User talk:Johnjbarton

talk to me Johnjbarton (talk) 00:34, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The wave vector is really a vector ${\displaystyle \mathbf {k} }$, as is the group velocity. I suggest staying with this from the start of the article, rather than having wave number anywhere. There are cases where this matters a lot, for instance in periodic solids. Ldm1954 (talk) 19:17, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My goal here was trace through de Broglie's historical path but to connect to the (modern) group velocity page. A reader of the de Broglie approach would have some work to connect to the group velocity otherwise.

Using vector ${\displaystyle \mathbf {k} }$ here would, I believe, require additional explanation out of context for the historical story. I did add a qualifier "in free space" to the passage.

I understand the value of consistency but there is also value in starting with the simple homogenous case to give the basics, then generalizing.

To me the group velocity page is weak in not clearly calling out the general case and making the connection. Solids and anisotropic mediums are not mentioned. Similarly wavevector does not connect with crystal momentum. Johnjbarton (talk) 03:11, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reply on 'QM Non-interpretations talk'. If you are interested in matter waves, perhaps the following is your cup of tea: https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/17832/arthur-lunn-and-the-schr%c3%b6dinger-equation 176.93.119.196 (talk) 17:41, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

hey, I am physics student and I am interested in your scattering graph of Rutherford scattering. Youve send code, but how do you get the function r(theta) ? 191.37.156.163 (talk) 16:17, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@191.37.156.163

• Please append new posts to Talk pages (using Add Topic if possible). The Talk pages have the oldest topics on top, newest on bottom.
• Please post content discussions to article topic pages if at all possible. So Talk:Rutherford scattering experiments in this case.
• I assume you are asking about Rutherford_scattering_experiments#/media/File:RutherfordHyperbolas.png where I wrote
  • r(phi) = 2(p/b)^2/(e cos(phi) - 1)
  • Where p is the impact parameter
  • b is the closest approach radius
  • and e = Sqrt((2p/b)^2 + 1)

This is an equation of motion for a Hyperbolic_trajectory#Equations_of_motion in polar coordinates with the parameters written to match Rutherford's p and b (rather than l as on the wikipage). Johnjbarton (talk) 23:19, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've searched and cannot find the link. I give up. -- David Spector 98.2.238.89 (talk) 00:50, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The link is: https://physics.mcmaster.ca/phys3mm3/notes/whatisspin.pdf

It is wrapped around the title in the reference #3 on Spin (physics). I don't know what the deal is with the other two links, something the ref tool added. Johnjbarton (talk) 01:12, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't tried very hard, but I can't find the source of the term. It must have been around 1924, but it is not clear whether Born's paper was actually written by Heisenberg. David Spector (talk) 22:09, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Did you see my edit? I think I fixed it ;-) Johnjbarton (talk) 22:18, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I saw your edit. Here is more from me:

I haven't tried very hard, but I can't find the source of the term. It is said to have been around 1924, and in German, but it is not clear whether Born's paper (published in 1925?) was actually written by Heisenberg. Also, WP itself says that the First Solvay Conference was primarily concerned with quantum mechanics, in 1911, had "quanta" in its title, according to WP; however, the official title appears to have been, "Invitation а un Conseil scientifique international pour élucider quelques questions d’actualité des théories moléculaires et cinétiques". A typical article on the Solvay conferences doesn't mention who invented the term. David Spector (talk) 22:22, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ah ok. I cheated. Tracing down the origin of the word may not be practical/reliable. So I used the first time in print. AFAICT this is close to the same as all the folks using the term worked with Born. (Who actually wrote the paper isn't vital but I have no reason to think it was not Born). Johnjbarton (talk) 22:28, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The paper, "The 1925 Born and Jordan paper “On quantum mechanics” ", by William A. Fedaka and Jeffrey J. Prentis (2008), states definitively that Max Born invented the name, so I'm inclined to agree. I got confused by the fact that Heisenberg contributed to a sequel to Born and Jordan's 1925 paper. Note: Paul Dirac independently discovered the basic QM equations without using matrix mathematics. David Spector (talk) 01:08, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nice, I added that ref to the draft and to History of QM page, thanks! Johnjbarton (talk) 01:34, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for all the work you're doing for the QM pages. I'm too busy with video-editing and Web software projects for the charity I run to spend much time on this, and also I have to look things up, because I've only had a few physics classes in school. We all know that isn't much preparation for s real understanding of physics, especially the math. - David

...although I did once make a class presentation on the math behind the precession and nutation (ignoring the higher order motions) of toy tops that try to fall over due to the pull of gravity. David Spector (talk) 10:51, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I appreciate your feedback on the articles, very helpful.

To be honest I'm reliving my youth a bit ;-). I have a fancy (if a bit dated) education in this topic area but the courses were so difficult most of it just washed over. Weirdly I discovered I could do the math at the time even if I didn't understand it. Johnjbarton (talk) 14:05, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think that was Richard Feynman's complaint, too, although no one can be sure: "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." David Spector (talk) 16:01, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. It appears that you copied or moved text from Wave–particle duality into another page. While you are welcome to re-use Wikipedia's content, here or elsewhere, Wikipedia's licensing does require that you provide attribution to the original contributor(s). When copying within Wikipedia, this is supplied at minimum in an edit summary at the page into which you've copied content, disclosing the copying and linking to the copied page, e.g., copied content from [[page name]]; see that page's history for attribution. It is good practice, especially if copying is extensive, to also place a properly formatted {{copied}} template on the talk pages of the source and destination. Please provide attribution for this duplication if it has not already been supplied by another editor, and if you have copied material between pages before, even if it was a long time ago, you should provide attribution for that also. You can read more about the procedure and the reasons at Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. Thank you. Nobody (talk) 12:51, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that is what I did. Johnjbarton (talk) 13:55, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The "copying" is the part that you did, the "attributing" is what you didn't and you need to do in the future. Nobody (talk) 14:31, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can't tell whether you are looking for a tool or offering a tool, and what OS. Just wanted to contribute that the IrfanView free viewer can generate a .gif on Windows. David Spector (talk) 17:44, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Those links are just stuff I thought I should remember for editing on wikipedia. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:27, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

