User talk:Fastfission/Talk Archive 2004

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This page is a collection of notes left at User talk:Fastfission during 2004.

1 re:Oppenheimer's J
2 Darnton Article
3 Suitcase bomb article
4 Hygiene
5 Kallikaks
6 Important Notice
- 6.1 Moratorium of a Memorandum on the H.S.T. of Hunter S Thompson
7 History of Science
8 brains
9 Scientific method is being redefined
10 History of Science and Technology
11 π & squaring the circle
12 U.S. National Labs template
13 Shall I proceed?
14 Pro's Pages
15 Your brain
16 Re: Jumping the gun
17 California and Stockton's population
18 Military terms
19 Charles Darwin
20 Love your warning
21 PD or fair use
22 Did you know has been updated
23 diagram
24 jackass, smartass, etc...
25 Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/GeneralPatton
26 Strong oppose.
27 Fact check
28 Japanese atomic program
29 Article Licensing
30 Exobiology
31 Eugenics
32 Protoscience
33 Manhattan Project
34 Charles Darwin RfC
35 On J. Robert Oppenheimer
36 Laughlin
37 SADM
38 20th Century Scientists

[edit] re:Oppenheimer's J

Add a footnote, like how one sort of exists at Truman? --Jia ng 19:06, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Darnton Article

I've found the journal at the University of Toronto library. Thanks for the offer, though - I appreciate it. - snoyes 22:25, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Suitcase bomb article

Hey, thanks for fixing my horrendous article :D -- Victor

[edit] Hygiene

I thought of this actually, and decided that until the social hygiene article was written, it served best as a redirect. If you'd like to write the article, I'd be happy to help/proofread. Whadya say? Sam [Spade] 15:04, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Kallikaks

Thanks for the heads-up on Jukes & Kallikaks. Any expansion of those articles is bound to be interesting and useful. -- Cecropia | Talk 00:26, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Important Notice

NNNNEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRDDDDDDDD!

'Sup hydra :cool:

Are you at one of those bastard elitist ivy leagues yet?

Lucidish 00:31, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Moratorium of a Memorandum on the H.S.T. of Hunter S Thompson

[edit] History, Science, and You: Notes on a Phenomenological Approach to Methodological Conceits, Featuring a Comment on the Lacsadaisical Postmodern Noumena in the Historicism of Popper's Kuhniology

Re, history of science and tech:

I think you may have been too hard on the guy. Technically speaking, by making a historical list of inventions and so on, he is discussing the history of science and technology. He's just being literal.

In contrast the specific field of investigation that's characterized by Kuhn and so on that you're interested in discussing (so I understand) is the history around science and technology - the context, motives, and reasons for research, among other things. So to clear up the ambiguity that you noticed, you could call your focus something more clear, like the Social Context of Science and Technology. Another example would be from an essay I just read on this field (it was a pretty critical article, but interesting, by someone named Steve Fuller) that called it "Science and Technology Studies".

Just my thoughts.

Lucidish 23:42, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

---

I have no idea what's meant by "birth order", so I can't comment on that. But yeah, it's semantics, and I figure it would warrant a disambiguation page at least, because I can see where he's coming from. Giving your article a different name is my suggestion, like Historiography, even if it isn't intuitive...

I'll copyread over your article later.

Lucidish 00:16, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A Postscript to Pomo: The Puma Revolution, and a Sketch of an Essay Called "From 'Notes Underground Beyond FUBU' To the Guru of Popo"

Look at me, I'm a funnyman.

From what I hear, the birth order thing does make some social psychological sense. It just isn't a necessary connection that has much historical importance.

History, it seems to me - besides being a calendar of events that nobody living will ever get to attend - is very interested in grand necessary truths about human nature and behavior. Birth order won't be very promising in that respect.

But the theory behind it is intuitively sound (to me), and makes sense according to some perfectly rational ideas about human socialization. Persons born first may be more finely attuned to competition, for example, because they'll have to compete for the affections of the parents over the newborn.

But yeah. Not important to history. Same with Cold Fusion, except as an interesting quirk. Falsified and unpopular scientific theories have a great place in the history and historiography of science, I suspect. If Popper was right, then we learn more from our errors than we do from our successes, Science is a history of dead religions, etc. People might come to see the human side of science more readily when they hear more about Patolymaic (sp) theories and the theory of The Ether in physics (19th century), and especially understand science's role as a natural philosophy, which people today don't appreciate. Lucidish 17:46, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Goddamn Dreyfuss: Tenuous Sketches of a Method of Parallel Fissures in Article Re-entry, and Essays that Remark Upon the Use of String Theory in Baking

Never heard of the guy, sorry. Lucidish 19:27, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A Generation's General Geriatric Genesis: Phil Collins and a Tribute to Scientific Tribunals, Featuring Naz

Just curious. In your professional philosophy of science philosophical opinion, does "pseudo-science" (or "false science") technically count as a science?

It seems to me that it does. I mean, people can come to awful and obviously silly conclusions using the general scientific method of hypothesis-observation-conclusion, without using any of the intellectual or logical rigor required by proper science.

Lucidish 18:02, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It does depend on how we define it, and that's always good to acknowledge. But conventionally, science is merely a method involving observation and conclusion. Shouldn't we just point out that science is the scientific method, and then that science is rationally insufficient without logical procedures to back it up? If people really got the nuance, then it wouldn't be controversial. Good scientists would say, "Yes, and I'm a logical scientist -- while pseudo-scientists commit all sorts of logical errors, or perform an insufficient evaluation of the relevant evidence". And many (most) of the eugenics work was pseudo-science, from my understanding. Is that correct?

