Talk:Maria Spiropulu

message: I've written a new article about Maria SpiropuluOmnium 00:38, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Please explain why this researcher is notable (WP:BIO) to be included in wikipedia or this article will be marked for deletion. feydey 01:02, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Notable?

message: Imagine for a moment that you're back at the beginings of the 20th century, when Marie Curie was conducting her novel experiments on radioactivity. If Wikipedia existed back then, wouldn't you like to see an article about that researcher, even before she achieves the great discoveries that would make her famous a few years later? Should we always write articles about scientists only if and after they receive a nobel prize? Aren't their early modest efforts that lead to such great discoveries notable? Place yourself now, 100 years later, in the early 21st century. Of all the ambitious scientific researches which are taking place right now, which one or two are the most promising, revolutionary (and notable for Wikipedia), the true analogs of Marie Curie's discovery of radioactivity? The answer is supersymmetry and extra dimensions. In Maria Spiropulu's words: "Finding supersymmetry is more important than finding life on Mars" and "The discovery of extra dimensions, will beat the superlative of any human achievement" but, as she adds "it needs a strong and long experimental program". Dr. Spiropulu is now at the battlements of such an experimental program, and I think that's plenty a reason to make her notable and special.
I would like to mention a historical example, pointing out the significance of extra dimensions. With the discovery of America by Columbus, followed by the age of Ocean Exploration, the western civilization made a giant leap, accompanied by both scientific and technological progress (not without embarassing sideffects though, such as the slaughter of the native Americans). That entire new era of our civilization though, was based on a single fact: the experimental proof of astronomical theories which dated back from ancient Greece to Copernicus, and asserted that the surface of the Earth isn't flat, but curved, forming a nearly spherical shape. That intellectual leap faced hard opposition from common intuition, because it required the stunning realization that we live on a planetary surface, embeded into three, rather than two spatial dimensions. Later on, the exploration of the Oceans forced navigators and cartographers, for the purpose of mapping the islands and continents of our planet, to abandon the use of flat Euclidean geometry, and adopt the Riemannian geometry of curved spaces.
Today, modern theories of physics assert that, not only the Earth's surface, but the entire Universe is curved and embeded inside a higher dimensional spacetime. They assert that our cosmos may be far more complex and bewildering, than we ever imagined, consisting not only of 4, but perhaps 11 spacetime dimensions. Can you imagine what the implications of the discovery of such extra spatial dimensions would be? Perhaps a new era would begin for our civilization: "The Era of Dimensional Exploration" or something like that. Do you imagine the effects of such a discovery in technology, economy, or even art? Exploring the geography of the extra dimensions, and learning to use their spectacular properties for our benefit, might even solve the energy problem, and help us travel with superluminal velocities to the edges of the Universe (that is, if our civilation won't selfdestruct during the next 50 critical years). That's why I consider researchers like Maria Spiropulu, not only as succesors to Marie Curie, but also succesors to Columbus, Magelanus, Gagarin and Armstrong. They will propably be the "navigators" who will lead the way, through the dark, unexplored "ocean" of extra dimensions. Omnium 1 January 2006
Imagine you were back in the early 20th century, and the world was deprived of a Wikipedia
with an article on René-Prosper Blondlot, highly important at the time because of his
brand-new discovery of N-rays.  Good thing as it turns out, because within a few years, 
N-rays were generally held to be a discredited phenomenon.   On the other hand, we know about 
Marie Curie today because she played an undeniably central role in an objectively significant 
discovery.  Without making any judgment of Spiropulu's overall body of work, there are few who 
would claim she has played an historically significant role in the development of theories or 
experimental signatures of extra dimensions in particle physics.  This article will likely
seem quite out of place with a little historical perspective. 
 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.173.88.174 (talk) 18:58, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: The Era of Dimensional Exploration

message: I have questions regarding two passages in this biography:
One of the most important moments of her career, was when the CDF collaboration reported the discovery of the top quark in 1995.
Was she actually involved in the discovery of the top quark?  Although she is on the author list for the paper, it would be more informative if the article provided either more detail of her involvement (especially a reference) or that this sentence was removed.
Throughout her career she has maintained an enthusiasm, which allows her to look at things each day from a different perspective, through a student-like approach on her object of research. She encourages students to “bug” teachers, never stop asking them questions until they get the answer, even though that means that she might also be “bugged” in such a manner, from time to time. That’s one of the greatest virtues, a scientist can have.
This is hardly NPOV, and contains what could only very loosely be described as biographical detail. --Jollygreengiant 21:52, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inaccurate Comments? 

message: The name should be spelt SPIROPOULOU. Is there any reason for the current version? Politis 13:52, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Name spelling

message: This article has been written from a personal and biased point of view, and is in need of major revision. The original author, Omnium, is clearly not well-versed in the field of high energy particle physics, as exemplified by his attribution of essentially the whole of modern particle physics to Professor Spiropulu. Omnium is also entirely incorrect about the rarity of scientists searching for extra dimensions and supersymmetry; these are decades-old ideas that many hundreds of people are searching for, and while Spiropulu has done important work in the field, they are incremental advances, not foundational. With absolute respect to Dr. Spiropulu, it seems to me that her accomplishments are good, but not particularly noteworthy over any faculty member at a major research institution; her publications, awards, and contributions are essentially prerequisite to become a Caltech professor. Quantities like citations and H index are inapplicable to experiments like CDF (~500 members) and CMS (~3,000 members); every author is listed on every paper, resulting in every member's name appearing on hundreds of papers per year. As a member of CMS, she has held intra-collaboration level leadership positions, such as convener of the supersymmetry group, but there are many other such conveners that do not have Wikipedia entries (the convenerships rotate on a time scale of 1-3 years, usually with two conveners at any time, and there are several such groups, such as the Higgs group, Standard Model group, or Exotics; hence there are several dozen conveners of equal "stature"). Her most significant award, the AAAS Fellowship, was awarded to 701 scientists this year alone; is this prestigious enough to justify academic notability? 
I will start by removing insignificant biographical tidbits, and rewording the article into a style more appropriate for a scientific biography (i.e., it's not a timeline of her life; focus on her academic history and accomplishments). The inclusion of many personal details about Dr. Spiropulu's life, such as wanting to be a pilot as a child or being in a band, are irrelevant, unimportant, and inappropriate for a biography about a physicist. Again, however, the notability of this person really does need to be reconsidered. The references provided do not demonstrate any particular notability; a "fan appreciation society" and Spiropulu's own professional biographical page certainly do not. The only reference of which Spiropulu herself is the subject is the NYTimes article by Dennis Overbye.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by DryRun (talk • contribs) 23:13, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Major Revisions Needed

message: Wikipedia:Notability (academics) makes this an easy call, by stating:
"Academics/professors meeting any one of the following conditions, as substantiated through reliable sources, are notable."
And then, under condition 3:
"...a Fellow of a major scholarly society for which that is a highly selective honor (e.g., the IEEE)."
Spiropulu was elected Fellow of the AAAS in 2008, and the article has a direct link to the AAAS News Archive showing this.
I am pretty sure that the AAAS is a major scholarly society, and IEEE elects about 300 Fellows a year, so AAAS numbers
are comparable.
Jlykken (talk) 21:50, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Notable

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thread_title:  External links modified