i don't think you will win (be listened to) by TD. Also, one of the odd things about coherence is that there is always some partial incoherence as otherwise the waves hit Jupiter etc. In double slit experiments the electrons are sausages, some microns long (along z) and maybe 100nm wide in x,y. Those are the longitudinal and transverse coherence lengths (when ${\displaystyle \Gamma (r_{1},r_{2})=0.5}$, so wavepackets are not too far off -- but this is way too complex! Ldm1954 (talk) 15:18, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Coherence is quite a tricky subject. Most of the effects are classical. The size of the source through the slits and the energy spread reduce fringe visibility through purely geometrical effects. So the packet one computes from coherence is an ensemble that correctly explains macroscopic visibility without having any necessary microscopic consequences. The packet dimensions are set by uncertainty, so lifetime to energy spread for example. I think few experiments reach those limits. It would be best to put numbers to my claims I suppose. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:20, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In the EM community there are three groups

• Those who ignore it
• Those who say it is in Born & Wulff
• Those who struggle experimentally to optimize.

I am somewhat in the second two camps, having spent time drinking beer with Pozzzi, Tonamura & Lichte. Every now and again we get back to whether holography eliminates inelastic, and inelastic imaging at atomic resolution. Most others who have not retired are in the first camp.

I only have incomplete lecture notes on it .. Ldm1954 (talk) 16:55, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

N.B., it is not geometric, except in terms of the slit width and edges. The main coherence issue is coming in to the slits, which requires cold FEG, small apertures & masses of work to eliminate stray fields etc. I often get those papers to review! Ldm1954 (talk) 17:04, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I will suggest cleaning the Sandbox, which I think is close. Much of what is being fought about will then go away (I hope). Ldm1954 (talk) 17:11, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

you are the one who decided to engage and provide inadequate sources. the ^{[citation needed]} tag stood for over five years. you have not provided any sources that meet WP:RS. and until you do, that tag will stand. you should understand this, but clearly you're pushing an agenda. 172.219.6.108 (talk) 23:22, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Consistent histories, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Interpretation.

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Hi, just concerning your recent modification to my edit on the charm quark articles: I'm not sure using the term "Standard Model naturalness criterion" is the best way to do it. I agree that it is important to distinguish what we mean by natural, but there is not such thing as SM naturalness criterion by itself. The kaon argument arises from a generic naturalness argument, which is not restricted to a SM version of naturalness, whatever that may be. Maybe we should just call it the "naturalness criterion"? OpenScience709 (talk) 20:47, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. You seem to understand my concern so make the change you think is reasonable. Maybe "physical naturalness criterion"? Johnjbarton (talk) 23:31, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Johnjbarton I try not to contact people directly on their talk pages but I just hope to have some kind of signal from you In a recent ping [1] I tried to recontact you about the structure of the article. I do not know if you have seen it (the talk page is kind of complex right now) or if you are busy with something else. Anyway please discuss that when you are available or if you are ambivalent please tell us so. Keep the great work. Best, ReyHahn (talk) 19:27, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'm making an effort to not get too wrapped up in discussions; most of the time I don't understand the final result so they seem to have low costs/benefit. Please don't hesitate to ping me in a Talk page however. I will respond as soon as I am able.

I am preparing the charges for the Action at a distance TNT. Johnjbarton (talk) 21:02, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Hi, would you mind having a look at Talk:Electron diffraction/GA2, especially the 1st and last comment and let us know what you think. FuzzyMagma (talk) 07:57, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Dear John,

Thank you for your continued interest in this topic. I see you deleted a whole section with the experimental Tennekes graph of the cubic relationship between car power and velocity. Isn't that deletion a mistake? It's just basic physics - though not trivial - for the air drag regime for cars at high speeds, nice for high school and first year physics students. I answered your comments at Talk:Car_speed,_energy_consumption_and_city_driving and added a section on city driving. Thanks and cheers, Hansmuller (talk) 19:17, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is obvious that without a carrier particle there is no "fundamental" force. Spacetime is a mathematical mental interface that is tuned to the behavior of gravity only for the purposes of predictions, it is not a physical entity and does not explain the underlying physical mechanism of gravity. I think it's somewhat similar to the Higgs field, before the experimental proof of the Higgs particle the Higgs field was a hypothetical theory, that doesn't mean that matter didn't have mass before. But without evidence for the graviton we limit the research by saying that gravity is a fundamental force. Gravity has been a mystery for centuries, it is not productive to limit research on it. So please bring back the change in your editing. Best Regards.

94.66.207.176 (talk) 07:01, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@94.66.207.176 Wikipedia is not a place for opinion sharing or discussion for that matter. Wikipedia summarizes sources. if you have a reliable source then it belongs in the page. if you only have an opinion, then no. gravity can be a fundamental interaction without a quantum. the graviton is hypothetical not gravity. Johnjbarton (talk) 07:23, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The subjective opinion is "that gravity is a fundamental force", not an objective fact. I told you that it's like claiming that the Higgs field exists definitely and indisputably without having experimental evidence for the Higgs particle, or like saying that you don't need a particle, but that's not how nature works.

