Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Quality Control/Archive 1

Lorella Jones Page
The Wikipedia page on Lorella Jones includes a paragraph on her physics research that is total nonsense. I have supplied a new paragraph that makes more sense. The offending content was contributed by a student in CUNY Colleg of Staten Island writing under the name of Hamsterboya for a course PHY120-H. This course apparently had a project in which students edited the biographies of deceased physicists. Hamsterboya only did this one and there is no other information about him. Other students did biographies of other physicists and those I checked looked OK. I have been unable to find any contact information for the course. Rtcutler (talk) 16:57, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Do we want ALL Nobel Laureates at high importance
Giving every Nobel Laureate high priority biases the high priority list in favor of 20th century scientists. Having one 'high priority' scientist per year seems to me to be way too many.


 * Too many?! You must be joking: One should say too few!


 * Actually there are too few really good physicists on the existing list!!! Please see the latest updated List of Top Physicists with reasons, not arbitrary choices, or without really good reasons. For example, many times, the Nobel committees pick three, and award three living physicists-- the maximum number allowed, because there are so many excellent physicists, and it is so very hard to make reasonable decisions based on really good reasons, not arbitrary ones, such as numbers out of a hat. So if one mentions a shared Nobel, one should mention all three who shared, not just one!


 * Hope also that you'd find my updated version v2 Top '{x}' List at he bottom of this page more interesting than an arbitrary, so-called selection of top ten, or whatever number, list of excellent physicists.


 * If one really wanted a short list, one could pick a list of the living top '{x}' physicists; even then it's going to be a very tough choice.

Nu 14:26, 13 October 2008 (UTC)Bci2


 * I'm not sure what your intention is with the list at the bottom of the page, but you seem to be completely missing the context of the list posted above it. The list above it, listed all the phycist article that have a top importance rating for the WP physics. I.e. the physicists of which it is deemed most important that there is a good wikiarticle about. Clearly, that is not just about being a good (or excellent) physcist, but mostly about being a well-known physcist. Which leads to quite a different list then the one you seem to be preparing. (TimothyRias (talk) 13:57, 17 October 2008 (UTC))

Main articles
How about Physics, History of Physics, and the main articles they link to? Gnixon (talk) 05:03, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

What 'bout 'em? IMO that's as important as it gets.Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 05:07, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

may be useful, haven<t checked it.Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 14:59, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Greek philosophers
I've noticed that many greek philosophers articles are withing the scope of wiki physics. Often they had top or high importance, which I find completely ludicrous. I've demoted all of them to Mid importance, but I really fell that they are almost completely inconsequential. I suggest that we demoted them all to low importance, save those who actually made a real contribution to physics (aka not just some crazy guy who was considered a physicist at the time because he once ranted the universe). Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 04:54, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You may catch some flack over this. I agree with you but there are a number of people who track science as progressing from the Greeks through the Romans through the Arabs to the late mideval Europeans.  To them the Greeks started it all.  There is little doubt about the large influence of the influx of mathematical thought preserved and extended by the Muslims to the mideval Europeans.  I would keep them at mid for that reason.  I think that evidence that renaissances in science had a lot more European roots including philosophers like Sir Francis Bacon.


 * (I also stumbled across Ibn_al-Haytham who appears to be very influential in optics and the scientific method from the glowing reviews on that page. Unfortunately, I am not in the position to judge.  Somebody should though.  He isn't even listed under physics!


 * I see you have Archimedes as high. I would probably place him as top because of his capabilities as a scientist of his time and because of the interest that people place in him.


 * I am a little disappointed that Aristarchus, Erastothenes, and Ptolemy are not considered as physicists in addition to being astronomers. Should I add them?


 * Finally, I am not quite sure what to do with any of the biographies. Pick any particular subject and look up the history--I picked (Optics and Inertia).  What you will find is a list of all kinds of people you never heard of, some in the middle age Europe and others in Islamic Arabia who were very influential but rarely mentioned in physics textbooks.  Often these peoples main contribution was that they opposed a prevailing Greek thought which was holding back science. According to most textbooks, though, science seems to either begin with Galileo or begins with the Greeks dies for a little and is resurrected by Galileo.  Is it more important for us to recognize the people who were actually the most influential or the people who as a part of physics lore are accounted as being the most influential?  This is a physics work group after all.  Maybe we should get out of the biography business altogether.

TStein (talk) 06:14, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what to do with the biographies either. But I think that one thing that is clear: Greek philosophers' contributions to physics are pretty damned small (low importance at best), with perhaps some notable exceptions (mid importance, and very rarely high importance)). Rule of thumb IMO is that anything pre-scientific revolution is not very important to physics. I don't mind having them on the History of physics article, as they indeed have a part that should be mentionned, but as far as a Compendium of Physics would go, Thales and Aristotle don't deserve much more than footnotes.Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 07:02, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with that. My understanding is that rediscovery of Greek science through its preservation by Islamic civilization was essential to the sparking of the scientific revolution.  I'm no historian, but I doubt it's appropriate to minimize the importance of Aristotle and Ptolemy.  Gnixon (talk) 04:43, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Hence their place in articles such as History of science. It's only because of physics that RNA-transcription is possible, yet you don't see RNA in the scope of WikiProject physics. Ptolemy is more important than the others because he had a solar model that was used for a long while, and was the rival of the Copernican model. I can't think of anything Aristotle did that has anything higher than "low" importance for physics. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 06:26, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Comparing apples to oranges
There's a large extent to which ranking importance within physics can be done in logical, neutral way. That's what's going on here, and I'm glad it's happening. But there also comes a point when you're comparing very different types of articles: Articles about concepts in physics versus articles about physicists versus articles about the history and practice of physics. My request is: When choosing official "projects of the week", we should be sure to include a balance of different types of articles, even if that means not always following the rule of highest-priority-lowest-quality-first. For example, if we make all Nobel-prize-winning physicists high priority (which is fine, as far as I'm concerned), then there may well come a time when all the remaining high-priority stub articles are Nobel-prize-winning physicists, since there's so many of them. People like me who aren't interested in editing biographical articles will stop helping, if the "projects of the week" are all (or almost all) biographies.

We don't necessarily need a strict quota system, but we should keep in mind that these priorities we're giving are a great starting point, but not the only thing to consider. A balance of article types is worthwhile too. :-) --Steve (talk) 16:11, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Things should be varied enough, since I plan to tackle things alphabetically in the "highest importance of lowest quality", but yeah if it's too 1-topic centered, or too biography oriented I'll diversify. I'll also group similar topics as "1 entry" (example of that grouping would up, down, charm, strange, bottom, top, quark articles since relevant informations is likely to be at the same place, and that it'll be easier to harmonize them topics together). Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 20:55, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Is is ok just to delete the reference to the physics project
I came across an article about a prominent UFO researcher whose only connection to physics was that he happened to be a physicist. In my mind article doesn't even deserve to be a low priority for physics. Then there is this site: buttered cat paradox. Ammusing, but not really about physics at all.

