User talk:Paul Wormer/Archive 1

Paul Wormer

Current talk page

Archive 1, Archive 2

Hydrogen bond

Hi Paul. Welcome to Citizendium and I am happy to make your acquaintance. I would be delighted to take a look at your comments on the hydrogen bond, however, as an Analytical Chemist, I'm not much of an authority on the subject. Early on in the Citizendium project, it was designed to be a "fork" of Wikipedia -- and as such ALL of the content on Wikipedia at that moment was copied under the GNU License and placed on the Citizendium servers. The thought was that CZ would simply take a different direction from WP from a certain point. Soon afterward, I joined the project and was included as an editor for the Chemistry workgroup. As part of the initial organization, I took some time to surf the WP/CZ pages on the topic of chemistry and placed the Chemistry workgroup tag on them (200+ articles) in an attempt to get an idea of the scope of the work ahead.

Sometime after that, the CZ organizers chose not to "fork" the WP content, but to primarily start from scratch. In the process of "un-forking", pages that were modified "significantly" since their copy from WP were retained and all others were deleted. Hydrogen bond was one of those pages that survived the massive clean-up and my initial edit survived in the history as well.

I am not familiar with the latest "semi-automated" process for joining CZ as an editor however you clearly qualify. I would love to have you join the Chemistry Workgroup as an editor as well. I hope this has not been too long winded. Please let me know if I can help. Best regards, --William Weaver 13:04, 17 August 2007 (CDT)

I've made Dr. Wormer a Chemistry Editor. Thanks to you, Dr. Weaver, for showing up here again as well! --Larry Sanger 02:36, 18 August 2007 (CDT)

align

I don't know but a workaround might be necessary... See this post. Aleksander Stos 07:21, 18 August 2007 (CDT)

I was about to propose \choose -- but I see you found it yourself. Sorry, it took too long to answer (weekend :-)). Anyway, feel free to contact me if you have further problems. Jitse Niesen is IMHO our best LaTeX expert. Aleksander Stos 06:08, 19 August 2007 (CDT)

There are plenty of automagical phenomenons in this world ;-) Normally the system works well, though. Aleksander Stos 07:21, 19 August 2007 (CDT)

Meneer Wormer (of Paul, op het internet schijnt iedereen elkaar met de voornaam aan te spreken), aangenaam kennis te maken. [For people that don't understand Dutch, this sentence basically means "hello".]

I just stumbled on this talk page (I was looking who could possibly help me with Noether's theorem). I don't understand why align doesn't work here, but I'll see what I can do. -- Jitse Niesen 09:25, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

svg format

Yes, it is supposed to work, see CZ:Notice_Board#June 24, 2007. If however there was a problem, we can always try conversion to png (please let me know if interested)... Aleksander Stos 11:16, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

Medelander

Ja, wp is niet te harden meestal. Ik heb mijn wachtlijst al geheel opgedoekt, en kom daar alleen nog maar om mijn eigen pagina's in de gaten te houden, en om mijn admin rechten niet te verliezen want wie weet wat er nog gaat gebeuren. Maar goed, ik weet niet wat er met CZ gaat gebeuren, tot nu toe is de activiteit erg minimaal, en de kwaliteit meestal niet erg hoog. Kim van der Linde 10:11, 13 September 2007 (CDT)

approval

Paul,

als een 4e editor een approval ondersteunt is het instantaan. een 1-editor approval is ook mogelijk. Makkelijk is het om dan de approval-datum te zetten op 2 of 3 dagen in de toekomst. Verwijdert geen enkele geautoriseerde editor het approval dan moeten de constables deze approval doorvoeren. Als phys-chem gepromoveerd op macromoleculaire chemie heb ik getracht het artikel zo leesbaar en begrijpelijk mogelijk te houden voor zelfs de grootste leek. Ik ben verantwoordelijk voor de vorm en 95% van de inhoud, andere editors hebben toegevoegd vanuit hun individuele disciplines (medicijnen/biologie). groet, Rob. Robert Tito |  Talk 

Hydrogen

For a moment I put the category on the article. You should see the article on worgroups' lists.

