User talk:XOR'easter/2020a

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DYK

See Template:Did you know nominations/Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections. This could get messy, but it could also be worthwhile. If you have any better hook ideas, please go for it. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:19, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Muboshgu, I can't think of a better hook than the one you provided. I'm pretty sure the article would have to be semi-protected for at least the duration of its appearance on the Main Page, but my impression is that that is not uncommon. XOR'easter (talk) 22:48, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

About your edit on 23 August 2019‎ to remove Avicenna-Bohm section

Hi, Dear XOR'easter, thanks for your responsibility. Although this theory was recently published but it is a scientific theory which published in a peer-review journal. and Wikipedia is a reference for people to become familiar to the theory in the non-technical language. there is no COI for me to add this section and your reasons for removing it is not convincing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.196.189.114 (talk) 05:51, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Oh, it's very convincing. XOR'easter (talk) 00:25, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

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Un-editing changes to the zbw hypothesis

Who are you: XOR'easter? I did not undo any edit of yours. You appear out of the blue as the Great Censor. I would appreciate an answer as I spent a couple of days on my additions/editions on the Wikipedia article on the zbw hypothesis. You are pretty arrogant. Sorry to say. Any case - I think I am entitled to get an answer to my question: who are you? I am a real-life amateur physicist. You are a self-appointed censor? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jean Louis Van Belle (talk • contribs) 16:49, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

​ I urge you to read our policy on civility and to refrain from disparaging comments about the character or personality of other editors. As it happens, I am a real-life professional physicist, who in daily life is probably only about as arrogant as average for the profession. I heard of your changes by way of a notice posted at WikiProject Physics. I made changes following my honest understanding of Wikipedia policy and guidelines (WP:NPOV, WP:DUE, MOS:LEAD, etc.), based on years of experience editing here. If you wish to discuss the article, both its Talk page and that of WikiProject Physics are available to you. I note that you undid an edit of mine in which I did nothing but turn journal titles into the appropriate links. This seems counterproductive. Cheers, XOR'easter (talk) 17:10, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Censorhip...

I am not going to bother. I know your kind. :-) You did not send me any critical comment on what I wrote. A big shining lie. Confirms wikipedia.org is **ll**it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jean Louis Van Belle (talk • contribs) 17:11, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Please do not edit your own comments after someone else has replied to them [1][2]. That's confusing and rather rude. XOR'easter (talk) 17:25, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Look bastard - you hadn't replied and I don't know where your comments come from. I've got credentials. You are a no-one patrolling Wikipedia. No worries. As said, I know your kind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.224.224.59 (talk) 17:56, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Regarding BKFIP

I just learned today that this IP has been editing here for 15 years. I am a little freaked out because I have been in the habit for years of watching a tv show or movie and then going to the article for the show and then the cast member articles as well. Where I see "best known for", I usually remove it because it is an editor's evaluation that such-and-such was what they were best known for. I thought I was zapping a little editorial OR. Every little bit helps, and all that.
Now I find out that some recalcitrant troll has been doing what I've been doing. I am not sure how to feel about that. How do I differentiate myself from them? Do I just stop removing Best Known For in articles? I'm quite open to suggestions here. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 18:34, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

The thing about BKFIP is that they make a mix of good, neutral and bad edits and will defend all of them with abusive behavior. I might cut "best known for" language myself if it reads like promotion of an actor who is only known for one role. They'll remove "best known for" in cases where it is actually an informative and well-documentable claim (like, Einstein is better known for relativity than for his model of Brownian motion, and Darwin is better known for evolution than for The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs). I'd say to follow your conscience, check to see if the "best known for" claims are supportable by any secondary sources, and remove them if you see fit. If someone reverts, well, that's what polite discussions on the Talk page are for. If you're worried you're acting like BKFIP, you're probably not acting like BKFIP. XOR'easter (talk) 18:48, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I'm coming off a block for behavior that has been problematic, and now I am second-guessing everything I do, as I want to be a better editor. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 19:32, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi trying to reach you with quick question

	brief question
	Hi there, I'm a reporter with the Washington Post, trying to reach you with a quick question about your work on this site. I'm at 202-334-5024. Thx. Isaacstanleybeckerpost (talk) 15:12, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

hi again

	hi again
	Sorry if this is being sent in a weird way. I've never messaged someone via Wikipedia before. Totally understand about wanting to protect your identity, which I can do. Would you be willing to connect on background, meaning I'd never pass along or otherwise publicize your name or any contact information? Isaacstanleybeckerpost (talk) 21:34, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm fine with being background. XOR'easter (talk) 21:39, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Washington Post article

Please see [3] . Please put any comment for the Signpost on my talkpage. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:04, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

FYI, the removal of citations to The New American has not gone unnoticed by the title itself. For obvious reasons, I will not give its article any further publicity by providing a link. Take care. Philip Cross (talk) 22:38, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

I did provide a link [4], if it has a WP-article I tend to add it. I also tend to think of having annoyed a publication like that as a badge of honor. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:15, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

XOR'easter, way to go! Thanks for speaking so positively about what we do here: We are "adhering to a minimum standard of scientific, historical or journalistic respectability" (quoted from the article). So true. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 21:43, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Talk page

As someone who has recently started writing about academics, I really enjoyed reading your talk page section on writing academic biographies and science articles. May use it sometime. HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 06:57, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

​Thank you! That's very kind of you to say. XOR'easter (talk) 13:42, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Foreign interference in the 2020 United States elections

On 2 October 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Foreign interference in the 2020 United States elections, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that according to Robert Mueller, who investigated foreign interference in the 2016 US presidential election, foreign interference in the 2020 US elections is ongoing? You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Foreign interference in the 2020 United States elections), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

valereee (talk) 00:02, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Duly noted! XOR'easter (talk) 16:15, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Mission impossible