TStein (talk) 06:19, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Damn right it is! I've deleted several myself. Not like anyone will miss Alexander Ross Clarke and (E)-stilbene :P. Tho I usually leave a mention to the effect of "irrelevant to physics" or something so people know why it was removed. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 06:33, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Resorting importance list by category
I am trying to sort out importance of articles using this template but it is hard at times because the criteria are split between importance categories. Would it be better to sort first by article type (Biography, theory, experiment, list, institution, equation, physical quantity... or some sort). For example we can do something like.

Biography

 * top: Person who...
 * Examples: Newton
 * high: Person who....
 * Examples:
 * mid:
 * Examples:

Experiment

 * top: ground breaking...
 * Examples: Newton
 * high: ....
 * Examples:
 * mid:
 * Examples:

I think it would make it easier for me to use.

TStein (talk) 21:48, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Go right ahead. It would probably a smarter way of doing things that what's done right now. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 21:51, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I fixed it. Fixing it made it more obvious where we need to add stuff and where there are inconsistencies. Hopefully that will make it easier for others to fill in the blanks.

TStein (talk) 04:31, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Updating the Importance Table and fixing the wpbot and template:physics

 * Headbomb, Do you update the importance table by hand by counting through the links generated above the table or is there a more sophisticated way of doing that? I would love to cherry pick all the unassessed (for importance) members of the Start class (or any other class) for instance.

By the way I called attention to your proposal to update the Physics Template by adding the editprotect template. I stumbled upon that. I hope it is the right thing to do. The wording was so vague.

That won't help the bot sort the articles into the correct category, though. It seems to me that all this will do is allow the colors to change without helping the bot sort them. For instance using an class of Category changes the color property on the Template but does not help the bot sort. Using the term cat doesn't change the color but helps the bot find assess the article. Something similar happens to medium. For some reason the template recognizes an importance of Medium while the bot does not. This causes editors to think that they have assessed the article when in reality (from the bots point of view) they have not.

We need to fix both Template:Physics and the bot so that they agree with each other and to include list properly, if we are using it.

I really want to clear the unassessed list. There is no excuse for so many unassessed articles. If someone can take the time to write an article then surely they can take the even less time it takes to assess another one.

TStein (talk) 16:00, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Headbomb's changes to the Template:Physics have been implemented. I am not quite sure how that will affect the bot.  TStein (talk) 02:23, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Current status of Template:Physics
physics We'll have to update the bot to handle all these (unless some are deemed unnecessary): FA, Fa, fa, FL, Fl, fl, A, a, GA, Ga, ga, B, b, Start, start, Stub, stub, Template, template, Temp, temp, Category, category, Cat, cat, List, list.

Right now there's a problem with
 * Temp and temp are not recognized by physics.
 * Template, template, Temp, and temp are not recognized by the bot.
 * Cat, cat are partially recognized by physics. "Category" does not appears on the banner, but are listed in "category-class" articles.
 * Category and category, not recognized by physics.
 * Category, category, are not recognized by the bot.

Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 02:45, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Good work Headbomb. Are you sure about the bot not recognizing Cat and cat, though?  I appears to be working for me.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by TStein (talk • contribs) 04:34, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * My bad, they work.Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 05:11, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Template class articles
I've tagged all physics-related templates I could find (see Category:Template-Class physics articles, some of these are oooooooooold).Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 03:35, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Simple rules versus common sense...
There are bound to be tradeoffs between specifying rules that are simple and unambiguous and easy-to-follow on the one hand, and asking there to be some application of common sense on the other. Now, I'm not contributing to the assessment effort, so perhaps I have no right to complain. Nevertheless, if Davydov soliton is of "top importance within physics", or even "high importance", just because it's a "particle", then maybe you should consider that the guidelines shouldn't be regarded as hard-and-fast rules, but maybe there should be room for common sense. Or more willingness to modify the guidelines. But again, I have no right to complain :-) Best, --Steve (talk) 03:48, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

It's an old assessment. Things are better now than two weeks ago, even if the guidelines aren't tip-top. Stuff like this happens, but should be corrected over the next weeks. After all, this is the first time (that I'm aware of) someone tries to organize the importance ratings within WP Physics. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 06:14, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Something is better than nothing
My feeling on the matter is that something, even if it leads to nonsense occasionally, is better than nothing. If you don't like Davydov soliton being rated top then change it. Or maybe better yet tweak our rules then change it. Where does Davydov soliton belong and why? Asking and answering questions like that will help us rate the articles better.

A coworker of mine tells a story that applies here. (I am sure I am mutilating the story but the point is the same.) She and a friend needed to carry some heavy things up to her apartment but needed help. Asking for help didn't do too much. So she and her friend struggled, in an obvious manner to get the items up themselves. In moments there were plenty of strong men to help them out. That is how I feel about what we are doing here. Rating every article is too big of a task for a few people. I have made a lot of decisions here, some of which were done too quickly out of necessity. Some of which I have little knowledge about. But if I made an obvious mistake like Davydov soliton then it has a better chance of being fixed then if it had no rating at all.

In the case of Davydov soliton I looked briefly at it and was going to change it, but then saw that Headbomb was the one who set the priority. My thoughts on the matter was that it was alright to leave it at top priority for now. After all the top priority items are going to be reviewed again soon. And if it leads to a discussion about the rule that all quasiparticles should be treated equally then so much the better.

TStein (talk) 18:16, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * TStein pretty much summed up my feelings on this. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 20:10, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me too. Again, sorry to snipe from the sidelines :-) --Steve (talk) 20:28, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh snipe-away. Last thing I want is a wikiproject where crazy rules are favoured over sane ones. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 21:22, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Launch pushed back to June 30th
There's too many things that needs to be tackled before this is launched, IMO.


 * First reason is I want to test the Cheatsheet properly. There's only one way to test things properly, and that way is to use them to exposes the flaws and strength. If we could each pick 3 (or more, why not?) articles that we think needs to be improved, and use it to review the status of the article and what needs to be done, we could determine what part of the sheet is nigh useless, what is missing from it, and what could be better with the other stuff. It takes about 15 minutes to fill if you fix some things along the way, and about 5 if you don't.
 * Another reason is that we could make two or three cheatsheets, one for "biographies", one for articles and one for lists.


 * Third reason is that I want to check if the top importance criteria are "sane". I think the best way to do this is if we each went through all top importance articles (without actually reassessing them for now), and note which articles we would rate differently (forget quality, and forget what's written right now, just go for what you feel is the correct importance rating). Keeping a text file with with categories "Reassess to high" "Reassess to mid" "Reassess to low" should help in doing this. This shouldn't take too long, as it's a matter of simply going over a list of about 300 articles.
 * We could keep our "rating" a secret at first, to not bias the judgement of others. If we do this, I say that 3 days is more than enough to give us the time to each build our lists. Or we could just say screw it, that's just too much trouble (which is where I'm leaning right now).

What say you? Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 06:19, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Overall I think it is a good idea. Although, I might not be the best person to respond since I am going on a 2 week trip starting tomorrow. I won't have any internet for the next two days and from there my internet connection will be fairly uncertain.

