Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive January 2013

New pic for template:quantum mechanics
While we're discussing templates, feedback would help here. (It's not a desperate issue, but it will affect QM related articles so I thought to notify the main article and project). Thanks, M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 16:16, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Expert help needed on new negative-temperature experiment
Hi physicists,

Apparently an experimental group has announced that they have achieved negative temperature in the motional degrees of freedom of a gas of potassium atoms. See this article, which I guess you have to pay for.

Anyone who understands better than I do just what they've done, and how important it is, is invited to improve the negative temperature article, and possibly also the brief summary at absolute zero as well. --Trovatore (talk) 02:22, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * OK, this is getting a little urgent. Unfortunately there seem to be media reports that talk about the potassium atoms being "cooled" to below absolute zero, whereas the more accurate term (in my admittedly limited understanding) would be "heated".  If someone who genuinely deeply understands the subject (meaning not me, unfortunately) does not get involved, I'm worried that the end result of the Wikilawyering and reliable-soure-arguing is going to be just wrong.  Please help. --Trovatore (talk) 22:49, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The arXiv preprint of the article is available here for free, and is nearly identitcal to the version that appears in Science. Zueignung (talk) 03:10, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much! I'm looking forward to reading it.  However I'd still like expert help on these two articles.  (The immediate thing I thought was a crisis is not as bad as I thought &mdash; someone had claimed that the gas was "cooled" based on a newspaper story that used that word in the title, but if you read the story itself it makes the real situation clear.) --Trovatore (talk) 03:26, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Tongue-in-cheek
I've run into a sticking point with an IP editor at Planck units as to whether the word "semi-humorously" in the introduction should have a piped Wikilink to tongue-in-cheek. Any input to resolve the dispute is welcome. Zueignung (talk) 08:25, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Static field
I've been trying to improve the Field (physics) article, but I'm completely at a loss for what to do with the static field section. It's about the speed of propagation of gravity, aberration, and virtual particles. I'm fairly sure it doesn't belong in this article, as it's far enough away from the actual topic to be unhelpful, but I can't tell whether it's fringe, complete rubbish, or just fairly obscure.

It was added in October 2011 by Uioplk (contribs - 12 edits made over a few days and nothing since) and was apparently copied from the Faster-than-light article (though from the section about things which only appear to be FTL). At least some of the references seem dubious (self-published, etc.) and the final paragraph seems to be fairly speculative with a number of "citation needed" tags on it. Hence there are a number of warning flags, but nothing to be absolutely certain.

Any help would be welcome - this really isn't my area. Thanks! Djr32 (talk) 00:23, 6 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I see that the section has been deleted. I won't edit it back in, because I agree that it was out of place in that article and poorly cited.  However, after a quick read the material in it was correct, and answers a question people often ask about the speed of propagation of fields like gravity ("If the speed of gravity is c, why is the force of the sun on the earth pointing towards the sun now, and not towards where the sun was 8 minutes ago?").   Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 13:02, 6 January 2013 (UTC)


 * The latter is not entirely true, or at least not due to this effect. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:23, 6 January 2013 (UTC)


 * What's "the latter", and what's "this effect"?  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 15:25, 6 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes - Arthur Rubin took it out shortly after my post. (Link to the last version before it was deleted, in case it's useful to anyone.)  I'm happy with that solution (and thanks for the quick response), but if anyone feels that it ought to go somewhere, feel free to retrieve it.  A redirect from static field was created at the time - maybe there?  Djr32 (talk) 22:04, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Lattice energy
the lattice energy is not equal to the lattice enthalpy: It is: $$\Delta _G U=\Delta _G H -p\Delta V$$, Where $$\Delta _G U$$ is the molar lattice energy and $$\Delta _G H$$ the molar lattice enthalpy. source: --Biggerj1 (talk) 09:02, 10 January 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.201.252.218 (talk)
 * this is totally mixed up. -787 kJ/mol is the value for the molar lattice enthalpy for NaCl...--92.201.252.218 (talk) 16:19, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Cellular universe
This is just in case the 'bot doesn't do its work, again. Uncle G (talk) 23:40, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

LIL at CEA Cesta
The 'bot failed to list this one. Uncle G (talk) 08:08, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Willard Gibbs
Hi. I've been working for a while on the bio. of Josiah Willard Gibbs. There are two main things I'd like to bring up here. The first is that I think the article should be rated as of Top Importance in both physics and chemistry, and High Importance in math (it's currently High/High/Mid). As a theoretical physicists, Gibbs is certainly as important as Ludwig Boltzmann (whose article is rated as Top). He coined the term "statistical mechanics" and gave use the key concepts of the microcanonical, canonical, and grand canonical ensembles. He also essentially created modern physical chemistry, as many have pointed out. And as a mathematician we owe him the concept of the cross product, the formulation of vector calculus in terms of div, grad, curl, and all that, and many of the ideas of what later became convex analysis.