Hi. Regarding this edit [5], "Their mission" was my subsection title because I couldn't think of another one. I figured someone would change it sooner or later, so I didn't worry about it. But I like your characterization - very funny - I'm still laughing. It is too bad we can't actually use titles like "Mission impossible", but then the public wouldn't take us seriously. Besides, that is what humorous essays and funny personal subpages are for, as well as for letting of steam. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 02:59, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

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Discretionary sanctions alert

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

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Politrukki (talk) 15:26, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Anne Harrington for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Anne Harrington 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/Anne Harrington 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. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 04:22, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Just leaving a comment here to note that the discussion was closed as a speedy keep before I could even get to it. XOR'easter (talk) 02:55, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for December 21

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Quantum foundations, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Quantum theory (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

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FTR, fixed. XOR'easter (talk) 16:24, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, XOR'easter. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template. Barkeep49 (talk) 05:54, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Your editing of Douglas Ulmer article

Your habit of excising anything you randomly choose is causing some of what remains to be counter-factual and poorly written. Please pay attention to how you change the meaning of sentences or phrases when you do this.Mitzi.humphrey (talk) 20:42, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I am not "excising anything" that I "randomly choose". I am simply holding the article to the standards of reliable sourcing that apply across Wikipedia, as any participant in this project should. You have a conflict of interest regarding Prof. Ulmer and have been warned not to edit the article yourself. XOR'easter (talk) 00:07, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Gleason's theorem

You are missing the fact that there is now also a pretty elementary proof of Gleasons' theorem due to Keane and others. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231919294_An_elementary_proof_of_Gleason's_theorem Richard Gill (talk) 06:34, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Huh. I honestly thought that was already in the reference list. Thanks for pointing out the omission. XOR'easter (talk) 16:32, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Gleason's theorem

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Gleason's theorem you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Jakob.scholbach -- Jakob.scholbach (talk) 20:20, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

tq template

Just FYI, your {{tq}} failed because there was an equal sign in the argument. You either need to wrap them with {{=}} (like here), or explicitly put a 1= to mark the first unnamed parameter. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 19:32, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Deacon Vorbis, ah, good to know. I figured it might be something like that, but I didn't feel like debugging at the time. Thanks! XOR'easter (talk) 20:45, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Bloch sphere

Actually, vectors and states are not synonymous, as states must be normalized, and vectors do not. I had said vectors because the vectors corresponding to the POVM elements are not normalized, and I wanted to emphasize that they are anyway orthogonal to the states. But you're right, it's easier to understand that orthogonal states are antiparallel, and people can deduce that the same applies to POVM elements. Also, the Bloch sphere representation of POVMs is not explained anywhere, so maybe it is better to only talk about state. Tercer (talk) 18:14, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, finding the right way to concisely express all the fiddly details about normalization of POVM elements and such is tricky, and fitting it into an image caption even more so. Thanks much for your work improving the POVM and Gleason's theorem articles! I had vaguely intended to work on density matrix in the near future, since that page also seems to be a pile of fragments added by various people without an overall plan, and then tagged by other people who don't always know what is standard textbook stuff and what isn't. XOR'easter (talk) 20:36, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm glad you appreciate my work. Thanks for getting Gleason's theorem in good shape!

Indeed, Density matrix is a mess of random facts. And it still misses definition of a density matrix as the operator giving the statistics of a local measurement done on an entangled state! I'm more worried about Measurement in quantum mechanics, though, that's a dumpster fire. It focuses on the obsolete vision of measurement as measuring an observable, makes incorrect statements about projective measurements, doesn't use the word (which was a problem to me as I wanted to link to it), doesn't even mention POVMs, and has this bizarre talk about "measurement of the first kind" and "measurement of the second kind". I'm hesitant to tackle it, though, due to the enormity of the task. Tercer (talk) 22:00, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

​Yikes, that's a dumpster fire indeed. I will share it around with colleagues who do quantum info in order to horrify them. (The "first kind"/"second kind" business seems to confuse some terminology invented by Pauli with a second-hand understanding of von Neumann's textbook.) It's possible that the only way to improve it would be to start from scratch, which would be quite a big job indeed.

In case you don't have it watchlisted, the GA review of Gleason's theorem has seen some further activity. XOR'easter (talk) 19:36, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Nomination of Victoria Talwar for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Victoria Talwar 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/Victoria Talwar 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. Nthep (talk) 16:06, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Your input is requested

at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Community view before Friday.

Only 100 or so words. It should be fun and serious at the same time.

All the best,

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:52, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

GA review

Hi XOR' -- I currently have very little wiki-time, but I am committed to finishing the review of G's theorem. I will do it as soon as I can, promised! Jakob.scholbach (talk) 08:03, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

@Jakob.scholbach: I've been pretty darn slow about replying to your comments, so I don't really have grounds to complain! :-) Thanks to your work and Tercer's, the article is already in a better shape than before, which is the important thing. XOR'easter (talk) 17:57, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

About that nonexistent "edit war"

I replied to your stern warning (on my talk page) about a currently imaginary "edit war". Pinging you here as I have no idea if editing that section of my page causes a notification to you. 73.149.246.232 (talk) 04:32, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Quadruple and quintuple innovation helix (Q2IH) framework

Hi, would you please indicate one or more copyright violations on this page? Otherwise, I see no justification for WP:TNT. Cheers, Johncdraper —Preceding undated comment added 19:18, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi, I think I have addressed your copyvio concern on this page. The source is a Creative Commons 2.0 International License, now properly attributed. Please advise on the article delete page if this addresses (or does not address) your concern. Johncdraper (talk) 08:46, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