I suppose you thought that it was enough to put it in the checklist. Well, the system needed a double work: the category both in the checklist and the article. Now, it's changing -- within the new subpages system (cf. CZ:Subpages) everything is put on a "metadata page". The good news is that thanks to Jitse's bot any page will be automatically converted to the new system. And here is a link how to start an article with subpages. You may also consult CZ:Using the Subpages template. We are in transition phase and working hard to make it really simple (semi-automatic). I'm sorry if it's not very clear, I'm writing (too) fast. Maybe the best thing is to look and click around one good example, e.g. the Biology or New York City article. Click e.g. yellow "M" button on right near the top. Anyway, we may continue to work as before (I'll be doing so until better tools arrive). Aleksander Stos 10:14, 1 October 2007 (CDT)

Edit my Ideal gas law page?

Given your work on the van der Waals equation, I think you are a great choice for editing or contributing to the Ideal gas law page that I started. Any thoughts? David E. Volk 14:47, 3 October 2007 (CDT)

Macromolecular chemistry

Congratulations on your first Approval!! Matt Innis (Talk) 19:23, 9 October 2007 (CDT)

Two urgent requests

First one: as "Oxygen" is about to become "New Article of the Week" tomorrow, could you please check it over. In particular, I am puzzled that SiO2 is called silicium oxide. I know sand as silicon dioxide, and presumed that silicium oxide is perhaps SiO3? In which case, the article has an error in the first paragraph. If it is correct, then perhaps you could explain the difference between the two names.

Second request: could you please activate your email by CZ form, so that people can email you using the link in the toolbox on the left. You can change all your personal settings in "my preferences" at the top of every page, after you have logged in.

Many thanks. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 15:50, 17 October 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for your reply. Two chemists already got to it, from a circular I sent out to Editors in case you didnt read yours. For the email settings, go to My Preferences,then User Profile and under the heading Email at the bottom of the page there are boxes to be ticked. Tick Enable e-mail from other users and then we can contact you by email from the wiki. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 03:05, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

The circular email was on the emailing list for Editors. There are several emailing lists, which you have to subscribe to. Actually, I was discussing this a week ago with Larry, and we didnt sort it out. There needs to be a page of instructions on these things. I also was not subscribed. THe various lists and forums and blogs can be found on the link Communication in the left panel. you might want just editors, or also the Citizendium-L . Hope this helps! --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 04:07, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

For ANcient Greek symbols, when you edit go to the bottom of the edit page, where there are visible symbols, and after modern Greek is a link -- Polytonic. Click that and you have the Ancient Greek set.

I just checked, and discovered that the Polytonic set is misssing. At the moment, therefore, we cannot use the tones for Ancient Greek. Sorry about that: I will ask someone if it can be added soon. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 13:17, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

Talk:Oxygen

Paul, that is weird. I can tell you that I did not intentionally remove any comments, but that doesn't mean that the software didn't do something weird, especially since I was adding the subpages templates that do tend to mess up every once in awhile. I suppose we could have both hit the save at the same time? But I don't remember that I got an edit conflict. These things always confound me when they happen. If you figure it out, let me know. --Matt Innis (Talk) 08:00, 19 October 2007 (CDT)

Editing templates

Hoi Paul,

Ok, zover ik begreep, de definitie was van van der Waals zelf, maar het maakt me niet uit hie en wat. Achter elke definitie heb je twee kleine tekentjes, en de [e] brengt je naar de template definitie (Template:Def_van_der_Waals_force) die je zoals elke andere pagina kan editen. Ik hoop dat dit helpt! Kim van der Linde 08:13, 19 October 2007 (CDT)

English

That sentence needs a little rewrite, and I will have to check the exact amount of O2 in the air. It is correct or very close. I'm currently thinking about the negative nuclear spin, which isn't really true. It only indicates a negative gyromagnetic ratio, but for NMR, it is handly to think of them as opposite of normal.

