User talk:Paul Wormer: Difference between revisions

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== [[Scientific method]] ==
Hi Paul, please take a quick look at [[Scientific method]] and make sure you are satisfied with the changes since July 21 and we will be good to go.  Thanks, [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 12:21, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
== Anthony.Sebastian approves 24-Jul-2009 version [[Scientific method]] ==
First class article. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 17:22, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
== Are changes I made sandbox version 'chemical elements' okay ==
Paul,
I believe I responded to your suggested changes my sandbox version of 'chemical elements'. If you're okay with that version as a working version for continued collaborative development, please indicate so on: http://en.citizendium.org:8080/wiki/Talk:Chemical_elements#Lede_revised_in_response_to_Paul_and_Peter.
If Peter does the same, I will get Milton's okay to replace the current Main Article with it.
Thanks. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 17:36, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
== I have enemies everywhere! ==
Thanks, Paul, I hadn't bothered to look at that place for a couple of month now. Wonder who these characters are and why they're so agin me? I musta been arrogant to the wrong person somewhere along the line, hehe.... [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 14:59, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
:A riposte that may or may not amuse you.... [http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=405097&c=1] [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 05:17, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
== Article on Sturm-Liouville theory ==
Hello Paul,
Sometime back I proposed moving the WP article on Sturm-Liouville theory to CZ and adding a proof of the orthogonality of solutions with distinct eigenvalues. Since I am not an expert on S-L theory, I consulted with a collaborator who is knowledgeable about this topic and asked him if he would be willing to work on the WP article to improve it. After looking the article over, he said he had no suggestions for improving it, except perhaps by removing the reference to  "the Arzela-Ascoli theorem and the spectral theory for compact operators." He thought this parenthetical comment was not in keeping with the direction of the rest of the article.
So, here is what I propose to do. I will move the WP S-L article to CZ, ticking the appropriate check-box indicating the WP source. If you agree, I will remove the reference to "the Arzela-Ascoli theorem and the spectral theory for compact operators." I will then create an addendum page on which to place the orthogonality proof and put a link in the main article to it. Let me know if this is an acceptable strategy. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 15:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
:It sounds perfect. But please note that I'm not a mathematics editor, only an author. (I'm physics and chemistry editor). So, I'm interested in the stuff and know a little about it, but have no formal say in things mathematical.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 16:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
OK. Should I contact a mathematics editor before proceeding? If so, do you know of one that might specialize in the area of this topic? [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 17:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
:Excuse me for "butting in", but try Peter Schmitt who is a professor of mathematics in the University of Vienna and who is quite active in CZ. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 18:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll do that. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 18:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
== Dutch military history? ==
What would be a good name for a top-level article about Dutch military and naval history?  I'm thinking here mostly for something to use as a parent topic in Related Articles pages, but filling out the Related Pages at the top level would be useful.
More modern events that could go under it include [[Cruiser#Battle of the Java Strait]] and [[Operation Market Garden]]. The Dutch Marines have also done some impressive hostage rescues. [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 00:21, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
:Howard, the Dutch do not have much of a military history. There is almost only the 17th century naval history. For instance, in Market Garden (not capitalized, I know your point of view but I can't bring myself to follow you) there were British, American and (oddly enough) Polish forces involved, no Dutch.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 07:29, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
== Please comment on [[Earth's atmosphere]] ==
Paul, [[Earth's atmosphere]] is my first venture outside my field of expertise. I would appreciate any comments you may offer (on the article's Talk page). [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 06:32, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
== Added acknowledgement to [[Earth's atmosphere]]  about Equation 2 and [[Boltzmann distribution]] ==
Paul, I have added a footnote (reference 13) acknowledging that Equation 2 can be obtained from the Boltzmann distribution and linked it to the article you wrote on the [[Boltzmann distribution]]. Milton Beychok 16:53, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
== About [[Barometric formula]] ==
Hi, Paul. I am not sure how your [[Barometric formula]] article would interfere with the [[Atmospheric lapse rate]] article I am writing. You can see my article in progress at [[User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox]] and judge for yourself. I am about 75% finished with it. I might even finish it today. As I said above, I am no expert on atmospheric science or meteorology ... I just thought the [[Earth's atmosphere]] and [[Atmospheric lapse rate]] articles were needed to fit in with my air pollution dispersion modeling articles ... so I wrote them. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 16:28, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
== Garnet ==
Thanks Paul!
I took a recent family trip down to Montana, Garnet was one of the places I got to visit and I was completely amazed by what I saw, it really left a lasting impression on me which compelled me to create/work on the Citizendium article. Thanks again! --[[User:Mehar Gill|Mehar Gill]] 17:52, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
== [[Atmospheric lapse rate]] finished and created ==
Hi, Paul. [[Atmospheric lapse rate]] has been created if you want to see it. I decided to name it "Atmospheric lapse rate" because there are so many different lapses ... lapsed insurance, memory lapses, lapsed into a coma, lapse of eligibility, etc., etc. ... and I didn't want to use "Lapse rate (atmospheric)". [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 04:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
== What do you think of the [[Universe]] article? ==
Paul, have you ever read the [[Universe]] article? What do you think of it? [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 23:56, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
:I looked at it and see nothing wrong with it; but I don't know much about cosmology. It would probably need the hand of a professional cosmologist to bring it to an approvable state, but for a level 2  article (a little bit more than a stub) it seems acceptable to me. Why do you ask this, did you find any errors?--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 06:38, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
::No, just curious. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 06:58, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
== Moving the Associated Legendre Functions article toward approved status ==
Hi Paul. I would like to get the work done that will allow us to move the Associated Legendre Functions article to approved status. I notice that you have reinserted the inline reference to Edmonds. So the first thing to sort out is what are the rules for citations. The Edmonds citation is now in both the main article and the Bibliography. Do we leave it twice cited? Should we remove it from the Bibliography and leave it in the main article? Should we remove it from the main article and add a footnote that says something like "see reference 1 in the Bibliography"? Or something else. The other issue I see is the dead link to "potential theory". Should we leave this alone or should one of us import the WP article to CZ? [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 15:35, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
:I answered about the inline references on the forum. I feel that CZ cannot do without footnotes and that those must be easily accessible, hence on the main page. I don't mind that some references are cited twice. As long as there are no hundreds of duplicates, it is not important. I expressed my opinion about dead (red) links on the forum: leave them as they are, a red link will spur somebody someday to write the article. (For instance today I wrote [[Euclidean space]] because I noticed a red link).--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 15:58, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
I have no strong opinions on the "where references should go" issue. I just want to get the article into shape for approval. Should I send a request to a mathematics editor to update the "ToApprove" metadata?
'''Update''': I have left a message on Jitse Niesen's talk page asking him to move the article to "ToApprove" status.
'''Question''': The approval process at CZ is pretty confusing. I just noticed there is a list of articles that someone has deemed [[CZ:Ready for approval | ready for approval]]. Why there is such a list separate from the developed article list is beyond my powers of understanding. However, given it exists, I would like to add the Associated Legendre Functions article to that list. Do you have any objections? [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 23:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
::I might (or WE might) have a 5,000-word developed article about, say, [[Bill Tilden]], well-written and well-organized.  If *that* isn't "developed", what is? BUT, it may not be ready for approval because it still lacks some major elements, there are controversies about some aspects of it, or some other reasons. And there may be a short article about [[Ray Casey]] that *is* ready for approval (at least in MY opinion, since I'm the one who placed it in that category) because it has all the qualities of the Tilden article BUT ALSO there is nothing more to say about the subject.  It's done, finished. That's all, folks!  So, at least in MY mind, there can be a clear distinction between "developed" and "ready for approval". [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 00:51, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Hayford. So, who decides that an article is both "developed" and "ready for approval"? Also, since Paul was the person who did most (>99%) of the work on the main article, I still seek his view on moving the article to the the "ready for approval" list. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 01:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
:Dan, [[CZ:Ready for approval]] contains this sentence: '''"Any user, author or editor, may add an article to the list below but an editor from the relevant workgroup(s) may remove an article if it is deemed unready for the attention of approving editors."''' That makes it very clear that you, or any other author or editor, can simply place [[Associated  Legendre function]] in that list. I have done that with many of articles that I created ... but only when they have a Status of 1 (Developed) in their Metadata templates.  [[Associated  Legendre function]] has a Status of 1 in the Metadata template, so there is no reason why you or Paul cannot place it in [[CZ:Ready for approval]].  That doesn't guarantee it will be approved ... it just alerts editors that it is considered to be ready for approval.  Also, even if it is subsequently nominated for approval by an editor or editors, another editor in the relevant workgroup(s) can object to the nomination or, indeed, stop the nomination process. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 03:17, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
::Thanks Milton. I realize that placing the article on the Ready for Approval list guarantees nothing. The article still has to go through review by the editor or editors. I just want to put it on the list so there is nothing on the author's side of the equation that is left undone. Since Paul wrote most of the article (I and a collaborator wrote most of the proof on the Proof's sub-page) I still would like to get Paul's view on the question. He is in a better position to determine whether the main article is ready or not. I would feel uncomfortable putting it on the list without his agreement. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 04:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
:::Dan, I did not intend to leave the impression that you should leave Paul out of the loop. I was only trying to answer your question of: So, who decides that an article is both "developed" and "ready for approval"?  In any event, it seems that all is clear now. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 08:33, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Paul. I am having trouble understanding why you haven't responded to my question whether you have any objections to adding the Associated Legendre Functions article to the "Ready for Approval" list. Do you think the article isn't ready for approval? If so, would you describe the problems that need to be solved so I can work on them?  If you think it is ready for approval, would you either put it on the list or let me know and I will do that? Thanks. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 16:14, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
:Dan, there is not much that we can do, we have to wait until Jitse reacts.
:Another thing, maybe you don't know that TeX and LaTeX traditionally have two modes for math: a display mode and an in-line mode. The non-Wiki TeX/LaTeX has different directives for this distinction. Most (longer) math formulas belong in display mode, which means that they are in an otherwise empty block of the screen, without text. Only very brief formulas ought to be in-line and only very small pieces of text appear in display mode.  You do not separate the two modes, which to me is not very elegant. If you don't mind, I can format your proof page somewhat.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 16:32, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
::Absolutely. Please fell free to format the formulas in the proof so their appearance is improved. Shall I add the article to the "ready for approval" list? [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 16:52, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
:::Yes you can do that. Tomorrow I will do the formating. Yet one more thing: we usually indent on talk pages until it gets out of hand, then we either start a new thread or write "unindent". This makes it easier for others to see who said what.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 17:07, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
:::: Done. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 18:09, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::Unless, of course, you belong to a fairly adamant minority who insist that there's some academic method of NOT using indents. The CZ rules aren't 100% clear about which is preferable, so I've given up insisting on the indention rules.  Mostly.... [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 20:13, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::: In regards to indentation style, I'm easy. I prefer an indent per Citizen, so the Citizen that begins the discussion is always non-indented, the first Citizen to reply is always indented by one, etc. That allows one to keep track of who is saying what. But, like I said I really have no hard preference. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 20:22, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::::Hayford, click on the Edit tab above and read the blue banner at the top. Seems to me thatit clearly spells out what CZ prefers ... and it was discussed thoroughly on the Forums before Chris Day created that banner. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 21:19, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
::::::::For pity's sake, Milton, I *know* what it says! And I *know* that we *almost* all agreed to it. BUT the CZ style manual, or guidelines, or whatnot *also* has some weasel words about the academic method -- which *some* people still insist on using. And still they still argue about it -- see Tom Morris, for instance. So even though *most* of us agree to use the indents, it's not 100%, mainly because the nice blue box at the top of the page is just something that some of us cobbled together -- it's not 100% official. So, as I've said, I've given up arguing with the absolutely adamant opponents about it. [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 21:49, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
[Unindent]
Paul. We are getting no response from Jitse. It appears Peter Schmitt is once again responding to CZ matters. Shall I ask him to review the article for approval? [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 19:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
:Paul. I can't remember where you asked me if I could come up with a proof for the second orthogonality relation, so I am leaving this here. As I stated, I asked a former colleague (a theoretical physicist by training) if he would take a crack at it. I just received his response. He has company this weekend, but said he would give it a shot next week. Since he doesn't know and so far has no interest in learning mediawiki markup, anything he creates will be in MS Word. I will then have to translate it into MW markup. I will let you know if and when we have something. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 22:25, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:: Paul. You are probably monitoring the Associated Legendre Functions cluster, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to mention here that I have added the proof to the 2nd and 3rd equations in the Orthogonality relations section and slightly adjusted the text in the main article to reflect that. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 16:57, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
== Genethlialogy ==
I just asked my sister the astrology guru about this baloney and contrary to what she had told me months ago, she doesn't know anything about it.  I have checked WP on this, and they have a *huge* article about it.  Since none of us have any interest at all in it as far as I can tell, I suggest that we simply delete this one as being "unmaintainable".  Since you're the author who originally created it and put in most of the content, you have the right, according to Matt the other Kop, to ask that it be deleted.  If you formally ask me to delete it, therefore, I will....
Best, [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 18:33, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
:Sorry to butt in here, but something about the name Genethlialogy intrigued me. Not that I would argue against deleting the article as unmaintainable, but there appears to be material on this topic elsewhere. For example, the Encyclo On-line Encyclopedia has a definition (http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/Genethlialogy) - casting (I assume a horoscope) for one newly born. The Encyclopedia Britannica appears to have information about it (although it appears to be a couple of sentences inside an article on another topic - Astrology?). Perhaps whatever has already been written about this topic could be merged into the Astrology article? [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 22:45, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
::Sure, it could be merged if someone wanted to do it. What I was saying above is that this is a very short article written by people who have no real interest in it, or knowledge, and that, given its length, there's no particular reason to keep it. [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 06:09, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
:::Hayford, you always say that you are an inclusionist, why would you delete the article? It gives some correct info, doesn't it? When I met the word (in a book by E.J. Dijksterhuis that has been translated into English, German, and French; Dijksterhuis uses the term on p. 170 of the Dutch edition in a chapter on astrology in the medieval Islamic culture) I did not know  what genethlialogy  meant. The article gives enough info to read Dijksterhuis' chapter. And what is there to maintain, are there any developments in the field? If there are any, I don't think that we fail terribly  if we do not immediately  report on them.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 08:00, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
::::Hi, Paul, sorry, I didn't see your comment until just now.  As you say, I *am* an inclusionist.  I thought that you were the person who originally said it might be deleted.... In any case, the reason I thought this *might* be deleted is that it's such a barebones article as compared to the *very* lengthy WP article -- it gives so little information that I thought it looked bad by comparison.  If we had a couple of Howards working on it fulltime, my opinion would be different but its existence seems to be met by total ennui.  On the other hand, an astrology *may* come along tomorrow and want to expand it, so let's let it stand! [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 20:22, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
== Suggested revision of lead-in sentence for [[Clausius-Clapeyron relation]] ==
Paul, please take a look the Talk page of the [[Clausius-Clapeyron relation]] article. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 15:54, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
== Natural gas ==
Hi, Paul, just want to let you know that I have started work on [[Natural Gas]] as promised. After I ported it from WP:
*I deleted sections I thought just did not belong in the article such as the sections on biogas, town gas and gas pricing (which changes almost on a daily basis).
* I added new sections on gas composition, geological formation, exploration for new gas reservoirs and extraction (i.e., drilling and production)... all of which were not included in the WP article.
* I extracted parts of the WP article and reassembled them into a new section on "Measurement units and heating values".
* I completely reformatted the order of the various new and existing sections in what I think is a more logical sequence.
* Whenever I see something I don't understand because of my limited knowledge of gas exploration and extraction or that I cannot independently verify, I delete it rather than take any chances that it might be incorrect. Some experienced petroleuom geologist may come along sooner or later and add more content that he/she feels is needed.
I would estimate that I am now about 50% complete. I still have 2-3 excessively lengthy sections of the WP article that I want to trim down drastically. I also have quite a bit of rewording in mind as well.
When I have it ready to load into the article mainspace, I will contact you to see if you want to review and comment on it before I load it as a new article. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 00:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
== This is how to create ℓ ==
Paul, I created this ℓ by using this HTML character entity: '''& #8467;'''   (but without the space between & and #). [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 07:55, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
:Yes Milt, I discovered that too in the meantime. But the question is: how to get the symbol directly, without HTML code. If you look into the source of this message you  see ''ℓ''  and no code.  --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 08:08, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
:PS By copy paste of the representation of  & #8467; (without space)  I got ℓ. Thus, a bootstrapping procedure is possible, create the symbol once by the code, then preview and copy paste it. That is probably how the guy at WP does it. --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 08:15, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
::I don't understand. Why copy and paste?? Why not just enter the HTML code each time on the edit page? It won't show on the article page, which is what is important ... is it not?  When would you want to get it directly?  I have a sandbox that I call my storage box where I keep a lot of links and other stuff I want to be able to use at any time. I guess I could create this character and keep it there ... but retrieving it would take more time than just using the HTML code. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 08:28, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


==Quantum mechanics==
::: Because your source looks better. Compare &#8467;(&#8467;+1)&#x210F;<sup>2</sup>  with ℓ(ℓ+1)ℏ<sup>2</sup>. (Look at the source, not at the output!). --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 08:44, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Now set up with an experimental advanced subpage. i migrated information from the previous article to various subpages too. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 14:00, 1 April 2008 (CDT)


== Would you please critique my article on the compressibility factor of gases? ==
::::Okay, now I understand what you wanted. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 19:19, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


Paul, I have been working (in one of my sandboxes) for over a week  on an article to be called ''Compressibility factor (gases)''. I am about ready to create it as a CZ article. It can be viewed at [[User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox2]]. Would you be so kind as to read and critique it? You may leave your critique comments on the talk page at [[User talk:Milton Beychok/Sandbox2]]. Thanks in advance, - [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 14:32, 1 April 2008 (CDT)
== [[Natural gas]] article ==


== [[:Compressibility factor (gases)]] ==
Paul, I have completed the [[Natural gas]] article (in my sandbox)). If you want to review and suggest changes, I will wait a few days to hear from you before I move it into the main article namespace. My sandbox is at [[:User:Milton_Beychok/Sandbox]]. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 22:18, 21 September 2009 (UTC)


Paul, if you would still like to nominate [[:Compressibility factor (gases)]] for approval, please do so. Regards, - [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 12:42, 14 April 2008 (CDT)
:Paul, as you may have noticed, David Volk nominated [[Natural gas]] for approval. Would you care to add your name to the approval? [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 16:05, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


== AD/CE ==
== About your review of the "Natural gas" article in my sandbox ==


Probably worth setting up a thread on the forums to discuss this, followed by a formal policy. There was a big go-round on Wikipedia about this point (although I think it was BC versus BCE, there). [[User:J. Noel Chiappa|J. Noel Chiappa]] 17:33, 14 April 2008 (CDT)
Many thanks, Paul. I re-worded your first item. As for your second item, I don't know how that discussion of retrograde condensation got repeated. I just deleted it entirely from the natural gas reserves section.  


: There's been a thread on the forum about this for some time (What about Anno Domini and BC), think the decision is author/workgroup preference, in that there are some areas where CE/BCE is the only acceptable form. It does seem that CE and BCE are rapidly increasing in use. I searched on Google for  "5th century CE" (32,000 hits) vs "5th century AD" (172,000 hits) and suspect that the relatively high hit rate for CE use does reflect a significant unease with using AD and BC. See http://www.religioustolerance.org/ce.htm for rationale and background. So personally I'd favour CE and BCE, anticipating that these will become dominant usage. I think the only real objection to them is that they are less well known, but this seems to be changing.[[User:Gareth Leng|Gareth Leng]] 02:43, 15 April 2008 (CDT)
When I load it into the namespace, I will list Engineering and Chemistry as the workgroup categories. I will do that after I get comments that I asked for from a new Engineering editor named [[User:Karl D. Schubert|Karl D. Schubert]].


:: Hmmm. Well, it would be nice if it was formalized as a policy. Also, I'm not big at all on leaving it up to the authors, that will result in a real mish-mosh, and it will also result in either i) people racing to be the ones to start articles, or ii) people getting into revert wars where they convert back and forth. (One necessarily gets one or the other, if we have 'author decides', no?) Although I suppose anything that caused a 'land rush' on starting articles isn't all bad! :-) [[User:J. Noel Chiappa|J. Noel Chiappa]] 10:27, 15 April 2008 (CDT)
[[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 16:09, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
:::I would just use both; I typically use: 2008 AD(CE) or some variant of.  That way you satisfy everybody. --[[User:Robert W King|Robert W King]] 10:30, 15 April 2008 (CDT)


== As long as it was your idea... ==
:Paul, I went ahead and moved [[Natural gas]] into the article namespace. I've notifed [[User:Karl D. Schubert|Karl D. Schubert]] where to find it. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 00:25, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


[http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Talk%3ACompressibility_factor_%28gases%29&diff=100311565&oldid=100311530 ...yes] ;-) --[[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 19:09, 15 April 2008 (CDT)
== homeopathy reapproval ==


== [[Compressibility factor (gases)]] ==
Since the [[homeopathy/Draft|homeopathy]] article is listed in the chemistry workgroup as well as health sciences and healing arts, you are eligible to join Matt in approval.  Are you comfortable with the current draft?  Thanks much. --Joe ([[User:Approvals Manager|Approvals Manager]]) 01:46, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


Approved!  Looks like the engineering and chemistry workgroups are off on a great run! --[[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 19:19, 21 April 2008 (CDT)
== Just completed an article on petroleum crude oil ==


==Please read my comment of April 11th on the Talk page of [[:Mole (unit)]]==
Paul, I just finished an article on petroleum crude oil in my sandbox at [[User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox]]. Feel free to comment on its Talk page. I have not yet run it through a spell checker, so there are probably spelling errors. I will probably load it into the article namespace tomorrow afternoon/evening. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 08:55, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


Paul, I proposed a re-write of the Examples section of the [[:Mole unit]] article which is mostly a simplified rewording of most of that section. The only part that I removed was the part that I thought would be more appropriately included in an article on chemical stoichiometry.
== Thanks ==


I hope that my proposed re-write doesn't endanger our working relationship. Please let me know what you think of it. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 01:08, 23 April 2008 (CDT)
Paul, I just uploaded FireFox and, so far, I like it very much. Thanks for helping me with that. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 06:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


== Faraday ==
== About [[Thermodynamics]] ==


Thanks for the nudge; I had gotten confused about whether I was or was not allowed to copyedit while the article was in 'Nominated', so I solved my confusion by doing nothing! I have posted on the Talk:, and once I'm sure I won't be causing a problem, I will give it a go-through. Mind, I will only be able to re-arrange what's there to be clear; I have a basic understanding of E+M, and so can explain basic physics things better, but I know little of Faraday's life or work, and so will be relying on the existing article contents for all the data. [[User:J. Noel Chiappa|J. Noel Chiappa]] 14:06, 23 April 2008 (CDT)
Paul, I note that you have not made any contributions to the [[Thermodynamics]] article, which surprizes me since that ought to be right down your alley. It would be nice if we could get that article to the approval stage. Would you please review it and revise it as necessary? Does it need a section on non-equilibrium thermodynamics?


PS: You might want to archive some of the older stuff off the top of your personal Talk: page; it's getting a bit big. The template <nowiki>{{archive box|auto=long}}</nowiki> on both this and the "/Archive 1" subpage gives a nice look, if that's useful to you. [[User:J. Noel Chiappa|J. Noel Chiappa]] 14:06, 23 April 2008 (CDT)
<s>Also, the article links to [[Laws of Thermodynamics]] ... but when I go to [[Laws of Thermodynamics]], I find an almost useless stub of an article. Is the "Laws of thermodynamics" section of [[Thermodynamics]] inclusive enough for me to ask for speedy deletion of the [[Laws of Thermodynamics]] stub? [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 17:45, 10 October 2009 (UTC)</s>


== van der Waals ==
:Paul, just a gentle repeat of my request that you review the [[Thermodynamics]] article, please. Also, I crossed out the second part of my above post in this thread, because I have now taken care of that item as suggested by Daniel Mietchen on the [[Talk:Thermodynamics]]. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 21:45, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Hi Paul, please take another look at the references there, as explained on the talk page. Thanks! Btw, just saw that you already started [[spherical harmonics]] - I will probably join in there soon. -- [[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 17:45, 23 April 2008 (CDT)


== Physical Properties Templates ==
::Milt, the thermodynamics article is written in a way that I personally wouldn't write it (order of sections, presentation of second law, jokes that I don't understand, etc.). If I started to work on the article I wouldn't be able to resist making a major overhaul and I don't want to do that, especially since I'm far from an expert on classical thermodynamics (I failed only twice for an exam in my life, one was  my driver's license test—in Europe it is non-trivial—and the second was my classical-thermo exam in 1964—in both cases I passed second time around though). Further, I don't know anything about non-equilibrium thermo. On the other hand, my knowledge of  equilibrium statistical thermodynamics is OK.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 14:12, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


Hi Paul,
:::Thanks anyway,Paul. If you should change your mind, your comments or overhaul would be welcome and deleting the jokes would not bother me at all. My only interest in this article is that we need a good thermo article and I don't believe that this [[Thermodynamics]] import from Wikipedia has ever been thoroughly reworked. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 20:52, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


I posted this on [[Talk:Cadmium]], but wanted to get some feedback from Chem Editors so figured I'd just ask...
== Are you willing to act as editor on the Sturm-Liouville article? ==


I had this kooky idea of trying to store materials physical properties data in templates so we can call it up from multiple locations and keep it current. That way we can do things like this:
Paul. I have attempted to work with Peter Schmitt on moving the Sturm-Liouville article towards approval. He has stated that he cannot assure me that he would ever approve it no matter how it is changed, since it contains material that was originally sourced at WP. I asked him if he would mind if I attempted to find a different editor to work with on the article. His answer was somewhat vague, so I sought clarification. However, I have been instructed by Hayford Pierce in his role as constable that if I continue to press Peter on the issue I run the risk of being cited for unprofessional behavior.


Selected Electronegativities:<br />
Consequently, I am asking whether you would work with me on this article. I see you have made a number of minor stylistic edits to the article. I am not sure whether these constitute enough changes so that you cannot act as editor. The changes were small enough that I could easily back them out (after asking the constables if that is allowed) and make them myself. The reason I am asking you is we worked together on the Associated Legendre functions article and you have stated that you have never turned down a request to work with an author to improve an article so it is approvable.
{{tl|Selected Electronegativities|Hydrogen|Beryllium|Iron|Helium|Uranium|Neptunium|Lead}}


and...
If you are concerned that this work is tainted by the friction between Peter and I on the article, feel free to read the [[User_talk:Peter_Schmitt#Why_I_am_interested_in_getting_the_S-L_theory_article_approved | record of our interactions on his talk page]]. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 23:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Selected Melting Points:<br />
{{tl|Selected melting points|Hydrogen|Beryllium|Iron|Helium|Uranium|Neptunium|Lead|Cobalt(II) oxide}}


:Dan, I'm not a mathematics editor, but I saw that you attached physics as a category, so I had a quick look.
:What interests me a lot is why the S-L eigenfunctions are complete. I looked at the section "Sturm–Liouville equations as self-adjoint differential operators" where its discussed that it is  a consequence of the resolvent of ''L'' being compact  due to the Arzelà–Ascoli theorem. I must admit that I had never heard of this theorem and I only have a vague notion of what a compact operator may be (I know what a bounded operator is and a compact operator much be close to it).  This section also states the well-known fact that eigenfunctions of the self-adjoint operator ''L'' are orthogonal. Given the level of the article such a statement seems sufficient to me, your proof of orthogonality does not add much for a reader who can understand the article.
:I checked the book by Margenau & Murphy. They give a fairly low-brow proof of the completeness, at least one that I can understand it. Would it no be better if we had a proof like that?
:In short, the subject is of such high level that either a mathematical physicist (which I am not) or a mathematician should have a look at it. An alternative is that we lower its mathematical level.
:--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 16:52, 13 October 2009 (UTC)


and also....
:: Thanks Paul. It is refreshing to receive direction that is both professional and obviously concerned about the problem at hand, i.e., improving the article so it is approvable. That said, I am unfortunately unable to pursue the course you set out, since I am not an expert in functional analysis and my understanding of operator compactness is less than yours. Furthermore, I do not have access to Margenau & Murphy, so I can't look at their proof of completeness. I think this example demonstrates that I am not an appropriate author in the area of this article. I have received a response from John Fletcher and he has decided to refrain from contributing a new article on S-L theory. So, it looks like this article will remain dormant until someone comes along with more expertise than I have in the subject. By the way, the proof of orthogonality is his, not mine.