*{{ping|XOR'easter}} Dear XOR'easter, on your additional copyright concern, the report you cite postdates the page and is a straight copy-paste from the Wikipedia page. The pdf is a pre-release report on an EU server, as it in fact states: "Confidential, only for members of the consortium (including EACEA and Commission services and projects reviewers". Please note Earwig's notice: "Be aware that other websites can copy from Wikipedia, so check the results carefully, especially for older or well-developed articles." Also, I have completely rewritten the Mode 2 page as a Knowledge Production Modes page, as was in fact requested on its Talk page. I also deleted the in-line citations template for the same page. Then, I rewrote sections of the Triple helix model of innovation page, adding open-source illustrative diagrams. I have also heavily rewritten the Quadruple and quintuple innovation helix (Q2IH) framework page. Any further requests for clarification would be gratefully received. Peace, Johncdraper (talk) 17:40, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

@Johncdraper: I do not have time to work on this topic further. Sorry. XOR'easter (talk) 18:04, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: Fair enough. But would you at least confirm on the delete page that there is no copyvio, as you initially alleged? Peace, Johncdraper (talk) 18:11, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Physics Physique физика

I see you added at some places the name DOI for Bell's paper, and changed the journal name from Physics to Physics Physique физика. That's great, I didn't know that somebody had finally given Bell's paper a DOI. Do you know when this happened? The problem is that the name of the journal where Bell published his paper is just Physics. Physics Physique физика is just the name APS gave it in order to not conflict with their own "Physics" magazine. Tercer (talk) 06:55, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't know when the DOI was assigned, sorry. I went ahead and modified the links to say [[Physics Physique физика|Physics]], so that they give the name at the time and point to the right place instead of Physics (magazine) or Physics (American Physical Society journal), the latter of which actually redirects to Journal of Applied Physics. My conclusion is that nobody should ever have created a journal just called "Physics". XOR'easter (talk) 15:20, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that was a terrible idea. Now we have Quantum, that has lived almost as long as "Physics". Let's hope things go better for them.

The reference is very confusing, though. The reader will click in a link written "Physics", but that links to "Physics Physique физика", which is just a redirect to "Physical Review", where "Physics Physique физика" is just one entry in a table. Wouldn't it be better to give the original reference, followed by "Republished as Bell, J. S. (1964). "On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox". Physics Physique физика. 1 (3): 195–200. doi:10.1103/PhysicsPhysiqueFizika.1.195."? Tercer (talk) 18:30, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm not actually sure the right way to make it all clear (or rather, I can think of several things to do, all of which sound equally suboptimal). I added a little more to the article Physical Review so that the pertinent information isn't just in a table. XOR'easter (talk) 22:25, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Well then I'd write the link simply as [[Physical Review|Physics Physique физика]]. It is then clear that the redirect is not a mistake, and whoever wonders whether the journal was actually called Physics can just click the link and understand what happened. Tercer (talk) 07:36, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Quick Question + Thanks for Help

@XOR'easter: thank you for reformatting my AfDs. Should I be adding the "Find sources AFD" syntax to all of my AFDs, like you did? Is that how I add those headers to the AFD page? BonkHindrance (talk) 16:04, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Use the {{afd2}} template as described here. That will generate all the syntax automatically. Cheers, XOR'easter (talk) 16:05, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Physics Physique физика

On 18 February 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Physics Physique физика, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that physicist John Clauser discovered Bell's theorem because the journal that printed it bore the unusual title Physics Physique физика? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Physics Physique физика. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Physics Physique физика), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Maile (talk) 12:02, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

• The above-mentioned hook has been changed based on a report at ERRORS, and now reads: "that physicist John Bell published the theorem that now bears his name in a journal sometimes called by the unusual title Physics Physique Физика"  — Amakuru (talk) 15:00, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

The many-worlds interpretation

Hey, I see you have physics expertise and that you've done good work fighting undue weight in that area, including adding some balance to the article on Something Deeply Hidden.

I was wondering if, when you get some time, you could take a look at our article on the many-worlds interpretation. I've just finished giving it a read through. It already had quite a few problem tags scattered throughout, and I've added several more for certain sections, as well as reorganized some things. I think it can be summarized into two major issues:

• 1. The article has major undue weight issues, especially with regard to favoring the MWI. It has essentially no critiques at all; and while it does mention the issue of probability and the Born rule, it doesn't point out that this is a major criticism of the MWI, and it spends the vast majority of that section expounding many-worlder defenses of the issue. Nowhere does the article truly explain why some (most, isn't it?) experts do not accept the MWI. There is a section on "common objections", but it is bizarrely written as a back and forth between an MWI skeptic and MWI proponent, and gives the last word to the MWI proponent while the MWI skeptic seems like it could be a strawman. Additionally, there is a lengthy quote from an unpublished ArXiv preprint, and a section elaborating at length a fringey hypothesis about communication between worlds.

• 2. The article contains a lot of unsourced and seemingly original research material, especially when explaining the MWI. It is not clear to me how accurate this material is.

I've tagged many of these issues. I hope that you can look at it and at least cut the stuff that is not WP:Due; and any balancing additions would also be much appreciated. I am not that knowledgeable in this topic area; I only watch a couple of articles to counter undue weight from multiverse fans and one-sided philosophizing.