I don't really like that answer, to be honest. We can't possibly just define it as a method and leave it at that. To do so would be like defining a cat as "an animal", which (while accurate) is not sufficient for our understanding of what "cat" means (small, fuzzy, cute, whiskers, tail, four-legged naturally, etc). What I've learned from basic science texts is that "science" has a pretty set definition historically, having to do with the scientific method, a combination of hypothesis, induction, and deduction (with induction being the necessary condition, and deduction/hypothesis being contingent ones). So really I'm just wondering how controversial it would be to claim that pseudo-science is a subset of science, and not as contrary to it.

All set for the school year?

I can't for a moment think that all "knowledge seeking methods" are worthy of the name "science". according to conventions. You can say that all knowledge seeking methods are epistemologies, but science very specifically refers to a range of methods whose main characteristic is induction.

Strictly speaking, I'd call most scientists logical scientists. So that people aren't too upset, agree that "scientist" is okay as a colloquial short form. But strictly speaking, so long as pseudo/false-scientists use inductive techniques / observation and come up with unreliable answers, then they're scientists, but colloqially speaking, they're not.

Be sure to interrogate professors. What philosophers work there these days?

[edit] History of Science

Rewriting that thing? Good-o, long overdue. I'll be glad to look in on your draft and do what I can for the effort. Dandrake 22:47, Jun 23, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] brains

I kinda ripped off yer brain, putting it on my user page (User:Sam Spade). Let me me know whatcha think. Sam [Spade] 18:54, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

cool :) The purist form of flattery is immitation, and so forth. I just didn't want to leave you feeling plagerized or anything. Sam [Spade] 01:14, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Scientific method is being redefined

Thank you for your considerate message. Just so you know, one of my motivations in scientific enterprise was to preserve essential content in scientific method which has had an NPOV banner, etc on it. Right now, instead of observation, for example, it's starting with definition as the first step of the scientific method, which is not the historical first step of the scientific method. I have been trying, along with others to encourage work on the scientific method article; thus scientific enterprise is my attempt to get beyond a 6-9 month impasse in the scientific method article. In my opinion, scientific method should have been a Featured Article long ago, but which is at an impasse. In other words, if scientific method can get cleaned up, I will have succeeded, but if scientific enterprise gets all the attention, then scientific method will have been neglected for a few months more. In other words, the article which I care about is scientific method. Ancheta Wis 03:54, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] History of Science and Technology

Thank you for your message. I agree that the current entry on this is mess, and apart from tinkering with it have been at a loss as to what to do. Whilst is is true there are University departments of the 'History of Science and Tehnology', I feel its a mistake to write about 'Science and Technology' is if it was one subject: its not. The danger of this approach is to imply that technology is a branch of science, and, in terms of the attention it gets, an inferior one, for the scholarly attention given to the two halves is greatly unbalanced in favour of science, and I feel it would be helpful if you could amend the layout to allow this diffrentiation to be made explicit. The two subjects have been studied in parallel, and there some certainly some overlap.

From the standpoint of a technical historian the problem arises from this seeming immovable linkage in academe of science with technology,(also sometimes with medicine). Certainly in the UK the study of the history of technology is not done in its own right in higher education. Instead most work here is done by independent scholars.

This lack of academic respectability means there are no bibligraphies of value nor 'how-to' text books. This is in contrast to similar fields in literature, other humanities and sciences. The UK National Curriculum also has constraints, in that it lays down topics such as the Victorian Slums, railways and shipping, and textbooks and even musem displays now tend to reflect this. There is, however, a new [London] Science Museum web site www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk which redresses this to a degree. There is a companion site www.ingenious.org.uk there which digitises some 30,000 images from their collections.These are both very good and well worth looking at.

A serious problem in the UK is that much work is done on industrial archaeology - the material remains of industry - the building and railways, and a great deal on social history, which looks at the social conditions caused by industrialisation. The study of the techniques themselves, which some of us have named as 'technical history' falls into a gap between them which few seem concerned with. The writer on technical history Michael Fores commented that the word technology actually means 'the study of writing about technics' What the technics actually were gets overlooked. There is also the American usage now of equating 'technology' only with electronics and IT.

There are several societies devoted to the history of specific technologies - printing, metallurgy, etc which publish important work, and there are also important websites on specific technologies - textiles - for example, which should, be noted.

There has been a shift in the topics covered in the UK. When the (British) Newcomen Society started in the 1920's it was the history of invention, inventors and manufacturing. For about the last 30 years it has shifted to the history of civil engineering and the role of the professional engineer.

Specialist history societies started in Germany about 1905, Britain in 1920, and the States about 1960, with the formation of SHOT, and the publication of Technology & Culture. I can assemble data to allow a time-line to be put on Wikipedia.

I certainly feel that something should go on your new HS&T page to make these points and will be happy to draft pieces. Maybe we can start a dignified haggle about this!

