User talk:Paul Wormer/Archive 1

Paul Wormer

Current talk page

Archive 1, Archive 2

Hydrogen bond

Hi Paul. Welcome to Citizendium and I am happy to make your acquaintance. I would be delighted to take a look at your comments on the hydrogen bond, however, as an Analytical Chemist, I'm not much of an authority on the subject. Early on in the Citizendium project, it was designed to be a "fork" of Wikipedia -- and as such ALL of the content on Wikipedia at that moment was copied under the GNU License and placed on the Citizendium servers. The thought was that CZ would simply take a different direction from WP from a certain point. Soon afterward, I joined the project and was included as an editor for the Chemistry workgroup. As part of the initial organization, I took some time to surf the WP/CZ pages on the topic of chemistry and placed the Chemistry workgroup tag on them (200+ articles) in an attempt to get an idea of the scope of the work ahead.

Sometime after that, the CZ organizers chose not to "fork" the WP content, but to primarily start from scratch. In the process of "un-forking", pages that were modified "significantly" since their copy from WP were retained and all others were deleted. Hydrogen bond was one of those pages that survived the massive clean-up and my initial edit survived in the history as well.

I am not familiar with the latest "semi-automated" process for joining CZ as an editor however you clearly qualify. I would love to have you join the Chemistry Workgroup as an editor as well. I hope this has not been too long winded. Please let me know if I can help. Best regards, --William Weaver 13:04, 17 August 2007 (CDT)

I've made Dr. Wormer a Chemistry Editor. Thanks to you, Dr. Weaver, for showing up here again as well! --Larry Sanger 02:36, 18 August 2007 (CDT)

align

I don't know but a workaround might be necessary... See this post. Aleksander Stos 07:21, 18 August 2007 (CDT)

I was about to propose \choose -- but I see you found it yourself. Sorry, it took too long to answer (weekend :-)). Anyway, feel free to contact me if you have further problems. Jitse Niesen is IMHO our best LaTeX expert. Aleksander Stos 06:08, 19 August 2007 (CDT)

There are plenty of automagical phenomenons in this world ;-) Normally the system works well, though. Aleksander Stos 07:21, 19 August 2007 (CDT)

Meneer Wormer (of Paul, op het internet schijnt iedereen elkaar met de voornaam aan te spreken), aangenaam kennis te maken. [For people that don't understand Dutch, this sentence basically means "hello".]

I just stumbled on this talk page (I was looking who could possibly help me with Noether's theorem). I don't understand why align doesn't work here, but I'll see what I can do. -- Jitse Niesen 09:25, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

svg format

Yes, it is supposed to work, see CZ:Notice_Board#June 24, 2007. If however there was a problem, we can always try conversion to png (please let me know if interested)... Aleksander Stos 11:16, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

Medelander

Ja, wp is niet te harden meestal. Ik heb mijn wachtlijst al geheel opgedoekt, en kom daar alleen nog maar om mijn eigen pagina's in de gaten te houden, en om mijn admin rechten niet te verliezen want wie weet wat er nog gaat gebeuren. Maar goed, ik weet niet wat er met CZ gaat gebeuren, tot nu toe is de activiteit erg minimaal, en de kwaliteit meestal niet erg hoog. Kim van der Linde 10:11, 13 September 2007 (CDT)

approval

Paul,

als een 4e editor een approval ondersteunt is het instantaan. een 1-editor approval is ook mogelijk. Makkelijk is het om dan de approval-datum te zetten op 2 of 3 dagen in de toekomst. Verwijdert geen enkele geautoriseerde editor het approval dan moeten de constables deze approval doorvoeren. Als phys-chem gepromoveerd op macromoleculaire chemie heb ik getracht het artikel zo leesbaar en begrijpelijk mogelijk te houden voor zelfs de grootste leek. Ik ben verantwoordelijk voor de vorm en 95% van de inhoud, andere editors hebben toegevoegd vanuit hun individuele disciplines (medicijnen/biologie). groet, Rob. Robert Tito |  Talk 

Hydrogen

For a moment I put the category on the article. You should see the article on worgroups' lists.

I suppose you thought that it was enough to put it in the checklist. Well, the system needed a double work: the category both in the checklist and the article. Now, it's changing -- within the new subpages system (cf. CZ:Subpages) everything is put on a "metadata page". The good news is that thanks to Jitse's bot any page will be automatically converted to the new system. And here is a link how to start an article with subpages. You may also consult CZ:Using the Subpages template. We are in transition phase and working hard to make it really simple (semi-automatic). I'm sorry if it's not very clear, I'm writing (too) fast. Maybe the best thing is to look and click around one good example, e.g. the Biology or New York City article. Click e.g. yellow "M" button on right near the top. Anyway, we may continue to work as before (I'll be doing so until better tools arrive). Aleksander Stos 10:14, 1 October 2007 (CDT)

Edit my Ideal gas law page?

Given your work on the van der Waals equation, I think you are a great choice for editing or contributing to the Ideal gas law page that I started. Any thoughts? David E. Volk 14:47, 3 October 2007 (CDT)

Macromolecular chemistry

Congratulations on your first Approval!! Matt Innis (Talk) 19:23, 9 October 2007 (CDT)

Two urgent requests

First one: as "Oxygen" is about to become "New Article of the Week" tomorrow, could you please check it over. In particular, I am puzzled that SiO2 is called silicium oxide. I know sand as silicon dioxide, and presumed that silicium oxide is perhaps SiO3? In which case, the article has an error in the first paragraph. If it is correct, then perhaps you could explain the difference between the two names.

Second request: could you please activate your email by CZ form, so that people can email you using the link in the toolbox on the left. You can change all your personal settings in "my preferences" at the top of every page, after you have logged in.

Many thanks. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 15:50, 17 October 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for your reply. Two chemists already got to it, from a circular I sent out to Editors in case you didnt read yours. For the email settings, go to My Preferences,then User Profile and under the heading Email at the bottom of the page there are boxes to be ticked. Tick Enable e-mail from other users and then we can contact you by email from the wiki. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 03:05, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

The circular email was on the emailing list for Editors. There are several emailing lists, which you have to subscribe to. Actually, I was discussing this a week ago with Larry, and we didnt sort it out. There needs to be a page of instructions on these things. I also was not subscribed. THe various lists and forums and blogs can be found on the link Communication in the left panel. you might want just editors, or also the Citizendium-L . Hope this helps! --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 04:07, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

For ANcient Greek symbols, when you edit go to the bottom of the edit page, where there are visible symbols, and after modern Greek is a link -- Polytonic. Click that and you have the Ancient Greek set.