Kind regards, Crossroads ^-talk- 22:38, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Crossroads, thanks for the heads-up. Your tags all look appropriate to me. I made a few initial edits, but plenty of work remains to be done. I'd think that the sincere advocates of (any of the many versions of) the many-worlds interpretation would be embarrassed by how vague, meandering, tonally inconsistent, and generally amateurish that article is. The "common objections" section does seem particularly bizarre, almost like it was copied out of some other FAQ-type web page. XOR'easter (talk) 01:14, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you so much for checking it out and for what you've done so far. I agree with your assessment of its problems. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:48, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Just one example of the remaining problems: Everett (1957) briefly derived the Born rule by showing that the Born rule was the only possible rule — except, no, he didn't. Like a lazy student who knows the solution he is supposed to derive but struggles to justify it, Everett had a convenient tendency to conflate difficult questions about quantum theory with easier ones. Instead of explaining how we can derive the appearance of a single world following standard quantum probabilistic laws from many-worlds quantum theory, he offered a proof that a probability-like function defined on branching worlds must take the familiar form of the Born rule if it satisfies some mathematically appealing conditions — not a completely trivial question, to be sure, but much easier than, and only tangentially relevant to, the one he claimed to be solving. Nor did he tackle the key question of how to justify basing an interpretation on a very particular decomposition of the universal wave function, picking out a basis in which it takes the form of a superposition of many worlds like ours which are well approximated by classical theories and contain creatures like us that perceive and exploit this classical predictability. He simply took this preferred basis decomposition as given and then analysed how memory record states would be appropriately correlated with one another and with environment states — indeed a sensible point to check if one can resolve the preferred basis problem, but not a substitute for a solution. If Everett had succeeded, no one would have needed to try their own derivations — not Coleman, not Benioff, not Farhi–Goldstone–Gutmann, not Deutsch, not Greaves–Myrvold, not Vaidman, not Sebens–Carroll.... XOR'easter (talk) 05:50, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Crossroads, here's another example of the article's amateurishness. Some text I cut out said that Gleason's theorem proves the Born probability measure is the only one on Hilbert space that can be constructed purely from the quantum state vector. But this isn't right. Gleason didn't assume the existence of a quantum state vector; he derived the set of state vectors. The description in the article read like a third-hand understanding. That's just an example I happened to notice on a first read, and there might be more — I doubt the article is trustworthy on the details. Quantum foundations is a notoriously hard subject to write clearly about, and Wikipedia naturally has to deal with contributors who are more enthusiastic than they are informed. XOR'easter (talk) 16:19, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, and this interpretation in particular attracts people who are more enthusiastic than informed, because of its sci-fi appeal.

I see that there are other poor sources in the article as well. For example, the "Everett FAQ" appears to just be someone's personal website, who is not themselves a qualified expert.

I hope that you will join me in watching this article and tinkering with it from time to time. As I said, I myself don't actually know physics on a deep level, so your help is very much appreciated. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:41, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry for intruding here, but the title of the section caught my attention and, indeed, the article on Many-Worlds is in a terrible state. Original research, undue weight, misrepresentation of sources, and un-encyclopedic style. I'll see what I can do. I suggest discussing its issues on its talk page instead of here, though. Tercer (talk) 13:39, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

@Tercer: Thank you for commenting. Yes, if you also could help fixing it up so it at least is not so bad, that would be much appreciated. Since this discussion took off, it may be good to copy this over to the article talk page, for future reference there. XOR'easter, would that be okay? Crossroads ^-talk- 19:05, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

I'll make a post over there that summarizes the discussion here for easier reading. XOR'easter (talk) 19:09, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Gleason's theorem review

I'm sorry to bother you, but are you in the mood for finishing up Gleason's theorem? I'm willing to help. The article is already in a pretty good state, and I'm itching to declare it a Good Article. Tercer (talk) 13:28, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to get it to GA status, too. I'm not very familiar with the details of the protocol for that, but I think it's the person who volunteered to review (in this case Jakob.scholbach) who decides when the article is ready to promote. There's probably a procedure for handing off the decision in case the original reviewer is too busy or otherwise unavailable, but in my casual experience with the GA process, I haven't seen that happen. XOR'easter (talk) 14:29, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I was unclear. What I meant to propose is to address the remaining issues with the article (so that it can be declared GA). Tercer (talk) 14:44, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

@Tercer, @XOR'easter: I am also not 100% into the details of whatever protocol applies here. If you, Tercer, would be willing to take the responsability of the GA reviewing process, I am more than happy to step back since I don't find the time right now. I don't see any problems with that course of action. The usual GA criteria demand for something much less than both my attempt of a review and Tercer's comments in the GA review seem to require, so I don't see a problem with the scope of the review either, but that is of course up to you, Tercer, in case you agree to take the lead here. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 20:24, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Gleason's theorem

The article Gleason's theorem you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Gleason's theorem for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Jakob.scholbach -- Jakob.scholbach (talk) 10:02, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for bothering you, but...

New Page Patrol needs experienced volunteers

• New Page Patrol is currently struggling to keep up with the influx of new articles. We could use a few extra hands on deck if you think you can help.
• Reviewing/patrolling a page doesn't take much time but it requires a good understanding of Wikipedia policies and guidelines; Wikipedia needs experienced users to perform this task and there are precious few with the appropriate skills. Even a couple reviews a day can make a huge difference.
• If you would like to join the project and help out, please see the granting conditions and review our instructions page. You can apply for the user-right HERE. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 20:08, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion for contribution to Density Matrix page

