'Maybe Wikipedia Readers Shouldn't Need Science Degrees To Digest Articles About Basic Topics' (vice.com) 304
Wikipedia articles about "hard science" (physics, biology, chemistry) topics are really mostly written for other scientists, writes Michael Byrne, a reporter on Science beat at Vice's Motherboard news outlet. From the article: This particular class of Wikipedia article tends to take the high-level form of a scientific paper. There's a brief intro (an abstract) that is kinda-sorta comprehensible, but then the article immediately degenerates into jargon and equations. Take, for example, the page for the electroweak interaction in particle physics. This is a topic of potentially broad interest; its formulation won a trio of physicists the Nobel Prize in 1979. Generally, it has to do with a fundamental linkage between two of the four fundamental forces of the universe, electromagnetism and the weak force. The Wikipedia article for the electroweak force consists of a two-paragraph introduction that basically just says what I said above plus some fairly intimidating technical context. The rest of the article is almost entirely gnarly math equations. I have no idea who the article exists for because I'm not sure that person actually exists: someone with enough knowledge to comprehend dense physics formulations that doesn't also already understand the electroweak interaction or that doesn't already have, like, access to a textbook about it. For another, somewhat different example, look at the article for graphene. Graphene is, of course, an endlessly hyped superstrong supermaterial. It's in the news constantly. The article isn't just a bunch of math equations, but it's also not much more penetrable for a reader without at least some chemistry/materials science background.
simple.wikipedia.org (Score:4, Insightful)
Then feel free to "translate" it for Simple Wikipedia
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Mike: "Well, it looks like I have more than answered your encyclopedia grievances..."
Crow: "No!"
Servo: "I miss complaining already!"
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Then feel free to "translate" it for Simple Wikipedia
This.
There's nothing wrong with providing a more detailed explanation for any phenomenon on regular wikipedia, but they shouldn't be dumbed down. Learning any new field seriously often begins with reading a few dozen articles (whether academic papers or even wikipedia) and starting to learn how the jargony parts interact, and usually you don't understand what the concepts all mean at the beginning. Personally I don't think anyone should be able to graduate college without having done this in a field or two
Re:simple.wikipedia.org (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is usually I can't yet, because I can't understand the current explanation.
Just cut-and-paste the first paragraph. Then leave out the rest. We do NOT need to "dumb down" Wikipedia. If someone doesn't want the technical details, they can just STOP READING after the first paragraph.
For the electroweak interaction [wikipedia.org], the first paragraph is fine, and is all a non-nerd needs. If anyone continues to read, it is because THEY WANT THE DETAILS.
Wikipedia has plenty of problems, but "too much correct information" is NOT one of them.
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Thank you, this is exactly correct. I've always liked that I can read Wikipedia articles on scientific things like this and not get the dumbed-down version. I might not understand it all, and I might quit partway through, but that's OK because the first paragraph usually tells me the high points at a layman's level.
Wikipedia just needs to make sure the first part of the article (and also maybe first paragraphs in major sections) is readable by laymen, and then people who want more detail can continue read
Wikipedia for Dummies (Score:2, Redundant)
I totally agree. The more detailed information, the better.
In reality the crux of the complaint here is that "Hey, we need to dumb down Wikipedia because I am too lazy to study and learn on my own." Perhaps what is really being argued for is a Wikipedia for Dummies". The reality is that there is nothing stopping anyone from "solving this problem", except, of course, their own innate laziness.
I love having detailed information, particular with respect to concepts and topics in mathematics. Yes, many idea
Re:Wikipedia for Dummies (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not the problem. I learned a long time ago if you need to look up a math concept you go to Wolfram's site. The explanations there are clear and concise, but simpler than Wikipedia. It's not "dumbed down" on Wolfram's site, its that they're not using the article on general idea as an introduction to their pet theory, which is what seems to happen on Wikipedia. If you look up 1+1 it shouldn't be explained in terms of homomorphisms of k--star-modules or whatever the particular author is into, it should be explained as simply as possible.
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I find that the Wolfram articles tend to be too condensed to be really very useful. YMMV.
Re:Wikipedia for Dummies (Score:5, Interesting)
Wolfram doesn't have the OR problem (original research).
I've added intermediate-level "translation" text to a few Wikipedia articles, and every time I do this I know I'm at risk of being reverted for OR.
QED for the Layman is a masterpiece of original explanation—and forbidden territory for Wikipedia contributors.