Objective facts are supported by experimental evidence, subjective opinions are not supported. If you have no experimental evidence for the existence of the graviton, then it is not a fact that gravity is a fundamental force and I am just saying you are making an assumption because you have no experimental evidence. It's very very simple. You have no experimental evidence to assert a fact and you are blaming me because I said you are making an hypothesis. If you want to prove me wrong, show me the experimental evidence for the particle carrier of the force of gravity. It is a fact such evidence does not exist, so by claiming gravity is fundamental without evidence of carrier particle YOU have a subjective opinion not me. The view that a fundamental force can exist without a carrier particle is more wrong than wrong and breaks the established standard model. The other 3 fundamental forces have carrier particles just to be trendy? I expect to see your fault. Best Regards. 94.66.207.176 (talk) 07:42, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@94.66.207.176 Wikipedia is not about logic or about Truth, or any claimed objective analysis. Wikipedia is a summary of sources as defined by consensus of its editors. you're wasting your time unless you have published sources for your story. it has to be this way because everyone has opinions. Johnjbarton (talk) 08:11, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The list of the forces in the beginning of the Wikipedia article is a reference (no1) from the book "Particles and Fundamental Interactions: an introduction to particle physics page 109". I have this book, on page 109 ( imgur.com/a/4OzrjZq ) it has a table showing the forces and there is a clear reference to the graviton as the exchange particle for the force of gravity. But the graviton is hypothetical and not experimentally proven, so it is wrong to present gravity as a non-hypothetical fundamental force yet according to the reference in the book. It's wrong, don't you want to correct something wrong in Wikipedia? Okay, but it's just WRONG to present gravity as a fundamental force with the graviton being hypothetical. Best Regards. 94.66.207.176 (talk) 09:12, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Throughout the article the graviton is described as hypothetical. If you drop a brick on your foot you will discover quite quickly that the graviton maybe hypothetical but gravity is not.

The reference cited also describes the graviton as hypothetical, though not in that one table. Don't go ballistic over one minor omission in one book.

Instead of wasting your time and mine with this pedantic and pointless argument I encourage you to look for constructive ways to contribute. There is a great deal "wrong in Wikipedia". You could contribute positively. When someone reverts a change you make, discuss it on the article's Talk page. If you really think it is important and they won't budge, ask for help on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics. Other editors may agree with you or not. Move on: there are lots of interesting topics that need work.

You also seem to be messing with your IP address. If someone reports that your device will be blocked. I encourage you to get a real login in account and become a positive contributor. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:59, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I am wasting your time, you are weak in physics, maybe you can learn something from me instead of watching the news or the weather on tv. By your insistence you are casting a curse on humanity to never understand how gravity works. Almost everyone believes that gravity is a fundamental force, but in reality we have no experimental evidence for it. We have no evidence for the fundamental nature of gravity (this is the title of the article), not for its existence in general as a phenomenon! Don't you understand that the key point we need to state in a scientifically acceptable way that gravity is fundamental is an experimental proof of its hypothetical carrier particle. This is why I say you are weak in physics. The article presents the popular (but false) belief that gravity is fundamental as a 100% proven fact. Kids will read it, AIs will read it, and guess what? Decades later they will still believe it that gravity is a fundamental force and never look for anything else. So if gravity is not fundamental but a side effect of some other phenomenon (perhaps unknown at the moment) we will never find it because there will be no interest in searching in that direction. That is the curse. Open your mind and resume processing. It's no big deal a bracket that says "Hypothetical". Best Regards. 94.69.58.163 (talk) 00:47, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

LOL. Anyway you are not reading or understanding what I am telling you.

Please read Wikipedia's policy on no original research and Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:23, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Dear John, Our article on the mathematics of car energy and power consumption has vanished.

• Where can i find the last version, including city driving?

Thank you, Hansmuller (talk) 15:49, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The page content is available under the View History option of the page with no-redirect option: Car speed, energy consumption and city driving‎. The page content is now a redirect so normal links redirect. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:24, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, yes, sorry, i found it. Perhaps we can use the math with a less sweeping conclusion on the fuel usage, you agreed with the remainder, isn't it? There wasn't really a consensus on merging the old article as you know.... What was lacking was a calculation of the relation of heat production versus speed. MacKay used an overall speed-independent fudge factor of 4 (25% locomotion efficiency), which cannot be far off. It would still be useful to have a simple math approach to car processes. Math is allowed - and essential - on Wikipedia for education, compare Drag (physics) which includes some calculations. What do you think? Hansmuller (talk) 16:46, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest I'm not a huge fan of math in Wikipedia articles. My reasons are: 1) it immediately turns away quite a number of people. 2) often relatively simple relations come with lots of overhead to define symbols, 3) users are not here to do calculations, 4) one typically cannot jump into the middle of a long section of math and get value. One major exception are math expressions that serve as shorthand for complex ideas, eg F=ma. When math is added, I think terms and significance of the formula in context need to be completely spelled out.

Using MacKay as an example, he has formula that are not very complex, but he uses them in ways that are not completely spelled out. To me, almost all of his discussion about cars is pointless because he does not focus on the one effect that completely swamps all of the others: the factor of 4 thermodynamic loss. Similarly, buying a car with 10% better gas mileage has more effect than any other suggestion, including reducing speed, because the vast majority of people don't reduce speed and even those that do rarely travel long distances at high speed. Global warming isn't caused by people going too fast, it is caused by people going in cars that emit carbon dioxide. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:04, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Happy New Year!

Johnjbarton,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
Abishe (talk) 14:34, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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Abishe (talk) 14:34, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Johnjbarton. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Revised wave-particle duality, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 15:06, 2 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Johnjbarton. I do not object to your perceived COI of my edits. However, you cannot erase everything en masse. I have marked clearly wrong text in Wikipedia as Dubious. I have the right to do so exactly as you can. The insertion of reference to my work is not necessary for re-writing and revisiting the dubious text. There are other published peer-reviewed works that point out the error and basically say the same thing, see for example: Urbanowski K. Remarks on the uncertainty relations. Modern Physics Letters A 2020; 35 (26): 2050219. http://arxiv.org/abs/1810.11462 http://doi.org/10.1142/s0217732320502193 In summary, I would request to leave the Dubious tag of marked Wikipedia text until someone competent is able to revisit the text in such a way that it is not blatantly false. By the way, I was thinking of possibly uploading my Fig.3 in Wikimedia, however, the resistance by people like you changed my mind. If you are knowledgeable, you could use the quantum mechanical calculations to plot your own images. Best regards, Danko Georgiev (talk) 08:44, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Sorry I erased the dubious marks. I suggest that if you introduce yourself and your suggestions on the Talk:Uncertainty principle resistance will be substantially reduced. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:52, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

jps (talk) has extended an olive branch of peace.