My other concern is that I'd like to attract other editors who might want to edit and improve the article. Last Nov. I nominated it for FA. It got significant support, but some of the FA review regulars kept asking for independent copyediting and in the end the discussion just stalled and was archived. Gibbs's work as a theoretical scientist is extremely interesting and important, and I think his wikibio deserves more attention. - Eb.hoop (talk) 23:34, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Note recieved at OTRS 2013011710002761 about Higgs bosun
Poster advised that when the article is printed, the content of the template Standard model of particle physics is totally absent (i.e no image). I checked that and it does apply to all browsers. It apparently also affects the PDF creator in Wikipedia. Obviously this is a collapsing template - it appears it has collapsed a little to much.  Ron h jones  (Talk) 02:49, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Working as intended. MediaWiki:Print.css, the document which controls which page elements print and which do not contains
 * which says that page elements with the class vertical-navbox in the main namespace will not be visible when printed. Class vertical-navbox is called in Sidebar, which is called in Sidebar with collapsible lists, which is finally called in Standard model of particle physics. --Izno (talk) 04:12, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * which says that page elements with the class vertical-navbox in the main namespace will not be visible when printed. Class vertical-navbox is called in Sidebar, which is called in Sidebar with collapsible lists, which is finally called in Standard model of particle physics. --Izno (talk) 04:12, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Assistance request: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/The Classical Schrödinger Equation
Hello Wikiproject Physics,

A new editor has recently created article for Wikiproject articles for creation, titled The Classical Schrödinger Equation. The subject seems to be closely related to Schrödinger equation, but i find myself unable to review the quality of page since it is quite far beyond my knowledge of physics. Could anyone be so kind to check this article for its importance \ quality so that the review request can be handled? If you are unfamiliar with the AFC review process i will be more then happy to handle the declining / accepting part of the article. Thanks in advance, Excirial ( Contact me, Contribs ) 17:33, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * How important can be assessed by finding how many times it has been cited in Google scholar. In this case 15 times. On past precedent a topic is usually considered to need around 1000 citations to be worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. I note that the only other contributions that the creator of the article has made to Wikipedia is to edit the BLP on Kingsley Jones, the author of the aforesaid paper. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:14, 6 January 2013 (UTC).
 * Well, it seems to have been accepted without much attention being paid to the question of notability. Would it be worth taking both Classical Schrödinger Equation and Kingsley Jones to AfD?  Djr32 (talk) 22:10, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Given the lack of response to this, I have nominated both the Classical Schrödinger equation article and the article on Dr Jones for deletion. If anyone thinks there is some notable physics in either, please comment there... Djr32 (talk) 18:28, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Some eyes at Electron degeneracy pressure please
I'd appreciate opinions at Talk:Electron degeneracy pressure. — Quondum 19:51, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Nucleon spin structure and Proton spin crisis
Revelations like “the quark spin did contribute about 30% to the total spin of the nucleon” and “it was assumed that two of the quarks have opposite spins and the spin of the third quark is parallel to the proton spin” raise the suspicion that authors and editors of these articles were unable to realize how to describe the spin of a system of two identical spin-$1/2$ particles and one (non-identical) spin-$1/2$ particle. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 12:47, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Integrated circuit inventor
A discussion is underway at Reliable sources/Noticeboard about whether patents are suitable reliable sources to support claims that a particular person invented the process used to fabricate integrated circuits. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:25, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

expert scrutiny of Marcelo Samuel Berman
Can someone with more knowledge than me please review this article. noq (talk) 14:23, 28 January 2013 (UTC)


 * This article was created by the subject of the article and has all the attributes of being a CV. I flipped through one of his books that was on the web - the first half of the book looked familiar to what I studied in 1969 (standard textbook), the second half was his philosophical interpretations of the subject.  I did not read it, so cannot comment.


 * I notice that his main publisher appears to Nova Publishers, a publishing house whose reputation has been questioned in certain quarters, in particular Nova has a reputation for printing non-original work. I did a search in Wikipedia for any references to the subject of this artcile and found one of his works cited in the article Kerr–Newman metric.  The citation was one of three given fot that sentence.  This tells me that Marcello Berman is not the only expert in that field.  Moreover, the page Berman makes no mention of him at all.


