Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive June 2023

History articles should not be divided around personalities
Here is an example History of fluid mechanics is divided in sections named after scientific personalities in order to separate their contributions. However this separation seems unnatural and focuses too much on names. Chinese interpretations of buoyancy could be discused in the same section of Archimedes for example. Engineering developments could be grouped together to separate from the development of theory concepts. Is there any guideline on how to handle this? For contrast, History of astronomy does not have any section header based on a single scientist.--ReyHahn (talk) 21:18, 1 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia has a very large number of history focused pages: maybe you should ask on Teahouse for broader input?
 * For me, the history issues on physics pages are more around redundant copy-pasta and missing references. Maybe the organization of the fluid mechanics is a bit skewed like a lot of history, but it's extensive. Many topics need a (non-skewed) history addition. Johnjbarton (talk) 01:57, 2 June 2023 (UTC)


 * I certainly would have preferred a history article to chronicle developments, and to have the section headings accordingly. The text can attribute major aspects of the development to individuals.  I seen no reason to have put names into section headings.  —Quondum 02:24, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

On charm quark: Comments & Reassessment Requested
Dear WikiProject Physics:

I just re-worked the article charm quark and submitted it for DYK. This article is a level-5 vital article. I don't think it belongs to the "start" class now, and I would appreciate it very much if someone can look at it and re-assess it. Many thanks! --TheLonelyPather (talk) 20:25, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Charmed baryon
A long, poorly formatted, and completely unsourced article that is not linked from anywhere except Charm quark and Nicholas P. Samios. It contains information that is not in other articles, but I feel that the content should be merged somewhere if sources can be found for the myriad claims. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 14:50, 4 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Most of these would likely be sourced to PDG (Particle Data Group) reviews for the relevant years/particles. Nomenclature rules come from PDG 1986.
 * &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:18, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Propose renaming Category:Theories of gravity to Category:Theories of gravitation.
I just created this proposal on this page: Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 7 ... If anyone cares to express interest, there it is. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 04:43, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Snap, crackle, and pop
Hi all. In the article Fourth, fifth, and sixth derivatives of position and Snap, Crackle and Pop, it says that "snap, crackle, and pop are sometimes used in physics", whereas Derivative mention that these terms are "most applicable to astrophysics". Some searches I've found on Google show that it is used in terms of physics. As a user who is not good at physics, I am totally confused, especially about the sentence in the last article. Any explanations would be appreciated. Thanks. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 05:54, 6 June 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm unsure what has you confused here. Can you elaborate?
 * The Visser reference says:
 * "It is standard terminology in mechanics that the first four time derivatives of position are referred to as velocity, acceleration, jerk and snap."
 * Then continues in a footnote:
 * "Jerk [the third time derivative] is also sometimes referred to as jolt. Less common alternative terminologies are pulse, impulse, bounce, surge, shock, and super-acceleration. Snap [the fourth time derivative] is also sometimes called jounce. The fifth and sixth time derivatives are sometimes somewhat facetiously referred to as crackle and pop."
 * That goes along with the fact that the next reference is to a USENET article. They say:
 * "In the case of the Hubble space telescope, the engineers are said to have even gone as far as specifying limits on the magnitude of the fourth derivative. There is no universally accepted name for the fourth derivative, the rate of increase of jerk.  The term jounce has been used, but has the drawback of using the same initial letter as jerk.  Another less serious suggestion is snap (symbol s), crackle (symbol c) and pop (symbol p) for the 4th, 5th and 6th derivatives respectively.  Higher derivatives do not yet have names because they seldom appear in physics.
 * To my reading, the sources have been stretched to match the article. The physics articles cited use "snap" but do not use "crackle and pop".
 * Did you find uses of these terms? Add the refs! Johnjbarton (talk) 15:36, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * @Johnjbarton I think I should have told the story about what I asked, just in case. I was trying to add references in Derivative that its status is GA but it has a lack of sources. There is one sentence in this article, claiming that the usage of those terms that applicable in astrophysics. I could not find any sources that mention it. At that time, one source that I found was
 * which I thought it mention those terms are used in physics. Speaking of the usage of crackle and pop that you questioned, I am not sure that this journal is helpful. Perhaps I should have copyedited that sentence because none of the sources mention it; however, I have no knowledge of advanced physics, so the only hope I do right now is to ask in this project. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 16:33, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The excellent ref you listed should be added as the first of the refs on the Snap, Crackle and Pop entry.
 * Similarly for Fourth, fifth, and sixth derivatives of position.
 * This ref clarifies the case: the names are legit and used in mechanics, not just astrophysics.
 * Finally for your Derivatives page
 * "And finally, the fourth through sixth derivatives of x are snap, crackle, and pop; most applicable to astrophysics."
 * I suggest replacing the trailing qualifying phrase with your reference:
 * "And finally, the fourth through sixth derivatives of x are snap, crackle, and pop. "
 * Can you do that? Johnjbarton (talk) 17:16, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * "And finally, the fourth through sixth derivatives of x are snap, crackle, and pop. "
 * Can you do that? Johnjbarton (talk) 17:16, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

