Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Phonon Maser

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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. W.marsh 21:25, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phonon Maser

This is being nominated for the same reason as the Boris Volfson article. It lacks any scientific validity or widespread interest. Michaelbusch 21:42, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Delete per nom. --Pjacobi 21:44, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Wasn't included in main AfD page by nominator. Done now. --Pjacobi 07:02, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
  • The two articles you mention are "respectable" because they describe scientific beliefs that were once widely held in the scientific community, but are not now, due to having been proved invalid with time. The article under review here has never been valid, and began with demonstratably invalid physics. So yes, I would say that "lack of scientific validity" is a perfectly good reason to delete. The articles you mention are kept because historical value supersedes scientific validity. In this case it does not.
  • MergeTo article on Volfson. The editors of Wikipedia absolutely are not the arbiters of scientific validity. An editor claiming that in his expert opinion it won't work is the very definition of Original Research. We only have the right to determine whether or not some person, patent, etc. is notable, based on the presence or absence of citations in mainstream publications. The article includes references showing that a U.S patent was issued for a previous invention, then the patent was written about, in some detail in the following major publications or the online versions thereof: National Geographic News,the British newspaper Telegraph, and the major science journal Nature (print edition.) The above makes a strong case for keeping the articles. In addition there are about 3,000 Google hits, and it was discussed at many websites. It may be pseudoscience, but that is not the criterion for including or deleting an article. Rather than deleting the article with a claim that it lacks "scientific validity," merge this with the previous invention in the article about the inventor and redirect to that article. Edit boldlyin the article the criticisms of the invention in the references, so the article serves the important function of debunking any doubtful claims. Edison 17:16, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Comment on the above: widespread interest does not apply even with thousands of Google hits for Phonon Maser. If we exclude valid scientific research about actual phonon masers (that is lasing of phonons), Wikipedia and mirrors thereof, and junk webpages, there are two distinct results, one of which is Volfson's webpage and the other of which is a press release by him. I don't call that widespread interest.

Note on the references: the references to Nature, National Geographic, and the Telegraph only mention the patent as a failing of the patent office, not caring about Volfson personally. This is only one of the thousands of junk patents that are the patent office has passed. It deserves no particular mention, as the patent office's problems are convered in the relevant article. Final thought: we can judge scientific validity when it approaches nonsense, which this article certainly does. Michaelbusch 17:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Keep • Some comments show exactly the problem with the american scientific community, apparently no one is keeping up with the work of Dr. Ning Li... I know it's difficult when she is under DOD contract. Check it out, note the similarities. Check out Volfson who has co-authored two "mainstream" physics-heavy patents, both with proven prototypes, and a couple of papers on geophysics. If the US government is paying for similar research, Volfson should at LEAST keep a Wikipedia article. Reactions such as these are EXACTLY why 99% of all Physic research is regurgitation Ricp31 03:43, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Welcome to Wikipedia, Ricp31! --Pjacobi 07:10, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
The US government pays for all sorts of physically impossible research, including tantalum and hafnium weapons intended to circumvent nuclear proliferation laws. If articles popped up claiming megaton-yield hafnium weapons were possible, I would expect it in a deletion queue also.
  • Comment Look what you say might be true, but you should cite the references to back up your position in support of keeping the article. Where can we we find these papers? Which patents? Xdenizen 03:52, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Meta-comment: When I searched for Volfson earlier, I did check the literature. There are zero results for Boris Volfson in the usual electronic indeces. If he has authored geophysics, it doesn't show anywhere, even on his own website, which also fails to mention any other patents. Observation: if everything the US government has paid for were included in Wikipedia, we would be buried in pork. Michaelbusch 04:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Meta-meta-comment: I'll dig out those links. They are older, He may have been living in Moscow or Israel at the time. When Volfson's Anti-Gravity Spaceship patent came out I thought Tim Ventura did an awesome job of explaining the vehemence of american academia when it comes to any sort of "edgy" research that may cut into grant money. I've tried to always keep my eye on and follow these Russian trained "Cold War" Physicists. Most have ended up in Government programs to never publish again. The training they received is NOT the same Physics training they are giving at Caltech. I dare a US grad student to think outside the box. Ricp31 05:25, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Being a member of 'american academia', my statements may be distrusted, but I know no reasonably good scientist who hasn't been trained to think 'outside the box', regardless of if it is my professors at Caltech or my collaborators in Europe and Russia. We are also taught to treat every idea as suspect. This training is consistent world-wide, and has been for decades (I have had old Russian physicists explain to me the ways by which they managed to continue working with colleagues here despite the Soviet censors). By the time we finish undergrad, certain filters are applied almost instinctively. I have reviewed Volfson and his ideas in detail. Volfson is not a 'Russian trained 'Cold War' physicist'. He is merely a man who has learned enough of physics to fool himself and a clerk in the patent office. As such he is not exceptional and deserves no special consideration. Michaelbusch 06:28, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Meta-meta-meta-comment: Michael, my apologies just noted you are a grad student at CalTech. But if it was 1880, would you delete Tesla's Wikepedia page? I'm not saying Volfson = Tesla, but with so much NOT known on the Quantum level, if someone told me it WAS Gravity Fairies... I'd have to at least listen to their argument. Ricp31 05:25, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
I have listened, and Volfson is not distinguishable from the four individuals I've had contact me in the last year with outlandish and completely unsupported claims. Tesla is not a fair comparison, considering his many valid achievements. This is not the place for a long discussion, so I will stop here. Michaelbusch 06:28, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rough Consensus?

After six days, I count six votes for delete, two for keep (one of which is Volfson), and one for merge. Admins, is this rough consensus? Michaelbusch 20:37, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

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.