{{tl|Resizable Periodic Table of Elements
:: Since my areas of expertise are networks and distributed systems and since there are reasons I choose not to work on articles in the computers and engineering workgroups, I think the only way I have to contribute to CZ at the moment is to help improve its software, fixing some bugs and perhaps working on the core software so that the modifications specific to CZ are factored into an extension. That is where I intend to work for the foreseeable future.
|cellWidth=50px
|cellHeight=67px
|colorscheme=Metal
}}
...pretty easily. 


Also, I've started the {{tl|Physical properties}} template to display the info in the articles (please see [[Lead]] or [[Cadmium/MSDS]] for examples).  I have (I believe) left open the option of using the system for any material, not just the chemical elements.  Any objections?  Reasons it won't work?  Things I should change?  Feedback is welcome....--[[User:David Yamakuchi|David Yamakuchi]] 10:23, 25 April 2008 (CDT)
:: P.S. Here is an ironic fact. If you Google "Sturm-Liouville theory orthogonality", the third hit on the list is the WP article and indented beneath it is a reference to John's orthogonality proof, which I left in my User space on WP. So, those searching for an orthogonality proof of S-L solutions will find it as the 6th reference on the Google list. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 17:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)


I agree that the editing of the property values need to be easy enough that a Non-Technical Person (NTP) can do it without confusion or errors.  Thus far, I have been focused on getting the system working and then spent a little time on the "view" of the data, which right now, looks like it might live in the MSDS or Isotopes page.  In the future, perhaps we can write different "viewers" for the data, including maybe a "edit the data values viewer". 
== Chemical elements ==


At this time, if you click on the "xxxxx/Physical Properties" link at the bottom of the table/view, it takes you to the template to add data (stored in the template in the form of a switch statement), which is maybe a simpler syntax (better for NTPs) for the data than the wikitable was with all it's added "centers" and pipes and such. I'm currently looking at a slightly more sophisticated system for the Isotopes (or Isotpes as I guess we are now spelling it).--[[User:David Yamakuchi|David Yamakuchi]] 11:16, 1 May 2008 (CDT)
Paul, what is your opinion on this [http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,2948.msg25195.html#msg25195 forum topic]?
(Discovered by Hayford in [[Special:DeadendPages]].) [[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 18:45, 27 October 2009 (UTC)


== [[Mole (unit)]], yet again ==
== Wasted a few hours and my face is red! ==


Paul:
I spent a few hours creating a drawing of a Carnot heat engine and finding/uploading a photo of Josiah Willard Gibbs and placing both of them in the [[Thermodynamics]] article. Some time later, I found that you had already created a drawing of a Carnot heat engine for the [[Energy]] article and mine is almost identical to yours ... and I also found that someone had already uploaded the same photo of Gibbs into [[Chemical thermodynamics]]. I could have saved myself a few hours of effort if I had only searched CZ a little better. Ah, well! [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 01:23, 31 October 2009 (UTC)


I understand your revision of the lead-in section and have no problem with it.
== The [[Second law of thermodynamics]] ==


However, I would still like to re-write the Examples section as per my comment of April 11th on the Talk page of the aricle (the next-to-last comment on that Talk page) if you agree to it. I think that my rewrite will be more understandable by non-physicists.
Paul, as you requested, I have reviewed the [[Second law of thermodynamics]] article to the best of my ability. Most of my changes, if not all, are just very minor rewording and copy editing. I have also raised a few more substantive questions on the article's Talk page that you should consider. I apologize for not having done more. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 20:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)


I assume you are at home again and I hope you enjoyed your stay in California. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 11:26, 28 April 2008 (CDT)
== Template for chemistry ==


==Of course we are not at war==
Paul, could you look at [[User talk:Milton Beychok#Properties]] and [[User talk:Milton Beychok#Property list]].
I have tried to provide a template requested on [[CZ:Wishlist]]. [[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 13:07, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


Paul, that was just my way of saying that it wasn't really that important to me and I would rather drop the subject. Best regards,
:I'm not fond of these things. It is lots of work to collect the data, and it is not clear how reliable they are (and in some cases what they mean). Information can be contradictory. For instance, I saw an oxygen atom template (which I cannot find any longer) that says that oxygen is a gas with '''molecular''' weight close to 16. This is wrong, but understandably wrong, because these templates force you to make these sorts of errors. In this case the template forces the user to switch back and forth between molecular oxygen O<sub>2</sub> and elemental oxygen O and it forces decisions on the user that may be questionable.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 14:28, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
- [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 11:42, 29 April 2008 (CDT)


==Your attention needed.. ==
:: The template was not my idea. It is supposed to replace the existing construction using a subpage for each entry.
[http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Johannes_Diderik_van_der_Waals/Draft#APPROVED_Version_1.0 ..here] --Thanks, [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 12:01, 29 April 2008 (CDT)
:: Your reservations are, at least partially, taken care by the template: Without specifying ''compound'' or ''atom'' it can be used without any predefined entries. For the case, where such an option is used, comments would be useful <br> What data are so important that the entry should be provided as "required" default? Which entries should be offered as "optional"? Remarks like your comment that molecular and atomic mass are easily mixed up, is also important.
:: [[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 12:52, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


== Please look at [[Fluid catalytic cracking]] ==
== The Book of God and Physics (A novel of the Voynich mystery) ==


Paul, if you have some spare time, look at [[Fluid catalytic cracking]] and tell me what you think of it. It is the most difficult article that I have undertaken at Citizendium because it has been over 50 years since I designed an FCC unit and (a) my memory is not what it used to be and (b) the advances made in those 50 years have been numerous. Regards, Milt - [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 03:44, 9 May 2008 (CDT)
Paul, I am reading a book entitled "The Book of God and Physics" written by a Spanish physicist named Enrique Joven that has been translated into English. It is about the an ancient book called the "Voynich Manuscript".


== Since you once served an internship in an ammonia plant ==
I think you might enjoy it because it has a good bit of history dating back to the days of Kepler and Tycho Brahe.


Paul, you might enjoy a stroll down memory lane by reading [[Ammonia production]]. - [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 00:48, 11 May 2008 (CDT)
Have you heard of this book? [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 06:35, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


:Paul, when you have the time, I would appreciate it if you looked at [[Ammonia production]] and gave me your comments. Thanks, - [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 12:49, 7 August 2008 (CDT)
:No Milt, I haven't heard of the Voynich mystery nor of Joven. Is the book worth buying? --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 08:12, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


::Paul, thanks very much for your comments about [[Ammonia production]]. As you suggested, I have now added a paragraph discussing the two ways in which nitrogen is obtained for use in the last Haber-Bosch step.
::The book sells here for US$26 ... but the copy I am reading came from our public library. Perhaps a library near you may have a copy. I don't think I would spend $25 buying it. But it is quite interesting and you seem to have a passion for historical physics. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 08:40, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


::As for your comments on the [[Haber process]] article, I have just finished some rather extensive edits to that article (see the Talk page of the article) to try and clean it up and decrease the focus on electrolysis of water. In fact, I have stated that if there are no objections forthcoming in the next week, I plan to drastically shorten the discussion of electrolysis and I have more or less suggested that a stand-alone article is needed for electrolysis.
:::I doubt that our public library will have it. I live in a small village, and our library has hardly any books in English. You're right that I'm interested in the history of science, many of my articles have a history section. I don't think such sections hurt, somebody who doesn't share my interest can easily skip them (assuming that somebody reads my articles, which I seriously doubt. But who knows, maybe somebody will read some of them sometime in the future).--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 08:56, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


::As for merging the [[Haber process]] into the [[Ammonia production]] article by a redirect, I would rather not do that. The [[Haber process]] is merely a discussion of the last step in the synthesis of ammonia discussed in [[Ammonia production]] and I see no harm in an article devoted only to that process. Besides that, redirecting the [[Haber process]] means deleting its contents and that might ruffle some feathers if it were done with having a consensus to do it. I would rather keep on writing new articles to build up an "infrastructure" of chemical engineering articles and not get involved in what might get to be lengthy process of achieving concensus to merge. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 01:02, 9 August 2008 (CDT)
::::The Voynich manuscript isn't ancient, it's 17th century. Last I heard it was still undeciphered, though. [[User:Peter Jackson|Peter Jackson]] 11:36, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


== Formatting of article list on your user page ==
:::::Peter, as I learned when I worked in London for 6 years or so, 300 years is not ancient at all for Europeans ... but, for Americans like me, 300 years is almost pre-historic. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 18:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Hi Paul, just reformatted the list to allow for easy progress monitoring. Hope you like it; if not, feel free to revert. -- [[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 05:12, 13 May 2008 (CDT)


== I just noticed this ==
:::::Paul, give me your postal mailing address and I'll send you a copy of the book. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 18:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


I just noticed this one of Larry Sanger's archived Talk pages:
== Boltzmann ==


<font color=green>Milton added [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_catalytic_cracking this] to WP. Now WP has two articles on the same subject, a good one (by Milton) and a poorly done one, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracking_%28chemistry%29 this]. Up to the 3 000 000! --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 04:28, 12 May 2008 (CDT)</font>
If it is not urgent then it is no problem.  
To get a good picture I would like to wait for nice weather with good light, and this has to coincide with a time
when I can go there. (The Zentralfriedhof is on the other side of the town where I rarely am.)
Now, in autumn/winter good light may be rare.
[[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 12:58, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


I take it that you don't like my having posted my "Fluid catalytic cracking" on Wikipedia. Is that correct? [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 16:49, 14 May 2008 (CDT)
== Herman Van Rompuy ==


==Definitions==
Hi Paul,
Hi Paul, I too had been using lower case to start the definitions, i think we agree on that style.  However, Larry corrected some of mine and it says to use upper case to start the definition at [[CZ:Definitions]] ("''Begin the definition with a capital letter, and end with a period. ''").  It kind of make sense since there is a colon between the article name and the definition. I suppose that it also means the definition can be used on its own as a sentence without the prefix of "Article name:" although, I do not thing that is currently the case. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 10:28, 16 May 2008 (CDT)
I do not see why you redirect from [[Herman Van Rompuy]] to [[Van Rompuy]] &mdash; I would do it the other way round. --[[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 10:28, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
==Excellent Cauchy==
Juste-milieu on Cauchy--I was a math major at Notre Dame back when it was just as Catholic as Cauchy was, and so he was our great hero! The article integrates the man, the math and the milieu very well, so I signed the approvals. [[User:Richard Jensen|Richard Jensen]] 07:15, 18 May 2008 (CDT)


== Energy ==
:That is because I made the mistake by starting out with Van Rompuy and I'm too lazy to move it. --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 10:35, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 
== Element subpages ==


Hi Paul,
Hi Paul,
we are currently trying to design a system that handles disambiguations (see [[CZ:Proposals/Disambiguation mechanics|here]] and [[User talk:Daniel Mietchen#Definitions of ambiguous (and_so_disambiguated) terms|here]] for details). This also effects the way terms with multiple uses are to be used in [[CZ:Related Articles|Related article subpages]] and similar places. The ultimate goal is to have a consistent disambiguation handling system across CZ (another difference to WP), to list all the different uses at [[Energy (disambiguation)]] and to link from there to [[Energy (kinetic)]], [[Energy (chemical)]], [[Energy (mechanical)]], [[Dirichlet energy]], [[Energy (psychology)]] and so on as articles get created on those topics. Groetjes, [[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 05:37, 22 May 2008 (CDT)
such mass deletions can be done by a bot if you can wait until they are allowed to run again. --[[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 15:12, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
:Also, consider that the information itself is useful, the format is the problem. A bot might be able to reconfigurate that information, assuming we have a plan for what to do with it? [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 20:55, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 
== Complex numbers ==
 
Paul, please have a look at [[Talk:Complex number/Draft#correcting approved version]]. Can you help?
I will not mind if you make the 1/z passage a little more explicit, too. [[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 01:40, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 
:Re-approval of Version 2.1 completed.  Thanks for your participation! [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 15:16, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 
:: Paul, I replied to you (delayed) on my talk page. Best wishes! [[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 15:47, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 
== a Dutch professor ==


:Ambiguous articles like this one are going to be moved to disambiguated versions thereof, and the 'blöd' message you see is just a reminder to fix that. I did that right now such that your user page looks normal again. Further splits of the article into subtopics of the sort listed above may become necessary with time. -- [[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 07:26, 22 May 2008 (CDT)
Hi, Paul,


You probably saw a temporary state after I had created [[Faraday's law/Definition]], but before I had gotten to [[Faraday's law (disambiguation)]]. [[User:J. Noel Chiappa|J. Noel Chiappa]] 10:27, 22 May 2008 (CDT)
Sorry about confusing the NL and Belgium -- I was drinking my morning coffee!  Now there's a prof at a NL university named Paul de Laat who has emailed saying that his *two* applications have never been attended to. As far as *I* can tell, we never received an application. Do you know anything about him?  Thanks! [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 16:20, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
:OK --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 10:35, 22 May 2008 (CDT)
::The [[Energy (science)|definition]] seems OK, just the [[Talk:Energy (science)|talk page]] was not properly set up, and I fixed that. I also saw the discussion on the name there and added my comment. -- [[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 05:20, 28 May 2008 (CDT)


==Pipe==
:I googled Paul de Laat and he seems to be a genuine philosopher working at the University of Groningen, a well-known university. I don't know him. --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 16:29, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes the pipe works, we have been redesigning the {{tl|R}} and {{tl|Rpl}} templates to be as user friendly as possible.  Also note that the green A pops up when it is up for approval, as is one on your list right now. Also note that you can indent now too, something that was not possible before. Here are a few example:
<pre>
{{rpl|Electron}}
{{rpl|Electron configuration||**}}
{{rpl|Electron orbital||**}}
{{rpl|Electron shell||**}}
</pre>
{{rpl|Electron}}
{{rpl|Electron configuration||**}}
{{rpl|Electron orbital||**}}
{{rpl|Electron shell||**}}


<pre>
::Yes, he says that he is Paul B. de Laat, Faculteit Filosofie, Universiteit Groningen, NL and has applied twice in the last two months with no response at all.  I find no records of his applications. Geez. [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 16:40, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
{{rpl|Electron}}
{{rpl|Electron configuration|Configuration|**}}
{{rpl|Electron orbital|Orbital|**}}
{{rpl|Electron shell|Shell|**}}
</pre>
{{rpl|Electron}}
{{rpl|Electron configuration|Configuration|**}}
{{rpl|Electron orbital|Orbital|**}}
{{rpl|Electron shell|Shell|**}}


<pre>
:::I am corresponding with him through the Constabulary email and have asked him to reapply -- I'll be keeping a beady eye on the process this time! [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 18:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
{{rpl|Electron||}}
{{rpl|Electron configuration|Configuration|:}}
{{rpl|Electron orbital|Orbital|:}}
{{rpl|Electron shell|Shell|:}}
</pre>
{{rpl|Electron||}}
{{rpl|Electron configuration|Configuration|:}}
{{rpl|Electron orbital|Orbital|:}}
{{rpl|Electron shell|Shell|:}}


For more information and examples see [[Template:Rpl/Doc]]. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 10:54, 22 May 2008 (CDT)
::::We finally got him registered as an Author -- he wasn't filling out 50 words in the bio space.  BUT apparently he also wasn't getting a warning saying that he hadn't done so.  I'll check this out and see if there's a bug in the system. [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 20:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)


== Energy Conversion Analysis ==
== Need your comment LaTex equation in [[Molar volume]]  ==


Sir:  You are missing a point.  This is Unites States of America and there are are some laws that need to be obeyed. I do feel that I have been abused as an author and that my initial input has been viloated.  Thanks, Gordan
Paul, I just created a new article called [[Molar volume]]. It includes this equation


== Need help with editing the [[Density]] article ==
::<math>V_{\rm m} = \frac{\displaystyle\sum_{i=1}^{N}x_{i}M_{i}}{\rho_{mixture}}</math>


Paul, I got interested in the [[Density]] article which got transferred from Wikipedia to CZ in 2006 without any revision to make it suitable for CZ. It contained a number of terminology errors and was very disorganized. I spent quite some time in the past 24 hours to correct the obvious errors and to reformat/reorganize it. As a result, I then upgraded it from status 4 to status 2.
Should it be corrected to:\this?


However, it contains an equation for calculating the density of crystalline mmaterials given certain crystallographic data and the molecular mass ... which I think needs quite a bit of discussion and explanation. In all candor, I don't understand the equation.
::<math>V_{\rm m} = \frac{\displaystyle\sum_{i=1}^{N}x_{i}M_{i}}{\rho_{\rm {mixture}}}</math>


I noticed that in the [[Kilogram]] article, you contributed a discussion of the silicon project and it seems to me that your discussion is about that subject of calculating density from crystallography data and molecular mass. When and if you have the time, would you look at the [[Density]] article and see if you could contribute an understandable discussion of the equation given there in the "Measurement of density" section?? Thanks, - [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 18:26, 10 June 2008 (CDT)
In general, what are the rules for when to use italics and when to use non-italics?  


:Milton, I had a quick look, but it seems to me that the crystal density formula is only correct for orthogonal a, b, and c axes (cubic lattices). For skew axes the volume of the unit cell must be extended to a formula containing the angles between the basis vectors. (Volume of a general parallelepiped). --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 03:27, 11 June 2008 (CDT)
Thanks in advance. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 03:23, 13 January 2010 (UTC)


::Paul, could you perhaps extend the formula for skewed axes and also add some explanatory text? Or do you think that perhaps that method of obtaining a theorertical density is too esoteric for inclusion in the density article? Would it be better to move the formula into the article about [[crystal]]s or a new one about  crystallography? I would appreciate your doing whatever you can and explaining it on the Talk page of the density article. I just don't feel qualified to do any of that. Thanks, - [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 12:01, 11 June 2008 (CDT)
:Milt, definitely the second, but I would use \mathrm{mixture}. (I forgot the difference between \rm and \mathrm but somehow I remember that \mathrm works better). According to the AIP style manual, words (like: total, in, out, mixture, etc.)  in math must be roman also when used as sub- or superscripts. Also in roman must be: chemical symbols (O, Ne), units (Hz, J), and mathematical functions: cos, exp, etc. Personally I would write "mixt" instead of "mixture" in equations. --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 06:29, 13 January 2010 (UTC)


:::The equation is simple if you know vector algebra, it is
:: May I drop in? It should be \text (and I think that \textstyle looks better)
::::<math>
::::<math> V_{\rm m} = \frac{\textstyle\sum_{i=1}^{N}x_{i}M_{i}}{\rho_{\text {mixture}}} </math>
V = \mathbf{a}\cdot (\mathbf{b} \times \mathbf{c})
:: The reason for \text (\textrm is not scriptstyle): There is a difference between the spacing of math fonts and of text fonts reflecting the fact that -- in math mode -- single letters represent variables while in text they are combined to words.
</math>
::: <math> diff \qquad \textit{diff} </math>
:::where '''a''', '''b''', and '''c''' span the unit cell and we have an inner and a cross product, respectively. Do you think presenting this would be useful (given the amount of opposition against mathematical formulas)? --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 09:56, 13 June 2008 (CDT)
:: Therefore, if italics, it should be \textit. But, moreover, "mixt(ure)" should be Roman, not Italics, because it is not the name of a variable (cf. "\log" and "log"). This is often not considered in books and journals when authors are not advised by (competent) editors.
:: \rm provides \mathrm, I think (needs checking), but does not take an argument, i.e. {\rm text} and \mathrm [text} are equivalent, I suppose. Curiously, \mathrm and \textrm show no difference:
::: <math> \mathrm {diff} \qquad \textrm {diff} \qquad \rm diff  </math>
:: I shall have to try this off-wiki --[[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 12:06, 13 January 2010 (UTC)


:::::I haven't noticed any great opposition to formulas other than in some discussion on the forums. When CZ finally attracts many more active physicists and engineers (other than the very few that are now active), that opposition will disappear. As for your formula, I don't know vector algebra and don't understand your equation but I accept it because I trust you. Would you please revise that section of the [[Density]] article and include some explanation so that even I would understand it? Or, if you feel that section should just be deleted, than remove it entirely .. with an explanation on the Talk page. - [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 10:47, 13 June 2008 (CDT)
== [[Edward Teller]] ==


Milton, where did you get that formula for the crystal density? To me it seems to hold only for molecular crystals consisting of one type of molecule, like crystalline naphtalene (there is one '''molecular''' mass in it). In atomic crystals, like NaCl (table salt), one usually has different types of atoms with different masses in the unit cell.
Paul, what is lacking with Edward Teller that we would prevent it from being approved? [[User:Russell D. Jones|Russell D. Jones]] 01:11, 31 January 2010 (UTC)


The formula for volume is easy. Remember, the volume of a parallelepiped is  the area of its base surface times its height. Now, '''b'''&times;'''c''' is a vector of length equal to twice the area of the triangle that has '''b''' and '''c''' as sides. The direction of this vector is orthogonal to the plane of this  triangle. Hence '''a'''&sdot;('''b'''&times;'''c''') is the height of the parallelepiped times  the area of the base surface.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 11:21, 13 June 2008 (CDT)
:Not much, maybe a few more references? On the other hand, as I stated several times on the Forum, once it is approved, it is hard to change it. And who knows, you or I may read something interesting in the future that then will be hard to add. --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 13:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)


:Paul, I don't know where that formula for crystal density came from. It was already in the article when I stumbled upon the article a few days ago and began to edit and improve it. Presumably, it was either added earlier by someone in CZ or it was already in the Wikipedia article when someone transferred it to CZ about 2 years ago. I checked the current Wikipedia article and it is not in the current WP version. I have also searched the Internet and found that there is such a method ... but could not find that same equation anywhere. - [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 12:25, 13 June 2008 (CDT)
::Another thing: WP has a section about Teller and the Israel A- and H-bombs. Teller doesn't say anything about this in his ''Memoirs''. The WP section is based on one book only (that I haven't seen and I don't know its trustworthiness). Since the fact whether or not Israel possesses nuclear weapons is formally top-secret, I decided not to chase after that book and to skip the topic altogether. Any opinion anyone? --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 14:04, 31 January 2010 (UTC)


::Milton, I found in a very old physical chemistry book (A. Findlay, 2nd ed. 1941) an example of a density calculation of what Findlay calls "rock salt" (above I called the same compound "table salt"). First Findlay shows that there are four NaCl molecules per unit cell (which in this case is a cube with one lattice parameter: a = 0.56 nm). He does this by counting, for instance, the atoms on the 8 corners are shared by 8 unit cells and have therefore weight 1/8. The face-centered atoms are shared by two cells and have weight 1/2, and so on). The molecular mass ''M'' of NaCl is 58.454, ''N'' = 4, ''a'' = ''b'' = ''c'' = 0.56 nm and this is all you need to compute the density of rock salt [in g/(nm)<sup>3</sup>]. To explain that ''N'' = 4 one really needs a picture of the unit cell, which is easily drawn since it is a cube. What do you think, should we go all the way and add this example?
== Need your help ==
--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 02:58, 14 June 2008 (CDT)


:::Paul, you have made my day! When I use that formula in the [[Density]] article with Findlay's example data, I get 217.9×10<sup>-23</sup> g/(nm)<sup>3</sup> which is equivalent to 2.179 g/(cm)<sup>3</sup>. My copy of ''Handbook of Chemistry and Physics'' has  the density of sodium chloride as 2.165 g/(cm)<sup>3</sup>. The difference is less than one percent.
Paul, Meg Ireland just corrected the spelling of one word in [[Amine gas treating/Draft]]. Since you never worked on that article and since you are a Chemistry editor, would you please nominate the article for single-editor re-approval so that the spelling will be corrected in the approved version? Thanks, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 06:18, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


:::Yes, I will add Findlay's example. Is this his book: {{cite book|author=Alexander Findlay|title=Practical Physical Chemistry|edition=Seventh Edition|publisher=Longmans, Green and Company|year=1941}} ?
{{awelcome}} [[User:Aleksander Stos|Aleksander Stos]] 12:32, 16 August 2007 (CDT)


:::If you would be so kind as to email me a simple sketch of the cube and explaining how to count N, I will produce a drawing and upload it into the article as well. By letting me add the example and the sketch, you will be free to nominate the article for approval some day if you want to do so. You can email me at mbeychok@cox.net or you can fax me a copy of the page from Findlay's book at: 949-706-9634 (preceded by the country code for the USA). Thanks again, - [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 12:01, 14 June 2008 (CDT)
{{archive box|auto=long}}
::::I scanned the relevant pages and sent them as pdf to mbeychok@cox.net--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 05:02, 15 June 2008 (CDT)
== [[Scientific method]] ==
::::PS I extended the article  on the vector product with the formula for the volume of a general unit cell that I mentioned earlier, see: [[Vector_product#Application:_the_volume_of_a_parallelepiped]]--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 07:55, 15 June 2008 (CDT)


== cross product ==
Hi Paul, please take a quick look at [[Scientific method]] and make sure you are satisfied with the changes since July 21 and we will be good to go.  Thanks, [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 12:21, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
I had forgotten about that lame image.  We should try to do better, but I just now back from vacation so I likely won't touch it for a few days.  I'll try to come up with a better one. Making it ourself keeps the copyright's consistent, so I would rather do that.  [[User:David E. Volk|David E. Volk]] 08:19, 17 June 2008 (CDT)


== Thanks for corrections to [[Density]] ==
== Anthony.Sebastian approves 24-Jul-2009 version [[Scientific method]] ==


Paul, thanks for your corrections to the section on xray diffraction crystallography. I don't know how in the world I messed up the reference to Findlay's book. I guess I better start going to bed earlier.
First class article. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 17:22, 24 July 2009 (UTC)


The HTML for a center dot renders like this &sdot; in my Internet Explorer browser, so I changed it to × instead.
== Are changes I made sandbox version 'chemical elements' okay ==


Thanks again, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 11:33, 18 June 2008 (CDT)
Paul,


== Party! ==
I believe I responded to your suggested changes my sandbox version of 'chemical elements'. If you're okay with that version as a working version for continued collaborative development, please indicate so on: http://en.citizendium.org:8080/wiki/Talk:Chemical_elements#Lede_revised_in_response_to_Paul_and_Peter.


Hi Paul!  So, you've been working but not partying?  Come add your name to the cast of characters at [[CZ:Monthly Write-a-Thon|July party]]!  [[User:Aleta Curry|Aleta Curry]] 20:28, 2 July 2008 (CDT)
If Peter does the same, I will get Milton's okay to replace the current Main Article with it.


== Scary guide ==
Thanks. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 17:36, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
Don't worry about it too much, the elem_infobox, that is.  It is not that YOU personally need to do it, but that someone should before we approve the article.  The easiest way to fill in the chem_infox or elem_infobox is to simply copy one from another article (via edit button to see the code), like  [[ketoconazole]] or [[Hydrogen]], and then change the relevent parameters. David has been busy changing the element box, so I need to go brush up on that one also, but I think he is going to do that for every element so we don't need to worry so much about that.  Cheers. [[User:David E. Volk|David E. Volk]] 10:40, 7 July 2008 (CDT)


== Stokes Theorem ==
== I have enemies everywhere! ==


Hi Paul
Thanks, Paul, I hadn't bothered to look at that place for a couple of month now. Wonder who these characters are and why they're so agin me? I musta been arrogant to the wrong person somewhere along the line, hehe.... [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 14:59, 30 July 2009 (UTC)


Thank you! I'm not really done with the divergence theorem yet, I was thinking of inserting some pictures to explain the proof I'm gonna give.
:A riposte that may or may not amuse you.... [http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=405097&c=1] [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 05:17, 1 August 2009 (UTC)


But when I'm done, I'll do Stokes aswell. And after that, maybe Green's Identities :)
== Article on Sturm-Liouville theory ==


[[User:Emil Gustafsson|Emil Gustafsson]] 05:47, 10 July 2008 (CDT)
Hello Paul,


== Your request that I look at [[Energy (science)]] ==
Sometime back I proposed moving the WP article on Sturm-Liouville theory to CZ and adding a proof of the orthogonality of solutions with distinct eigenvalues. Since I am not an expert on S-L theory, I consulted with a collaborator who is knowledgeable about this topic and asked him if he would be willing to work on the WP article to improve it. After looking the article over, he said he had no suggestions for improving it, except perhaps by removing the reference to  "the Arzela-Ascoli theorem and the spectral theory for compact operators." He thought this parenthetical comment was not in keeping with the direction of the rest of the article.