It looks like you're the among the more prolific (and recent) contributors to the Density Matrix page, so I wanted to offer a few recent works related to that, but I'm not sure where best they might go. Perhaps just extra citations in the related works, or maybe some new section. I'm none of the authors below with no connection to them, in fact I'm not even a physicist (computer science, FWIW), which is why I'm not even attempting to make edits. I found their work after an office debate around the new Hulu show Devs. I'm mainly interested in QM interpretations that show progress getting away from Copenhagen and many-worlds. I think the papers from Barandes and Kagan would work as a contribution to the section on Systems and Subsystems, but that's just a guess. According to Weinberg's paper, he became aware of Barandes and Kagan's parallel work after they both published within the same year. Without further ado: - Quantum Mechanics Without State Vectors - A Synopsis of the Minimal Modal Interpretation of Quantum Theory - The Minimal Modal Interpretation of Quantum Theory - Measurement and Quantum Dynamics in the Minimal Modal Interpretation of Quantum Theory 108.44.250.167 (talk) 01:28, 2 April 2020 (UTC) Cheers, Greg

Thanks for dropping by! :-) I think it is probably more important to get the practical, technical basics correct and adequately explained — in the manner of Nielsen and Chuang, or Rieffel and Polak, or Peres, or Wilde — before we go running off into the interpretation business. There are simply too many interpretations and too few clearly-written secondary or tertiary sources about them (and I do not think that either Weinberg or Barandes and Kagan have been very influential in the ~6 years since they have published). XOR'easter (talk) 02:05, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. Thanks for the feedback. That's why I posted here first instead of in the main article. While I agree with your assessment of Barandes and Kagan, I'm not sure the same could be said about Steven Weinberg. Maybe I'll see whether the interpretations page folks see a home, with a link back here. 108.44.250.167 (talk) 00:05, 3 April 2020 (UTC) Cheers, Greg

Weinberg himself is a very well-known and well-regarded fellow, but this particular proposal of his has not gained much traction that I can see (and he was far from the first to make a claim like "mixed density matrices are as fundamental as pure ones"). XOR'easter (talk) 12:57, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Penrose tiling/1

Hello XOR'easter. I noticed you filing this at WP:AN/RFC. Though I don't normally do GA reviews, I'm thinking of closing this as 'keep listed', since User:Aircorn (the filer of the GAR) has indicated on their talk page that they won't be available. Otherwise I'd propose that they close it themselves (if they agree that the article now passes), but that option is not available for now. Does this sound OK? It appears that enough people showed up in the discussion to give independent opinions in support to allow this to meet the bar. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 16:21, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

That sounds fine. I haven't had a lot of engagement with the GA or FA process, since a lot of what I edit is on topics abstruse enough that it's hard to find reviewers. So, I'm not too familiar with the protocol for handling cases where the filer is unavailable, etc. Really, I'm just happy that the GAR brought enough attention to fix the various little problems that had arisen. Thanks! XOR'easter (talk) 16:26, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

So far, so good but I'm having trouble with the update of Template:Article history. Do you know of any articles that have passed a GAR that I could look at for an example? Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 16:58, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Never mind, I found Abby Martin. If you wish to check for mistakes, you can review my change at the article talk. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 17:13, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

EdJohnston, looks good to me. Thanks again! XOR'easter (talk) 17:59, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks EdJohnston for closing this. I needed to take a bit of a break due to personal issues, but should be able to ease back into things now. Just a FYI about the GAR. I opened a community one so technically I should not have closed it anyway (although this is not as strictly enforced as other community processes). Anyway thanks again for closing it and also to everyone else that commented on it. The more eyes we have on these the better. AIRcorn (talk) 03:48, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

h-index

Hi XOR'easter, Following up here, as the discussion was closed before you answered, Re: your comment: "(an h-index of only 13, in a field where citation counts are actually informative)." Thanks again for using a numerical value. Would you point me to a (open/free) source you'd recommend to get those ratings (for authors who don't have profiles/accounts on GScholar)? Also, would you state a minimum value you think should be used as a criterion, or give values for the lowest rated similar climate modeler/scientist BLP you've seen in WP, for context? Thanks -- Yae4 (talk) 06:52, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Bell's Theorem edit

Hi. I am curious as to your undoing of the Bell's Theorem change? I feel the wording at the begging is incorrect, as mathematical theorem does not prove physical results, rather we use the theorem to develop statistical certainties based on experimentation, so saying that the theorem itself proves the incompatibility seems to be a bit of a misnomer. (I am new to Wikipedia editing, so I apologize if this is an incorrect way to contact you). I figure a correct version of the first sentence would be something like:

“Bell’s theorem shows certain constraints that must hold if quantum physics is compatible with local hidden variable theory. Experimentally, by showing an increased certainty in a violation of these constraints implies by contrapositive that quantum physics is incompatible with local hidden variable theories.”

Let me know your thoughts! Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Keystonescience (talk • contribs)

Keystonescience, Bell proved that the predictions of quantum theory cannot be reproduced by any local hidden-variable model. It was conceivable that, when Bell test experiments were actually done, their results would disagree with quantum mechanics. But that would show that quantum mechanics is an incorrect theory of the world, not that Bell's theorem is wrong. We didn't need to do Bell test experiments in the lab to see that quantum physics is incompatible with local hidden variables, only to see that nature agrees with the quantum predictions instead of the LHV ones. XOR'easter (talk) 13:03, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Edit on Photon article

Excellent catch! A Google search for the offending book reveals an origianal publication date of July 7, 2019. I wonder if Wikimedia Foundation might be interested. I get notifications of peer review issues via a browser plugin, but I'm unaware of anything that could make this task easier! Keep up the excellent work.Wzrd1 (talk) 05:00, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Wikipedia content gets recycled in the oddest places. For a moment, I thought the sentence with that footnote was a copyright violation, but then I saw the whole section was the same, and I realized the copying actually went in the other direction. XOR'easter (talk) 22:21, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I checked the edit history and the publication date of the book, it most certainly went from Wikipedia directly to the book. Retraction Watch had some rather humorous stories about peer review of papers submitted that suffered from the same issue, how a nascent career recovers from that, I have no clue.Wzrd1 (talk) 00:21, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Notice of Fringe Theories Noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 05:08, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

A K Peters

I have put the article up at WP:RM#C, in line with some comments in the recent deletion discussion. Charles Matthews (talk) 14:25, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods

On 12 May 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that in the 1993 textbook Quantum Theory, "uncertainty principle" appears only once in the index, and its entry points back to itself? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Wug·a·po·des​ 21:13, 9 May 2020 (UTC) 12:02, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Your perception?

