User talk:WolfmanSF

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[edit] Welcome

Welcome to Wikipedia! I see that you have already made many useful contributions to astrophysics-related articles. A couple of things that you may wish to consider:

Checking out Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics. This is an informal association of editors who maintain physics-related articles. Articles at which problematic edits have occurred or which need improvement or vetting are usually listed on the project's talk page.
Creating a user page. This will tell other editors something about yourself (as much or as little as you like), and will prevent your name from showing up as a broken link in edit histories.

Happy editing! --Christopher Thomas 06:57, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reactions

[edit] Quark matter

In the Quark matter article you added the statement that a star made mostly of quark matter is a quark star. I'm not entirely happy with the word "mostly" here: a hybrid star with 80% quark matter and 20% nuclear matter around it would still be a hybrid star, not a quark star. Many of the efforts to discover quark stars are based on their having a different kind or surface, not consisting of nuclear matter. I think it has to be 100% quark matter to be a quark star. Dark Formal 00:45, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Quark Matter

I see your point, but I have some problems with your argument. I don't know the equation of state for quark matter, but it is not clear to me that there is much likelihood that a star could be 100.00...% quark matter. By way of analogy, no one believes that the surface of a neutron star is composed of neutron-degenerate matter; the pressure does not rise high enough to eliminate normal nuclear degenerate matter until you get some distance below the surface. Even if "the efforts to discover quark stars are based on their having a different kind or surface, not consisting of nuclear matter", that might well be based on practical considerations (i.e. that being that easiest way to adduce evidence for the existence of quark stars) rather than the belief that this is the way quark stars must be. Also, I haven't seen any references to or discussion of hybrid quark-degenerate matter/neutron-degenerate matter stars as a separate class of object (please correct me if I've missed something). If quark stars were real objects of observational study, splitting the category of all stars containing quark-degenerate matter into pure quark stars and various types of hybrid stars might be a very useful thing to do. At present, however, with quark stars being purely theoretical, it is not clear to me that such subdividing has much utility. I would be happy to defer to anyone with expertise in this area.

There is plenty of literature on strange stars or quark stars. Take a look at nucl-th/0507055 for example, and some of the papers it cites. The definition of a quark star is a star that is quark matter from core to surface. This only occurs if strange matter is more stable than nuclear matter at all pressures, including zero pressure, i.e. at the surface. This may be unlikely, but that's what people mean, according to the scientific literature on this topic.

I'm happy to continue the discussion, but we should probably move to the talk page for quark matter. Dark Formal 23:52, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: "The Strange Star Surface: A Crust With Nuggets"

Thanks for referring me to this article. Reading it, I find that the authors' model does indeed have strange quark matter going right to the very surface. However, they also cite a "conventional view" (ref. 10, which I don't have online access to) of a tiny nuclear crust at the surface of the star. I suppose it would be OK to say that the star is essentially 100% quark matter in either case, as long as the possibility of that tiny nuclear crust is mentioned. Alternatively, one could say that the nuclear crust is separate from the quark star (if that is indeed the convention in the astrophysics community). What I wanted was a definition of a quark star inclusive enough to cover different models such as these. If you want to re-edit my changes, please go ahead.

[edit] Re: Re: "The Strange Star Surface: A Crust With Nuggets"

OK, I have added a qualifying sentence after the offending revision. Please feel free to re-edit. WolfmanSF 17:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)WolfmanSF

I agree with what you wrote. If I decide to add more content on this issue then I may re-edit it slightly. Dark Formal 23:25, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Central dogma

That may have happened in the revert storm when we were dealing with about one vandal edit per minute. Your change is in the current version of the article. TimVickers 19:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed that edit and thought I'd reincorporated it. TimVickers 21:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization

Please read the logic for the capitalization on WP:BIRD. I'm not asking you to agree with it, but to leave it be. - UtherSRG (talk) 02:45, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Uranian moons