My advise is don't push it back too much more, though. Don't worry about everything being perfect before the launch. The details can be hammered out afterwards. Too many projects have grand plans and try too hard for perfection. The best projects are ones that start off with small attainable goals, launch quickly then expand from there. I would focus on testing for only a little while longer. Then pick that one goal that you really want to attain along with a few other sub goals. Finally advertise, advertise, advertise. Are personal invitations on web pages frowned upon for stuff like this?

At least that is my 2 cents, for what it is worth. I hope I can find some time to help. Because it sounds like fun.

TStein (talk) 06:37, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I dunno exactly. It seems to be generally frowned upon when it's made to garner attention to a single article, but I have a hard time seeing how it would be frowned upon when a Wikiproject is asking its members for guidance on something like this. I don't plan to launch later than next week, but I think that we ought to at least try the tools we built on a small scale first. Enjoy your trip. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 11:51, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Importance (timelines)
I was surprised to see Timeline of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and random processes recently rated a "low priority" list.

Surely, as lists go, a historical survey of one of the most practical, subtle, and theoretically fundamental areas of physics should be anything but "low priority" ?

(And can we, like various other projects, please use priority rather than importance -- I'm very uncomfortable about writing any areas of physics off as unimportant. What is useful is to triage the articles by their priority to this project). Jheald (talk) 20:56, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Well "importance" confers a different meaning than "priority" (or "usefullness"). What's been done so far is identify what would be most important to have in an "encyclopedia of physics", while priority should be given to the higher importance article of lowest quality. I do agree that my assessment of this timeline as "low" is inadequate, and that it's at least of "mid" importantce. I'll let you make the change in importance ratings. I'll also invite you to browse Category:List-Class physics articles to check if there are other timelines that got put in inadequate importance ratings. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 22:07, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Reviewing cheatsheet
Hi, I think the cheatsheet is much better chopped into sections. Having said this, maybe there are too many sections? E.g. update and verify could go into the problems section? I also think it would be useful to include a sentence to the blurb explaining what the cheatsheet actually is. For example:

Jdrewitt (talk) 09:45, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I've put a statement to that effect now. I tried to have as little section as possible, but I could only merge copy editing with cleanup, since there is also the need for topical sections, and the more sections are immediately visible, the more people will be reminded "Hey right, copyright's an issue, and so is categories". If you got suggestions for that, don't be shy. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 11:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The new statement reads well. I think your right about the sections, they are separate issues. Jdrewitt (talk) 11:54, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I am not quite sure I am that enamored of the cheatsheet. I like easy access to all the possible problem areas but there are just too many things to check many of which will need to be rechecked later.  So far I only partially cheatsheeted one article, density and that took me quite a while.  I worry a little that it won't be adequately used by the main editors, also.  Then there is a problem of knowing which of the many categories are important for other reviewers to check.  I placed an exclamation mark after the categories that I added something and a ? for things that I think others need to check.  I don't know if that is visible enough or the right thing to do, though.  Should we timestamp the individual categories that we check?  TStein (talk) 05:33, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I went over there and you seem to have made a good use of it in terms of assessing the status of the article. The Cheatsheet's purpose is two-fold IMO. First it supports editors in writing, by reminding them of what to check for. Second it allows editors to tell what has been done and what is left to be done. I usually edit the page as I fill the sheet, since it's usually easier to fix the problem than to detail it. As for time stamping individual sections, up to you. Let's not get caught up in details. The Cheetsheet is a tool, and its usage is up too individual. There's no "correct" or "wrong" way to use it. I'll probably work on article content tomorrow, as I've been busy on other projects this week.

Side note, I too think the Cheatsheet was better when it was all in one. You can skim everything with one click rather than having to click for individual categories. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 05:56, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree although I think we need to focus on making it as useful as possible. Can we use this as a checklist for an article to gain B status or higher for instance?  If so then we should call it a 'checklist for B status' instead of cheat sheet.  If we could do that it would give people a good reason to look at the template and use it.  Plus I think we can make reviewed and fixed categories visually distinctive such as changing the color of the bar.  A green bar means everything has been checked and been found good.  Red means something has been found wrong.  We can then use yellow for either partially checked and no problems or not checked at all.   A quick glance will give people an idea of what needs to be checked and changed.


 * (We have enough editors creating and editing pages it seems (at least from the number of pages we have). What we don't have is enough editors to do the grunt work of rating articles writing to dos and cleanup and focused editing of important pages.  Anything that will help and encourage the former much larger category to do some of the latter work would do a lot more to help our work group than any one person could do I think.  I think that this cheat sheet has potential to do that if we can make it a lot more user friendly and give it a more focused purpose.)


 * I also think that we should encourage but not require timestamps for the long haul. A good protocol maintained on a separate page will go a long ways to helping people get the most out of the template (so that they don't have to think as much) as long as it isn't to picky or difficult to use.  TStein (talk) 05:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I like the Red -> Green idea. I'll change the cheatsheet accordingly. I'll respond to the rest later.Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 06:40, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

What importance to give...?
(TimothyRias (talk) 08:46, 10 July 2008 (UTC))
 * Journals: e.g. American Journal of Physics.
 * Popular scientific books written by physicists. e.g. A Different Universe.

Good question. For journals and books, it would be a case-by-case basic IMO, ranging from High to Low. For journals specific ratings would depending on how established the journal is and the impact it had within physics. I would probably give the Physical Reviews a High rating, while I'd give Synthetic Metals and Journal of Molecular Modeling Low ratings. For books, it would depends on how well-known the book is and its impact. The Feynman Lectures and Stephen Hawking' A Brief History of Time are about as high as you could get (High ratings IMO), but textbooks would generally be of Low importance, perhaps Mid if there's something exceptional about the book. Individual papers might get Top importance ratings (Annus Mirabilis Papers would certainly get that), but for an encyclopedia I don't see journals and books to be of critical importance.

Anyway that's my opinion. Feel free to disagree and to voice yours. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 11:47, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * That was pretty much what I was thinking. Although, I think no paper would be top priority, even the landmark ones. High would be max IMO. (TimothyRias (talk) 14:22, 10 July 2008 (UTC))


 * I agree about journals, although I am not quite sure what all needs to be said about them in an encyclopedia. I would rate American Journal of Physics as high along with all (or most of the ) the PR magazines and Science and Nature.  The first I would rate high because of its utility to the University community the rest because they are the top-tier Journals for original research.  I also noticed that we do not have a list of physics journals that I can find * (I monumentally despise the search feature of wikipedia). *Nevermind I finally found the list of scientific journals in physics.  I still hate wikipedias search feature, though.


 * I think there are a handful of textbooks that would get high priority but no tops. Many of the textbooks that are so influential you can reference them by the author (for example Jackson or Goldstein) would qualify for high.  The popular textbooks at just a lower level then the ones that are considered 'bibles' and or 'bibles' of more specialized fields would be marked as mid.  Here I would include Griffiths (E&M and QM) for instance.  I agree that the rest should be treated as low.  I am not certain exactly what is important to say about these works in an encyclopedia, though.  Eventually, it would be nice to spell out what.


