Talk:Rotation-powered pulsar

message: This article appears to be mainly about pulsars in general, rather than rotation-powered pulsars. If there is enough information that is specific rotation-powered pulsars, it should remain here, but if, as appears to be the case, there isn't much more than a paragraph of such, I think it should be merged with Pulsar. --—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.136.230.255 (talk) on 01:02, 8 April 2006
:After reading both articles, I'd suggest just moving most of the "history" section to pulsar. At least half of this article discusses the mechanisms by which radio beams are emitted and different environments rotation-powered pulsars are found in, which is specific enough for its own article as far as I can tell.
:It would also certainly be useful to summarize X-ray, magnetar, and rotation-powered pulsars in the main pulsar article, with "main article: foo" templates, per the usual style for subtopics. If this isn't done by May, I'll probably take a stab at it (busy through the end of April). --Christopher Thomas 05:05, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd oppose any merge. If you read below you'll see the history of the split and the rationale behind it. I think this rationale is still good, though I agree both articles need a lot of work... they seem, if anything, to have deteriorated in quality over time! --Russell E 01:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed merge

message: Talk:Pulsar redirects here. That doesn't seem useful. This page is for discussing this article, not Pulsar. --—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.136.230.255 (talk) on 01:02, 8 April 2006
:As far as I can tell, pulsar was _moved_ to here, talk page and all, when the current version of pulsar was created (to cover non-rotation-powered pulsars). --Christopher Thomas 05:07, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Talk page weirdness

message: I think there needs to be some reorganization. Possibly, most of the material on this page could be moved to a page titled Radio pulsar.  In modern astrophysics usage, there are several different kinds of pulsars, distinguished by their energy source.  Spin-powered pulsars (commonly, though less correctly called radio pulsars) are the objects found by Hewish and Bell: neutron stars that are tapping their rotational kinetic energy to power the observed electromagnetic pulses, which are mostly observed in the radio.  A second kind of pulsar, found a few years later, is the accretion-powered pulsar (usually called x-ray pulsars). These are neutron stars that are accreting material from companion stars.  When the material is channeled onto the surface along the magnetic field it produces hot spots that create the observed pulses when the neutron star rotates.  Although both kinds of pulsars are neutron stars, the physics is very different.  Finally, magnetars are pulsars powered by ultra-strong magnetic fields trapped in young neutron stars.
It might be possible to write a single entry on pulsars that covers all of these kinds of objects.  But I think it would be cleaner to move and slightly rewrite this one, then add two more to cover x-ray pulsars and magnetars.  Finally, the pulsar page could get a brief summary and disambiguation pointers to the other pages.  If nobody objects or does their own reorganization, I'll give it a try when I get time.  
--Thorsett 06:36, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok I made a first attempt at this. The 3 articles already existed, so I just renamed pulsar to rotation-powered pulsar, then made a new pulsar entry outlining the different types. More work is still needed but that's all for now .... Rkundalini 19:11, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have just completed an edit to pulsar in an attempt to streamline things as suggested, in particular removing the text specific to rotation-powered pulsars. I do think it's a good idea to retain a pulsar article covering the broad class, and then branch out on the detailed phenomenology. I dunno - see what you think. I plan to expand on the X-ray pulsar section next... 0utsider 03:13, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Reorganization of pulsar articles

message: The page is currently somewhat misleading in its categorization: it suggests that X-ray pulsars and rotation-powered pulsars are non-overlapping categories, which is contradicted both by reality and the article at rotation-powered pulsar.  --Andrew 20:12, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
: Indeed, and the x-ray pulsar entry is very short anyway. How about we rename it to Accretion-powered pulsar, and try to flesh it out somewhat? -- Rkundalini 04:44, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Categorization of pulsars

message: The following text was added by User:Rnt20 and subsequently removed by me:
:Antony Hewish received a 1974 Nobel Prize for developing radio interferometry instrumentation, the Nobel committee giving particular reference to the telescope of his at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory which discovered the first pulsar.
This is inaccurate. Martin Ryle, co-recipient that year, was given the prize for his role in developing interferometry (aperture synthesis in particular). The text pertaining to Antony Hewish does not mention interferometry at all . The reason for the prize was "for his decisive role in the discovery of pulsars" . Also it was not "his telescope", it was MRAO's telescope. If you want to get nit picky, he designed it and was in charge of it but the hard work of building it was shared by several members of the group including Bell, and Bell was responsible for day to day operations and data analysis, including the initial discovery of the pulsar. Perhaps I am being oversensitive but I am also worried that this edit was an attempt to push the POV that Hewish deserved the prize while Bell didn't. --Rkundalini 19:04, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nobel prize 

message: The article mentions that glitching may be related to a superconducting iterior. I'd thought that these models were for a superfluid interior? --Christopher Thomas 07:48, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Superconducting vs. superfluid

message: Nobel Prize again:
It's not correct that Hulse & Taylor's was the 2nd astronomical Nobel prize. Penzias & Wilson (1978) were radio astronomers (discovery of CMB) and Chandrasekhar and Fowler (1983) got theirs for astronomy. And although Ryle & Hewish are normally cited as the first astronomy Nobellists, arguably Alfvén (1969) got his for his astrophysical contributions (counting solar-terrestrial physics as a branch of astrophysics). -- --86.130.159.86 00:56, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Nobel prize again

message: All pulsar names must start with either B or J. It is not sufficient to write PSR 1913+16. The correct name is PSR B1913+16. There are several articles on specific pulsars that need to be fixed. 137.22.224.98 21:25, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Names of pulsars