User talk:Steve Quinn/Archive early

Your recent edits

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Thank you sign bot. I will try to remember.Ti-30X (talk) 02:29, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Physics of the Impossible

“ An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Physics of the Impossible. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not"). ”

“ Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Physics of the Impossible. Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

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Materialscientist

“ Hi, I've read your messages at ANI and I'm really glad to see your sense of humor and acceptance to mistakes of yours and mine. I am terse and grumpy most of the time. That only aims to help, you and WP. With you, I'm grumpy on the following: (i) ANI is a serious place for serious emergencies needing administrative attention (e.g. in your last thread you copy/pasted the old thread ruining all formatting, and now it is hard to understand who is wrote what); (ii) your edits are bulky, which is really good as it brings new data, but. Information should be focused, objective, well-references, etc., i.e. encyclopedic. Thus it is better to write less, but properly, not only in the articles, but also in the talk pages. Every page of importance gets brushed up by editors like me, and if there is too much to brush, we get cranky. (iii) There was a good point on ANI on "According to professor X, water is wet". Please avoid such phrases because they assume priority of X. This does infuriate the people who feel they should be given priority instead. Every now and then we have nasty disputes on WP on such issues and we do our best to avoid them, and thus impersonalize as much as humanly possible. Cheers. P.S. You can reply here, no need to jump to my page. ”

Materialscientist (talk) 05:16, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

“ Materialscientist. I appreciate this response. This response clears a lot of things up, for me. Being grumpy is OK as long the grumpy person is OK with it. LOL! I've noticed that you work on a large amount of articles. Do you ever sleep? (another LOL!) I am surprised that you have not recieved a Barnstar or two yet (seriously). Thanks for the advice above and sorry about what I did to that thread over at ANI. I will see if I can fix it somehow later, or get it fixed. "Impersonalize as much as humanly possible" very good. Anyway you can expect a Barnstar for the work you did on the God Particle. ”

Ti-30X (talk) 10:47, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the star. My stars are good word from people which I receive from time to time. Yes, I should probably sleep and eat more :-) Materialscientist (talk) 23:13, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Duke U.

B-2 Spirit was built using today's stealth technology

This section is paralleled with the discussion in the book, but other sources are used. Invisibility, the topic explored in Chapter 2 of this book, is actually being tested in the lab by today's scientists. It is the science of an "invisible cloak ". Of course, at this time, this science is in the very beginning stages and is only a few years old. According to an article in Science Daily, the core concept behind invisibility is twofold. First, no light can reflect off the object, and, second, "the light must bend around the object so that people would see only the background and not the cloaked object itself."

Simulation of how a cloaking device would work

Cloaking device deactivated: Light is reflected and absorbed by the object, causing it to be visible.

Cloaking device active: Light is deflected around the object, causing it to be invisible.

The first demonstrations of a working invisibility cloak occured at Duke University. This was announced in the Office of News & Communications Duke University newspaper on October 19, 2006. According to the article,"A team led by scientists at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering has demonstrated the first working "invisibility cloak." The cloak deflects microwave beams so they flow around a "hidden" object inside with little distortion, making it appear almost as if nothing were there at all." This event was also reported by the Duke Engineering team to Science Express,on the same day, which is the advance online publication of the peer reviewed journal Science.

Comparing the refraction from a metamaterial and a conventional material.

A concurrent news release by the Duke University Engineering Department noted the use of the new metamaterials to achieve this first step for an Invisibility cloak. These are exotic composite materials not found anywhere in nature. According to the article, "the researchers manufactured the cloak using "metamaterials" arranged in a series of concentric circles", which produce specific electro-magnetic waves. "Metamaterials are artificial composites" that are made to "interact with electromagnetic waves in ways that natural materials" cannot.

Current attempts to create a cloak for objects is to limit the electro-magnetic reflection, bouncing off the object, or create the object in such a way that the object cancels the electro-magnetic waves. For instance, current stealth technology tries to defeat enemy radar using this method. Of course, this ends up limiting the cloak effect to specific objects. The Duke University demonstrations show that with the metamaterials there is the possiblity to conceal any object.

The Duke University demonstration experiments were also discussed in Chapter 2 of this book and, therefore, connects the topic to the "hard" science being practiced today. In the "Paper Cuts" interview, of the New York Times, Kaku says, "I think within 10 years, we’ll get it so that we can get a large object — something that you can put in your hand — to become invisible to one frequency of visible light. The Harry Potter cloak, of course, is much more difficult." Invisibilty is classified as a Class I impossibility.