Paul: First, let me say that I think your lead-in paragraph is very good. I have taken the liberty to slightly reword/rewrite it so as to:
So, here is what I propose to do. I will move the WP S-L article to CZ, ticking the appropriate check-box indicating the WP source. If you agree, I will remove the reference to "the Arzela-Ascoli theorem and the spectral theory for compact operators." I will then create an addendum page on which to place the orthogonality proof and put a link in the main article to it. Let me know if this is an acceptable strategy. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 15:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


*Use a little more colloquial English. For example, I used "forms" instead of "manifestations".
:It sounds perfect. But please note that I'm not a mathematics editor, only an author. (I'm physics and chemistry editor). So, I'm interested in the stuff and know a little about it, but have no formal say in things mathematical.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 16:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
*Add internal links to existing and non-existing articles.
*Make a very few revisions for better clarity. For example, pumps do not run on gasoline ... instead, they may be driven by gasoline-fueled engines.


In my personal opinion, as you probably already know, keeping things as simple as possible is the best course ... and I think you did a good job of that. I think that saying energy is a "measurable" quantity is simpler and more commonly understood than is the word "scalar".
OK. Should I contact a mathematics editor before proceeding? If so, do you know of one that might specialize in the area of this topic? [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 17:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


My reworded or rewritten version is available at [[User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox2]]. You can read it there and decide whether or not you wish to use it or use parts of it.
:Excuse me for "butting in", but try Peter Schmitt who is a professor of mathematics in the University of Vienna and who is quite active in CZ. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 18:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


I will look at the rest of the article in the next few days, but I suspect that I won't be too much help there. However, I will try to be helpful. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 17:28, 23 July 2008 (CDT)
Thanks. I'll do that. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 18:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


:Paul, I just added another section in my Sandbox2 about your table of "combustion enthalpies" for your consideration. I hope it is useful. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 13:00, 24 July 2008 (CDT)
== Dutch military history? ==


==Pictures==
What would be a good name for a top-level article about Dutch military and naval history?  I'm thinking here mostly for something to use as a parent topic in Related Articles pages, but filling out the Related Pages at the top level would be useful.


Steve definitely knows the details better than I do. However, one rule I know is that all pictures published (note: not created but published) before 1923 are in the public domain; this is confirmed by the table in [[CZ:Images#Copyrights]], to the right. So any image with publication info from before that date should be okay. This means that images #3, #4, #5 and #8 on http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:James_Clerk_Maxwell should be okay. Let me know if you need to know more details. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] 17:44, 4 August 2008 (CDT)
More modern events that could go under it include [[Cruiser#Battle of the Java Strait]] and [[Operation Market Garden]]. The Dutch Marines have also done some impressive hostage rescues. [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 00:21, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


== Finger crossing ==
:Howard, the Dutch do not have much of a military history. There is almost only the 17th century naval history. For instance, in Market Garden (not capitalized, I know your point of view but I can't bring myself to follow you) there were British, American and (oddly enough) Polish forces involved, no Dutch.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 07:29, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Paul, your finger crossing sent the tropical storm more northly and thus it hit east of Galveston around Port Author. Of course, the folks over there might not like you so much now!  [[User:David E. Volk|David E. Volk]] 15:57, 5 August 2008 (CDT)


== Haber process ==
== Please comment on [[Earth's atmosphere]] ==


Paul, a week ago I posted a message on the talk page of the Haber process article explaining my intention to shorten the electrolysis section down to no more than about two paragraphs. Since no one objected during the week, I went ahead today and shortened that section as I said I would. I also corrected numerous errors in the chemical reactions in the other sections. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 22:39, 15 August 2008 (CDT)
Paul, [[Earth's atmosphere]] is my first venture outside my field of expertise. I would appreciate any comments you may offer (on the article's Talk page). [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 06:32, 19 August 2009 (UTC)


== Ether ==
== Added acknowledgement to [[Earth's atmosphere]] about Equation 2 and [[Boltzmann distribution]] ==
Thanks for the warning Paul.  As soon as I saw "ether" was the subject of the change, and you being a physicist, I instantly knew what you were up to. Luckily Gustav missed us completely in Galveston, but we all prepared our houses and chemistry labs on Friday just in case. [[User:David E. Volk|David E. Volk]] 08:42, 2 September 2008 (CDT)


== Have you seen my photo? ==
Paul, I have added a footnote (reference 13) acknowledging that Equation 2 can be obtained from the Boltzmann distribution and linked it to the article you wrote on the [[Boltzmann distribution]]. Milton Beychok 16:53, 23 August 2009 (UTC)


Paul, have you seen my photo that I added to my user page? I thought you might be interested in seeing the old man you've been working with. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 16:12, 17 September 2008 (CDT)
== About [[Barometric formula]] ==


== Your sandbox or scratch box ==
Hi, Paul. I am not sure how your [[Barometric formula]] article would interfere with the [[Atmospheric lapse rate]] article I am writing. You can see my article in progress at [[User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox]] and judge for yourself. I am about 75% finished with it. I might even finish it today. As I said above, I am no expert on atmospheric science or meteorology ... I just thought the [[Earth's atmosphere]] and [[Atmospheric lapse rate]] articles were needed to fit in with my air pollution dispersion modeling articles ... so I wrote them. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 16:28, 26 August 2009 (UTC)


Paul, unless you want to keep it completely private, would you tell me how to find your sandbox or scratchbox? [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 23:12, 21 September 2008 (CDT)
== Garnet ==


== Rubbish ==
Thanks Paul!
Paul, I am very interested to know why this article did not fit your criteria (both scientifically and regarding the relevance to our topic). Although it is in complete contradiction with the definition of the topic to treat structure of water separately (see my response to Matt, minutes before yours), my scientific curiosity urges me to discuss these matters on a separate page, say [[structure of water]]. Would you join?
[[User:Pierre-Alain Gouanvic|Pierre-Alain Gouanvic]] 03:08, 27 September 2008 (CDT)


==Roy paper==
I took a recent family trip down to Montana, Garnet was one of the places I got to visit and I was completely amazed by what I saw, it really left a lasting impression on me which compelled me to create/work on the Citizendium article. Thanks again! --[[User:Mehar Gill|Mehar Gill]] 17:52, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Moderately positive? Sorry I've given that impression, no it's utter garbage. I tried to hunt down the journal as Springer stopped publishing it in 2003, seems to have been picked up by a house I hadn't heard of, and Roy is the editor. I certain;y haven't inserted any comment even vaguely supportive anywhere (unless by accident), my edits to tone down commentary on it may have been too gentle. [[User:Gareth Leng|Gareth Leng]] 11:24, 27 September 2008 (CDT)


== error message: texvc executable not  found ==
== [[Atmospheric lapse rate]] finished and created ==


Thanks for informing me regarding problem with latex. It appears, the problem started today only, because yesterday everything seemed fine. Anyway I did manage to kludge along with HTML, though it is not very elegant. 
Hi, Paul. [[Atmospheric lapse rate]] has been created if you want to see it. I decided to name it "Atmospheric lapse rate" because there are so many different lapses ... lapsed insurance, memory lapses, lapsed into a coma, lapse of eligibility, etc., etc. ... and I didn't want to use "Lapse rate (atmospheric)". [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 04:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC)


Also, I created an advanced page for [[Nuclear overhauser effect]] which I am unable to delete now.
== What do you think of the [[Universe]] article? ==
(Sender: Sekhar Talluri)


:Paul, look at your scratchbook now. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 20:08, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Paul, have you ever read the [[Universe]] article? What do you think of it? [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 23:56, 31 August 2009 (UTC)


== WP content in "Hydrogen bond" article? ==
:I looked at it and see nothing wrong with it; but I don't know much about cosmology. It would probably need the hand of a professional cosmologist to bring it to an approvable state, but for a level 2  article (a little bit more than a stub) it seems acceptable to me. Why do you ask this, did you find any errors?--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 06:38, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


Hi Paul,
::No, just curious. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 06:58, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 
== Moving the Associated Legendre Functions article toward approved status ==
 
Hi Paul. I would like to get the work done that will allow us to move the Associated Legendre Functions article to approved status. I notice that you have reinserted the inline reference to Edmonds. So the first thing to sort out is what are the rules for citations. The Edmonds citation is now in both the main article and the Bibliography. Do we leave it twice cited? Should we remove it from the Bibliography and leave it in the main article? Should we remove it from the main article and add a footnote that says something like "see reference 1 in the Bibliography"? Or something else. The other issue I see is the dead link to "potential theory". Should we leave this alone or should one of us import the WP article to CZ? [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 15:35, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 
:I answered about the inline references on the forum. I feel that CZ cannot do without footnotes and that those must be easily accessible, hence on the main page. I don't mind that some references are cited twice. As long as there are no hundreds of duplicates, it is not important. I expressed my opinion about dead (red) links on the forum: leave them as they are, a red link will spur somebody someday to write the article. (For instance today I wrote [[Euclidean space]] because I noticed a red link).--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 15:58, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 
I have no strong opinions on the "where references should go" issue. I just want to get the article into shape for approval. Should I send a request to a mathematics editor to update the "ToApprove" metadata?
 
'''Update''': I have left a message on Jitse Niesen's talk page asking him to move the article to "ToApprove" status.


I noticed that you have worked extensively on the ''Hydrogen bond'' article. I expect soon to move that to the featured article (draft) on the Welcome page of CZ, but I have a question about the possible WP content of the artilce. If it contains such WP content, then it should indicate so on the article. In any case, I believe it should be so indicated, but could you confirm this for me, and if it should be so indicated, could you do that?
'''Question''': The approval process at CZ is pretty confusing. I just noticed there is a list of articles that someone has deemed [[CZ:Ready for approval | ready for approval]]. Why there is such a list separate from the developed article list is beyond my powers of understanding. However, given it exists, I would like to add the Associated Legendre Functions article to that list. Do you have any objections? [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 23:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


[[User:James F. Perry|James F. Perry]] 18:32, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
::I might (or WE might) have a 5,000-word developed article about, say, [[Bill Tilden]], well-written and well-organized.  If *that* isn't "developed", what is? BUT, it may not be ready for approval because it still lacks some major elements, there are controversies about some aspects of it, or some other reasons. And there may be a short article about [[Ray Casey]] that *is* ready for approval (at least in MY opinion, since I'm the one who placed it in that category) because it has all the qualities of the Tilden article BUT ALSO there is nothing more to say about the subject.  It's done, finished. That's all, folks!  So, at least in MY mind, there can be a clear distinction between "developed" and "ready for approval". [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 00:51, 3 September 2009 (UTC)


== Thanks for the HTML idea! ==
Thanks Hayford. So, who decides that an article is both "developed" and "ready for approval"? Also, since Paul was the person who did most (>99%) of the work on the main article, I still seek his view on moving the article to the the "ready for approval" list. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 01:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC)


Much easier. I still have some computer science things where I need to have things like summations in fractions, and I am rapidly thinking of drawing them with the Microsoft Equation Editor and saving them as .png.
:Dan, [[CZ:Ready for approval]] contains this sentence: '''"Any user, author or editor, may add an article to the list below but an editor from the relevant workgroup(s) may remove an article if it is deemed unready for the attention of approving editors."''' That makes it very clear that you, or any other author or editor, can simply place [[Associated  Legendre function]] in that list. I have done that with many of articles that I created ... but only when they have a Status of 1 (Developed) in their Metadata templates.  [[Associated  Legendre function]] has a Status of 1 in the Metadata template, so there is no reason why you or Paul cannot place it in [[CZ:Ready for approval]].  That doesn't guarantee it will be approved ... it just alerts editors that it is considered to be ready for approval. Also, even if it is subsequently nominated for approval by an editor or editors, another editor in the relevant workgroup(s) can object to the nomination or, indeed, stop the nomination process. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 03:17, 3 September 2009 (UTC)


[[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 15:07, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
::Thanks Milton. I realize that placing the article on the Ready for Approval list guarantees nothing. The article still has to go through review by the editor or editors. I just want to put it on the list so there is nothing on the author's side of the equation that is left undone. Since Paul wrote most of the article (I and a collaborator wrote most of the proof on the Proof's sub-page) I still would like to get Paul's view on the question. He is in a better position to determine whether the main article is ready or not. I would feel uncomfortable putting it on the list without his agreement. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 04:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)


== Quantum Mechanics ==
:::Dan, I did not intend to leave the impression that you should leave Paul out of the loop. I was only trying to answer your question of: So, who decides that an article is both "developed" and "ready for approval"?  In any event, it seems that all is clear now. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 08:33, 3 September 2009 (UTC)


Hi, I'd like to try and finish off the [[Quantum Mechanics]] article (at least, the introductory part of the article - that's all I have the ability to work on), and (gasp!) get it approved. Do you have time to work on it with me? Thanks! [[User:J. Noel Chiappa|J. Noel Chiappa]] 13:50, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Paul. I am having trouble understanding why you haven't responded to my question whether you have any objections to adding the Associated Legendre Functions article to the "Ready for Approval" list. Do you think the article isn't ready for approval? If so, would you describe the problems that need to be solved so I can work on them?  If you think it is ready for approval, would you either put it on the list or let me know and I will do that? Thanks. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 16:14, 4 September 2009 (UTC)


== [[U.S. customary units]] ==
:Dan, there is not much that we can do, we have to wait until Jitse reacts.
:Another thing, maybe you don't know that TeX and LaTeX traditionally have two modes for math: a display mode and an in-line mode. The non-Wiki TeX/LaTeX has different directives for this distinction. Most (longer) math formulas belong in display mode, which means that they are in an otherwise empty block of the screen, without text. Only very brief formulas ought to be in-line and only very small pieces of text appear in display mode.  You do not separate the two modes, which to me is not very elegant. If you don't mind, I can format your proof page somewhat.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 16:32, 4 September 2009 (UTC)


Hi, Paul: When you have a few minutes to spare, take a look at [[U.S. customary units]] and let me have any comments you may have. Thanks, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 23:58, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
::Absolutely. Please fell free to format the formulas in the proof so their appearance is improved. Shall I add the article to the "ready for approval" list? [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 16:52, 4 September 2009 (UTC)


== Your testimony ==
:::Yes you can do that. Tomorrow I will do the formating. Yet one more thing: we usually indent on talk pages until it gets out of hand, then we either start a new thread or write "unindent". This makes it easier for others to see who said what.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 17:07, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Please [[CZ:Why I contribute to CZ|let us have it]]! --[[User:Larry Sanger|Larry Sanger]] 21:06, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


I sympathize with your concerns and would like to come to a resolution about them, but your comment on [[CZ:Why I contribute to CZ]] does not seem appropriate, since it does not really answer the question, and actually ''undermines'' the community-boosting (PR) purpose of the page.
:::: Done. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 18:09, 4 September 2009 (UTC)


We should talk about the sentiments you've expressed about editor roles.  I ''do'' support editors removing text and whole articles, but this is rule-governed.  I have removed articles myself on many occasions, when editor decisions have been made.  But if there is some objection to the deletion, there has to be some mechanism to avoid total lawlessness, as it were. And there is a separate problem about deletions when a topic is clearly an ideological or otherwise highly controversial one, and also when both disputants are editors.  I hope you would agree that rather too many editors would simply delete everything they happen to disagree with, if they were left unchecked.  That, moreover, would cause the authors to exit en masse. If we wish to remain an open community, we must walk a fine line. The root problem here does not have to do so much with editors-versus-authors so much as with dispute resolution in an open, bottom-up community. On this problem we have a decided advantage over Wikipedia: our editors ''can and do'' make important content decisions from time to time, and these decisions ''are'' respected by authors and other less-expert editors. --[[User:Larry Sanger|Larry Sanger]] 16:17, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
:::::Unless, of course, you belong to a fairly adamant minority who insist that there's some academic method of NOT using indents. The CZ rules aren't 100% clear about which is preferable, so I've given up insisting on the indention rules.  Mostly.... [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 20:13, 4 September 2009 (UTC)


Cf. [http://mail.citizendium.org/pipermail/cz-editcouncil/2008-November/date.html a recent discussion on cz-editcouncil] and especially [http://mail.citizendium.org/pipermail/cz-editcouncil/2008-November/000545.html my most recent post.] --[[User:Larry Sanger|Larry Sanger]] 16:30, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
:::::: In regards to indentation style, I'm easy. I prefer an indent per Citizen, so the Citizen that begins the discussion is always non-indented, the first Citizen to reply is always indented by one, etc. That allows one to keep track of who is saying what. But, like I said I really have no hard preference. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 20:22, 4 September 2009 (UTC)


== Euclid ==
:::::::Hayford, click on the Edit tab above and read the blue banner at the top. Seems to me thatit clearly spells out what CZ prefers ... and it was discussed thoroughly on the Forums before Chris Day created that banner. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 21:19, 4 September 2009 (UTC)


When I did the outline in his article I hadn't noticed there was a separate one. I just noticed that shortly before getting your message, & decided to pause for thought about what should go where. Have we got any relevant policy/guideline? [[User:Peter Jackson|Peter Jackson]] 11:07, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
::::::::For pity's sake, Milton, I *know* what it says! And I *know* that we *almost* all agreed to it. BUT the CZ style manual, or guidelines, or whatnot *also* has some weasel words about the academic method -- which *some* people still insist on using. And still they still argue about it -- see Tom Morris, for instance. So even though *most* of us agree to use the indents, it's not 100%, mainly because the nice blue box at the top of the page is just something that some of us cobbled together -- it's not 100% official. So, as I've said, I've given up arguing with the absolutely adamant opponents about it. [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 21:49, 4 September 2009 (UTC)


As it happens I'm rereading Euclid, so I'll add things as I go along. [[User:Peter Jackson|Peter Jackson]] 11:55, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
[Unindent]


== Aether ==
Paul. We are getting no response from Jitse. It appears Peter Schmitt is once again responding to CZ matters. Shall I ask him to review the article for approval? [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 19:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


You've already put in more than I knew. This is a pretty minor character in Greek mythology & I don't know whether there's much more worth saying. [[User:Peter Jackson|Peter Jackson]] 10:40, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
:Paul. I can't remember where you asked me if I could come up with a proof for the second orthogonality relation, so I am leaving this here. As I stated, I asked a former colleague (a theoretical physicist by training) if he would take a crack at it. I just received his response. He has company this weekend, but said he would give it a shot next week. Since he doesn't know and so far has no interest in learning mediawiki markup, anything he creates will be in MS Word. I will then have to translate it into MW markup. I will let you know if and when we have something. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 22:25, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


== credit ==
:: Paul. You are probably monitoring the Associated Legendre Functions cluster, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to mention here that I have added the proof to the 2nd and 3rd equations in the Orthogonality relations section and slightly adjusted the text in the main article to reflect that. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 16:57, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


That makes sense. Maybe we need a way to indicate that choice on the images credit template, so others do not come and change it after the fact? [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 15:55, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
== Genethlialogy ==


:I agree, if only that if I am uploading a number of images, each additional operation slows the process. If I'm putting something into public domain, it's not all that necessary to have credit.
I just asked my sister the astrology guru about this baloney and contrary to what she had told me months ago, she doesn't know anything about it.  I have checked WP on this, and they have a *huge* article about it.  Since none of us have any interest at all in it as far as I can tell, I suggest that we simply delete this one as being "unmaintainable". Since you're the author who originally created it and put in most of the content, you have the right, according to Matt the other Kop, to ask that it be deleted.  If you formally ask me to delete it, therefore, I will....


:In fact, there are times where one may not want to have one's name on an image. A friend of mine is a U.S. Army soldier and photographer. When she takes a picture in her official role, it is public domain, but the archives do show her name. She accepts that any group may use her public domain images, but has strenuously objected when her name is attached to the image, and placed on an partisan web page with which she totally disagrees. She believes it's fair (although not required) for them to say it was U.S. Army, but her name is not to be used as an implied endorsement. [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 16:20, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Best, [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 18:33, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


::I'll try and adjust the templates to reflect the ideas here. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 18:53, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
:Sorry to butt in here, but something about the name Genethlialogy intrigued me. Not that I would argue against deleting the article as unmaintainable, but there appears to be material on this topic elsewhere. For example, the Encyclo On-line Encyclopedia has a definition (http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/Genethlialogy) - casting (I assume a horoscope) for one newly born. The Encyclopedia Britannica appears to have information about it (although it appears to be a couple of sentences inside an article on another topic - Astrology?). Perhaps whatever has already been written about this topic could be merged into the Astrology article? [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 22:45, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


===Aristotle===
::Sure, it could be merged if someone wanted to do it. What I was saying above is that this is a very short article written by people who have no real interest in it, or knowledge, and that, given its length, there's no particular reason to keep it. [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 06:09, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


Looks good! Maybe someone could go into his 'physics' in detail...?
:::Hayford, you always say that you are an inclusionist, why would you delete the article? It gives some correct info, doesn't it? When I met the word (in a book by E.J. Dijksterhuis that has been translated into English, German, and French; Dijksterhuis uses the term on p. 170 of the Dutch edition in a chapter on astrology in the medieval Islamic culture) I did not know  what genethlialogy  meant. The article gives enough info to read Dijksterhuis' chapter. And what is there to maintain, are there any developments in the field? If there are any, I don't think that we fail terribly  if we do not immediately  report on them.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 08:00, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


[[User:Martin Cohen|Martin Cohen]] 13:44, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
::::Hi, Paul, sorry, I didn't see your comment until just now.  As you say, I *am* an inclusionist.  I thought that you were the person who originally said it might be deleted.... In any case, the reason I thought this *might* be deleted is that it's such a barebones article as compared to the *very* lengthy WP article -- it gives so little information that I thought it looked bad by comparison.  If we had a couple of Howards working on it fulltime, my opinion would be different but its existence seems to be met by total ennui.  On the other hand, an astrology *may* come along tomorrow and want to expand it, so let's let it stand! [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 20:22, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


== Yes, it was Lucien Conein... ==
== Suggested revision of lead-in sentence for [[Clausius-Clapeyron relation]] ==


I found the error most easily in links, but you appear to have found it in text that was much harder to see. Thanks!
Paul, please take a look the Talk page of the [[Clausius-Clapeyron relation]] article. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 15:54, 12 September 2009 (UTC)


[[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 16:03, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
== Natural gas ==


== Mesmerism, complementary and alternative medicine, alternative medicine, etc. ==
Hi, Paul, just want to let you know that I have started work on [[Natural Gas]] as promised. After I ported it from WP:
*I deleted sections I thought just did not belong in the article such as the sections on biogas, town gas and gas pricing (which changes almost on a daily basis).
* I added new sections on gas composition, geological formation, exploration for new gas reservoirs and extraction (i.e., drilling and production)... all of which were not included in the WP article.
* I extracted parts of the WP article and reassembled them into a new section on "Measurement units and heating values".
* I completely reformatted the order of the various new and existing sections in what I think is a more logical sequence.
* Whenever I see something I don't understand because of my limited knowledge of gas exploration and extraction or that I cannot independently verify, I delete it rather than take any chances that it might be incorrect. Some experienced petroleuom geologist may come along sooner or later and add more content that he/she feels is needed.


Your input at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Complementary_and_alternative_medicine would be very welcome. We are still feeling our way as to how a structure should evolve.
I would estimate that I am now about 50% complete. I still have 2-3 excessively lengthy sections of the WP article that I want to trim down drastically. I also have quite a bit of rewording in mind as well.  


Having noticed you removed a section about [[mesmerism]], would that be a potential sub-theory of alternative medicine?  Should there be an intermediate-level article about magnetic field therapy, which does include some mainstream research?
When I have it ready to load into the article mainspace, I will contact you to see if you want to review and comment on it before I load it as a new article. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 00:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


[[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 19:25, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
== This is how to create &#8467; ==


== Related articles subpage ==
Paul, I created this &#8467; by using this HTML character entity: '''& #8467;''' &nbsp; (but without the space between & and #). [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 07:55, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


Paul, I made some edits to the [[Electromagnetism/Related_Articles]] subpage to give you an idea of the type of thing I have been doing on biology pages. I don't think what I have done on the electromagnetism page is necessarily correct (I'm sure the hierarchy and placement of some topics are redundant or incorrect), but I have tried to give you a flavour of what can be done. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 07:06, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
:Yes Milt, I discovered that too in the meantime. But the question is: how to get the symbol directly, without HTML code. If you look into the source of this message you  see ''ℓ''  and no code.  --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 08:08, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
:PS By copy paste of the representation of   & #8467; (without space)  I got ℓ. Thus, a bootstrapping procedure is possible, create the symbol once by the code, then preview and copy paste it. That is probably how the guy at WP does it. --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 08:15, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


:I threw that together quickly so it needs work. I was just trying to give you an idea of the structure and how there should be more breadth.
::I don't understand. Why copy and paste?? Why not just enter the HTML code each time on the edit page? It won't show on the article page, which is what is important ... is it not?  When would you want to get it directly? I have a sandbox that I call my storage box where I keep a lot of links and other stuff I want to be able to use at any time. I guess I could create this character and keep it there ... but retrieving it would take more time than just using the HTML code. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 08:28, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


:Other related topics should cover other areas in physics that are equivalent to electromagnetism with respect to the level in an imagined hierarchy.  It does not need to be exhautive though, I'm sure some of the topics I added could be axed. Those links do give a reader an option to jump to a different area within physics.
::: Because your source looks better. Compare &#8467;(&#8467;+1)&#x210F;<sup>2</sup>  with ℓ(ℓ+1)ℏ<sup>2</sup>. (Look at the source, not at the output!). --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 08:44, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


:Within the subtopics a link to electricity might be enough.  A reader interested in that topic would then click the [ [[Electricity/Related Articles|r]] ] link to get further subtopics in that area.  Likewise for magnetism a reader might click on that relevant [ [[Magnetism/Related Articles|r]] ] link. I have set up content at those two hyperlinks representing  the [[Electricity/Related Articles]] and [[Magnetism/Related Articles]] pages to help you see the big picture. In effect the related articles subpages becomes a browseable network where you can explore higher level topics as well as lower level topics. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 14:34, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
::::Okay, now I understand what you wanted. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 19:19, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


== Magnetic healing email ==
== [[Natural gas]] article ==


I didn't see it. [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 16:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Paul, I have completed the [[Natural gas]] article (in my sandbox)). If you want to review and suggest changes, I will wait a few days to hear from you before I move it into the main article namespace. My sandbox is at [[:User:Milton_Beychok/Sandbox]]. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 22:18, 21 September 2009 (UTC)


== I would appreciate your comments on [[Conventional coal-fired power plant]] ==
:Paul, as you may have noticed, David Volk nominated [[Natural gas]] for approval. Would you care to add your name to the approval? [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 16:05, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


Paul, if you have the time, I would very much appreciate any comments you may offer on [[Conventional coal-fired power plant]].
== About your review of the "Natural gas" article in my sandbox ==


Also, let me wish you and your family Happy Holdidays!! [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 04:23, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Many thanks, Paul. I re-worded your first item. As for your second item, I don't know how that discussion of retrograde condensation got repeated. I just deleted it entirely from the natural gas reserves section.


== Copyediting ==
When I load it into the namespace, I will list Engineering and Chemistry as the workgroup categories. I will do that after I get comments that I asked for from a new Engineering editor named [[User:Karl D. Schubert|Karl D. Schubert]].


Pleasure - & I haven't finished yet. Prepositions are monsters in all languages. I grew up saying 'bored with', and now here's a younger generation saying 'bored of'...! [[User:Ro Thorpe|Ro Thorpe]] 15:48, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
[[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 16:09, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
:I would leave bodies strewed across the grounds if I ever heard that! Say it ain't so! [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 15:53, 14 December 2008 (UTC)


::So, I opened a can of worms? --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 15:54, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
:Paul, I went ahead and moved [[Natural gas]] into the article namespace. I've notifed [[User:Karl D. Schubert|Karl D. Schubert]] where to find it. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 00:25, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


:::Illiterates abound. Especially if they're Republican presidents.... [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 16:21, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
== homeopathy reapproval ==


== Just a confirmation I received your email. ==
Since the [[homeopathy/Draft|homeopathy]] article is listed in the chemistry workgroup as well as health sciences and healing arts, you are eligible to join Matt in approval. Are you comfortable with the current draft?  Thanks much. --Joe ([[User:Approvals Manager|Approvals Manager]]) 01:46, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


I'll confirm by email as well. We are in substantial agreement, and there are some other issues as well. I'd like to hope they can be solved. [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 16:17, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
== Just completed an article on petroleum crude oil ==


==CZ Policy==
Paul, I just finished an article on petroleum crude oil in my sandbox at [[User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox]]. Feel free to comment on its Talk page. I have not yet run it through a spell checker, so there are probably spelling errors. I will probably load it into the article namespace tomorrow afternoon/evening. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 08:55, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Hi Paul, You wrote in your bio page
:" I hate it, however, when content that I contributed is removed without good explanation (in the associated talk page or my personal talk page). So, please, if you feel it necessary to delete some of my work (and possibly replace it with something else), explain to me why you think so."


