions as different constellations appear, or that everything they see and work with every day is constantly moving at breakneck speed, without feeling like they move at all, in some cosmic conspiracy?  (And after all, the relativity notion that we're at rest in spacetime actually is consistent with this common-sense geocentric point of view)  Really, I think the razor only works post hoc, after you've had time to adjust your concepts to match the physics observations.  Then the simplest explanation is the correct one. Wnt (talk) 01:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

It's the wrong sort of question. There are some issues where the public is confused by conflicting sources of information (e.g. evolution, age of the Earth, global warming) and further clear evidence may convince some people. As far as can tell though, the motion of the Earth around the sun is not one of those issues. There is no cult Earth worshipers advocating their pet theory, etc. Anyone who is interested can easily consult any number of reference works or ask any number of educated people and get the right answer. It's not hard. The fact that some significant number of Americans don't know the right answer is not an error made for lack of evidence, it is rather a symptom of entrenched indifference. They have no interest in how the planets move, and hence they either never learned that the Earth orbits the sun, or more likely they didn't retain the information. It is easy for people like us, most of whom are science wonks to begin with, to bemoan the ignorance of others, but let's be honest, many people just don't care about knowledge that isn't useful to them in their day-to-day lives. If you want a more scientifically literate population, then the only lasting solution is to foster greater scientific curiosity in people (typically young people). That is by no means easy, but as long as people continue to view science as uninteresting or irrelevant to their lives, there is little hope of getting them to pay attention while you explain how we know that the Earth orbits the Sun. Dragons flight (talk) 19:42, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * @[User:Dragons flight] Thank you for clarifying what I suspected, that most people do not care in the US. It would be interesting if the question was put by country and demographics. I am having trouble imagining that any grown person would not know this simple fact in Sweden where I live. DanielDemaret (talk) 12:22, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The explanation of why it is or is not known to all may have nothing to do with different education systems. It is conceivable that it is more connected to something quite different, like for example an official need to inform on the Galileo Affair. DanielDemaret (talk) 12:25, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * @[User:DanielDemaret] Just testing how this @ thing works ... DanielDemaret (talk) 12:28, 19 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Americans don't have a monopoly on ignorance. From geocentric model:


 * "Morris Berman quotes survey results that show currently some 20% of the U.S. population believe that the sun goes around the Earth (geocentricism) rather than the Earth goes around the sun (heliocentricism), while a further 9% claimed not to know.[43] Polls conducted by Gallup in the 1990s found that 16% of Germans, 18% of Americans and 19% of Britons hold that the Sun revolves around the Earth.[44] A study conducted in 2005 by Jon D. Miller of Northwestern University, an expert in the public understanding of science and technology,[45] found that about 20%, or one in five, of American adults believe that the Sun orbits the Earth.[46] According to 2011 VTSIOM poll, 32% of Russians believe that the Sun orbits the Earth.[47]"


 * Dragons flight (talk) 16:47, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

It would be funny, although unlikely, if a follow-up study were to show that the reason those 26% reject it is because they claim that one can choose any frame one wants to be stationary since motion is relative. DanielDemaret (talk) 14:35, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

A problem with public opinion polls is it's hard to tell if the person answering questions is deliberately giving what the person considers to be false answers, just for amusement. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:09, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Of course there is the warped space by gravity that says the earth is traveling a straight line in 4D space (kind of like the walking in one direction on the earth will return you to the origin (2D planar surface warped into 3D). --DHeyward (talk) 03:42, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Copying and pasting
My late father left an extensive bibliography of his work. He was a research scientist for the government and has over 200 published papers and chapters in seven books. I want to create a page for him but there is no way that I can type in all of this information. He passed away several years ago and I have dyslexia real bad. This bibliography is written in his own hand and I consider myself to be the owner of it. It consists of a partial list of approximately 60 papers, his education and work background. His name is Roy B Mefferd Jr and if you type this into Google scholar you will see his credibility.

Is there anyway that I can cut and paste this on his page?

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Greenho (talk • contribs) 14:31, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * A bibliography of that sort does not belong in a Wikipedia article. At most there should be a selected list of a few important publications.  But your first step should be to establish that Dr. Mefferd meets the criteria for a Wikipedia article in the first place -- basically the requirement is that there should be material about him in reputable published sources.  See WP:BIO for more information. Looie496 (talk) 14:52, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * If you don't have a machine-readable list of his work, and you don't want to type in his hand-written bibliography, then I suppose the only alternative is to scan that list into a computer using a document scanner (most cheap printers have this capability) - or if all else fails to take a very well-lit, extremely high-resolution, square-on photo of the pages. However, all of those solutions really require someone else to type it in for you.  Doing a copy/paste of the Google Scholar results might be a way to get started - but I see that it has included some work by Roy B Mefferd without "Jr." afterwards - and I don't know whether those are from your father or whoever he is named after...so you'll need to edit that list.