According to the Duke University Engineering Department news release an important result was achieved, "'By incorporating complex material properties, our cloak allows a concealed volume, plus the cloak, to appear to have properties similar to free space when viewed externally,' said David R. Smith, Augustine Scholar and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke. 'The cloak reduces both an object's reflection and its shadow, either of which would enable its detection.'"

This technology advances incrementally, starting with the Duke University demonstrations, in 2006, with invisibility in the microwave range. Then, in April, 2007 Purdue University engineers used nanotechnology to theoretically render an object invisible in the light wavelengh of 632.8 nanometers, or more simply, the color red as seen with ordinary eyesight.

In 2009 at Duke University the latest advance - a series of alogarithms were developed, to guide the design and fabrication of new metamaterials. David Smith of the Duke Engineering department (also quoted in Chapter 2 of this book) - comparing the 2006 device, says, "“The difference between the original device and the latest model is like night and day,” Smith said. “The new device can cloak a much wider spectrum of waves — nearly limitless — and will scale far more easily to infrared and visible light. The approach we used should help us expand and improve our abilities to cloak different types of waves.” The article also noted that "once the algorithm was developed, the latest cloaking device was completed from conception to fabrication in nine days, compared to the four months required to create the original, and more rudimentary, device."

Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. If you can't type the tilde character, you should click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot (talk) 14:22, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Invisibility

I think you should work on merging that material into the Invisibility article. It's got too much stuff that isn't really about the book per se in it. Gigs (talk) 16:34, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Gigs.Ti-30X (talk) 16:45, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Physics of the Impossible

"The fact that this book uses Sci-Fi technology to open the door to real science is interesting" Beware of statements like this, they almost certainly violate WP:NPOV. You can say that "Bob Ross says that the book ... is interesting <cite bob ross>", but when the article declares it, that's a violation of our neutrality policy. Remember we need to write about what people are saying about the topic, we can't put our own opinion in. Gigs (talk) 17:19, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

OK thanks Gigs, I will change that and look for more.Ti-30X (talk) 17:21, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

OK Gigs, I made some changes throughout what I wrote. Let me know what you think Ti-30X (talk) 17:40, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Feedback

My main feedback would be to try not to rely on one source so much, especially not all in the same place. The article should be about the book, not about the review. Otherwise the material is better, we can probably integrate a lot of it (like you already know, the introduction is probably not the right place). Gigs (talk) 20:43, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Material for Physics of the Impossible

Brian Appleyard writes that according to the laws of physics, almost all of the Science Fiction technologies discussed in the book can be achieved. This is because physicists are full of a new confidence about being on the verge of a new era of breakthroughs.

File:La Defense - Stairway to Heaven.jpg

Stairway to Heaven Picture of the Day - June 2009 08

The Tower of Belém, Lisbon, Portugal. View from Northeast. Picture of the Day - June 2009 09

Appleyard considers this book to be a demonstration of this renewed confidence, because the book is an explanation of how the log jam of stagnation in physics for the last 30 years is lifting. He writes about the book's author: “Kaku, when on home territory, is an effective and gifted dramatiser of highly complex ideas. If you want to know what the implications would be of room-temperature superconductors, or all about tachyons, particles that travel faster than the speed of light and pass through all points of the universe simultaneously, then this is the place to find out.” To Appleyard,the fact that this book uses Sci-Fi technology to open the door to real science is interesting. However, he writes, it also has the added effect of making discoveries that might otherwise end up being obscure, as giving us a feeling of being closer to that optimistic future. When bending microwaves around an object, instead of being just an obscure physics experiment, it creates a feeling that a Star Trek cloaking device is just around the corner. An equally obscure subatomic experiment means that soon we will be saying, “Beam me up Scotty.” He writes, that in this regard, this book helps to “sustain our sense of an increasing acceleration into a future that must be radically different from the present.”

According to Appleyard this radically different and better future “... is what lies at the core of this type of book. The future, conceived as some realm in which contemporary problems have been resolved, is the primary, though usually unacknowledged, faith" that people have always had.”