Technically, you are correct. Deletions must be discussed here. If you feel your work has been deleted without good reason, revert the change and then place your concerns on the discussion page. If the deleter persists--even if they are an editor--restate your concerns and contact the CZ Constabulary if you would like the work to remain until deletions are justified. At the very least, changes that are challenged must be debated in a professional manner. CZ Constable [[User:Thomas Simmons|Thomas Simmons]] 20:35, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
== Thanks ==


== Good information ==
Paul, I just uploaded FireFox and, so far, I like it very much. Thanks for helping me with that. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 06:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


Goodness, Paul, a lot of that was [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Talk:Alternative_medicine_%28theories%29&diff=prev&oldid=100428040 good information]. Though, some might have gone over the top ;-).  Next time, if I see something that looks like a problem, I'll email you. Thanks for cleaning those up. [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 21:27, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
== About [[Thermodynamics]] ==


== [[Ideal gas law]] nominated for approval ==
Paul, I note that you have not made any contributions to the [[Thermodynamics]] article, which surprizes me since that ought to be right down your alley. It would be nice if we could get that article to the approval stage. Would you please review it and revise it as necessary? Does it need a section on non-equilibrium thermodynamics?


Hi, Paul. I have just nominated [[Ideal gas law]] for approval. Since I worked on that article to some extent, 2 more editors are required to join in the nomination. I am inviting you and David Volk to join me in the nomination. Regards and welcome back, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 17:57, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
<s>Also, the article links to [[Laws of Thermodynamics]] ... but when I go to [[Laws of Thermodynamics]], I find an almost useless stub of an article. Is the "Laws of thermodynamics" section of [[Thermodynamics]] inclusive enough for me to ask for speedy deletion of the [[Laws of Thermodynamics]] stub? [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 17:45, 10 October 2009 (UTC)</s>


== "Chemical bonding" section of [[Phosphorus/Draft]] ==
:Paul, just a gentle repeat of my request that you review the [[Thermodynamics]] article, please. Also, I crossed out the second part of my above post in this thread, because I have now taken care of that item as suggested by Daniel Mietchen on the [[Talk:Thermodynamics]]. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 21:45, 24 October 2009 (UTC)


Paul, just as a suggestion, if you want to get rid of all the white space in that section, why not caption all four of the images as Image 1, Image 2, Image 3 and Image 4 and '''locate all of them on the right hand side of the page'''. Then the text could run down the left hand side and you could change the wording where needed to refer to them as : "as in Image X" or "see Image X" or "as shown in Image X".
::Milt, the thermodynamics article is written in a way that I personally wouldn't write it (order of sections, presentation of second law, jokes that I don't understand, etc.). If I started to work on the article I wouldn't be able to resist making a major overhaul and I don't want to do that, especially since I'm far from an expert on classical thermodynamics (I failed only twice for an exam in my life, one was  my driver's license test—in Europe it is non-trivial—and the second was my classical-thermo exam in 1964—in both cases I passed second time around though). Further, I don't know anything about non-equilibrium thermo. On the other hand, my knowledge of  equilibrium statistical thermodynamics is OK.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 14:12, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


I think that the formatting would look as good if not better than as the section looks now ... because white space would be minimized. To repeat, just a suggestion. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 19:57, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
:::Thanks anyway,Paul. If you should change your mind, your comments or overhaul would be welcome and deleting the jokes would not bother me at all. My only interest in this article is that we need a good thermo article and I don't believe that this [[Thermodynamics]] import from Wikipedia has ever been thoroughly reworked. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 20:52, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


==Your attention to a minor detail==
== Are you willing to act as editor on the Sturm-Liouville article? ==


Take a look [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Boiling_point/Draft#Approval_Notice here]. [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 00:27, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Paul. I have attempted to work with Peter Schmitt on moving the Sturm-Liouville article towards approval. He has stated that he cannot assure me that he would ever approve it no matter how it is changed, since it contains material that was originally sourced at WP. I asked him if he would mind if I attempted to find a different editor to work with on the article. His answer was somewhat vague, so I sought clarification. However, I have been instructed by Hayford Pierce in his role as constable that if I continue to press Peter on the issue I run the risk of being cited for unprofessional behavior.


== deletion on angular momentum ==
Consequently, I am asking whether you would work with me on this article. I see you have made a number of minor stylistic edits to the article. I am not sure whether these constitute enough changes so that you cannot act as editor. The changes were small enough that I could easily back them out (after asking the constables if that is allowed) and make them myself. The reason I am asking you is we worked together on the Associated Legendre functions article and you have stated that you have never turned down a request to work with an author to improve an article so it is approvable.


I got your message re deletion on angular momentum.  It was a total mistake on my part and I am still not sure how it happened.  I can assure you, I also dislike it if someone makes any change without any discussion and I did not intend to make those changes.  Sorry for the trouble and Best wishes. 
If you are concerned that this work is tainted by the friction between Peter and I on the article, feel free to read the [[User_talk:Peter_Schmitt#Why_I_am_interested_in_getting_the_S-L_theory_article_approved | record of our interactions on his talk page]]. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 23:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
BTW I plan to submit the NMR article for approval by you, hopefully soon.
[[User:Sekhar Talluri|Sekhar Talluri]] 18:02, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


== More about [[Ideal gas law]] ==
:Dan, I'm not a mathematics editor, but I saw that you attached physics as a category, so I had a quick look.
:What interests me a lot is why the S-L eigenfunctions are complete. I looked at the section "Sturm–Liouville equations as self-adjoint differential operators" where its discussed that it is  a consequence of the resolvent of ''L'' being compact  due to the Arzelà–Ascoli theorem. I must admit that I had never heard of this theorem and I only have a vague notion of what a compact operator may be (I know what a bounded operator is and a compact operator much be close to it).  This section also states the well-known fact that eigenfunctions of the self-adjoint operator ''L'' are orthogonal. Given the level of the article such a statement seems sufficient to me, your proof of orthogonality does not add much for a reader who can understand the article.
:I checked the book by Margenau & Murphy. They give a fairly low-brow proof of the completeness, at least one that I can understand it. Would it no be better if we had a proof like that?
:In short, the subject is of such high level that either a mathematical physicist (which I am not) or a mathematician should have a look at it. An alternative is that we lower its mathematical level.
:--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 16:52, 13 October 2009 (UTC)


Paul, Daniel Mietchen has finished his editing of the article and has signed the Metadata page  as an Approval nominator. Chris Day and I also made some very minor edits this morning. The version to be approved has been updated to today's version of the article and the final approval date has been moved from Jan. 26th to Jan. 21st. Would you now please add your signature to the Metadata page as the third nominator, since we need three nominators. Thanks and regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 18:35, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
:: Thanks Paul. It is refreshing to receive direction that is both professional and obviously concerned about the problem at hand, i.e., improving the article so it is approvable. That said, I am unfortunately unable to pursue the course you set out, since I am not an expert in functional analysis and my understanding of operator compactness is less than yours. Furthermore, I do not have access to Margenau & Murphy, so I can't look at their proof of completeness. I think this example demonstrates that I am not an appropriate author in the area of this article. I have received a response from John Fletcher and he has decided to refrain from contributing a new article on S-L theory. So, it looks like this article will remain dormant until someone comes along with more expertise than I have in the subject. By the way, the proof of orthogonality is his, not mine.


== request for approval ==
:: Since my areas of expertise are networks and distributed systems and since there are reasons I choose not to work on articles in the computers and engineering workgroups, I think the only way I have to contribute to CZ at the moment is to help improve its software, fixing some bugs and perhaps working on the core software so that the modifications specific to CZ are factored into an extension. That is where I intend to work for the foreseeable future.


I submitted (or tried to) submit the NMR spectroscopy article for approval by yourself, david e. volk and Daniel Mietchen.  However, it says you have already nominated it - so I guess I edited the wrong page/place.  Can you fix this and review it anyway.[[User:Sekhar Talluri|Sekhar Talluri]] 00:01, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
:: P.S. Here is an ironic fact. If you Google "Sturm-Liouville theory orthogonality", the third hit on the list is the WP article and indented beneath it is a reference to John's orthogonality proof, which I left in my User space on WP. So, those searching for an orthogonality proof of S-L solutions will find it as the 6th reference on the Google list. [[User:Dan Nessett|Dan Nessett]] 17:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)


:Yes, your attention is needed [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Talk%3ANMR_spectroscopy&diff=100435430&oldid=100435428#Approval_potential here] [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 02:16, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
== Chemical elements ==


::I request you to review the [[NMR spectroscopy]] article for approval.  I have also requested D.E.Volk to review it.  Can you suggest the name of a third editor (if a third editor is required)?[[User:Sekhar Talluri|Sekhar Talluri]] 05:06, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Paul, what is your opinion on this [http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,2948.msg25195.html#msg25195 forum topic]?
(Discovered by Hayford in [[Special:DeadendPages]].) [[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 18:45, 27 October 2009 (UTC)


== [[Ideal gas law]] comments by [[User:Jitse Niesen]] ==
== Wasted a few hours and my face is red! ==


Paul, in case you have not already seen his comments, [[User:Jitse Niesen]] has raised some questions about the statistical mechanics derivation in the [[Ideal gas law]] article. They are at the bottom of the article's Talk page. Would you please address his comments? Thanks, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 18:05, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
I spent a few hours creating a drawing of a Carnot heat engine and finding/uploading a photo of Josiah Willard Gibbs and placing both of them in the [[Thermodynamics]] article. Some time later, I found that you had already created a drawing of a Carnot heat engine for the [[Energy]] article and mine is almost identical to yours ... and I also found that someone had already uploaded the same photo of Gibbs into [[Chemical thermodynamics]]. I could have saved myself a few hours of effort if I had only searched CZ a little better. Ah, well! [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 01:23, 31 October 2009 (UTC)


== Arrows with text above them ==
== The [[Second law of thermodynamics]] ==
Paul, I think I have come across text over arrows previously somewhere. Do you know how one does this?
I need something like that for [[Product operator (NMR)]], in which I would like to use arrows with the appropriate operator over it, for example (90)<sub>x</sub> above an arrow, instead of starting equation --> (90)x --> resulting equation. Thanks [[User:David E. Volk|David E. Volk]] 19:32, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


:Perhaps you are looking for \overset ? Example:
Paul, as you requested, I have reviewed the [[Second law of thermodynamics]] article to the best of my ability. Most of my changes, if not all, are just very minor rewording and copy editing. I have also raised a few more substantive questions on the article's Talk page that you should consider. I apologize for not having done more. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 20:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
::<tt>&lt;math>I_x \overset{\theta_y}\longrightarrow I_x \cos\theta + I_y \sin\theta&lt;/math></tt>
:yields
::<math> I_x \overset{\theta_y}\longrightarrow I_x \cos\theta + I_y \sin\theta </math>
:However, if you want to do it in text, then I wouldn't know how to achieve this. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] 11:35, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


I advised \stackrel, is there any difference?
== Template for chemistry ==
::<math> I_x \stackrel{\theta_y}{\longrightarrow} I_x \cos\theta + I_y \sin\theta </math>.
I don't see it. --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 12:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


:I had not seen your reply on David's talk page. I'm not sure about the difference; I definitely don't see any. Perhaps \stackrel is meant for relational symbols (like =, <, ≈) while \overset can be used more generally. There is also \xrightarrow which extends if necessary: <math> a \xrightarrow{\theta_x\circ\theta_y\circ\theta_z} b</math>. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] 11:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Paul, could you look at [[User talk:Milton Beychok#Properties]] and [[User talk:Milton Beychok#Property list]].
I have tried to provide a template requested on [[CZ:Wishlist]]. [[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 13:07, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


== ˚C ==
:I'm not fond of these things. It is lots of work to collect the data, and it is not clear how reliable they are (and in some cases what they mean). Information can be contradictory. For instance, I saw an oxygen atom template (which I cannot find any longer) that says that oxygen is a gas with '''molecular''' weight close to 16. This is wrong, but understandably wrong, because these templates force you to make these sorts of errors. In this case the template forces the user to switch back and forth between molecular oxygen O<sub>2</sub> and elemental oxygen O and it forces decisions on the user that may be questionable.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 14:28, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


I tracked it down to the {{tl|Unit}} template. It was set to be in bold italics. I edited it to be in [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Template%3AUnit&diff=100436709&oldid=100423663 plain text].  It is also set to be small, is that desirable, or should I set it to a regular size too? [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 17:16, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
:: The template was not my idea. It is supposed to replace the existing construction using a subpage for each entry.
:: Your reservations are, at least partially, taken care by the template: Without specifying ''compound'' or ''atom'' it can be used without any predefined entries. For the case, where such an option is used, comments would be useful <br> What data are so important that the entry should be provided as "required" default? Which entries should be offered as "optional"? Remarks like your comment that molecular and atomic mass are easily mixed up, is also important.
:: [[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 12:52, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


== Nomination/appointment ==
== The Book of God and Physics (A novel of the Voynich mystery) ==
Sorry, Paul, I realized that I misunderstood your question, which wasn't about senators at all. I'll post the answer (the correct one, I hope) on the Steven Chu talk page.  [[User:Bruce M.Tindall|Bruce M.Tindall]] 17:18, 28 January 2009 (UTC)


== &nabla; does not render in IE browser ==
Paul, I am reading a book entitled "The Book of God and Physics" written by a Spanish physicist named Enrique Joven that has been translated into English. It is about the an ancient book called the "Voynich Manuscript".


Hi, Paul:
I think you might enjoy it because it has a good bit of history dating back to the days of Kepler and Tycho Brahe.


I thought you might want to know that in the [[Green's function]] article, the section header for "Proof of Green function of ..." uses &nabla; and it renders as a small square on my IE6 browser. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 22:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Have you heard of this book? [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 06:35, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


== Spherical harmonics ==
:No Milt, I haven't heard of the Voynich mystery nor of Joven. Is the book worth buying? --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 08:12, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


Paul, that drawing you made for the [[Spherical harmonics]] article is absolutely marvelous! I wish the drawings I make to illustrate articles that I write were half as good.
::The book sells here for US$26 ... but the copy I am reading came from our public library. Perhaps a library near you may have a copy. I don't think I would spend $25 buying it. But it is quite interesting and you seem to have a passion for historical physics. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 08:40, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


Since you've used the words eigenfunctions/eigenvalues/eigenstates in quite a few articles that I am aware of, why not create the definition subpage for the [[Eigenvalue]] article and define those three words?? What do you think? Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 02:46, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
:::I doubt that our public library will have it. I live in a small village, and our library has hardly any books in English. You're right that I'm interested in the history of science, many of my articles have a history section. I don't think such sections hurt, somebody who doesn't share my interest can easily skip them (assuming that somebody reads my articles, which I seriously doubt. But who knows, maybe somebody will read some of them sometime in the future).--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 08:56, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


== Paul, take a look at [[User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox2]] ==
::::The Voynich manuscript isn't ancient, it's 17th century. Last I heard it was still undeciphered, though. [[User:Peter Jackson|Peter Jackson]] 11:36, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


By making the drawing smaller, moving it up a bit and not indenting the first equation, the white space has been much reduced. What do you think? Or is the drawing too small to be useful? [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 04:15, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
:::::Peter, as I learned when I worked in London for 6 years or so, 300 years is not ancient at all for Europeans ... but, for Americans like me, 300 years is almost pre-historic. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 18:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


:On the whole I agree, the only thing I don't like is that a sentence starts on the same line as a displayed equation; that I didn't copy.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 08:00, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
:::::Paul, give me your postal mailing address and I'll send you a copy of the book. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 18:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


::I leave it up to you. It was only a suggestion. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 16:50, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
== Boltzmann ==


:::Paul, I finally figured it out. I had my 19-inch monitor at a resolution of 1152x864 and the large white space was still there after you made the two changes. Then I changed my resolution to 1152x864 and the white space is completely gone. In other words, the appearance of articles that include drawings and photos can be very different depending on monitor size and display resolution.  
If it is not urgent then it is no problem.  
To get a good picture I would like to wait for nice weather with good light, and this has to coincide with a time
when I can go there. (The Zentralfriedhof is on the other side of the town where I rarely am.)
Now, in autumn/winter good light may be rare.
[[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 12:58, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


:::I guess the only way to be sure that everyone sees an article the same way is to always locate drawings and photos in the center of a page rather than the left or right side. I would also guess that very long LaTeX equations should also be on a line of their own and centered ... or else the equation may be displayed on two lines, because the LaTeX equations are .png images. That may also explain why the nabla is lost in the TOC ... because the TOC cannot accept images. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 18:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
== Herman Van Rompuy ==


== James Clerk Maxwell ==
Hi Paul,
I do not see why you redirect from [[Herman Van Rompuy]] to [[Van Rompuy]] &mdash; I would do it the other way round. --[[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 10:28, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


Paul, I think I'm done with [[James Clerk Maxwell]].  If you're happy with it, I'm willing to back its nomination for approval.  [[User:Russell D. Jones|Russell D. Jones]] 03:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
:That is because I made the mistake by starting out with Van Rompuy and I'm too lazy to move it. --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 10:35, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
:I'm done, too. Thanks and cheers, --[[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 10:38, 23 February 2009 (UTC)


== Physics editorship ==
== Element subpages ==


Hi Paul,
Hi Paul,
Milt pointed out to me that you are not a physics editor, and so I would like to encourage you to apply to become one. Cheers, --[[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 11:10, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
such mass deletions can be done by a bot if you can wait until they are allowed to run again. --[[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 15:12, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
:Also, consider that the information itself is useful, the format is the problem.  A bot might be able to reconfigurate that information, assuming we have a plan for what to do with it? [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 20:55, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 
== Complex numbers ==
 
Paul, please have a look at [[Talk:Complex number/Draft#correcting approved version]]. Can you help?
I will not mind if you make the 1/z passage a little more explicit, too. [[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 01:40, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 
:Re-approval of Version 2.1 completed.  Thanks for your participation! [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 15:16, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 
:: Paul, I replied to you (delayed) on my talk page. Best wishes! [[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 15:47, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 
== a Dutch professor ==
 
Hi, Paul,
 
Sorry about confusing the NL and Belgium -- I was drinking my morning coffee!  Now there's a prof at a NL university named Paul de Laat who has emailed saying that his *two* applications have never been attended to.  As far as *I* can tell, we never received an application.  Do you know anything about him?  Thanks! [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 16:20, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 
:I googled Paul de Laat and he seems to be a genuine philosopher working at the University of Groningen, a well-known university. I don't know him. --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 16:29, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 
::Yes, he says that he is Paul B. de Laat, Faculteit Filosofie, Universiteit Groningen, NL and has applied twice in the last two months with no response at all.  I find no records of his applications. Geez. [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 16:40, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 
:::I am corresponding with him through the Constabulary email and have asked him to reapply -- I'll be keeping a beady eye on the process this time! [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 18:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 
::::We finally got him registered as an Author -- he wasn't filling out 50 words in the bio space.  BUT apparently he also wasn't getting a warning saying that he hadn't done so.  I'll check this out and see if there's a bug in the system.  [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 20:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 
== Need your comment LaTex equation in [[Molar volume]]  ==
 
Paul, I just created a new article called [[Molar volume]]. It includes this equation
 
::<math>V_{\rm m} = \frac{\displaystyle\sum_{i=1}^{N}x_{i}M_{i}}{\rho_{mixture}}</math>
 
Should it be corrected to:\this?
 
::<math>V_{\rm m} = \frac{\displaystyle\sum_{i=1}^{N}x_{i}M_{i}}{\rho_{\rm {mixture}}}</math>
 
In general, what are the rules for when to use italics and when to use non-italics?


== New editorship ==
Thanks in advance. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 03:23, 13 January 2010 (UTC)


Dear Dr. Wormer--on the recommendation of your fellow editors, I've made you an editor in the Physics Workgroup. Thanks for your work! --[[User:Larry Sanger|Larry Sanger]] 14:23, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
:Milt, definitely the second, but I would use \mathrm{mixture}. (I forgot the difference between \rm and \mathrm but somehow I remember that \mathrm works better). According to the AIP style manual, words (like: total, in, out, mixture, etc.)  in math must be roman also when used as sub- or superscripts. Also in roman must be: chemical symbols (O, Ne), units (Hz, J), and mathematical functions: cos, exp, etc. Personally I would write "mixt" instead of "mixture" in equations. --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 06:29, 13 January 2010 (UTC)


:Sorry, I'm late to the party. This new editor will be a valuable addition to the physics group and the history of science subgroup (if and when!).  Congrats!  [[User:Russell D. Jones|Russell D. Jones]] 15:09, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
:: May I drop in? It should be \text (and I think that \textstyle looks better)
::::<math> V_{\rm m} = \frac{\textstyle\sum_{i=1}^{N}x_{i}M_{i}}{\rho_{\text {mixture}}} </math>
:: The reason for \text (\textrm is not scriptstyle): There is a difference between the spacing of math fonts and of text fonts reflecting the fact that -- in math mode -- single letters represent variables while in text they are combined to words.
::: <math> diff \qquad \textit{diff} </math>
:: Therefore, if italics, it should be \textit. But, moreover, "mixt(ure)" should be Roman, not Italics, because it is not the name of a variable (cf. "\log" and "log"). This is often not considered in books and journals when authors are not advised by (competent) editors.
:: \rm provides \mathrm, I think (needs checking), but does not take an argument, i.e. {\rm text} and \mathrm [text} are equivalent, I suppose. Curiously, \mathrm and \textrm show no difference:
::: <math> \mathrm {diff} \qquad \textrm {diff} \qquad \rm diff </math>
:: I shall have to try this off-wiki --[[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 12:06, 13 January 2010 (UTC)


== Is [[Ernest Rutherford]] ready for approval? ==
== [[Edward Teller]] ==


I don't know enough about him to know, but the article looks pretty well developed. What do you think? --[[User:Joe Quick|Joe Quick]] 00:34, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Paul, what is lacking with Edward Teller that we would prevent it from being approved? [[User:Russell D. Jones|Russell D. Jones]] 01:11, 31 January 2010 (UTC)


:To give a short answer: no, not ready. The article is not complete enough. The years 1911 (model of atom), 1919 (splitting of the nucleus), and 1930 (promotion to "Baron Rutherford of Nelson") are lacking. Chairmanship of the Royal Society must be mentioned. Further, IMHO, the chronological order of the article is somewhat inconsistent. So let's wait until somebody extends the article. --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 11:11, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
:Not much, maybe a few more references? On the other hand, as I stated several times on the Forum, once it is approved, it is hard to change it. And who knows, you or I may read something interesting in the future that then will be hard to add. --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 13:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)


== Kinematics article ==
::Another thing: WP has a section about Teller and the Israel A- and H-bombs. Teller doesn't say anything about this in his ''Memoirs''. The WP section is based on one book only (that I haven't seen and I don't know its trustworthiness). Since the fact whether or not Israel possesses nuclear weapons is formally top-secret, I decided not to chase after that book and to skip the topic altogether.  Any opinion anyone? --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 14:04, 31 January 2010 (UTC)


Hello Paul,
== Need your help ==


In the "Why I contribute ..." page you mention, "... tried to remove something from an article ...".
Paul, Meg Ireland just corrected the spelling of one word in [[Amine gas treating/Draft]]. Since you never worked on that article and since you are a Chemistry editor, would you please nominate the article for single-editor re-approval so that the spelling will be corrected in the approved version? Thanks, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 06:18, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


If that is the issue about kinetics in the Kinematics article,  
:Milton, I filled out the template as best as I could, but I'm not sure I did it correctly (the same as with my Dutch IRS form). --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 12:18, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
please go ahead and change it as you wish.  No objections from
me. Regards, [[User:Peter Lyall Easthope|Peter Lyall Easthope]] 17:57, 25 February 2009 (UTC)


:No Peter, I didn't think of kinematics at all when I wrote that. I had to check what I wrote, because my memory is not as good as that of  [[memory of water|water]].--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 14:40, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
::Hi Paul (and Milt), since the change that Meg made was only a wikilink spelling change to a wikilink that Milt had added, I was able to make the change as a copyedit (since it was not a content edit) to the Approved version.  I did add your name, Paul, to the Approval editors' list as another approving editor (which you can do to any chemistry article that you find can recommend. [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 17:43, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


== Franklin and electricty ==
== Subpages and Properties ==


Hi Paul.  When you get a chance can you head over to [[Benjamin Franklin]] and have a look at the section on his experiments with electricity?  I know you've already seen it once, but I'd like to get a second opinion from you on the accuracy and clarity of it.  I'm not sure I've written it in a manner that is easy to understand and adequately conveys all the main points.  Thanks. --[[User:Todd Coles|Todd Coles]] 03:11, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi Paul,
: Thanks for the comments, I'm going to move them over to the article talk page for reference.  --[[User:Todd Coles|Todd Coles]] 21:27, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


== Review of [[Energy]] lead-in in your [[User talk:Paul Wormer/scratchbook]] ==
Just thought I'd post this:


Paul, the first 3½ paragraphs look very good to me and I only made two very minor changes. I changed "let our planes fly" to "lets our planes fly" ... and "carbondioxide" to "carbon dioxide".
http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,3054.0.html


However, as you will note, I strongly suggest striking out all of the discussion about using the warm cooling water to melt ice. It is a complete distraction from the main subject of the lead-in. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 23:38, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
here for you in case you were willing to relocate our discussion over there...--[[User:David Yamakuchi|David Yamakuchi]] 01:42, 9 February 2010 (UTC)


:Milton, with regard to the part you striked out. Larry asked:
== Need more comments from you on the Talk page of [[Water]] ==
::''First, what kinds of energy can't be converted into work? Second, I have a philosophical question for you: in virtue of what do you call "energy" whatever it is that can't be converted into work? If it can't be converted into work, there must be something else that makes you call this thing/process/state "energy." What is it? (And why aren't we just using whatever your answer is to that question as the definition of "energy"?) ''
:I tried to answer the question why the thermal energy (the 60% "loss" of a fossil power plant) can be seen as a form of energy, although it is not converted into work or electrical energy. It occurred to me that the thermal energy contained in the cooling water ''can'' be converted into work if we have a temperature bath of 0 K;  using that fact I tried to answer Larry. Maybe you have a less convoluted  answer to Larry's question? --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 00:34, 7 March 2009 (UTC)


== More about the lead-in section of [[Energy (science)]] in your Scratchbook ==
==Would like to have your comments==


Paul, this is in response to your last posting on my user Talk page. In the words of Professor Higgins in the "My Fair Lady" musical: "By Jove, I think you've got it!" or something to that effect. In other words, I very much like what you have now ... and I suggest that you put on your new Physics Editor hat and move on to revise the lead-in of the actual [[Energy (science)]] article. As an Engineering Editor, I agree completely with what you have now in your Scratchbook. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 20:57, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
After discussion on the Talk page of [[Water]], I entered the Freezing point of water as "Not measurable" in response to the comments made by you and Daniel Mietchen. David Yamakuchi's subpage transclusion has now revised it to  " 0 °C* " ... which has me at a loss. Please visit the [[Water]] Talk page and offer your comments. I really don't know what to do about this. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 05:56, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


== Webmail ==
::Chris Day has now reverted it back to "Not measurable". So all is now well (if it just stays that way). [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 06:23, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


Yes, I received it. I had had a similar problem a few months ago, when I had to use webmail until I rebuilt my computer software, and lost your address in the process. I have it now. [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 22:24, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
== Please look at [[pH]] ==


==Hydrodesulfurization Approval ==
Paul, please look at my rewrite of the [[pH]] article and correct all my mistakes. Also look at its Talk page and comment on my suggestions as to what sections it still needs. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 06:31, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Paul, can you also approve this article?  I made one figure for it, so we will need you and Milton for approval.
[[User:David E. Volk|David E. Volk]] 17:44, 16 March 2009 (UTC)


== articles for approval ==
:Milt, I'm still in Florida (without books). On Thursday and Friday I'm flying back and after recovering my jetlag I'll have a better look at the pH article.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 16:03, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 
== Redlinks and lemma articles ==


Hi Paul,
Hi Paul,
Milton Beychok has recently listed the articles on [[Vapor pressure]], [[Relative volatility]], and [[Specific heat ratio]] at [[CZ:Ready for approval]].  Could you have a look and see whether you'd be willing to put them up for approval?
I remember that you have been critical of [[CZ:Lemma articles]], so I would appreciate your comments on [http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,3065.0.html this thread] at the Forums. Thanks! --[[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 09:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks,
 
[[User:Joe Quick|Joe Quick]] 15:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
== The [[pH]] article ==
 
Paul, if you are back home now and over the jet lag, please look at the [[pH]] article when you have the time and revise/edit/expand/correct or whatever. Regards and I hope you had a good time in Florida, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 04:51, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 
== Well-posed problem ==
 
Reacting to a question by Milt I have started [[well-posed problem]] and tried to explain the correspondence between physics and mathematics.
It may need checking by a physicist. --[[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 00:43, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 
==PageRank experiment==
Hey, Paul, check out this:--[[User:Thomas Wright Sulcer|Thomas Wright Sulcer]] 17:34, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 
Check out the wikitable: [[User talk:Thomas Wright Sulcer/sandbox11|Experiment -- CZ articles by Google Pagerank]] I did a mini-study of CZ articles chosen randomly, from different authors. The google search was '''"Article name" citizendium''' -- that's it, with the article title in quotes. Sometimes CZ articles came first, but surprisingly many times the "Related Article" pages, "Catalog" pages, or "Workgroup" pages BEAT OUT THE ACTUAL ARTICLE. Clearly something's wrong here. It confirms my suspicion that the related-articles subsystem confuses the Google crawlers, so that they can't figure out '''what links to what''' and as a result, CZ's web exposure suffers bigtime.----[[User:Thomas Wright Sulcer|Thomas Wright Sulcer]] 17:34, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 
Wondering what you think?--[[User:Thomas Wright Sulcer|Thomas Wright Sulcer]] 17:34, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 
== If you have the time and inclination, please comment on [[Venturi tube]] ==
 
Paul, I would appreciate your comments or any errors you see in [[Venturi tube]]. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 05:21, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
 
:By now, I guess that you have seen that I incorporated your comments into the [[Venturi]] article. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 15:52, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
 
== Plane ==
 
Paul, you ask about inserting your text into [[plane (geometry)]].
I'm not sure. Boris' page is about the idea of a plane, while you describe its representation in 3-dimensional analytic geometry.
Currently I think that it would better fit into some page devoted to coordinate geometry of 3-space.
 
