Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive July 2021

Gauge-gravity duality
This redirect to string theory was established in 2012, when the only prominent example of gauge/gravity duality was the AdS/CFT correspondence in string theory. However, in the nine years since, gauge/gravity duality has generalised from AdS/CFT and become a very powerful framework in quantum field theory, condensed matter physics, hydrodynamics, general relativity, and many other fields unrelated to string theory. Thus, an article on gauge/gravity duality should be created. 73.168.5.183 (talk) 03:52, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

RfC of interest
This RfC may be of interest to members of this group. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:04, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Stable massive particles
Invention of the given meaning by the creator of the article? —Quondum 12:02, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * It seems to follow the definition from Ref. [2], long-lived particles, as opposed to the definition from Ref. [1], particles which do not decay at all. The article is a bit rambling, but it seems fundamentally legit. Tercer (talk) 13:30, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I disagree. "In this work, we define an SMP as a particle which does not decay during its passage through a detector, and which would undergo electro-magnetic and/or strong interactions with matter".  This squarely includes electrons and positrons, even though these are not the focus of the paper. There is a bigger question though: is the name notable as an accepted term within physics?  Papers routinely use neologisms with variable definitions, and we cannot establish notability through a few papers that use these – especially where we have difficulty understanding precisely what the definition is, but also where secondary sources do not provide an indication that these terms are in generally accepted use with a well-defined meaning.  I don't see how this term merits a standalone article: it seems more like a candidate for a dictionary entry, and then only once its meaning settles down.  Look at it from another perspective: a reader can't quite figure out what the term means, looks it up, and gets a rather specific interpretation that might conflict with its use where they got it.  This does not help anyone.  —Quondum 14:00, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Ref. [2] is a well-cited review, it makes sense to use its definition as a base for the article. As I said, the article is kind of a mess, but with a clear definition I don't see a problem with keeping it. We should check, however, if the other papers also use SMP with the same definition. Tercer (talk)
 * I think I was missing your point: that there may be a variation in precisely what is meant by "stable". Conversely, was concerned with the exclusion of electrons from the definition in the article.  I'll replace it with "at least as massive as", to reflect the the first reference, which uses this phrase, as this would mitigate my concern.  (My guess is that they want to exclude almost-massless particles such as neutrinos.)  —Quondum 20:28, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I see. Electrons are anyway not interesting, the subject is entirely about unknown particles. I skimmed through some papers, and they seem to use indeed this neologism, or simply "long-lived particle". In any case, I edited the first sentence to make it clear at least what the article is about. Tercer (talk) 14:29, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Possible self-promotion from Special:Contributions/Phys2vec
This user seems to be new to WP and to have included multiple free-standing references to several recent papers by the same authors. See, , and.

I don't know enough about the subject to evaluate whether or not their contributions are good and whether or not this is WP:SELFCITE. I'm bringing it up here so someone who knows better can step in. BernardoSulzbach (talk) 10:50, 27 June 2021 (UTC)


 * The timing combined with commonality of authors is quite strongly suggestive of WP:COI editing, for which WP:COIEDIT would apply. For example, the  by User:Phys2vec (note this ping) occurred only three days after publication of the added citation.  The published results are interesting, but only one group's experimental results, and since there has been too little time for review by others, it may be an attempt at gaining visibility and being simply too soon to cite the primary sources.  The citations may possibly be considered as "further reading", without the material being used in the articles, until such time as an academic discussion emerges around these.  I have not examined this in detail, but it does seem that a discussion or closer look may be warranted.  —Quondum 12:47, 27 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I hadn't spotted that the reference was made public just three days prior to the edit and I think that's highly suggestive of the editor being one of the authors. Thank you for looking into it. BernardoSulzbach (talk) 13:37, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi, it's Phys2vec here. I didn't know about COI. Let me see how to do it right. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phys2vec (talk • contribs) 19:31, 27 June 2021 (UTC)