You removed the theory of Miranda impact destruction and reaccumulation from Uranus with summary "This theory is actually out of favor and probably doesn't deserve mention here - give a more likely explanation". However it appears to be your subjective opinion. I don't know any evidence that this theory has been proved to be wrong. In fact nobody knows why Miranda is so odd. In support of you conclusion you added two refererences, which are older than one you removed (Marzari et.al. 1998). I think you should find newer publications in support of your position, if they exist. Ruslik (talk) 08:52, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you that further citations are needed. Bob Pappalardo has done a lot of work in this area and I will try to find one or two of his references that are most suitable. However, the citation I deleted actually had nothing to do with explaining how the destruction/re-accretion model could explain Miranda's geologic history. It was simply an attempt to calculate how quickly Miranda could have re-accreted after it had been destroyed in a collision. It may well be true that Miranda and other solar system bodies got destroyed and then re-accreted, perhaps multiple times, early in the solar system's history. However, the idea that such a process could account for Miranda's odd appearance never had anything going for it, in my (subjective) opinion. It was proposed shortly after the Voyager 2 flyby as a wild explanation for a wild-looking moon, and widely publicized and widely remembered because it was sensational. WolfmanSF 21:47, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Europa

Most of the material you removed was from this source, so I'd appreciate it if you read it to see if I misunderstood anything. Serendi^podous 06:44, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you understood it perfectly, I just think it is so wildly speculative (and in particular, speculation of the hand-waving sort that glosses over all the difficult details) that it isn't worth citing. Europa has one very obvious and fairly well-understood energy source, tidal flexing, that provides an internal heat source that is clearly driving the geological activity there. It makes sense to speculate that it could also be an energy source for biology, since something somewhat similar happens on Earth (although in our case the heat isn't tidal in origin). It doesn't make sense to take this "anything is possible" attitude and apply it specifically to Europa, when no examples of organisms deriving their metabolic energy from these other energy sources are known. WolfmanSF (talk) 07:30, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image at Density wave theory

Hi WolfmanSF. I have long appreciated your efforts to add images to the articles concerning Saturn's rings. I wanted to point out, though, that the image you added here does not actually highlight the correct phenomenon. Those are "wakes" that arise from a single encounter between ring particles and Pan, not density waves that arise from a resonance condition. Density waves in Saturn's rings are so tightly wound that you can't actually see them as spirals (any image with good-enough resolution to see them has too narrow a field of view). Here are some good images that do feature density waves: [1][2][3][4]. I don't know if any of them are already uploaded to WP. The first one might be particularly good, as it includes a bending wave (vertical corrugation) as well as a density wave (basically a compression wave), but all are nice. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 02:43, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Are you sure that the other prominent, more tightly-wound bands in the photo do not actually represent the resonance-induced spiral density waves you are referring to? And a question about semantics: are the Pan-induced wakes, as you call them, something other than density waves? If so, what kind of waves are they? I'll go ahead and edit the photo caption in the rings article and replace the image in the density waves article. Regarding the latter, I think a definition of "epicyclic frequency" would be helpful. WolfmanSF (talk) 03:26, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, those are spiral density waves, but as they're not the most prominent feature in the image, it's not the best for the density waves article. The one you chose to replace it is very nice. In the rings article, I edited the caption for a neighboring image, which has SDWs without other effects that might distract, but it would not be wrong to mention them in the wakes image also.

Wakes are a purely kinematic effect as different ring-particle streamlines are affected differently by Pan (due to their different distances), and the streamlines line up in a kind of Moiré pattern. That is, different parts of a wake do not affect each other. Spiral density waves, on the other hand, are traveling waves.