A few observations:
* You use both bold and an arrow for vectors. Isn't this an overkill?
* What is the meaning of ^n (on some, but not all n?
* The notation is a little confusing: (a_x,a_y,a_z) for vector a, but (x,y,z) for vector r defining point X. It could be more systematic.
 
--[[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 11:36, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 
: Boris' article is about a plane in 3-dimensional Euclidean space; note that he gives the equation ''ax+by+cz'' = ''d''. In the strategy of becoming more and more technical in going down an article, my piece wouldn't be out of place somewhere at the end of the article, I think. 


:I haven't seen replies from any of the other editors I asked about these articles. I don't mean to pester you, but getting approval rolling on even one of them would be a definite positive. --[[User:Joe Quick|Joe Quick]] 03:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
:I use arrows on top of "arrows" (directed line segments), the symbol under it doesn't have to be bold. Column vectors (three real numbers) are bold in my notation, without arrow on top. They are defined with respect to a frame, while "arrows" don't need a frame.  The hat on a vector indicates a unit vector, in physics this quite a common usage. I could use (r_x, r_y, r_z) instead of (x, y, z), if you think that's better.


::I have been away from the internet for over a week and I'm back now. I contacted David Volk some time ago about dividing the approval between us. Since he didn't answer I'll read all three and see whether they are approvable. --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 15:59, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
:--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 11:51, 30 March 2010 (UTC)


:::Great, thanks! --[[User:Joe Quick|Joe Quick]] 16:03, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
:: Yes, he mentions the equation, but his article is a survey of different methods to define the plane in 3-space, and going into details with one approach would make it necessary for the others, too. He avoided, I think, on purpose to introduce technicalities. Moreother, you implicitely assume even more knowledge about 3-space and vectors (you use vectors and free vectors, length of and angles between vectors). <br> I still think that it would fit nicely into [[Analytic geometry in 3-space]] (or similar). Let's see what Boris thinks.
:: I know that your notation comes from usage in physics. But I did not know about the hat, and I wondered why the hat is only used sometimes. (It just occcurs to me that you do not really need the normed vector at all, in this connection.)
:: --[[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 12:37, 30 March 2010 (UTC)


::::Hi Paul, I made a few changes to [[Specific heat ratio]]. Please take a look. --[[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 10:24, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
:::* I replaced the hat by an arrow.
:::*The unit vector is indeed not really necessary in the equation, but conventional. At the end  of my piece I give an equation that only uses the vector '''a'''.  
:::*The fact that knowledge is used that is not really defined in the same article would be a deadly sin in a textbook, but remember CZ is an encyclopedia.
:::*I'm completely prepared to give other equations for the plane (plus drawings) but before I spend time I wanted to hear the opinion of math editors.
:::--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 13:22, 30 March 2010 (UTC)


== About the [[Energy (science)]] article ==
== Regarding the writing of an article about catalysis ==


Hi, Paul: I hope you are enjoying your vacation in California. If you could persuade Daniel Mietchen to review, comment upon, or revise the math portions of the [[Energy (science)]], I think that the article would then be ready for approval nomination ... what do you think?
Paul, my knowledge of catalysis is quite limited. I know what and how catalysts are used in many of the petroleum refining processes. But I know nothing about the chemistry of catalysis.


The math is beyond my ability and that is why I suggest a review by Mietchen. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 17:40, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
I took a look at the WP article on catalysis. I could port it here to CZ, do some rewording, delete a few bits that I think are not needed, and put it into CZ form (move "See also" to Related Articles subpage, move "External links" to External Links subpage, check all of the references to see if they are still active and that they are credible references, and replace their wiki links to WP articles with wiki links to CZ articles).


:I've been back in Holland and I'm now in CA again. I have my doubts about approving [[Energy (science)]]. It is a very broad subject and it would be good if people from several subdisciplines of physics, chemistry, and engineering worked on it. That's why I gave it status 2, not 1. And, Milton, you surely are able to read the subsections on thermodynamics, chemical reactions, and electric energy. I was also toying with the idea to include part of [[Electromagnetic wave#Relation between power densities]] in this article. Finally, would it be an idea to split off the subsections of [[Energy (science)]] as separate articles?--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 16:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
But I would have to assume that the content of the WP article is correct ... which  may be unwise. But at least we would have an article that other Citizens might someday critically review and revise as needed. What do you think? [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 21:23, 4 April 2010 (UTC)


::I had a cursory look at the article and think it is not ready for prime time yet. In particular, it would profit from illustrations (other than the math) for each of the types of energy described there, and the pictured examples (say, a dam for potential energy) could then help to provide the narrative flow that binds the story together. As for splitting it up, I think the opportunity for this kind of encyclopedia is to provide an overview that is coherent across disciplines, and even though the current title may still not be optimal, I would prefer to have the subject covered coherently in there (as I just suggested over at [[salt]], following the example of [[water]], none of which is easy). We can always start complementary "main articles" on any of the subtopics if that section explodes. --[[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 10:39, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
:Milton, I have problems understanding the lede of the WP article on catalysis. For instance:
::''Catalysts may affect the reaction environment favorably, e.g. acid catalysts for reactions of carbonyl  compounds form specific intermediates that are not produced naturally, such as osmate esters in osmium tetroxide-catalyzed dihydroxylation of alkenes, or cause lysis  of reagents to reactive forms, such as atomic hydrogen in catalytic hydrogenation.''
:Why do they (WP authors) say "affect reaction environment"  when they mean that "carbonyl intermediates are formed"? What does it mean that these intermediates are "not produced naturally"? Is "natural" the same as "in absence of an osmium catalyst"? Why is osmium tetroxide an "acid catalyst"? (A compound is acidic if it is either a proton donor or an electron-pair acceptor. There are no protons, so OsO<sub>4</sub> is an electron-pair acceptor? Did you know that? I did not.) What is an "osmate ester" and what is "lysis"?  It all sounds very technical and detailed ("an osmate ester as an intermediate in dihydroxylation of an alkene") to me, and hardly illuminating. 


== Vector rotation and uncertainly principle ==
:However, the WP article could be a start provided we trim everything that is not clear, or else explain it. --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 08:22, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
Paul, would you be interested in adding to either [[Vector rotation]] which I started or [[Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle]] which I stumbled on? [[User:David E. Volk|David E. Volk]] 17:05, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


== Raymond Chandler ==
==Cool mathematical animation==
I uploaded this "gif" file animation from the Wikimedia Commons. Do you or Milton know in which mathematical articles it might be used? Or perhaps in astronomy? (Note: I've since been told by technical people not to load any more animations or large image files FYI). Here's the image:<small>...said</small> [[User:Thomas Wright Sulcer|Thomas Wright Sulcer]] ([[User_talk:Thomas Wright Sulcer|talk]]) {{#if:19:44, April 5, 2010|19:44, April 5, 2010|}}
[[Image:Comparison of Eccentricity.gif|thumb|right|250px|alt=Animation|Two orbits that differ by eccentricity.]]
Thomas, PLEASE sign your postings. All you have to do is type <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> and your post will be automatically signed and dated.  As for the gif, I am not a mathematician. You would do much better by contacting [[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]]. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 04:06, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


I did?! Foolish me! Well, I wuz younger then, and more optimistic. What I seem to have discovered in my 2 years at CZ is that I can start a lot of articles; carry through on many of them, although not to the point where I judge that there is absolutely nothing more to say; and, on many of them, simply not bear to go to back to them. It's hard to say exactly why, but I think there are two primary reasons:
::I had seen that animation too (although I cannot locate it anymore) and found it very illuminating. It compares the motion of a planet in an elliptic orbit with a planet moving in a circle. Note that the circular motion is uniform (regular) and that the motion in the elliptic orbit accelerates and decelerates. This behavior is governed by the second law of [[Kepler's laws|Kepler]] that states that in equal times equal areas are "swept". Note that the planet goes quite fast when it is close to the Sun (that is in the focus on the right) because it has to cover lots of surface area. On the left it can go much slower because the surface area to be swept is much "deeper".--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 06:41, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


I find the basic infrastructure work, such as putting in the references, correct footnotes, links to online sites (for, say, a NYT review in 1949 of South Pacific), and all that sort of stuff more and more tedious.
== The [[Catalysis]] article ==


No one else comes along to collaborate in any fashion at all. It's pretty rare that any of my stuff needs any trivial copyediting, so people aren't doing that and then maybe getting interested in doing some real contributions.
Paul: I gave up on porting the WP article. It was entirely too technical for me. If I delete all the parts that I don't understand, there would be very little of the article left.


I think if you take the two reasons and put them together you get something like: "Geez, look at the WP Raymond Chandler article, to which I contributed a certain amount five years ago: it's a gazillion words long, it has umpity-seven footnotes and a long scholarly apparatus, and even though it's now been dumbed down by the typical WP cretins, it's *still* a really daunting task for one man to even *consider* trying to emulate it here at CZ ALL BY HIMSELF."
Instead, I did a great deal of reading and note-taking ... and started from scratch. I am about half-way finished at this point. You might take a look at [[User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox]] and tell me what you think of it. I hope to get it finished to the best of my ability in the next 2-3 days. Then, hopefully, others more knowledgeable than I can go to work on it. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 03:52, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


Or at least that's probably what my subconscious is telling me. I got started pretty well on [[Richard Condon]], then sort of fell away. I almost finished an article about his first book, [[The Oldest Confession]], but can't quite bring myself to spend another two hours on it that would, I think, finish it off.
:Paul, I have finished and uploaded the [[Catalysis]] article you asked me to write. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 04:17, 10 April 2010 (UTC)


It's like when I ran out of steam in writing fiction about 10 or 12 years ago.  I *wanted* to, but just couldn't (and still can't) generate the ideas and outline them until they're a finished plot. Wish I could, but just can't....
== More "infrastructure" article needed ==


Anyway, I'll take another look at [[Raymond Chandler]] and see if I feel inspired to add to it.... [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 21:21, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Paul, in the past few days I have uploaded the new articles [[:Catalysis]] and [[:Chemical reaction]]. Writing those made me realize how many other basic "infrastructure" chemistry articles we still need. For example:
*[[Chemical bond]]
*[[Activation energy]]
*[[Acid-base]] with subsections entitled: "Arrhenius theory" or "Arrhenius definition", "Lewis theory" or "Lewis definition" and "Brønsted-Lowery" or "Brønsted definition"
Could you write those or do you know anyone else who can? We really need them. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 02:08, 12 April 2010 (UTC)


:Hammett I don't much care for. If someone wuz paying me, oh, $1 per word, I'd be happy to do it.  For free, I doubt it! [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 21:45, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
:Yes Milton I agree that we need them and I know that for quite some time. But somehow I don't feel challenged by these chemical articles. As a theoretical chemist I could very well write about chemical bonding and activation energy and out of sense of duty I will do it sometime, but somehow I'm not inspired (this is not helped by a bronchitis that I have since a few weeks).--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 05:18, 12 April 2010 (UTC)


== Maxwell equations ==
::I hope your bronchitis has run its course by now. Best wishes, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 15:41, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Paul, in [[Maxwell equations]], directly under the first 2 equations in the micro section you state:


where '''&nabla; &sdot; F''' gives the [[divergence]] of the [[vector field]] '''F''' and
:::Milton and Paul: I'll put [[Acid-base]] on my to-do list, try to start it near end of the academic year.  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 16:09, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
'''&nabla; &times; F''' gives the [[curl]] of '''F'''


but neither of these terms is actually in the first two equations.  Is this a typo?
== Please consider nominating [[Coal]] for Approval ==


[[User:David E. Volk|David E. Volk]] 03:08, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Paul, I think the [[Coal]] article is ready for Approval but I cannot nominate it since I worked on it quite a bit. Would you look at it and, if you think it worthy, nominate it for Approval? Thanks, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 15:40, 16 April 2010 (UTC)


== About recent edits of  [[Specific heat ratio]] which is due for approval in two days from now ==
:I had a quick scan and [[coal]] looks good. I will read it more carefully asap. My bronchitis shrank to a cough thanks to [[tetracycline]].--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 15:46, 16 April 2010 (UTC)


Paul, Daniel Mietchen has (a few hours ago) made a number of edits to the [[Specific heat ratio]] article and I agree with them. Most of them were just what I would consider to be minor copy edits. He also moved one of the sections out of the article and made it into a new article ... with which I have no objection.  
::Feel [[better]].--[[User:Thomas Wright Sulcer|Thomas Wright Sulcer]] 16:06, 16 April 2010 (UTC)


He also indicated a preference for using the Greek letter kappa (<math>\kappa</math>) rather than the Roman letter k to represent specific heat ratios so I made that change myself.
== Renamed [[Dimitri Mendeleev]] to [[Dmitri Mendeleev]] ==


I don't believe any of those edits warrants changing the approval date and I discussed that with Matt Innis (on his Talk page). He said that it was okay with him but that you should go into the Metadata page and change the version to be approved to the latest version. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 17:06, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, Paul. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 16:02, 21 April 2010 (UTC)


:Hi Paul, Milt found a suitable reference for the temperature dependence, and I have put it in and changed the permalink in the approval metadata. Please leave a brief note on the talk page once you have seen this change. Thanks! --[[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 09:24, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
== Coal article approved! ==


::Hi Paul, you did the correct thing in changing the link. I was referring to the process of actually doing the approval, i.e. moving and protecting the pages as well as updating the approval subpage. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 15:28, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Congratulations, Paul, the article at [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Coal] has been approved. [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 16:44, 26 April 2010 (UTC)


== Bentham ==
== Boltzmann ==


No, I really don't think it was inappropriate. There is a huge amount of material on Jeremy Bentham, literally going back for centuries. Yes, there are people here, including myself, who have cited peer-reviewed or academically published work in the sciences and engineering, in specialized areas where there is very little work. Historical figures like Bentham?  If the book in question had gotten major literary recognition, and was specifically on the subject, perhaps. [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 20:04, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Finally, I have visited the Zentralfriedhof and made pictures of Boltzmann's grave. I have selected four and uploaded them. You'll find them on recent changes. Hope you like one of them. --[[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 23:39, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


== No recent email ==
: I have inserted the picture. Is there a reason why you did not do it yourself?
: By the way, the picture you linked has been used by WP, but you hesitated to use it for copyright reasons?
: Well, I prefer it anyway that CZ is different from WP, and the new picture is not worse, I think.
: --[[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 11:06, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


Sorry,Paul -- nothing from you recently. [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 15:09, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
:::The reason I didn't do it myself is that I didn't know how you wanted the credit line. Now there is no credit line, but you can put your name there if you want.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 12:02, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


:Got it now; will try to reply today. [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 15:25, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
:::: It was the first time that I uploaded pictures -- whether borrowed ones or my one. I shall have to look what's usual. (If you detect other mistakes or omissions, please, let me know.) --[[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 13:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


== Images ==
== Diagram of the four major phases of matter ==


Hi Paul. I wonder if I could prevail upon you to use <code><nowiki>{{Image|...}}</nowiki></code> rather than <code><nowiki>[[Image:...]]</nowiki></code> when adding images to articles? This is the approved system, since it automatically shows credit lines when they are available. Even for images without credit lines at present, it should be used, so that credit lines can be added in the future if necessary. So, for example, the image on the page you just created should be <code><nowiki>{{Image|NE USA small.jpg|right|350px|}}</nowiki></code> rather than <code><nowiki>[[Image:NE USA small.jpg|right|350px|]]</nowiki></code>. Thanks! [[User:Caesar Schinas|Caesar Schinas]] 13:06, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
Paul, I added a diagram to the [[Condensation (phase transition)]] article that I wrote recently. I think that diagram might be useful in some of your physics articles ... what do you think? Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 21:15, 3 May 2010 (UTC)


== Upload Wizard ==
:Hi Milton, off-hand I cannot think of an article that could use it, but I keep it in mind.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 12:07, 4 May 2010 (UTC)


Paul, as someone who is confused by the current upload wizard, could you take a look at [[User:Caesar_Schinas/Upload|my draft of a new one]] and let me know what you think of it?<br />
== Ormus article ==
It doesn't actually do anything yet - but most of the options will go straight to the upload form with the correct settings and a simple choice of a few licenses, whilst a few such as "''The work is available under a licence which permits reuse.''" will have one more step first where you get to choose where the image comes from.<br />
What do you think? [[User:Caesar Schinas|Caesar Schinas]] 07:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


:Paul, please also see [[User:Caesar_Schinas/Upload2|this alternative first step]], inspired by your tab suggestion - do you like that better?
Is the [[Ormus]] article of salvageable encyclopedic quality? Milt defers to you. [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 06:55, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
:There is no second step yet for either option, but if you like the concept I'll carry on with it.
:[[User:Caesar Schinas|Caesar Schinas]] 16:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


== Answered your question about [[Elements]] with some suggestions ==
:I intergated your remark into the lead, but am not sure it is quite what we want.  Mostly I tried to take it out of first person, but might not have succeeded.  Hopefully, I've kept your meaning, but feel free to alter it even more. [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 13:07, 9 May 2010 (UTC)


Paul, see my talk page. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 16:23, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
::Matt, your changes make the article look credible. If this article becomes known we will be the laughing stock of internet, so please delete it.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 13:29, 9 May 2010 (UTC)


:I see on the [[Chemical elements]] talk page that Anthony is happy with our changes. So I guess you owe me one now, Paul. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 04:44, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
:::It looks as though we've sparked some discussion, but I think we did everything right. It's still totally up to you. [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 23:34, 9 May 2010 (UTC)


== New type of molecular bonding ==
:::: Paul, if you still follow the forum (as I hope you do), you see that nobody doubted your expertise and your judgment. It was and is a discussion on CZ policy (how to handle such articles). Your statement:
::::: "I see clearly now that the role of experts on Citizendium is marginal, it is restricted to asking  Constables to place green check marks, and therefore  I suspend my participation here for indefinite time."
:::: is therefore unfounded. Thus I hope to meet you here again soon. --[[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 23:45, 10 May 2010 (UTC)


Paul, an article in ''Physics Today'' may interest you, regarding a new type of molecular bonding.  See http://tinyurl.com/mgpvln.
== PLEASE reconsider! ==


Main article: V. Bendkowksy et al., Nature , in press; http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.2961.
Paul, I am very sorry that you did not wait for the final outcome of the policy discussion on how to handle nonsense science.


&mdash; [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 21:31, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
I have been member for about a year, and if I learnt something here then it is: Discussions last long.
(And it simply is not realistic that all participants agree -- some clash of opinions cannot be avoided.)


:Anthony, I saw the article in Physics Today (as an APS member I receive it). I thought it pretty esoteric, but who knows, transistors, lasers, color TV, it all was esoteric at a certain point in time.--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 15:38, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
If the discussion had been stopped now it would certainly surface again.  


== [[Edward Teller]] ==
Thus it pays to try to bring it to an end, and I sincerely hope that the final outcome will satisfy you and make you reconsider.
 
Do not leave in anger! --[[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 17:17, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 
:Seconded. One reason i have been associated with CZ is that I think in the long term the "voices of ignorance" will not be able to find a limelight here. If I did not think that was possible then I would not participate at all. It will be a long slog but a worthwhile one, in my opinion.  [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 20:11, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 
::I came here to avoid the voices of ignorance at WP, and, like Chris, I think there's hope of making this a refuge from them. Had the Charter process moved more quickly, we might have an Editorial Council dealing with realistic approaches here. There is, I believe, a good deal of recognition that the neutrality policy is not always something can be realized, but fairness and expertise can. Still, if we are going to survive, it's the experts that are essential. [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 20:18, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 
:::Paul, you already know how I feel. We NEED you. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 21:32, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 
::::Citizendium is the worst form of knowledge sharing, [http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1947/nov/11/parliament-bill#column_207 except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time] &mdash; I thus wish you well wherever you go, and hope that this will include further visits here. --[[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 23:44, 17 May 2010 (UTC)


Paul, the [[Edward Teller]] article needs a definition. It also needs to move the external links to the External Links subpage, and to move the bibliography to the Bibliography subpage.
::::: I'm sad Paul - especially because I think that the points you've made are right, and that the principles you expound are universally supported even if there's been dissension about how best to implement them.[[User:Gareth Leng|Gareth Leng]] 08:54, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


As for the [[Heat ]] article, I haven't forgotten. I will try to get at it in the next few days. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 17:30, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::: Dear Paul, from the above I gather that you intend to leave CZ, and it comes as a shock. May I join colleagues who ask you to reconsider? Selfishly, I would adduce the following: you helped me along when I was a newcomer (which I still am) and encouraged me to start working here. I am still in my initial phase (slow learner), but have valued your kind help very much. From a less selfish point of view, I hope that you have found satistaction in contributing to CZ, and will hopefully continue doing so. Behaviour is not always consistent, nor need it be. Should you decide to return (temporarily or otherwise), many parties would benefit, and I hope so fervently that this would include yourself. Respectfully, [[User:Bessel Dekker|Bessel Dekker]] 22:48, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


:I changed the New Draft of the Week eligibility rule to define the creation date of an article to the date upon which it was ranked 1 or 2 status. On that basis, I just nominated the [[Edward Teller]] article. You may wish to add your vote to mine. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 20:33, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
== Please look ==


I'd appreciate your comment at [[Talk:Memory_of_water#Rewrite]] [[User:Sandy Harris|Sandy Harris]] 13:03, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


== Uploaded images ==
==You've been Nominated!==
Paul, what system did you use to upload the images which you recently uploaded? I ask because no licence is showing for them. [[User:Caesar Schinas|Caesar Schinas]] 08:37, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
Someone has nominated you for a position in the new Citizendium.  They have noticed you're dedication to the project and like what they see.  To be listed on the ballot for the position, it is necessary that you accept the nomination on the [[Archive:Citizendium Ballot for the Management Council|Nomination page].  Just place accept next to your name along with the four tildes. The nomination period will close at midnight October 7 (UTC).  Article 54 of the new charter details the requirements:


== [[Scientific method]] ==
===Article 54===


What do you think about initiating the approval process for the article on the [[scientific method]]? It seems like it is well developed and ready to be approved.  (I have left the same message for David Volk and Daniel Mietchen) --Joe ([[User:Approvals Manager|Approvals Manager]]) 17:50, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
*In conjunction with the Declaration of the Editor-in-Chief regarding the effectivity of this Charter, there shall be a call for nominations for the following offices: Managament Council (five seats), Editorial Council (seven seats), Managing Editor (one), Ombudsman (one).  This shall be the effective date of the Charter.
*Any Citizen may nominate candidates for these positions. 
*Nominations shall be collected and collated by the Chief Constable.
*Nominations shall be accepted no more than fourteen days after the effective date of the charter; the ballot shall be available starting on the twentieth day after the effective date of the charter; the election shall be completed no more than twenty-eight days after the effective date of the charter; all elected officials shall begin their term of office on the thirtieth day after the effective date of the charter.   
*Only candidates who accept their nomination shall be eligible to appear on the ballot. Nominated candidates can accept nominations for no more than two official functions.  Accepting a nomination serves as a declaration of commitment, in the case of being elected, to fulfill this function until the limit of the term.
*All positions shall be elected by a simple majority of the voting citizenry. In the case of a tie, an immediate run-off election shall be held.
*In the event that a candidate has been elected for two functions, the candidate shall declare which one he or she accepts within three days of announcement of the election results. In the event that such a declaration has not been made during this period, the candidate shall be considered elected for the position for which the nomination was accepted first. The same procedure applies to a reserve member that becomes elected by a seat being vacated this way.


== About [[Heat]] ==
If you would like to make a statement to help voters, click the "Statement" link to the right of your name. 


Paul, I must admit that I cannot help you very much with your article on [[Heat]]. About the best I can do is to refer you to some excerpts from textbooks which I think are quite good.
Thanks again for the commitment you're making to assure that Citizendium becomes the premier quality online source we all have envisioned.  


