On 10/2/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
Oh? Take a look at the article on "Radioactivity" in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition.
It contains fifty-four inline references. It also mentions five "general treatises."
And the stuff in between is credited to a known individual, "E. Ru." with the Encyclopedia Britannica editors implicitly vouching both for his identity and his competence. However, if I want to check his competence for yourself, I flip to the front of volume 22, p. vii and look up E. Ru. who happens to be some guy named "Ernest Rutherford, F. R. S., D. Sc. LL. D., Ph. D., Langworthy Professor of Physics, University of Manchester, Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 1908, Author of Radio-Activity; Radio-Activity Transformations; etc."
That is an exceptional example most were written by somewhat lesser individuals
For all I know, 165.107.9.47, _may_ be a Nobel Laureate, but... should I trust the unreferenced material in this article as much as I trust the unreferenced material in the Britannica article credited to E. Ru.?
Depends. Given at the point he must have writen it Rutherford would either have been just pre his atomic model or just post it. Since his model of the atom doesn't really work and at that point he hadn't considered neutrons I might go for something a bit more up to date.