I just checked, and discovered that the Polytonic set is misssing. At the moment, therefore, we cannot use the tones for Ancient Greek. Sorry about that: I will ask someone if it can be added soon. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 13:17, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

Talk:Oxygen

Paul, that is weird. I can tell you that I did not intentionally remove any comments, but that doesn't mean that the software didn't do something weird, especially since I was adding the subpages templates that do tend to mess up every once in awhile. I suppose we could have both hit the save at the same time? But I don't remember that I got an edit conflict. These things always confound me when they happen. If you figure it out, let me know. --Matt Innis (Talk) 08:00, 19 October 2007 (CDT)

Editing templates

Hoi Paul,

Ok, zover ik begreep, de definitie was van van der Waals zelf, maar het maakt me niet uit hie en wat. Achter elke definitie heb je twee kleine tekentjes, en de [e] brengt je naar de template definitie (Template:Def_van_der_Waals_force) die je zoals elke andere pagina kan editen. Ik hoop dat dit helpt! Kim van der Linde 08:13, 19 October 2007 (CDT)

English

That sentence needs a little rewrite, and I will have to check the exact amount of O2 in the air. It is correct or very close. I'm currently thinking about the negative nuclear spin, which isn't really true. It only indicates a negative gyromagnetic ratio, but for NMR, it is handly to think of them as opposite of normal.

David E. Volk 13:52, 19 October 2007 (CDT)

Negative nuclear spin explained

Paul, here is what I added. Does this answer your question well enough?

NOTE: All nuclear spins are positive. Negative spin values shown below indicate that the gyromagnetic ratio has a negative value, which means that the atomic magnetic moment and the nuclear spin are aligned antiparallel to each other. For nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopists designing complex excitation schemes, it is convenient to think of such atoms as having negative nuclear spins because, compared to atoms with positive gyromagnetic ratios, the nuclei align in the opposite direction and therefore also precess (rotate) about the magnetic field in the opposite direction.

David E. Volk 14:20, 19 October 2007 (CDT)

Spin talk

Paul, I'm not quite sure, but here's what I think. The total magnetic moment of the atom comes from the electron spins, the rotation of the nucleus as a whole unit, and the spin of the individual nucleons. Orbital symmetry is likely very important (both electrons and nucleons). In any event, for the negative gyromagnetic ratio elements, the spin of the nucleus opposes the total spin. So, when the whole atom aligns with the magnetic field, the nuclear spin is aligned in the opposite direction. I need to dig up some good sources for this before writing the real NMR article. David E. Volk 11:19, 21 October 2007 (CDT)

check chemistry page

Paul, could you look at the electron orbitals in the Chemistry article. They seem incorrect (3d and/or 4f) to me. It has been nominated for Article of the Week, so we should ensure that the orbital pix are correct. David E. Volk 09:42, 27 October 2007 (CDT)

Hi David, I gave answer on the talk page of Chemistry--Paul Wormer 10:21, 27 October 2007 (CDT)

Version 1.1 of Chemistry

Hi Paul, I replied at Talk:Chemistry/Draft#Please_explain_draft_principle. Stephen Ewen 03:29, 29 October 2007 (CDT)

See User_talk:Stephen_Ewen#Question. Stephen Ewen

refs

http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JCPSA6000127000015154518000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/hbond.html http://www.iapws.org/relguide/Ice.pdf

P.M. These reference pertain to water close to absolute zero. They were put here by Robert Tito.--Paul Wormer 03:37, 9 November 2007 (CST)

Cauchy

I apologise if my comment made you feel the need to explain/justify your work. This is excellent stuff and I do minor tweaks. After all this is a wiki [actually I was hesitating to put a smile in the comment as it was intended to be funny; finally I stayed dead serious and now I regret :) ]. Cheers Aleksander Stos 03:25, 31 October 2007 (CDT)

Cauchy

See User_talk:Stephen_Ewen#Picture_Cauchy. Stephen Ewen 22:16, 31 October 2007 (CDT)

Subpages

I think there was an error in one of the subpages you created for Carbon, which is why it all went horribly wrong. Fixed now. The 'Metadata' template for each article has to be correctly filled out, otherwise the pages end up ridden with junk. Have you tried creating articles via 'start article with subpages'? This automatically brings up the right metadata form for you to fill in. See the one for Carbon - you can click 'M' at the top of the Talk page to do the same. Don't put metadata information anywhere else, otherwise it'll mess up.

If all else fails, simply start an article without subpages. The subpagination bot will do it for you if you fill out an article checklist on the Talk page. John Stephenson 03:34, 9 November 2007 (CST)

Netherlands

Hi Paul. Did you mean to delete a paragraph in this edit of yours to Netherlands? You marked it as a "minor edit" ... Jitse Niesen 11:48, 10 November 2007 (CST)

Your article on energy

Paul: Regarding your article on Energy, in your example of Galileo converting potential energy to kinetic energy, you write:

"This dropping of mass off the tower of Pisa is a good example of conversion of energy: potential energy is converted in kinetic energy. We will prove that energy is conserved, that is, the sum of kinetic and potential energy is constant in time."

You might consider further exemplifying the First Law by considering what actually happens when the potential energy of the mass reaches zero, viz., at the point it hits the ground, where Galileo picked it up before climbing the tower and imparting it with potential energy. Clearly, as the mass falls, there is a theoretical height x=0 where potential energy is zero and kinetic energy is maximal, the sum of potential and kinetic energy remaining constant equal to its value everywhere else in the falling trajectory. But in reality, at x=0, the mass hits the earth, whereupon the kinetic energy becomes zero, as does the potential energy, in which case energy has not been conserved as constancy of potential and kinetic energy. Some readers trying to understand the law of conservation of energy may think that way, and find it confusing.

You have already told them in the introduction that one has to take heat energy loss or gain into the balance sheet for energy conversions. The reader might find it helpful if you added that when the mass actually hits the earth and loses both it potential and kinetic energy, that the conservation balance sheet must take into consideration the heating of the moist soil of the earth at impact. You would have to do that even in a vacuum.

As an aside, would a heavier mass, M1, compared to a lighter mass, M2, sink farther into the earth at impact, so that kinetic energy becomes zero at x<0? If so, what considerations must go into the energy balance sheet to meet the First Law for both impacts?

I have no claim to expertise in physics, so it would not surprise me if you revealed my physics here incorrect. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 16:31, 15 November 2007 (CST)

Paul: Thanks for the background information on your initiating the article on Energy. I like the additions you've made, and it seems the article is shaping up to exemplary academic status. Your English is quite good, nothing to worry about there. The article may be a little difficult for many readers, even with university education, especially mathophobes. But there is always the possibility later for a "student version" as a 'subpage'. Personally, I never worry about trying to reach the least educated audience, as even experts don't mind hearing the fundamentals again, so long as the substance is there too. You are right that writing on 'energy' is challenging. I expect to learn a lot from the article, and find stimulation from it, as I already have.