 * I can't imagine any paper getting top priority.


 * TStein (talk) 16:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Not even the Annus Mirabilis Papers, or On Physical Lines of Force (currently uncreated) se ([[A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field]??

What to do with redirected articles?
Going through the list of unassessed articles, I some times find articles that have been redirected. Should these still get an importance assessment, or should the physics banner just be removed? (TimothyRias (talk) 09:16, 10 July 2008 (UTC))

I've been removing the banners. Maybe someone could find a reason to leave them, but for now I don't see the point in having a tagged redirect. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 11:59, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The only reason to maybe leave them, is so that somebody later one removes the redirect as part of splitting up a lengthy article, the new article will already have a physics importance rating. This is only really important for top/high priority articles that currently redirect to some other topic. (TimothyRias (talk) 14:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC))


 * I don't think that it is too onerous to ask whoever removes the redirect to also insert the importance rating. I agree with Headbomb. Removing the tags is best.  TStein (talk) 15:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Trouble with bot with cat and template classes again
I was hoping to knock off a few more unassessed articles, but when I clicked on the link I noticed there were a lot of categories and templates in the unassessed articles again. Is there anyway to get this fixed? TStein (talk) 05:46, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Not quite sure of what you mean... It is possible this is simply a delay between the update of the database. Apparently doing null edits solves this. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 05:59, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I checked the code and I forgot some equal signs. Thanks for pointing that out. Now to wait for the editprotected request to go through... Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 06:11, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Top importance physicists
I have been reviewing the importance ratings of physicists, and I found that I do not necessarily always agree with the given ratings. As many of them have recently been given by Headbomb, I thought it might be more productive to have an open discussion about who we think should be given top importance and why. For reference here is the list of currently top-rated physicists:


 * Andre-Marie Ampere
 * John Bardeen
 * Niels Bohr
 * Walter Houser Brattain
 * Paul Dirac
 * Albert Einstein
 * Richard Feynman
 * Carl Gauss
 * Murray Gell-Mann
 * Galileo Galilei
 * William Rowan Hamilton
 * Stephen Hawking
 * Werner Heisenberg
 * Archibald Hill
 * Christiaan Huygens
 * Igor Kurchatov
 * Georges Lemaitre
 * James Maxwell
 * Isaac Newton
 * Robert Oppenheimer
 * Wolfgang Pauli
 * Max Planck
 * Erwin Schrodinger
 * William Shockley
 * Nikola Tesla
 * Steven Weinberg

Some names on this list are a no-brainer (e.g. Newton or Einstein), yet others are not obvious as to why they should be top important to physics. For example, why are Shockley and Brattain on this list? Yes they invented the transistor, which is important but not to physics (the article doesn't even have a physics tag, maybe it should be importance would high at most). As a rule of thumb I believe no physicist should be given a higher importance rating then his or her main contribution to physics. (figure like Hawking might be an exception due to their public profile) Following this rule also raises doubts about the presence of figures like Weinberg and Gell-Mann on this list.

Equally important if these people are all deemed top important then who else should be here. If Hamilton is here then Lagrange should be as well. If Weinberg and Gell-Mann are here then maybe so should 't Hooft.

I am opening this up for discussion (instead of just changing the ratings I feel are off) because I feel it is important to have some concensus about this. It might help sharpen the current importance to physics description on the project page. (TimothyRias (talk) 10:12, 17 July 2008 (UTC))

Well it was mostly I who assigned these ratings so I'll explain and then maybe it'll make sense (or not):
 * Brattain and Shockley for the transistor. Shockley also was the first to succesfully modelize PN junctions. Brattain could probably be dropped to High, but Shockley IMO, is of top importance considering the impact of his work.
 * Gell-Man because of his work on QED with Feynman.
 * Weinberg for unifying EM and the weak interaction.
 * Hill for the foundation of biophysics
 * Kurchatov because of what seems his enormous impact within the Soviet physics community. He seems like the Soviet Oppenheimer. However, I never heard of the guy before.
 * Lagrange: I agree that this guy should be in top-importance. What about d'Alembert, Legendre, and Poisson?

Good idea to list them all. It gives us a good overview of things. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 18:34, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I sort of have my doubts about the actual importance to physics of Oppenheimer and Kurchatov. They were heads of the the atomic programs of the US and USSR, which makes them important figures for modern history. Besides this they were prominent physicists of their time, but that pretty much goes for any high/mid rated physicist. I think that for this project "high" would be a good rating. But I guess it is a matter of where we want to put the bar.

Some people that I think should make this list: (i.e. people of at least the same stature as the people currently on the list)
 * Ludwig Boltzmann for statistical physics (Ouch, was unassessed. Have put him in Top)
 * Kamerlingh Onnes superconductivity (The top list has a shocking lack of experimentalists)
 * Marie Curie radioactivity. (also I think it is good to have at least one female in there) plus she won 2 Nobel prizes - also a prominent experimental physicist
 * Edward Witten maybe?
 * Gerard 't Hooft for his work on QCD and the standard model?
 * Vera Rubin for galaxy rotation and the discovery of dark matter
 * Charles Townes for discovery of the laser - also a prominent experimental physicist
 * Lene Hau for stopping light (which virtually turned classical physics on its head) and EIT research, nanophotonics, quantum work - also a prominent experimental physicist
 * Enrico Fermi contributed to quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics, awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity. - also a prominent experimental physicist

I'm not sure about d'Alembert, Legendre, and Poisson. They were mostly mathematicians. They should be at least high but top would be too much, I think. (same goes for Euler and Cauchy probably). (TimothyRias (talk) 08:54, 18 July 2008 (UTC))


 * Let's also not forget that most people never see these rankings. They're means to an end, and the end is having better articles. It's fine to spend some time thinking about how to focus efforts, but let's not go tooo far overboard scrutinizing every borderline ranking. Better to spend the time simply improving the articles. :-) --Steve (talk) 15:38, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * More people WOULD see these rankings if we had more experimenters and more quantum physicists and astrophysicists there, and more MODERN physicists. As for experimentalists, definitely needed.  They are the ones who SHOW the world the wonder of physics.  That is part of the reason I nominate Charles Townes, Lene Hau (how can she NOT be there, her work is breathtaking?) and Enrico Fermi.  Vera Rubin I nominate because dark matter is such a dominant area of research that it's pretty much impossible to go by the person who first proposed it's existence.Ybidzian (talk) 20:49, 28 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Why isnt Michael Faraday listed? I think his contribution to physics was as important as any work of Gauss. Also missing is Robert Boyle, his gas laws changed history. MrAntK (talk) 19:12, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Top importance phycisists--Update v2:Please add to this List with specification of the discovery or theory
(Please do not delete any names from the list!) Arbitrary selections of top physicists have very little significance. Considering, however, a list of top physicists based on specific reasons--and without any specific limit to any arbitrary number-- is another matter, and it does serve both an educational and a historic purpose. The following list is incomplete... notability is a criterion, but Nobel prize is not the only criterion--it is just one of the criteria.