You seem to have missed my point; you're falling into the deflection trap of arguing bits of the physics. The thread is about what no self-respecting physicist would utter (about annihilation at a distance) being inserted as OR. Aside from the changed level of verbosity, we have an editor who is behaving rather similarly to the edit-ban-evading editor that took an interest in Natural units, Planck units and insisting on inserting OR and reverting others' reverts thereof in the face of objections, and not being persuaded by anyone; we might even be being trolled. Now they're "Working on the rest", presumably meaning trying to reword the contested claim for re-insertion. If I am the only one with this perception of this editor, then perhaps it is time for me to take an extremely long wikibreak. —Quondum 22:42, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

@Quondum: I was just trying to explain that their portrayal of the history was completely wrong, while being polite. I don't think the contested claim holds up at all, and it doesn't belong anywhere near the article. XOR'easter (talk) 13:47, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Maybe I'm overreacting, but they seem to be impervious/deaf to any explanations, rationale or consensus. In any event, I am not cut out for interacting with anyone whose interaction style is so noncooperative. Unlike you, my politeness is liable to degenerate rapidly (as you may have noticed in this case), and for my own state of mind, I think it best that I step away. —Quondum 15:46, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@Quondum: My patience is finite, too, and I think they've pretty much exhausted it by now. XOR'easter (talk) 17:56, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@Quondum: I should add that I can appreciate the feeling that it's time to take a wiki-break. I seem to be going through one of those spells where the project just isn't much fun, and I'm only getting involved in things to try and keep cruft from accumulating or fix old problems that have suddenly come to light, rather than building anything new. Maintenance and petty squabbles... it gets discouraging. Surely what I said about dimensional analysis was obvious enough, right? If your given quantities are the mass m, the charge e, and the speed of light c, and you want to combine them to get a length, then — three equations in three unknowns, badda boom badda bing — you're driven to the combination $e^{2}/(mc^{2})$, and any practical physicist knows that the right answer is going to be that, up to a 2 or a π somewhere. Incidentally, the formula they claim is the electron-positron annihilation cross section is only the approximate answer for slow speeds. The full formula is, in terms of the Lorentz factor γ,

${\frac {4\pi r_{e}^{2}}{\gamma +1}}\left[{\frac {\gamma ^{2}+4\gamma +1}{\gamma ^{2}-1}}\log(\gamma +{\sqrt {\gamma ^{2}-1}})+{\sqrt {\gamma ^{2}-1}}-{\frac {\gamma +3}{\sqrt {\gamma ^{2}-1}}}\right].$

And this only applies for decays into pairs of photons, not three or more, and which decay path predominates can depend upon, e.g., whether the positronium "atom" is in a singlet or triplet state. XOR'easter (talk) 06:07, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

On the the dimensional analysis, no, the exact reasoning is hardly obvious (to me), and that need not have been the route taken. Though the condescension coming back at you is thick as syrup.

I see this formula in one of the citations that was given. I notice that the latest citations (i.e., for this cross-section claim, and which your last revert removed) were all behind paywalls. Since I made a comment that suggested that I don't have access to paywalled papers, I'm not sure whether this might be a tactic to limit checking that the references actually support what is claimed.

There seems to be a factor of π error in the inserted low-velocity formula for the cross-section relative to another of the earlier cited sources, and this source also gives all the caveats.

If this behaviour persists, I wonder whether WP:ANI, simply leaving it for a while for later cruft removal or perhaps some other mechanism would make most sense? —Quondum 17:21, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

The Dirac reference predates the discovery of the positron, and dates back to the age of the Dirac sea (he calls the effective positive charges due to holes in the sea "protons"). His equation (37) is basically the relativistic result quoted above, but he doesn't take the nonrelativistic limit — as he says, it's not clear what mass should be used for m, because he identifies the "holes" with protons, and the proton and electron masses are very different! More importantly for the present purposes, there's nothing in it about two particles annihilating at exactly the distance $r_{e}$. The 1953 paper by Deutsch gives the nonrelativistic limit and explains the caveats. It also has nothing to support the notion that the annihilation [...] took place exactly at the distance of 1 classical electron radius [6] — understandably so, since nobody ought to take a picture of the electron and positron as little billiard balls that seriously. As for what should be done next, I don't know. Wait and see, perhaps. XOR'easter (talk) 18:03, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

@Quondum: Which papers were you unable to read — only the Dirac one? I have pretty good access where I am right now, so I can dig up historical items. XOR'easter (talk) 18:07, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

There was a JSTOR one, but it seems that it is free if I register. Thanks for the offer, but for now I'm not running around checking references; I'm barely taking note of the affected pages. —Quondum 19:19, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

OK. I don't think there's much else to do; nothing I've turned up as a result of checking all this seems vitally important to add to the article, so I'll head off and work on other things. I just finished a quick rewrite job on the introduction for quantum state, which had grown into a bit of a mess. XOR'easter (talk) 21:02, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Excessivism

Hi! Please do not blank articles as you did here. For future reference, please place the {{Copyvio}} above the alleged copyvio rather than removing the content -- the template will hide the text in question. Regards, Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!^{Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS).} 02:21, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@Nat: Ah, thanks. I hadn't had occasion to use that template before. XOR'easter (talk) 17:51, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Undoing my changes to "Other modern claims"