Second, it's very hard to avoid saying something false when interpolating between the basic and the advanced material.
When I've tried this myself, I've estimated that I was hitting around a 90% truthfulness, with the other 10% ranging from vaguely correct to outright howlers (and me not being able to discern the difference).
I consider myself a fairly severe fussbudget in matters of accuracy, which means I trust my estimate that I'm falling short. Except for the experts who wrote the expert material—some of whom are no good at any other level—I'd rate myself fairly high. And I still don't think my intermediate contributions are quite up to encyclopedic standards (and so I mostly only dive in when the article starts out in a pretty bad place).
Unlike the simple level, the intermediate level is precise enough to get yourself into real trouble, here and there, if you're not a subject expert.
The editors who contributed the advanced material, so far as I've noticed, tended to be the 2005-2007 heyday crowd making highly substantive main edits, and not necessarily sticking around for editorial maintenance, or even to assist a less expert author trying to step in and fill the expository gaps.
First and foremost, Wikipedia is process driven, not outcome driven. People need to bear that in mind, and be happy it's as good as it is.
My least favourite articles are the mathematics-heavy articles where 90% of the text is derivational, to the degree where the main points are encoded in lemmas. What I've noticed on these pages is that it's very hard to dive in in any kind of small way. You almost have to first break the existing page's back to steer the page in a different direction.
The final class of pages I've noticed are pages that were basically abandoned 75% finished in the first place. These can often be improved with a quick effort. But if you try to add too much text, you'll fail to provide enough cites (that requires real research). In my experience, one cite attached to a few added sentences usually survives.
And then if you get reverted, the page goes back to the same state, with no warning for the next fool who comes along and tries to make the same edit.
That's what I hate most. Many editors revert a contribution aimed at fixing a problem where they view the fix as problematic, with little concern that the original state was also problematic, while taking no ownership whatsoever of the pre-existing problem.
Now I don't care if 10% of my edits get reverted (be bold), but above that level it begins to feel like a giant waste of time, so I'm careful not to be so bold as to ruin my will to participate in the first place. (One sees many bitter former editors show up in these threads who didn't figure this out soon enough.)
Re:Wikipedia for Dummies (Score:5, Insightful)
Writing for someone not a specialist in the field is not at all the same thing as dumbing down. It's also not an exclusive relationship. Writing a section for the layman does not preclude writing another for the domain specialist.
I'll just leave this here:
“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.” Albert Einstein
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OK, say that with a straight face about most physics articles. I mean Kaon is a disaster.
compare that with the actually helpful article "Ring (mathematics)". The ring article used to be for crap, but it was edited to be quite readable and now contains a lot more information. And it's not just the header, the article continues on clearly. An example of what the integers are is given. Is that wrong? no. It's also not dumbing it down.
Re:simple.wikipedia.org (Score:5, Insightful)
so, there is information and there is communication. I've had text books that have no errors but are incomprehensible and others that also have no errors but are crystal clear. Same thing. Wikipedia is, often (and especially in physics) the crap textbook.
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~Penny Hofstadter
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Don't worry, neither can the Wikipedia "editors" who did a hack job copy and pasting from various sites and text books.
Simpler? (Score:5, Informative)
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That's the great thing about Wikipedia, if you think the "Simple English" version of this article is not simple enough, you're free to edit it and correct this issue.
Keep in mind there are concepts that cannot necessarily be reduced to levels that can be expressed in a Simple English article.
Science is hard (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe not everything needs to be dumbed down to Popular Mechanics levels. I for one enjoy reading difficult articles on Wikipedia: even if I don't understand a quarter of a half of a them, I always learn something new one way or another.
Re:Science is hard (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Science is hard (Score:4, Informative)
As an example, today I looked at the Higgs boson [wikipedia.org] article and the talk about the rest mass in GeV/c^2. This is a bull shit unit.
No, it's not, not even a little bit. It is, in fact, the standard unit in the field (all particle physics and related fields, like particle astrophysics or cosmology). If I read a scientific paper in those areas that didn't use eV or eV/c^2 for particle masses I'd be not only a bit confused, but actually question the competency of the authors. "Not SI" is the bullshit: SI as a universal standard is all fine and good, but it's not natural to a lot of fields, and those fields can (and should) use whatever system of units is natural to them (preferably metric, but even that is not necessary). Also, the units on the info box on the top right do link to an explanation page, so you know, I'm not sure what you're talking about.