Incidentally, I've just started reading Peter Atkin's new book, "Four Laws That Drive the Universe", 2007, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-923236-9. I'll let you know what I think. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 13:46, 16 November 2007 (CST)

Ptolemy

Many thanks for your note. Always happy to polish some English. That was quite some 'stub', I have to say - Ro Thorpe 12:36, 25 November 2007 (CST)

Dirac's delta et al.

I referred to this. I'll look at your article. Cheers, Aleksander Stos 08:50, 1 December 2007 (CST)

Distribution is correct as a stub - but, of course, one is tempted to work on it. Regarding allotropy it seems that you can move the page (as long as the redir page wasn't edited, but just created). So please do, if you like -- it'd be a clean solution. Let me know if it doesn't work. Aleksander Stos 09:53, 1 December 2007 (CST)

Sure, the description you propose would be highly desirable, IMHO. I tend to think about Dirac's delta via Gauss -- for probabilists it's initial law of the standard Brownian motion (and other processes). We may negotiate linear/quadratic normalizations ;). I mentioned "derivative of Heaviside" since, AFAIK, this is how signal theory tends to introduce it (limit of "almost-Heaviside" function). Anyway, your proposition looks excellent. BTW, regarding WP image, it's not a very good idea to give such a *bare* image (without e.g. approximations by Gauss that you proposed). I'm not very offended by the image itself --after all they make many reservations in the article-- but by the prominent label "probability density function" that easily follows from such a simplified illustration. With some more carefull approach and with some approximations showed, the image could be more than useful. Aleksander Stos 08:07, 5 December 2007 (CST)

You deserve to be credited...

Well, I see you were working away on party day, which makes you one of the shy boys. I’ll have to come and drag you in next month! Aleta Curry 23:39, 9 December 2007 (CST)

Not yet

Dag Paul,

- Je vroeg me over mijn plan om een directe bijdrage te leveren aan artikelen zoals special relativity. Het antwoord stond al twee regels boven je vraag:

"I won't contribute to articles until the policies are clear."

Vandaar dat ik eerst probeer mee te helpen om de regels vorm te geven. Wikipedia is het slachtoffer van onvoldoende goed uitgedachte spelregels maar in elk geval waren die uitgedacht toen ik begon mee te doen. Als de CZ regels me aanstaan, dan zal ik zeker beginnen bij te dragen met de artikelen!

- Dan is er een praktisch probleem: ik zou willen aanmoedigen om nieuwe artikelen te baseren op Wikipedia artikelen, en in ieder geval er kennis van te nemen. Nu zit ik er een beetje mee in m'n maag dat - mijns inziens - er meer verbeterd moet worden aan het CZ artikel dan aan het WP artikel. En ik wil de oorspronkelijke CZ auteur niet voor het hoofd stoten (maar dat heb ik per ongeluk al gedaan!). Dus ik aarzel een beetje, liever maak ik kleine verbeteringen.

Met vriendelijk groet,

Harald

Atomic electronic configuration

Someone requested deletion of "Atomic electronic configuration". This is a redirect to "Atomic electron configuration". I suspect it might be useful (e.g. alternative terminology) but it might be rather superfluous as well. Please let me know your opinion, I'll take action accordingly. Cheers, Aleksander Stos 16:14, 16 December 2007 (CST)

Hi Alek, I spent quite some time on the article "Atomic electron configuration" (it is an extensive table). Yesterday I moved it from a name with second word capitalized to a name with second word lower case. I think that "Atomic electronic configuration" is a useful redirect. --Paul Wormer 01:19, 17 December 2007 (CST)

Thanks! Aleksander Stos 03:11, 18 December 2007 (CST)

anything ready for approval Paul?

Paul, I see we are about the only active chemistry writers and editors. Send me a note when you finish writing something that you think is ready for approval suggestion. I am sure you have a lot of them already, but I hate to jump the gun on you. David E. Volk 10:46, 20 December 2007 (CST)

 I hadn't noticed the loss of the history on approved articles before, thanks for pointing that out.  I wonder why they do that. David E. Volk 10:59, 20 December 2007 (CST)

Is PhosphatePhosphorus ready for Approval

Paul, I think I am done with Phosphate and it seems ready for approval to me. Two tables back to back should maybe be changed, so that one of them is a written paragraph instead?? What do you think? David E. Volk 11:12, 20 December 2007 (CST)

 Yes, Paul, I did mean to type in Phosphorus

Paul, free feel to add material. I don't really care about approval, but I thought maybe Larry wanted to up the count of approved articles. It really is a pain to edit after initial approval, as in it takes months for corrections to show up. I'm busy working up steroids right now, but I'll check back later to see what you have added. I like your suggestions by the way. David E. Volk 10:26, 21 December 2007 (CST)

allotrope/allotropy

Paul, i have no dog in that fight, so to speak. I just made a minor change to the other article. Feel to merge them and choose which title to keep. David E. Volk 14:29, 29 December 2007 (CST)

vector product

see cross product page, same thing, more details

Paul, I don't CZ wants multiple pages for exactly the same thing. I would merge the two on the Vector product page, and redirect the cross product to the vector product page David E. Volk 13:20, 4 January 2008 (CST)

ideal gas law for approval?

David E. Volk just added the articles on phosphorus and the ideal gas law to the list of articles that are ready for approval, or close to it. Since you are a major contributor to the phosphorus article, you aren't allowed to act as the approving editor, but as your only edit to the article on the ideal gas law was a typo correction, you are eligible to oversee its approval.

All you need to do to initiate the approval process is to visit the article's metadata page and follow the instructions here. I would suggest that you contact David E. Volk and please feel free to contact me or any of the constables if you have any questions. --Joe Quick 21:34, 7 January 2008 (CST)

signed article =

Paul, I did the same thing when I first started. I'll send him a note telling him not to sign the articles. That is what someone did for me too. David E. Volk 13:06, 12 January 2008 (CST)

Paul,

 Thanks for the welcome. Your tips regarding latex are quite useful - I avoided math as much as possible in that article partly because I did not know how to edit, but also partly because it may be more difficult to read for a non-expert.

Sekhar Talluri 15:34, 13 January 2008 (CST)

Raymond Chandler

I thought that the woman who did the first article would be contributing more. Evidently not. I'll add a little R.C. stuff from time to time.

