Talk:Physics/wip/Archive,forDefinition3

message: I hope it is not inappropriate for me to put a few comments down here on what I have seen by glancing at the archives and in all three proposals:
*Do you really want to define physics=all of science? Is this useful, even if true in some sense? It is a bit difficult for me to believe that so many are racing towards defining physics=biology or physics=chemistry or physics=sociology or physics=anthropology  or physics=psychology. While it is true that physical processes underly all these other fields (or at least some believe that they do, without anything else being involved), at least at this point in time, the gap between the study of penguins or manic depressive disorder or dreams or the tribal mating rituals in New Guinea and the study of behaviors of plasmas under various conditions is pretty big. The people who study penguins, dreams, OCD and mating rituals are not physicists, and do not need training in what we call physics to study these phenomena at the present time. In 200 years or 500 years, physics might be necessary for studying these phenomena, but it is not needed now. And people who study them do not use physics except possibly indirectly through the equipment they use. In this sense, for a student, or a layperson, who will probably form well over 90% of your intended audience, to start off with a definition or statements that unequivocally state that all of science is physics is not particularly helpful. I would also point out that in fields like Psychology or Biology, they are not likely to be particularly pleased to find out that their field is just a subfield of physics, and that their own training and contributions are viewed as irrelevant since Psychology or Biology are just physics. All of these other fields of science have their own traditions and methods and training and approaches. Some might experience the well known physics envy, but they are not physics. At least not yet. If someone wanted to discuss this lower in the text, that would be fine, but putting it in the lead I think is asking for trouble.
:Humans start sorting their world out with things on their own scale. Stone are just stones until somebody really looks closely at one and detects structures within. Animals are just things to eat until somebody like Plato realizes that they have organic structures.  Stars and planets are all the same until somebody notices that planets move with relation to the stars. As we made progress, our question was "what is underneath" the phenomena that we could observe. It took a long time before we could achieve sufficient clarity that we could predict relatively macro-scale things that we did not already know. For instance, the chemical components of water were well known for a great long time before knowledge about oxygen and hydrogen could be used to predict characteristics of water.  In a sense, nature has already done the math for us so it is only an academic exercise to compute the properties of water. However, it turns out that with computers to speed up the calculations it can be very helpful to apply physics to chemistry.  
:All of our searching seems to me to point, by various avenues, toward the "grand unfired theory," something that explains how all complex phenomena emerge from the same root. Exactly what to call this/these simplest and most fundamental things escapes me, but I think that the article should point out that even when physicists are looking at galaxies they are looking for the underlying processes, the fundaments.
:It's purely a matter of academic interest, since no empirical studies or scientific method is involved, but the Chinese built a metaphysical sand castle in pursuit of the same goal. They started with 64 situational categories, observed that they could be reduced by halving until you had two fundamental phenomenal categories, Yin and Yang... and then asked what would happen if you reduced them to one by collapsing the two into a "something" that was the source of the most fundamental categories of experience (black and white, hot and cold, plenum and void...). What happens if you collapse plenum and void, being and non-being, into one?  They called the one the Tai-ji (T'ai Chi in the old Wade-Giles romanization).  Once you had that basic structure you could double up to 64 and then go on to 128, 256... In the process you get something that looks like binary numbers, which blew Leibniz's mind when he learn of it shortly after he had invented binary math himself.  So it's a grand metaphysical sandcastle is there ever was one. It's only linked to experience by dogmatic assertions, so it hasn't been productive of technological goodies or predictions of hitherto unseen phenomena. But it does point to a very human desire to trace things back to fundamental building blocks that can be used to understand the structures that are built up from them. P0M 18:05, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: I merged the three proposals to try to help the situation a little and maybe help to focus the conversation after the voting. I put labels/section headings over the sections but I do not suggest they remain. I just wanted to make clear how I was organizing the ideas. I am not sure where the boundary between the lead and the introduction should be. I think an introduction like that in chemistry might fall right between the section on "physics is quantitative" and "fields of physics" so the last two, plus some more material might go in an introduction.
====General description====
Physics is the science of matter and how matter interacts. Physics is used to describe the physical universe around us, and to predict how it will behave. 
Physics is the science concerned with the discovery and characterization of the universal laws which govern matter, movement and forces, space and time, and other features of the natural world.
====Breadth and goals of physics====
The sweep of physics is broad, from the tiniest components of matter and the forces that hold it together, to galaxies and even larger structures. There are only four forces that appear to operate over this entire range. However, even these four forces (gravity, electromagnetism, the weak force associated with radioactivity, and the strong force which holds atoms together) are believed to be different aspects of a single force. 
Physics is primarily focused on the goal of formulating ever simpler, more general, and more accurate rules that govern the character and behavior of matter and space itself. 
One of the major goals of physics is the formulation of theories of universal applicability. Therefore, physics can be viewed as the study of those univeral laws which define, at the most fundamental level possible, the behaviour of the physical universe.
====Physics uses the scientific method====
Physics uses the scientific method. That is, data from experiments and observations are collected. Theories which attempt to explain these data are produced. Physics uses these theories to not only describe physical phenomena, but to model physical systems and predict how these physical systems will behave. These predictions can then be compared to observations or experimental evidence to verify or falsify the theory.
The theories that are well supported by data and are especially simple and general are sometimes called scientific laws. Of course, all theories, including those known as laws, can be replaced by more accurate and more general laws, when a disagreement with data is found.Some principles, such as Newton's laws of motion, are still generally called "laws" even though they are now known not to be of such universal applicability as was once thought.
====Physics is Quantitative====
Physics is more quantitative than most other sciences. That is, many of the observations in physics are numerical measurements. Most of the theories in physics use mathematics to express their principles. Most of the predictions from these theories are numerical. This is because of the areas  which physics has addressed are more amenable to quantitative approaches than other areas. Sciences also tend to become more quantitative with time as they become more highly developed, and physics is one of the older sciences.
====Fields of physics====
Classical physics traditionally included the fields of mechanics, optics, electricity, magnetism, acoustics and thermodynamics. Modern physics is a term normally used to cover fields which rely on quantum theory, including quantum mechanics, atomic physics, nuclear physics, particle physics and condensed matter physics, as well as the more modern fields of general and special relativity.  Although this distinction can be commonly found in older writings, it is of limited current significance as quantum effects are now understood to be of importance even in fields previously considered purely classical.Different people, however, have different definitions of what they regard physics to be, and another common definition is that, "physics is the science of nature" [1,2,3,4,5,6].
====Approaches in physics====
There are many approaches to studying physics, and many different kinds of actitivies in physics. There are two main types of activities in physics; the collection of data and the development of theories. 
The data in some subfields of physics is amenable to experiment. For example, condensed matter physics and nuclear physics benefit from the ability to perform experiments. Experimental physics focuses mainly on an empirical approach. Sometimes experiments are done to explore nature, and in other cases experiments are performed to produce data to compare with the predictions of theories.  
Some other fields in physics like astrophysics and geophysics are primarily observational sciences because most their data has to be collected passively instead of through experimentation. Nevertheless, observational programs in these fields uses many of the same tools and technology that are used in the experimental subfields of physics. 
 