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Have you tried to edit an article recently. It's 10 times more arguing than editing. I don't have time for that shit. the process is rotten, so the product is rotten.
Introductions should be comprehensible (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a Ph.D. in physics, and I find the average science article on a subject that I don't already know to be way too technical. They usually lack any sort of overview for non-experts.
I do like technical detail in the article-- but not instead of the article.
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Makes a lot of sense from a PhD in physics holder like yourself -- I mean, why go into all the nitty-gritty details on things most people will never understand just because a concept may be tough to understand properly?
As a fellow student of physics and knowing that Wikipedia is open to all I will be suggesting this more broadly comprehensible revision:
Electroweak interaction:
Once upon a time there were separate ideas for how small particles would interact with each other if they were charged up differently
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Fully agree. There are too many specialized technical microcosms that forget what they do involves others outside of their little fiefdom. It takes real talent to both deal with the jargon among peers and communicate that jargon to others effectively. Few people know how to do this well, and the ones that refuse to try shouldn't be viewed as being any smarter then the rest of us when they hide behind their jargon.
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So, give it a go and improve some articles. You may have to battle with revert artists a bit, but it is generally not that bad.
For example, the RSA algorithm proof used to only have the obscure (and not quite correct) one line Euler Totient proof. So some time ago I put in a detailed proof based on Fermat's little theorem. It initially got reverted as too verbose, but with a little persistence my proof stuck and is in there still.
On another score, I added the theory that the moon was created by an atomic
Yes, but they need an introduction. (Score:3)
Some of them are very good. It's the ones that aren't, and particularly the ones that fail because of the lack of an introduction, that are the subject of discussion.
Re:Science is hard (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a difference between a difficult subject and obfuscation for a pretense of erudition.
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Exactly, and I came here to post something similar. Why should it by Wikipedia's place to dumb it down enough for a mass audience, rather than displaying the nitty gritty that some of us are looking to obtain from such articles?
This is all of course besides the fact that "simple.wikipedia.org" is a thing (something I had no idea of until I started reading these comments).
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You can't really make something simpler than it is - but you can sure make something appear more complicated.
Sometimes the writing is just shit. I've read the odd article about things that I already knew, and felt like I knew less after reading them.
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Wikipedia takes the place of an Encyclopedia - which by definition is intended for the widest possible audience. The main purpose of an Encyclopedia is to provide introductory material to the widest range of topics. While you may have deeper information available, the primary r
Not worth the effort (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not worth the effort (Score:5, Informative)
I try to fix typos and get my changes reverted. It's a lost cause already.
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I never agreed to or was consulted about
Why do you think the Wikipedia community needs your personal blessing?
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They sure are more than willing to ask for my money!
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Not sure why you assume I make any changes there :)
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Most people are right handed.
Left side of the road to have your sword at ready for strangers.
Right side to have your rifle ready for strangers.
Two problems (Score:3)
First problem, Wikipedia. Not saying it cannot be fixed, but the way that articles are edited and the ability of an editor to win by simply out-camping everyone else is a problem.
Second problem, some topics do not readily lend themselves to easy explanation. Perhaps Wikipedia should include more overview paragraphs, but unfortunately to understand some topics one really does need the underlying education.
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perhaps you should just download it
here [wikimedia.org]
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Chemical engineering isn't chemistry. It's fluid dynamics, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics and a few optional modules drawn from thermodynamics & fluid mechanics.
Use Simple Wiki (Score:5, Informative)
If you go to simple.wikipedia.org, you get much simpler articles on this sort of thing.
There isn't a specific page for electroweak interaction, but it redirects you to Weak interaction [wikipedia.org], the text of which describes the electroweak interaction.
The Simple page for graphene [wikipedia.org] is decent enough.
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I learnt about Simple Wikipedia on Slashdot many years ago.
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I think the real answer is that there should be multiple articles. Not just simple.wikipedia.org. Each explicitly targeting a specific audience. Putting things into vague language vs equations or era relevant technical terms is where arguments start since people argue that their definitions are correct vs language in reality being fluid. You can have ten different articles and then the lay people that actually read the articles can vote for the most relevant for which comes up by default. Further users
A famous (apocryphal) encyclopedia (Score:2)
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I think we mat have reinvented a famous german encyclopedia in which the article about your subject was masterfull, and all the others completely obscure... for any given subject.