 * Anatole Abragam: foundations of he quantum theory of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR)
 * Andre-Marie Ampere: experimental foundations of electricity and magnetism
 * Philip Warren Anderson: quantum theories for solids; NL-1977.
 * John Bardeen: theories of transistors and superconductivity at low T-- the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer model/BCS-theory; NL-1972; NL-1956: "for his research on semiconductors and discovery of the transistor effect"; shared with William Shockley and Walter Houser Brattain.
 * Henri Becquerel: discovery of radioactivity with the Curie's
 * Felix Bloch: discovery and theory of NMR in liquid water solution with ~5mM MnSO4; NL -1952.
 * Niels Bohr: physical foundations of Quantum Mechanics
 * David Bohm: alternative QM theory
 * Ludwig Boltzmann: foundations of statistical mechanics and thermodynamics
 * Sir Lawrence Bragg: foundations of experimental and theoretical X-ray diffraction (XRD); NL-1911
 * Walter Houser Brattain; NL-1956.
 * Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot: foundations of thermodynamics
 * James Chadwick: proved existence of the neutron; NL--1935
 * Arthur Compton: X-ray--electron interactions--Compton effect discovery and explanation; NL-1927
 * Francis Harry Compton Crick: diffraction theory for coiled coils, discovery of DNA and viruses molecular structure; NL-1958
 * Marie Sklodowska-Curie: discovery of radioactivity and radium separation; NL--1903 with Pierre Curie;and NL--1911 for discovery and studies of radium.
 * Pierre Curie: magnetism and discovery of radioactivity; NL--1903.
 * Paul Dirac: algebraic quantum theory, relativistic QM equations, anti-particle prediction; NL--1933.
 * Albert Einstein: foundations of general and special relativity, photoelectric effect mechanism; NL-1912.
 * Michael Faraday: experimental foundations of electromagnetism
 * Richard Feynman: QFT, Feynman duagrams, partons, integral over paths approach to QM and QT, NL-1965
 * Rosalind Franklin: the first high-quality XRD analysis of DNA molecular structure with M.H.F. Wilkins (NL--1958]] and Sir John Randall
 * Augustin-Jean Fresnel:establishment of the theory of wave optics/diffraction both theoretically and experimentally
 * Carl Gauss
 * Andre Geim: Nobel for his work on graphene; the discovery of direct diamagnetic levitation of water.
 * Murray Gell-Mann: quark symmetry and the quark theory; NL--1969.
 * Galileo Galilei: foundations of classical physics both theoretically and experimentally, first high-quality telescope
 * Willard Gibbs: applied the laws of thermodynamics to chemical processes, established the theoretical framework for statistical mechanics, explained various optical phenomena using Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism
 * Herbert S. Gutowsky: NMR in solids and liquids; chemical shift in liquids, high-resolution NMR (w. Charles P. Slichter)
 * William Rowan Hamilton
 * Lene Hau; slowing and stopping light completely using Bose-Einstein Condensates, electromagnetically induced transparency, nanophotonics, quantum devices
 * Stephen Hawking: quantum theories of black holes 'with hair'
 * Werner Heisenberg: matrix theory of Quantum Mechanics
 * Archibald Hill
 * Gerard 't Hooft: non-Abelian QFT; NL--1999: for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics.
 * Christiaan Huygens: diffraction theory
 * Jean Jeener: Two-dimensional Fourier transform NMR, COSY
 * Brian Josephson: quantum tunneling; NL--1973.
 * Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa: plasma and the controlled Thermonuclear Reaction; NL--1978:"for his basic inventions and discoveries in the area of low-temperature physics".
 * Henry Way Kendall: Nobel for pioneering investigations into deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons
 * Wolfgang Ketterle: Nobel for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation, predicted in 1924 by Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein, in dilute gases of alkali atoms
 * Maxim Kontsevich: CP--2008:his work concentrates on geometric aspects of mathematical physics, most notably on knot theory, quantization, and mirror symmetry. His most famous result is a formal deformation quantization that holds for any Poisson manifold. ,
 * Igor Kurchatov
 * Lev Davidovich Landau: phase transitions, theory of solids
 * Sir Anthony J. Leggett: theory of superfluid He-3; NL-2003
 * Georges Lemaitre: Big-Bang theory and relativity
 * Sir Peter Mansfield: NMR Imaging/MRI; NL-2003
 * James Maxwell: classical theory of electromagnetism: Maxwell equations
 * Yoichiro Nambu: Nobel for the discovery in 1960 of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics, related at first to the strong interaction's chiral symmetry, and later to the electroweak interaction and Higgs mechanism
 * Sir Neville Mott: quantum theory of electrons in metals; NL-1977
 * Louis Neel: magnetism; NL-1970
 * Sir Isaac Newton: Foundations of classical physics both theoretically and experimentally: mechanics, optics and celestial mechanics
 * Kamerlingh Onnes: superconductivity
 * Robert Oppenheimer
 * Wolfgang Pauli: quantum spin theory, Pauli spin matrices
 * Sir Roger Penrose: cosmological and gravity theories
 * Max Planck: the quantum, Planck equation for black body energy distribution
 * Henri Poincare: relativity theory
 * Stefan Procopiu:Bohr magneton: calculation of the Procopiu-Bohr magneton value in 1910.
 * Edward Mills Purcell: discovery of NMR in solid paraffin; NL -1952.
 * Sir John Randall: design and invention of radar, neutron and XRD biophysics
 * Vera Rubin: galaxy rotation and devlopment of the theory of dark matter
 * Lord Ernest Rutherford: first experiments on, and theories of, atomic structure, alpha-particle scattering; NL-1908 (in Chemistry!)
 * Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen: discovery of X-rays in 1900 (first Nobel Laureate (NL) in 1900).
 * Ernst Ruska; Nobel for his work in electron optics and the invention of the electron microscope
 * Abdus Salam: Nobel for his work on neutrinos, neutron stars and black holes, Grand Unified Theory, supersymmetry and electroweak theory
 * Erwin Schrodinger: non-relativistic quantum (Schrodinger) equation, Hamilton-Schrodinger operator formulation of quantum mechanics
 * Julian Schwinger: QFT ; NL- 1965.
 * William Shockley: research on surface states; NL-1956, shared with William Shockley and John Bardeen, "for the invention of the transistor".
 * Charles P. Slichter: theory of magnetic resonance in solids and discovery of chemical shift in high-resolution NMR of liquids
 * Nikola Tesla: AC generators, HF, radio
 * Sin-Itiro Tomonaga: QFT ; NL-1965: "for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with ...consequences for the physics of elementary particles".
 * Charles Townes: discovery of the laser, for which he won a Nobel
 * John H. van Vleck: dipolar interactions theory for NMR in solids; NL-1977.
 * Martinus J.G. Veltman: NL-1999: "for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics"
 * John von Neumann: foundations of quantum theory in Hilbert space and operator algebra
 * Steven Weinberg: electroweak unification, supergravity theory, QFT; NL-1979
 * Edward Witten: superstring, M-theory; CP--2008: "for ... important contributions to mathematics inspired by modern theoretical physics."