Rather than clutter up this page too much, I have summarized them on one of my sandboxes at [[User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox3]].
[[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 13:08, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


I hope that you find them useful and I apologize for not being more helpful. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 18:04, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
== Some comments of mine ==


:Milton, how do I have to understand this? You have a lifetime of experience in designing and thinking about heat balances,  [[reboiler]]s, [[Industrial cooling tower]]s, [[air preheater]]s, etc. If there is one technological field where heat is essential, it is chemical engineering. Or are you polite, and don't you want to point out clumsinesses, mistakes, and errors?--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 12:16, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Paul:


::Paul, I am not being polite, I am being honest.  Physicists ''explain'' what things are and engineers ''use'' those things. Heat balances are just arithmetic ... heat in must equal heat out. Heat exchanger design involves heat transfer (not defining heat) and for the most part is done by manufacturers. The same is true of furnace design. I know how to describe those things, how to select the sizes needed and how to use them ... but that isn't the same as trying to describe or explain heat in the manner that physicists do.
Please take a moment to look at my remarks on [[Talk:Gaussian units]], [[Talk:Speed of light]] and [[Talk:Free space]]. Thanks, [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 14:52, 29 November 2010 (UTC)


::Even that textbook by Anthony Mills, that I referred you to, spent only one or two sentences on defining heat and then moved on to the design of heat transfer equipment. Perhaps someday, I hope, someone will write a good article about heat transfer in CZ. Again, I apologize for not being able to help you with the [[Heat]] article. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 16:41, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
== Reversion? ==


:::We have a new member who joined a week or so ago by the name of Guido van der Lans who is a chemical engineer and a very good one. So far, he doesn't seem to have gotten started in CZ and that might be a way to do so. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 16:58, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Why was the user page reverted? See discussion on [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Talk:Citizendium#Once_a_Citizen.2C_always_a_Citizen Rational Wiki]. At least on the face of it, this seems to violate the policy that a user controls his or her own user page. [[User:Sandy Harris|Sandy Harris]] 02:05, 6 April 2011 (UTC)


:I can think of two reasons offhand. First, Dr. Wormer's deletion left his User page bio as being less than 50 words. Second, and more important, he was a prominent Editor here for a number of years.  Editorial Council resolution http://ec.citizendium.org/wiki/EC:PR-2010-024 basically says that Editors must be prepared to have their credentials and qualifications made public and to remain public. Dr. Wormer's credentials, therefore, were no longer maintained in a CZ space.  Which is why the Constabulary, correctly in my opinion, reverted his deletion. [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 02:42, 6 April 2011 (UTC)


== Dissociation constant ==
:: I cannot see that an EC Resolution passed after he left is binding on him, especially when it clearly conflicts with the Charter: "Article 8 Citizens shall be considered Editors of their own user pages and subpages thereof, as long as content is not inflammatory or derogatory." Nor can I see that linking to a home page at a university which includes a list of over 100 publications is unreasonable as a way of making qualifications public; in fact it is better than most CZ bios. Moreover, the older version of the user page remains in the wiki history and can always be consulted at need; I see no reason at all to mandate that it be kept as the current version. [[User:Sandy Harris|Sandy Harris]] 03:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
Paul, I can't for the life of me figure out why my quadratic equation on [[dissociation constant]] doesn't look like all of the others.  Could you take a peek and see if my error jumps out at you? Thanks,
[[User:David E. Volk|David E. Volk]] 17:12, 20 June 2009 (UTC)


:David, I don't see anything wrong with [[dissociation constant]]. What do you mean by "doesn't look like all of the others"? Can you refer me  to "all the others"? Then I can check where you differ.
::: There has always been a rule-of-thumb, or maybe even official rule, that all Citizens had to have a minimum biography of 50 words. And, as far as I can tell, Dr. Wormer is still a Citizen who makes occasional edits (check his Contributions) -- he therefore falls under our current guidelines, particularly those for Editorships. You may continue to argue this, if you wish, but I doubt if it will do you, or Dr. Wormer, any good. [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 04:09, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
:I did notice, though, that by introducing [A]<sub>0</sub> and  [B]<sub>0</sub> you imply that only a little bit of AB is formed, which is in contradiction with small K-values, say 10<sup>&minus;7</sup>, that imply excess AB and a little bit of dissociation. I would introduce [A] = [B] = [AB]<sub>0</sub> &minus; [AB] and work out
::<math>
K_d = \frac{([\mathrm{AB}]_0 - [\mathrm{AB}])^2}{[\mathrm{AB}]}
</math>
:But again I don't know what "all the others" say.
:--[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 07:54, 21 June 2009 (UTC)


:::Later in the day I figured it out. If you use math tags, but not actually use any math functions, it shows up as normal text without the white background. That was my problem. A<sub>0</sub> and B<sub>0</sub> refer to the starting amounts of A and B added to a solution, not the initial dissociated amount of each, so A and B are not necessarily equal to each other. [[User:David E. Volk|David E. Volk]] 12:08, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
See this [http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,3932.0.html forum thread].


== another possible approval ==
: The Charter, too, has been ratified after Paul left.
: If an action is justified with reference to the Charter then restrictions imposed since then are valid, too.
: A link to an external biography was not sufficient before and is not sufficient after the Charter ratification. --[[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 09:50, 6 April 2011 (UTC)


Is [[Ernest Rutherford]] ready to be approved? It seems pretty well developed to me. --Joe ([[User:Approvals Manager|Approvals Manager]]) 16:18, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
I have great respect for Paul.  As far as I know, he is an active editor. I am sure he wants to follow the rules. [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 13:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC)


== Battle of the Java Sea ==
:Hope you don't mind the copyedits, Paul. I didn't understand 'dr. ir.' so I decided to Be Bold. [[User:Ro Thorpe|Ro Thorpe]] 16:11, 6 April 2011 (UTC) - May I also suggest bolding your name & title at the beginning?


I'm about to start that section under [[Destroyer]]. Since it was Dutch-commanded, do you have any background, or know anyone who might be interested? It's a little challenging to put under destroyer actions as [[cruiser]]s played a major role, but there were independent destroyer actions. RADM Karel Doorman really should have his own entry one of these days. [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 18:04, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
== Happy to see you back ==
Paul, thanks for making recent edits in the wiki.  Your contributions are much appreciated.[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 14:14, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 02:52, 8 March 2024

Citizendium Getting Started
Quick Start | About us | Help system | Start a new article | For Wikipedians  


Tasks: start a new article • add basic, wanted or requested articles • add definitions • add metadata • edit new pages

Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start, and see Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, our help system and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forum is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any user or the editors for help, too. Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! Aleksander Stos 12:32, 16 August 2007 (CDT)

Scientific method

Hi Paul, please take a quick look at Scientific method and make sure you are satisfied with the changes since July 21 and we will be good to go. Thanks, D. Matt Innis 12:21, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Anthony.Sebastian approves 24-Jul-2009 version Scientific method

First class article. Anthony.Sebastian 17:22, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Are changes I made sandbox version 'chemical elements' okay

Paul,

I believe I responded to your suggested changes my sandbox version of 'chemical elements'. If you're okay with that version as a working version for continued collaborative development, please indicate so on: http://en.citizendium.org:8080/wiki/Talk:Chemical_elements#Lede_revised_in_response_to_Paul_and_Peter.

If Peter does the same, I will get Milton's okay to replace the current Main Article with it.

Thanks. Anthony.Sebastian 17:36, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I have enemies everywhere!

Thanks, Paul, I hadn't bothered to look at that place for a couple of month now. Wonder who these characters are and why they're so agin me? I musta been arrogant to the wrong person somewhere along the line, hehe.... Hayford Peirce 14:59, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

A riposte that may or may not amuse you.... [1] Hayford Peirce 05:17, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Article on Sturm-Liouville theory

Hello Paul,

Sometime back I proposed moving the WP article on Sturm-Liouville theory to CZ and adding a proof of the orthogonality of solutions with distinct eigenvalues. Since I am not an expert on S-L theory, I consulted with a collaborator who is knowledgeable about this topic and asked him if he would be willing to work on the WP article to improve it. After looking the article over, he said he had no suggestions for improving it, except perhaps by removing the reference to "the Arzela-Ascoli theorem and the spectral theory for compact operators." He thought this parenthetical comment was not in keeping with the direction of the rest of the article.

So, here is what I propose to do. I will move the WP S-L article to CZ, ticking the appropriate check-box indicating the WP source. If you agree, I will remove the reference to "the Arzela-Ascoli theorem and the spectral theory for compact operators." I will then create an addendum page on which to place the orthogonality proof and put a link in the main article to it. Let me know if this is an acceptable strategy. Dan Nessett 15:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

It sounds perfect. But please note that I'm not a mathematics editor, only an author. (I'm physics and chemistry editor). So, I'm interested in the stuff and know a little about it, but have no formal say in things mathematical.--Paul Wormer 16:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

OK. Should I contact a mathematics editor before proceeding? If so, do you know of one that might specialize in the area of this topic? Dan Nessett 17:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me for "butting in", but try Peter Schmitt who is a professor of mathematics in the University of Vienna and who is quite active in CZ. Milton Beychok 18:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll do that. Dan Nessett 18:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Dutch military history?

What would be a good name for a top-level article about Dutch military and naval history? I'm thinking here mostly for something to use as a parent topic in Related Articles pages, but filling out the Related Pages at the top level would be useful.

More modern events that could go under it include Cruiser#Battle of the Java Strait and Operation Market Garden. The Dutch Marines have also done some impressive hostage rescues. Howard C. Berkowitz 00:21, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Howard, the Dutch do not have much of a military history. There is almost only the 17th century naval history. For instance, in Market Garden (not capitalized, I know your point of view but I can't bring myself to follow you) there were British, American and (oddly enough) Polish forces involved, no Dutch.--Paul Wormer 07:29, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Please comment on Earth's atmosphere

Paul, Earth's atmosphere is my first venture outside my field of expertise. I would appreciate any comments you may offer (on the article's Talk page). Milton Beychok 06:32, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Added acknowledgement to Earth's atmosphere about Equation 2 and Boltzmann distribution

Paul, I have added a footnote (reference 13) acknowledging that Equation 2 can be obtained from the Boltzmann distribution and linked it to the article you wrote on the Boltzmann distribution. Milton Beychok 16:53, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

About Barometric formula

Hi, Paul. I am not sure how your Barometric formula article would interfere with the Atmospheric lapse rate article I am writing. You can see my article in progress at User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox and judge for yourself. I am about 75% finished with it. I might even finish it today. As I said above, I am no expert on atmospheric science or meteorology ... I just thought the Earth's atmosphere and Atmospheric lapse rate articles were needed to fit in with my air pollution dispersion modeling articles ... so I wrote them. Milton Beychok 16:28, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Garnet

Thanks Paul!

I took a recent family trip down to Montana, Garnet was one of the places I got to visit and I was completely amazed by what I saw, it really left a lasting impression on me which compelled me to create/work on the Citizendium article. Thanks again! --Mehar Gill 17:52, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Atmospheric lapse rate finished and created

Hi, Paul. Atmospheric lapse rate has been created if you want to see it. I decided to name it "Atmospheric lapse rate" because there are so many different lapses ... lapsed insurance, memory lapses, lapsed into a coma, lapse of eligibility, etc., etc. ... and I didn't want to use "Lapse rate (atmospheric)". Milton Beychok 04:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

What do you think of the Universe article?

Paul, have you ever read the Universe article? What do you think of it? Milton Beychok 23:56, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I looked at it and see nothing wrong with it; but I don't know much about cosmology. It would probably need the hand of a professional cosmologist to bring it to an approvable state, but for a level 2 article (a little bit more than a stub) it seems acceptable to me. Why do you ask this, did you find any errors?--Paul Wormer 06:38, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
No, just curious. Milton Beychok 06:58, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Moving the Associated Legendre Functions article toward approved status

Hi Paul. I would like to get the work done that will allow us to move the Associated Legendre Functions article to approved status. I notice that you have reinserted the inline reference to Edmonds. So the first thing to sort out is what are the rules for citations. The Edmonds citation is now in both the main article and the Bibliography. Do we leave it twice cited? Should we remove it from the Bibliography and leave it in the main article? Should we remove it from the main article and add a footnote that says something like "see reference 1 in the Bibliography"? Or something else. The other issue I see is the dead link to "potential theory". Should we leave this alone or should one of us import the WP article to CZ? Dan Nessett 15:35, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I answered about the inline references on the forum. I feel that CZ cannot do without footnotes and that those must be easily accessible, hence on the main page. I don't mind that some references are cited twice. As long as there are no hundreds of duplicates, it is not important. I expressed my opinion about dead (red) links on the forum: leave them as they are, a red link will spur somebody someday to write the article. (For instance today I wrote Euclidean space because I noticed a red link).--Paul Wormer 15:58, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I have no strong opinions on the "where references should go" issue. I just want to get the article into shape for approval. Should I send a request to a mathematics editor to update the "ToApprove" metadata?

Update: I have left a message on Jitse Niesen's talk page asking him to move the article to "ToApprove" status.

Question: The approval process at CZ is pretty confusing. I just noticed there is a list of articles that someone has deemed ready for approval. Why there is such a list separate from the developed article list is beyond my powers of understanding. However, given it exists, I would like to add the Associated Legendre Functions article to that list. Do you have any objections? Dan Nessett 23:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I might (or WE might) have a 5,000-word developed article about, say, Bill Tilden, well-written and well-organized. If *that* isn't "developed", what is? BUT, it may not be ready for approval because it still lacks some major elements, there are controversies about some aspects of it, or some other reasons. And there may be a short article about Ray Casey that *is* ready for approval (at least in MY opinion, since I'm the one who placed it in that category) because it has all the qualities of the Tilden article BUT ALSO there is nothing more to say about the subject. It's done, finished. That's all, folks! So, at least in MY mind, there can be a clear distinction between "developed" and "ready for approval". Hayford Peirce 00:51, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Hayford. So, who decides that an article is both "developed" and "ready for approval"? Also, since Paul was the person who did most (>99%) of the work on the main article, I still seek his view on moving the article to the the "ready for approval" list. Dan Nessett 01:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Dan, CZ:Ready for approval contains this sentence: "Any user, author or editor, may add an article to the list below but an editor from the relevant workgroup(s) may remove an article if it is deemed unready for the attention of approving editors." That makes it very clear that you, or any other author or editor, can simply place Associated Legendre function in that list. I have done that with many of articles that I created ... but only when they have a Status of 1 (Developed) in their Metadata templates. Associated Legendre function has a Status of 1 in the Metadata template, so there is no reason why you or Paul cannot place it in CZ:Ready for approval. That doesn't guarantee it will be approved ... it just alerts editors that it is considered to be ready for approval. Also, even if it is subsequently nominated for approval by an editor or editors, another editor in the relevant workgroup(s) can object to the nomination or, indeed, stop the nomination process. Milton Beychok 03:17, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Milton. I realize that placing the article on the Ready for Approval list guarantees nothing. The article still has to go through review by the editor or editors. I just want to put it on the list so there is nothing on the author's side of the equation that is left undone. Since Paul wrote most of the article (I and a collaborator wrote most of the proof on the Proof's sub-page) I still would like to get Paul's view on the question. He is in a better position to determine whether the main article is ready or not. I would feel uncomfortable putting it on the list without his agreement. Dan Nessett 04:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Dan, I did not intend to leave the impression that you should leave Paul out of the loop. I was only trying to answer your question of: So, who decides that an article is both "developed" and "ready for approval"? In any event, it seems that all is clear now. Milton Beychok 08:33, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Paul. I am having trouble understanding why you haven't responded to my question whether you have any objections to adding the Associated Legendre Functions article to the "Ready for Approval" list. Do you think the article isn't ready for approval? If so, would you describe the problems that need to be solved so I can work on them? If you think it is ready for approval, would you either put it on the list or let me know and I will do that? Thanks. Dan Nessett 16:14, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Dan, there is not much that we can do, we have to wait until Jitse reacts.
Another thing, maybe you don't know that TeX and LaTeX traditionally have two modes for math: a display mode and an in-line mode. The non-Wiki TeX/LaTeX has different directives for this distinction. Most (longer) math formulas belong in display mode, which means that they are in an otherwise empty block of the screen, without text. Only very brief formulas ought to be in-line and only very small pieces of text appear in display mode. You do not separate the two modes, which to me is not very elegant. If you don't mind, I can format your proof page somewhat.--Paul Wormer 16:32, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Absolutely. Please fell free to format the formulas in the proof so their appearance is improved. Shall I add the article to the "ready for approval" list? Dan Nessett 16:52, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Yes you can do that. Tomorrow I will do the formating. Yet one more thing: we usually indent on talk pages until it gets out of hand, then we either start a new thread or write "unindent". This makes it easier for others to see who said what.--Paul Wormer 17:07, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Done. Dan Nessett 18:09, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Unless, of course, you belong to a fairly adamant minority who insist that there's some academic method of NOT using indents. The CZ rules aren't 100% clear about which is preferable, so I've given up insisting on the indention rules. Mostly.... Hayford Peirce 20:13, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
In regards to indentation style, I'm easy. I prefer an indent per Citizen, so the Citizen that begins the discussion is always non-indented, the first Citizen to reply is always indented by one, etc. That allows one to keep track of who is saying what. But, like I said I really have no hard preference. Dan Nessett 20:22, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Hayford, click on the Edit tab above and read the blue banner at the top. Seems to me thatit clearly spells out what CZ prefers ... and it was discussed thoroughly on the Forums before Chris Day created that banner. Milton Beychok 21:19, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
For pity's sake, Milton, I *know* what it says! And I *know* that we *almost* all agreed to it. BUT the CZ style manual, or guidelines, or whatnot *also* has some weasel words about the academic method -- which *some* people still insist on using. And still they still argue about it -- see Tom Morris, for instance. So even though *most* of us agree to use the indents, it's not 100%, mainly because the nice blue box at the top of the page is just something that some of us cobbled together -- it's not 100% official. So, as I've said, I've given up arguing with the absolutely adamant opponents about it. Hayford Peirce 21:49, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

[Unindent]

Paul. We are getting no response from Jitse. It appears Peter Schmitt is once again responding to CZ matters. Shall I ask him to review the article for approval? Dan Nessett 19:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Paul. I can't remember where you asked me if I could come up with a proof for the second orthogonality relation, so I am leaving this here. As I stated, I asked a former colleague (a theoretical physicist by training) if he would take a crack at it. I just received his response. He has company this weekend, but said he would give it a shot next week. Since he doesn't know and so far has no interest in learning mediawiki markup, anything he creates will be in MS Word. I will then have to translate it into MW markup. I will let you know if and when we have something. Dan Nessett 22:25, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
Paul. You are probably monitoring the Associated Legendre Functions cluster, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to mention here that I have added the proof to the 2nd and 3rd equations in the Orthogonality relations section and slightly adjusted the text in the main article to reflect that. Dan Nessett 16:57, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Genethlialogy

I just asked my sister the astrology guru about this baloney and contrary to what she had told me months ago, she doesn't know anything about it. I have checked WP on this, and they have a *huge* article about it. Since none of us have any interest at all in it as far as I can tell, I suggest that we simply delete this one as being "unmaintainable". Since you're the author who originally created it and put in most of the content, you have the right, according to Matt the other Kop, to ask that it be deleted. If you formally ask me to delete it, therefore, I will....

Best, Hayford Peirce 18:33, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in here, but something about the name Genethlialogy intrigued me. Not that I would argue against deleting the article as unmaintainable, but there appears to be material on this topic elsewhere. For example, the Encyclo On-line Encyclopedia has a definition (http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/Genethlialogy) - casting (I assume a horoscope) for one newly born. The Encyclopedia Britannica appears to have information about it (although it appears to be a couple of sentences inside an article on another topic - Astrology?). Perhaps whatever has already been written about this topic could be merged into the Astrology article? Dan Nessett 22:45, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Sure, it could be merged if someone wanted to do it. What I was saying above is that this is a very short article written by people who have no real interest in it, or knowledge, and that, given its length, there's no particular reason to keep it. Hayford Peirce 06:09, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Hayford, you always say that you are an inclusionist, why would you delete the article? It gives some correct info, doesn't it? When I met the word (in a book by E.J. Dijksterhuis that has been translated into English, German, and French; Dijksterhuis uses the term on p. 170 of the Dutch edition in a chapter on astrology in the medieval Islamic culture) I did not know what genethlialogy meant. The article gives enough info to read Dijksterhuis' chapter. And what is there to maintain, are there any developments in the field? If there are any, I don't think that we fail terribly if we do not immediately report on them.--Paul Wormer 08:00, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Hi, Paul, sorry, I didn't see your comment until just now. As you say, I *am* an inclusionist. I thought that you were the person who originally said it might be deleted.... In any case, the reason I thought this *might* be deleted is that it's such a barebones article as compared to the *very* lengthy WP article -- it gives so little information that I thought it looked bad by comparison. If we had a couple of Howards working on it fulltime, my opinion would be different but its existence seems to be met by total ennui. On the other hand, an astrology *may* come along tomorrow and want to expand it, so let's let it stand! Hayford Peirce 20:22, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Suggested revision of lead-in sentence for Clausius-Clapeyron relation

Paul, please take a look the Talk page of the Clausius-Clapeyron relation article. Milton Beychok 15:54, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Natural gas

Hi, Paul, just want to let you know that I have started work on Natural Gas as promised. After I ported it from WP:

  • I deleted sections I thought just did not belong in the article such as the sections on biogas, town gas and gas pricing (which changes almost on a daily basis).
  • I added new sections on gas composition, geological formation, exploration for new gas reservoirs and extraction (i.e., drilling and production)... all of which were not included in the WP article.
  • I extracted parts of the WP article and reassembled them into a new section on "Measurement units and heating values".
  • I completely reformatted the order of the various new and existing sections in what I think is a more logical sequence.
  • Whenever I see something I don't understand because of my limited knowledge of gas exploration and extraction or that I cannot independently verify, I delete it rather than take any chances that it might be incorrect. Some experienced petroleuom geologist may come along sooner or later and add more content that he/she feels is needed.

I would estimate that I am now about 50% complete. I still have 2-3 excessively lengthy sections of the WP article that I want to trim down drastically. I also have quite a bit of rewording in mind as well.

When I have it ready to load into the article mainspace, I will contact you to see if you want to review and comment on it before I load it as a new article. Milton Beychok 00:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

This is how to create ℓ

Paul, I created this ℓ by using this HTML character entity: & #8467;   (but without the space between & and #). Milton Beychok 07:55, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes Milt, I discovered that too in the meantime. But the question is: how to get the symbol directly, without HTML code. If you look into the source of this message you see ℓ and no code. --Paul Wormer 08:08, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
PS By copy paste of the representation of & #8467; (without space) I got ℓ. Thus, a bootstrapping procedure is possible, create the symbol once by the code, then preview and copy paste it. That is probably how the guy at WP does it. --Paul Wormer 08:15, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand. Why copy and paste?? Why not just enter the HTML code each time on the edit page? It won't show on the article page, which is what is important ... is it not? When would you want to get it directly? I have a sandbox that I call my storage box where I keep a lot of links and other stuff I want to be able to use at any time. I guess I could create this character and keep it there ... but retrieving it would take more time than just using the HTML code. Milton Beychok 08:28, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Because your source looks better. Compare ℓ(ℓ+1)ℏ2 with ℓ(ℓ+1)ℏ2. (Look at the source, not at the output!). --Paul Wormer 08:44, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Okay, now I understand what you wanted. Milton Beychok 19:19, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Natural gas article

Paul, I have completed the Natural gas article (in my sandbox)). If you want to review and suggest changes, I will wait a few days to hear from you before I move it into the main article namespace. My sandbox is at User:Milton_Beychok/Sandbox. Regards, Milton Beychok 22:18, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Paul, as you may have noticed, David Volk nominated Natural gas for approval. Would you care to add your name to the approval? Milton Beychok 16:05, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

About your review of the "Natural gas" article in my sandbox

Many thanks, Paul. I re-worded your first item. As for your second item, I don't know how that discussion of retrograde condensation got repeated. I just deleted it entirely from the natural gas reserves section.

When I load it into the namespace, I will list Engineering and Chemistry as the workgroup categories. I will do that after I get comments that I asked for from a new Engineering editor named Karl D. Schubert.

Milton Beychok 16:09, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Paul, I went ahead and moved Natural gas into the article namespace. I've notifed Karl D. Schubert where to find it. Milton Beychok 00:25, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

homeopathy reapproval

Since the homeopathy article is listed in the chemistry workgroup as well as health sciences and healing arts, you are eligible to join Matt in approval. Are you comfortable with the current draft? Thanks much. --Joe (Approvals Manager) 01:46, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Just completed an article on petroleum crude oil

Paul, I just finished an article on petroleum crude oil in my sandbox at User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox. Feel free to comment on its Talk page. I have not yet run it through a spell checker, so there are probably spelling errors. I will probably load it into the article namespace tomorrow afternoon/evening. Milton Beychok 08:55, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Paul, I just uploaded FireFox and, so far, I like it very much. Thanks for helping me with that. Milton Beychok 06:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

About Thermodynamics

Paul, I note that you have not made any contributions to the Thermodynamics article, which surprizes me since that ought to be right down your alley. It would be nice if we could get that article to the approval stage. Would you please review it and revise it as necessary? Does it need a section on non-equilibrium thermodynamics?

Also, the article links to Laws of Thermodynamics ... but when I go to Laws of Thermodynamics, I find an almost useless stub of an article. Is the "Laws of thermodynamics" section of Thermodynamics inclusive enough for me to ask for speedy deletion of the Laws of Thermodynamics stub? Milton Beychok 17:45, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Paul, just a gentle repeat of my request that you review the Thermodynamics article, please. Also, I crossed out the second part of my above post in this thread, because I have now taken care of that item as suggested by Daniel Mietchen on the Talk:Thermodynamics. Regards, Milton Beychok 21:45, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Milt, the thermodynamics article is written in a way that I personally wouldn't write it (order of sections, presentation of second law, jokes that I don't understand, etc.). If I started to work on the article I wouldn't be able to resist making a major overhaul and I don't want to do that, especially since I'm far from an expert on classical thermodynamics (I failed only twice for an exam in my life, one was my driver's license test—in Europe it is non-trivial—and the second was my classical-thermo exam in 1964—in both cases I passed second time around though). Further, I don't know anything about non-equilibrium thermo. On the other hand, my knowledge of equilibrium statistical thermodynamics is OK.--Paul Wormer 14:12, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks anyway,Paul. If you should change your mind, your comments or overhaul would be welcome and deleting the jokes would not bother me at all. My only interest in this article is that we need a good thermo article and I don't believe that this Thermodynamics import from Wikipedia has ever been thoroughly reworked. Milton Beychok 20:52, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you willing to act as editor on the Sturm-Liouville article?

Paul. I have attempted to work with Peter Schmitt on moving the Sturm-Liouville article towards approval. He has stated that he cannot assure me that he would ever approve it no matter how it is changed, since it contains material that was originally sourced at WP. I asked him if he would mind if I attempted to find a different editor to work with on the article. His answer was somewhat vague, so I sought clarification. However, I have been instructed by Hayford Pierce in his role as constable that if I continue to press Peter on the issue I run the risk of being cited for unprofessional behavior.

Consequently, I am asking whether you would work with me on this article. I see you have made a number of minor stylistic edits to the article. I am not sure whether these constitute enough changes so that you cannot act as editor. The changes were small enough that I could easily back them out (after asking the constables if that is allowed) and make them myself. The reason I am asking you is we worked together on the Associated Legendre functions article and you have stated that you have never turned down a request to work with an author to improve an article so it is approvable.

If you are concerned that this work is tainted by the friction between Peter and I on the article, feel free to read the record of our interactions on his talk page. Dan Nessett 23:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Dan, I'm not a mathematics editor, but I saw that you attached physics as a category, so I had a quick look.
What interests me a lot is why the S-L eigenfunctions are complete. I looked at the section "Sturm–Liouville equations as self-adjoint differential operators" where its discussed that it is a consequence of the resolvent of L being compact due to the Arzelà–Ascoli theorem. I must admit that I had never heard of this theorem and I only have a vague notion of what a compact operator may be (I know what a bounded operator is and a compact operator much be close to it). This section also states the well-known fact that eigenfunctions of the self-adjoint operator L are orthogonal. Given the level of the article such a statement seems sufficient to me, your proof of orthogonality does not add much for a reader who can understand the article.
I checked the book by Margenau & Murphy. They give a fairly low-brow proof of the completeness, at least one that I can understand it. Would it no be better if we had a proof like that?
In short, the subject is of such high level that either a mathematical physicist (which I am not) or a mathematician should have a look at it. An alternative is that we lower its mathematical level.
--Paul Wormer 16:52, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Paul. It is refreshing to receive direction that is both professional and obviously concerned about the problem at hand, i.e., improving the article so it is approvable. That said, I am unfortunately unable to pursue the course you set out, since I am not an expert in functional analysis and my understanding of operator compactness is less than yours. Furthermore, I do not have access to Margenau & Murphy, so I can't look at their proof of completeness. I think this example demonstrates that I am not an appropriate author in the area of this article. I have received a response from John Fletcher and he has decided to refrain from contributing a new article on S-L theory. So, it looks like this article will remain dormant until someone comes along with more expertise than I have in the subject. By the way, the proof of orthogonality is his, not mine.
Since my areas of expertise are networks and distributed systems and since there are reasons I choose not to work on articles in the computers and engineering workgroups, I think the only way I have to contribute to CZ at the moment is to help improve its software, fixing some bugs and perhaps working on the core software so that the modifications specific to CZ are factored into an extension. That is where I intend to work for the foreseeable future.
P.S. Here is an ironic fact. If you Google "Sturm-Liouville theory orthogonality", the third hit on the list is the WP article and indented beneath it is a reference to John's orthogonality proof, which I left in my User space on WP. So, those searching for an orthogonality proof of S-L solutions will find it as the 6th reference on the Google list. Dan Nessett 17:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Chemical elements

Paul, what is your opinion on this forum topic? (Discovered by Hayford in Special:DeadendPages.) Peter Schmitt 18:45, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Wasted a few hours and my face is red!