[citation needed] Only vaguely kidding, I have no idea which encyclopedia you're alluding to.
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I tried... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, what's supposed to happen is that someone should step in to edit the article and correct it. Many years ago, I was reading Wikipedia and thought an article could use some more information, and clicked edit and happily added helpful facts. I was contributing to the sum total of human knowledge! I was so proud.
Much like the time that you tried to edit Wikipedia, the same thing happened. I checked the next day and my information had been deleted. I was, honestly, kind of hurt. I never found out what happened until years later. See, to edit Wikipedia articles, you need to be a "Wikipedian". A Wikipedian is someone who participates in the Wikipedia community. The general public isn't really welcome, despite all the high-sounding rhetoric from Jimmy Wales. Perhaps once long ago, when Wikipedia needed to be filled out, this might have been partially true, but now that it's basically finished, contributions from the public are less welcome than ever. The article owners can be very jealous about "their" articles.
I thought about becoming a Wikipedian, but it just seemed like too much effort. Plus from what I've seen other Wikipedians seem like hypersensitive nerd jerks, the kind I escaped from. I just checked the page I tried to help, and sure enough it looks like it hasn't been updated since 2008. Tons of broken links and outdated information. I'd include the link here but it's a highly specific topic and you might be able to puzzle out who I am.
Like others said, they are perfectly fine (Score:2)
Basic vs. comprehensive (Score:2)
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It wasn't bad, the formulation and lagrangian sections are understandable by anyone with an undergraduate understanding of calculus,
I have an undergraduate understanding of calculus and don't understand the math in that article at all.
Maybe you meant a PhD understanding of calculus.
Statistics Too... (Score:5, Informative)
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Yeah, I studied calculus, discrete math and linear algebra as an undergraduate, and I can't make heads or tails out of articles that I think I ought to be able to... I'd like to at least know which other book(s?) I should read in order to be able to understand the wikipedia articles.
Exactly! There's a gap in the knowledge. There are many rudimentary articles and then there are some articles that are incredibly complex, with nothing in between.
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Mathematicians often use ambiguous non-standardized notations, and it seems to me that its in order to impress other mathematicians. Just within calculus alone there are multiple competing notations, none of them are actually standardized, and every variable is a single greek letter completely disconnected from what the variable is, while other greek letters serve as operators.
We literally have not progress one bit since Newton and Leibniz wrecked math
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Yeah, I studied calculus, discrete math and linear algebra as an undergraduate, and I can't make heads or tails out of articles that I think I ought to be able to... I'd like to at least know which other book(s?) I should read in order to be able to understand the wikipedia articles.
It's a rare article that doesn't have references. I would start there.
Re:Statistics Too... (Score:5, Insightful)
so then, if it's a tree of knowledge, maybe its structure could be clearer - it's often the case that there are circles in the graph where you keep clicking for explanations and get back to the page you started with, which, if you understood, would let you recurse and understand it.
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Its structure could be clearer but then again, it's not a manual, or a course, or a class. it's a compendium made by random people, therefore loosely structured.
So if you want to learn a subject properly, take proper classes.
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That's because Wikipedia isn't a manual. It's a knowledge compendium. So in order to understand those math equations, maybe you would need to learn the simpler equations leading to them.
I'm fine with that. Just link to the simpler equations in the article so I know what they are!
Wrong site: try the particle adventure (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want explanations of topics which are accessible to the general public then you do not go out and read an encyclopedia you go and read a book designed to simplify complex topics enough that non-scientists can digest them. So if you want a general public level explanation of EW interactions on the web go to something like the particle adventure [particleadventure.org] and they'll have what you want there.
Everything Explained That Is Explainable. (Score:4, Informative)
If you want explanations of topics which are accessible to the general public then you do not go out and read an encyclopedia you go and read a book designed to simplify complex topics enough that non-scientists can digest them.
The Encyclopedia Britannica in its prime was written for the adult general reader and not the specialist scholar or professional ---and attracted some very good and accessible writers whose academic credentials were perfectly sound.
That is as it should be (Score:2)
There are topics that cannot be understood without at least some scientific background. Dumbing them down is a disservice to everyone. Maybe people that do not have that scientific background should realize this is a limitation on their side and stop demanding that others simplify things for them? While the arrogance smart and educated people often display is pretty bad, what is worse is people that assume that they are capable of understanding everything, and that if they do not, then it is the fault of th
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You cannot explain things without that Math or the actual mechanisms and models. You can only make claims how some aspects work, and the target of that dumbed-down pseudo-explanation cannot verify these claims or at least check their plausibility. That opens them up to any kind of lies and manipulation. If you actually explain things to somebody successfully, then they afterwards have the understanding required to verify the claims made.