David E. Volk 13:52, 19 October 2007 (CDT)

Negative nuclear spin explained

Paul, here is what I added. Does this answer your question well enough?

NOTE: All nuclear spins are positive. Negative spin values shown below indicate that the gyromagnetic ratio has a negative value, which means that the atomic magnetic moment and the nuclear spin are aligned antiparallel to each other. For nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopists designing complex excitation schemes, it is convenient to think of such atoms as having negative nuclear spins because, compared to atoms with positive gyromagnetic ratios, the nuclei align in the opposite direction and therefore also precess (rotate) about the magnetic field in the opposite direction.

David E. Volk 14:20, 19 October 2007 (CDT)

Spin talk

Paul, I'm not quite sure, but here's what I think. The total magnetic moment of the atom comes from the electron spins, the rotation of the nucleus as a whole unit, and the spin of the individual nucleons. Orbital symmetry is likely very important (both electrons and nucleons). In any event, for the negative gyromagnetic ratio elements, the spin of the nucleus opposes the total spin. So, when the whole atom aligns with the magnetic field, the nuclear spin is aligned in the opposite direction. I need to dig up some good sources for this before writing the real NMR article. David E. Volk 11:19, 21 October 2007 (CDT)

check chemistry page

Paul, could you look at the electron orbitals in the Chemistry article. They seem incorrect (3d and/or 4f) to me. It has been nominated for Article of the Week, so we should ensure that the orbital pix are correct. David E. Volk 09:42, 27 October 2007 (CDT)

Hi David, I gave answer on the talk page of Chemistry--Paul Wormer 10:21, 27 October 2007 (CDT)

Version 1.1 of Chemistry

Hi Paul, I replied at Talk:Chemistry/Draft#Please_explain_draft_principle. Stephen Ewen 03:29, 29 October 2007 (CDT)

See User_talk:Stephen_Ewen#Question. Stephen Ewen

refs

http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JCPSA6000127000015154518000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/hbond.html http://www.iapws.org/relguide/Ice.pdf

P.M. These reference pertain to water close to absolute zero. They were put here by Robert Tito.--Paul Wormer 03:37, 9 November 2007 (CST)

Cauchy

I apologise if my comment made you feel the need to explain/justify your work. This is excellent stuff and I do minor tweaks. After all this is a wiki [actually I was hesitating to put a smile in the comment as it was intended to be funny; finally I stayed dead serious and now I regret :) ]. Cheers Aleksander Stos 03:25, 31 October 2007 (CDT)

Cauchy

See User_talk:Stephen_Ewen#Picture_Cauchy. Stephen Ewen 22:16, 31 October 2007 (CDT)

Subpages

I think there was an error in one of the subpages you created for Carbon, which is why it all went horribly wrong. Fixed now. The 'Metadata' template for each article has to be correctly filled out, otherwise the pages end up ridden with junk. Have you tried creating articles via 'start article with subpages'? This automatically brings up the right metadata form for you to fill in. See the one for Carbon - you can click 'M' at the top of the Talk page to do the same. Don't put metadata information anywhere else, otherwise it'll mess up.

If all else fails, simply start an article without subpages. The subpagination bot will do it for you if you fill out an article checklist on the Talk page. John Stephenson 03:34, 9 November 2007 (CST)

Netherlands

Hi Paul. Did you mean to delete a paragraph in this edit of yours to Netherlands? You marked it as a "minor edit" ... Jitse Niesen 11:48, 10 November 2007 (CST)

Your article on energy

Paul: Regarding your article on Energy, in your example of Galileo converting potential energy to kinetic energy, you write:

"This dropping of mass off the tower of Pisa is a good example of conversion of energy: potential energy is converted in kinetic energy. We will prove that energy is conserved, that is, the sum of kinetic and potential energy is constant in time."