The internet generally is pretty dire in its coverage of the history of technology, particularly of the Industrial Revolution era, and I am planning to add to Wikipedia topics which will go some way to redressing this. Many sites peddle mistaken or wrong information, which gets picked up and repeated as fact - I have quite a chamber of horrors of these. This is serious when student rely on such sites for their information. If we can use Wikipedia for get accurate information into the public domain then in the long run it can only do good. Itbis for this reason I am so glad to have discovered Wikipedia - it must be one of the Web's best-kept secrets!

Other Wikipedia projects I have in hand are to do work on the Encyclopaedia page, add biogs of engineers and industrialists, and add notes about respectable printed and internet sources users can look at as follow-ups. Kind regards Apwoolrich 10:09, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

History of Science and Technology '#2 Have a look at the article Johann Beckmann I have just posted Apwoolrich 07:01, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

History of technology #3

Thanks for your response. I will put some thoughts down and then load it as a block on the bottom of your draft piece, for cutting and pasting or deleting as appropriate.

As I envisage it we could have a short preamble saying that the HOS&T is a fusing of two earlier streams, HOT and HOS. Then have separate blocks describing the evolution of each study, and conclude with a block on the modern HOS&T. I was talking to a friend in London who says they is a London based course on the history of science technology and medicine has only around 10% history of technology content, which I don't think is very good.

It will be a while before I can do this, since I am away during August, and I am also busy with my day job, which is working as a publisher's editor on technical history titles, and also writing stuff in my own right. I would have thought it will be the late summer before anything is complete. I will in the meantime put on Wikipedia some shorter bit and pieces which will link with the longer HOT pieces when the time comes. I have just added one on the Descriptions des Arts et Metiers, which I am expanding. Kind regards Apwoolrich 18:54, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

History of technology #4 I have just added a History of Technology to the Wikipedia 'New pages by topic category' and will note my relevant pices to it. Cheers Apwoolrich 06:46, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] π & squaring the circle

I don't think it's usually a good idea to use TeX embedded in lines of text on Wikipedia. It looks good when "displayed", like this:

$\int_0^\infty 1\,dx,$

but often looks bad when embedded in lines of text. (Of course, it should be embedded in lines of text when used in the normal way rather than in forums like this one.) Michael Hardy 23:36, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I was just changing them to be consistent.. I'm happy enough changing them all to π (which I did). --Fastfission 00:28, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] U.S. National Labs template

As you were going to be away from Wikipedia for a while, I made a template page from your suggested template on Talk:United States Department of Energy. I didn't change it in any way and the template is named {{U.S. National Labs}}. If you had any improvements or changes, I think they would be very welcome. I've held off on putting the template on all the lab pages just yet, but I believe the template adds a great deal of value for the national labs by linking them together in a clear way. --ABQCat 20:51, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Shall I proceed?

I've responded to your comment about nuclear test categorization on my talk page and put further categorization temporarily on hold pending your answer, but how about I finish up the job and once it's done take a look and tell me how it looks? I'll take the effort to put it all back the way it was if you disapprove, I've developed reflexes for categorizing large numbers of articles quickly. :) Bryan 21:46, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I waited about an hour and then went ahead. What do you think of it? Bryan 22:28, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Pro's Pages

Good job, please continue to work on them. Timothy001

[edit] Your brain

I think you might be interested that I nominated your brain as a featured picture candidate. :-) --Conti|✉ 10:26, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Jumping the gun

Sorry about that- that's a good point you raised about getting edit conflicts. I'll try my best to follow your suggestion in the future. The only problem is that sometimes I have 30+ tabs open at the same time, and I just want to get rid of them ;)- but you're right, and I also pull my hair out when I see an edit conflict (especially when I just put a {{inuse}}> right at the top!). Thanks for your tip. -[[User:Frazzydee|Frazzydee|✍]] 21:48, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] California and Stockton's population

Glad to see you adding that info about Stockton. I thought it was way above 100,000. I'm an "inlander" Californian as you perhaps may be. . . If so, glad to have you aboard the Wiki! We need more inland (noncoastal) folks to add counterpoint to what the coastals think of the Central Valley and Southern California people/areas. One small step at a time, eh? --avnative 03:57, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Military terms

I removed many items from the category of military terms as my way of organizing. But you can put them back if you want and I'll leave them there. Maurreen 22:10, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Charles Darwin

Good work on the Darwin article, thanks. Vincent 09:03, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Love your warning

LOL! I love the second warning you left on User talk:Cairo. That is probably more effective than any of the standard warnings. SWAdair | Talk 09:20, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] PD or fair use

The picture attached to cabinet of curiosities falls in the public domain if it's from before 1923.

Also if you want to help me out, please submit some facts to my project for pages that are in dire need of attention. (Wikipedia:Fact of the Day) [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 21:37, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

Did you know Wikipedia:Fact of the Day/November 19, 2006

[edit] Did you know has been updated

And an article you created recently has made the line up and is now featured on the main page. Enjoy! -- [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 09:07, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] diagram

I've seen your nuclear weapon diagram on WP:FPC and I was wodering if you were interested in creating a GFDL diagram of a paraglider showing sveral important parts of it, if I provided you with the neccesary information. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 21:15, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for being willing to help out. Could I start by sending you a copyrighted image over email and some general directions on what I'd like to see? [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 21:30, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

Did you know has been updated and a fact from the article Smyth Report, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you have another interesting fact to submit, then please suggest it at the section's talk page.

Did you receive my email on the Paragliding diagram? -- [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 20:16, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] jackass, smartass, etc...