Jargon has a place, but not Wikipedia (Score:4, Insightful)
Jargon has a definite place in the world.
1) It allows to you discuss things with the immense level of accuracy needed for discussing complex topics. Business talk about 'enterprises' so as to include both corporations and non-profit organizations.
2) When talking to other experts, it demonstrates familiarity and knowledge, proving expertise. When talking to other computer experts, if you mention SaaS (Software as a Service) they know you are technical, while if you say Cloud, you are more likely corporate.
3) When talking to non-experts it makes them think you are an expert - irregardless of whether you are one or not. Con men and smarmy types love to abuse it in this way. But if they run into a real expert they get laughed at.
Wikipedia is supposed to be for the general population, not an expert. As such, using jargon (and math) is excessive. It should be limited, or at least placed after a full non-technical explanation.
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I use terms of art.
You use jargon
They use technobabble.
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I am not an expert, but below is a first draft of how I would attempt to explain it to someone that does not have a physics education at all.
Electromagnetism is the force that includes both electricity and magnetism. The weak force is responsible for radioactivity and fission.
Interesting, at very high energy levels, the weak force and electromagnetism appear to be the same thing.
The electroweak force is that single force. Electromagnetism being in effect a diffuse form of the electroweak force. that occu
basic topics... (Score:2)
Like particle physics.
Since when was that a basic topic? Yeah, those things referred to as atoms, so small most people can't comprehend how small they are, it's a topic about the even smaller things that make up the things that make atoms, and how they interact with each other to do that.
It's totally a "basic topic"
Well, it's free... (Score:2)
The authors probably don't understand their topic (Score:4, Insightful)
"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself." - Albert Einstein
I have found this to be true in my life. Sometimes I think I understand something, but when I try to explain it in a way a child (or even teenager) can understand it I find that I really don't understand it as well as I thought I did. If I then go back and study it further and really try to understand it myself I find that eventually I understand it well enough that I am able to explain it in terms that are comprehensible at most age levels. This often means using analogies and simplifying to the level of the listener, but it is doable if I understand the topic well enough. I suspect the problem with wikipedia is that authors of the articles understand the material just enough to write an article, but not well enough to write it so it is accessible by a lay person (say an 8th grade reading level).
Wikipedia is used by professionals as well (Score:2)
I'm a career scientist and I often use wikipedia to get some basic information on a topics where I'm not already familiar. its quite useful to have real technical information in the articles rather than just an basic introduction.
Many articles do have basic introductions - but sometimes that isn't all that practical. Expecting a simple layman's introduction to electro-weak interactions may be too optimistic. There are probably a few people who could explain it that way, but most experts would not be able t
On the contrary (Score:2)
This is a topic of potentially broad interest; its formulation won a trio of physicists the Nobel Prize in 1979.
Winning the Nobel prize means the work was one of the most IMPORTANT advancements for mankind. That does not mean that the general public and people with limited physics or math background should be interested or could meaningfully understand the work or much of the motivation behind this without getting their feet wet in other topics first -- you should be a college Physics I or Physics
My main beef with Wikipedia... (Score:2)
... isn't that some of the articles are too technical---some are by necessity. My complaint is the references found at the bottom of the articles. Authors lard up the article with links to other external web sites/pages and that's great---you tend to want to read references to help clarify articles. (Okay... I do). The problem arises when you try and follow the supporting links and they are simply not available any more. You wouldn't lose a lot of bets about citations in newspapers or other "popular" press
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Unfortunately for references they're dependent on 2nd-reporters of information. I do find that most reference links are dead, or they reference a book that nobody's heard of that's also out of print and probably nobody verified that it actually says anything like that on page WHATEVER.
Sorry, I don't have any solutions that are legal.
Maybe... (Score:2)
Finding a balance is hard (Score:2)
There are lots of super basic articles and videos on science that use no math at all
There are graduate level articles and videos using difficult math that the student is assumed to know
I find it very difficult to locate articles and videos that gently introduce the math to an engineer like me who knows engineering math, but never studied things like tensor calculus
Bremsstrahlung (Score:2)
Just look at the end of the Wikipedia article for Bremsstrahlung : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
There is the biggest equation I've ever seen, followed by "However, a much simpler expression for the same integral can be found in [25] (Eq. 2BN) and in [26] (Eq. 4.1)." The two references are to unlinked (and probably paywalled) papers...