 * , please read WP:COIEDIT and WP:DISCLOSE, which pretty much give you what you need. In this instance you appear to be connected only with the material to be added, so it should be sufficient to edit the talk page of an affected article as described at Template:Request edit, including something like "COI request" in the edit summary or in the text added to the talk page.  A specific and easy-to-follow request is more likely to be done.  You should feel free to interact on the talk page of any affected article.  Please try to provide an edit summary with every edit and remember the four tildes  that add your signature at the end of every talk page addition that you make.  For any COI edits that you have already made, I suggest that you follow the same process, but instead of details of the requested change, simply ask for review of the edits that you made to the article prior to discovering the COI constraints. If these edits are recent, editors will be able to determine what these were from the edit history of the page.  —Quondum 21:23, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Afterthought: For clarity, there is no requirement to disclose more than the existence of the COI. Unless you wish to, the nature of the COI need not be mentioned.  —Quondum 21:32, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Done, thanks. Phys2vec (talk) 02:27, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * , you have used Connected contributor to declare a COI on affected articles, which is excellent: it is really refreshing when people respect and get involved in the collaborative process, since we often see the opposite. However, this template is not suitable for placing a request for review, since it will not attract the attention of other editors, nor does it allow tracking of whether the request has been looked at.  For this, Request edit is appropriate, which causes the article to be listed at Category:Wikipedia requested edits, and provides for tracking of whether the request has been answered.  I have made the change at Talk:Hydraulic diameter.  You can make similar changes at the other article talk pages, otherwise I may do so over the next week or so.  —Quondum 11:37, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * My apologies, it seems that I was off the mark. It seems that any request at this stage must be done without the template.  —Quondum 20:15, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * OK no problem. I agree that the COI declaration might not attract the attention of other editors. May be I can create a COI section for each affected article, without using the template.
 * Only editors who are already watching the page will notice, and those will already be aware and will review if they see fit to. If you like, you can add a section to each article talk page noting that you made changes before being aware and welcome review, just so that the history is clear.  I don't expect much to happen, and leaving the articles as they are seems fine.  The template at the top of the talk page may be overkill.  Noting involvement at the time of discussion inasmuch as it relates is all that should be needed.  —Quondum 16:01, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Angular measurement to Angle
There is a merge discussion at Talk:Angle. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:13, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Quantum Engineering
Somebody just created an article for Quantum Engineering, it is not the best of articles and needs some cleaning. Also it should be moved to Quantum engineering(but I am not allowed to do that).--ReyHahn (talk) 17:36, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I created a request at WP:RMTR, but this appears to be a duplicate of Quantum technology, where Quantum engineering redirects. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 19:38, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Wow, quantum technology looks ... not great. Like, "third-hand knowledge of press releases run through machine translation" not great. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 00:15, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

The Rise and Fall of the Black Hole Paradigm
Is there any reason this article should exist? It's decidedly fringe content, and it seems too recent and obscure to be noteworthy fringe content. An article on the author was deleted in 2018. The stated rationale for the book being notable is not grounded in facts, appearing to be ignorant of what the NASA ADS is. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 00:18, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
 * The article sounds completely crank. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:34, 10 July 2021 (UTC).