Talk:Nazi Germany is not the place to be making all of these "ass" references. If you take issue with me personally, please do so on my user page, or by email. You have made it clear that you find the quotes, references, and citations, as well as the people making them, objectionable. You have likewise made it clear that you have an emotional investment in this subject greater than your desire for civility. I suggest you rethink that, and either move on to something more amiable to your sentiments, or refresh yourself and return to the discussion with renewed serentity. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 12:59, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Fastfission, even though I hardly ever agree with Sam i have to say this; I understand that you get emotional over articles, we're all just human, but as a long time user you know its not good to go into ad hominem attacks on other users. GeneralPatton 05:17, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/GeneralPatton

You wrote: "I don't think he's a bad guy but we've butted heads over his inability to understand what NPOV means even in the most basic sense. As reference, see our discussions on Talk:Robert Oppenheimer, Talk:Wernher von Braun, and Talk:Nazi Germany over the last week, when he suggested, and defended, his use of a self-described holocaust/historical denial website as a valid source for resolving a minor squabble. I think he is an earnest contributor but I don't think he has very good negotiation skills, good historical reasoning, or good methodology. And I think he has some legitimate conceptual problems with understand what NPOV means in any applicable sense. If you want to see this in practice, again, view my frustrations on Talk:Robert Oppenheimer. Sorry, GeneralPatton, nothing against you personally, you seem like a nice enough guy, and I don't think you mean to antagonize, but I think you often just don't get what Wikipedia articles should be about in a very fundamental way. --Fastfission 05:00, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)"

Well, you have to admit I’ve never insulted you and that I've never engaged in senseless and unproductive revert wars even if did float some opinions you didn't agree on. You have to admit I’ve always worked on a compromise and accepted it. Maybe because I’m not a native English speaker I don’t come 1000% clear in my intention. Maybe you could just vote neutral? GeneralPatton 05:09, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

By the way saying "his use of a self-described holocaust/historical denial website as a valid source for resolving a minor squabble. Is really putting things out of context. I just wanted to illustrate how Nazis viewed themselves. GeneralPatton 05:15, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You wrote: "That's the problem, you still don't get why that's a methodological problem, it just underscores what I am saying. It is not "how the Nazis see themselves" it is "a document posted by people who are likely neo-Nazis" which is not the same thing. If you posted the same document from a more trustworthy source it would be a different thing completely, but your insistence on this particular source as valid is emblematic of the problem I have. Sorry. --Fastfission 05:24, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)"

Well, I’m not citing them for opinion on Holocaust, im just showing a transcript from one of their meetings, that has in fact some socialist language. According to your reasoning, no archival material from nazi German should be used and confessions made by nazi criminals should be discarded because of the source or where they where made. GeneralPatton 05:28, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Strong oppose.

For what, Disagreeing in talk? Not going into revert wars with you? I'd love to know. GeneralPatton 05:25, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Fact check

Did I ever call you names, in the way like you implied Sam is a "jackass"? (no matter how right or wrong Sam is, that kind of language is wrong)
Did I ever go into relentless revert wars with you?
Did I ever not resolve the matter in Talk?
Did I ever not accept compromise?
Did I ever not accept community imput?

So where's the problem? Please answer. GeneralPatton 05:44, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Honestly, I think you're letting your feelings get in front of your fair judgment. GeneralPatton 05:52, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Japanese atomic program

Hi. Thanks for your input to Japanese atomic program. After thinking about it for two days I have significantly reworded and toned down all claims of the nuclear testing, and it is now described as disputed whereever the claim is mentioned. Could you have a look and see if the "disputed" tag still applies? -- Chris 73 Talk 11:42, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
Multi-Licensing Guide
Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

[edit] Exobiology

Hi Fastfission, before it gets tit-for-tat would you like to join me in discussion about exobiology on the Talk page of the Pseudoscience article? Dan100 23:05, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Eugenics

I've gone through the what links here page of Eugenics to find suitable additions to the Eugenics category. Some of them were borderline cases, and I certainly realize that not all are optimal designations. I added that category to A. James Gregor simply because he is listed as a founding director of the "International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics" and because of his association with the eugenic-oriented Pioneer Fund and its journal. If you think that despite those associations he wasn't involved in eugenics in a notable way, then I defer to your judgement. Likewise with the other assignments that I've made. -Willmcw 03:08, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Protoscience

Hi FF, I've asked the question "how young does a science need be to be a protoscience?" on the Talk page of protoscience - the first input on that page since 2002! It's not something I know the answer to, maybe you could throw some light on this? Dan100 17:40, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Manhattan Project

Hey, it's fine with me (see the Talk: page) if we lose that para completely from this article. (I just didn't want to make that major a change on my first edits - I didn't know if y'all had come to some compromise over it.) I'd cut and paste it into the Talk: page so it's still available, if we eventually want some of it somewhere else. It's just not germane. Not that I'm saying we should ignore the issue, but this isn't the right article for it. Noel (talk) 13:14, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

PS: I don't usually check other User_talk: pages (so that I don't have to monitor a whole long list of User_Talk: pages - one for each person with whom I am having a "conversation"), so please leave any messages for me on my talk page (above); if you leave a message for me here I probably will not see it. I know not everyone uses this style (they would rather keep all the text of a thread in one place), but I simply can't monitor all the User_talk: pages I leave messages on. Thanks!