I see your point on epicyclic frequency. I have not edited the galactic part of the article, but I do know what is meant by the term, and will work on making that more clear. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 13:59, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lineae

Hi, Serendipodous. I don't want to get into an edit war with you over the placement of the Europa images, but to be honest I disagree with both of your recent assertions. "Image:PIA01092 - Evidence of Internal Activity on Europa.jpg" actually shows a much more detailed view of lineae, and gives a much better idea of their structure and mechanism of formation than does "Image:europa g1 true.jpg". The latter shows lineae primarily as albedo features, whereas the former at full size reveals their 'triple-band' structure, and shows that their formation is often associated with transverse faulting. Thus, from my perspective, the latter is at least as appropriate as the former for an illustration in the "lineae" section. The reverse order also has the advantage I pointed out earlier of maintaining a sequence of images showing progressively greater resolution. The captions for some of these images are longer than normal, but there is no harm in this; the information in them is specific to the images, and if it was moved to the text the impact would be lost. Regards, WolfmanSF (talk) 16:44, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not assessing this article on scientific merit. It's already been assessed for that. I'm assessing this article on whether someone who has never heard of Europa, or lineae, or planetary science will gain anything from it. That grey picture doesn't explain what the lineae are. You'd have to already know what lineae are before you could discern anything from it. The other picture shows the lineae as they would appear to someone who was not familiar with Europa, as the moon's primary visible feature. My guiding principle as a Wikipedist is to be as clear and explanatory as possible, and I don't think that grey picture is either. Good for technical details, but someone seeing Europa for the first time may be confused. Serendi ^pod ous 19:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

"The other picture shows the lineae as they would appear to someone who was not familiar with Europa, as the moon's primary visible feature." I agree; that's why I think it wouldn't hurt to put that one first. Whether its actually in the lineae section seems less important to me. However, its not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things. WolfmanSF (talk) 20:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rhean rings

Hi Wolfman,

Can you access the Science article to check if it's the source of the radii? Those were added anonymously.

Thanks, — kwami (talk) 02:55, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

(I responded by email - WolfmanSF)

[edit] Windsor, Ontario fire of 1871

Hello Wolfman - thanks for your contribution to Windsor, Ontario, but can you provide a reference for it? There should be a source, especially for the date and the number of buildings that were affected. I grew up in Windsor and don't recall hearing about such a big fire, but then again I wasn't heavily concerned about the city's history at the time! Cheers, PKT (talk) 13:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that references are desirable for this historical episode. Here's a few. None of them all that suitable for Wikipedia, which is why I didn't list them.

http://www.walkerville.com/postcards/postcard-sample.pdf see p. 24

http://209.202.75.197/digi/chi/timeline.asp?Lang=english

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9803E2DF1439E43BBC4B52DFB667838A669FDE&oref=slogin (mentioned in the headline only; note that the Windsor fire occurred 4 days after the start of the fires in Chicago, Peshtigo, Wisconsin, Holland, Michigan, Manistee, Michigan, and Port Huron, Michigan.

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1524.htm (one sentence, paragraph 8)

http://www.windsorpubliclibrary.com/branches/museum/exhibits.php (I'll bet if you contact the museum they could give you a suitable reference.)

http://www.jewishwindsor.org/page.html?ArticleID=30899 (see 3rd paragraph)

http://travel.canoe.ca/Travel/Canada/Ontario/2005/09/11/1220389-sun.html (2nd paragraph) WolfmanSF (talk) 16:20, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Below is a reply I got from the Windsor Museum regarding sources for the subject. WolfmanSF (talk) 08:54, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I am not aware of any sources in regards to the Great Fire of Windsor 1871 that are available on line. There are a few articles/references to the fire that have been written in local history texts that would be available at libraries (as well as here) and of course the best source is the original newspapers of the time. (Newspapers are on Microfilm at Windsor Public Library central branch.) We have done a small exhibit in the past on this subject and so have a record of what was displayed, that you are welcome to look at here.

If you wish to do research here at the museum, it is best to make an appointment to do so.