--Bci2 (talk)

Importance of "History of ..." articles
What sort of importance rating should we give "History of ..." articles. And what should be the criteria? (TimothyRias (talk) 13:07, 24 October 2008 (UTC))


 * I really don't know. It's been bugging me a bit. Perhaps one lower than their corresponding article, but never lower than mid? Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 14:06, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * One level lower than the corresponding article sounds generally reasonable, with discretion. Of the current "History of..." articles which are showing up in the unclassified statistics, how about:
 * High: History of general relativity, History of gravitational theory, History of thermodynamics, History of materials science (Materials science doesn't currently have a physics tag, but should probably be Top), History of variational principles in physics (Variational principle is currently rated Top importance - not sure I agree with this!)
 * Mid: History of superconductivity, History of nuclear weapons (Nuclear weapon isn't listed under physics - though it probably should be Top importance - but the history article is more about the politics and engineering than the physics. The history from a physics viewpoint is covered in Manhattan Project, which should probably be high importance.) Djr32 (talk) 21:47, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Problems with current status of physics articles
For some reason, the expanded table showing the current status of physics articles puts a lot of articles in the ??? importance category, despite their importances having been defined long ago (see FA-Class physics articles of Unknown-importance for example). This seems to have started in the last few days - any idea why? Djr32 (talk) 07:01, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I think I have found the offending code, and have corrected it. However changed the physics template to WPbannermedia, screwed up the code for the X-class of Y-importance categories. (He forgot that the switch is case sensitive, and also forgot to add a proper sort key). It might take a while before the system catches up to the change. (TimothyRias (talk) 08:57, 12 November 2008 (UTC))


 * A while meaning a day or two here. I noticed the problem and place a message on the template talk page explaining the problem, but Tim seems to have fixed it. So thanks to Tim(othyRias). Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 19:25, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

B-Class Checklist
Is there any interest in introducing a B-class checklist such as WP MilHist is using? (See WikiProject_Military_history/Assessment). Now that the physics banner is using Wikibannermeta, it is real easy to add to the banner. Having such a checklist may make review B and C class articles a little easier. (TimothyRias (talk) 15:28, 17 November 2008 (UTC))

Well there's the Reviewing cheatsheet that's pretty much doing that, but having it merged with the banner in some form would be nice.Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 17:42, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Nite that the B-class checklist is much shorter then the reviewing cheatsheet, as it contains only 5 or 6 items.(TimothyRias (talk) 07:25, 18 November 2008 (UTC))

Importance of Units
The current guidelines for units are a bit vague: "High: Common units - Examples: Those listed in the articles SI base units, SI derived units, and cgs, plus others such as electron volt, ... "

I suggest a more detailed set of guidelines:
 * The 7 SI base units (only!) are top importance.
 * All other units should be one or two levels below the thing that it's the unit of. More likely to be 1 level below if it has a name of its own (e.g. Newton), 2 if it doesn't (e.g. metre per second squared).  Units which are multiples of the standard unit for a quantity (e.g. centimetre) or non-SI units more likely to be 2 levels below the quantity.

Any thoughts? Djr32 (talk) 22:18, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Nuclear Power Plants, geophysicists, people that happen to have a physics PhD.
Recently Headbomb requested AnomieBOT to tag the members of several categories relevant to this project with -tags. This has resulted in a lot of articles being added to the project that where missed in the past. However a part of these articles have very little to do with physics. For example:
 * There are quite a number of nuclear power plants in the WP physics now. Most of these are quite standard non-notable power plants from a physics point of view. The notability of these plants tends to be more of a sociological/political/historical nature. For example, being the first power plant to be decomissioned in the UK. These are better served by just WP Energy.
 * The category physicist contained some subcategories that belong fields that strictly speaking are physics but that have their own Wikiprojects. For example, the category geophysicists, IMO, should just belong to WP geology.
 * In general the category physicists contains quite a few people that studied physics and became typical non-notable physicists and at some point became notable for reasons unrelated to physics. IMO these articles don't belong to WP physics.

This might be a good occasion to start a discussion about what exactly should be the criteria for being in this project. Personally I feel that the bottom line should be that the article's should be notable from a physical point of view. That is subjects that are notable and are in someway related to physics are not always notable to this project. But maybe others editors disagree. (TimothyRias (talk) 09:53, 8 December 2008 (UTC))


 * Yes I would agree that physicists not notable for their work in physics shouldn't be included in WP physics. Don't be shy in removing physics tags from them if they are only loosely connected to physics, or in replacing the physics tag by another wikiprojects' whose incredibly more relevant than WP physics.
 * PS: I corrected some typos of yours, I hope you don't mind.Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 21:33, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I never do. :) (TimothyRias (talk) 22:25, 8 December 2008 (UTC))

On topic. I'm never shy about retagging articles, that I don't think belong in WPphysics. I do feel that some of the sub categories that where recently tagged should probably be retagged. In particular, category:geophysics and category"geophyscists probably integrally need instead of  tags. I will probably get around to it sooner or later. (TimothyRias (talk) 22:25, 8 December 2008 (UTC))


 * I agree with you that there's no need for nuclear power plants or people who are well known for reasons unconnected with their physics education / work to have WPPhysics tags. There are lots of geophysicists who are physicists first, and geologists second - I think the current approach of including geophysics articles in WPPhysics and WPGeology is the right one.  Djr32 (talk) 22:32, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Reassessment requests
Hi, can I request a re-assessment of Hydrogen spectral series as it has been greatly expanded and improved. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 17:46, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Some further comment or assistance would be welcome. Thank you. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 21:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Previous comments have been addressed. Another pair of eyes required for reassessment and further help. Thanks. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 02:25, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Changes to
Recently, the WPBannerMeta template (used by ) was changed tag Redirect-, Portal-, Project- and Image-Class articles as NA-Class physics articles. Meanwhile the the X of Y crosssection categories tagged by the physics template still distinguish between these cats. One way or the other we need to respond in someway. We can either follow suit and adjust the crosssection template to treat these designations as the same, or we can modify the physics template to repopulate these categories.

I'd like to at least save the Redirect-Class physics articles category, since this can be useful for quality control on what redirects where. (on a related note does somebody know if we can get a bot to tag all the articles redirecting to physics articles with the physics template. I find it hard to believe that there only about 400 physics redirects for our 13000 pages.) (TimothyRias (talk) 11:52, 7 April 2009 (UTC))
 * I have changed the custom mask to again use these classes for the time being. (TimothyRias (talk) 08:48, 15 April 2009 (UTC))

Complementarity (physics)
The Complementarity (physics) article is well below the standard that I believe is needed for a topic of this importance, and needs a thorough review and addition of point-by-point inline cites to back up its assertions. A lot of it simply duplicates material in wave–particle duality, and it might be a candidate for merging into that article completely. Can someone take a look at it, please? -- 80.168.225.39 (talk) 09:23, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Assessment sweep (bot request)
I'm contemplating requesting a bot to make a sweep through the WP physics article to compile a list of articles that may need to be reassessed. I suggest that the bot performs the following tasks.