Faute de mieux, we could import the WP (which I worked on some years ago) and then edit it relentlessly until it was our own article. Hayford Peirce 10:39, 16 January 2008 (CST)

approval for article NMR spectroscopy

I was editing the metadata for my article on NMR spectroscopy in an attempt to send it for approval; and wanted to indicate D.Volk and you as editors. However, somehow, I seem to have approved my own article:-) Sorry for confusion. Sincerely yours Sekhar Talluri 16:53, 16 January 2008 (CST)

Image

I got one of Charles-Augustin de Coulomb. Stephen Ewen 22:16, 1 February 2008 (CST)

Workgroup The Netherlands

Hi Paul, would you be interested in launching a Workgroup The Netherlands? Please see Talk:Netherlands#Workgroup. --Daniel Breslauer 06:40, 4 February 2008 (CST)

Added Chemistry Workgroup category to my articles as you suggested

Paul: As you suggested, I added the Chemistry Workgroup category to these articles that I wrote: Petroleum refining processes, Catalytic reforming, Hydrodesulfurization, Petroleum naphtha and Chemical engineering. Thanks again for your suggestion. - Milton Beychok 13:33, 5 February 2008 (CST)

The answer is yes and thank you

Paul, the answer is yes. I would like you to participate in the approval process for Petroleum refining processes. Thanks very much. - Milton Beychok 18:35, 6 February 2008 (CST)

ToApprove

Hi Paul, I made some 'adjustments' to your ToApprove nominations. You had the right idea! I put the date in for four days, but you can change that if you like. You can see the changes here. Good luck with the approval! --D. Matt Innis 06:34, 7 February 2008 (CST)

Just want to understand the nomination procedure

Paul, thank you for nominating Petroleum refining processes. When you listed your name in the To Approve Template section of the article's Metadata page, did that automatically create that green notice on the Talk page and the Main Article page?

Also, when you added "... &direction=next&oldid=102266745" to the url in the To Approve Template section of the article's Metadata page, I see that you used the id of the last edit at that time, namely 102266745. Does that mean that the approved locked version will be as of that edit id? There have been a few more very minor edits since then. Does that mean they will not be in the approved locked version? If so, would it be okay to change that id number at the last moment before approval so as to include those edits? Or does the template automatically do that?

I am just curious as to how it works and would appreciate you explaining it to me. Thanks once again, - Milton Beychok 22:52, 8 February 2008 (CST)

Hi Paul and Milton, the answer to both of those questions is Yes. Placing your name in the ToApprove section of the metadata template automatically places the green template on all the subpages. And Yes, the version number that is in the template is the version that will be approved, unless that version number is changed by an editor. You can find out all about it at CZ:Approval Process. You have the right idea, you just need the details. --D. Matt Innis 07:04, 9 February 2008 (CST)

Congratulations! There were a few extra edits after the version you nominated, but they lokoed to be minor copyedits and clarifications. If there is anything that you don't agree with, you can always move the date back and I will adjust the article for you. [1] --D. Matt Innis 01:22, 10 February 2008 (CST)

Thanks

Paul, thanks for the approval of Petroleum refining processes. - Milton Beychok 13:15, 10 February 2008 (CST)

== Ampere (unit) ==

Paul, I fixed the ampere (unit) page by making a new metadata template and approval page for the article. David E. Volk 10:15, 11 February 2008 (CST)

Azole

Paul, I wrote a short article called Azole for the chemical term of 5-membered heterocyclic compounds with two heteroatoms (at least one nitrogen). I don't think anything else is needed, so could take a peak and submit for approval if agreeable with you? Thanks, David E. Volk 14:36, 12 February 2008 (CST)

David I read azole and can approve it, but should it not have status 1 first? --Paul Wormer 05:54, 13 February 2008 (CST)

Paul, I changed the status to 1. Go ahead and approve please. David E. Volk 08:24, 13 February 2008 (CST)

Approved! Congratulations! D. Matt Innis 11:07, 26 February 2008 (CST)

NMR active elements

Paul, I have nothing more to say about NMR active elements, and I think it is ready for approval. Could you nominate it? David E. Volk 13:41, 13 February 2008 (CST)

Update on the Vacuum distillation article

Paul, I want to let you know that I finally took the time to draw that Perkin Triangle Distillation image myself and it is now installed in the Vacuum distillation article.

If you have the time, please take a look at the list of articles created on my user page. Am I overdoing it? Or does CZ think "the more, the merrier"? I started off with petroleum processing articles. Now, I want to concentrate for a while on chemical engineering articles. I would also like to see Chemical engineering get approved fairly soon ... but there don't appear to be many other chemical engineers on CZ. Anyhow, I would appreciate any comments you care to offer. Best regards, - Milton Beychok 00:14, 18 February 2008 (CST)

Chemistry style guide

Paul, I have started a chemistry style guide, under my user page here [2]. Two things, first, do you know how to make a double arrow? Second, take a look and make any suggestions you might have, especially regarding topics completely missing if you think of any. Thanks, David E. Volk 18:14, 21 February 2008 (CST)

Do you mean this: A ↔ B?

Suggestion for chemistry style manual: If you use LaTeX don't forget that elements should be set in roman. For instance, so:

$2\mathrm {H} +\mathrm {O} \rightarrow \mathrm {H} _{2}\mathrm {O}$

and not so:

$2H+O\rightarrow H_{2}O$

If I think of other pointers for the manual I let you know. --Paul Wormer 02:12, 22 February 2008 (CST)

Paul, thanks for your input. I have expanded it quite a bit, with a section on Drug articles and other things. The one symbol I can't find is the traditional equilibrium arrows, that is a left and a right arrow, one above the other, as opposed to the double headed arrow. Do you know how to make the double arrow? David E. Volk 10:46, 22 February 2008 (CST)

In TeX that would be: ${\stackrel {\textstyle \leftarrow }{\rightarrow }}$, which admittedly is not perfect. In HTML I don't know. --Paul Wormer 10:59, 22 February 2008 (CST)

Approval of Phosphorus

Paul, I was asked by David Volk to approve the Phosphorus article that you and he developed. I have have responded on his Talk page ... and I thought that you might want to read my response. Best regards, - Milton Beychok 12:20, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Paul, I have responded to Milton's comments on the Phosphorus page regarding basically saying Things generally known by experts in the field do not need to be referenced. However, let's both read thru it in the next few days (by Friday?) to double check for things that need references. David E. Volk 12:40, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Paul, I have removed the old bonding paragraph and did a little rewriting. David E. Volk 09:27, 28 February 2008 (CST)

Quin

Morning Paul. No, I never met Quin while I was at Duke. I don't know if he was still there in 1995-1996. Speaking of 31P NMR, I currently work for the guy (David Gorenstein) who is considered by most NMR spectroscopists to THE GUY when it comes to 31P NMR. He pioneered most of the work in 31P NMR, with regards to many compounds, but especially for DNA and RNA samples. See Phosphorous-31 NMR: Principles and Applications by David G. Gorenstein (Editor). It currently sells for > $300!