 * In conclusion, I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of this article, I do however question the notability of the subject. Martinvl (talk) 16:32, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Subject has a GS h-index of 12 (please correct if wrong) although some high cited papers, so might have difficulty in passing WP:Prof. The BLP is certainly overblown. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:15, 28 January 2013 (UTC).

I think this is a good place to bring this up
I'll be brief. Strong nuclear force redirects to Nuclear force. However, Strong interaction is apparently the one that actually part of the four fundamental forces. I'm no chemist (and only barely even an editor anymore), so I'll just drop this here. Is this controversial?  Nolelover   Talk · Contribs  22:36, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Things are as they should be. The two terms, Strong nuclear force and Strong interaction, are routine tribal tags: Nuclear physicists prefer the first, Particle physicists prefer the second. The theory, of course, is the same, but nuclear physicists prefer to focus on the long-distance, strong aspects of it, whereas particle physicists focus on the short-distance, and thus weak, despite the name, perturbative aspects of it. The reader can quickly make up her/his mind on where to be. Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 00:53, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Alright, that makes sense. And just to clarify, the fact that Weak nuclear force redirects to its interactive counterpart is not inconsistent, right? Thanks,  Nolelover   Talk · Contribs  07:08, 30 January 2013 (UTC)


 * The color force (strong interaction) is one of the fundamental forces (analogous to electromagnetism) while the strong force (residual strong force, or nuclear force) is an indirect manifestation of the color force (analogous to Van der Waals force).
 * The weak interaction is only apparent at very short range, there is no noticeable long range manifestation. JRSpriggs (talk) 07:13, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Disambig help.
Expert help needed in disambiguation - please help us fix the incoming links to disambiguation pages nonlocality and covariant. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:21, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Templates classical physics and classical mechanics...
This may have been asked before, and should have been raised here... but why do these both exist? IMO the classical physics seems almost redundant with the classical mechanics one. Perhaps merge classical mech into classial phys? Or delete classical phys since not many articles link to it? (There are many links bound to the classical mech template). There doesn't seem to be any discussion of this matter at Template talk:Classical mechanics as far as I can tell, and the classical phys template doesn't even have a talk page... M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 21:07, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I suggest deleting classical physics. It looks to me like a well intentioned idea that never went anywhere, and I think that the reason for that is that it's not a good subject for a templated infobox - "classical physics" isn't really an overarching topic area in itself, it's just a category of "physics that was done before 1900".  Djr32 (talk) 22:15, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Classical physics and classical mechanics have in common that they do not recognize quantum effects in terms of quantum theory. But they differ in that classical physics concerns thermodynamics and electromagnetism, including light, while classical mechanics as such does not concern itself with thermodynamics or electromagnetism or light. 'Classical physics' does not just mean 'physics that was done before 1900'. Classical physics of thermodynamics and of electromagnetism are widely useful today, in their places. 'Classical physics' and 'classical mechanics' have clearly distinct meanings.Chjoaygame (talk) 05:01, 4 January 2013 (UTC)Chjoaygame (talk) 05:06, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I realize that, but the classical physics template doesn't do much. Yes, it includes a long list of scientists and links to the main subject articles, but why is that a reason to keep it? All could be adequately covered by a category:classical physics. Classical physics too broad a topic to be in a template. The separate concepts which do enter templates (like QM, nuclear physics and QFT) are suited for templates. Also there already exist template:thermodynamics, template:continuum mechanics, and template:electromagnetism, all are part of classical physics (of course spill into QM/relativity too), so when it comes to a classical physics topic, which template should we use? M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 16:16, 4 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Given that nobody seems to strongly object to removing the template, I have deleted it from the 4 articles where it was used. If nobody objects to this, I'll suggest that the whole thing is deleted at TfD.  Djr32 (talk) 17:44, 26 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks Djr32, I completely agree. M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 18:09, 26 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I have proposed deletion here (and I hope it is done correctly this time). M&and;Ŝc2ħεИτlk 13:45, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Lattice Energy and Lattice Enthalpy are messed up in the article Lattice Energy
the lattice energy is not equal to the lattice enthalpy which links here: It is: $$\Delta _G U=\Delta _G H -p\Delta V_m$$, Where $$\Delta _G U$$ is the molar lattice energy and $$\Delta _G H$$ the molar lattice enthalpy and $$\Delta V_m$$ the change of the volume per mol. source:, Who is willing to correct this?--Biggerj1 (talk) 09:02, 10 January 2013 (UTC)