Table 1	Table Test
x = 5	y = 6

I replied

I have posted a reply for you on the talk page for POTI. It may not be what you wanted to hear, but I think a lot of the criticisms people are putting out are valid. Please take them to heart. Also keep in mind that the version you have posted in userspace violates the GFDL copyright license since it does not carry the page revision history. After you are done with the discussion, please request that an admin delete it with the {{db-author}} tag. As well, if you just want to let people see a page as it existed at a moment in history, you can copy and paste the link in the version history in single brackets, instead of making a copy. Gigs (talk) 01:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Intro to QM

Thanks for your ideas on the "fork" situation. Strategically, it might be a little better to wait a week or so. I've other responsibilities, so I can't spend full time on the article. It needs work on the bottom half, which I have never done much to before the last couple of days. One drawback is that it does not mention Feynman's quantum electrodynamics. Anyway, I would prefer getting this article together before people with the power to delete things start comparing articles. P0M (talk) 00:28, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

References to Newton books

It was interesting to see that you put up a couple of references to Newton's 'System of the World' in Newton's law of universal gravitation and in Point particle.

I agree it's a good reference, and an interesting and even readable book (and I didn't notice until today that its original version is now online at Google-books), but it's not actually a translation of Newton's 'Principia' -- the online descriptions at Google-books are often quite inaccurate misdescriptions, and this is probably one of them.

The strange relation between 'Principia' and 'System of the World' is partly explained in Wikipedia at Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica#A preliminary version and also in a (very RS) illuminating explanatory introduction (1969) by I. Bernard Cohen, which went in front of a facsimile of the 1731 2nd edition of 'System of the World'. (Cohen explains his preference of the 1731 2nd edition over the 1728 printing, mainly because of improved cross-references to the 'Principia', and page-references to the Motte edition of 1729).

Newton's readable version of his argument for the applicability of the inverse square law can be seen in the book you linked to, the 1728 translation of 'System of the World' (open here at page 12).

The citation that it makes to Corollary 6 of Proposition 4 of the Principia can be seen displayed in an online scan of the 1729 English version of the 'Principia', open here at page 65 of the 1729 English translation (by Motte), but this includes only the first of 2 1729 volumes with Books 1 and 2. The 2nd volume, with Book 3 (which is the successor of 'System of the World' in the 'Principia'), seems not to be available online in this 1729 edition. Nevertheless, it was all reprinted in 1803, as well as at other times, and Google-books now have the reprints online as well. These give the 'Principia', entire, in vols. 1 and 2, and a miscellany that includes 'System of the World' in vol.3. (Here is a link to volume 2 that includes 'Principia' Book 3, open at page 159 where one may read Newton's admission (?) of rewriting it in a more difficult style!)

(I know that really I ought to fix references myself, instead of troubling you about it (so, my apologies for any breach of WP-etiquette here), but it could be a little while before I get around to this. I thought you might possibly be interested, in the meantime.)

Kind regards, Terry0051 (talk) 19:57, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

[From Terry0051] Hi Quinn & thanks for your response on my talkpage. Glad it might have been some interest. I noticed you hunted up a reference to Prop.75 from the new 1999 translation, not yet online I think. Here it is in case you might like to have it in the old but online 1729 translation, open at the page. All the best, Terry. Terry0051 (talk) 23:58, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

[From Terry0051] re: "What does it mean, with this reference, that this is "Preceded by A Guide to Newton's Principia, by I.Bernard Cohen. University of California Press...""

I should have used fewer words, it's only that the Guide is like an (enormous) foreword to the volume. And btw, I just managed to track down vol.2 of the 1729 translation with Book 3 as well, in case you need it. I find some google books hard to track down. Best, Terry. Terry0051 (talk) 21:54, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

[From Terry0051] Hi Quinn, yes I agree it's interesting to see all this stuff under discussion from when it was new. 'Flamsteed' was John Flamsteed, who started up the work of the royal Greenwich observatory from 1675, while Townley was another astronomer and correspondent of Flamsteed but I can't remember knowing much about him. They produced distinct data but seemed to be in substantial agreement, given the accuracies available at the time. Best wishes -- Terry0051 (talk) 12:46, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

ε

Thanks. I thought that's what it might be. Out of context of equations, anything can be anything. People who use these equations every day will see that the equations are saying even if somebody were to use ɥ ;-)

I showed the professor who teach QM on my campus Aitchison's equation (10) basically out of the blue, and he said: "That's a matrix." I don't recall that he knew I was even there to ask about Heisenberg. That was just his reaction to the mathematical form. I, on the other hand, never would have figured anything out unless I had not first happened on an exercise for some class of students that was presented on-line and had to do with introducing the Ritz Combination Principle. When I read it in that part of Aitchison's article it went in one eye and out the other. After I knew what it was, things started to make sense.