You might consider further exemplifying the First Law by considering what actually happens when the potential energy of the mass reaches zero, viz., at the point it hits the ground, where Galileo picked it up before climbing the tower and imparting it with potential energy. Clearly, as the mass falls, there is a theoretical height x=0 where potential energy is zero and kinetic energy is maximal, the sum of potential and kinetic energy remaining constant equal to its value everywhere else in the falling trajectory. But in reality, at x=0, the mass hits the earth, whereupon the kinetic energy becomes zero, as does the potential energy, in which case energy has not been conserved as constancy of potential and kinetic energy. Some readers trying to understand the law of conservation of energy may think that way, and find it confusing.

You have already told them in the introduction that one has to take heat energy loss or gain into the balance sheet for energy conversions. The reader might find it helpful if you added that when the mass actually hits the earth and loses both it potential and kinetic energy, that the conservation balance sheet must take into consideration the heating of the moist soil of the earth at impact. You would have to do that even in a vacuum.

As an aside, would a heavier mass, M1, compared to a lighter mass, M2, sink farther into the earth at impact, so that kinetic energy becomes zero at x<0? If so, what considerations must go into the energy balance sheet to meet the First Law for both impacts?

I have no claim to expertise in physics, so it would not surprise me if you revealed my physics here incorrect. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 16:31, 15 November 2007 (CST)

Paul: Thanks for the background information on your initiating the article on Energy. I like the additions you've made, and it seems the article is shaping up to exemplary academic status. Your English is quite good, nothing to worry about there. The article may be a little difficult for many readers, even with university education, especially mathophobes. But there is always the possibility later for a "student version" as a 'subpage'. Personally, I never worry about trying to reach the least educated audience, as even experts don't mind hearing the fundamentals again, so long as the substance is there too. You are right that writing on 'energy' is challenging. I expect to learn a lot from the article, and find stimulation from it, as I already have.

Incidentally, I've just started reading Peter Atkin's new book, "Four Laws That Drive the Universe", 2007, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-923236-9. I'll let you know what I think. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 13:46, 16 November 2007 (CST)

Ptolemy

Many thanks for your note. Always happy to polish some English. That was quite some 'stub', I have to say - Ro Thorpe 12:36, 25 November 2007 (CST)

Dirac's delta et al.

I referred to this. I'll look at your article. Cheers, Aleksander Stos 08:50, 1 December 2007 (CST)

Distribution is correct as a stub - but, of course, one is tempted to work on it. Regarding allotropy it seems that you can move the page (as long as the redir page wasn't edited, but just created). So please do, if you like -- it'd be a clean solution. Let me know if it doesn't work. Aleksander Stos 09:53, 1 December 2007 (CST)

Sure, the description you propose would be highly desirable, IMHO. I tend to think about Dirac's delta via Gauss -- for probabilists it's initial law of the standard Brownian motion (and other processes). We may negotiate linear/quadratic normalizations ;). I mentioned "derivative of Heaviside" since, AFAIK, this is how signal theory tends to introduce it (limit of "almost-Heaviside" function). Anyway, your proposition looks excellent. BTW, regarding WP image, it's not a very good idea to give such a *bare* image (without e.g. approximations by Gauss that you proposed). I'm not very offended by the image itself --after all they make many reservations in the article-- but by the prominent label "probability density function" that easily follows from such a simplified illustration. With some more carefull approach and with some approximations showed, the image could be more than useful. Aleksander Stos 08:07, 5 December 2007 (CST)

You deserve to be credited...

Well, I see you were working away on party day, which makes you one of the shy boys. I’ll have to come and drag you in next month! Aleta Curry 23:39, 9 December 2007 (CST)

Not yet

Dag Paul,

- Je vroeg me over mijn plan om een directe bijdrage te leveren aan artikelen zoals special relativity. Het antwoord stond al twee regels boven je vraag:

"I won't contribute to articles until the policies are clear."

