On 7/1/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sun, 1 Jul 2007 08:58:18 +1000, Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au wrote:
Maybe they are, but I have to express some dissappointment about our Physics articles. Many of them are over-complex and in particular do not lead into the complexity with a simple introduction so the reader who knows nothing about the topic will at least get an idea of what the article is about.
This is certainly true of some of the more obscure topics. I am reasonably well educated (good honours degree in electrical engineering), but have found at least half a dozen articles on physics topics that were close to unintelligible.
Some of this is due to the articles I get drawn to: in most cases it's because some loon is trying to rewrite the article to more accurately explain this Great New Way of looking at it that the journals inexplicably fail to follow up. If you get my drift.
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
This does happen, but I don't think this is Brian's overall concern. There are many concepts in physics which can be explained quite directly, even the most seemingly advanced concepts--and without the math, and to a general audience. The bulk of the physics articles do this well. I love math, but when I want to understand something I don't go to math first.
I got to spend a full day with Helen Quinn many years ago, all day following her around, listening to her talk about physics, peppering her with a zillion questions on every topic in the known universe (her known universe, not something so small as mine). Without using mathematics or analogies, and she didn't spend much time with diagrams, either, she can directly explain any concept in physics.
Okay, you're snickering that I want to apply the "Helen Quinn" standard to Wikipedia physics articles, but in fact, many of articles are quite good. It is only in certain areas of physics where we fall down. Some of this is what Guy is saying, where a less mainstream idea is being placed on Wikipedia as a fully accepted theory, but I think these get taken care of.
Others are just the overly mathematical approach to physics without any idea that the underlying concepts should be explained without math, and then the mathematical idea developed. The editors who use this approach see the mathematics, but don't appreciate any interference that requires more than math (the scream, "it's rigorous!")
An introductory, straight-forward, development and explanation of concepts is important even to physics articles, even to math articles.
Thanks for the laugh, Eugene.
KP