---

I just want to say that I valued the work you put into summarizing Physical Review papers (even though we disagreed ultimately on what else ought to be included) at Harold E. Puthoff. jps (talk) 12:50, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@ජපස Thanks! Johnjbarton (talk) 16:14, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have a bit of a question about your moving of this footnote from Pound–Rebka experiment and sticking it in Gravitational redshift, giving the note far too much prominence in the latter article such that I totally agree with @L3erdnik:'s immediate reverting of your addition.

The reason why I included the footnote in the Pound-Rebka article in the first place is that it is almost impossible to research the history of Gravitational redshift without running into Earman and Glymour's rather harsh critique of the Einstein et al. derivations. The fact that Earman and Glymour's alternative derivation is perfectly correct seems to give their critique great weight. Their "how could so many people have overlooked these essential points for so many years?" argument would appear reminiscent of Terrell's and Penrose's demonstration (after a half century of misunderstanding) that length contraction is not visible. However, the mere fact that the Earman and Glymour derivation is correct does not in any way invalidate the Einstein et al. derivations.

The way that the Gravitational redshift article is currently written, I cannot see any way to shoehorn the footnote into that article. I do believe that this little historical side note does need to be somewhere in Wikipedia, and I think that my original positioning of the footnote was as good as any. Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 05:26, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog, thanks for your clear explanation.

As I understand it, Wikipedia requires content to be WP:NOTABLE. There are a bunch of criteria, including some that amount to "editors agree". So it is perfectly reasonable (and preferable) to make your case on Talk:Pound-Rebka experiment (or where ever you think the topic ought to be presented).

Please note that "being correct" is not a criteria. Specifically the assertion that the 'derivation is perfectly correct seems to give their critique great weight' is not true on Wikipedia. Wikipedia reports knowledge, not truth. Your, mine, or Earma/Glymour's opinion on the subject does not count. Secondary references are essential. The Koks ref does the job here.

So let's suppose the Earman/Glymour work makes the cut. In that case I am completely against placing this content in a footnote. This use of a footnote is contrary to the Manual of Style, MOS:DONTHIDE:

• Such mechanisms should not be used to conceal "spoiler" information.

If this controversial topic is notable it should be directly in an article.

Since, as far as I know, the topic is entirely theoretical I can't see how it fits in the Pound-Rekba article. Einstein could not have mentioned it, and Koks barely does.

I think it belongs in Gravitational redshift and I think you should make the case for including it there. Focus on why this is notable. The editor that reverted my addition argued in the edit summary that it was trivial. The Koks ref probably won't convince a lot of editors: it's new, in a journal with a low bar and its historical analysis. There may be more in the 79 citations of Earman and Glymour. Some editors, myself included have low tolerance for "controversies" because they are mostly smoke and little fire.

Historically the Earman/Glymour article had almost no impact. So a succinct description of the scientific value of content would help. The net result is two different ways of using uniformly accelerating frames to analyze redshift, I just don't know if you can summarize them in a paragraph at the same level of sophistication as the rest of the article. Maybe Non-inertial reference frame? Johnjbarton (talk) 15:51, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll think about what you have to say. I'm in no rush to make changes and like building consensus. :-)

• MOS:DONTHIDE does not discourage the use of footnotes. Rather, it discourages the general use of collapsing CSS/JavaScript-based templates which do not work in mobile environments or where JavaScript is disabled, with specific exceptions including table of contents, etc.
• You state that "Historically the Earman/Glymour article had almost no impact." Maybe or maybe not. Besides being cited 79 times, another article of theirs with 238 citations makes similar assertions to the effect that Einstein was quite confused in his prediction of gravitational light deflection, claiming that he only got the right figure through a confluence of circumstances. In terms of citation count, their work apparently has had quite a bit of impact.
• I have no desire to completely rework what I feel to be a fairly decent outline of the historical development of the theory in Gravitational redshift simply so that I can shove in an interesting historical sidenote.
• I confess to being rather enamored of the use of footnotes. Case in point would be Spacetime, which I began working on in 2017 under a different username (I switched usernames a few years ago when I lost my password and the password recovery mechanism didn't seem to work), when a user wrote "This article needs a complete redo." The version that I started with was absolutely and totally dreadful. My authorship under both usernames currently stands at 76%. (down from 85% at its peak)

Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 21:16, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your original footnote was clearly "spoiler" information. The principle applies independent of the mechanism.

Footnotes force readers to tediously work through an article, continually jetting off on tangents. Any text worth having in an article is worth having in an article. Footnotes mean the Article structure needs work.

There are many examples of famous and not famous scientific discoveries that benefited from confluence of circumstances. The more famous the scientist, the more likely a historian will get all worked about it. These stories are not science. It's completely irrelevant for science how a discovery is made. It's relevant to history of course, but to what purpose? Einstein was the most important physicist of the 20th century because his instincts across a broad spectrum of physics were exceptional in a time of great uncertainty, not because he was the most careful scientist. Johnjbarton (talk) 21:37, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If I may put in my 5 cents (I'm not versed in Wikipedia policies, so it is just my opinion). I can see the value of presenting the struggles of theoretical development, at least in historical sections (like "pudding model of an atom" -> "Bohr's orbits" -> etc., as wrong as they turned out to be), for they were the stepping stones on the path forward; or covering important controversies that could genuinely be resolved either way, for they were an important crossroads on the path forward. But this particular instance seems more like some travelers misreading the map and complained that it lead them astray from an already built road, despite the map (Einstein's argument) being correct. In a case like this, I would think, you'd need a really good extra reason to include it, like "it's a common mistake", or "they respond with an alternative that is valuable on it's own", but then that probably should be the focus, not that "somebody misunderstood the argument that was fine, after all". L3erdnik (talk) 01:10, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Otherwise any topic would get drowned with inconsequential incidents that get numerous quick as one lowers the admission threshold. L3erdnik (talk) 01:15, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, to put the point made by @L3erdnik somewhat differently, the Earman/Glymour work claiming that Eddington was mistaken was itself shown mistaken by Koks. Unless we learn some valuable new physics from the these, it's just "oops". Johnjbarton (talk) 01:36, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's a two to one consensus against me. I will acquiesce to the consensus, despite disagreeing with it. My point is that Earman and Glymour are well-known scholars in the field of science history whose journal articles about Einstein are cited in numbers comparable to those of other well-known Einstein experts such as Pais, Stachel, Norton and so forth. So this is not just "oops". When influential scholar(s) make a claim that I deem incorrect, I feel obligated to correct the record. For example, Fölsing, in a widely read biography of Einstein, suggested that Rosen actually originated the ideas in the EPR paper. In note 18 of Einstein's thought experiments, which I intended as a science history article, not a science article per se (95% my authorship), I pointed out that Einstein had been discussing his ideas with others at least as far back as 1933. Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 05:33, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Einstein's thought experiments looks awesome. I wonder why it is not linked from History... articles that discuss those thought experiments.

