Marathon Editing Brings New Rigor to Wikipedia Physics
simonsfoundation.org
simonsfoundation.org
I appreciate that much of the subject matter -- especially when it comes to topics like Quantum Physics or Particle Physics -- is actually completely counterintuitive and weird, and that it is only, really, properly described by the math. Nevertheless, responding to comments requesting lay-level clarity along the lines of "you won't understand it unless you get a PhD in it" is not at all helpful, and merely reveals an attitude of arrogant superiority.
Many of the physics pages could really use the help of an editor who understands how to construct an $English sentence and is comfortable using imagery and allegory to explain the concepts, even though those may likely be inaccurate, misleading or technically wrong. Sadly those people usually don't have the requisite knowledge of the subject.
Was it Einstein who said, "Any scientist who cannot explain what they are doing to an eight year old is a charlatan"?
No. It's commonly attributed to Einstein, but of course he didn't say that, because he knew better. There are things you just can't explain at a certain level. For example Feynman couldn't explain to a layman how magnets work, but explained why not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFPe-DwULM.
And it's possibly his failure, not some intrinsic property of MAGNETS WORKING that's impossible to explain to laymen. In his own words,
"I can't explain that attraction in terms of anything else that's familiar to you."
"... because I don't understand it in terms of anything else that you're familiar with."
That can get you a fair distance in describing gravity (it's like the attract example, but much weaker) and the strong nuclear force (very strong attraction, but very very short range). That can then allow you to describe atoms, electrons and the protons in the nucleus attract each other, but [waves hands] not to the point they collapse into each other. And the nucleus, strong force generally overpowers the repulsion of protons.
And at this point a quantum mechanics for poets for chemistry works fairly well, it's not like any of that stuff makes intuitive sense anyway.
This doesn't contradict Feynman, of course, I can't say that I ever really understood magnetism, and I've also left the weak force out, but as I understand it you can wave your hands there and say it mediates beta decay. But the above does help you describe and understand the fundamentals of a lot of the universe, and much of what's important to you. Add Newtonian mechanics, which is pretty intuitive since we live in that world, and you're in fairly good shape. For that matter, a fair amount of special relativity can be easily added, the very basics of motion and the new definitions needed.
That really only answers the "what", though; it doesn't touch on the "why".
We can describe the attraction and repulsion, throw a precise mathematical framework around it, describe how two or more things might just be different aspects of (or viewpoints on) the same underlying phenomenon, even put names and behaviours to the particle-like things involved, but when it comes right down to it, nobody knows why any of it should result in forces that tend to move physical things closer together or further apart.
And that's okay, but it does mean drawing a line somewhere and saying "this is fundamental (at least for now)".
And it's safe to say no one really understood magnetism properly before quantum mechanics, qua Feynman.
But despite the claims to the contrary, he did explain magnetism to a layman, at a high level. Feynman's issue, seemingly a pet peeve of his by his tone, was the answering of a physics question asked by a layman that starts with 'Why'.
His long response actually covered just fine all the major points you'd expect in the answer, namely electromagnetic fields, alignments of the electron spins in the materials, etc.
His problem is that 'why' questions by non-experts are hard to answer because he doesn't know how deep to go before knowing he's satisfactorily answered with sufficient clarity and minimal hand-waving. And he did well in starting high and going a few levels deeper. Clearly he stopped before getting to a level requiring deep knowledge of physics.
I know an editor who is looking for high-profile things like this to volunteer on right at the moment, and she's extremely good at improving readability. However, she's not also a physicist.
The biggest problem I see with wikipedia articles of all types is that all the little edits destroy coherent flow. There's no purposeful paragraph structure. You wind up with a string of factually correct sentences that together read like something an AI created.
The pattern seems to be that at one point a single author had a section or entire page in great shape: Ideas developed, a story told. Then it gets picked apart into crap over time.
You start saying things like "one way to think about it is like this..." and anyone who knows better will tell you that, while it's an easy way to think, it is ultimately not correct.
There are books and talks for layman on technical matters in physics. Apparently, that's not what Wikipedia is aiming for.
Physics and mathematics have a long history, and isn't easy. The learning curve in today's theoretical physics is quite high. Stuff not meant for layman is naturally not accessible to layman at all.
And as others pointed out, no, Einstein didn't say anything like that. He said "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." though.
Expecting to understand particle physics all over without spending years and learning all the math you need is naive, and you shouldn't blame physicist. Nobody can make nature or maths easier for you, it's just how things are.
I honestly don't know how to explain nature without the gritty math. Apparently, maths is the language nature can be understood. I don't know how I can seriously explain how electricity, magnetism, weak and strong forces work, and how they are intricately related without going into gauge fields, relativity, Lie-group symmetries, quantum fields and partial differential equations, infinite path integrals or operator algebras for example. I can't even explain a fundamental thing like what a boson or fermion is properly without a background in field theory, let alone go into anyons, or how they might be related by a deeper symmetry of nature called supersymmetry.
It's not like pulleys and levers that you can infer from your daily experience and hope to understand it more or less by the time you finish your cup of coffee.
The fact that a coordinated gathering of actual physicists working together on these pages had anything reverted is a telling example of the poison that will eventually kill Wikipedia.
Without a coordinated list to see just which edits failed to stick I'm not able to completely back my assertion. However I doubt that these people, working in groups where they have many eyes proofreading and spellchecking at once, were submitting the kind of changes with typos or other mistakes that would be understandably rejected by Wikipedia.
Recently, there are some tests<1> on the upper limit of speed of light. The test conducted by Zhang et. al showed that single photon still obeys speed limit which is the speed of light no matter in normal material or fast material. <1>Shanchao Zhang, J. F. Chen, Chang Liu, M. M. T. Loy, G. K. L. Wong, and Shengwang Du, "Optical precursor of a single photon," Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 243602 (2011).
And yes, it was reverted, with the comment "Poor wording. Perhaps someone with access to the source can cast this into proper English?". (As always with text-only communication, it's possible to read-in some snark, where none is intended). I don't get the impression that this little factoid would have greatly improved the article, but the poor wording would have degraded it.
The correct call I think.
Edit: formatting
It's not even that bad.
There have been problems with the speed of light article that required arbcom measures; edit wars with a lot of talk page and ANI discussion, with some bans for users.
It's not a surprise to me that edits to the speed of light article get reverted.
If this holds true for Wikipedia it'd make sense to see more rejections than fixes. Let the person submitting it fix it. It's their problem.