Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History of Science

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History of Science

This page is part of the History of Science WikiProject, an attempt to improve and organize the history of science content on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the page attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. You can also help with the History of Science Collaboration of the Month.History of ScienceWikipedia:WikiProject History of ScienceTemplate:WikiProject History of Sciencehistory of science

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Volta Conference

I am trying to figure out how to best improve Volta Conference. I wanted initially to make 1927 Volta Congress article because this event is so famous in the history of physics (we also have a couple of pictures). However I found that Volta Conference refers to many conferences with very different topics with no particular official website. I cannot even find what is its official name (congress? conference? lecture?). Even the current wiki article claims that the second Volta "conference" was about some political stuff, but I believe the second one was about physics and was in Rome (1931). So I am looking for two things: (1) an official archive of all the conferences (probably from Accademia dei Lincei website) (2) a proceeding of 1927 conference or a historical article specifying what happened there and who was there. Any additional source to the article would help. Maybe the article could be just about the 1927 conference and just mention other conferences in a section. ReyHahn (talk) 09:37, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done--ReyHahn (talk) 10:12, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AFD notification

Nomination of List of important publications in geology for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of important publications in geology is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of important publications in geology (3rd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

Kev min § 22:36, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good article reassessment for Archaeoastronomy

Archaeoastronomy has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 15:50, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thermodynamic beta

The article thermodynamic beta claims that inverse temperature $\beta =(k_{\rm {B}}T)^{-1}$ was defined in 1971. Reif's Statistical Physics (1965) discusses absolute temperature and this β already. If anybody has any hints on the origin of this quantity, do not hesitate to join the conversation. ReyHahn (talk) 17:25, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No-communication theorem

Where did the no-communication theorem come from? The importance of the theorem is notable but I had a hard time finding it on textbooks or any other tertiary sources. ReyHahn (talk) 09:15, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm unsure which question you are asking:

What reliable sources discuss the no-communications theorem? or
Who first enunciated the no-communications theorem?

Either question is likely to be a challenge. The concept comes up in pop-sci discussions of Bell's theorem where writers try to explain why special relativity for particles is not violated in a theorem about a non-relativisitic wave equation. So good sources will be technical and even then I find any thing related to Bell's theorem overwrought.

There are historical studies of Bell's work but much of the no-communications work is newer. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:52, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Both. Maybe I have to dig into the source tree it is kind of weird that such a useful theorem is badly documented.--ReyHahn (talk) 18:45, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lines of force

I did not know of the existence of this article. Do you think it is worth keeping Line of force? It is a little bit clunky and badly referenced. Maybe it could be reduced to a few paragraphs and introduced in History of classical field theory. I would like to read some opinion moving on. ReyHahn (talk) 14:49, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Analytical mechanics and history of classical mechanics

I am struggling to find a good but short description of history of post-Newtonian classical mechanics with dates and references. I understand that Lagrangian mechanics and Hamiltonian mechanics were not developed in a single paper, but I find very lacking how it is not developed in History of classical mechanics. Any recommendations are welcome. ReyHahn (talk) 17:01, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

These references highlight the role of variational methods on the development of mechanics: (making a summary of History of variational principles in physics also relevant.)

Helrich, C. S. (2017). Analytical mechanics. Springer International Publishing. Excellent chapter on history.
Panza, M. (2003). The origins of analytical mechanics in 18th century. A history of analysis, pp-137.
Maronne, S., & Panza, M. (2014). Euler, reader of Newton: mechanics and algebraic analysis. Advances in Historical Studies (ISSN 2327-0446), 3, 12-21.

This one has a more Newtonian take:

Caparrini, S., & Fraser, C. (2013). Mechanics in the eighteenth century.

Hamilton-Jacobi is covered in

Nakane, M., & Fraser, C. G. (2002). The Early History of Hamilton‐Jacobi Dynamics 1834–1837. Centaurus, 44(3‐4), 161-227.

Johnjbarton (talk) 18:09, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I ran in to a couple more but added them toTalk:History of classical mechanics with a link back here. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:11, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good article reassessment for History of the metric system

History of the metric system has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 00:04, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hydrogen discovery

The infobar for Hydrogen conflicts with the article regarding the "discovery". I attempted to fix it but my change was reverted. Please weigh in on Talk:Hydrogen#Discovery_in_article_vs_template. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:08, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed changes to Template:Infobox academic

There is a proposal to reorganize Template:Infobox academic. Please feel free to participate in the discussion here. Thanks! — hike395 (talk) 05:31, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Physics conferences

I have been working for fun on physic conferences articles. Some recent ones include Chapel Hill Conference and Como Conference, if you have any historical conference that you think deserves an article (something notable happened during the conference), please do not hesitate to write to me directly. For the moment I am not eager to write articles on individual Solvay Conferences. ReyHahn (talk) 12:28, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Koopman–von Neumann

Koopman–von Neumann classical mechanics is becoming more popular these days. However the article claims that it is not from Koopman or from von Neumann. Unfortunately I could not find a source that claims such. If you have one please bring it into the article. ReyHahn (talk) 18:07, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the name was probably invented by Mauro in a PhD thesis. Gozzi did work before Mauro and later together.

Weirdly this recent paper

Bondar, D. I., Gay-Balmaz, F., & Tronci, C. (2019). Koopman wavefunctions and classical–quantum correlation dynamics. Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 475(2229), 20180879.

claims Therein, Sudarshan proposed to couple classical and quantum dynamics by exploiting the Koopman–von Neumann (KvN) formulation of classical dynamics in terms of classical wavefunctions but the cited Sudarshan paper does not use "KvN" and only cites "Coopman". I gather from the way that paper is written that they consider the Mauro work to be minor, so there is some conflict here.

Ramos-Prieto, I., Urzúa-Pineda, A.R., Soto-Eguibar, F. et al. KvN mechanics approach to the time-dependent frequency harmonic oscillator. Sci Rep 8, 8401 (2018).

cites both the Mauro/Gozzi and Bondar teams while associating "KvN" with the two independent K and vN papers.

So there are sources that say "KvN" is from K and vN, but I don't think we can say who coined the term (not that it matters really). Johnjbarton (talk) 19:09, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see but we cannot even say [at least not in a Wiki article] that there is some conflict on its historicity. This discussion is not present in the papers. So the allegations of fabrication could be scrapped from the article.--ReyHahn (talk) 20:35, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, done. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:00, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad we agree, thanks.--ReyHahn (talk) 08:48, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

History of the metre

I would appreciate your input on Talk:History_of_the_metre#Consensus_to_reduce_extraneous_content. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:53, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good article reassessment for Aristotle

Aristotle has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Psychastes (talk) 16:22, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good article reassessment for Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 21:38, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move at Talk:Geocentric model#Requested move 7 July 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Geocentric model#Requested move 7 July 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 04:18, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]