 * It's a bit strange that we do have an article about a book written by Abhas Mitra but not an article on Abhas Mitra. He is a quite notable fringe theorist on alternative theories on black holes. So, I don's think the article on the book should exist, but the case for an article on the author is a lot stronger. Count Iblis (talk) 13:20, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
 * We have the page Magnetospheric eternally collapsing object; I doubt we need more than that. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 14:17, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Short description for "One-way speed of light"
I've just noticed that the short description for One-way speed of light is "Unsolved problem in physics", which seems to me to quite misleading. As far as I'm aware it never has been a problem, so there's nothing to solve. However, I can't think of a simple way to sum up the topic in just a few words. --  Dr Greg  talk 11:14, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed, it's not an unsolved problem. I changed it to "Concept in relativity theory". I hope that's non-controversial and descriptive enough. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tercer (talk • contribs) 11:50, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Elegant solution, this. Thanks, Tercer. - DVdm (talk) 11:53, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, looks good to me.--  Dr Greg  talk 12:52, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Conceptual programs in physics
I was going through Category:Quantum mechanics and happened to notice the page Conceptual programs in physics. It looks more like an essay than an encyclopedia article. Thoughts? XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:55, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
 * It's a new article written almost exclusively by . It does read like an essay. More problematically, I'm skeptical that one can source the premise of the article, that there exists such "conceptual programs", that the conceptual program of classical mechanics is to solve Newton's equation, and that the conceptual program of quantum mechanics is to solve Schrödinger's equation. I suspect these ideas come only from the author's head, and I don't think the concept of a conceptual program is at all useful or interesting. Tercer (talk) 12:01, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
 * There is a pedagogical approach called Conceptual physics that seems to have reasonable sourcing, but this article is something different. Without reliable sources discussing "conceptual programs" in physics as a distinct approach to organizing subfields of physics, and I haven't been able to find any, the article reverts to an essay based on synthesis. -- 18:36, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I've seen topics in physics discussed as research programs in the sense of Imre Lakatos, but that's something different. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:50, 13 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Someone should PROD this. Sure, when you learn physics, the teacher says "lets talk about F=ma" and then later. "oops, end of the line, let me tell you about Lagrangians now". The second half of that article, about quantum, does not in any way resemble the way I was taught quantum. It appears to be "original synthesis". Nothing obviously wrong in there, but certainly a non-standard development, and with the proverbial "holes you could drive a truck through". Or that old kiss-o-death: "why don't y'all move this to wikibooks?" 67.198.37.16 (talk) 22:57, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Give it a prod. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:27, 14 July 2021 (UTC).
 * Done. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:55, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Rain power
Wondering if there are editors here that would like to comment on this discussion - Talk:Hydropower. Please get involved on the linked page with your thoughts. Helper201 (talk) 21:14, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Herbert Friedman
Not sure if this is the right place, but I'll just put a request here for people more interested in physics than I am. While going through the Wolf Prize in Physics list, I noticed Herbert Friedman didn't have a page. Looking into it, his page had copyright violations and was subsequently deleted. Considering he is a Wolf Prize in Physics winner and a National Medal of Sciences winner, as well as a pioneer in solar X-rays, I feel like he needs a page. I already put in an article request, but I'm just putting a comment here as well if any of you guys are interested in writing the article on him. I'd write it but currently have other priorities. PoliticsIsExciting (talk) 04:35, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
 * There are many articles that still need to be created and many more that need work. The best way would be to submit draft by yourself or motivate a particular user interested in this person to work it out.--ReyHahn (talk) 07:56, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

about Toshihide Maskawa
I would like advice on whether to make the country where he was born Japan or the Empire of Japan. This affects all physicists born in Japan in the same generation, so I posted it here.--SilverMatsu (talk) 03:03, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
 * WikiProject Japan is that way. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 03:19, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your advice I will post.--SilverMatsu (talk) 03:25, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I was able to receive advice at WikiProject Japan. Thank you!--SilverMatsu (talk) 07:35, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I saw it here, but it's convenient to keep discussion in one place, so I went there. --mfb (talk) 08:07, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your considerate. Apparently, we are looking at my question on wikiproject:PHY, so I copied it here.--SilverMatsu (talk) 11:42, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

from WT:JAPAN
I would like advice on whether to make the country where he was born Japan or the Empire of Japan. see also WT:PHY.--SilverMatsu (talk) 03:29, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
 * This seems to be handled inconsistently in general. See e.g. his Nobel Prize colleagues: Kobayashi has "Empire of Japan" while Nambu has "Japan". The latter seems to be much more common at least: Yoshishige Yoshida, Yuri Kimimasa, Chikahiko Koizumi, ... --mfb (talk) 05:11, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for teaching me. It seems inconsistent, so in this case I decided not to change his nationality.--SilverMatsu (talk) 07:33, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Template_talk:Elementary_particles
Other eyes would be welcomed here. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:51, 31 July 2021 (UTC)