[edit] Charles Darwin RfC

Your posting was hardly neutral, FastFission. Vincent 04:28, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

BTW, you'll please note my comment (see your Talk Archive page) about your 10 November edits on the Charles Darwin article. You'll also notice that when you overhauled the article on that date, the AL/CD birthday coincidence was there already and you left it in. Vincent 05:54, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] On J. Robert Oppenheimer

Dear Fastfission, Since I am new (as a member) to Wikipedia, you will have to define what you mean when you say that I should 'talk' about my entry. Just like you, I am also very much interested in the History of Science. Robert Oppenheimer is a very special interest of mine. I have read almost all of his biographies, as well as his wonderful personal collection of letters published by Alice Kimball-Smith and Charles Wiener. As far as the editing of the article was concerned, I have only contributed something which was well-known. I mean, if you want, we can talk about the veracity of the entry and I can cite good sources for whatever I am saying. So I don't think at all that I have contributed something which should ban me from making further contributions. Also, as far as making completely unbiased contributions or statements is concerned, I don't think there's anyone among us who can truly make completely unbiased statements. I appreciate that you have contributed to the entry on Oppenheimer, but you have to understand that he is as dear to me as he is to you. Regards, Ashujo ashujo@yahoo.com

I can see that my contribution has been deleted again. If it's you who has done it, I must ask you what it is that you find incorrect or offensive in my entry. I don't think it makes much sense to play this game of editing and deleting again and again. If you can tell me what you think is wrong, we can talk about it and can reach a common consensus on it.OK?

RYC on Talk: Well, first of all, how do you, or anyone else for that matter, decide if certain anecdotes about any scientist are 'stupid' or not? There are many things which endear a scientist to his colleagues, and it's these little things that can also matter to a reader who is reading about him. This actually again brings us to the biased-unbiased entry dichotomy. If things really could be classified as stupid, 'peacock terms' etc., then any biography of any scientist is this way, from someone's perspective. However, they are all given fair representation, aren't they? People like to read anecdotes about Einstein. So why not about Oppenheimer? Also, this particular incident was hardly 'foggy' in its details. It appeared in the local newspaper (I forgot the name) and was described by Jeremy Bernstein in his biography of Oppie. As you may be knowing, Bernstein is quite a well-known physicist, who had also worked under Oppie at the Institute for Advanced Study. Regarding his Nobel Prize, many people do think that he would have gotten it for the work which he did with Snyder and some other students. Now these are opinions. However, people having them also include people such as Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez. And how do you, or I decide if his work was prize worthy or not? The fact that he was actually nominated three times means that there was definitely some sense to considering his work of that calibre. I don't understand how you can afford to ignore a fact like that. Even if we leave aside the part that he did not actually get the prize, there have been many discussions of why he did not do work that could have got him the prize. These have been discussed in many places, for example in Michelmore's and Cassidy's biographies of him. These reasons have to do a lot with his complex personality, and it is because of this reason that I put in the piece about the prize. The prize is simply an instrument to discuss his personality, which then is exemplified by Isidor rabi's comment. This comment is quite well-known and has appeared in many biographies. Again, you seem to have misunderstood the man's purpose if you are saying that he worked single-mindedly on the Manhattan project because 'the government sat on his head'. Oppenheimer was a man who was deeply interested in the Hindu religion and the Bhagavad Gita. As someone who is acquainted with both of these ( I am a Hindu), I can vouch for his appreciation of these things, and also how they spurred them to pursue his purpose in life without thinking about the fruits of his labours. If you want to know more about this, you can read James Hajiya's article, 'The Gita of Robert Oppenheimer' which is available on the internet as an article published in the journal of the American Philosophical Society. His decision to work on the bomb and his complex feelings about it are intimately connected to his knowledge of the Gita and his general outlook on life which was partly inspired by it. His views also were influenced by his Ethical Culture education, which had its own philosophy, which you did not discuss. Even describing him as the 'Hamlet of the atomic age' (as against 'Hamlet of physics' which you stated) is correct because he was, more than any other person, a man who was tormented by his actions, and whose life had the inevitability of the Greek tragedies.

Fastfission, Wikipedia is a FREE encyclopedia, which also means that it supports freedom of speech. Unless there is something about someone which is particuarly slanderous or glorifying, or factually incorrect, you cannot take it out of a post. Please note that I also felt that there were several things which you wrote which were 'poorly written' (as you described my entry) or incomplete. However, I respected this freedom of speech, and never deleted those pieces. All I did was add a few paragraphs. Since this is a free encyclopedia, it is not a platform where you can showcase your personal style of writing articles. You have to allow others to contribute. And if you are talking about opinions, then all of us, certainly including you, have them. The real question is whether we are willing to tolerate the opinions of others, especially if they are factually correct to a great extent. Like I said, we can play this game of deleting and adding over and over again, but it's not going to make sense. Unless there's something blatantly wrong in my posting, I, or anyone else in my place, will not appreciate unnecessary deletion of comments. Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia. Let the people have the freedom to decide what they like and what they don't. I think this quality of tolerance would certainly have been appreciated by J. Robert Oppenheimer. --Ashujo 19 Dec, 2004

Hi, do me a favor first and do not lecture me on what Wikipedia is about. I've been on here longer than you, and this is not an issue of "freedom of speech" (which does not exist on Wikipedia, by the way. You might want to read up on the policies of Wikipedia:NPOV. Wikipedia is a private enterprise and has the right to set its own content standards, which it does). Just a tip.