Theoretical physics often uses quantitative approaches to develop the theories that attempt to explain the data. In this way, theoretical physics often relies heavily on tools from mathematics. Theoretical physics often can involve creating quantitative predictions of physical theories, and comparing these predictions quantitatively with data. Theoretical physics sometimes creates models of physical systems before data is available to test and validate these models. 
These two main activities in physics, data collection and theory production and testing, draw on many different skills. This has lead to a lot of specialization in physics, and the introduction, development and use of tools from other fields. For example, theoretical physicists apply mathematics and numerical analysis and statistics and probability and computers and computer software in their work. Experimental physicists develop instruments and techniques for collecting data, drawing on engineering and computer technology and many other fields of technology. Often the tools from these other areas are not quite appropriate for the needs of physics, and need to be adapted or more advanced versions have to be produced.--Filll 17:22, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Filll, The end of the structure discussion page lays out how the article will flow, chapter 3. History & Foundations, has been pencilled to include detailed etymology.  Regards, SFC9394 20:45, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh good. You guys are so organized I am impressed. Sorry I am an interloper here but I wanted to just throw in my 2 cents.--Filll 20:49, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Now having glanced at your structure, the main difficulty that pops out at me is the neglect of the observational sciences that are part of physics; astrophysics, geophysics and a few other fields that might or might not be part of physics or another field (ocean physics and atmospheric physics might be called part of geophysics for example).--Filll 20:53, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: C4 &/or C5 would happily cover those areas I would imagine - bearing in mind there are articles on astrophysics/geophysics so we don't need to delve into vast depths on the subjects. SFC9394 21:01, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Please excuse my ignorance. What are C4 and C5? I do not think one needs more than to acknowledge that astrophysics and geophysics are observational sciences, and wikify the names. No details are necessary because these are huge fields in their own rights. I just sometimes cringe when I see too much emphasis placed on experiment, since observation is still a mainstay in huge areas of science and even of physics.--Filll 21:17, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry, it should have been C5 and C6 - C being chapter, 5. Current Topics/Current Research – A brief outline of the current areas of principle research and 6. Applications and Influence – Where physics is used, how it is used and how that use impinges on the world. SFC9394 21:31, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Ok no problem. I just want people to remember when writing this that some parts of physics are observational, not just experimental. A bit tough to do experiments on the flipping of the solar or terrestrial dynamo. Hard to do earthquake experiments (although it has been tried). Hard to do experiments on a supernova or a volcano. Etc. I am just suggesting a slight wording change in a place or two as these proposals are mulled over. That is all.--Filll 21:36, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