This subject has been discussed here at least twice before. A search for "Crackle" yields [Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive November 2019#Flounce (physics)?] and [Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive February 2015#Big mess considering kinematics]. JRSpriggs (talk) 20:39, 6 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks!
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive November 2019 ends with "A single sentence (like what is currently written in Snap, Crackle and Pop) is entirely adequate." which is what we are discussing here.
 * Similarly the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive February 2015 seems also to be about the multiple pages thing. Not something we should bring back.
 * I think the reference addition proposed clearly cements the validity of the names. Johnjbarton (talk) 22:41, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * @Johnjbarton I have added the source in two articles Derivative and Snap, Crackle, and Pop. The article Fourth, fifth, and sixth derivatives of position had already been cited with that source. Did I miss something? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 06:32, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you!
 * The citation in Fourth, fifth, and sixth derivatives of position was not correct: the Eager article did not discuss the clothoid function. I corrected that article to attach the Eager article to text matching what they did say.
 * I also found a great blog article with multiple references for the clothoid function: https://pwayblog.com/2016/07/03/the-clothoid/. I added refs to that blog.
 * Nice work, thanks again.
 * Johnjbarton (talk) 16:24, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Negative energy
This article was recently PRODded due to serious inaccuracies (which have been claimed since at least June 2022), but was dePRODded because deletion is not cleanup. Other comments include: –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 17:21, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The topic is fringe, and fails to clearly distinguish between mainstream and fringe ideas.
 * References are entirely popular-press books rather than academic sources.
 * In October 2022, two different accounts completely rewrote the article to advance pro-fringe viewpoints; these were quickly reverted.
 * An uncivil comment by someone who revised a section in good faith.


 * I'm unsure: what action are you advocating now?
 * I read the article and looked up the section referenced to Penrose's "The Road to Reality". The Penrose reference is essentially a text book and certainly qualifies as an authoritative if slightly biased secondary source. I left a comment on the Talk:Negative energy page.
 * As far as I can tell the topic itself is not fringe, though certainly very narrow and perhaps of dubious general application. Uses of the concept could well be fringe.
 * To be sure the page itself is lame. The concept is not explained. The page is mostly a list of exotic things connected to this exotic concept. Even the referenced sections don't explain the connection to negative energy or why it is introduced. All of this could be repaired.
 * High on any list of repairs would to give an simple definition and to relate the concept to "negative energy density".
 * The limitations of the concept could be explained if suitable reference material could be found. For that matter, reference material that explains why negative energy can't be a thing should also be included. Do you know of some?
 * (I don't think the edit history itself is an argument against the page existence; Wikipedia has mechanisms to address that issue.)
 * Johnjbarton (talk) 18:01, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Hamilton's optico-mechanical analogy page updated
I made some pretty drastic changes to Hamilton's optico-mechanical analogy. Review and suggestions on that Talk page welcomed. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:33, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Ernest Rutherford
The page Ernest Rutherford has been updated to more fully include the details of his life and scientific work. The page now expands upon his educational biography, appends dates to several of his discoveries, and includes others which had previously been omitted. I have also made a handful of additional edits on miscellaneous other sections. This may (or may not) be of interest in (re-)evaluating your project's content assessment of the article. Doughbo (talk) 01:19, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion about Spin (physics) -> Spin (particle physics)
There's currently a couple thread over at Talk:Spin (particle physics) about how Spin (physics) was renamed to Spin (particle physics). The rename wasn't my idea but I did edit all the pages that linked to Spin (physics) and changed it to Spin (particle physics) as part of a request at WP:BOTREQUEST. I'm going to change them all back but I felt it might be a good idea to let folks know in case they had an opinion or wanted to chime in.  Dr vulpes  (💬 • 📝) 04:33, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Why not open a formal WP:RM?--ReyHahn (talk) 20:21, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * This wasn't a move it was an edit to the articles themselves.  Dr vulpes  (💬 • 📝) 20:47, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Questionable revert on Electric Charge
A small edit to Electric charge was reverted with out comment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Electric_charge&curid=9804&diff=1160463723&oldid=1160386480