I appreciate it not being pap (Score:2)
I appreciate the articles not being pap. When I am working I frequently have to look up technical details on various subjects, and its nice to have descriptions that actually have some technical details. It is, to me, what makes it useful.
Keep the level as it is. If there is a need for more basic descriptions, expand the introduction.
Re:Silly (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you have the ratios reversed. More people are curious than already experts in most fields.
And if you don't care that the general population understands what electroweak interaction is then you are part of the problem, soon to be overwhelmed by the ignorant masses.
Extra points for being dismissive however.
Re:Silly (Score:5, Insightful)
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It isn't that articles need to be dumbed down.
It is that articles need to be structured to be usable by a wide range of users. The hard technical details need to come after a high level summary and a layman's explanation.
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YES., this is the correct solution. 4 sections;-
Basic abstract;-
High-school level discussion.
Boffin-level discussion.
All-level summary/links/etc
The reader can just start from the top, and proceed down until it gets too deep/mathy, and then skip down to the bottom for more links/resources.
Re:Silly (Score:5, Insightful)
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Imagine if the Wikipedia article on object-oriented programming [wikipedia.org] consisted entirely of the overview and a few code exa
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As for your second point, whether they are basic topics or not is irrelevant, there should be an overview available.
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I don't think the author is criticizing the inclusion of technical details, so much as the lack of a more general overview. What mostly confuses me about your critique is if you have done the "heavy lifting," why in the world would are you using wikipedia as a reference for a technical subject? Is there really no better reference available at that level?
Better may not be what I am optimizing on.
Suppose I am writing a paper and I needed the exact definition of the Weinberg angle. Now, I have references in my downstairs office with this info - I have Weinberg's QFT books, for that matter, so, sure, I can get up, and try and find a suitable reference. Maybe that will take 5 minutes. Or, I can open up a browser page, go to Wikipedia, and what I need is right there. Elapsed time, maybe 30 seconds. I may do this every 5 or 10 minutes, so the saving in time is si
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Why would 90% of people in this world need to know what electroweak interaction is beyond the introductory paragraph? Why would 99.999%? I mean really, what isn't covered by the introductory paragraph for those who are "just curious" and don't want to put a lot of effort into understanding that concept, which at a deep level relies on understanding 12 other concepts, each with 12 of their own on down the line...
Sorry, but those 90% of people can just STOP READING after the summary. If an article is missing
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Not every detail of every topic can be summarized for the GED-equivalent layperson.
Obviously a summary doesn't include every exact detail, by definition - not sure what you're saying there. But every topic can be described qualitatively such that the GED-equivalent layperson (assuming algebra here) can follow it. It may take a very smart expert in the subject to do so, as Feynman did with much of particle physics back in the day, but it's possible.
I've also been frustrated by the Electroweak Interaction page: frankly, it's garbage. However, the Weak Interaction page is reasonable. Mis
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That's not what this is about. An encyclopedia is supposed to contain introductory material that covers a topic in a comprehensible way for anyone. As a minimum, the article should have this introductory material. It is not optional. As has been stated perfectly by ebyrob above: [slashdot.org] "There's a difference between a difficult subject and obfuscation for a pretense of erudition."
Perhaps the idiots are the people who don't know how to communicate effectively.
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As a product of scrunchy Blorp spaces [wikipedia.org], the Minkybink cube [wikipedia.org] is itself a scrunchy Blorp space as a result of the Grumpalump theorem [wikipedia.org]. The scrunchyness of the Minkybink cube can also be proved without the Axiom of Choice by constructing a continuous function from the usual Splorp set [wikipedia.org] onto the Minkybink cube.
Every subset of the Minkybink cube inherits from the Minkybink cube the properties of being both tromplizable (and therefore T4 [wikipedia.org]) and second countable [wikipedia.org]. It is more interesting that the converse also holds: Every second countable T4 space is homeomorphic to a subset [wikipedia.org] of the Minkybink cube.
That's the nice thing about wikipedia: it has galumphings [wikipedia.org] to the stuff you might not understand.
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At least they generally know how to use apostrophes.