text: For example, I do think that the concepts of "energy" and "fields" are uniquely physics contributions to ways of viewing the world and organizing the observations. These might deserve prominence or mention for this reason. Also, there are certain inherent assumptions in science about univeral applicability of the laws in time and space, and other assumptions that start to veer in philosophy of science. I am not sure that this sort of discussion deserves to be in this article, and certainly not in the introduction.--Filll 17:12, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A suggestion

message: There are many approaches to studying physics, and many different kinds of actitivies in physics. There are two main types of activities in physics; the collection of data and the development of theories. 
The data in some subfields of physics is amenable to experiment. For example, condensed matter physics and nuclear physics benefit from the ability to perform experiments. Experimental physics focuses mainly on an empirical approach. Sometimes experiments are done to explore nature, and in other cases experiments are performed to produce data to compare with the predictions of theories.  
Some other fields in physics like astrophysics and geophysics are primarily observational sciences because most their data has to be collected passively instead of through experimentation. Nevertheless, observational programs in these fields uses many of the same tools and technology that are used in the experimental subfields of physics. 
 
Theoretical physics often uses quantitative approaches to develop the theories that attempt to explain the data. In this way, theoretical physics often relies heavily on tools from mathematics. Theoretical physics often can involve creating quantitative predictions of physical theories, and comparing these predictions quantitatively with data. Theoretical physics sometimes creates models of physical systems before data is available to test and validate these models. 
These two main activities in physics, data collection and theory production and testing, draw on many different skills. This has lead to a lot of specialization in physics, and the introduction, development and use of tools from other fields. For example, theoretical physicists apply mathematics and numerical analysis and statistics and probability and computers and computer software in their work. Experimental physicists develop instruments and techniques for collecting data, drawing on engineering and computer technology and many other fields of technology. Often the tools from these other areas are not quite appropriate for the needs of physics, and need to be adapted or more advanced versions have to be produced.--Filll 17:22, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Approaches in physics