David E. Volk 08:31, 27 February 2008 (CST)

NMR

Hi Pauld, this article needs your attention. Thanks, -D. Matt Innis 19:37, 29 February 2008 (CST).

I have started the Approval process for Phosphorus

Paul, as of a few minutes ago, I nominated the Phosphorus article for approval. Regards, Milton Beychok 13:42, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Paul, because Milton did a little work on the article, all three of us need to sign the phosphorus article. Can you do so today? David E. Volk 11:06, 10 March 2008 (CDT)

Phosphorus Approved!

Congratulations! Keep them coming! --D. Matt Innis 22:48, 10 March 2008 (CDT)

Chemical Engineering approved!

Congratulations again! --D. Matt Innis 15:46, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

Please look at the last edit of Acceleration due to gravity

Paul, would you please look at last edit (by Richard Moore) of the Acceleration due to gravity article. Is it correct? And again, can it be simplified? At the very least, the parameters should be defined:

• Why not define $V_{G}$?
• Why not also define $G$ ?
• Why not use $m$ instead of $M$ and also define it as the Earth's mass?

That last editor assumes that all of the readers will be physicists and will understand his equation without any explanation.

Would it be incorrect to simply replace his equation with:

---

$\quad g\equiv {\frac {Gm_{e}}{r_{e}^{2}}}$ where $G$ is the universal gravitational constant, $m_{e}$ is Earth's mass and $r_{e}$ is the Earth's radius

---

which is as written in the article Gravitation#Gravitational potential. Or am I completely incorrect? Regards, - Milton Beychok 18:30, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

• Milton, I wrote the section Gravitation#Gravitational potential and I believe it to be correct. Roger (not Richard) Moore made the point that acceleration is a vector, which is why he wrote fat g. This is true, but in the approximation that the Earth is a non-spinning, perfect, homogeneous sphere the vector character is not so relevant, because then g is a vector with one component only (directed to the center of the sphere).

Altogether the article now suffers a severe case of Wikipeditis. It started out completely wrong with an erroneous Kepler orbit, and then different people (including myself) tried to clean it up as politely as possible. By polite I mean trying to save as much as possible of the work of the previous author. Your points are well-taken, V_G, G, and M must be defined. There is some duplication in the article that should be removed as well. Maybe I will write a new version from scratch tomorrow, discarding politeness. The only thing I don't understand is, why is there a standard value with 6 decimal figures, this is unphysical as the variation in the value is in the third decimal figure. Is the standard perhaps meant to enable checking of computations?--Paul Wormer 21:06, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

Paul, thanks for offering to rewrite the article. I don't care if g is expressed to 6 decimal figures or 3 decimal figures. As I have said before, g is used a great deal by engineers dealing with fluid dynamics and we need a straightforward article about g which is clearly written in understandable language that we can link to when writing articles. In other words, an article that can be understood by reasonably intelligent people who are not advanced physicists. I look forward to seeing your rewrite. Regards, - Milton Beychok 22:18, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

SF area

You need to check out Pescadero. It's on Highway 1 about 14 miles south of Half Moon Bay. They have great Mexican food in the local gas station (believe it or not!) and a shop that sells fresh bread you could die for. Carry on driving south and you'll find Año Nuevo State Park where the elephant seals breed. An amazing sight if they still have tours available. Chris Day 19:59, 26 March 2008 (CDT)

Chris, is it a coincidence that you mention Half Moon Bay, or did you see my current IP? We are indeed staying in HMB and have been to Pescadero several times. The other day we had lunch at the bakery there, in their garden in the backyard. Last year (when we stayed here too) we saw the females at Año Nuevo (the males had gone). Back in Holland we saw a program on BBC about Año Nuevo, including the bulls. --Paul Wormer 11:11, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

I saw your message on Milton's talk page. I used to live in SF and Pescadero was always a treat for us. Have you tried the gas station food yet? Chris Day 12:41, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

Quantum mechanics

Now set up with an experimental advanced subpage. i migrated information from the previous article to various subpages too. Chris Day 14:00, 1 April 2008 (CDT)

Would you please critique my article on the compressibility factor of gases?

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, - Milton Beychok 14:32, 1 April 2008 (CDT)

Compressibility factor (gases)

Paul, if you would still like to nominate Compressibility factor (gases) for approval, please do so. Regards, - Milton Beychok 12:42, 14 April 2008 (CDT)

AD/CE

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). J. Noel Chiappa 17:33, 14 April 2008 (CDT)

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.Gareth Leng 02:43, 15 April 2008 (CDT)

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! :-) J. Noel Chiappa 10:27, 15 April 2008 (CDT)

I would just use both; I typically use: 2008 AD(CE) or some variant of. That way you satisfy everybody. --Robert W King 10:30, 15 April 2008 (CDT)

As long as it was your idea...

...yes ;-) --D. Matt Innis 19:09, 15 April 2008 (CDT)

Compressibility factor (gases)

Approved! Looks like the engineering and chemistry workgroups are off on a great run! --D. Matt Innis 19:19, 21 April 2008 (CDT)

Please read my comment of April 11th on the Talk page of Mole (unit)

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.

I hope that my proposed re-write doesn't endanger our working relationship. Please let me know what you think of it. Milton Beychok 01:08, 23 April 2008 (CDT)

Faraday

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. J. Noel Chiappa 14:06, 23 April 2008 (CDT)

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 {{archive box|auto=long}} on both this and the "/Archive 1" subpage gives a nice look, if that's useful to you. J. Noel Chiappa 14:06, 23 April 2008 (CDT)

van der Waals

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. -- Daniel Mietchen 17:45, 23 April 2008 (CDT)

Physical Properties Templates

Hi Paul,

I posted this on Talk:Cadmium, but wanted to get some feedback from Chem Editors so figured I'd just ask...

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:

Selected Electronegativities:
{{Selected Electronegativities|Hydrogen}}

and... Selected Melting Points:
{{Selected melting points|Hydrogen}}

and also....

{{[[Template:Resizable Periodic Table of Elements |Resizable Periodic Table of Elements ]]}} ...pretty easily.

Also, I've started the {{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....--David Yamakuchi 10:23, 25 April 2008 (CDT)

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".

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).--David Yamakuchi 11:16, 1 May 2008 (CDT)

Mole (unit), yet again

Paul:

I understand your revision of the lead-in section and have no problem with it.

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.

I assume you are at home again and I hope you enjoyed your stay in California. Regards, Milton Beychok 11:26, 28 April 2008 (CDT)

Of course we are not at war

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, - Milton Beychok 11:42, 29 April 2008 (CDT)

Your attention needed..