You said:

• I pointed out that Einstein had been discussing his ideas with others

So? That is how science (and math) is done. The "solitary genius" think is a complete myth. Johnjbarton (talk) 14:55, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the compliment on Einstein's thought experiments! After I wrote it, I did some linking to it from other articles. But then, after a while, it seemed like I was doing too much self-promotion, so I stopped.

A long-term project of mine that may be ready in two or three years is a fundamental rewrite of Introduction to the mathematics of general relativity. The current article, as it stands, is pretty useless, being nothing but a description of various mathematical concepts used in general relativity without any real indication of how the concepts are used. My work-in-progress actually uses the math to go through the basics. The following indicates the scope of my project:

This non-rigorous introduction to the mathematics of general relativity stops at the vacuum field equations which are valid only in regions of space where the energy-momentum tensor is zero, which is to say, in regions devoid of mass-energy. Nevertheless, a variety of interesting results are possible with this limited approach, including derivation of the Schwarzschild metric and an exploration of some of its consequences.

A major problem with my draft as it currently stands is how to avoid violating wp:NOTTEXTBOOK Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 05:54, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Johnjbarton, I have noticed that you use to ping me when there is a history related topic. I am still active but I have still 5 to 6 busy weeks, so my reaction to these notifications is very low. Please, please, continue to notify me with these kind of topics, I will check on them in a later time. Thank you for your work. Don't worry if I do not respond or interact right away. ReyHahn (talk) 13:39, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Quantum weirdness is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Quantum weirdness until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

–LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 10:44, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My edit on the Lagrangian section were based on this article from MIT. It seems like it would apply to the new edit after my edit:

We begin by considering the conservation equations for a large number (N) of particles in a conservative force field using cartesian coordinates of position xi. For this system, we write the total kinetic energy as � M 1 2 T = mix˙ (1) 2 i . n=1 where M is the number of degrees of freedom of the system. For particles traveling only in one direction, only one xi is required to define the position of each particle, so that the number of degrees of freedom M = N. For particles traveling in three dimensions, each particle requires 3 xi coordinates, so that M = 3 ∗ N Lecture L20 - Energy Methods: Lagrange’s Equations b39e882f1524a0f6a98553ee33ea6f35_MIT16_07F09_Lec20.pdf Starlighsky (talk) 23:18, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Starlighsky Thanks, I did check your ref. There are different ways to write the same thing. I agree that the previous form was confusing and I made some edit to try to improve it. In the current page the formula has a "hidden" sum over the degrees of freedom in a single particle. That's the bit about the dot product mentioned below the formula. For 3D, the dot product has 3 and N particles we get 3*N DOF.

I don't have a copy of the Torby, Bruce (1984). "Energy Methods" reference to verify what I said, but we should not mix refs for formulas, because as I say the same thing can be written different ways. The Hand and Finch ref used elsewhere in the article is available through wikipedia library so you could change entire formula to what ever they chose. Johnjbarton (talk) 01:13, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I will look for the book shortly, thanks. Starlighsky (talk) 01:29, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I forgot to ask, what is M in the above equation? I am not sure if N is explained as to what is. Starlighsky (talk) 02:51, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Which above equation?

The MIT site has "M is the number of degrees of freedom of the system", so for N particles in 3D, it is 3 times the number of particles. In other mechanics problems there may be constraints, ie "non-freedoms". So a play ground teeter-totter has one degree of freedom because the solid body can only rotate on the spindle. Johnjbarton (talk) 03:16, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am limited it use of symbols, but the summation of one half of m(v-squared) is the equation where I was wondering what m would be. I did put "degrees of freedom" but it was deleted. Shouldn't m be explained to the reader? Starlighsky (talk) 03:29, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The lower case m_k is mass. The upper case M in the MIT page is degrees of freedom. I fixed the Lagrangian mechanics page, please check it.

In future please open a topic on the Talk page for the article and (optionally) 'ping' me with '@' user name. In addition to making it easier to navigate to the article, this makes the conversation available to others. Johnjbarton (talk) 14:50, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, will do. I am still learning how this all works. Starlighsky (talk) 14:53, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello johnjbarton

The recent anonymous edit by 131.155.230.125 was legitimate, so I restored it. The "5" that 131.155.230.125 corrected was a typo originally made by me, and was intended to be a "4". All subsequent equation work is based on a value of 4. I went through and confirmed that before restoring the typo correction. 131.155.230.125 was only trying to be helpful. Netshine2 (talk) 19:35, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info. I will follow up on Talk:Newton's method Johnjbarton (talk) 19:42, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize for insulting you on the matter wave talk page. That was very juvenile of me, and you deserve more respect than that. SpiralSource (talk) 08:39, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@SpiralSource Thanks! I totally get that reverts have this odd 'slap in the face' character that triggers emotional response. I'm getting better at letting it go ;-) Johnjbarton (talk) 13:47, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Single-purpose account ASChem22 has been either adding or replacing links to MSDS's to one specific company's copies of them; I reverted that edit not realizing that the previous link was bogus. Appreciate the double-check. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 19:12, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Real number, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Continuity.