message: *Another comment. I see that the current article has some etymological information about the word physics. Would that be better in a footnote? I do not know if there is enough material about the etymology of the word to justify its own section, as in some articles.--Filll 20:35, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Filll, The end of the structure discussion page lays out how the article will flow, chapter 3. History & Foundations, has been pencilled to include detailed etymology.  Regards, SFC9394 20:45, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh good. You guys are so organized I am impressed. Sorry I am an interloper here but I wanted to just throw in my 2 cents.--Filll 20:49, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Now having glanced at your structure, the main difficulty that pops out at me is the neglect of the observational sciences that are part of physics; astrophysics, geophysics and a few other fields that might or might not be part of physics or another field (ocean physics and atmospheric physics might be called part of geophysics for example).--Filll 20:53, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: C4 &/or C5 would happily cover those areas I would imagine - bearing in mind there are articles on astrophysics/geophysics so we don't need to delve into vast depths on the subjects. SFC9394 21:01, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Please excuse my ignorance. What are C4 and C5? I do not think one needs more than to acknowledge that astrophysics and geophysics are observational sciences, and wikify the names. No details are necessary because these are huge fields in their own rights. I just sometimes cringe when I see too much emphasis placed on experiment, since observation is still a mainstay in huge areas of science and even of physics.--Filll 21:17, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry, it should have been C5 and C6 - C being chapter, 5. Current Topics/Current Research – A brief outline of the current areas of principle research and 6. Applications and Influence – Where physics is used, how it is used and how that use impinges on the world. SFC9394 21:31, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Ok no problem. I just want people to remember when writing this that some parts of physics are observational, not just experimental. A bit tough to do experiments on the flipping of the solar or terrestrial dynamo. Hard to do earthquake experiments (although it has been tried). Hard to do experiments on a supernova or a volcano. Etc. I am just suggesting a slight wording change in a place or two as these proposals are mulled over. That is all.--Filll 21:36, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

text: For example, I do think that the concepts of "energy" and "fields" are uniquely physics contributions to ways of viewing the world and organizing the observations. These might deserve prominence or mention for this reason. Also, there are certain inherent assumptions in science about univeral applicability of the laws in time and space, and other assumptions that start to veer in philosophy of science. I am not sure that this sort of discussion deserves to be in this article, and certainly not in the introduction.--Filll 17:12, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Notes

message: Just to put a bit of an end cap on this process, obviously things have slowed to the point of stopping.  Due to time constraints I am going to have to step back for this process.  Someone else can take it on if they wish (and I hope someone does), but failing that then this can be laid to rest.  Unfortunately I don't really have the time required.  I do have the time to jump into WP for 10 minutes, revert a few vandals and do a bit of 'soft' editing, but this process is very much a 'hard' task - requiring a good deal of time to be spend reading thousands of words and attempting to coax all the sheep into a small pen.  Perhaps this kind of process doesn't work at all - or perhaps it just doesn't work for something with as much latitude, spectrum of views and contention as Physics has.  The debates about the lead really are something that folks can write a 100,000 words of philosophical debate on - and unfortunately that is what happened here.  We got a good way down the road and took it to a wikipedia wide vote - it is a good position to continue from, and I hope someone has enough time and temperament to pick up the baton.  Regards, SFC9394 20:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Final Thoughts 