Heather Colautti

Registrar

Windsor's Community Museum

Email: hcolautti@city.windsor.on

[edit] Use of the Dagger

I am curious as the "enthusiastic" use of the Dagger symbol in taxoboxes. I would think that a Dagger at the taxon level which is extinct , be it Species, family, order, what have you, would be enough to show that all taxa below that level are extinct. It seems rather redundant to have daggers all the way down from an order to the species. Is there a wikipolicy I should refer to regarding the dagger use?--Kevmin (talk) 00:28, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Logically, you are correct. I don't know of any wikipolicy - if you come across one, please let me know of it. My view is that "enthusiastic use" does no harm - if you feel differently, feel free to revert. I suppose the one advantage "enthusiastic use" could have is that if the dagger is used only once for a high-level taxon, it could be overlooked by casual readers.WolfmanSF (talk) 00:53, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, WolfmanSF. Noticing your recent additions of daggers, I was wondering if perhaps you would be better served requesting that a bot do it (given that I'm watching approximately 3000 articles at this time, almost all of which are fossil reptiles and would require at least one, to say nothing of all of the other fossil organisms). Perhaps a bot could be set up with a search string of certain high-order groups that are extinct, and once it finds them in a taxobox, it would add the dagger to all taxa below it? It wouldn't get everything, but it would clear out something like ammonites or mosasaurs, known extinct groups, quickly. J. Spencer (talk) 15:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, J. Spencer, thanks for you comments, and sorry for my delay in getting back to you. I'm not familiar with the capabilities of bots, and how one goes about requesting that one be set up. Where would I look to bone up on this? If it worked well, I would imagine it could be quite useful, but it seems to me that it would inevitably do a partial job in some situations, so one would want it to tag articles it has worked on to alert people to that fact (the tag could be removed from an article after someone checked the distribution of daggers and made corrections if necessary). WolfmanSF (talk) 06:30, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a bot person either, but for the basics on bots, there's WP:BOT (for what they do) and WP:BOTREQ (for requesting one). I'd talk it over with people involved in biology wikiprojects first, since adding daggers to a number of pages would be a visible change on a lot of articles. My guess as to how a bot would work in this case would be that it would search out taxoboxes for known extinct groups (say, subclassis=Ammonoidea), and once it found them, it would add daggers to that element and every taxonomic level below. If this could be done, it would work quite well for large groups of known extinct organisms, but less well for groups with a mix, which would have to be done by hand at some point. Alternately, a bot could search for all articles with a |fossil_range or |status=fossil or extinct in the taxobox, and make a list, which could then be used. J. Spencer (talk) 17:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Peshtigo Fire

I am curious -- why did you make several revisions to the Peshtigo Fire page, eliminating the comet references? Because -- the problem is that while it is true that small meteorites may be cold to the touch when they impact, the alternative hypothesis was about comet fragments. Now while it is probably the case that the fire was not caused by fragments from 3D/Biela, that was listed as an alternative hypothesis -- because it is considered (by a minority) as a hypothesis. As an encyclopedia article, referencing a minority hypothesis that has multiple references is valid, in fact it is necessary. You have deleted this -- but worse, you deleted the references to this alternate hypothesis. Please respond on my discussion page -- unfortunately it may be necessary to revert your changes. SunSw0rd (talk) 14:58, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