There are still some things with the superior (0) superior (2) etc. notations. I can guess about them but I assume that people who do perturbation theory stuff all the time know from long experience what they are intended to tell the reader. P0M (talk) 05:39, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Trojan wavepackets

Hi.

I just started Trojan wave packet so that interested parties can assemble the correct information on the subject and then possibly use that article to counter misinformation elsewhere. I'm not sure that I have found the best articles to plunder for basic information. If you run into any useful information, please feel welcome to expand the article. It's just a stub right now. P0M (talk) 01:16, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

DYK nomination

Hi. I've nominated Trojan wave packet, an article you worked on, for consideration to appear on the Main Page as part of Wikipedia:Did you know. You can see the hook for the article here, where you can improve it if you see fit. Bruce1ee^talk 09:59, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

You've done a lot of good work on the article, and it appears to me to be in good shape. The very last section would need to be tightened up a bit for a reader like me because it wasn't easy to tell whether the two-electron work in helium has actually been accomplished or is still in the works. I would have edited it myself but I would have to do the research. :-) I also noticed "cicular" or something like that for "circular." I'll have another look when I have more time.

Thanks for your good work.P0M (talk) 13:46, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Trojan wave packet

On July 28, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Trojan wave packet, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

BorgQueen (talk) 06:07, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

You're on the Main Page, congratulations! --Bruce1ee^talk 06:15, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

You may be interested to know that Trojan wave packet attracted 9,300 page views while on the Main Page yesterday. See DYKSTATS. --Bruce1ee^talk 05:30, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Matt Kalinksi

This part archived. Ti-30X (talk) 11:03, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

There was another message, but it had personal stuff in it. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 22:45, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Gauge theory

Thanks for the note. Yes, that's really an improvement. My model is the old Scientific American, before it was dumbed down. Articles were written so that an educated layman could read them. (For example, business people to whom the ideas might be sold.) But still, it usually took me more than one pass to get an article down. Same with your intro. It's accessible, but it makes me reach, which is a good thing. J M Rice (talk) 06:01, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Negative Index Materials

No need to run bots, I think those which I run over fixed what a bot can fix. I will fix the

This part has been archived for brevity in this section. Ti-30X (talk) 01:01, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks that you can read behind my lines (many don't :) but its not their fault). Yes, I meant updating metamaterials, cloaking device and whatever else. I know its hard to go back to forgotten topic, but sorting out outdated info should be quick. The reason I ask such things in person is if I (or especially some others) do that myself, material gets erased, whereas the author can do it more gentle, rewrite, copy info for future use, etc. Materialscientist (talk) 22:35, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Regarding my edits: You are free to modify and include or exclude them as you like. I wont be touching the article now since it's in an unstable state I don't like to be involved in debates. Thanks for being so polite. --Coffee Lama (talk) 14:44, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Reference templates

They are not obligatory, but almost so at FA level. There are several reasons why I strongly favor them: (i) uniform autoformatting - easy to understand where is what (pages, volumes, etc), but most important (ii) Checking - bots can easily spot misprints and fill up templated ref (doi, isbn, pages, volumes, year, etc. This is really great. I only type {{cite journal|doi=blahblah}} or {{cite journal|pmid=blahblah}}, then run a bot, and he completes the ref (doesn't work with most other templates, but sometimes works also with "cite book"). No misprints anymore. So many misprints in refs make those unavailable. Regarding DYK, there is no need to renominate "negative index metamaterials". Old nomination will do, juts correct names. Materialscientist (talk) 22:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Gauge theory

Hi -- I thought you might be interested in the recent activity in Gauge theory and Nontechnical introduction to gauge theory. Both articles could still use work. --76.167.77.165 (talk) 16:03, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

DYK

There are many ways to track your DYK nomination:

• Do nothing. If there are serious referee comments, you'll get a note on your talk page (well, some forget to post it), the day it appears on the main page you'll again get a note on your talk page + on the talk page of the article. If it is failed, you don't get a note :)
• Look through T:TDYK, if it is not there, look through T:DYK/Q if it is there (which the case for your present nom) then it will get to the main page soon. If it has picture with it, this means leading hook, if the picture is stripped, non-leading hook (no complains). If it is nowhere, it might be somewhere in between (like Neo with Trainmaker in Matrix-3), or, if there were serious anti-comments, a DYK admin might have deleted it. All that can be found in the "history" of T:TDYK, but admittedly, it is not easy to track things there.