Vandaar dat ik eerst probeer mee te helpen om de regels vorm te geven. Wikipedia is het slachtoffer van onvoldoende goed uitgedachte spelregels maar in elk geval waren die uitgedacht toen ik begon mee te doen. Als de CZ regels me aanstaan, dan zal ik zeker beginnen bij te dragen met de artikelen!

- Dan is er een praktisch probleem: ik zou willen aanmoedigen om nieuwe artikelen te baseren op Wikipedia artikelen, en in ieder geval er kennis van te nemen. Nu zit ik er een beetje mee in m'n maag dat - mijns inziens - er meer verbeterd moet worden aan het CZ artikel dan aan het WP artikel. En ik wil de oorspronkelijke CZ auteur niet voor het hoofd stoten (maar dat heb ik per ongeluk al gedaan!). Dus ik aarzel een beetje, liever maak ik kleine verbeteringen.

Met vriendelijk groet,

Harald

Atomic electronic configuration

Someone requested deletion of "Atomic electronic configuration". This is a redirect to "Atomic electron configuration". I suspect it might be useful (e.g. alternative terminology) but it might be rather superfluous as well. Please let me know your opinion, I'll take action accordingly. Cheers, Aleksander Stos 16:14, 16 December 2007 (CST)

Hi Alek, I spent quite some time on the article "Atomic electron configuration" (it is an extensive table). Yesterday I moved it from a name with second word capitalized to a name with second word lower case. I think that "Atomic electronic configuration" is a useful redirect. --Paul Wormer 01:19, 17 December 2007 (CST)

Thanks! Aleksander Stos 03:11, 18 December 2007 (CST)

anything ready for approval Paul?

Paul, I see we are about the only active chemistry writers and editors. Send me a note when you finish writing something that you think is ready for approval suggestion. I am sure you have a lot of them already, but I hate to jump the gun on you. David E. Volk 10:46, 20 December 2007 (CST)

 I hadn't noticed the loss of the history on approved articles before, thanks for pointing that out.  I wonder why they do that. David E. Volk 10:59, 20 December 2007 (CST)

Is PhosphatePhosphorus ready for Approval

Paul, I think I am done with Phosphate and it seems ready for approval to me. Two tables back to back should maybe be changed, so that one of them is a written paragraph instead?? What do you think? David E. Volk 11:12, 20 December 2007 (CST)

 Yes, Paul, I did mean to type in Phosphorus

Paul, free feel to add material. I don't really care about approval, but I thought maybe Larry wanted to up the count of approved articles. It really is a pain to edit after initial approval, as in it takes months for corrections to show up. I'm busy working up steroids right now, but I'll check back later to see what you have added. I like your suggestions by the way. David E. Volk 10:26, 21 December 2007 (CST)

allotrope/allotropy

Paul, i have no dog in that fight, so to speak. I just made a minor change to the other article. Feel to merge them and choose which title to keep. David E. Volk 14:29, 29 December 2007 (CST)

vector product

see cross product page, same thing, more details

Paul, I don't CZ wants multiple pages for exactly the same thing. I would merge the two on the Vector product page, and redirect the cross product to the vector product page David E. Volk 13:20, 4 January 2008 (CST)

ideal gas law for approval?

David E. Volk just added the articles on phosphorus and the ideal gas law to the list of articles that are ready for approval, or close to it. Since you are a major contributor to the phosphorus article, you aren't allowed to act as the approving editor, but as your only edit to the article on the ideal gas law was a typo correction, you are eligible to oversee its approval.

