Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive February 2014

List of Unsolved Problems article needs some kind of curating
The List of unsolved problems in physics has always been problematic, but luckily it can typically be ignored. However, since it is cross-linked via template by a number of other, better physics articles, it is time for actual physicists to take an active role in curating. I (grad student) tried (2008 and 2010), but was quickly out-edited by others insisting, among other things, that biophysics is not a real subfield.

Now we have ball lightning. Can we get a group of 2 or 3 to clamp down on the fringe science, clean up the article, and maintain it on our watchlists? SamuelRiv (talk) 20:32, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Where fringe claims are concerned, there is also WP:FTN. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:56, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Fusion power
Does somebody have time to have a look at this article? The section Mechanism was added over the last days, apparently in good faith, but with questionable success. The idea to have a short introduction to the mechanism seems worth considering, but I'm not sure what can be salvaged from the section as it stands now. &mdash;&thinsp; H HHIPPO  17:56, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

"Lieb-Robinson bounds" at AfC
Please help review Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Lieb-Robinson bounds. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:49, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Needs work, in particular a more accessible lede, but seems somewhat notable. WoS finds 48 hits for TOPIC: (lieb-robinson), with an h-index of 11. &mdash;&thinsp; H HHIPPO  17:28, 1 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Agree that the topic is likely notable, but the article has been deleted as a copyvio. --Mark viking (talk) 19:16, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission
Could you have a look at this one; see if it's notable, etc. Thanks, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 22:50, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Inadequate context. Suggest decline. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:21, 4 February 2014 (UTC).


 * Also Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Scalar theory of everything. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 00:02, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Looks like OR and OSYN. Certainly not mainstream. Suggest decline. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:16, 4 February 2014 (UTC).

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Influence Of Cyclodextrin On Stability Of Ag Nanoparticles
Dear physics experts: Another old Afc submission about to be deleted unless someone here thinks this is a notable topic and that the article should be saved. &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 17:47, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The general idea of using cyclodextrin in conjunction with metal nanoparticles seems popular: WoS: TOPIC: (metal AND nanoparticles AND cyclodextrin) gives 166 hits, h-index 30. However, I doubt that the specific topic of this article is notable, and I don't see anything worth saving in the article itself. &mdash;&thinsp; H HHIPPO  18:35, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the analysis. It's gone!  &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 20:43, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Voldemar Smilga
Can an interested editor look at the above AfC and see if the draft article regarding this physicist is notable enough to be moved into main space? The AfC was never properly reviewed and I think the content and references are substantial enough to warrant a look before it gets deleted as an abandoned AfC. I'm not at all familiar with the topic or the references, so I can't determine the quality of the draft. Thank you. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 06:19, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
 * A GS h-index of around 12 is a bad omen for notability, but there may be other causes of notability. Xxanthippe (talk) 07:51, 25 January 2014 (UTC).
 * Thank you for looking at it. Since it has been over a week without much interest, I have gone ahead and deleted it. The AfC can always been undeleted upon request. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 06:48, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Boyle's law?
Hi WP:PHYS,

Re: Toothache,

Acute inflammation is normally associated with edema (swelling), erythema (redness), heat, pain and loss of function. However, the dental pulp is encased in a rigid hard tissue shell (the dentin and enamel), with only small apertures (the apical delta and lateral canals) through which nerves and blood vessels communicate with the rest of the body. When the pulpal soft tissues become inflamed, there is no space for the soft tissue to swell into. The inflammation therefore leads to increased pressure in the tissues which may compress the blood vessels which supply nutrients to the pulp. The venous microcirculation is particularly vulnerable compared to arterioles, which have thicker walls. Once the blood vessels are occluded, ischemia occurs (lack of oxygen), which is followed by necrosis (tissue death). A similar situation is the compartment syndrome, or intracranial hypertension (the brain is also encased in rigid hard tissue with little room to accommodate any swelling).