Angry, uninteresting comments from blocked sockpuppets

Hi, My colleague showed me an article about a relativistic experiment on squaring the circle published by a maths enthusiast EG Haug. I wanted to include it here in the appropriate section, as I find it witty and instructive for a non-physicist (I myself hold a PhD in mathematical physics with specialisation in topological/relativistic effects). While the article is not written by a professional physicist (EGH is a professor of economics according to the web), it demonstrates in an intuitive way the properties of non-Euclidian topologies set in the famous physical theory (of relativity), and combines it with the mathematical problem in question and its geometric interpretation. Perhaps the article is the only chance for many Wikipedia readers to understand those concepts. Responding to the justification for the removal of my edit by David Eppstein and XOR'easter, respectively: 1) that it doesn't use the compass and straightedge construction - the entry is not limited to this construction (it even cites ref 12 about squaring the circle in hyperbolic plane, which is basically what Haug's paper is about). 2) that it didn't receive scholarly attention - I posted it here because it managed to receive more scholarly attention than the niche articles currently being cited in that section (they obviously receive attention thanks to the wiki citation). The edit I proposed, which is being removed: In 2020, Espen Gaarder Haug, the Professor of mathematical finance at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and a self-taught physicist, presented an practical way of squaring the circle by means of relativistic effects (invoking the idea of solving the problem in the hyperbolic plane). I think it is the spirit of open science (also to enthusiasts) and the rules of Wikipedia to include this content. UK-WK-ed (talk) 17:03, 21 May 2020 (UTC) References it managed to receive more scholarly attention than the niche articles currently being cited in that section — No, it didn't. Jagy's "Squaring circles in the hyperbolic plane" has been cited 15 times; Haug, none. The former is niche, but the latter is, to date, inconsequential. Wikipedia is not the place to promote work which might become influential someday. We write about science and mathematics that history has already demonstrated to be significant. XOR'easter (talk) 17:10, 21 May 2020 (UTC) I've mentioned Jagy's paper to refute David Eppstein's claim that Haug's paper is off-topic, which he used to justify undoing my edit. Many articles mentioned in this entry (and on Wikipedia in general, especially in research areas with low publication volume) haven't been cited even once, not to mention they are hiding behind paywalls while Haug's paper is open access. It is original and stands out from the rest with its concept. I find your motivation for removing my edit insincere and biased. You are trying to derail this discussion only to prevent me from contributing to this thread. Wikipedia is for everyone to publish and profit from. I will be reporting this to admins. UK-WK-ed (talk) 20:58, 21 May 2020 (UTC) You're welcome to report me to whomever you feel like. XOR'easter (talk) 21:00, 21 May 2020 (UTC) I think UK-WK-ed's edit is valid, and I see no reason for it being removed. Demanding arbitrary citation numbers is a convenient way of hiding one's biases. Rwerp (talk) 18:44, 28 May 2020 (UTC) — Rwerp (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

New message from Narutolovehinata5

Hello, XOR'easter. You have new messages at Template:Did you know nominations/Climate zones on Pluto.
Message added 12:46, 22 May 2020 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 12:46, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Wigner's friend

Also mentioned a few times in Charles Stross's "Laundry" novels (in particular, The Atrocity Archives), and in Robert Anton Wilson's Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy, the characters refer to a set of novels called the "Wigner's Friend Trilogy", and Ruben Bolling shoved it into a Tom the Dancing Bug strip. David Morgan-Mar had a one-off character named "Wigner's Sister", whose "superpower is based (very loosely) on Wigner's Friend".

What these allusions have in common with the Baxter is that not only are they all "evidence that an abstruse bit of physics has appeared at all in fiction ", but they are also all primary sources. The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern American Fiction says that it's alluded to in Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novel Vineland, but I'm not going to pick through the novel to learn how.

Can you give me a better reason to include that section in the article? DS (talk) 17:13, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't have the greatest affection for "in popular culture" sections, generally, but this one covered a significant plot element in a published, notable book by a notable author, rather than cruft like a mention in a random webcomic, which is what I typically expect when physics articles grow sections like that. That tipped me over to the side of retaining it, but I don't have a strong attachment to it. The rest of that article is so muddled, it drowns out whatever feelings I might have towards that little bit of it. XOR'easter (talk) 21:36, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Shapiro book

Thanks very much for adding the ref to the Shapiro book. I would love to see that book, but I can't afford the $200 that seems to be required. Cheers, Eleuther (talk) 17:00, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

THANK YOU SO MUCH for your help on List of American Physical Society Fellows. I started the page thinking it would be a simple job of copying the list of names here, but it required so much editing. I figured out some Microsoft Excel formulas that I was using to make the process faster. Still it would have taken me 10 to 15 days to complete the article. How did you complete it so quickly? What tools did you use? I intend on creating similar pages for other societies so it would be a great help if you can give me some pointers. Not only did you bring the list of people on the page, you linked all of them. Moreover, there were so many names with just the first initials. You filled in all those name as well. THANK YOU so much for your help on this.HRShami (talk) 03:48, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I had the data sitting on my computer for a while, thanks to a previous discussion that led me to try scraping it from the APS website. I wrote a Python script to parse the data and output it in the form of a Wikipedia article. I just made it print the names as links by default, so if there were already articles for those people, they'd show up in blue; I didn't try to write any code to fill in initials or test for the existence of variations, but I did notice familiar names in the output and fix those manually. XOR'easter (talk) 04:48, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

All right. I am a journalism student so I don't understand much about programming. I can't use Python to do what you did. It might be a simple thing for you, but I am so impressed by the sheer speed with which you completed the page. I am so glad to have crossed paths with you here.HRShami (talk) 06:11, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

If you have more time to work on it, you can take a crack at fixing the links to disambiguation pages, so that they point to the physicists rather than just to lists of people with the same name — see below. I'll try to work on this, too. XOR'easter (talk) 13:46, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for June 3

An automated process has detected that you recently added links to disambiguation pages.