I spent a few hours creating a drawing of a Carnot heat engine and finding/uploading a photo of Josiah Willard Gibbs and placing both of them in the Thermodynamics article. Some time later, I found that you had already created a drawing of a Carnot heat engine for the Energy article and mine is almost identical to yours ... and I also found that someone had already uploaded the same photo of Gibbs into Chemical thermodynamics. I could have saved myself a few hours of effort if I had only searched CZ a little better. Ah, well! Milton Beychok 01:23, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

The Second law of thermodynamics

Paul, as you requested, I have reviewed the Second law of thermodynamics article to the best of my ability. Most of my changes, if not all, are just very minor rewording and copy editing. I have also raised a few more substantive questions on the article's Talk page that you should consider. I apologize for not having done more. Milton Beychok 20:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Template for chemistry

Paul, could you look at User talk:Milton Beychok#Properties and User talk:Milton Beychok#Property list. I have tried to provide a template requested on CZ:Wishlist. Peter Schmitt 13:07, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not fond of these things. It is lots of work to collect the data, and it is not clear how reliable they are (and in some cases what they mean). Information can be contradictory. For instance, I saw an oxygen atom template (which I cannot find any longer) that says that oxygen is a gas with molecular weight close to 16. This is wrong, but understandably wrong, because these templates force you to make these sorts of errors. In this case the template forces the user to switch back and forth between molecular oxygen O2 and elemental oxygen O and it forces decisions on the user that may be questionable.--Paul Wormer 14:28, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
The template was not my idea. It is supposed to replace the existing construction using a subpage for each entry.
Your reservations are, at least partially, taken care by the template: Without specifying compound or atom it can be used without any predefined entries. For the case, where such an option is used, comments would be useful
What data are so important that the entry should be provided as "required" default? Which entries should be offered as "optional"? Remarks like your comment that molecular and atomic mass are easily mixed up, is also important.
Peter Schmitt 12:52, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

The Book of God and Physics (A novel of the Voynich mystery)

Paul, I am reading a book entitled "The Book of God and Physics" written by a Spanish physicist named Enrique Joven that has been translated into English. It is about the an ancient book called the "Voynich Manuscript".

I think you might enjoy it because it has a good bit of history dating back to the days of Kepler and Tycho Brahe.

Have you heard of this book? Milton Beychok 06:35, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

No Milt, I haven't heard of the Voynich mystery nor of Joven. Is the book worth buying? --Paul Wormer 08:12, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
The book sells here for US$26 ... but the copy I am reading came from our public library. Perhaps a library near you may have a copy. I don't think I would spend $25 buying it. But it is quite interesting and you seem to have a passion for historical physics. Milton Beychok 08:40, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
I doubt that our public library will have it. I live in a small village, and our library has hardly any books in English. You're right that I'm interested in the history of science, many of my articles have a history section. I don't think such sections hurt, somebody who doesn't share my interest can easily skip them (assuming that somebody reads my articles, which I seriously doubt. But who knows, maybe somebody will read some of them sometime in the future).--Paul Wormer 08:56, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
The Voynich manuscript isn't ancient, it's 17th century. Last I heard it was still undeciphered, though. Peter Jackson 11:36, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Peter, as I learned when I worked in London for 6 years or so, 300 years is not ancient at all for Europeans ... but, for Americans like me, 300 years is almost pre-historic. Milton Beychok 18:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Paul, give me your postal mailing address and I'll send you a copy of the book. Milton Beychok 18:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Boltzmann

If it is not urgent then it is no problem. To get a good picture I would like to wait for nice weather with good light, and this has to coincide with a time when I can go there. (The Zentralfriedhof is on the other side of the town where I rarely am.) Now, in autumn/winter good light may be rare. Peter Schmitt 12:58, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Herman Van Rompuy

Hi Paul, I do not see why you redirect from Herman Van Rompuy to Van Rompuy — I would do it the other way round. --Daniel Mietchen 10:28, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

That is because I made the mistake by starting out with Van Rompuy and I'm too lazy to move it. --Paul Wormer 10:35, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Element subpages

Hi Paul, such mass deletions can be done by a bot if you can wait until they are allowed to run again. --Daniel Mietchen 15:12, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, consider that the information itself is useful, the format is the problem. A bot might be able to reconfigurate that information, assuming we have a plan for what to do with it? Chris Day 20:55, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Complex numbers

Paul, please have a look at Talk:Complex number/Draft#correcting approved version. Can you help? I will not mind if you make the 1/z passage a little more explicit, too. Peter Schmitt 01:40, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Re-approval of Version 2.1 completed. Thanks for your participation! D. Matt Innis 15:16, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Paul, I replied to you (delayed) on my talk page. Best wishes! Peter Schmitt 15:47, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

a Dutch professor

Hi, Paul,

Sorry about confusing the NL and Belgium -- I was drinking my morning coffee! Now there's a prof at a NL university named Paul de Laat who has emailed saying that his *two* applications have never been attended to. As far as *I* can tell, we never received an application. Do you know anything about him? Thanks! Hayford Peirce 16:20, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I googled Paul de Laat and he seems to be a genuine philosopher working at the University of Groningen, a well-known university. I don't know him. --Paul Wormer 16:29, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, he says that he is Paul B. de Laat, Faculteit Filosofie, Universiteit Groningen, NL and has applied twice in the last two months with no response at all. I find no records of his applications. Geez. Hayford Peirce 16:40, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
I am corresponding with him through the Constabulary email and have asked him to reapply -- I'll be keeping a beady eye on the process this time! Hayford Peirce 18:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
We finally got him registered as an Author -- he wasn't filling out 50 words in the bio space. BUT apparently he also wasn't getting a warning saying that he hadn't done so. I'll check this out and see if there's a bug in the system. Hayford Peirce 20:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Need your comment LaTex equation in Molar volume

Paul, I just created a new article called Molar volume. It includes this equation

Should it be corrected to:\this?

In general, what are the rules for when to use italics and when to use non-italics?

Thanks in advance. Milton Beychok 03:23, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Milt, definitely the second, but I would use \mathrm{mixture}. (I forgot the difference between \rm and \mathrm but somehow I remember that \mathrm works better). According to the AIP style manual, words (like: total, in, out, mixture, etc.) in math must be roman also when used as sub- or superscripts. Also in roman must be: chemical symbols (O, Ne), units (Hz, J), and mathematical functions: cos, exp, etc. Personally I would write "mixt" instead of "mixture" in equations. --Paul Wormer 06:29, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
May I drop in? It should be \text (and I think that \textstyle looks better)
The reason for \text (\textrm is not scriptstyle): There is a difference between the spacing of math fonts and of text fonts reflecting the fact that -- in math mode -- single letters represent variables while in text they are combined to words.
Therefore, if italics, it should be \textit. But, moreover, "mixt(ure)" should be Roman, not Italics, because it is not the name of a variable (cf. "\log" and "log"). This is often not considered in books and journals when authors are not advised by (competent) editors.
\rm provides \mathrm, I think (needs checking), but does not take an argument, i.e. {\rm text} and \mathrm [text} are equivalent, I suppose. Curiously, \mathrm and \textrm show no difference:
I shall have to try this off-wiki --Peter Schmitt 12:06, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Edward Teller

Paul, what is lacking with Edward Teller that we would prevent it from being approved? Russell D. Jones 01:11, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Not much, maybe a few more references? On the other hand, as I stated several times on the Forum, once it is approved, it is hard to change it. And who knows, you or I may read something interesting in the future that then will be hard to add. --Paul Wormer 13:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Another thing: WP has a section about Teller and the Israel A- and H-bombs. Teller doesn't say anything about this in his Memoirs. The WP section is based on one book only (that I haven't seen and I don't know its trustworthiness). Since the fact whether or not Israel possesses nuclear weapons is formally top-secret, I decided not to chase after that book and to skip the topic altogether. Any opinion anyone? --Paul Wormer 14:04, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Need your help

Paul, Meg Ireland just corrected the spelling of one word in Amine gas treating/Draft. Since you never worked on that article and since you are a Chemistry editor, would you please nominate the article for single-editor re-approval so that the spelling will be corrected in the approved version? Thanks, Milton Beychok 06:18, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


Citizendium Getting Started
Quick Start | About us | Help system | Start a new article | For Wikipedians  


Tasks: start a new article • add basic, wanted or requested articles • add definitions • add metadata • edit new pages

Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start, and see Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, our help system and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forum is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any user or the editors for help, too. Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! Aleksander Stos 12:32, 16 August 2007 (CDT)

Scientific method

Hi Paul, please take a quick look at Scientific method and make sure you are satisfied with the changes since July 21 and we will be good to go. Thanks, D. Matt Innis 12:21, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Anthony.Sebastian approves 24-Jul-2009 version Scientific method

First class article. Anthony.Sebastian 17:22, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Are changes I made sandbox version 'chemical elements' okay

Paul,

I believe I responded to your suggested changes my sandbox version of 'chemical elements'. If you're okay with that version as a working version for continued collaborative development, please indicate so on: http://en.citizendium.org:8080/wiki/Talk:Chemical_elements#Lede_revised_in_response_to_Paul_and_Peter.

If Peter does the same, I will get Milton's okay to replace the current Main Article with it.

Thanks. Anthony.Sebastian 17:36, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I have enemies everywhere!

Thanks, Paul, I hadn't bothered to look at that place for a couple of month now. Wonder who these characters are and why they're so agin me? I musta been arrogant to the wrong person somewhere along the line, hehe.... Hayford Peirce 14:59, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

A riposte that may or may not amuse you.... [2] Hayford Peirce 05:17, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Article on Sturm-Liouville theory

Hello Paul,

Sometime back I proposed moving the WP article on Sturm-Liouville theory to CZ and adding a proof of the orthogonality of solutions with distinct eigenvalues. Since I am not an expert on S-L theory, I consulted with a collaborator who is knowledgeable about this topic and asked him if he would be willing to work on the WP article to improve it. After looking the article over, he said he had no suggestions for improving it, except perhaps by removing the reference to "the Arzela-Ascoli theorem and the spectral theory for compact operators." He thought this parenthetical comment was not in keeping with the direction of the rest of the article.

So, here is what I propose to do. I will move the WP S-L article to CZ, ticking the appropriate check-box indicating the WP source. If you agree, I will remove the reference to "the Arzela-Ascoli theorem and the spectral theory for compact operators." I will then create an addendum page on which to place the orthogonality proof and put a link in the main article to it. Let me know if this is an acceptable strategy. Dan Nessett 15:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

It sounds perfect. But please note that I'm not a mathematics editor, only an author. (I'm physics and chemistry editor). So, I'm interested in the stuff and know a little about it, but have no formal say in things mathematical.--Paul Wormer 16:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

OK. Should I contact a mathematics editor before proceeding? If so, do you know of one that might specialize in the area of this topic? Dan Nessett 17:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me for "butting in", but try Peter Schmitt who is a professor of mathematics in the University of Vienna and who is quite active in CZ. Milton Beychok 18:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll do that. Dan Nessett 18:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Dutch military history?

What would be a good name for a top-level article about Dutch military and naval history? I'm thinking here mostly for something to use as a parent topic in Related Articles pages, but filling out the Related Pages at the top level would be useful.

More modern events that could go under it include Cruiser#Battle of the Java Strait and Operation Market Garden. The Dutch Marines have also done some impressive hostage rescues. Howard C. Berkowitz 00:21, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Howard, the Dutch do not have much of a military history. There is almost only the 17th century naval history. For instance, in Market Garden (not capitalized, I know your point of view but I can't bring myself to follow you) there were British, American and (oddly enough) Polish forces involved, no Dutch.--Paul Wormer 07:29, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Please comment on Earth's atmosphere

Paul, Earth's atmosphere is my first venture outside my field of expertise. I would appreciate any comments you may offer (on the article's Talk page). Milton Beychok 06:32, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Added acknowledgement to Earth's atmosphere about Equation 2 and Boltzmann distribution

Paul, I have added a footnote (reference 13) acknowledging that Equation 2 can be obtained from the Boltzmann distribution and linked it to the article you wrote on the Boltzmann distribution. Milton Beychok 16:53, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

About Barometric formula

Hi, Paul. I am not sure how your Barometric formula article would interfere with the Atmospheric lapse rate article I am writing. You can see my article in progress at User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox and judge for yourself. I am about 75% finished with it. I might even finish it today. As I said above, I am no expert on atmospheric science or meteorology ... I just thought the Earth's atmosphere and Atmospheric lapse rate articles were needed to fit in with my air pollution dispersion modeling articles ... so I wrote them. Milton Beychok 16:28, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Garnet

Thanks Paul!

I took a recent family trip down to Montana, Garnet was one of the places I got to visit and I was completely amazed by what I saw, it really left a lasting impression on me which compelled me to create/work on the Citizendium article. Thanks again! --Mehar Gill 17:52, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Atmospheric lapse rate finished and created

Hi, Paul. Atmospheric lapse rate has been created if you want to see it. I decided to name it "Atmospheric lapse rate" because there are so many different lapses ... lapsed insurance, memory lapses, lapsed into a coma, lapse of eligibility, etc., etc. ... and I didn't want to use "Lapse rate (atmospheric)". Milton Beychok 04:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

What do you think of the Universe article?

Paul, have you ever read the Universe article? What do you think of it? Milton Beychok 23:56, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I looked at it and see nothing wrong with it; but I don't know much about cosmology. It would probably need the hand of a professional cosmologist to bring it to an approvable state, but for a level 2 article (a little bit more than a stub) it seems acceptable to me. Why do you ask this, did you find any errors?--Paul Wormer 06:38, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
No, just curious. Milton Beychok 06:58, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Moving the Associated Legendre Functions article toward approved status

Hi Paul. I would like to get the work done that will allow us to move the Associated Legendre Functions article to approved status. I notice that you have reinserted the inline reference to Edmonds. So the first thing to sort out is what are the rules for citations. The Edmonds citation is now in both the main article and the Bibliography. Do we leave it twice cited? Should we remove it from the Bibliography and leave it in the main article? Should we remove it from the main article and add a footnote that says something like "see reference 1 in the Bibliography"? Or something else. The other issue I see is the dead link to "potential theory". Should we leave this alone or should one of us import the WP article to CZ? Dan Nessett 15:35, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I answered about the inline references on the forum. I feel that CZ cannot do without footnotes and that those must be easily accessible, hence on the main page. I don't mind that some references are cited twice. As long as there are no hundreds of duplicates, it is not important. I expressed my opinion about dead (red) links on the forum: leave them as they are, a red link will spur somebody someday to write the article. (For instance today I wrote Euclidean space because I noticed a red link).--Paul Wormer 15:58, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I have no strong opinions on the "where references should go" issue. I just want to get the article into shape for approval. Should I send a request to a mathematics editor to update the "ToApprove" metadata?

Update: I have left a message on Jitse Niesen's talk page asking him to move the article to "ToApprove" status.

Question: The approval process at CZ is pretty confusing. I just noticed there is a list of articles that someone has deemed ready for approval. Why there is such a list separate from the developed article list is beyond my powers of understanding. However, given it exists, I would like to add the Associated Legendre Functions article to that list. Do you have any objections? Dan Nessett 23:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I might (or WE might) have a 5,000-word developed article about, say, Bill Tilden, well-written and well-organized. If *that* isn't "developed", what is? BUT, it may not be ready for approval because it still lacks some major elements, there are controversies about some aspects of it, or some other reasons. And there may be a short article about Ray Casey that *is* ready for approval (at least in MY opinion, since I'm the one who placed it in that category) because it has all the qualities of the Tilden article BUT ALSO there is nothing more to say about the subject. It's done, finished. That's all, folks! So, at least in MY mind, there can be a clear distinction between "developed" and "ready for approval". Hayford Peirce 00:51, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Hayford. So, who decides that an article is both "developed" and "ready for approval"? Also, since Paul was the person who did most (>99%) of the work on the main article, I still seek his view on moving the article to the the "ready for approval" list. Dan Nessett 01:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Dan, CZ:Ready for approval contains this sentence: "Any user, author or editor, may add an article to the list below but an editor from the relevant workgroup(s) may remove an article if it is deemed unready for the attention of approving editors." That makes it very clear that you, or any other author or editor, can simply place Associated Legendre function in that list. I have done that with many of articles that I created ... but only when they have a Status of 1 (Developed) in their Metadata templates. Associated Legendre function has a Status of 1 in the Metadata template, so there is no reason why you or Paul cannot place it in CZ:Ready for approval. That doesn't guarantee it will be approved ... it just alerts editors that it is considered to be ready for approval. Also, even if it is subsequently nominated for approval by an editor or editors, another editor in the relevant workgroup(s) can object to the nomination or, indeed, stop the nomination process. Milton Beychok 03:17, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Milton. I realize that placing the article on the Ready for Approval list guarantees nothing. The article still has to go through review by the editor or editors. I just want to put it on the list so there is nothing on the author's side of the equation that is left undone. Since Paul wrote most of the article (I and a collaborator wrote most of the proof on the Proof's sub-page) I still would like to get Paul's view on the question. He is in a better position to determine whether the main article is ready or not. I would feel uncomfortable putting it on the list without his agreement. Dan Nessett 04:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Dan, I did not intend to leave the impression that you should leave Paul out of the loop. I was only trying to answer your question of: So, who decides that an article is both "developed" and "ready for approval"? In any event, it seems that all is clear now. Milton Beychok 08:33, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Paul. I am having trouble understanding why you haven't responded to my question whether you have any objections to adding the Associated Legendre Functions article to the "Ready for Approval" list. Do you think the article isn't ready for approval? If so, would you describe the problems that need to be solved so I can work on them? If you think it is ready for approval, would you either put it on the list or let me know and I will do that? Thanks. Dan Nessett 16:14, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Dan, there is not much that we can do, we have to wait until Jitse reacts.
Another thing, maybe you don't know that TeX and LaTeX traditionally have two modes for math: a display mode and an in-line mode. The non-Wiki TeX/LaTeX has different directives for this distinction. Most (longer) math formulas belong in display mode, which means that they are in an otherwise empty block of the screen, without text. Only very brief formulas ought to be in-line and only very small pieces of text appear in display mode. You do not separate the two modes, which to me is not very elegant. If you don't mind, I can format your proof page somewhat.--Paul Wormer 16:32, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Absolutely. Please fell free to format the formulas in the proof so their appearance is improved. Shall I add the article to the "ready for approval" list? Dan Nessett 16:52, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Yes you can do that. Tomorrow I will do the formating. Yet one more thing: we usually indent on talk pages until it gets out of hand, then we either start a new thread or write "unindent". This makes it easier for others to see who said what.--Paul Wormer 17:07, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Done. Dan Nessett 18:09, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Unless, of course, you belong to a fairly adamant minority who insist that there's some academic method of NOT using indents. The CZ rules aren't 100% clear about which is preferable, so I've given up insisting on the indention rules. Mostly.... Hayford Peirce 20:13, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
In regards to indentation style, I'm easy. I prefer an indent per Citizen, so the Citizen that begins the discussion is always non-indented, the first Citizen to reply is always indented by one, etc. That allows one to keep track of who is saying what. But, like I said I really have no hard preference. Dan Nessett 20:22, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Hayford, click on the Edit tab above and read the blue banner at the top. Seems to me thatit clearly spells out what CZ prefers ... and it was discussed thoroughly on the Forums before Chris Day created that banner. Milton Beychok 21:19, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
For pity's sake, Milton, I *know* what it says! And I *know* that we *almost* all agreed to it. BUT the CZ style manual, or guidelines, or whatnot *also* has some weasel words about the academic method -- which *some* people still insist on using. And still they still argue about it -- see Tom Morris, for instance. So even though *most* of us agree to use the indents, it's not 100%, mainly because the nice blue box at the top of the page is just something that some of us cobbled together -- it's not 100% official. So, as I've said, I've given up arguing with the absolutely adamant opponents about it. Hayford Peirce 21:49, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

[Unindent]

Paul. We are getting no response from Jitse. It appears Peter Schmitt is once again responding to CZ matters. Shall I ask him to review the article for approval? Dan Nessett 19:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Paul. I can't remember where you asked me if I could come up with a proof for the second orthogonality relation, so I am leaving this here. As I stated, I asked a former colleague (a theoretical physicist by training) if he would take a crack at it. I just received his response. He has company this weekend, but said he would give it a shot next week. Since he doesn't know and so far has no interest in learning mediawiki markup, anything he creates will be in MS Word. I will then have to translate it into MW markup. I will let you know if and when we have something. Dan Nessett 22:25, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
Paul. You are probably monitoring the Associated Legendre Functions cluster, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to mention here that I have added the proof to the 2nd and 3rd equations in the Orthogonality relations section and slightly adjusted the text in the main article to reflect that. Dan Nessett 16:57, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Genethlialogy

I just asked my sister the astrology guru about this baloney and contrary to what she had told me months ago, she doesn't know anything about it. I have checked WP on this, and they have a *huge* article about it. Since none of us have any interest at all in it as far as I can tell, I suggest that we simply delete this one as being "unmaintainable". Since you're the author who originally created it and put in most of the content, you have the right, according to Matt the other Kop, to ask that it be deleted. If you formally ask me to delete it, therefore, I will....

Best, Hayford Peirce 18:33, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in here, but something about the name Genethlialogy intrigued me. Not that I would argue against deleting the article as unmaintainable, but there appears to be material on this topic elsewhere. For example, the Encyclo On-line Encyclopedia has a definition (http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/Genethlialogy) - casting (I assume a horoscope) for one newly born. The Encyclopedia Britannica appears to have information about it (although it appears to be a couple of sentences inside an article on another topic - Astrology?). Perhaps whatever has already been written about this topic could be merged into the Astrology article? Dan Nessett 22:45, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Sure, it could be merged if someone wanted to do it. What I was saying above is that this is a very short article written by people who have no real interest in it, or knowledge, and that, given its length, there's no particular reason to keep it. Hayford Peirce 06:09, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Hayford, you always say that you are an inclusionist, why would you delete the article? It gives some correct info, doesn't it? When I met the word (in a book by E.J. Dijksterhuis that has been translated into English, German, and French; Dijksterhuis uses the term on p. 170 of the Dutch edition in a chapter on astrology in the medieval Islamic culture) I did not know what genethlialogy meant. The article gives enough info to read Dijksterhuis' chapter. And what is there to maintain, are there any developments in the field? If there are any, I don't think that we fail terribly if we do not immediately report on them.--Paul Wormer 08:00, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Hi, Paul, sorry, I didn't see your comment until just now. As you say, I *am* an inclusionist. I thought that you were the person who originally said it might be deleted.... In any case, the reason I thought this *might* be deleted is that it's such a barebones article as compared to the *very* lengthy WP article -- it gives so little information that I thought it looked bad by comparison. If we had a couple of Howards working on it fulltime, my opinion would be different but its existence seems to be met by total ennui. On the other hand, an astrology *may* come along tomorrow and want to expand it, so let's let it stand! Hayford Peirce 20:22, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Suggested revision of lead-in sentence for Clausius-Clapeyron relation

Paul, please take a look the Talk page of the Clausius-Clapeyron relation article. Milton Beychok 15:54, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Natural gas

Hi, Paul, just want to let you know that I have started work on Natural Gas as promised. After I ported it from WP:

  • I deleted sections I thought just did not belong in the article such as the sections on biogas, town gas and gas pricing (which changes almost on a daily basis).
  • I added new sections on gas composition, geological formation, exploration for new gas reservoirs and extraction (i.e., drilling and production)... all of which were not included in the WP article.
  • I extracted parts of the WP article and reassembled them into a new section on "Measurement units and heating values".
  • I completely reformatted the order of the various new and existing sections in what I think is a more logical sequence.
  • Whenever I see something I don't understand because of my limited knowledge of gas exploration and extraction or that I cannot independently verify, I delete it rather than take any chances that it might be incorrect. Some experienced petroleuom geologist may come along sooner or later and add more content that he/she feels is needed.

I would estimate that I am now about 50% complete. I still have 2-3 excessively lengthy sections of the WP article that I want to trim down drastically. I also have quite a bit of rewording in mind as well.

When I have it ready to load into the article mainspace, I will contact you to see if you want to review and comment on it before I load it as a new article. Milton Beychok 00:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

This is how to create ℓ

Paul, I created this ℓ by using this HTML character entity: & #8467;   (but without the space between & and #). Milton Beychok 07:55, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes Milt, I discovered that too in the meantime. But the question is: how to get the symbol directly, without HTML code. If you look into the source of this message you see ℓ and no code. --Paul Wormer 08:08, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
PS By copy paste of the representation of & #8467; (without space) I got ℓ. Thus, a bootstrapping procedure is possible, create the symbol once by the code, then preview and copy paste it. That is probably how the guy at WP does it. --Paul Wormer 08:15, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand. Why copy and paste?? Why not just enter the HTML code each time on the edit page? It won't show on the article page, which is what is important ... is it not? When would you want to get it directly? I have a sandbox that I call my storage box where I keep a lot of links and other stuff I want to be able to use at any time. I guess I could create this character and keep it there ... but retrieving it would take more time than just using the HTML code. Milton Beychok 08:28, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Because your source looks better. Compare ℓ(ℓ+1)ℏ2 with ℓ(ℓ+1)ℏ2. (Look at the source, not at the output!). --Paul Wormer 08:44, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Okay, now I understand what you wanted. Milton Beychok 19:19, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Natural gas article

Paul, I have completed the Natural gas article (in my sandbox)). If you want to review and suggest changes, I will wait a few days to hear from you before I move it into the main article namespace. My sandbox is at User:Milton_Beychok/Sandbox. Regards, Milton Beychok 22:18, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Paul, as you may have noticed, David Volk nominated Natural gas for approval. Would you care to add your name to the approval? Milton Beychok 16:05, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

About your review of the "Natural gas" article in my sandbox

Many thanks, Paul. I re-worded your first item. As for your second item, I don't know how that discussion of retrograde condensation got repeated. I just deleted it entirely from the natural gas reserves section.

When I load it into the namespace, I will list Engineering and Chemistry as the workgroup categories. I will do that after I get comments that I asked for from a new Engineering editor named Karl D. Schubert.

Milton Beychok 16:09, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Paul, I went ahead and moved Natural gas into the article namespace. I've notifed Karl D. Schubert where to find it. Milton Beychok 00:25, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

homeopathy reapproval

Since the homeopathy article is listed in the chemistry workgroup as well as health sciences and healing arts, you are eligible to join Matt in approval. Are you comfortable with the current draft? Thanks much. --Joe (Approvals Manager) 01:46, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Just completed an article on petroleum crude oil

Paul, I just finished an article on petroleum crude oil in my sandbox at User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox. Feel free to comment on its Talk page. I have not yet run it through a spell checker, so there are probably spelling errors. I will probably load it into the article namespace tomorrow afternoon/evening. Milton Beychok 08:55, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Paul, I just uploaded FireFox and, so far, I like it very much. Thanks for helping me with that. Milton Beychok 06:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

About Thermodynamics

Paul, I note that you have not made any contributions to the Thermodynamics article, which surprizes me since that ought to be right down your alley. It would be nice if we could get that article to the approval stage. Would you please review it and revise it as necessary? Does it need a section on non-equilibrium thermodynamics?

Also, the article links to Laws of Thermodynamics ... but when I go to Laws of Thermodynamics, I find an almost useless stub of an article. Is the "Laws of thermodynamics" section of Thermodynamics inclusive enough for me to ask for speedy deletion of the Laws of Thermodynamics stub? Milton Beychok 17:45, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Paul, just a gentle repeat of my request that you review the Thermodynamics article, please. Also, I crossed out the second part of my above post in this thread, because I have now taken care of that item as suggested by Daniel Mietchen on the Talk:Thermodynamics. Regards, Milton Beychok 21:45, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Milt, the thermodynamics article is written in a way that I personally wouldn't write it (order of sections, presentation of second law, jokes that I don't understand, etc.). If I started to work on the article I wouldn't be able to resist making a major overhaul and I don't want to do that, especially since I'm far from an expert on classical thermodynamics (I failed only twice for an exam in my life, one was my driver's license test—in Europe it is non-trivial—and the second was my classical-thermo exam in 1964—in both cases I passed second time around though). Further, I don't know anything about non-equilibrium thermo. On the other hand, my knowledge of equilibrium statistical thermodynamics is OK.--Paul Wormer 14:12, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks anyway,Paul. If you should change your mind, your comments or overhaul would be welcome and deleting the jokes would not bother me at all. My only interest in this article is that we need a good thermo article and I don't believe that this Thermodynamics import from Wikipedia has ever been thoroughly reworked. Milton Beychok 20:52, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you willing to act as editor on the Sturm-Liouville article?

