Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Basic concepts of quantum mechanics

Basic concepts of quantum mechanics

Basic concepts of quantum mechanics (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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I propose this article be deleted (and redirected to Introduction to quantum mechanics to avoid breaking incoming links) for many, many reasons: First, it is a WP:FORK of Introduction to quantum mechanics by GeorgeLouis (talk · contribs). For a long while, the entire article was completely written by this user, and he has reverted all non-trivial changes by others (violating WP:OWN). Several editors have suggested that this page be merged with Introduction to quantum mechanics on the talk page. One of the main problems is that this page doesn't even present an introduction to quantum mechanics in any way. It's more like a history lesson. There are no "concepts" of quantum mechanics on this page. The article also has several technical inaccuracies. The Introduction to quantum mechanics is a far better article, which actually explains quantum mechanics. Finally, do read the talk page for opinions of other editors on this page. Robin (talk) 20:15, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

• Why not just redirect it without deleting it? THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL 20:34, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

• That's a very pertinent question, and I'd also like to know the answer.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 21:30, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

• I guess that would just cause an edit war with the creator of the article, who is against a redirect/merge. --Robin (talk) 21:41, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

• Well, maybe the creator should read some of the guidelines, particularly WP:WAR, WP:OWN and WP:CONSENSUS. I'll point these out to him/her if s/he hasn't been informed yet. THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL 02:51, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you meant to say WP:CFORK.--RDBury (talk) 03:34, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• Keep. I think some of your criticisms were valid two months ago, but aren't any more. GeorgeLouis hasn't edited the article for 6 weeks, and I have made quite a few improvements (IMHO) to the article by now. I hope that I have removed most of the technical inaccuracies in the sections I've worked on (which were generally the ones with the worst issues). I definitely disagree with your description of the page as having no concepts of quantum mechanics - there are sections on Planck's law of black body radiation, photons, the Bohr model, wave-particle duality, the uncertainty principle, etc. Looking at the historical development is quite a common pedagogical approach to QM, and for good reason - naive physics is classical physics, and it's only because the real world turned out not to be well described by classical physics that it was necessary to develop QM. There is a wider discussion to be had about what level Intro articles should be aimed at, whether it's OK to have "really simple intro" and "not so simple intro", etc. Back in July I proposed merging this article with the Intro article. As I said when I withdrew the proposal, I don't think either of these articles are yet ready to be merged to create the perfect introductory article. While the Intro to QM article has many good points, it goes offputtingly far beyond being an introduction in places. Hopefully continued work on both articles will get them to a state where they can either be usefully brought together, or to the point where it becomes clear that they should both continue separately to serve different functions. Djr32 (talk) 21:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
• Well, the problem here is that we've got two competing articles that do the same thing: provide an introduction to basic quantum mechanics. That's not a good state of affairs, and I don't think it's acceptable to leave the matter as it stands, because it creates needless confusion for the encyclopaedia's end-users. But, this content doesn't have to be a competing article per se, and I think there are various ways of retaining the content.

  One option would be to redesign this as a list and call it List of concepts in quantum mechanics; because lists and articles can co-exist, serving complementary functions (see WP:CLN).

  Another option is the new WP:OUTLINE project. I haven't yet decided whether I like the idea of outlines, but I thought I'd raise it for discussion; could this form an Outline of quantum mechanics?

  I think I'd be happy with any solution that means there aren't two competing introductory articles on the subject.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 22:46, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

• I agree with you on this. As long as there aren't two articles with the same purpose, it should be fine. I'm not sure which solution is the best though. I think maybe just a merge with the other intro article might be best. Or a selective merge with the History article and Intro article. --Robin (talk) 23:06, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

• It is not desirable to have two different "introductory" articles on quantum mechanics. This one should be merged into the pre-existing one. I don't think that a deletion is required, but merge is a valid AFD outcome and it is the outcome I would favor here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:35, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: Merging may result in another edit war.

Nearly four years ago to the day a contributor to Wikipedia from Great Britain began what is now called Introduction to Quantum Mechanics. He observed that the physics articles seemed to be written by physicists for physicists, and therefore offered no way of entry for the reader who did not have professional qualifications. He proposed that bright students and interested readers without the benefit of a couple years of college-level physics and calculus be offered some way to learn about these subjects. He did not propose talking down to these readers.

The current Matrix mechanics article might serve as an example of the challenge such articles pose to non-professional readers. The first several hundred words give an introduction that could probably be turned into something that would not pose a problem for the average well-informed reader. Then math is brought in, and those same readers would be faced with:

$\int _{0}^{T}PdX=nh.$

and

$X(t)=\sum _{n=-\infty }^{\infty }e^{2\pi int \over T}X_{n}$

just for starters.

The fact that some math is beyond the level of the average well-informed reader is not evidence for the conclusion that all math should be banned from an introductory article. The question should be whether people with a high school education can handle the math, and whether there is anything preventing those who do not find equations helpful from skipping over them.

Some kind of fig leaf could be put over the math in the Introduction to QM, but what purpose would that serve? Are equations really offenses to community standards or something? Is it not more important to give those anxious to learn what they need to make real progress?

If there are elements in the Basic concepts article that could improve the explications of the current Intro article, please bring the matter up on the discussion page for the Intro article.

A couple of contributors with professional math/physics backgrounds have kept an eye on the Intro article. However, if after all their work there are still any inaccuracies in this article, please report them on the Intro discussion page.

When Mr. Louis deleted all content from the Intro article and replaced it with his own, I tried to work with that material in the spirit of compromise. All changes were reverted with the exception of one, and in that case he "accepted" the change and then revised it to reintroduce one of his original errors. His response to interventions by senior editors (e.g. Sarek of Vulcan) after that point was to create his own fork.

I will gladly support inclusion of any language in the fork that substantially improves the Intro to QM article, but I fear that an edit war against the Intro to QM article would follow any move to delete the Basic concepts article. P0M (talk) 02:27, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• Merge: Both articles seem to have useful content but there is a lot of overlap and both articles purport to do the same thing. Content forks are against WP policy and trying to avoid an edit war is no reason to break it. Having two articles means twice the effort to accomplish the same thing and will confuse people who actually want to read about the subject. If merging the articles is going be so acrimonious then it's sounds like what we're really talking about is POV fork, which is even more against WP policy than a content fork. Plus, if we start accommodating policy to keep a few people form getting upset then we're just opening the door for people to put anything they want to here, all they have to do is raise a stink if someone objects. Wikipedia is supposed to be for the benefit of readers, not editors. See also WP:EFFORT.--RDBury (talk) 04:12, 14 September 2009 (UTC)