All you need to do to initiate the approval process is to visit the article's metadata page and follow the instructions here. I would suggest that you contact David E. Volk and please feel free to contact me or any of the constables if you have any questions. --Joe Quick 21:34, 7 January 2008 (CST)

signed article =

Paul, I did the same thing when I first started. I'll send him a note telling him not to sign the articles. That is what someone did for me too. David E. Volk 13:06, 12 January 2008 (CST)

Paul,

 Thanks for the welcome. Your tips regarding latex are quite useful - I avoided math as much as possible in that article partly because I did not know how to edit, but also partly because it may be more difficult to read for a non-expert.

Sekhar Talluri 15:34, 13 January 2008 (CST)

Raymond Chandler

I thought that the woman who did the first article would be contributing more. Evidently not. I'll add a little R.C. stuff from time to time.

Faute de mieux, we could import the WP (which I worked on some years ago) and then edit it relentlessly until it was our own article. Hayford Peirce 10:39, 16 January 2008 (CST)

approval for article NMR spectroscopy

I was editing the metadata for my article on NMR spectroscopy in an attempt to send it for approval; and wanted to indicate D.Volk and you as editors. However, somehow, I seem to have approved my own article:-) Sorry for confusion. Sincerely yours Sekhar Talluri 16:53, 16 January 2008 (CST)

Image

I got one of Charles-Augustin de Coulomb. Stephen Ewen 22:16, 1 February 2008 (CST)

Workgroup The Netherlands

Hi Paul, would you be interested in launching a Workgroup The Netherlands? Please see Talk:Netherlands#Workgroup. --Daniel Breslauer 06:40, 4 February 2008 (CST)

Added Chemistry Workgroup category to my articles as you suggested

Paul: As you suggested, I added the Chemistry Workgroup category to these articles that I wrote: Petroleum refining processes, Catalytic reforming, Hydrodesulfurization, Petroleum naphtha and Chemical engineering. Thanks again for your suggestion. - Milton Beychok 13:33, 5 February 2008 (CST)

The answer is yes and thank you

Paul, the answer is yes. I would like you to participate in the approval process for Petroleum refining processes. Thanks very much. - Milton Beychok 18:35, 6 February 2008 (CST)

ToApprove

Hi Paul, I made some 'adjustments' to your ToApprove nominations. You had the right idea! I put the date in for four days, but you can change that if you like. You can see the changes here. Good luck with the approval! --D. Matt Innis 06:34, 7 February 2008 (CST)

Just want to understand the nomination procedure

Paul, thank you for nominating Petroleum refining processes. When you listed your name in the To Approve Template section of the article's Metadata page, did that automatically create that green notice on the Talk page and the Main Article page?

Also, when you added "... &direction=next&oldid=102266745" to the url in the To Approve Template section of the article's Metadata page, I see that you used the id of the last edit at that time, namely 102266745. Does that mean that the approved locked version will be as of that edit id? There have been a few more very minor edits since then. Does that mean they will not be in the approved locked version? If so, would it be okay to change that id number at the last moment before approval so as to include those edits? Or does the template automatically do that?

I am just curious as to how it works and would appreciate you explaining it to me. Thanks once again, - Milton Beychok 22:52, 8 February 2008 (CST)

Hi Paul and Milton, the answer to both of those questions is Yes. Placing your name in the ToApprove section of the metadata template automatically places the green template on all the subpages. And Yes, the version number that is in the template is the version that will be approved, unless that version number is changed by an editor. You can find out all about it at CZ:Approval Process. You have the right idea, you just need the details. --D. Matt Innis 07:04, 9 February 2008 (CST)

Congratulations! There were a few extra edits after the version you nominated, but they lokoed to be minor copyedits and clarifications. If there is anything that you don't agree with, you can always move the date back and I will adjust the article for you. [1] --D. Matt Innis 01:22, 10 February 2008 (CST)

Thanks

Paul, thanks for the approval of Petroleum refining processes. - Milton Beychok 13:15, 10 February 2008 (CST)

== Ampere (unit) ==

Paul, I fixed the ampere (unit) page by making a new metadata template and approval page for the article. David E. Volk 10:15, 11 February 2008 (CST)

