Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mendel Sachs

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 Keep --Mike Cline (talk) 13:56, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mendel Sachs

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The article only contains around three sentences of biographical material, and it's not clear whether Mendel Sachs is notable enough. If he is, then the biography needs to be lengthened and well-sourced.

The main issue of this article is that it makes very large claims in regards to theoretical physics. The references are only to books written by Mendel Sachs himself. In the first paragraph it is claimed that Sachs has finished Einstein's unified field theory. It is not clear as to what Einstein's unified field theory even is, and as it stands, the paragraph makes little sense. The only reference to back up this monstrous claim is simply a biography of Albert Einstein.

The only results found when searching Google for Mendel Sachs are his books (such as on sites like Amazon.com) and his own personal website and forums, and these are the only sources that constitute the references given. I haven't been able to find any references to his work by any third-party person, researcher, or organization.

But it doesn't pay to call for deletion at first glance. It would be good to hear other discussions on the validity of the claims given. If indeed the article's contents contain true and certifiable results, then these need to be back up by appropriate references and reviews. As it stands, the article seems to promotes a fringe theory, and should be deleted if kept in its current form. 173.30.27.150 (talk) 23:57, 2 November 2010

Completing nomination for IP. Rationale taken from article talk page. Jujutacular ^talk 01:21, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. -- Jujutacular ^talk 01:39, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Leaning toward delete. This paper indicates his work is not totally whacko, but the drift of the forum discussions is that there are fundamental flaws in it. In any case, if he had completed what Einstein tried to do for much of his later life, he would be really, really famous, and he's not. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:56, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep GS h index = 13, so heading towards satisfying WP:Prof#C1. Notable fringer. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:24, 3 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Keep: Notable Physicist whose Dingle-like article in Physics Today A resolution of the clock paradox (Phys. Today, Vol. 24, No. 9, p. 23 - 29.) is claimed to have caused such a stir that the whole letters page of the next edition was devoted to refuting its points. (Time machines: time travel in physics, metaphysics, and science fiction Paul J. Nahin p466). Clarityfiend's find of the article "Quaternions, Torsion and the Physical Vacuum: Theories of M. Sachs and G. Shipov Compared" by David Cyganski and William Page would also seem important. A more neutral tone, in my view, might help improve the article (Msrasnw (talk) 15:33, 3 November 2010 (UTC))[reply]

Further support: A sysmposium was held in his honour [1] and a subesequent festschrift published Fragments of Science: Festschrift for Mendel Sachs ed Michael Ram.

also WorldCat reports some of his books being fairly widely held (eg. Einstein versus Bohr : the continuing controversies in physics Mendel Sachs (1988) held by 398 libraries in the US (for all 5 editions).) Some of his books have been subject to reviews (Msrasnw (talk) 16:34, 3 November 2010 (UTC))[reply]

I have modified the article a bit to try to help make it a little more neutral. (Msrasnw (talk) 20:52, 3 November 2010 (UTC))[reply]

Libraries have fixed distributors that will send them whatever they have on their catalogue. This does not mean much, books that don't have a Wikipedia page are held by many more libraries. A birthday party is not a supporting evidence that the scientific community discusses his theories. Such events are common in every university, and to almost any older staff member, including office staff, and are almost certain to happen when some staff retires. He had a single article accepted on Physics Today which was not well welcomed by his peers. It seems fairly common to see published stuff somewhere in a university magazine for instance, that were considered patently wrong by specialists, as in this case. I fail to understand why such isolated case should be evidence for relevant research practiced in the scientific community. Research is published in scientific journals, not in popular magazines. A sound evidence of his relevance is to show that physicists in the Cosmology/Field Theory/Quantum mechanics community cite him as reference and create work based on his books in the peer-reviewed journals. I could not find any such evidence. 75.69.93.206 (talk) 04:23, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

~~Delete~~. While I see the above opinions, my feeling on this one is different. Sachs himself is not a fringer, at least in the sense that he has done quite a bit of mainstream work: WoS shows >50 papers in solid journals. The trouble is that the scientific community has largely not taken up his work. Citation counts are 24, 21, 16, 12, 7, 7, ... (h-index 7) and these papers are all from the early 1970s. In other words, his work has had roughly 4 decades to exert influence, but has mostly been unsuccessful. The article itself is a different matter. The fantastic claim that he "completed Albert Einstein's unified field theory" is patently false. Importantly, the article does not provide a link to Unified field theory, where the lead-in plainly says "There is no accepted unified field theory. It remains an open line of research" and this is indeed the case. Most of the article appears to have been written by SJRubenstein, who may have romantic, if uninformed ideas about physics. I would be surprised if that individual and our subject are the same person. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 15:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Weak Keep. Amended. Symposium and festshrift help. Perhaps he is more noted generally for his writings than his research. With suitable revisions, article should be keep-able. Thanks, Agricola44 (talk) 19:20, 3 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]