..here --Thanks, D. Matt Innis 12:01, 29 April 2008 (CDT)

Please look at Fluid catalytic cracking

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 - Milton Beychok 03:44, 9 May 2008 (CDT)

Since you once served an internship in an ammonia plant

Paul, you might enjoy a stroll down memory lane by reading Ammonia production. - Milton Beychok 00:48, 11 May 2008 (CDT)

Paul, when you have the time, I would appreciate it if you looked at Ammonia production and gave me your comments. Thanks, - Milton Beychok 12:49, 7 August 2008 (CDT)

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.

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.

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. Milton Beychok 01:02, 9 August 2008 (CDT)

Formatting of article list on your user page

Hi Paul, just reformatted the list to allow for easy progress monitoring. Hope you like it; if not, feel free to revert. -- Daniel Mietchen 05:12, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

I just noticed this

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

Milton added this to WP. Now WP has two articles on the same subject, a good one (by Milton) and a poorly done one, this. Up to the 3 000 000! --Paul Wormer 04:28, 12 May 2008 (CDT)

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

Definitions

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. Chris Day 10:28, 16 May 2008 (CDT)

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. Richard Jensen 07:15, 18 May 2008 (CDT)

Energy

Hi Paul, we are currently trying to design a system that handles disambiguations (see here and here for details). This also effects the way terms with multiple uses are to be used in 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, Daniel Mietchen 05:37, 22 May 2008 (CDT)

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. -- Daniel Mietchen 07:26, 22 May 2008 (CDT)

You probably saw a temporary state after I had created Faraday's law/Definition, but before I had gotten to Faraday's law (disambiguation). J. Noel Chiappa 10:27, 22 May 2008 (CDT)

OK --Paul Wormer 10:35, 22 May 2008 (CDT)

The definition seems OK, just the talk page was not properly set up, and I fixed that. I also saw the discussion on the name there and added my comment. -- Daniel Mietchen 05:20, 28 May 2008 (CDT)

Pipe

Yes the pipe works, we have been redesigning the {{R}} and {{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:

{{rpl|Electron}}
{{rpl|Electron configuration||**}}
{{rpl|Electron orbital||**}}
{{rpl|Electron shell||**}}

•  Electron: Elementary particle that carries a negative elementary charge −e and has mass 9.109 382 91 × 10⁻³¹ kg. ^[e]
  •  Electron configuration: The arrangement of electrons of an atom, a molecule, or other physical structure, distributed in the orbitals of the given system. ^[e]
  •  Electron orbital: Quantum mechanical quadratically integrable one-electron function (function of the coordinates of one electron) ^[e]
  •  Electron shell: A group of electron orbitals that share the same principal quantum number (n). ^[e]

{{rpl|Electron}}
{{rpl|Electron configuration|Configuration|**}}
{{rpl|Electron orbital|Orbital|**}}
{{rpl|Electron shell|Shell|**}}

•  Electron: Elementary particle that carries a negative elementary charge −e and has mass 9.109 382 91 × 10⁻³¹ kg. ^[e]
  •  Configuration: The arrangement of electrons of an atom, a molecule, or other physical structure, distributed in the orbitals of the given system. ^[e]
  •  Orbital: Quantum mechanical quadratically integrable one-electron function (function of the coordinates of one electron) ^[e]
  •  Shell: A group of electron orbitals that share the same principal quantum number (n). ^[e]

{{rpl|Electron||}}
{{rpl|Electron configuration|Configuration|:}}
{{rpl|Electron orbital|Orbital|:}}
{{rpl|Electron shell|Shell|:}}

 Electron: Elementary particle that carries a negative elementary charge −e and has mass 9.109 382 91 × 10⁻³¹ kg. ^[e]

 Configuration: The arrangement of electrons of an atom, a molecule, or other physical structure, distributed in the orbitals of the given system. ^[e]

 Orbital: Quantum mechanical quadratically integrable one-electron function (function of the coordinates of one electron) ^[e]

 Shell: A group of electron orbitals that share the same principal quantum number (n). ^[e]

For more information and examples see Template:Rpl/Doc. Chris Day 10:54, 22 May 2008 (CDT)

Energy Conversion Analysis

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

Need help with editing the Density article

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.

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.

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, - Milton Beychok 18:26, 10 June 2008 (CDT)

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). --Paul Wormer 03:27, 11 June 2008 (CDT)

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 crystals 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, - Milton Beychok 12:01, 11 June 2008 (CDT)

The equation is simple if you know vector algebra, it is

$V=\mathbf {a} \cdot (\mathbf {b} \times \mathbf {c} )$

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)? --Paul Wormer 09:56, 13 June 2008 (CDT)

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. - Milton Beychok 10:47, 13 June 2008 (CDT)

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.

The formula for volume is easy. Remember, the volume of a parallelepiped is the area of its base surface times its height. Now, b×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⋅(b×c) is the height of the parallelepiped times the area of the base surface.--Paul Wormer 11:21, 13 June 2008 (CDT)

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. - Milton Beychok 12:25, 13 June 2008 (CDT)

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)³]. 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?

--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^-23 g/(nm)³ which is equivalent to 2.179 g/(cm)³. My copy of Handbook of Chemistry and Physics has the density of sodium chloride as 2.165 g/(cm)³. The difference is less than one percent.

Yes, I will add Findlay's example. Is this his book: Alexander Findlay (1941). Practical Physical Chemistry, Seventh Edition. Longmans, Green and Company.  ?

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, - Milton Beychok 12:01, 14 June 2008 (CDT)

I scanned the relevant pages and sent them as pdf to mbeychok@cox.net--Paul Wormer 05:02, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

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--Paul Wormer 07:55, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

cross product

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. David E. Volk 08:19, 17 June 2008 (CDT)

Thanks for corrections to Density

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.

The HTML for a center dot renders like this ⋅ in my Internet Explorer browser, so I changed it to × instead.

Thanks again, Milton Beychok 11:33, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

Party!

Hi Paul! So, you've been working but not partying? Come add your name to the cast of characters at July party! Aleta Curry 20:28, 2 July 2008 (CDT)

Scary guide

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. David E. Volk 10:40, 7 July 2008 (CDT)

Stokes Theorem

Hi Paul

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.

But when I'm done, I'll do Stokes aswell. And after that, maybe Green's Identities :)

Emil Gustafsson 05:47, 10 July 2008 (CDT)

Your request that I look at Energy (science)

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:

• Use a little more colloquial English. For example, I used "forms" instead of "manifestations".
• 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".

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.

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, Milton Beychok 17:28, 23 July 2008 (CDT)

Paul, I just added another section in my Sandbox2 about your table of "combustion enthalpies" for your consideration. I hope it is useful. Milton Beychok 13:00, 24 July 2008 (CDT)

Pictures

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. -- Jitse Niesen 17:44, 4 August 2008 (CDT)

Finger crossing

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! David E. Volk 15:57, 5 August 2008 (CDT)

Haber process

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. Milton Beychok 22:39, 15 August 2008 (CDT)

Ether

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. David E. Volk 08:42, 2 September 2008 (CDT)

Have you seen my photo?