Hi. First of all, you have no proof that you have been longer here than me. I became an actual member recently but as far as the Oppenheimer article was concerned, I was the first one to edit it. So YOU do ME a favour and don't lecture me on that, OK? Be a professional and don't comment wihout proof.

Wikipedia has a policy of neutral point of view. This is obviously a bit slippery but the point is the represent things in as "unbiased" a form as possible. I do not think that saying "there is no such thing as unbiased" is really getting at the spirit of this. Objectivity is, in general, more of a moral goal than it is a true thing, but that hardly makes the goal less worthy. Please take a minute to look up the entry on Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms. These are terms which are overly flowery and lauditory. If someone is worth being called wonderful names, it should be obvious to the reader when they are reading their article. An encyclopedia does not need to say such things, it does not need to take an opinion on their worth.

A truly unbiased and neutral biography of someone would exclusively involve facts about his birth, death, professional affiliations, work etc. You really think such a biography would be worth reading? The point is that scientists are human beings and their lives are subject to all the great emotions that everyone else's lives are subject to. Quotes usually point toward these emotional aspects of their lives. I don't think there's any problem in using peacock terms IF YOU CAN CITE THE SOURCE FOR THEM. So that means that it's not good if I say 'I think that he was great' but it's OK if I give another professional's opinion about him, an opinion that is based on reason, and that can be authenticated with a source. More importantly, and I don't think you got this, why are YOU deciding if something is neutral or not? Why don't you let it be there (like I said before, only unless it is obviously extreme, which in my case definitely was not) and let other people draw their own opinions of it? Maybe you are not doing it on purpose, but it seems that you are trying to pursue a peremptory policy of only letting your posts on a subject percolate to the readers. This is against the basic tenets of a free encyclopedia and you don't seem to understand it.

By your logic, we have no right to include any quotes on anyone by anyone else (say, for example, Alexander Pope's quote on Isaac Newton). But we do include them because they provide a perspective on someone's life. It's people's problem if they are going to take that perspective overly seriously. Again, let the people decide.

The problem I have with the anecdotes is that different stories have different versions. I know of Bernstein's account, and of many, many other accounts, all of which differ in many ways. Unless they truly illustrate something interesting about the subject though, I don't have a lot of patience for them.

By the way, the anecdote I talked about illustrates the 'absentmindedness' of Oppenheimer. I don't think that you understand the trivialities which enrich our culture and life. Again (and yet again), my point is, don't decide whether that anecdote illustrates something deeply or not. Let the people decide.

The incident about Phillips in the hills is told in a variety of ways by different people involved. As I said on the Talk page, to tell it properly would take more space than it warrants as an anecdote, in my opinion. Saying, "people like anecdotes" doesn't really do much for me. There are enough anecdotes on any prominent figure to fill a book. The question is which ones ought to be included in a brief encyclopedia article. It is a question of selection, not censorship.

Again, don't decide whether people like anecdotes or not. They do, I think, because they are included in countless biographies.

If you think this particular anecdote reveals something in particular, then by all means, feel free to argue as such. Here is another tip: the ideal encyclopedia entry ought to read like a story. What aspects do you want to include in a story? Should you include every single anecdote and coincidence about your main character? Every element of the story should serve a purpose, there should be nothing in there just "to be there." In thinking about it in these terms, I don't really feel the anecdote does much good. But I'm willing to hear good arguments though, but "people like anecdotes" is not a good argument. People like sex scandals too but I don't think that necessarily means every taudry rumor should be included.

I agree with you that we should not include a taudry rumour. The above anecdote is important because it reflects the bumbling side of someone who was known for his aristrocracy, scholarship and erudition. It provides a playful counterpart to his personality. Science is a human enterprise.

On the Nobel Prize: I find the speculation to be a bit dull but if you want to find a brief way to put it in these please try. In general the only people who have speculated much on such a thing are physicist friends of JRO's who wonder why Oppenheimer has no Nobel when all of his colleagues did. The verdict by all historians I have seen speak on this is that it is because he didn't do anything of Nobel quality. Which would itself not be surprising -- the vast majority of scientists, brilliant or not, do not win Nobel prizes -- except that so many of his associates had them. His primary scientific accomplishment, besides a few equations which bear his name, is in founding the American school of theoretical physics. Which is mentioned prominently in the article.

I don't think you postulate on it in enough detail. You don't talk about how his school's style differed from the European school's. You also don't talk about how his style characterized American physics, and what the good and bad consequences of that style was. I will be happy to add this to the post (But again, if you are going to keep on removing it, there's no sense to that childlish game)

Being nominated for a Nobel Prize means that somebody who was consulted liked you or your work. Hundreds of people are nominated. Few win. That does not mean much, scientifically speaking, and the reasons for nominating particular people are often very idiosyncratic. To my knowledge Oppenheimer was never a serious contender.

I never mentioned that he was a serious contender. Why he did not do prize winning work has been discussed in several sources, so it's not something which is an obscure and burning question in my mind.

Oppenheimer's interest in Hinduism was never deep and he was never a Hindu. The Hajiya article points this out well. I think that Hajiya goes a bit too far in reading all of Oppenheimer's life as being a set of Gita inspired decisions. He had little to no reservations about participating in the Manhattan Project, it was only after the bombs were used on Japan that he ever expressed any serious reservations. It is much easier to read him as being in it for the power and "glory" than anything else, but that's just my interpretation. And it is not in the encyclopedia entry on him, accordingly.

