Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Planck particle

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. -- Cirt (talk) 02:05, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Planck particle

Planck particle (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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I can find no evidence this term is in widespread serious use. The article's sole reference does not use the term. Top hits on Google are this article, followed by an article from an apparent crank journal denying any such thing exists, then several apparent crank sites and Wikipedia mirrors. A Google Scholar search turns up what appear to be largely crank papers; one can see how this term might be frequently invented by numerologists, but if the article is to be about that, we need a reliable source documenting such use. The concept itself is more notable than that of a "1 kg particle," on the grounds that the Planck mass is a plausible natural mass scale, but only barely. All this article does is confuse people into thinking that Planck mass is the mass of a hypothetical particle rather than part of a system of units. A much better-written version of this content already exists at Planck mass where it belongs. Jim E. Black (talk) 07:42, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

• Delete Keep I have heard of the term, but only used in the context of defining the Planck mass - and I can't find any references to it other than in that context. Agree that the description in Planck mass is better. -- Boing! said Zebedee 10:58, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Changed my view in the light of the new sources found, below -- Boing! said Zebedee 16:55, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:32, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
• Merge with Planck mass--most is already there anyway. Owen× ☎ 01:46, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
• Note: This article has been nominated for rescue. Silverseren^C 19:17, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I have tagged this article for rescue. Silverseren^C 19:17, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
• Keep I easily found multiple notable documents and journals talking about Planck particles. I have added them to the article. They clearly pass WP:N. Silverseren^C 19:17, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Most of those were not reliable sources. Just because the "Journal of Theoretics" calls itself a journal, doesn't make it reliable. That the term is in wide (but not necessarily consistent) use by numerologists is clear, but it's not at all clear that there's significant serious use. Of the eight sources you added, five were papers in highly questionable journals, and one appears to be just something someone posted on the Internet. I argue that we should ignore those. The usage in Sachs et. al. is clearly specific to the theory they are proposing (a theory which doesn't appear to have caught on), and has nothing to do with black holes as written about in this article. All that remains are Jonghwa Chang's nuclear physics lecture slides, which uses it to define the Planck mass as Boing! said Zebedee described. If we can find more references using the term in this manner, preferably in better sources than lecture slides, it would support that the term is in widespread serious use and deserves either an article or perhaps an entry over on Wiktionary. I'm not sure the one is enough, though.Jim E. Black (talk) 23:18, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

And how is the Journal of Theoretics and the General Science Journal unreliable? You never said how. You just stated they are without any evidence. Furthermore, "Planck Particles and Quantum Gravity" - Google Docs, is a completely valid source as well. Silverseren^C 23:25, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Its name is a made-up word, and its website complains of "Bias in the Scientific Literature" against "dissident scientists." Those are huge red flags. Progress in Physics and the General Science Journal make similar statements. Almost always such journals are created to publish work that was rejected by reputable journals due to incompetence, not bias.Jim E. Black (talk) 23:58, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

• I found that the lecture slides have some calculational errors; for example, they miscalculate the particle's ratio to the proton mass. But they are do substantiate that someone outside of woo-woo land calls such a thing a "Planck particle," justifying a merge and redirect to Planck mass instead of the deletion I originally proposed. The Planck mass article has a somewhat better source[1] for most of the material here, although its source doesn't use the term "Planck particle." We don't need a whole article about this, because it's just a brief pedagogical exercise, and arguably a poor one, since there's no reason to believe the formulas used continue to work at the Planck scale. Jim E. Black (talk) 02:09, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
• Redirect to Planck scale. 76.66.194.4 (talk) 04:39, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Planck scale links to Planck particle in its See also section. Paradoctor (talk) 13:50, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I have added some new links that are from the CERN Document Server, which only publishes approved, peer-reviewed and reliable stuff. Also, something from SpringerLink, also notable, and a book. The new EL's are another book, another CERN document, a published paper from Stanford, a article from Ingenta Connect, also notable, and another slide from the University of California, San Diego. If you need me to find more, notable links, let me know, because I can do it. Silverseren^C 06:50, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

This batch looks better, thanks. Now we've got some decent sources using the term talking about a possible role in early cosmology, rather than just playing unit games. So this is a real term; it's just that the signal-to-noise ratio in texts using it is particularly bad. I withdraw the nomination. Jim E. Black (talk) 13:11, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

• Keep: Google Scholar 180 hits Scirus 77 hits, among them articles in Foundations of Physics Letters, Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Progress in Physics (doesn't look terribly "mainstream", though) , Astroparticle Physics, Physical Review D, Astrophysics and Space Science, Astrophysical Journal, MNRAS, European Journal of Physics. Passes WP:N with flying colors, everything else is about content.

As far as the merge proposal to Planck mass is concerned, I oppose. The two are about different concepts. Planck mass admits that a Planck particle need not even have Planck mass: "This is not quite the Planck mass", referring to the estimate given for the Planck particle's mass. Paradoctor (talk) 13:50, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.