I was trying to explain in correct scientific terms why the pressure inside a pulp chamber increases because more fluid enters a space of fixed volume (the tooth). I was going to link to Boyle's law, but I am not sure this is correct since I visited that page and it talks about gases. What is the correct physics page I should link to explain this aspect of the topic? Many thanks,  Lesion  ( talk ) 14:15, 5 February 2014 (UTC)


 * My guess is that it is hydrostatic pressure, but guesses aren't a good idea so my best advice would be to go with whatever you can find in the references. --Derek Andrews (talk) 14:40, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Following your suggestion, I have found some references in the literature about Boyle's law causing barodontalgia and dental barotrauma, which is toothache and damage to teeth that occurs in divers and passengers of uninsulated aircraft, but none for plain ordinary pulpitis (i.e. at sea level). I am also fairly sure that it is not gas, but liquid that is key here. Inflammatory mediators make the capillaries become more "leaky" and fluid builds up in the tissues.


 * The perfect analogy is hitting your finger with a hammer, then bandaging it tightly. As it starts to become inflamed, the swelling can't physically expand, meaning that the tissues are under greater pressure and the injury is more painful than it would be if it were not restricted.


 * I read hydrostatic pressure, it appears to relate to the pressure being influenced by depth. I am after the law which says something more basic, like this:

As the amount of liquid in a fixed volume container is increased, so the pressure exerted on the walls of container increases.


 * Any thoughts? Lesion  ( talk ) 19:19, 5 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi Lesion, the relation between volume of a given amount of liquid and and the pressure it is under is given by the compressibility For small changes in pressure, the volume changes are also small and the compressibility factor is an approximately a constant. If we assume that blood and water compressibilities are similar, then Compressibility of water gives a good guide as to the amount of compressibility. But my home-grown explanation is original research. For this, you really need a MEDRS reference. Has anybody experimentally verified the proposed microcirculation collapse mechanism for necrosis? Even if venous walls are thin, if they are filled with fluid, they would not necessarily collapse. It may instead be the increase in pressure differential between arteries and veins that leads to collapse. Hard to say without reliable scientific evidence. --Mark viking (talk) 21:35, 5 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that. Yes this sounds right. Agree source needed... I was hoping to have a specific "Law of physics" to link to, but perhaps the required explanation would be lengthy and off topic. I assume someone has experimentally verified the described mechanism, although now I look back through my original notes and the thinner walls thing is not supported. I will remove this if no source can be found. Also, some topics say compression of the venules and others say congestion of the venules due to high pressure in the tissues (which correlates with your observation that there may not necessarily be any collapse). Others just vaguely say "vessel damage". I may remove the specific details for this general article, such probably belong on pulpitis and nowhere else. Lesion  ( talk ) 15:09, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Delayed choice quantum eraser
A dispute over Delayed choice quantum eraser has resulted in edit warring and temporary protection of the page. The same principals are also fighting over Double-slit experiment. These pages could use some extra eyes. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:00, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

RFC on displayed equations
There's an RFC at WikiProject Mathematics to decide on the default formatting of displayed equations: left-aligned or centered. &mdash;&thinsp; H HHIPPO  21:51, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

More dentistry
Hi, I have a new stub that could do with an expert eye:


 * Galvanic pain

Many thanks, Lesion  ( talk ) 12:03, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission
Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Equilibrium path sampling. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 23:05, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete. Too obscure as yet. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:30, 11 February 2014 (UTC).
 * Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Per Vilhelm Brüel. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 16:52, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Not really physics, but looks good apart from being rather discursive. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:30, 14 February 2014 (UTC).
 * Could use some cleanup and copyediting, and it seems a bit anecdoctal in parts, but it's legit IMO and he seems notable enough. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:08, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
 * As for not being physics, I have a hard time seeing how that could be said with a straight face, especially given that one of our dedicated taskforce is acoustics... Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:10, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I keep my face straight and say that the article is more in the area of engineering and manufacturing than physics. However the article is going to be acceptable with a bit of POV pruning. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:08, 14 February 2014 (UTC).
 * Brüel's interactions with Bohr and the fact that acoustics is a field in physics means this is within our purview. Also the company Brüel & Kjær is well known in the field of acoustic metrology. The fellow is notable. The article has complimentary/promotional bits in the lead--charismatic, adventursome, etc.--that are sourced to a dead link and should probably not be in a BLP. The whole article is laudatory and promotional in tone and I am concerned about non-neutrality. --Mark viking (talk) 22:42, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

