Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Centropy (physics)

The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Tone 19:42, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Centropy (physics)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Seems to be a gibberish-like non-notable fringe theory from a single author, sourced from what looks like a self-published book. The term has some false positive on Google Scholar (used as a variable name, for example) but nothing related to the article or that seems to establish notability. Cyclopia ^talk 13:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, I can't find any evidence of notability. --Steve (talk) 16:28, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Entropy really does not have a negative (which this purports to be). The closest things would be information and Gibbs free energy which are not mentioned here. The "spatial separation of molecules engendered by centrifugal forces" seems like a very poor attempt at a definition for entropy. JRSpriggs (talk) 17:01, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: WP:Fringe The article does not contain the elements that would allow a fringe theory to be included in Wikipedia. Dethlock99 (talk) 19:41, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as patent nonsense. The author takes a 19th century concept (disgregation), misunderstands it, and then goes straight off into left field writing about their own concept based on that misunderstanding. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 22:17, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The version at the time of nomination is here. They've since altered the lede to remove mention of centrifugal force, but still don't seem to understand the concept of entropy (or negentropy, which they also reference). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 23:43, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as drivel. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:46, 18 August 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Delete, and possibly redirect to negentropy, since apparently this refers to the same concept. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:55, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
They don't refer to the same concept. Negentropy is the difference between an object's entropy and that of its environment (usually in the context of a living creature or other system that expends energy to shuffle entropy elsewhere). Originally it referred to the amount of entropy exported, but apparently it was redefined recently to refer to the difference in specific entropy. The "Centropy" article starts with a claim that entropy is related to centrifugal force on a molecular level and goes downhill from there. Centropy's claim that it means the same thing as "negentropy" is just one more piece of nonsense in a nonsense-rich article. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 08:06, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: looks like the product of some gibberish generator. DVdm (talk) 08:42, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I had a lot of fun with that link! Dethlock99 (talk) 19:02, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - insufficient evidence of notability. Gandalf61 (talk) 10:36, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 16:39, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as patent nonsense. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:44, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: creator Weltherr (talk · contribs) of this article now indefinitely blocked for sockduckery. DVdm (talk) 06:59, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I don't see how this affects the AfD. The content of the Centropy article wasn't related to the original block, so the only substantial effect is to make it difficult for them to attempt to improve the article to address objections. If this wasn't a WP:SNOW close, I'd actually ask for a temporary unblock for that purpose. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 07:09, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I had a run-in with this editor (an anon Russian who claims to have a verbal IQ of 270 something) a few weeks back; and ended up doing some research on the term (centropy). His general aim to promote a sort of physics-concept based God-theory that he had conceived. In any event, this users intentions aside, the term centropy and ‘centropic’ does have certain pre-Internet usage, in various niche circles (new-age, new-science, etc.), e.g. 1, 2, as well as usage in Google Books and Google scholar. The 1999 Encyclopedia of Complementary Health Practice, for example, has a three-page article on ‘centropic integration’. Although I have yet to find the actual book that Bois is said to have coined the term, he does discuss entropy in several of his books, which lends probability that the term did come from him as the Simon reference states. I’ll add in a stub summary to see if this helps. --Libb Thims (talk) 11:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Would you be willing to create a (referenced) stub article in your user-space or other suitable scratch-space? This would make it easier to compare old and new content, and you've managed to actually collect a significant number of candidate references. "Delete without prejudice for re-creation" is what usually happens when an article is gibberish but there's the possibility of making a decent article about a subject, though that would hinge on the references satisfying WP:RS and the well-referenced article still being about an adequately noteworthy subject. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 19:05, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've already spent more time than I would have liked on this term (I really don't like to contribute more than one sentence stubs to Wikipedia anymore). It's clear that the term has a 1980s (or earlier) usage, e.g. here (a 1989 book) its described as one of the laws of the universe, opposite to entropy. I still, however, am having difficulty in tracking down the actual book (or article) that the term was coined or first used. As far as I have been able to track down so far, the term is largely the product of Irving Simon and before him Joseph Bois (as claimed by Simon).

The term "centropy" itself is really nothing of note, outside of its marginal usage, here and there, in certain discussion circles. It is synonym of a variety of terms (all conceived by different people, each with their own following) that all have the same general meaning: Anti-entropy, Disentropic, Ectropy, Ektropy, Antientropism, Entropy reduction, Entropy reversal, Extropy, Inverse entropy, Local entropy decrease, Entropy islands, Low entropy, Negative entropy, Negentropy, Psychic entropy, neg-entropy, Neguentropy, Syntropy, Syntropic, Telenomic entropy, Genopsych, namely a verbal way to argue out of the Planck-Boltzmann view of the second law as "systems tend towards disorder" so as to explain evolution and the ordering effect of humanity. Good luck. --Libb Thims (talk) 19:09, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok; thanks for your work on this. I don't get the impression that any of us feel particularly inclined to write an article on the topic, so "delete without prejudice for recreation" should be sufficient (this AfD page will stay, so anyone wanting to build a new article can follow up on the links you provided). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 19:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.