List of American Physical Society Fellows (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added links pointing to William Collins, Harold Brown, John Robertson, Richard Wilson, John Cooper, David Feldman, David Weiss, Mark Lee, Robert Williams, Paul Johnson, Edward O'Brien, William Anderson, Richard Hughes, Richard Phillips, Jack Davis, John Clarke, Raymond Davis, Edward Thomas, Michael Brown, Christopher Hill, Andrew White, David Ward, Stephen Kent, Sean Carroll, David Bennett, Carl Hagen, Michael Graham, Norman Brown, Peter Paul, Robert Edwards, John Parsons, Kevin Jones, Michael Schmidt, John Fox, Michael Stone, Richard Williams, David Sinclair, David Burrows, John Stewart, Yang Yang, Ernst Weber, Michael Chapman, Peter Fisher, Scott Thomas, William Atkinson, Charles Henderson, James Ryan, Zafar Iqbal, William Hayes, Richard Wolfson, Joseph Morgan, Carlos Tejedor, Michael Berman, John Belcher, Richard Steinberg, Arthur von Hippel, John Lister, William Jeffrey, John Blackwell, Louis Goldstein, James Terrell, William J. Gallagher, Jacob Schaefer, Alexander Forbes, James Fuller, John Moody, David Carroll, Michael Wright, Felix Adler, Troy Carter, William Rees, Hiroshi Watanabe, Michael McCarthy, Charles Skinner, James Henry Duncan, John Strong, Michael Cohen, David Turnbull, Bruce Allen, John Irwin, Ernest Coleman, Francis Birch, Robert Hayes, Patrick Brady, David Chandler, Jack Harris, William Weber, John Hobbs, Gary White, John Smith, Michael Solomon, Donald M. Kerr, Richard Milner, Stephen Martin, Paul Shapiro, Anthony Murphy, Stephen Hill, Michael Kurtz, Maurice Webb, James Cochran, Richard Fitzpatrick, Joe Wong, Arthur Roberts, Harold Johnston, Yoshihisa Yamamoto, Paul Kent, Mark Devlin, Elizabeth Jenkins, Albert Young, Michael Shelley, Martin White, Marc Davis, John Harte, John Markert, Robert Bingham, Alexander Thomas, Robert Gilmore, James Watkins, James Nagle, Ahmed Ali, David Goldstein, Jacob Klein, Thomas Baer, William Bowie, Peter Jung, Dudley Williams, Fred Wolf, William Klein, Peter Fischer, Jin Wang, Kenneth Young, Sergei Kalinin, Li You, Sergey Lebedev, Valeri Lebedev, Michael Day, Thomas Pedersen, Harvey Brooks, David Adler, Charles Roland, Zahid Hussain, David Andelman, Manuela Campanelli, David Middleton, Richard Steiner, Daniel Green, Werner Weber, Jennifer Thomas, Dennis Hayes, Li Shi, Wolfgang Kaiser, Nigel Clarke, Prem Kumar, Daniel Phillips, Juan Santiago, Narendra Kumar, James Chen, Alfred Wolf, Michael Riordan, Arne Johansson, Joseph Katz, Liu Chen, Stanley Humphries and William Munro

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 08:23, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Fun and frustration both start with an f

XOR'easter, I saw that you got frustrated with Wikipedia a few weeks back, and I just wanted to tell you that I appreciate everything you do here. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 10:40, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I think it's mostly that the number of frustrating/petty disputes happened to tick up at a time when other obligations had left me with less time and energy to deal with them (or to find the enjoyable and educational part of them). That's probably a typical recipe for a mild burnout. XOR'easter (talk) 16:14, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Lists of American Physical Society Fellows

I cycle through Disambiguation pages with links about every 6 to 8 weeks, which is how I came across these pages (before they were split). Faced with several dozen links to DAB pages at the end of my working day, I solved what I easily could and {{dn}} tagged the difficult ones. When I come across those again (as I will), I intend to do the research necessary to add a good qualifier (the generic (physicist) may not be best or even correct), or as last resort to add a <!--hidden note of frustration--> to the dn tag. Yrs, Narky Blert (talk) 20:29, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. A few of us have been plowing our way through the dab's on those pages. My guess is that "(physicist)" will be a good qualifier for most of them, though some could be "(mathematician)" or "(chemist)" or "(engineer)", etc. XOR'easter (talk) 21:02, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Even (physicist) can cover anything between a Big-Bang theorist and someone who rolls balls down inclined planes and a wave mechanic. I try to find a university profile or similar - a self-description is likely to be the qualifier of (or a redirect to) an article when written, and a good redlink qualifier helps with de-WP:ORPHANing new articles. Narky Blert (talk) 21:26, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Socratic Method

I linked the WP article, it should be clear that asking questions to elicit discussion IS the Socratic Method. Perhaps you would prefer to reorder whether the possible motives are seeking to elicit knowledge or just griefing? Eye of the beholder, eh? As thou wilt. In any case, I will revert your revert. I asked Jimbo to read the Wondermark comic some time ago, and he spontaneously offered that it was clearly about racism, and the marine mammal had every right to inquire why the white woman hated his kind. Consider this me asking you why you think the way you do. 173.133.196.181 (talk) 04:18, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

I just sat back and watched in admiration today as you edited Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Great job! NedFausa (talk) 00:47, 18 June 2020 (UTC)