The original edit was small, correct and linked to other pages (if not referenced).

What is the correct way to challenge the revert? Johnjbarton (talk) 17:35, 16 June 2023 (UTC)


 * But there is a comment: matter covers antimatter and W bosons. That is correct, is it not? And in my opinion one should not even discuss such advanced topics in the first paragraph of an elementary article. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 18:36, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
 * To answer the OP's question directly, the challenge should be made at Talk:Electric charge. Primefac (talk) 19:16, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Johnjbarton (talk) 21:02, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes I see it now? I missed it when it was on my watchlist notifications, and weirdly that entry no longer appears on my watchlist notifications so I can't check. I'll be sure to check the diff next time. Johnjbarton (talk) 21:04, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Really special relativity?
Lately, I have been thinking that general relativity, as usually understood, is an abandonment of special relativity. If we want to preserve special relativity, we should make an assumption such as this &mdash; there is at least one Cartesian coordinate system within which the metric tensor is the product of the Minkowski metric with the exponential of the (Newtonian) gravitational potential (a scalar field).
 * $$ g_{\alpha \beta} = \eta_{\alpha \beta} \exp (\phi) $$

in such a coordinate system, we should have
 * $$ \Gamma^\alpha_{\beta \gamma} = \tfrac12 \phi_{, \rho} ( \delta^{\alpha}_{\beta} \delta^{\rho}_{\gamma} + \delta^{\alpha}_{\gamma} \delta^{\rho}_{\beta} - g^{\alpha \rho} g_{\beta \gamma} ) \, $$

which would then also hold in other coordinate systems. What do you-all think? JRSpriggs (talk) 00:50, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I do not want to be rude, however if this does not have anything to do with a specfic Wikipedia article then maybe this is not the best place to discuss this...--ReyHahn (talk) 05:46, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but this Talk page is about issues in editing Wikipedia pages under WikiProject Physics.
 * I suggest you try to rephrase you suggestion as a question and post on physics.stackexchange.com or on Quora. Johnjbarton (talk) 14:16, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Major reorganization of Introduction to quantum mechanics
I re-sectioned, moved content around, and added some paragraphs to Introduction to quantum mechanics.

My goal was to shorten the lead (as mentioned on the Talk page) and correct what seemed to me to be a mishmash of history and QM topics.

I think the outline is ok now. Please take a look. I'll probably take another pass in case you have suggestions or wished I'd not done something I did. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:35, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

New section for Measurement in quantum mechanics
To follow up on discussions about the incongruity of introduction to eigenstates discussed previously, I repurposed the first part of my  rewrite as an on-ramp section for Measurement in quantum mechanics. The draft is:

User:Johnjbarton/sandbox/measurement in quantum mechanics

Do you think this works? Is it a better outcome for readers?

If you like, comments on the draft itself can go on my sandbox page or the Talk:Measurement_in_quantum_mechanics Johnjbarton (talk) 18:37, 30 June 2023 (UTC)