 * 1) For all articles currently marked with that are redirected to some other article do:
 * 2) If the other article is also marked with, set the parameters "|class=redirect |importance=NA".
 * 3) Otherwise, add category to talk page: "physics articles redirected to non-physics articles" (category needs to be checked by hand)
 * 4) Create category of marked articles for which the current |class= rating differs from the rating given by other wikiprojects, organized by current WPphysics rating and current rating by other wikiprojects.
 * 5) Compile a list of stub articles whose size exceeds 2k. (Although this is not conclusive, larger size may indicate that the article has been expanded since being rated and may now deserve a higher rating.)

Since running such a bot on all articles of the project requires some form of consensus among the project, am first putting this up here. Also, any suggesting for other things the bot should check for that could indicate that an article needs to be (re)assessed? TimothyRias (talk) 14:40, 2 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's been done several times in the past, nothing controversial. I usually worked with Anomie and every now and then with Tinucherian for these, so you might want to try contacting either of them. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:56, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Heim theory
The above article needs help. Is anyone willing to contribute?-- Novus Orator 06:50, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * What sort of help is required with the article? If it is a fringe theory you could also ask for help from the WP:FTN. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:08, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

A-level
Currently the project has no A-level review system in place. Since I don't think there is much interest in creating one (on top of existing GA and FA nomination procedures), I think it might be better to just say so explicitly on the quality control page that the physics template should not take the |class=A assessment. (We could even remove it from the custom assessment mask in the template.) The only remaining A-level physics article, Albert Einstein could simply be assessed as GA. Corresponding maintenance categories for the A-level articles can be deleted.TimothyRias (talk) 12:31, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree that we shouldn't really have an A-level assessment. However, the default should be B-class. It should only be assessed as a GA if the article actually passed a GA-review. As for the category, I'd rather keep it around, with a message/notice saying that we don't use the A-class in WP:PHYS. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:35, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The Einstein article has passed GA review. (Which is why I suggested it be assessed as GA.)TimothyRias (talk) 17:06, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Milestone - More starts then stubs
Since last week, this project contains more articles of start-class than of stub-class! Hooray for the project.TR 10:43, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Article on Frederick C. Leonard
I have improved it quite a bit.... added lots of references. Please evaluate for an upgrade from 'stub class' and improve my somewhat sparse composition. Regards, Ariconte (talk) (Email me)  04:43, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Miscounting in Articles By Quality template
For some reason it seems to be including the category pages in the classes they're listing. For instance, even though we only have 44 featured articles at the moment, the template counts 50. It seems this is because it's also counting Category:FA-Class physics articles of High-importance‎, Category:FA-Class physics articles of Low-importance, etc. which accounts for the extra 6 articles. Anyone know how to fix this? 786b6364 (talk) 05:15, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I am not sure which template you are talking about. However, the problem is familiar. The only work around that I know of is manually subtracting the additional pages.TR 06:51, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * At the top of the page, the table listing the number of articles that are FA, A, etc. is what I'm talking about. That's done using Template:Articles by Quality. If you go to the linked pages, you'll see that the numbers are all about 6 higher than they should be because of the subcategories. I think, however, that the problem is with Template:Category class that's being used on said extra pages. The documentation says "By default, the template will also add the category to the parent categories ' Topic articles by quality' (e.g. History articles by quality) and ' class-Class articles' (e.g. Start-Class articles)." However, it doesn't seem to mention how to change this default. 786b6364 (talk) 08:42, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, never mind, it really is as simple as you said. For some reason the subcategories have been added (manually, not by a template) to, for instance, Category:FA-Class physics articles, and so it's messing up the count. Anyone mind if I go ahead and change that? I'll wait for confirmation before doing anything. 786b6364 (talk) 09:13, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * What were proposing to change exactly?TR 10:09, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Removing the subpages from the categories they're listing. For instance, Category:FA-Class physics articles of High-importance is itself currently in Category:FA-Class physics articles and Category:High-importance physics articles. However, it's really neither, it's just listing articles that are. So I'm proposing to remove it from those categories. 786b6364 (talk) 10:35, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I guess that would be OK, although those categories should all belong to some parent category (Something like Physics articles by quality and importance).TR 11:34, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, great. I'm off for now, but within the next day or so I'll go ahead and change the categories (including making sure they all belong to a parent category). Thanks! 786b6364 (talk) 11:48, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ Let me know if I broke anything. 786b6364 (talk) 07:36, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Watchlist broken
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Willard Gibbs
I really think that the bio Josiah Willard Gibbs should be rated as being Top Importance, in both physics and chemistry. In physics he was, together with Maxwell and Boltzmann, a founders of statistical mechanics. In fact, he coined the term "statistical mechanics" and he introduced the fundamental concepts of microcanonical, canonical, and grand canonical ensembles. He also introduced the chemical potential and the idea of phase space. His contributions are at least as important as Boltzmann's (who's currently rated Top). Before that, Gibbs already had essentially created modern physical chemistry and invented vector calculus. His work has also had a very significant and long-lasting impact on mathematical physics. You can see details and refs. on all of this in the article. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:50, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Constructal law
This article appears to be a WP:FRINGE article albeit notable. It also seems to have serious issues with WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV language. A lot of work needed to fix it. Request assistance from experts. Simonm223 (talk) 16:55, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Geiger-Marsden experiment
I am requesting a reassessment of the Geiger-Marsden experiment article, as I have completely rewritten it. I think it deserves a better score.Kurzon (talk) 08:17, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Feedback and Reviews about an Article
Hi all, I started editing the wikipage on Translation operator (quantum mechanics) months ago. It was rated as Start-Class on the project's quality scale and as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. I tried to improve the article and added a few references and hyper-links. It will be great to have some feedback from you people about my edit. Sumeruhazra (talk) 02:52, 11 November 2014 (UTC)Sumeruhazra

Request for feedback about an article
I have created a Wikipedia page about Clebsch-Gordan coefficient for SU(3). I am new to editing Wikipedia and this is my first edit. Any suggestions on how to improve the page will be more than helpful.Arkadipta Sarkar (talk) 03:43, 14 November 2014 (UTC)Arkadipta Sarkar

Feedback
I've made some major edits to the page Neutral particle oscillation in the last couple of weeks. Can anyone interested in the topic please give me his/her feedback on the talk page of the article? Your opinions or suggestions will be quite helpful and if you have any doubt regarding the matter, I'll be happy to explain as best as I can.

— Soham92 (talk) 13:45, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Applied Physics page rewrite
Hi all, I am new to editing wikipedia. I studied astrophysics and I am going into studying applied physics. I have just read the wikipedia article on the subject and the grammar and role description is shocking, the work of an applied physicist can be put more eloquently with a better history and sphere. Does anyone mind if I completely rewrite the article?