message: Well, SFC9394, I can understand the fact that you feel that you cannot continue to moderate the review process, but I disagree that things have slowed down to the point of stopping - we were, or at least I was, waiting for the vote to conclude. Has that now happened? If it has, I at least am willing to continue on the project (although not as a new moderator). It is not fair to conclude that just because a lot of things were said - not all of them relevent - that the process probably doesn't work: in such situations, a verbal blackout can sometimes help to reflect on what has been said so far in order for certain comprimises to be made (at least speaking for my own views) and for progress to continue. In any case, I wish to thank you for the effort you have placed so far, and hope that you will not be a complete stranger to the process (if it is still extant, of course). What now interests me to know is how many editors out there are still interested? Can those who are still interested and feel that they could contribute re-emerge from latency and make themselves known - and possibly suggest ideas on how discussions will now continue, or suggest the nomination of a new moderator. Krea 14:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I also would like to thank SFC9394. I came to this process late, but voted and offered some comments above. I was somewhat surprised when I recieved no response to my suggestions and comments, even over a period of weeks, since I had had the impression that this was a topic of intense interest and discussion. It seems like it has been completely abandoned to me. I of course cannot unilaterally push other editors to show up to continue this process. I think that a good start has been made, and I synthesized what I thought was best out of the 3 proposals, above. I have been waiting to hear a response to what I wrote above. If anyone wants to comment, I am certainly interested. I am loathe to move ahead unilaterally however, since there has often been quite a bit of heated discussion on this issue in the past. Perhaps if we posted a notice at the Physics portal? Let me try that and see if we can get things going again.--Filll 15:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Thoughts 

message: I am also relatively new to this project, and I have to say I am a little intimidated, and I feel others might be as well. Correct me if I'm wrong, but heres how I think things stand: we are leaving the lead vote open for comments, but in the meantime, I say we move full steam into editing the work page. I see user:filll has made some good contributions, and I will be contributing as well. I also think the policy of "discuss then edit" should be changed to "edit, and then if need be, discuss". Things will go more efficiently. So far, we have a solid framework to build off (see archive2), and now we need to write the prose and hone the details. I might also recommend adding a :template:to-do box so we can go through things in a orderly fashion, and so that would-be editors know what they can do. Danski14 18:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I completely agree Danski14. After pondering this for more than a month, I have decided to be WP:BOLD and just implement a merger of my synthesis of the three proposals and the current  material at Physics/wip, and then see what people think. Please look at the current version at Physics/wip. It has a few rough edges still, but I think it incorporates the best of the 3 proposals, and does not leave out any major information. It might need to be trimmed down a bit of course, but this can be discussed.--Filll 18:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Alright, great! So, to get the ball rolling on some useful edits, heres my list of things we can focus on :
*Lead: Your lead is ok, but I think we should replace it with Lead Proposal 3, which was the fruits of much discussion and labor, and is currently the one with the most votes. However, we leave the vote open for more comments/discussion if people want. 
*Layout: Here is the layout that was decided upon in archive2 : I will be re-organizing what we have to this layout. 
**1. Definition
**2. Introduction - Background, relation to other sciences
**3. History & Foundations – History of the subject, origins, detailed etymology, philosophical considerations
**4. Principles/Concepts - The basic areas, with relatively contained explanation and linkage to each full article
**5. Current Topics/Current Research – A brief outline of the current areas of principle research
**6. Applications and Influence – Where physics is used, how it is used and how that use impinges on the world
**7. References
**8. External Links / Further Reading - inclusion left open pending review after article completed
*Further Reading This is the one unresolved issue left from the layout discussion.  It seems most editors thought it should be removed, and I also agree it clogs up too much of the page. However, I think we could move that information into a new page "Further Reading in Physics" or "List of Physics Books". Does anyone agree?. Update: this will be done after we have finished the rest of the article.  
*Applied Physics, needs some work I think. 
*Pictures look for pictures representative of physics.
*References: if this article is ever going to reach GA or even FA status, it will need references. 
*Additions to Prose I will review the prose. Some parts need to be filled in. Also, "History" is over linked. 
Danski14 19:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Danski14, there are small points which need updating, in wiki-style. Because of the previous agreement to leave the wip page alone, no one was helping you or Filll. But now that the wip page seems to be fair game for edits, I would like to clean up the small things which are popping out at me. --Ancheta Wis 01:01, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Where to go from here