Paul. I have attempted to work with Peter Schmitt on moving the Sturm-Liouville article towards approval. He has stated that he cannot assure me that he would ever approve it no matter how it is changed, since it contains material that was originally sourced at WP. I asked him if he would mind if I attempted to find a different editor to work with on the article. His answer was somewhat vague, so I sought clarification. However, I have been instructed by Hayford Pierce in his role as constable that if I continue to press Peter on the issue I run the risk of being cited for unprofessional behavior.

Consequently, I am asking whether you would work with me on this article. I see you have made a number of minor stylistic edits to the article. I am not sure whether these constitute enough changes so that you cannot act as editor. The changes were small enough that I could easily back them out (after asking the constables if that is allowed) and make them myself. The reason I am asking you is we worked together on the Associated Legendre functions article and you have stated that you have never turned down a request to work with an author to improve an article so it is approvable.

If you are concerned that this work is tainted by the friction between Peter and I on the article, feel free to read the record of our interactions on his talk page. Dan Nessett 23:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Dan, I'm not a mathematics editor, but I saw that you attached physics as a category, so I had a quick look.
What interests me a lot is why the S-L eigenfunctions are complete. I looked at the section "Sturm–Liouville equations as self-adjoint differential operators" where its discussed that it is a consequence of the resolvent of L being compact due to the Arzelà–Ascoli theorem. I must admit that I had never heard of this theorem and I only have a vague notion of what a compact operator may be (I know what a bounded operator is and a compact operator much be close to it). This section also states the well-known fact that eigenfunctions of the self-adjoint operator L are orthogonal. Given the level of the article such a statement seems sufficient to me, your proof of orthogonality does not add much for a reader who can understand the article.
I checked the book by Margenau & Murphy. They give a fairly low-brow proof of the completeness, at least one that I can understand it. Would it no be better if we had a proof like that?
In short, the subject is of such high level that either a mathematical physicist (which I am not) or a mathematician should have a look at it. An alternative is that we lower its mathematical level.
--Paul Wormer 16:52, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Paul. It is refreshing to receive direction that is both professional and obviously concerned about the problem at hand, i.e., improving the article so it is approvable. That said, I am unfortunately unable to pursue the course you set out, since I am not an expert in functional analysis and my understanding of operator compactness is less than yours. Furthermore, I do not have access to Margenau & Murphy, so I can't look at their proof of completeness. I think this example demonstrates that I am not an appropriate author in the area of this article. I have received a response from John Fletcher and he has decided to refrain from contributing a new article on S-L theory. So, it looks like this article will remain dormant until someone comes along with more expertise than I have in the subject. By the way, the proof of orthogonality is his, not mine.
Since my areas of expertise are networks and distributed systems and since there are reasons I choose not to work on articles in the computers and engineering workgroups, I think the only way I have to contribute to CZ at the moment is to help improve its software, fixing some bugs and perhaps working on the core software so that the modifications specific to CZ are factored into an extension. That is where I intend to work for the foreseeable future.
P.S. Here is an ironic fact. If you Google "Sturm-Liouville theory orthogonality", the third hit on the list is the WP article and indented beneath it is a reference to John's orthogonality proof, which I left in my User space on WP. So, those searching for an orthogonality proof of S-L solutions will find it as the 6th reference on the Google list. Dan Nessett 17:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Chemical elements

Paul, what is your opinion on this forum topic? (Discovered by Hayford in Special:DeadendPages.) Peter Schmitt 18:45, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Wasted a few hours and my face is red!

I spent a few hours creating a drawing of a Carnot heat engine and finding/uploading a photo of Josiah Willard Gibbs and placing both of them in the Thermodynamics article. Some time later, I found that you had already created a drawing of a Carnot heat engine for the Energy article and mine is almost identical to yours ... and I also found that someone had already uploaded the same photo of Gibbs into Chemical thermodynamics. I could have saved myself a few hours of effort if I had only searched CZ a little better. Ah, well! Milton Beychok 01:23, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

The Second law of thermodynamics

Paul, as you requested, I have reviewed the Second law of thermodynamics article to the best of my ability. Most of my changes, if not all, are just very minor rewording and copy editing. I have also raised a few more substantive questions on the article's Talk page that you should consider. I apologize for not having done more. Milton Beychok 20:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Template for chemistry

Paul, could you look at User talk:Milton Beychok#Properties and User talk:Milton Beychok#Property list. I have tried to provide a template requested on CZ:Wishlist. Peter Schmitt 13:07, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not fond of these things. It is lots of work to collect the data, and it is not clear how reliable they are (and in some cases what they mean). Information can be contradictory. For instance, I saw an oxygen atom template (which I cannot find any longer) that says that oxygen is a gas with molecular weight close to 16. This is wrong, but understandably wrong, because these templates force you to make these sorts of errors. In this case the template forces the user to switch back and forth between molecular oxygen O2 and elemental oxygen O and it forces decisions on the user that may be questionable.--Paul Wormer 14:28, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
The template was not my idea. It is supposed to replace the existing construction using a subpage for each entry.
Your reservations are, at least partially, taken care by the template: Without specifying compound or atom it can be used without any predefined entries. For the case, where such an option is used, comments would be useful
What data are so important that the entry should be provided as "required" default? Which entries should be offered as "optional"? Remarks like your comment that molecular and atomic mass are easily mixed up, is also important.
Peter Schmitt 12:52, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

The Book of God and Physics (A novel of the Voynich mystery)

Paul, I am reading a book entitled "The Book of God and Physics" written by a Spanish physicist named Enrique Joven that has been translated into English. It is about the an ancient book called the "Voynich Manuscript".

I think you might enjoy it because it has a good bit of history dating back to the days of Kepler and Tycho Brahe.

Have you heard of this book? Milton Beychok 06:35, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

No Milt, I haven't heard of the Voynich mystery nor of Joven. Is the book worth buying? --Paul Wormer 08:12, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
The book sells here for US$26 ... but the copy I am reading came from our public library. Perhaps a library near you may have a copy. I don't think I would spend $25 buying it. But it is quite interesting and you seem to have a passion for historical physics. Milton Beychok 08:40, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
I doubt that our public library will have it. I live in a small village, and our library has hardly any books in English. You're right that I'm interested in the history of science, many of my articles have a history section. I don't think such sections hurt, somebody who doesn't share my interest can easily skip them (assuming that somebody reads my articles, which I seriously doubt. But who knows, maybe somebody will read some of them sometime in the future).--Paul Wormer 08:56, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
The Voynich manuscript isn't ancient, it's 17th century. Last I heard it was still undeciphered, though. Peter Jackson 11:36, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Peter, as I learned when I worked in London for 6 years or so, 300 years is not ancient at all for Europeans ... but, for Americans like me, 300 years is almost pre-historic. Milton Beychok 18:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Paul, give me your postal mailing address and I'll send you a copy of the book. Milton Beychok 18:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Boltzmann

If it is not urgent then it is no problem. To get a good picture I would like to wait for nice weather with good light, and this has to coincide with a time when I can go there. (The Zentralfriedhof is on the other side of the town where I rarely am.) Now, in autumn/winter good light may be rare. Peter Schmitt 12:58, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Herman Van Rompuy

Hi Paul, I do not see why you redirect from Herman Van Rompuy to Van Rompuy — I would do it the other way round. --Daniel Mietchen 10:28, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

That is because I made the mistake by starting out with Van Rompuy and I'm too lazy to move it. --Paul Wormer 10:35, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Element subpages

Hi Paul, such mass deletions can be done by a bot if you can wait until they are allowed to run again. --Daniel Mietchen 15:12, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, consider that the information itself is useful, the format is the problem. A bot might be able to reconfigurate that information, assuming we have a plan for what to do with it? Chris Day 20:55, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Complex numbers

Paul, please have a look at Talk:Complex number/Draft#correcting approved version. Can you help? I will not mind if you make the 1/z passage a little more explicit, too. Peter Schmitt 01:40, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Re-approval of Version 2.1 completed. Thanks for your participation! D. Matt Innis 15:16, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Paul, I replied to you (delayed) on my talk page. Best wishes! Peter Schmitt 15:47, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

a Dutch professor

Hi, Paul,

Sorry about confusing the NL and Belgium -- I was drinking my morning coffee! Now there's a prof at a NL university named Paul de Laat who has emailed saying that his *two* applications have never been attended to. As far as *I* can tell, we never received an application. Do you know anything about him? Thanks! Hayford Peirce 16:20, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I googled Paul de Laat and he seems to be a genuine philosopher working at the University of Groningen, a well-known university. I don't know him. --Paul Wormer 16:29, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, he says that he is Paul B. de Laat, Faculteit Filosofie, Universiteit Groningen, NL and has applied twice in the last two months with no response at all. I find no records of his applications. Geez. Hayford Peirce 16:40, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
I am corresponding with him through the Constabulary email and have asked him to reapply -- I'll be keeping a beady eye on the process this time! Hayford Peirce 18:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
We finally got him registered as an Author -- he wasn't filling out 50 words in the bio space. BUT apparently he also wasn't getting a warning saying that he hadn't done so. I'll check this out and see if there's a bug in the system. Hayford Peirce 20:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Need your comment LaTex equation in Molar volume

Paul, I just created a new article called Molar volume. It includes this equation

Should it be corrected to:\this?

In general, what are the rules for when to use italics and when to use non-italics?

Thanks in advance. Milton Beychok 03:23, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Milt, definitely the second, but I would use \mathrm{mixture}. (I forgot the difference between \rm and \mathrm but somehow I remember that \mathrm works better). According to the AIP style manual, words (like: total, in, out, mixture, etc.) in math must be roman also when used as sub- or superscripts. Also in roman must be: chemical symbols (O, Ne), units (Hz, J), and mathematical functions: cos, exp, etc. Personally I would write "mixt" instead of "mixture" in equations. --Paul Wormer 06:29, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
May I drop in? It should be \text (and I think that \textstyle looks better)
The reason for \text (\textrm is not scriptstyle): There is a difference between the spacing of math fonts and of text fonts reflecting the fact that -- in math mode -- single letters represent variables while in text they are combined to words.
Therefore, if italics, it should be \textit. But, moreover, "mixt(ure)" should be Roman, not Italics, because it is not the name of a variable (cf. "\log" and "log"). This is often not considered in books and journals when authors are not advised by (competent) editors.
\rm provides \mathrm, I think (needs checking), but does not take an argument, i.e. {\rm text} and \mathrm [text} are equivalent, I suppose. Curiously, \mathrm and \textrm show no difference:
I shall have to try this off-wiki --Peter Schmitt 12:06, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Edward Teller

Paul, what is lacking with Edward Teller that we would prevent it from being approved? Russell D. Jones 01:11, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Not much, maybe a few more references? On the other hand, as I stated several times on the Forum, once it is approved, it is hard to change it. And who knows, you or I may read something interesting in the future that then will be hard to add. --Paul Wormer 13:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Another thing: WP has a section about Teller and the Israel A- and H-bombs. Teller doesn't say anything about this in his Memoirs. The WP section is based on one book only (that I haven't seen and I don't know its trustworthiness). Since the fact whether or not Israel possesses nuclear weapons is formally top-secret, I decided not to chase after that book and to skip the topic altogether. Any opinion anyone? --Paul Wormer 14:04, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Need your help

Paul, Meg Ireland just corrected the spelling of one word in Amine gas treating/Draft. Since you never worked on that article and since you are a Chemistry editor, would you please nominate the article for single-editor re-approval so that the spelling will be corrected in the approved version? Thanks, Milton Beychok 06:18, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Milton, I filled out the template as best as I could, but I'm not sure I did it correctly (the same as with my Dutch IRS form). --Paul Wormer 12:18, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Hi Paul (and Milt), since the change that Meg made was only a wikilink spelling change to a wikilink that Milt had added, I was able to make the change as a copyedit (since it was not a content edit) to the Approved version. I did add your name, Paul, to the Approval editors' list as another approving editor (which you can do to any chemistry article that you find can recommend. D. Matt Innis 17:43, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Subpages and Properties

Hi Paul,

Just thought I'd post this:

http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,3054.0.html

here for you in case you were willing to relocate our discussion over there...--David Yamakuchi 01:42, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Need more comments from you on the Talk page of Water

Would like to have your comments

After discussion on the Talk page of Water, I entered the Freezing point of water as "Not measurable" in response to the comments made by you and Daniel Mietchen. David Yamakuchi's subpage transclusion has now revised it to " 0 °C* " ... which has me at a loss. Please visit the Water Talk page and offer your comments. I really don't know what to do about this. Milton Beychok 05:56, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Chris Day has now reverted it back to "Not measurable". So all is now well (if it just stays that way). Milton Beychok 06:23, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Please look at pH

Paul, please look at my rewrite of the pH article and correct all my mistakes. Also look at its Talk page and comment on my suggestions as to what sections it still needs. Milton Beychok 06:31, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Milt, I'm still in Florida (without books). On Thursday and Friday I'm flying back and after recovering my jetlag I'll have a better look at the pH article.--Paul Wormer 16:03, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Redlinks and lemma articles

Hi Paul, I remember that you have been critical of CZ:Lemma articles, so I would appreciate your comments on this thread at the Forums. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 09:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

The pH article

Paul, if you are back home now and over the jet lag, please look at the pH article when you have the time and revise/edit/expand/correct or whatever. Regards and I hope you had a good time in Florida, Milton Beychok 04:51, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Well-posed problem

Reacting to a question by Milt I have started well-posed problem and tried to explain the correspondence between physics and mathematics. It may need checking by a physicist. --Peter Schmitt 00:43, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

PageRank experiment

Hey, Paul, check out this:--Thomas Wright Sulcer 17:34, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Check out the wikitable: Experiment -- CZ articles by Google Pagerank I did a mini-study of CZ articles chosen randomly, from different authors. The google search was "Article name" citizendium -- that's it, with the article title in quotes. Sometimes CZ articles came first, but surprisingly many times the "Related Article" pages, "Catalog" pages, or "Workgroup" pages BEAT OUT THE ACTUAL ARTICLE. Clearly something's wrong here. It confirms my suspicion that the related-articles subsystem confuses the Google crawlers, so that they can't figure out what links to what and as a result, CZ's web exposure suffers bigtime.----Thomas Wright Sulcer 17:34, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Wondering what you think?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 17:34, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

If you have the time and inclination, please comment on Venturi tube

Paul, I would appreciate your comments or any errors you see in Venturi tube. Regards, Milton Beychok 05:21, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

By now, I guess that you have seen that I incorporated your comments into the Venturi article. Regards, Milton Beychok 15:52, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Plane

Paul, you ask about inserting your text into plane (geometry). I'm not sure. Boris' page is about the idea of a plane, while you describe its representation in 3-dimensional analytic geometry. Currently I think that it would better fit into some page devoted to coordinate geometry of 3-space.

A few observations:

  • You use both bold and an arrow for vectors. Isn't this an overkill?
  • What is the meaning of ^n (on some, but not all n?
  • The notation is a little confusing: (a_x,a_y,a_z) for vector a, but (x,y,z) for vector r defining point X. It could be more systematic.

--Peter Schmitt 11:36, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Boris' article is about a plane in 3-dimensional Euclidean space; note that he gives the equation ax+by+cz = d. In the strategy of becoming more and more technical in going down an article, my piece wouldn't be out of place somewhere at the end of the article, I think.
I use arrows on top of "arrows" (directed line segments), the symbol under it doesn't have to be bold. Column vectors (three real numbers) are bold in my notation, without arrow on top. They are defined with respect to a frame, while "arrows" don't need a frame. The hat on a vector indicates a unit vector, in physics this quite a common usage. I could use (r_x, r_y, r_z) instead of (x, y, z), if you think that's better.
--Paul Wormer 11:51, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes, he mentions the equation, but his article is a survey of different methods to define the plane in 3-space, and going into details with one approach would make it necessary for the others, too. He avoided, I think, on purpose to introduce technicalities. Moreother, you implicitely assume even more knowledge about 3-space and vectors (you use vectors and free vectors, length of and angles between vectors).
I still think that it would fit nicely into Analytic geometry in 3-space (or similar). Let's see what Boris thinks.
I know that your notation comes from usage in physics. But I did not know about the hat, and I wondered why the hat is only used sometimes. (It just occcurs to me that you do not really need the normed vector at all, in this connection.)
--Peter Schmitt 12:37, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
  • I replaced the hat by an arrow.
  • The unit vector is indeed not really necessary in the equation, but conventional. At the end of my piece I give an equation that only uses the vector a.
  • The fact that knowledge is used that is not really defined in the same article would be a deadly sin in a textbook, but remember CZ is an encyclopedia.
  • I'm completely prepared to give other equations for the plane (plus drawings) but before I spend time I wanted to hear the opinion of math editors.
--Paul Wormer 13:22, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the writing of an article about catalysis

Paul, my knowledge of catalysis is quite limited. I know what and how catalysts are used in many of the petroleum refining processes. But I know nothing about the chemistry of catalysis.

I took a look at the WP article on catalysis. I could port it here to CZ, do some rewording, delete a few bits that I think are not needed, and put it into CZ form (move "See also" to Related Articles subpage, move "External links" to External Links subpage, check all of the references to see if they are still active and that they are credible references, and replace their wiki links to WP articles with wiki links to CZ articles).

But I would have to assume that the content of the WP article is correct ... which may be unwise. But at least we would have an article that other Citizens might someday critically review and revise as needed. What do you think? Milton Beychok 21:23, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Milton, I have problems understanding the lede of the WP article on catalysis. For instance:
Catalysts may affect the reaction environment favorably, e.g. acid catalysts for reactions of carbonyl compounds form specific intermediates that are not produced naturally, such as osmate esters in osmium tetroxide-catalyzed dihydroxylation of alkenes, or cause lysis of reagents to reactive forms, such as atomic hydrogen in catalytic hydrogenation.
Why do they (WP authors) say "affect reaction environment" when they mean that "carbonyl intermediates are formed"? What does it mean that these intermediates are "not produced naturally"? Is "natural" the same as "in absence of an osmium catalyst"? Why is osmium tetroxide an "acid catalyst"? (A compound is acidic if it is either a proton donor or an electron-pair acceptor. There are no protons, so OsO4 is an electron-pair acceptor? Did you know that? I did not.) What is an "osmate ester" and what is "lysis"? It all sounds very technical and detailed ("an osmate ester as an intermediate in dihydroxylation of an alkene") to me, and hardly illuminating.
However, the WP article could be a start provided we trim everything that is not clear, or else explain it. --Paul Wormer 08:22, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Cool mathematical animation

I uploaded this "gif" file animation from the Wikimedia Commons. Do you or Milton know in which mathematical articles it might be used? Or perhaps in astronomy? (Note: I've since been told by technical people not to load any more animations or large image files FYI). Here's the image:...said Thomas Wright Sulcer (talk) 19:44, April 5, 2010

Animation
Two orbits that differ by eccentricity.

Thomas, PLEASE sign your postings. All you have to do is type ~~~~ and your post will be automatically signed and dated. As for the gif, I am not a mathematician. You would do much better by contacting Peter Schmitt. Milton Beychok 04:06, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I had seen that animation too (although I cannot locate it anymore) and found it very illuminating. It compares the motion of a planet in an elliptic orbit with a planet moving in a circle. Note that the circular motion is uniform (regular) and that the motion in the elliptic orbit accelerates and decelerates. This behavior is governed by the second law of Kepler that states that in equal times equal areas are "swept". Note that the planet goes quite fast when it is close to the Sun (that is in the focus on the right) because it has to cover lots of surface area. On the left it can go much slower because the surface area to be swept is much "deeper".--Paul Wormer 06:41, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

The Catalysis article

Paul: I gave up on porting the WP article. It was entirely too technical for me. If I delete all the parts that I don't understand, there would be very little of the article left.

Instead, I did a great deal of reading and note-taking ... and started from scratch. I am about half-way finished at this point. You might take a look at User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox and tell me what you think of it. I hope to get it finished to the best of my ability in the next 2-3 days. Then, hopefully, others more knowledgeable than I can go to work on it. Milton Beychok 03:52, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Paul, I have finished and uploaded the Catalysis article you asked me to write. Milton Beychok 04:17, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

More "infrastructure" article needed

Paul, in the past few days I have uploaded the new articles Catalysis and Chemical reaction. Writing those made me realize how many other basic "infrastructure" chemistry articles we still need. For example:

  • Chemical bond
  • Activation energy
  • Acid-base with subsections entitled: "Arrhenius theory" or "Arrhenius definition", "Lewis theory" or "Lewis definition" and "Brønsted-Lowery" or "Brønsted definition"

Could you write those or do you know anyone else who can? We really need them. Milton Beychok 02:08, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes Milton I agree that we need them and I know that for quite some time. But somehow I don't feel challenged by these chemical articles. As a theoretical chemist I could very well write about chemical bonding and activation energy and out of sense of duty I will do it sometime, but somehow I'm not inspired (this is not helped by a bronchitis that I have since a few weeks).--Paul Wormer 05:18, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
I hope your bronchitis has run its course by now. Best wishes, Milton Beychok 15:41, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Milton and Paul: I'll put Acid-base on my to-do list, try to start it near end of the academic year. Anthony.Sebastian 16:09, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Please consider nominating Coal for Approval

Paul, I think the Coal article is ready for Approval but I cannot nominate it since I worked on it quite a bit. Would you look at it and, if you think it worthy, nominate it for Approval? Thanks, Milton Beychok 15:40, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I had a quick scan and coal looks good. I will read it more carefully asap. My bronchitis shrank to a cough thanks to tetracycline.--Paul Wormer 15:46, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Feel better.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 16:06, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Renamed Dimitri Mendeleev to Dmitri Mendeleev

Thanks, Paul. Anthony.Sebastian 16:02, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Coal article approved!

Congratulations, Paul, the article at [3] has been approved. Hayford Peirce 16:44, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Boltzmann

Finally, I have visited the Zentralfriedhof and made pictures of Boltzmann's grave. I have selected four and uploaded them. You'll find them on recent changes. Hope you like one of them. --Peter Schmitt 23:39, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I have inserted the picture. Is there a reason why you did not do it yourself?
By the way, the picture you linked has been used by WP, but you hesitated to use it for copyright reasons?
Well, I prefer it anyway that CZ is different from WP, and the new picture is not worse, I think.
--Peter Schmitt 11:06, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
The reason I didn't do it myself is that I didn't know how you wanted the credit line. Now there is no credit line, but you can put your name there if you want.--Paul Wormer 12:02, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
It was the first time that I uploaded pictures -- whether borrowed ones or my one. I shall have to look what's usual. (If you detect other mistakes or omissions, please, let me know.) --Peter Schmitt 13:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Diagram of the four major phases of matter

Paul, I added a diagram to the Condensation (phase transition) article that I wrote recently. I think that diagram might be useful in some of your physics articles ... what do you think? Regards, Milton Beychok 21:15, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi Milton, off-hand I cannot think of an article that could use it, but I keep it in mind.--Paul Wormer 12:07, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Ormus article

Is the Ormus article of salvageable encyclopedic quality? Milt defers to you. Howard C. Berkowitz 06:55, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I intergated your remark into the lead, but am not sure it is quite what we want. Mostly I tried to take it out of first person, but might not have succeeded. Hopefully, I've kept your meaning, but feel free to alter it even more. D. Matt Innis 13:07, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Matt, your changes make the article look credible. If this article becomes known we will be the laughing stock of internet, so please delete it.--Paul Wormer 13:29, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
It looks as though we've sparked some discussion, but I think we did everything right. It's still totally up to you. D. Matt Innis 23:34, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Paul, if you still follow the forum (as I hope you do), you see that nobody doubted your expertise and your judgment. It was and is a discussion on CZ policy (how to handle such articles). Your statement:
"I see clearly now that the role of experts on Citizendium is marginal, it is restricted to asking Constables to place green check marks, and therefore I suspend my participation here for indefinite time."
is therefore unfounded. Thus I hope to meet you here again soon. --Peter Schmitt 23:45, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

PLEASE reconsider!

Paul, I am very sorry that you did not wait for the final outcome of the policy discussion on how to handle nonsense science.

I have been member for about a year, and if I learnt something here then it is: Discussions last long. (And it simply is not realistic that all participants agree -- some clash of opinions cannot be avoided.)

If the discussion had been stopped now it would certainly surface again.

Thus it pays to try to bring it to an end, and I sincerely hope that the final outcome will satisfy you and make you reconsider.

Do not leave in anger! --Peter Schmitt 17:17, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Seconded. One reason i have been associated with CZ is that I think in the long term the "voices of ignorance" will not be able to find a limelight here. If I did not think that was possible then I would not participate at all. It will be a long slog but a worthwhile one, in my opinion. Chris Day 20:11, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
I came here to avoid the voices of ignorance at WP, and, like Chris, I think there's hope of making this a refuge from them. Had the Charter process moved more quickly, we might have an Editorial Council dealing with realistic approaches here. There is, I believe, a good deal of recognition that the neutrality policy is not always something can be realized, but fairness and expertise can. Still, if we are going to survive, it's the experts that are essential. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:18, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
Paul, you already know how I feel. We NEED you. Milton Beychok 21:32, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
Citizendium is the worst form of knowledge sharing, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time — I thus wish you well wherever you go, and hope that this will include further visits here. --Daniel Mietchen 23:44, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm sad Paul - especially because I think that the points you've made are right, and that the principles you expound are universally supported even if there's been dissension about how best to implement them.Gareth Leng 08:54, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
Dear Paul, from the above I gather that you intend to leave CZ, and it comes as a shock. May I join colleagues who ask you to reconsider? Selfishly, I would adduce the following: you helped me along when I was a newcomer (which I still am) and encouraged me to start working here. I am still in my initial phase (slow learner), but have valued your kind help very much. From a less selfish point of view, I hope that you have found satistaction in contributing to CZ, and will hopefully continue doing so. Behaviour is not always consistent, nor need it be. Should you decide to return (temporarily or otherwise), many parties would benefit, and I hope so fervently that this would include yourself. Respectfully, Bessel Dekker 22:48, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Please look

I'd appreciate your comment at Talk:Memory_of_water#Rewrite Sandy Harris 13:03, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

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Article 54

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Some comments of mine

Paul:

Please take a moment to look at my remarks on Talk:Gaussian units, Talk:Speed of light and Talk:Free space. Thanks, John R. Brews 14:52, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Reversion?

Why was the user page reverted? See discussion on Rational Wiki. At least on the face of it, this seems to violate the policy that a user controls his or her own user page. Sandy Harris 02:05, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I can think of two reasons offhand. First, Dr. Wormer's deletion left his User page bio as being less than 50 words. Second, and more important, he was a prominent Editor here for a number of years. Editorial Council resolution http://ec.citizendium.org/wiki/EC:PR-2010-024 basically says that Editors must be prepared to have their credentials and qualifications made public and to remain public. Dr. Wormer's credentials, therefore, were no longer maintained in a CZ space. Which is why the Constabulary, correctly in my opinion, reverted his deletion. Hayford Peirce 02:42, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
I cannot see that an EC Resolution passed after he left is binding on him, especially when it clearly conflicts with the Charter: "Article 8 Citizens shall be considered Editors of their own user pages and subpages thereof, as long as content is not inflammatory or derogatory." Nor can I see that linking to a home page at a university which includes a list of over 100 publications is unreasonable as a way of making qualifications public; in fact it is better than most CZ bios. Moreover, the older version of the user page remains in the wiki history and can always be consulted at need; I see no reason at all to mandate that it be kept as the current version. Sandy Harris 03:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
There has always been a rule-of-thumb, or maybe even official rule, that all Citizens had to have a minimum biography of 50 words. And, as far as I can tell, Dr. Wormer is still a Citizen who makes occasional edits (check his Contributions) -- he therefore falls under our current guidelines, particularly those for Editorships. You may continue to argue this, if you wish, but I doubt if it will do you, or Dr. Wormer, any good. Hayford Peirce 04:09, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

See this forum thread.

The Charter, too, has been ratified after Paul left.
If an action is justified with reference to the Charter then restrictions imposed since then are valid, too.
A link to an external biography was not sufficient before and is not sufficient after the Charter ratification. --Peter Schmitt 09:50, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I have great respect for Paul. As far as I know, he is an active editor. I am sure he wants to follow the rules. D. Matt Innis 13:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Hope you don't mind the copyedits, Paul. I didn't understand 'dr. ir.' so I decided to Be Bold. Ro Thorpe 16:11, 6 April 2011 (UTC) - May I also suggest bolding your name & title at the beginning?

Happy to see you back

Paul, thanks for making recent edits in the wiki. Your contributions are much appreciated.Pat Palmer (talk) 14:14, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

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