Azole

Paul, I wrote a short article called Azole for the chemical term of 5-membered heterocyclic compounds with two heteroatoms (at least one nitrogen). I don't think anything else is needed, so could take a peak and submit for approval if agreeable with you? Thanks, David E. Volk 14:36, 12 February 2008 (CST)

David I read azole and can approve it, but should it not have status 1 first? --Paul Wormer 05:54, 13 February 2008 (CST)

Paul, I changed the status to 1. Go ahead and approve please. David E. Volk 08:24, 13 February 2008 (CST)

Approved! Congratulations! D. Matt Innis 11:07, 26 February 2008 (CST)

NMR active elements

Paul, I have nothing more to say about NMR active elements, and I think it is ready for approval. Could you nominate it? David E. Volk 13:41, 13 February 2008 (CST)

Update on the Vacuum distillation article

Paul, I want to let you know that I finally took the time to draw that Perkin Triangle Distillation image myself and it is now installed in the Vacuum distillation article.

If you have the time, please take a look at the list of articles created on my user page. Am I overdoing it? Or does CZ think "the more, the merrier"? I started off with petroleum processing articles. Now, I want to concentrate for a while on chemical engineering articles. I would also like to see Chemical engineering get approved fairly soon ... but there don't appear to be many other chemical engineers on CZ. Anyhow, I would appreciate any comments you care to offer. Best regards, - Milton Beychok 00:14, 18 February 2008 (CST)

Chemistry style guide

Paul, I have started a chemistry style guide, under my user page here [2]. Two things, first, do you know how to make a double arrow? Second, take a look and make any suggestions you might have, especially regarding topics completely missing if you think of any. Thanks, David E. Volk 18:14, 21 February 2008 (CST)

Do you mean this: A ↔ B?

Suggestion for chemistry style manual: If you use LaTeX don't forget that elements should be set in roman. For instance, so:

$2\mathrm {H} +\mathrm {O} \rightarrow \mathrm {H} _{2}\mathrm {O}$

and not so:

$2H+O\rightarrow H_{2}O$

If I think of other pointers for the manual I let you know. --Paul Wormer 02:12, 22 February 2008 (CST)

Paul, thanks for your input. I have expanded it quite a bit, with a section on Drug articles and other things. The one symbol I can't find is the traditional equilibrium arrows, that is a left and a right arrow, one above the other, as opposed to the double headed arrow. Do you know how to make the double arrow? David E. Volk 10:46, 22 February 2008 (CST)

In TeX that would be: ${\stackrel {\textstyle \leftarrow }{\rightarrow }}$, which admittedly is not perfect. In HTML I don't know. --Paul Wormer 10:59, 22 February 2008 (CST)

Approval of Phosphorus

Paul, I was asked by David Volk to approve the Phosphorus article that you and he developed. I have have responded on his Talk page ... and I thought that you might want to read my response. Best regards, - Milton Beychok 12:20, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Paul, I have responded to Milton's comments on the Phosphorus page regarding basically saying Things generally known by experts in the field do not need to be referenced. However, let's both read thru it in the next few days (by Friday?) to double check for things that need references. David E. Volk 12:40, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Paul, I have removed the old bonding paragraph and did a little rewriting. David E. Volk 09:27, 28 February 2008 (CST)

Quin

Morning Paul. No, I never met Quin while I was at Duke. I don't know if he was still there in 1995-1996. Speaking of 31P NMR, I currently work for the guy (David Gorenstein) who is considered by most NMR spectroscopists to THE GUY when it comes to 31P NMR. He pioneered most of the work in 31P NMR, with regards to many compounds, but especially for DNA and RNA samples. See Phosphorous-31 NMR: Principles and Applications by David G. Gorenstein (Editor). It currently sells for > $300!