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, Milton Beychok 16:12, 17 September 2008 (CDT)

Your sandbox or scratch box

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

Rubbish

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? Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 03:08, 27 September 2008 (CDT)

Roy paper

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. Gareth Leng 11:24, 27 September 2008 (CDT)

error message: texvc executable not found

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.

Also, I created an advanced page for Nuclear overhauser effect which I am unable to delete now. (Sender: Sekhar Talluri)

Paul, look at your scratchbook now. Regards, Milton Beychok 20:08, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

WP content in "Hydrogen bond" article?

Hi Paul,

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?

James F. Perry 18:32, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the HTML idea!

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.

Howard C. Berkowitz 15:07, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Quantum Mechanics

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! J. Noel Chiappa 13:50, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

U.S. customary units

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, Milton Beychok 23:58, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Your testimony

Please let us have it! --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.

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. --Larry Sanger 16:17, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Cf. a recent discussion on cz-editcouncil and especially my most recent post. --Larry Sanger 16:30, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Euclid

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? Peter Jackson 11:07, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

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

Aether

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. Peter Jackson 10:40, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

credit

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? Chris Day 15:55, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

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.

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. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:20, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll try and adjust the templates to reflect the ideas here. Chris Day 18:53, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Aristotle

Looks good! Maybe someone could go into his 'physics' in detail...?

Martin Cohen 13:44, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it was Lucien Conein...

I found the error most easily in links, but you appear to have found it in text that was much harder to see. Thanks!

Howard C. Berkowitz 16:03, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Mesmerism, complementary and alternative medicine, alternative medicine, etc.

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.

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?

Howard C. Berkowitz 19:25, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Related articles subpage

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. Chris Day 07:06, 7 December 2008 (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.

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.

Within the subtopics a link to electricity might be enough. A reader interested in that topic would then click the [ r ] link to get further subtopics in that area. Likewise for magnetism a reader might click on that relevant [ 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. Chris Day 14:34, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Magnetic healing email

I didn't see it. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I would appreciate your comments on Conventional coal-fired power plant

Paul, if you have the time, I would very much appreciate any comments you may offer on Conventional coal-fired power plant.

Also, let me wish you and your family Happy Holdidays!! Milton Beychok 04:23, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Copyediting

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'...! Ro Thorpe 15:48, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I would leave bodies strewed across the grounds if I ever heard that! Say it ain't so! Hayford Peirce 15:53, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

So, I opened a can of worms? --Paul Wormer 15:54, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Illiterates abound. Especially if they're Republican presidents.... Hayford Peirce 16:21, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Just a confirmation I received your email.

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. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:17, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

CZ Policy

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 Thomas Simmons 20:35, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Good information

Goodness, Paul, a lot of that was 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. D. Matt Innis 21:27, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Ideal gas law nominated for approval

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, Milton Beychok 17:57, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

"Chemical bonding" section of Phosphorus/Draft

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".

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. Milton Beychok 19:57, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Your attention to a minor detail

Take a look here. D. Matt Innis 00:27, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

deletion on angular momentum

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. BTW I plan to submit the NMR article for approval by you, hopefully soon. Sekhar Talluri 18:02, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

More about Ideal gas law

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, Milton Beychok 18:35, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

request for approval

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.Sekhar Talluri 00:01, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, your attention is needed here D. Matt Innis 02:16, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

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)?Sekhar Talluri 05:06, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Ideal gas law comments by User:Jitse Niesen

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, Milton Beychok 18:05, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Arrows with text above them

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)_x above an arrow, instead of starting equation --> (90)x --> resulting equation. Thanks David E. Volk 19:32, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you are looking for \overset ? Example:

<math>I_x \overset{\theta_y}\longrightarrow I_x \cos\theta + I_y \sin\theta</math>

yields

$I_{x}{\overset {\theta _{y}}{\longrightarrow }}I_{x}\cos \theta +I_{y}\sin \theta$

However, if you want to do it in text, then I wouldn't know how to achieve this. -- Jitse Niesen 11:35, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I advised \stackrel, is there any difference?

$I_{x}{\stackrel {\theta _{y}}{\longrightarrow }}I_{x}\cos \theta +I_{y}\sin \theta$.

I don't see it. --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: $a\xrightarrow {\theta _{x}\circ \theta _{y}\circ \theta _{z}} b$. -- Jitse Niesen 11:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

˚C

I tracked it down to the {{Unit}} template. It was set to be in bold italics. I edited it to be in plain text. It is also set to be small, is that desirable, or should I set it to a regular size too? Chris Day 17:16, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Nomination/appointment

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. Bruce M.Tindall 17:18, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

∇ does not render in IE browser

Hi, Paul:

I thought you might want to know that in the Green's function article, the section header for "Proof of Green function of ..." uses ∇ and it renders as a small square on my IE6 browser. Regards, Milton Beychok 22:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Spherical harmonics

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.

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, Milton Beychok 02:46, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Paul, take a look at User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox2

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? Milton Beychok 04:15, 5 February 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.--Paul Wormer 08:00, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

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

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.

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. Milton Beychok 18:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

James Clerk Maxwell

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. Russell D. Jones 03:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm done, too. Thanks and cheers, --Daniel Mietchen 10:38, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Physics editorship

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, --Daniel Mietchen 11:10, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

New editorship

Dear Dr. Wormer--on the recommendation of your fellow editors, I've made you an editor in the Physics Workgroup. Thanks for your work! --Larry Sanger 14:23, 19 February 2009 (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! Russell D. Jones 15:09, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Is Ernest Rutherford ready for approval?

I don't know enough about him to know, but the article looks pretty well developed. What do you think? --Joe Quick 00:34, 21 February 2009 (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. --Paul Wormer 11:11, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Kinematics article

Hello Paul,

In the "Why I contribute ..." page you mention, "... tried to remove something from an article ...".

If that is the issue about kinetics in the Kinematics article, please go ahead and change it as you wish. No objections from me. Regards, 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 water.--Paul Wormer 14:40, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Franklin and electricty

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. --Todd Coles 03:11, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, I'm going to move them over to the article talk page for reference. --Todd Coles 21:27, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Review of Energy lead-in in your User talk:Paul Wormer/scratchbook

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".

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. Milton Beychok 23:38, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Milton, with regard to the part you striked out. Larry asked:

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? --Paul Wormer 00:34, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

More about the lead-in section of Energy (science) in your Scratchbook

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. Milton Beychok 20:57, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Webmail

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. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:24, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Hydrodesulfurization Approval

Paul, can you also approve this article? I made one figure for it, so we will need you and Milton for approval. David E. Volk 17:44, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

articles for approval

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? Thanks, Joe Quick 15:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

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. --Joe Quick 03:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

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. --Paul Wormer 15:59, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Great, thanks! --Joe Quick 16:03, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Paul, I made a few changes to Specific heat ratio. Please take a look. --Daniel Mietchen 10:24, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

About the Energy (science) article

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?