message: Please discuss only the lead paragraphs in this section.
:Comments:
:*There are a few problems with 3 as a lead. 
:**First, it makes it impossible to distinguish between physics and psychology, or physics and chemistry. 
:**It shoves way too much up too early into the lead. I prefer leads that are short and sweet if at all possible. Most people will not read past the lead, and if we hit them with too much technical material too early they are overwhelmed and will not understand.
:**It neglects the distinction between observational and experimental physics. This is huge and often forgotten. Astrophysics is not an experimental science. Neither is geophysics and ocean physics and atmospheric physics and space physics and cosmology and solar physics and cosmic ray physics (including neutrino detector work etc) and many other areas. So  discussing just experimental physics instead of both empirical activities (experiment and observation) is inaccurate.
:*The outline is not too bad, however there needs to be a completely new section written on applications of physics. The previous section was muddled and contained minimal information except a list of fields, and included pure fields in with applied fields, and put in related fields that were not really physics but are physical sciences or engineering. This is useful to enumerate the fields to give an idea of the breadth of physics and its relations with other areas, but it has to be done carefully. I would favor keeping the information but dividing it up differently if possible.  
:*I do not object to describing physics as "all of nature" but this should be done parenthetically or in a footnote, because as I said above, then one runs into a very difficult situation as describing all of science as physics. 
:* I think it would be a good idea to remove the further reading to another page. 
:*I think one could do with a much shorter History of physics section. I have not looked at the article History of physics however.
:*The applied physics table was just plain inaccurate. I tried to improve it a bit. 
:*There is nothing wrong with the picture of the earth but it has an awful caption and should be moved further down into the body. More pictures spread throughout the text would be highly advisable.
:*I am torn about having the etymology of the word "physics" in the first sentence. I had suggested taking it out, as all 3 proposals did, but an editor above suggested keeping it in.
:Comments?--Filll 19:45, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I commented both on the vote page and here, and it was like talking to an empty room. No response. But maybe if we can stir up some interest, things will move.--Filll 20:06, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Filll, your comments make a lot of sense and are useful. I think the lack of response was not due to lack of interest but that you indavertently came in at the end of the discussions when the consensus was not to waste more words going around in circles (again!) but rather to see what the result of the vote was, and to go from there. You made a number of suggestions that weren't at that stage up for public vote.  Sorry if we seemed uninterested or overly procedural, but at around 100,000 words already expended, we were all worn out and were awaiting a consensus to emerge from the vote.  As I've suggested below, I do think that this project is impossible to deal with unless we are pretty organised and procedural. --MichaelMaggs 22:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I am a latecomer, so I do not understand much of what has gone on here. I do have considerable background in physics (2 undergrad degrees, 3 grad degrees) and a lot of experience. I could recruit a neutral party from another field if someone felt that was best; I have been mainly dabbling in biology here. I have some strong views, and some other things that are not as important to me. I have just been amazed that things have been stuck for weeks or months on end. Surely the views here are not as strong as those I have dealt with at creationism or evolution or black people.--Filll 22:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I am mystified by the movement to try to equate physics=all of science. It might be true in some sense, but definitely counterproductive for the beginning reader. And the overemphasis on experiment at the expense of observation tells me we are dealing with people of limited experience in physics.--Filll 22:31, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I think that physics=all of science IS true in a certain sense, but would that be the first thing that I would tell a bright 12 year old that wanted to learn about physics and science? It might be the 10th or 20th thing I told him, but not the first. Because a casual reader will want to say here is physics, here is chemistry, here is psychology, here is anthropology; what is the difference? If physics says, "well we are all of those things" then it is a bit difficult for the casual reader to make sense of it and distinctions; why for example are there separate departments of science on campuses then? <snipped comments on procedure retained below>--Filll 00:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