 * Additionally, I'd strongly warn you that making biography pages of close relatives is a very dubious thing. Wikipedia requires independence in it's editors and being that he is your father means that you are not remotely independent.  There is also an issue of Notability guidelines which may not be a problem for your proposed article - but might well prove to mean that this article shouldn't be written at all.  So you should go into this understanding that it's quite possible that other editors may take one look at your work and simply delete it.  That always seems like a very harsh treatment - but it happens all too often, and those people are usually on the right side of Wikipedia guidelines.  When this happens, people like yourself tend to get very upset - both because their work in writing the article is wasted - and because their perception of having a notable/important parent is being trampled.  So going into this, you're going to need a thick skin!


 * Honestly, at this point, you're probably going to have to recruit some other experienced Wikipedia editor to help you. That person will be more experienced at the subtleties of writing a new article - and would perhaps be able to take a more balanced perspective than you'll be able to do.
 * SteveBaker (talk) 15:03, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * There was a Roy B Melford (without the junior) (1892-1964) who was a teacher. Were the "non-junior" pubs in his lifetime?Junior, from the 1940 census, was born about 1921. Edison (talk) 01:47, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) To start off with, this may not be most suitable for Wikipedia - it sounds more like a Wikimedia Commons or Wikisource item that can be linked from the Wikipedia entry.


 * The good news is that the single biggest obstacle to getting something like that on the Web is legal. Documents like this start off copyrighted by default and Wiki-whatever isn't free to copy them without permission.  If you are willing to grant permission, we're already more than halfway home.  (Note however there are all sorts of obnoxious arguments about the copyright of papers that have been revised or formatted with the assistance of a journal; I'd say many, perhaps most academics ignore them, but you could run into mostly theoretical annoyances with those on Wiki sites unless you use a pre-submission version)


 * After that, it's a question of what form you have it in. If it is literally handwritten manuscripts, the best thing to do is to scan or photo the work.  You can use various software to assemble multiple images into PDF or DJVU formats so that you can post them as a single file for everyone's convenience.  There is a chance someone at one of the projects will be willing to take your manuscript and scan it in for you - I'm not sure of the details and this isn't the right place to ask really; I'd suggest maybe the village pump on Commons if you need to.  But doing it yourself shouldn't be that hard and gives you more say over the quality.


 * Uploading the work to Commons is easy -- getting it to stay there may be more difficult. Make sure you explain in the text you submit for the file who this person is and why this is important.  I also think it is best to plan at least one alternate distribution site in addition to Commons, because there are some ... awful deletionists out there.


 * Once you've got the scanned text on Commons, people can read it and transcribe it if they wish. At that point I would say that your job is over; you don't have to make it more accessible than that.  Someday optical character recognition will be so good and so easy and so well integrated into sites and web browsers that it won't take any effort on your part.  However, you can play with that if you wish, or ask people to assist in manually transcribing portions of whatever you have. Wnt (talk) 15:04, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * A bibliography, as a list of facts in a natural order, is not protected by copyright at all under US law. However, I don't think such a thing belongs in a Wikipedia article, and I am dubious about it being in scope for commons or wikisource either, but editors at those projects can determine that. DES (talk) 16:10, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Wnt, the question is about a bibliography rather than the published works themselves. benmoore 16:31, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * That's what the OP wrote, true, but the "extensive" bit got me hoping there was more. If there's just a few pages listing his published work and nothing more, it should be really easy to scan and post as a few images, and what I said still works. Wnt (talk) 20:50, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Using Optical character recognition is not the only option. The other way to turn hand-written stuff into text is to use voice recognition software such as Dragon Naturally Speaking. It is surprisingly accurate these days. Richerman   (talk) 18:29, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Google scholar indicates he was a productive and cited researcher, but I doubt cittions to 1950's publications show up as compared to some current or recent researcher. Director of a research lab and professor at a university suggest that he might satisfy WP:PROF but articles specifically about him seem less common than articles by him. Edison (talk) 02:11, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

accelerated regions in non-human DNA
do they exist? --Ulisse0 (talk) 15:04, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Human accelerated regions are of course only in humans, but there's no reason why any other species should lack them. However, a few of the mechanisms that have led to these regions in humans may not apply to most other species, because the relative likelihood of certain types of mutation and the adaptive 'goals' (if any) of the evolutionary changes may be different. Wnt (talk) 15:09, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * ok but chimpanzee's dna was sequenced, wasnt it? were accelerated regions found in it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.58.163.74 (talk) 21:39, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Fact-Checking Image: Location of PSR J1748-2446ad


I've been looking for an image of PSR J1748-2446ad and thus far haven't found one, but I was able to find an image of the sky in the general area of the pulsar. Making use of the coordinates that are listed in the article, I marked the location of the Pulsar on this image. Is anyone able to verify for me that I did so correctly? I believe I did, but I don't really know for sure if I read everything correctly as I never work with Astronomy images of any sort. Zell Faze (talk) 17:02, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm going to be bold and add the image to the article in the mean time. Zell Faze (talk) 17:03, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * It looks like you've used the RA and declination as listed in the infobox, which aren't given to very high precision. In that case, the yellow box you've drawn is much smaller than the precision on its location.  The SIMBAD link gives more precise numbers.  Sorry if I've misunderstood what you did in making the map; I'm guessing based on what I can see by eye. --Amble (talk) 18:43, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * If you're going for a rough locator map, there are examples like the nice map in Epsilon Cygni that are used in many articles. --Amble (talk) 18:57, 18 February 2014 (UTC)