The references I eliminated had nothing to do with the Peshtigo Fire; they were related to a fringe theory that a comet impact was behind the Pleistocene extinctions in North America, something that took place roughly 12,000 years ago. This would have been a massive, catastrophic event (if it happened). I consider the comet theory of the origin of the Peshtigo and other simultaneous fires a "crackpot" explanation, something that only deserves to be cited for historical reasons. Small, grain-of-sand-size pieces of a comet produce what are commonly known as shooting stars when they enter the earth's atmosphere. They burn up completely high in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. If a larger, meteorite-size piece of a comet managed to reach the ground, it would act like a meteorite and lose any surface heat in its passage through the atmosphere. However, it is most unlikely that a piece of a comet a few feet across would ever reach the ground, because comets have a loose, ice/dust composition. Moreover, the passage of a significantly larger fragment of a comet through the atmosphere would produce a fireball that would be visible during the day, and thus could not have escaped notice. What makes the comet theory even more ridiculous is that fact that there were numerous fires already burning in the Peshtigo area, due to the land-clearing practices of the time, as a reference I added points out (http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200211/27_hemphills_peshtigofire/); did you read this? The point is, there is absolutely no need to explain the source of ignition of the Peshtigo Fire, which is already known. Given this, and the tinder-dry condition of the forests at that time, all that was needed to create the forest fire was a stiff wind, which a cold front provided. WolfmanSF (talk) 16:46, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Right. But you are missing the point here. The point is not that the comet theory is, in your opinion, a "fringe theory." The point is that, as an encyclopedia article, the article should identify the fact that there are a number of sources that have asserted that the Peshtigo fire was in fact caused by a comet. It does not matter whether or not these sources are correct. What matters is that they exist. Deleting a reference to articles asserting that in the past comets have caused fires (whether or not in your opinion those references are themselves "fringe") -- is not OK. The simple fact is -- there are people that believe this and there are references to comets causing fires. The reference to meteorites is itself less valid than references to comets -- the theory, fringe or not, is that a comet, not a meteorite, caused the Peshtigo fire. Please understand -- it doesn't matter whether or not your scientific background leads you to believe that of course the comet theory is hokum. That is really not relevant. What is relevant is that people for more than 100 years have asserted 3D/Biela as the source. Deleting supporting references to "clean up the science" is in fact not OK -- regardless of the truth of that theory or not. SunSw0rd (talk) 17:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

It appears to me that one person suggested that the fire could have been started by a comet, and this fact is not being suppressed by me or anyone else. No one ever asserted that the fire actually was started by a comet - there was never any evidence for that. While the comet theory indeed deserves mention for historical reasons, its shortcomings also need to be pointed out. That is all I have done. Did you actually read and understand the references I deleted? They are not about comets starting fires - they are about a comet impact throwing dust up into the atmosphere that caused climatic cooling around the world. They are irrelevant to the Peshtigo Fire article. WolfmanSF (talk) 18:11, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

OK cool down. I didn't say anything about "suppressing" anything. But it is more than one person. (1) Ignatius Donnelly referenced this in 1883. (2) Mel Waskin in 1985 published "Mrs. O'Leary's Comet" suggesting this. (3) Robert Wood (retired physicist) had a piece on the Discovery Channel suggesting this.

As for the references you deleted -- they were in fact regarding the "Comet Wiped Out Early North American Culture" story. Which itself may be "fringe" BUT -- relevant in the sense that they assert that a comet can be hot. As the articles assert that this comet melted the North American ice cap. Really, I don't object to those references being deleted but -- then we should delete the references to meteorites being cold since -- they are not relevant.

It would probably be better to have an expanded section on the comet theory, providing background, discussion, and then the evidence debunking it. What do you think of that? SunSw0rd (talk) 19:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Personally I'm not in favor of an expanded section on the "comet theory" because I don't think its credible. You and others can do as you see fit; I'll edit if I think it's appropriate. Now, about those references I deleted, which seems to be the main thing you are objecting to... I have rechecked both of them and neither says anything about comets starting fires. Even if they did mention something about comets starting fires, it would not be relevant because this is in the context of a major impact event, not a meteor shower of the sort proposed (without good evidence) to be associated with the 1871 fires. WolfmanSF (talk) 19:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for Mars Phoenix image

Much appreciated. Flex Flint (talk) 15:23, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mars Images

Why did you shift all of the pictures to the right of the page and re-align them? Some pictures were best left on the left, and others on the right. It looked better and flowed better with the article. Thanks, and maybe you could look into fixing that. Thanks.Ssmercedes18 (talk) 00:01, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

This was done by Wnt, not by me. I tend to agree with you. WolfmanSF (talk) 00:49, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for correction regarding kinetic vs potential energy

When I made this edit including the word kinetic, I had indeed forgotten that it is the sum of potential and kinetic energy that are being converted into heat, not the kinetic energy alone. Good catch! CosineKitty (talk) 22:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. There are definitely subtleties to this situation that take a while to appreciate. WolfmanSF (talk) 22:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Scattered disc

Do you want to get this article up to FA? I'd be willing to help. Serendi ^pod ous 10:42, 8 June 2008 (UTC)