text: <snipped comments on procedure retained below> To Filll: please note that none of the leads explicitly state physics=all of science, but rather give specific definitions. (except for proposal 2 of course). The realization that all of science could theoretically be reduced to physics is a big conceptual leap, and one I agree shouldn't be in the lead. It should be in "relation to other sciences section" in some form or another. There are also issues (philosophical questions) which many believe could never be answered via physics alone or (hence metaphysics). This is another thing some people have strong opinions about, and people may have confused this with what we were talking about, which is physics as it relates to science, not science as it relates to all of human knowledge. Still, perhaps we could do some research on this and add it to the "Philosophical implications" section. See logical positivism for more info. Danski14 00:31, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I am definitely cautious about putting too much philosophy in the lead physics article.--Filll 00:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What about a (Everyday-Life) low-energy discussion first: Louis Bloomfield, a professor of physics at the University of Virginia, has written several books which introduce physics to laymen by explaining physics in terms of everyday life. "This is a book about the real world and real physics; I merely report on both."Louis Bloomfield, How Everything Works: Making Physics Out of the Ordinary  p.xv. A Nobel laureate, Carl Wieman has used these books in his own physics classes with great successLouis Bloomfield, How Things Work: The Physics of Everyday Life, 2nd Edition (Wiley, New York, 2001).. Bloomfield writes that the most rewarding experience is when his students can explain just why it is that some part of their lives have just illustrated physics concepts, such as a scuba diver who could explain why the color of the lobsters she was seeing also gave her the depth to which she had dived. --Ancheta Wis 00:46, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

text: What does that approach come to that we don't already have? I don't agree with making any of the leads any simpler, if thats what your asking for. (Physics is big and complicated, and needs a thorough definition, and coincidently this complies with WP:LEAD).  (Also I think the leads are simple enough to be understood by anyone 5th grade and up). And I certainly don't want to dumb things down so people miss out on the deeper aspects of physics altogether, modern physics, etc.  Also, what you mention reminds me of Richard Feynman, who was able to take even the most complex physics concepts and relate them to everyday life. Danski14 01:10, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: More comments on the lead

message: Since the retirement of SFC9394 as this development page's moderator, general consensus is held that a new moderator is required. So far, only MichaelMaggs has voluntered; but such an appointment could raise objections on possible conflicts of interest, and some have expressed a preference for a moderator with no direct interest in this project. Please voice your opinions on this matter in this section; thank you. Krea 16:24, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In view of the concerns that have been expressed by one or two editors, I think it best if I don't put myself forward. --MichaelMaggs 21:02, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Let the record show that MichaelMaggs, author of Lead Proposal 1, made the above statement before my subsequent edits to the wip page. --Ancheta Wis 02:08, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Ok. Great. If nobody does offer to moderate I'm happy for you, Michael, to do it (so I hope that your retraction isn't an unconditional one): I'd just prefer that it was somebody completely neutral for the sake of pedantry. How long should we give it? 3 days? 4 days? I don't want to wait forever! 3-5 days should be enough for someone to say something surely? Krea 22:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Moderator 

message: I have asked my previous three choices again. One turned me down. I have also filed a request at Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates/Requests/February 2007/Filll.--Filll 19:16, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As one of the people Filll poked, I'm still a bit confused about why a formal moderator arrangement is necessary. Without being familiar with the history here, it seems that the rewrite attempt might have gotten bogged down precisely because of all the associated chatter and 'procedure'. While an article on such a broad subject obviously requires careful writing, there are few enough people here that normal collaborative editing would suffice, no? If not, what's the roadblock, besides 'we've been doing it this way for six months'? (As an aside, I'm not sure that this is the sort of thing the AMA does, but I'm not too familiar with them.) Opabinia regalis 01:35, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That was due to the history of the community that arose. I hope we can tick along with an informal relationship which arises from normal editing. As an aside, as more editors contribute, I expect that the respect which each accords the others will serve as reward and motivation for adding to the WIP page. --Ancheta Wis 03:57, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