David E. Volk 08:31, 27 February 2008 (CST)

NMR

Hi Pauld, this article needs your attention. Thanks, -D. Matt Innis 19:37, 29 February 2008 (CST).

I have started the Approval process for Phosphorus

Paul, as of a few minutes ago, I nominated the Phosphorus article for approval. Regards, Milton Beychok 13:42, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Paul, because Milton did a little work on the article, all three of us need to sign the phosphorus article. Can you do so today? David E. Volk 11:06, 10 March 2008 (CDT)

Phosphorus Approved!

Congratulations! Keep them coming! --D. Matt Innis 22:48, 10 March 2008 (CDT)

Chemical Engineering approved!

Congratulations again! --D. Matt Innis 15:46, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

Please look at the last edit of Acceleration due to gravity

Paul, would you please look at last edit (by Richard Moore) of the Acceleration due to gravity article. Is it correct? And again, can it be simplified? At the very least, the parameters should be defined:

• Why not define $V_{G}$?
• Why not also define $G$ ?
• Why not use $m$ instead of $M$ and also define it as the Earth's mass?

That last editor assumes that all of the readers will be physicists and will understand his equation without any explanation.

Would it be incorrect to simply replace his equation with:

---

$\quad g\equiv {\frac {Gm_{e}}{r_{e}^{2}}}$ where $G$ is the universal gravitational constant, $m_{e}$ is Earth's mass and $r_{e}$ is the Earth's radius

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which is as written in the article Gravitation#Gravitational potential. Or am I completely incorrect? Regards, - Milton Beychok 18:30, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

• Milton, I wrote the section Gravitation#Gravitational potential and I believe it to be correct. Roger (not Richard) Moore made the point that acceleration is a vector, which is why he wrote fat g. This is true, but in the approximation that the Earth is a non-spinning, perfect, homogeneous sphere the vector character is not so relevant, because then g is a vector with one component only (directed to the center of the sphere).

Altogether the article now suffers a severe case of Wikipeditis. It started out completely wrong with an erroneous Kepler orbit, and then different people (including myself) tried to clean it up as politely as possible. By polite I mean trying to save as much as possible of the work of the previous author. Your points are well-taken, V_G, G, and M must be defined. There is some duplication in the article that should be removed as well. Maybe I will write a new version from scratch tomorrow, discarding politeness. The only thing I don't understand is, why is there a standard value with 6 decimal figures, this is unphysical as the variation in the value is in the third decimal figure. Is the standard perhaps meant to enable checking of computations?--Paul Wormer 21:06, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

Paul, thanks for offering to rewrite the article. I don't care if g is expressed to 6 decimal figures or 3 decimal figures. As I have said before, g is used a great deal by engineers dealing with fluid dynamics and we need a straightforward article about g which is clearly written in understandable language that we can link to when writing articles. In other words, an article that can be understood by reasonably intelligent people who are not advanced physicists. I look forward to seeing your rewrite. Regards, - Milton Beychok 22:18, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

SF area

You need to check out Pescadero. It's on Highway 1 about 14 miles south of Half Moon Bay. They have great Mexican food in the local gas station (believe it or not!) and a shop that sells fresh bread you could die for. Carry on driving south and you'll find Año Nuevo State Park where the elephant seals breed. An amazing sight if they still have tours available. Chris Day 19:59, 26 March 2008 (CDT)

Chris, is it a coincidence that you mention Half Moon Bay, or did you see my current IP? We are indeed staying in HMB and have been to Pescadero several times. The other day we had lunch at the bakery there, in their garden in the backyard. Last year (when we stayed here too) we saw the females at Año Nuevo (the males had gone). Back in Holland we saw a program on BBC about Año Nuevo, including the bulls. --Paul Wormer 11:11, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

I saw your message on Milton's talk page. I used to live in SF and Pescadero was always a treat for us. Have you tried the gas station food yet? Chris Day 12:41, 28 March 2008 (CDT)