Regarding cool phrases, I like them too, and preserve on my PC (or sandbox) for future use. No need to pull them up in wrong article. I have to wake up first to understand where does surface plasmon excitation (which you mentioned on my talk) fit. Materialscientist (talk) 23:50, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Images

The idea to remove planes from the lead was great. Lead image is usually just a nice pic for introduction. Thats why I put there DYK image, also so that people coming from DYK hook would understand what that image implied there. Previous lead picture is good, but need explanation. Its "author" says it is us.gov image, but gives no link. I don't know what 8 means there. Such images are easier to make yourself, just redraw from reliable source. I can do that for you. (I should have looked at the cited article for that matter) Materialscientist (talk) 03:53, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for finding the original NASA site. I shall fix description of those images shortly. Materialscientist (talk) 04:10, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Negative index metamaterials

On August 15, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Negative index metamaterials, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 14:14, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I just want to thank you for all the work you did on the above article. I really enjoyed reading it. Keep up the awesome work! Thingg^⊕⊗ 19:40, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Hiya Ti-30x. Yup, I received one. Thank you! You'll notice that I tend to "delete" stuff from my talk page regularly, is all. It's still there, in the edit history, if it requires ressurection for some reason.

Anyway, yea, I thought that this was pretty cool. Good job, and keep up the good work! I'm sorry that I haven't remained as active on the page recently. I've gone back to trying to improve Ares I, primarily. You guys seem to have things well in hand, which I'm very happy to see.
— V = I * R (talk) 19:53, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

It seems you're having a 2nd birthday today :) I don't know how my name got into that DYK nomination, but Thanks! Materialscientist (talk) 23:07, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Stealth

Same advice - calm down. What was said about stealth by that IP was said with emotions, but also with some understanding of stealth issues. I myself try to filter out emotions and extract information, which is interesting actually, and I would use it to improve some bits, e.g. on the cockpit windshield, on the thickness of coating, etc. (optional). To me such interactions are the beauty of WP - you can get all kind of unexpected knowledge. Materialscientist (talk) 04:09, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Another advice - stay with science rather than with military side. Just intuition. I know little details, but have some knowledge how military works - what you hear is either hypes or info, which is only released because it is long obsolete. I am pretty sure that long before first stealth plane was assembled, Russians had all info on it, realized it is a No1 security threat, mobilized everybody they could, designed a practical solution, and told no-one about that. On the contrary, in science every discovery will be published with all details ASAP. Materialscientist (talk) 04:37, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

"When electromagnetic radiation impinges upon a conductor, it couples to the conductor, travels along it, and induces an electric current on the surface of that conductor by exciting the electrons of the conducting material." - EM article Ti-30X (talk) 12:51, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Heisenberg

I've moved the intimidating-looking math onto a sub-page. I think I have not left readers with any false impressions the way most of the popularizations seem to do. One of the confusing things is that some of the published discussions talk about the physical measurements that one would have to do to make a lab proof of indeterminacy, and they sometimes succeed in making it seem that Heisenberg started with lab data, plugged it into matrices, and then calculated a tiny discrepancy out of all of the interference due to experimental error. But the experimental error would have been so large that I think he probably could not have done it. That may be one of the reasons that he chose to publish his "microscope" experiment even though Bohr warned him not to. I wonder whether there is any strategy for preventing readers from getting led astray on that account. The reliable sources so far seem to be Mehra and Aitchison. Mehra's three volumes are expensive and probably not in many libraries, and Aitchison et al. have the right information but it is very highly concentrated. P0M (talk) 01:35, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Metamaterials

Sorry, I am in a very abrupt WP mode today - trying to watch and even edit sometimes, but only quick edits. I've read all your messages to me and even some of the changes in metamaterials, it is a high priority on my list. Thanks for the adopting star! That was touching, though, I am a bad adviser these hectic days .. (those diamond FAR and FAC guys are sitting on my neck) Materialscientist (talk) 03:14, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Defining metamaterials: What are metamaterials?