I do not think you have a very good sense of Oppenheimer's personality but that's neither here nor there. I haven't inserted the "sat on his head" into the article because it is obviously an interpretation (though admittedly, not mine: it was voiced by a number of scholars at a recent conference on Oppenheimer held this year which I helped to organize).

Well, I don't know what sources those scholars consulted, but if you look at any one of the prominent biographies of him, you will know that this interpretation is largely wrong.

The Hamlet reference is nonsense. Have you read Hamlet? There is practically no basis for comparison. Oppenheimer was tortured by his actions a bit after the fact, but he never said that he regretted them. Ethically he was an incredibly inconsistent character in general. Sam Schweber's biography of him and Bethe shows this fairly well, as does Herken's book. He consistently ratted out friends and colleagues to save his own skin, he consistently intimated to create weapons and then later pretended that he was opposed to them. He opposed the H-bomb when it was technically infeasible, but after Ulam made his discovery then he supported created it.

Even after Ulam's discovery, he just said that the design was 'technically sweet'. He never outright supported it. But maybe we should keep out the Hamlet reference.

His trial transcript is a long list of him naming names and admitting he had lied to many people many times. You don't have to believe me, read it yourself. His life had little inevitability -- he made decisions and a lot of them bit him in the end. Additionally, Hamlet was not a Greek tragedy. He is only a "Hamlet of the atomic age" to people who want him to be a martyr. It is not a position which he holds very well if you know very much about him at all. If he had not lost his security clearance (which was set to expire in a few days anyway), he would be remembered as a traitor to his fellow physicists.

He wouldn't have been remembered as a traitor. The only two people who he was truly unfair to were Haakon Chevalier and Bernard Peters. And these two actions of his hardly would have cast him as a 'traitor' in his fellow physicists' eyes. Maybe you are confusing him with Teller, who WAS looked upon as a traitor by the physics community in general.

Don't tell me what I can "take out of a post." Wikipedia is a community of editors, and I am as allowed to make editorial decisions as anyone else. If you don't know how Wikipedia works, and it does not sound like you do, please take the time to read up on it before making further edits. I do not actually have an axe to grind -- you will notice that none of my opinions and interpretations above are reflected in the Oppenheimer article, because they are not appropriate for an encyclopedia entry, obviously -- in respects to Oppenheimer, but I know quite a lot about him and I would like the Wikipedia entry to be a bit better than the standard History Channel version which only can read him (and everything else) in terms of good and evil Cold War oppositions. He was a complicated character, and I am trying to reflect that accurately.

I am only saying that because, in your very first message to me, you talked about banning my article. If Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, and if you really do that, then the matter is a trivial one, because then the policy of Wikipedia would be more or less commensurate with US foreign policy. I have no argument with people who will take peremptory stances based exclusively on personal opinions, and will ban contributions, simply because they think that there's a problem with those articles. It is always better not to waste your time with such people.

If you reinsert the text into the article, I will try to find time to edit the parts of it worth keeping into worthwhile contributions. I reverted them originally because you had an IP address almost identical to someone who was inserting a lot of similar bollucks into the Enrico Fermi article. If you are not the same person, I apologize for that.

You didn't make any mistake! That was the same person. And I still hold my stand on that article. The point is, I can provide a source and a reference, and a reason, for ever word and statement I quote. They are not just figments of either my desecrating attitude or my hero worship toward someone.

I don't want to discourage you from Wikipedia. My goal is only to have quality articles, that's all. I'm sure you share it, in a way. --Fastfission 21:14, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sure, I want to have that too. But my humble suggestion to you is, that just because you are doing a PhD. in the History of Science, don't assume that you know more about anything than other people on this site. I noticed that in one of your earlier criticisms against someone, you had mentioned that you know more about Oppenheimer's shortcomings than any other person on this site. I hope that your History of Science study has taught you that this can never be true. If you understand even the most fundamental thing about science or its history, you will realise that the only unchanging thing in it is change and fluidity.

My main problem is not against you leveling charges against my contribution. My main problem is with you thinking, knowingly or otherwise, that you are the most qualified person here who can write on Oppenheimer (or on any other subject. Maybe you would have been a little more graceful in editing my entry instead of deleting it outright. I have said it before and I have said it again. Don't make peremptory changes in articles, only because you personally think they should be made. Like I said, I make only statements which I can support. You also deleted the sentence about Bethe's quote regarding Oppenheimer. Again, no matter how biased it may sound, it comes from a man who was unprejudiced in general, and one of the most talented physicists of the times. Let me suggest you something. Everytime I make what you think is an overly laudatory quote, why don't you make an equally critical quote (which is possible for someone like Oppenheimer). That way, the balance of opinion and meaning will be restored. After this I just ask again, do you want to keep playing this stupid game of deleting and readding comments? A constructive way of going about this would be for you to email me a version of my comments which you think is more appropriate. Then I would consider it, maybe modify it and cite reasons and so on. My mail ID is ajogale@emory.edu.

Ashujo, 19 Dec.