- MrAntK (talk) 19:18, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Polytropic process rewritten
Not sure this place is still active, but I cleaned up polytropic process (Start-class before) and I think it now meets B-class. Maybe it is only C-class, in any case I would appreciate if someone re-assessed it. (I cannot decently evaluate an article I rewrote...) Tigraan Click here to contact me 17:35, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

How to get A-class?
How does one start the review process to bring an article to A-class? I would like to do so with Laser Inertial Fusion Energy, but poking about here I can't seem to find such a system, and according to the statistics it seems there is only one A-class physics article? Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:33, 15 July 2016 (UTC)


 * We don't have an A-class process of our own (and that A-class is likely from WP:MILHIST, which do have their own very solid process). I suggest you use WP:GAN or WP:FAC instead. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:38, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I guess I would like to have a once-over before going to FA, which A-class is useful for, as was the largely-dead PR. Do you think GA is worthwhile in this regard? I've not found it to be very rigorous in the past, but that might be the subject fields in those cases. Maury Markowitz (talk) 18:27, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Jeff Forshaw
Hello Wikiproject Physics. I've written Jeff Forshaw which has been up for dyk for quite a while, still unreviewed and I just found out I can add my own banners for projects so i've added it to the project. It was suggested to me to rate it C class, but the other section and 'biography' I have not filled in. Would someone like to rate it for me please? Thanks. Hopefully it will get dyk reviewed eventually and make the front page. Thanks Mramoeba (talk) 14:34, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Principle of locality - quality rating and cleanup
I unilaterally bumped the quality rating of Principle of locality from "Start" to "C". As a non-expert, I found it to be more useful than what I have seen as start articles. I'd also suggest that although the article still needs work, it might be time to remove the Cleanup tag from 2009. It appears some effort has been made since that point. --Bookandcoffee (talk) 18:05, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Progressive kinetic unification
Lacking any section of research into the very likely possibility that particle physics is in fact just particles which strike one-another in a kinetic fashion without using shortcut concepts such as sucking photons or attractive strings, I begin it here and now. I have made attempts at creating a Wiki page on my own behalf, but it is always immediately destroyed with a comment by some Canadian editor of "Fraud". If the internet is to be a free speech medium, I hope to find someplace I will not be bullied by actors. After all, Einstein did say that the photon was a shortcut, and his dying last words were "Everything is relative." It is known to witnesses that Einstein watched the U.S.S.Hammond disappear from the pier during the Philadelphia Experiment. I believe this is what opened his eyes to the reality that charge is infact variable to the most extremes of matter interactions, and is not confined to certain limits as flaky theorists have suggested.

So in short, we need to accept under the critical matter of quality control here, that the most well known physicists who claim to have learned more than anyone, may infact be completely backwards as evidence of so many new developments have shown, such as the requirement of two different electron masses being required to explain type 1.5 superconductivity and certain atoms/elements. This is not something their theory ever predicted, and if it's not predictive, it should be considered useless trash, and we need to start over from scratch!

I do have my own such theory, which even contains a mathematical solution to unification. A simple translation of known parameters (Planck constant/ e=Mc2 etc...) which perfectly transforms known evidence into a fully kinetic system. I dare not however create my own page on this again, or no doubt, the wolves will devour it, so I'll simply have to return here and re-edit this section until the end of time until the bully actors give up.

I don't wish to reveal my formula here. Someone create a section and let me know please, since I'm terrible at using Wikipedia.

-progressive kientics gab; @unified — Preceding unsigned comment added by Progressivekinetics (talk • contribs) 17:51, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Assessment
It looks like the article Pocket universe is within the scope of this projec, especially now that all fiction-related content has been removed. Assessment is requested. – Laundry Pizza 03  ( d c&#x0304; ) 01:21, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Review request: Inertial damper in real world
Hello, I would like to ask for some feedback and/or corrections of the section, which I have just written. Petr Matas 09:21, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Quality assessment of POVM article
I just finished a major overhaul of the POVM article, I don't think it is Start-Class anymore. As I can't judge the quality of my own work impartially, can somebody else change the quality rating there? Also, suggestions for further improvement are welcome. Tercer (talk) 13:13, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Since nobody cares I just did it myself. Tercer (talk) 07:58, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Importance of Pseudoscalar meson, Vector meson, Scalar meson and Pseudovector meson
The pseudoscalar and vector meson articles are classified as "low importance", while the scalar and pseudovector meson are classified as "mid importance". If I understood the importance scale correctly, these should all have mid importance. But I'm pretty sure pseudoscalar and vector mesons should have higher or equal importance compared to scalar and pseudovector mesons, since they are more prominent in general, due to being discovered first, having lower mass, longer lifetimes and no orbital angular momentum. --Lukflug (talk) 18:27, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Quality of MKS system of units
I expanded and improved this article a bit and believe it now qualifies for start-class, rather than stub-class. However, I don't feel confortable increasing the quality assesment myself, since I'm a new and inexperienced editor, so I would appreciate the opinion of other editors. --Lukflug (talk) 18:05, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

'Importance' Vs 'Fame' in Context of Popularisers
This seems in my opinion to be misnamed and is more just a measure of fame than importance. Famous (in the US, ones in other countries do not seem to be) popularisers all seem to be mid/high importance to physics whereas scientists that aren't especially famous to the public are low. I'm not disparaging science popularization and think it is something that is essential, but does anyone *really* believe that for instance Neil deGrasse Tyson is more important to physics than e.g. the head of CERN, head of Fermilab, head of LIGO etc? Or Kaku more important to physics than Higgs/Englert? More famous, sure. But no one can honestly argue that Kaku is more important (in fact much more important according to wikipedia, high vs low) to physics than Fabiola for example. 2001:56A:F343:2700:61BE:27A2:4192:DB78 (talk) 01:20, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Assessment -- Nuclear weapon design
Nuclear weapon design

I am uncertain what the procedure is in this project. Over on Military History I could just downgrade it myself, but I don't know what you project's rules are. Either way, the article may have been B-class when reviewed many years ago, but now it is a mess with 98 citation needed by my count today. It is also awkwardly structured. Over on the Military History project I am looking for other editors to help rewrite the whole thing.Kylesenior (talk) 05:10, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Havana Syndrome
This top 25 article, Havana syndrome, is full of physics claims about the interaction of microwaves the human body and surrounding electronics. Some physicists have been citied on the page. Others have been kept off the page because some editors felt the sources weren't good enough. I tagged the page but I'm not comfortable classing and rating it. Would someone care to do that? DolyaIskrina (talk) 08:32, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Diffusion gradient
Is this page likely to ever be anything more than a DAB? Should it even be that, or should it just redirect to "diffusion?" PianoDan (talk) 20:23, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Decay_heat : Power reactors in shutdown
On 22:50, 3 August 2012 (UTC) SBHarris noted that the equation description on page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_heat, paragraph "Power reactors in shutdown", is obscure (edit title "Error in the Reference 3"). I think that it is still obscure, especially in relation to tau and tau_s. I'd be pleased if it was clarified.

Wikiphan Wikiphan (talk) 18:45, 12 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I've done my best to clarify things a bit. PianoDan (talk) 20:47, 12 January 2022 (UTC)