However, as I wrote above, you may want to consider the fact that such events are common practice to any staff member that retires. About the author of the page: observe that in his contribution history, he/she spent most of his/her time trying to get this name spread out across Wikipedia, even though the professor in question has no paper published in peer-reviewed journals that became standard material in any topic in physics (which I guess is true since I could not find a single evidence of strong robust citation history in peer-reviewed journals of this professor). 75.69.93.206 (talk) 04:47, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: I'm not a registered user, and I only collaborate sporadically with Wikipedia, so I don't know if my vote counts. But I would like to elaborate to why I think this is irrelevant material for an encyclopedia. The author in question have only one published paper on a peer-reviewed scientific journal: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=ea+Sachs,+Mendel. By his age, a professor is expected to have maybe something around 40 papers. Someone who claims to have completed a robust new field theory of gravity likely would have more than 100, showing his outstanding progress in difficult themes in physics. This is however, not the case. All his material have been self-published in books, and none were accepted by his peers in scientific journals. He did, however, publish unscientific material in magazines just to be criticized, as was pointed out. I don't think that really should mean anything. If everyone who published questionable and patently wrong claims were to have his Wikipedia page, then Wikipedia would have 10,000 more pages per month. His ideas are nowhere discussed in scientific community; if they were, one of his books would have several non-self citations in the SPIRES database. The person in question is free to publish his own views on many topics. However, I don't think from his SPIRES record that he is been read by physicists anywhere.75.69.93.206 (talk) 04:00, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Some further further-support:(by Msrasnw (talk) 22:15, 8 November 2010 (UTC) with interjections by 129.170.26.159)[reply]

Article in popular science press about his work: The New Scientist (the UKs most popular science mag.. (??)) 4th Jan 1973 has a couple of columns on some Sach's work (published in Nuovo Cimento the respected Italian peer-reviewed journal ) (It can be found here: [2])

I would not count a short book review in New Scientist as suggestion that the work is relevant. Again, lacks citations in peer-reviewed scientific journals. New Scientist publishes anything that ``looks cool. That is why it is popular magazine, not a place for research.129.170.26.159 (talk) 21:20, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is a review of some his articles rather than a book review and being in the pop. press makes for notability if not necessarily good science. (Msrasnw (talk) 22:04, 8 November 2010 (UTC))[reply]

Other articles in peer reviewed journals which have Sachs' name in the title:

Edwards, Jack (1975) Lamb Shifts for Hydrogen, using the Sachs elementary interaction theory. International Journal of Theoretical Physics 13(5) is another article which seems to be directly addressing one of his theories and mentions his name in its title. It is addressing Sachs work in his Sachs, M. (1968).Nuovo Cimento,53A, 561-564 and Sachs, M. (1971b).International Journal of Theoretical Physics,4, 453-476. Sachs, M. (1972a).International Journal of Theoretical Physics,5, 35-53. Sachs, M. (1972b).International Journal of Theoretical Physics,5, 161-197.

Right, but no citations since 1975. Just the fact that you need to work really hard to find a single supporting evidence somewhere that was written but never became mainstream science should be seen as supporting evidence for deletion.129.170.26.159 (talk) 21:20, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another one dated 2002: On the origin of asymmetric aging in the twin problem: Comments on M. Harada's and M. Sachs's views - by Abiko S PHYSICS ESSAYS, Volume: 15, Issue: 2, Pages: 172-175 Published: JUN 2002 - (I don't think I am working hard!) Best wishes (Msrasnw (talk) 22:04, 8 November 2010 (UTC))[reply]

Physics Essays - Volume 4 Number 1 March 1991 Marek Czachor On Sachs’s Approach to the Unification of General Relativity and Electrodynamics.

Nobel prize winning physicist attending the symposium in his honour and published an article in his festschrift: Willis Lamb, the quantum physicist, is mentioned as one of the two Nobel prize winners to attend the Symposium in Sachs honour mentioned above and his paper "Super-Classical Quantum Mechanics" is in the Sachs' festschrift. Msrasnw (talk) 15:56, 8 November 2010 (UTC))[reply]

I'm not really sure why would the presence of invited guests in the retirement party be relevant support of anything. In fact, Lamb does not cite the author in question in his papers. This is because in every QFT textbook in QED, the author would never be brought into the discussion about the Lamb shift, because the relevant work was done by others. 129.170.26.159 (talk) 21:21, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep! Sachs' theory is legitimate and Sachs Physics career has been distinguished so it would be unprofessional to delete the article. It is notable enough until it is disproven.Numberonesurvivor (talk) 21:03, 9 November 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.