val2
has been nominated for deletion -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 05:22, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Paolo Giubellino
Please help improve the new article about - the man leading the Large Ion Collider Experiment Collaboration. Many thanks in anticipation. Dandandandandandandan (talk) 06:31, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Low field NMR merger
There's I think a Start-class article at Earth's field NMR and a stub at Low field NMR and Zero field NMR. Earth's field and Zero field NMR are both special cases of Low field NMR. I'd like to take a crack at improving the coverage of this subject, and I think the best thing to do to start with is to merge all three articles together into the Low field NMR article. I proposed the merger on the Zero Field NMR page about 2 years ago and have had no response, so I'm thinking I might go ahead and undertake the merge and redirect the other two. Any objections? 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 02:14, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Merge seems reasonable to me, especially if there are secondary sources that discuss all three as a unified whole. NMR research is often published in the chemistry journals, so you may find useful comments if you ping WikiProject Chemistry. You'll want to be careful defining it, as a "low field" MRI in medicine is on the order of 0.5 tesla, e.g., . This LBL paper might be a good secondary source. --Mark viking (talk) 05:21, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the advice, I'll cross-post the question over there. I'll need to look around for good sources on the demarcation between high and low field. I think many people would consider anything that can be done without using superconducting magnets to be "low field", in which case the limit would be around 2T or so, I think. 0x0077BE  [talk/contrib] 05:36, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

template usage error
The particle physics article Delta baryon contains a template usage error in the intro, but I'm not sure what the best way to fix it is. Could someone take a look at it? Thank you. RJFJR (talk) 13:43, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅. See SubatomicParticle/list for supported template parameters. &mdash;&thinsp; H HHIPPO  14:40, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Popular pages tool update
As of January, the popular pages tool has moved from the Toolserver to Wikimedia Tool Labs. The code has changed significantly from the Toolserver version, but users should notice few differences. Please take a moment to look over your project's list for any anomalies, such as pages that you expect to see that are missing or pages that seem to have more views than expected. Note that unlike other tools, this tool aggregates all views from redirects, which means it will typically have higher numbers. (For January 2014 specifically, 35 hours of data is missing from the WMF data, which was approximated from other dates. For most articles, this should yield a more accurate number. However, a few articles, like ones featured on the Main Page, may be off).

Web tools, to replace the ones at ~alexz/pop, will become available over the next few weeks at popularpages. All of the historical data (back to July 2009 for some projects) has been copied over. The tool to view historical data is currently partially available (assessment data and a few projects may not be available at the moment). The tool to add new projects to the bot's list is also available now (editing the configuration of current projects coming soon). Unlike the previous tool, all changes will be effective immediately. OAuth is used to authenticate users, allowing only regular users to make changes to prevent abuse. A visible history of configuration additions and changes is coming soon. Once tools become fully available, their toolserver versions will redirect to Labs.

If you have any questions, want to report any bugs, or there are any features you would like to see that aren't currently available on the Toolserver tools, see the updated FAQ or contact me on my talk page. Mr.Z-bot (talk) (for Mr.Z-man ) 05:21, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Friedwart Winterberg
This physicist appears to be adding references to themselves throughout various articles. He does appear to be a physicist of some note, but some of these entries seem quite puffed up and perhaps WP:UNDUE for the articles, however, as I am not normally active in the physics project, there may be standards for inclusion that I am not aware of. However, I think these contributions may be served by having some additional eyes reviewing them. Special:Contributions/134.197.31.189 Gaijin42 (talk) 22:32, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Can you give some diffs. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:38, 26 February 2014 (UTC).
 * Special:Contributions/134.197.31.189 Basically every edit hes ever done. Its not a huge amount to wade through. Gaijin42 (talk) 20:47, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