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Funnyfarmofdoom (talk to me) 04:22, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Johnjbarton! Having an article draft declined at Articles for Creation can be disappointing. If you are wondering why your article submission was declined, please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there! Funnyfarmofdoom (talk to me) 04:22, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! I've posted a request for a third opinion here. Hopefully someone who is better positioned to find something ambiguous or not than either of us (since we both seem familiar with this) has a perspective! Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:52, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Warrenmck thanks Johnjbarton (talk) 16:07, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Paul Dirac, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Lagrangian.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 08:48, 22 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, thank you for editing. Keep it up. We alway need some scientific rigor and common sense. --Smokefoot (talk) 20:44, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Smokefoot thanks! Johnjbarton (talk) 15:17, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

About this: Is "from 10⁻³⁶ seconds to between 10⁻³³ and 10⁻³² seconds" not "from 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds to 0.000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds", i.e., an incredibly tiny fraction of a section? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:43, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing The text you used was

• "for only a tiny fraction of a second"

In my opinion, the vast majority of reader will imagine 1/10 or 1/100th of a second. That is not, as I think you are saying here, not at all close to the kind of time scale involved.

I would be ok with both your second version and the numbers eg

• an incredibly tiny fraction of a second, from 10−36 seconds to between 10−33 and 10−32 seconds.

(In future please post to the Talk page of the article for article issues). Johnjbarton (talk) 02:29, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Since we've started here, we might as well have the conversation in one place.

Given the level of innumeracy in the world, I'm concerned that 10^-36 won't be understood at all, and may even be misunderstood in the opposite direction (on the order of three hundred octillion years, rather than one undecillionth of a second). Do you think it's important to include? It's not mentioned in the body, so it didn't look like the details were important to the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:37, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted the sentence as it was not a summary of content in the article. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:56, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to have a good idea of what kind of information should be conveyed under "safety" or "precautions" headings on chemistry articles. I tried fleshing out such on article Terbium#Safety. Your thoughts are appreciated as to whether all that I've written is appropriate or due treatment of the details given scarcity of usable sources. I can dig into the literature and try and improve similarly thin sections on articles such as Ytterbium, Erbium, Rhenium if it's considered okay. Thanks. Reconrabbit 18:09, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Reconrabbit That section looks great to me. I tweaked the last paragraph. Thanks. Johnjbarton (talk) 19:05, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to ask for a second opinion regarding recent edits in Madelung equations, given that you're a more experienced editor and that you recently addressed the exact same issue in Talk:Wave packet

In this case, lots of subsections have been added with no references at all. The few inline citations that have been provided do not cover the claims being made or are just too general to be of any use.

On the one hand - given the multiple failed attempts to address the issue with the author - I'm strongly inclinded to revert the edits based on WP:NOR and (borderline) WP:NOTEVERYTHING. On the other hand, the page wasn't much to begin with.

What would you do? Kind regards, Roffaduft (talk) 09:42, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

yeah. I broadly agree with you, including the lack of clarity on the best course of action. As you say the page was not really made worse. The NotEverything applied to the previous content as well. I worked on the page some. I am thinking of working on several related articles, Quantum hydrodynamics, de Broglie–Bohm theory, Pilot wave theory so I will to visit this issue again. Thanks. Johnjbarton (talk) 20:22, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your response and subsequent edits. It gave me the confidence to rewrite most of the "Derivation" subsection and remove redundant information.

It took a while to find it (on libgen.yt), but the book "Theory of Quanta" combined with Wyatt 2005 covers all the material. The article could benefit from elaborating more on the effects of internal and external forces (or the quantum mechanical equivalent thereof), but for now I'm calling it a day.

Kind regards, Roffaduft (talk) 10:36, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! BTW I should have said: in the past I have had some success encouraging (named) editors to add citations so I think that is still my first response.

I'm curious: why did you changed the citation style? I use wp:proveit a lot and I find the double-page-click interaction of Template:sfn style to be too tedious. I pretty much avoid editing such articles. Johnjbarton (talk) 13:40, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fist, because I never heard of proveit before haha. Second, because I use the citer tool which gives me the sfn as well as a proper citation. Third, it makes editing much more cluttered if I have full citations in the middle of sentences. And last, because I think it looks messy when a reflist consists of footnotes, citations full references and other stuff.

I actually don't find it tedious. Especially when citing various pages or chapters from a single source, it's much quicker just to add a sfn and change the pp/loc. But that just my preference. I'll look into proveit

Kind regards, Roffaduft (talk) 13:52, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In Proveit I use the DOI / ISBN look up feature a lot. I plan to try a style of ref with refs in the reflist to avoid the inside-the-sentence part. The tedious part for me is to have to navigate in two stages to read a reference, its not about the writing. Johnjbarton (talk) 14:56, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

		The Original Barnstar
		Because I really appreciate your work. :) Double sharp (talk) 05:52, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you need my input for an article which I've not commented on in a while, then sure, but if I'm clearly reading it, please don't ping me. Banedon (talk) 02:33, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