Fastfission, let me give you my general perspective on these things. I am not trying to preach, and I think many of these views are common sense views. First of all, let us be clear about what is a NPOV. An NPOV essentially entails that you do not state your personal opinions about someone or something. However, we have to realise, that especially in science, there is a community. The peer reviewed process is a mainstay of scientific progress. From that perspective, the evaluations that experts in their field make about their peers are important, whether you agree with them or not. That's the main point. You seem to have a revulsion against views stated by scientists about other scientists which may be a little laudatory or critical. I think you need to get over this. If I quote something that Einstein said about Oppenheimer, for example, it is not a breach of an unbiased POV. Even if it may sound a little opionated, we have to remember that this is a top scientist expressing his views about one of his peers. It is a respectable view and there is nothing biased about it. If people want to overly interpret that POV and exaggerate it, it's their problem, not ours. We have simply stated a fact. From a completely neutral point of view, every adjective about a scientist should be deleted from his biography. We don't do that because science is a human endeavor. Scientists are subject to the same vagaries of life and emotions as us. To give a truly unbiased and detached view of a scientist's life would be to belie his true nature and the story of his life. I hope that you do realize that from that point of view, many of the opinions or articles which you have written on Wikipedia would be quite biased. But I don't accuse you of doing so, simply because I trust that you can provide sources for every statement that you are making. If that's the case, then you are not stating a biased POV. If people want to read that in your lines, again, it's their problem. I don't know how your interest in the history of science began. Mine began not only because I was fascinated with the science, but because I was enthralled by the curiosity, the fervor, the obsession of scientists. It's these attributes that lead them to discovery. More importantly, it's these attributes which spill over in their daily lives, and make them unique persons. It's these attributes that are brought to light through anecdotes. It's not always necessary that every anecdote about every scientist should be different. That's because, for example, every scientist has his own brand of absentmindedness. And so it is manifested through his unique anecdote. If anything, anecdotes enrich a biography due to these reasons. Last but not the least, the very purpose of a free encyclopedia is to involve contributions which can be substantiated by authentic sources. A free encyclopedia should not tolerate any entry that is coloured by the author's prejudices, and is highly glorified or defamed. But other than such entries, all of us have a moral responsibility to allow the inclusion of entries that are substantiated by references. If there are contradictory or contentious arguments, Wikipedia fortunately has a facility to entitle such articles as 'Controversial'. I have no objection, for example, in labeling the Oppenheimer article as such. Our job is to contribute and criticize, not to curtail an entry simply because we think that it does not make any sense, or because we think it's biased. Again, if it's veracity can be verified, I don't think any of us has the right to disallow that entry. Doing this will merely mean that we have failed to respect those basic qualities which make such an enterprise sucessful; freedom and tolerance. I do hope that you will be more tolerant of legitimate entries, irrespective of how they appeal to your personal sensibilities.

Ashujo Dec 19, 2004.

Thanks for the perusal. There are a couple of statements which you have made, which I think may look better if edited. I will find time to do that sometime. And I will be glad if you don't keep on saying 'I will insert these comments if they satisfy my rule book'. Sorry, but it sounds distinctly totalitarian. Let's say 'We' more often than 'I'. Thanks----Ashujo 12/21/04

[edit] Laughlin

I've beaten you to the punch and written a bio on Harry H. Laughlin. I hope you'll feel quite free to edit the heck out of it! -Willmcw 11:22, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] SADM

Hi,
You said that the Special Atomic Demolition Munition is a variant of the Davy Crockett recoilless rifle projectile. This contradicts everything that the latter article says, and every bit of common sense about critical mass, so I've changed the statement. I've watchlisted your talk page, so you can reply right here. --Smack 00:04, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

They use variants of the same warhead, I am fairly sure. See [1]. I'm not sure why that contradicts any "common sense" about critical mass, but anyway it is not something I am terribly concerned with. --Fastfission 03:09, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What I meant is that a piece of uranium small enough to be contained in a rifle bullet has no chance of achieving critical mass. In other words, a critical mass of uranium cannot be fired from a rifle, particularly without recoil. --Smack 18:00, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you are saying. It seems like you are just confusing a technical term with what its commonsense meaning would appear to be. A recoilless rifle is a specific type of weapon, a sort of rocket launcher. If you look at Image:DavyCrockettBomb.jpg you'll see what this actually looks like with the Davy Crockett attached to it. I'm happy with clarifying this though, it is not an unreasonable misunderstanding. --Fastfission 19:06, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I... see. An odd name, it is. Is my current version of the passage in question satisfactory? --Smack 19:48, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm happy with just calling it a "tactical nuclear weapon" on the SADM page. On the Davy Crockett page it has a picture of it which would dispel any confusion about its delivery mechanism/size. --Fastfission 19:59, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] 20th Century Scientists

A historian of science? Wonderful! I've been editing the scientists at the 20th Century page trying to include all those I can think of that are meritorious. I've spoken with a few people trying to find some chemists and such. I think most of the people I've added are good (although some are slightly less notible, but more-or-less important), but if you're a historian of science, please by all means add more. I do think that people like Ali Javan merit inclusion, but just barely. I'm also slightly conflicted about whether or not to include scientists who made contributions just after the turn of the century and died around 1910. In any case, I am very excited to realize that there is a historian of science paying attention to this and please request that you take a look at the work I have done and expand upon it. Cheers! -SocratesJedi 09:10, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- Also, I'm concerned about the lack of women. I seem to just have a few like Marie Curie and Grace Murray Hopper but there certainly must be others. If you know of any, please assist.

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