I note that Friedwardt Winterberg has a Google scholar h-index of 9, far below the level (around 15) usually needed to pass WP:Prof in physics. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:01, 26 February 2014 (UTC).
 * http://inspirehep.net/author/profile/F.Winterberg.1 has him as low as a 4, but he may pass WP:GNG in any case as he has some notability derived from being part of Operation Paperclip, his defense of accused Nazis, and the kerfuffle of him accusing Einstein of plagiarism. Gaijin42 (talk) 22:21, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Ruga mechanics
Dear physicists: Here's an old Afc submission that will soon be deleted as a stale draft. Is this a notable topic that should be kept and improved? &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 14:27, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not particularly familiar with the topic, but it seems like this term is only used by a single professor in a single paper, from which there are a few secondary sources. I've never heard the term before. I would think that the material would go under one of the Solid Mechanics topics like Bending, Deformation (mechanics). Plasticity, etc. 0x0077BE  [talk/contrib] 15:41, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking time to look at this. I don't know enough about this topic (or physics for that matter) to do anything with it myself.  If only one professor is using the term, maybe its not notable.  If anyone is interested in working on it, any edit will delay its deletion for six months.  &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 23:04, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission
Articles for creation/Per Vilhelm Brüel. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 13:23, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi, a few of us commented on the article in a section above. I think we agreed that the fellow was likely notable. I had some concerns about being overly promotional, but perhaps this is not a showstopper for promotion to mainspace? I refrained from giving an official afc comment as I don't feel qualified to judge against BLP standards. --Mark viking (talk) 22:58, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Silly me, I missed it! Thanks again! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 23:42, 25 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Valleytronics. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 15:40, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Super-resolution optical fluctuation imaging. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 20:44, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Franz Josef Giessibl. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 12:11, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Makes it on cites . Xxanthippe (talk) 01:23, 28 February 2014 (UTC).


 * Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Coherence scanning interferometry. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 23:50, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Carlos Castro-Perelman
Dear physics experts: This old abandoned Afc submission is about to be deleted as a stale draft. Is this a notable physicist, and should the article be kept? &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 00:27, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
 * @Anne. You can work this out yourself by looking him up in Google scholar. There you will find that his citations are almost negligible, so he has no hope pf passing WP:Prof. He appears to have had some sort of a fight with the Arxiv, but not enough to satisfy WP:BLP1E. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:17, 7 February 2014 (UTC).
 * @Xxanthippe, Anne is probably swamped with a bunch of stuff at AfC. If she has to check for herself the physics biographies, musician biographies, chemistry biographies, engineering biographies, businessmen biographies, etc... well soon she can't "work this out for herself" because she'll be even more swamped with this. Especially since it would require a significant effort for her to learn and remember the basics of the stuff for everything, and if the guy is notable for other reasons than WP:PROF, then she probably wouldn't pick up on it from a "standard search for physics notability" or whatever you want to call it.


 * In any case, I agree this guy is not notable. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:26, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the analysis. My high school physics in the 1960's is just enough to recognize that this was a physics topic. We are making good progress with the abandoned Afc submissions - down from over 50,000 last September to about 4,500 now. A bot is automatically nominating hundreds for deletion each day, and I and a few others are running ahead of it trying to pick out ones that are worth keeping.  I appreciate help because it's hard to keep up and some are going unchecked.  I do know about Google Scholar, since my son is a post-doc, but apparently the critical number of citations varies according to subject area and some names of professors who obviously have publications do not appear at all.  Also, sometimes there is pushback from editors who object to a musician (me) making decisions about things about which she knows (next to) nothing, so sometimes it's nice to let someone more knowledgeable decide. &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 16:11, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep up the good work Anne. I am as well concerned about a couple of editors I know who are spamming Wikipedia with vast numbers of new articles (not physics) of usually doubtful notability without going through AfC at all. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:27, 12 February 2014 (UTC).
 * Well, Afc is voluntary, and while it keeps inappropriate content by new users out of the encyclopedia, it doesn't do the same for pages created by more experienced editors. Of course those have to watch out for speedy deletions, prods and Afd. However, if we didn't have to deal with masses of inappropriate material we could spend more time on content creation. &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 06:02, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 28/02
Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Angular Propulsion. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 12:21, 28 February 2014 (UTC)