'metamaterials' to refer to artificial composites that '...achieve material performance beyond the limitations of conventional composites. Metamaterials are a new class of ordered composites that exhibit exceptional properties not readily observed in nature. These properties arise from qualitatively new response functions that are: (1) not observed in the constituent materials and (2) result from the inclusion of artificially fabricated, extrinsic, low dimensional inhomogeneities.Ti-30X (talk) 11:05, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for not saying that earlier - I would rather search for what they are meant for, i.e. functions, physics, real experiments and ideas, not definition. To me, definitions are secondary, they might come later. This definition might be Ok, but its source is questionable (personal web page). Materialscientist (talk) 11:11, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Effective permittivity and permeability of metamaterials

We analyze the reflection and transmission coefficients calculated from transfer matrix simulations on finite lengths of electromagnetic metamaterials, to determine the effective permittivity (ɛ) and permeability (μ).

Editing with the minor edit flag set

FWIW you may sometimes get in trouble with your use of the minor flag.

Some people have configured their watchlists to ignore all minor edits; minor edits are supposed to be used for things like spelling corrections, rather than adding kilobytes of text.

It's considered a reasonably serious faux pas to make any serious edits with the minor flag set, and in the worse case it can be considered seriously deceptive (I'm not saying you are in any way, but it may be misconstrued and can turn up in RFCs in the unlikely event you ever get involved in one of those.)- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:51, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Further notes

DNG's can produce: Doppler shifts with reversed signs, backward Cherenkov effect, and superlensing effect.

Google search

I was surprised it was not 1st. Google always puts WP results on the very top - that is one of the reasons I feel more responsible for anything written here. Materialscientist (talk) 23:18, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Journalists do their job, that is picking up internet news and spreading them - this means nothing in science. No doubt, metamaterials are very interesting potentially, but potential must be converted into practical results - this is a standard development in science, many fields get forgotten a few years after their loud launch. Scientific articles of any levels also do overspeculate on the potential use - everyone wants to see success rather than failure. Actually the fact of significant funding by defense agencies is a good indicator - those serious guys always give a try to a potentially new field, but very soon cut funding if they see its not going to be practical. Materialscientist (talk) 00:07, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

More on Intro to QM

Somebody finally went ahead and moved to delete the fork, the idea being that it will be merged into Introduction to quantum mechanics. I have not done much editing of that article. I have noticed, however, that much of the writing is fuzzy. It will be a drag of lots of the bad writing gets carried over, but still possible to correct.

I have started to to through the Simple English article on quantum physics. It seems to have some real errors and also to have places where the goals of simplification have not been met. Interestingly, however, there are spots of brilliance. Sometimes things really do get clearer if the writer avoids fudging over the hard spots by using big words.

Actually I should be, and am, spending most of my time on a course I call "The Dao of Martial Arts." It's odd how quantum mechanics provides real-world examples of some of the "mysticism" in the Dao De Jing and other Daoist texts.

P0M (talk) 03:06, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

AnomieBOT and citation bot

I complained about citation bot because I use it a lot and I new it was sometimes putting wrong (medical) articles over bare doi from my edits, on my articles (my usual habit is to type doi only and then run the bot to fill up the rest - I thought I did that with metamaterials too. Doesn't matter). The problem seems fixed by the citation bot owner. I never used AnomieBOT, but it might have similar problems. If your are interested, you can dig out the diff and post at the talk page of the bot. The bot owners usually need solid proof of misbehavior, after having which, they usually do their best to fix the problem. Nice work on metamaterials, BTW, I'm glad you widen your scope (many wikipedians tend to sit in their shells). Materialscientist (talk) 10:58, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Metamaterial article

What I see there is that you expand it in all directions, split off articles, and thus will gradually build up quite a group of articles. I suspect you'll need to stop at times and learn more from standard materials you base upon, such as photonic crystals, molecular crystals (chirality), etc. There is a lot of complex, but also interesting physics behind. Try to have fun with it, ask questions, learn - that is what I'm trying to do for myself in life and on WP - its a neverending process. Materialscientist (talk) 11:30, 7 October 2009 (UTC)