The math is beyond my ability and that is why I suggest a review by Mietchen. Milton Beychok 17:40, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

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?--Paul Wormer 16:16, 7 April 2009 (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. --Daniel Mietchen 10:39, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Vector rotation and uncertainly principle

Paul, would you be interested in adding to either Vector rotation which I started or Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which I stumbled on? David E. Volk 17:05, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Raymond Chandler

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 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.

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.

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."

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.

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....

Anyway, I'll take another look at Raymond Chandler and see if I feel inspired to add to it.... Hayford Peirce 21:21, 11 April 2009 (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! Hayford Peirce 21:45, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Maxwell equations

Paul, in Maxwell equations, directly under the first 2 equations in the micro section you state:

where ∇ ⋅ F gives the divergence of the vector field F and ∇ × F gives the curl of F

but neither of these terms is actually in the first two equations. Is this a typo?

David E. Volk 03:08, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

About recent edits of Specific heat ratio which is due for approval in two days from now

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.

He also indicated a preference for using the Greek letter kappa ($\kappa$) rather than the Roman letter k to represent specific heat ratios so I made that change myself.

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. Milton Beychok 17:06, 15 April 2009 (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! --Daniel Mietchen 09:24, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

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. Chris Day 15:28, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Bentham

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. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:04, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

No recent email

Sorry,Paul -- nothing from you recently. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:09, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Got it now; will try to reply today. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:25, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Images

Hi Paul. I wonder if I could prevail upon you to use {{Image|...}} rather than [[Image:...]] 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 {{Image|NE USA small.jpg|right|350px|}} rather than [[Image:NE USA small.jpg|right|350px|]]. Thanks! Caesar Schinas 13:06, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Upload Wizard

Paul, as someone who is confused by the current upload wizard, could you take a look at my draft of a new one and let me know what you think of it?
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.
What do you think? Caesar Schinas 07:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Paul, please also see this alternative first step, inspired by your tab suggestion - do you like that better?

There is no second step yet for either option, but if you like the concept I'll carry on with it.

Caesar Schinas 16:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Answered your question about Elements with some suggestions

Paul, see my talk page. Regards, Milton Beychok 16:23, 14 June 2009 (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, Milton Beychok 04:44, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

New type of molecular bonding

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

Main article: V. Bendkowksy et al., Nature , in press; http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.2961.

— Anthony.Sebastian 21:31, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

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.--Paul Wormer 15:38, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Edward Teller

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.

As for the Heat article, I haven't forgotten. I will try to get at it in the next few days. Milton Beychok 17:30, 18 June 2009 (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. Milton Beychok 20:33, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Uploaded images

Paul, what system did you use to upload the images which you recently uploaded? I ask because no licence is showing for them. Caesar Schinas 08:37, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Scientific method

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 (Approvals Manager) 17:50, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Please check back again to approve the latest changes (mainly formatting). Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 08:56, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

About Heat

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.

Rather than clutter up this page too much, I have summarized them on one of my sandboxes at User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox3.

I hope that you find them useful and I apologize for not being more helpful. Regards, Milton Beychok 18:04, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Milton, how do I have to understand this? You have a lifetime of experience in designing and thinking about heat balances, reboilers, Industrial cooling towers, air preheaters, 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?--Paul Wormer 12:16, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

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.

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. Milton Beychok 16:41, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

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. Milton Beychok 16:58, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Dissociation constant

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, 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.

I did notice, though, that by introducing [A]₀ and [B]₀ you imply that only a little bit of AB is formed, which is in contradiction with small K-values, say 10⁻⁷, that imply excess AB and a little bit of dissociation. I would introduce [A] = [B] = [AB]₀ − [AB] and work out

$K_{d}={\frac {([\mathrm {AB} ]_{0}-[\mathrm {AB} ])^{2}}{[\mathrm {AB} ]}}$

But again I don't know what "all the others" say.

--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. A₀ and B₀ 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. David E. Volk 12:08, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, "simple" math formulas display as text, even if you use math tags. You can always force formulas to display with a white background by putting \, at the end of it. In the middle of a formula, this adds some extra space, but it does not do anything at the end. Compare

Command	Displays as
<math> a = b^2 </math>	$a=b^{2}$
<math> a = b^2 \, </math>	$a=b^{2}\,$

The arrows you use in the equilibrium reaction look a bit weird to me. I haven't read any chemistry texts lately, but I think \leftrightarrows or \leftrightharpoons give a symbol closer to what is commonly used:

Command	Displays as
<math> \mathbf{A} + \mathbf{B} \stackrel{\textstyle \leftarrow}{\rightarrow} \mathbf{AB} </math>	$\mathbf {A} +\mathbf {B} {\stackrel {\textstyle \leftarrow }{\rightarrow }}\mathbf {AB}$
<math> \mathbf{A} + \mathbf{B} \leftrightarrows \mathbf{AB} </math>	$\mathbf {A} +\mathbf {B} \leftrightarrows \mathbf {AB}$
<math> \mathbf{A} + \mathbf{B} \leftrightharpoons \mathbf{AB} </math>	$\mathbf {A} +\mathbf {B} \leftrightharpoons \mathbf {AB}$

Cheers, Jitse Niesen 09:51, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

another possible approval

Is Ernest Rutherford ready to be approved? It seems pretty well developed to me. --Joe (Approvals Manager) 16:18, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Battle of the Java Sea

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 cruisers played a major role, but there were independent destroyer actions. RADM Karel Doorman really should have his own entry one of these days. Howard C. Berkowitz 18:04, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I looked in my bookcase and searched for Dutch language articles on the internet but could not find anything of much value. The best site I could find is: http://www.historyanimated.com/DutchEastIndies.swf (in English). Note that Karel Doorman was "schout-bij-nacht" (rear admiral) the third-highest rank in the Dutch Navy. The Dutch WP has a long story about him. --Paul Wormer 10:04, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Scientific method - add my name as approving editor

I did some work on this article, so I may not qualify to approve. I find it good to go. Plan to work on post-approval draft as time permits. Anthony.Sebastian 03:36, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Is it okay if I nominate Euler angles for New Draft of the Week?

Hi, Paul. I would like to nominated Euler angles for New Draft of the Week. Is that okay with you? Milton Beychok 03:57, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

By all means, please do. --Paul Wormer 06:33, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

chemical elements

Paul, please see my proposed intro section here. David E. Volk 12:54, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I replied here.