sure. I guess I was just using the "@" feature in the UI to get the correct user name spelling without thinking about the consequences on the other side. Johnjbarton (talk) 03:17, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have been looking thru various diffs, including this, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AAndrew_Davidson&diff=1245493925&oldid=1245493854.--Oh, and i just had an idea that i have a feeling that any 'Delete and Merge' of 'Polar wind related thingy', will not be decided by facts (mostly).--I understand the facts about the Merge (and i agree with those), but feelings and/or spin - could be enough too decide the issue.--Anyway, if you prefer not to have diffs, hanging around on your desktop, then i totally understand if you remove this post - even without replying to it.--And, thank you so much for the work you have done, in adding a section on "Polar wind". Regards, 2001:2020:31B:D1A2:19B3:57BD:A1A4:2532 (talk) 17:58, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One 'winnable controversy' would quite possible be to move mention of ambipolar electric field, to c. the last section (of the wiki-article, Polar wind).--The exact placement within 'c. the last section', should keep-in-mind - giving priority to 'soothing' the 'fanbase' of 'ambipolar electric field'.--Some of the above, might be going to a relevant talk page, as soon as today. Regards! 2001:2020:31B:D1A2:DD2C:839B:26E8:9AF1 (talk) 23:13, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I would appreciate it if you commented on the articles in the Talk pages for that article rather than posting to my User talk page. Thanks. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:16, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi John. I see you are interested in clear communications of physics to educated lay audiences. I wonder if you might be interested in commenting at Talk:Magnus effect/Archive 1#Newton's 3rd law does not explain the Magnus effect. Best regards, Dolphin (t) 12:25, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I see that you reverted my edit on Non-ionizing radiation, but you didn't provide an adequate edit summary. I need a bit more clarification for why the summary claim is inconsistent. Susbush (talk) 17:40, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Did you read the paragraph directly after your edit? If you still disagree let's discuss it on the Talk:Non-ionizing radiation page. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:52, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I get it know. The text "anything less than 10 eV is non-ionizing" is already there. Susbush (talk) 17:57, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article has GA-status. The article already has a source that says that ruthenium was named after Russia. Now we have a source that does not mention ruthenium and instead refers to the name of Ruthenia in a completely different context to support a false statement. The name Ruthenia in the 19th century did not refer to the "area around modern Kiev, Ukraine at that time". This is a violation of WP:NOR. The new editor in question has been POV-pushing all kinds of nonsense lately. For an article with GA-status, such disputed statements should first be discussed on the talk page before they are restored. Therefore, I ask you to kindly self-revert. Mellk (talk) 04:58, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Mellk Next time please give a reasonable edit summary when you revert someone. That will save a lot of unnecessary bad blood. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:42, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you have a point there, in that the original edit summary did not adequately address the issues with the changes. I did not mean to call your changes "nonsense". But I think it would have been preferable to ask for clarification first before reverting. Mellk (talk) 07:04, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi John, Glad you do not hide your identity in the Wikipedia environment. I also do the same to ensure credibility. I have asked Bill Phillips and Jean-Philippe Uzan for their opinion (no replies!) concerning our open source paper in J M Spectry. Reference J Mol Spectry (2023) volume 395, 111794(3). The video at the very bottom of the 'Planck constant' Wiki page addresses the same topic. If you could explain to me what we am doing wrong I would very much appreciate it. Cheers Phil Bunkerpr (talk) 19:51, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Bunkerpr Sorry, but I am confused. I don't recall an issue regarding Planck constant, so I'm unsure how to help. Johnjbarton (talk) 21:43, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On behalf of the FAR coordinators, thank you, Johnjbarton! Your work on Galaxy has allowed the article to retain its featured status, recognizing it as one of the best articles on Wikipedia. I hereby award you this Featured Article Save Award, or FASA. You may display this FA star upon your userpage. Keep up the great work! Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 14:43, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Dear John,
Because I am an anon IP user, you may not have connected our numerous interactions over the last couple years, but they stem from our apparent mutal interest in the same types of topics.

On several occasions you have reverted one of my edits only to very shortly thereafter, and entirely in good faith, reconsider and revise the text in question yourself. Although it is certainly a fine practice that ultimately and invariably improves the encyclopedia--and you're certainly welcome to continue using this technique if it helps your workflow in some way--when seen from a different perspective this approach might seem to give the very slightest whiff of work appropriation.

I only write to request whether it might be possible, if you feel unsure about one of my edits, to pause and consider whether your further remarks could possibly be built upon my work, as opposed to a prior-previous revision. 24.19.113.134 (talk) 00:47, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell from our contribution histories I reverted just one of your edits in the last three months. Afterward I realized existing text was unclear and tried a fix. I did not appropriate any of your material. If you don't agree, please post to the article Talk page.

I realize that being reverted is disturbing. I generally avoid reverting registered users in favor of opening a discussion in the Talk pages. This is not however, the "Wikipedia way", which is to revert first and discuss later. 90% of the changes from anonymous accounts are vandalism or nonsense. It's not like I can remember on IP from another and "feel unsure" about one of your edits: I have no idea which edits are yours.

One approach I try to take when I'm upset by a revert is to open a talk page discussion on the article. Most of the time I don't post the discussion because part way through writing it I realize why the revert was ok or at least not worth additional time.

I encourage you to get a registered account. I appreciate your contributions. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:21, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I do understand that the opportunity to learn anything about me is essentially limited to perhaps 'recognizing my writing (or edit comment) style', given the unfortunate and unrelated requirement that I operate in the anonIP mode. It is additionally foiled by my ISP changing even that every few months. (Bell Tests and EPR were previous engagements, for example) The one plus side is that, facing the issues of “different treatment” (that you mention) that come with this “yoke” has forced me into striving for ever more extreme levels of care that many “registered users” don’t have to worry about. So that’s just a perverse extra twist that makes it especially frustrating for my specific case. 24.19.113.134 (talk) 20:29, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