text: If you just need a neutral outsider to keep roughly abreast of what's going on and prevent lines from being drawn in the sand, I can do that. I'm sure you're right that the management stuff can be done by the locals. Opabinia regalis 05:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Opabinia regalis, welcome. --Ancheta Wis 10:48, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I don't usually bite, though I generally reserve the right to smack people with my proboscis. Opabinia regalis 07:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moderator search 

message: Can someone point me to an online reference to David Coward's book in WorldCat, Amazon, LOC, a book seller, etc.? I have been working on cleaning up problematic ISBNs, and the one listed with this book in the article (the main article and the WIP) appear to be invalid. Curiously, the ISBN listed for Coward's book is surprisingly close to that listed for Rogers' book (which is correct). Thanks for  your help. Keesiewonder talk 20:31, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a bit disturbing. I have not been able to stumble across it with a bit of light searching. We might need an expert.--Filll 21:05, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was about to say the same thing. There is, apparently, one David Coward, "Emeritus Professor of French at the University of Leeds, England" however! Thanks Keesiewonder for bringing this to our attention, but I think we decided that we wouldn't have a list of recommended books in the final version of the article anyway. Still, strange isn't it? Krea 21:14, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

text: *I also noticed this David Coward in my travels; he's at the U of Western Australia. May I remove the ISBN for Coward's book from the main article, and trust that as you review the WIP, you'll deal with it as you see fit? Keesiewonder talk 21:38, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I've removed the "bad" ISBN from both articles; the author & title remains, and the ISBN is in the history files should you need it. Thanks for your help! Keesiewonder talk 16:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

text: For what it's worth, the book, which I can't find either, was added in this edit  Cardamon 10:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed that book from Physics. Cardamon 00:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cannot find David Coward's book 

message: Fellow editors,
In my experience, collaborations are the best part of Wikipedia. The current History of Science Collaboration of the Month is History of scientific method. Thus I plan to shift focus for this month to this collaboration, and to keep the WIP article in the background. See you in a month. --Ancheta Wis 12:48, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Collaboration 

message: Fellow editors,
I propose to re-enter this article, but with a different approach; Wikipedia has succeeded by writing on the article topic, on the article page (here understood to be the physics/wip page). Historically, we can make better progress by writing on the wip page, and critiquing on the talk page, or better, by altering the words on the wip page. Unless anyone has a better idea, I plan to go forward with this. Everyone is welcome to alter the wip page.
The subject of physics is its principles; the object of physics is to understand our world (which has expanded greatly, of course). As one who has studied physics, I claim we (i.e., the entire world) are subject to its principles. In a play on words, we are subject to the subject.
Feynman was one of my teachers (perhaps I might upload a picture of the Feynman diagram he inscribed in his Quantum Mechanics volume for me -- if you can't read the symbols, they are \gamma_\mu to  \gamma_\mu  and 1/q^2). I would like to include pictures of the equations of physics in the wip page, as iconic representations of the principles of physics. 
The plan for development of the wip page is to fill in the TOC developed earlier. But I am against sequential serial development, and prefer parallel development on multiple sections by multiple editors simultaneously. This is the Wiki Way. --Ancheta Wis 05:50, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Seeing as we are people who seem get things done very slowly. This might be a good idea. In fact, it is a good idea. I'm fed up with this slow process of bureaucracy. Let's just get it done. I even suggest not to wait for the views of the other editor's, Ancheta. If there is mass objection (which I doubt), it can be undone: I will just make edits myself regardless (maybe not for a few days though because of more pressing commitments). Having a Feynman diagram by Feynman himself would be brilliant for the article: I'm very impressed that you were a student of his - I would have loved to attended his famous lecture series! Creativity and progress has always been through an unconstrained free flowing of ideas; so let's just do it. All edits to the Physics/wip article are permitted, with conflicts to be discussed at this talk page. Krea 23:19, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Back to the wip