p.s. Thank you for pointing me to the BRD information, I had somehow missed it. 24.19.113.134 (talk) 20:55, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting to note that the BRD page takes such pains to say not that it is *the* “Wikipedia Way”, but rather *a* “Wikipedia Way”. 24.19.113.134 (talk) 21:25, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have any idea of who introduced the variaational formalism for fields? ReyHahn (talk) 09:17, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@ReyHahn Not off hand. I can check on Sunday with Lanczos and a history of gauge theory to see if they say. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:01, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@ReyHahn I believe this question may not have a simple answer. Part of the problem is "fields" as a mathematical structure was defined by Weierstrass and by David Hilbert so strictly speaking work on say hydrodynamics before that point would not be "fields". (Goldstine, H. H. (2012). A History of the Calculus of Variations from the 17th through the 19th Century (Vol. 5). Springer Science & Business Media.) Lanczos has a wonderful passage on "phase fluids" connecting hydrodynamics to phase space and the field description of fluid motion. (Lanczos, C. (2012). The variational principles of mechanics. Courier Corporation., p.174) So there isn't really a line between fields and the analytical mechanics approach to particles. Applying a variational approach to a mechanical problem implies an abstract "field", just not in 3/4 D space. On the other hand, Lanczos also explains that Maxwell's equations don't fall out of a simple variational treatment, implying that electromagnetic fields were not treated by variational methods until modern times. HTH Johnjbarton (talk) 17:55, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for all these insights. I thought that Euler-Lagrange equations would be important for classical field theory, but I failed to find its origin in field form. I agree that electrodynamics using variational techniques did not appear until modern times, but by modern times it is not that modern, because the Lagrangians for Lorentz force and Maxwell's equations appeared before relativity. However problems like solving the shape of the catenary using Euler-Lagrange equations for me are already field theory. If you find anything else I am interested. Thanks again.--ReyHahn (talk) 18:27, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand it, with a Lagrangian (eg Lorentz force) one can go in two directions, differential or integral. In the differential direction we learn about local, instantaneous properties like forces; in the integral direction more global and "timeless" properties (eg elliptical orbits). So possession of a Lagrangian may not imply variational method. The derivative approach, being more directly intuitive, is often the first choice. (After Bohr and Heisenberg we learned to distrust that approach for quantum problems. I think that is why Feynman never talked about interpretations of QM: his variational approach doesn't build on the differential wing of classical mechanics.) Thus I'm not sure that Lagrangians for field theory necessarily imply variational methods for field theory.

@ReyHahn ping per your previous requests. Johnjbarton (talk) 19:10, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If the Wikipedia talk:physics page is not an appropriate place to mention the limitations of physics, Wikipedia should not publish a physics entry (until such time as it has adequate official sources to do so “authoritatively.”) Thankfully both physics and Wikipedia are necessarily/apriori personal.

In the morality of personalism, Your proof of receipt here is causally crucial! Science remains a work-in-progress; but You should have known (by now) that your refrigerator debunks materialism. We might yet spark a historic personalist moral phase change we can all experience first hand.

Reverted by reputation: talk about you handled it when all you did was paint it grotesque and junk it*. (I won my class award for senior design (in chemical engineering from rpi) the year I graduated, bro; I wouldn’t mention it but for you yourself beg (r2e2v2e2r2t) for someone who says “I’m qualified to know” when I find something fundamentally interesting: (I now pronounce you… (Max Planck and the reverend doctor Martin Luther King Jr. saw past materialism too, so...

|=x=| NedBoomerson (talk) 19:11, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Michael M. Abbott had this big pet peeve over the popular description of entropy as a force of disorder. Entropy is a state function attributed to a thermodynamic (3D) system at equilibrium. The irreversibilities of (non-equilibrium) processes is where the waste develops. Life cannot be Captured by 3D systemics, I (assuredly) contend, but the Definiteness of inter-personalism does have its own considerable limitations. Your cutting out =mxy= legs turns out to be objectively bad for absolutely everyone, @Johnjbarton! If you really want the best for yourself, you’ll want your partners dancing their best too! “This is somethin’ like a holocaust, millions of our people lost;” if you revert my talk:physics reply to dude a third time dead-handed, … (I’ll at least have warned you it*’ll look like historic villainy to life.) NedBoomerson (talk) 14:07, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you know enough physics to expand on "optical polarizing films", now mentioned in iodine as one of the major apps. I think that these poled films generate the plane- or circularly polarized light required for LCDs to function.--Smokefoot (talk) 15:00, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Smokefoot ok thanks I took a shot, please review. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:59, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Johnjbarton,

you are kindly invited to provide third opinion in the following dispute: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Tercer#Quantum_entanglement_lead

Thank you so much in advance for your time. 217.118.83.168 (talk) 19:27, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussions on content should occur on the article's Talk page where everyone interested in the topic can weigh in. I gather that would be Talk:Quantum entanglement. Johnjbarton (talk) 19:48, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Tercer (talk) 13:58, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, regarding the edit on the matter wave article that you reverted: The de Broglie wavelength and the thermal wavelength are different things, as you say, but they are very closely related, and how they are related is clearly stated in the introduction of the thermal wavelength article.

I think it would be useful for readers to have a link pointing them to the thermal wavelength article in the matter wave article, seeing as how closely related the two are. Do you have any thoughts on how it would be best to include such a link? ItsBigBoat (talk) 08:50, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Having the term de Broglie wavelength, which is defined in the matter wave article, wikilinked to a related term would be confusing and incorrect in my opinion. Note the term de Broglie wavelength lands in matter wave.

The matter wave article already links thermal de Broglie wavelength in the Matter_wave#See_also section. I guess we could add a sentence about the thermal wavelength to the article and remove it from the See also. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:03, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that linking de Broglie wavelength to the thermal wavelength article could be misleading. I think it would be a good idea to add in a short sentence and a link to the thermal wavelength article, as (while formally incorrect) it's not uncommon that the term "de Broglie wavelength" to refer to the thermal (de Broglie) wavelength. I'll add in a suggestion some time soon :) ItsBigBoat (talk) 13:36, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

re: the LASER page -- LASER is an *acronym* standing for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. "anacronym" is not even an English word. "anachronism" is the closest word, defined as "something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, especially a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time."

please re-think your response to my proposed change and consult a dictionary if needed.

I emailed you, but I'm not sure you would receive it, as I don't know how your notifications are set up. I didn't want to call the grammatical error out in public, but it's hard to believe that anyone would argue that the non-word "anacronym" is correct. "acronym" is the appropriate word for what LASER is -- "a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase or series of words and pronounced as a separate word, as Wac from Women's Army Corps, OPEC from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries" Deedle2038 (talk) 04:08, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please post about specific articles on the Talk pages for those article, in this case Talk:Laser. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:05, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please see new entry. mOk to put in JWST update based on published (not pre-print) results as suggested also by @Moleculewerks  ? Kt170 (talk) 16:25, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]