Re: [Phys-L] wikipedia (also electrophorus)

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 02/24/2013 10:37 PM, Chuck Britton wrote:
> Can the WikiPedia article be improved?
> Or is it more valuables as an object of derision?

The problem is that wikipedia is a moving target.  This is a 
lose/lose situation:
 -- If you fix it, it might not stay fixed.
 -- If you try to use it as an object of derision, it might 
  not stay broken.

At one point I fixed the wikipedia article on "Entropy".
I got a huge amount of positive, flattering feedback, saying
that it was both correct and easy to follow.  Then a few weeks 
later everything I had done was gone.  It turns out that people 
with a high-school-level exposure to the topic greatly outnumber 
people who actually understand the topic, and they have a lot 
more time on their hands.

At one point I tried to fix the wikipedia article on "Scientific 
method".  I was told by one of the official staff editors (not 
merely some random contributor) that the article should reflect the 
meaning of the term "as it is commonly understood by the general 
public" and that any effort to point out that real scientists 
consider this to be ludicrously incorrect would not be welcome.

So now you know why I choose to maintain my own site.  Others are 
free to choose differently.
  http://www.av8n.com/physics/scientific-methods.htm
  http://www.av8n.com/physics/thermo/entropy.html

=================

As for the electrophorus topic:  The following is a work in
progress.  Right now it is about half finished:
  http://www.av8n.com/physics/electrophorus.htm

IMHO it provides a good example of a real-world open-ended 
question.  Suppose somebody asks you what is an electrophorus,
and how does it work?  By googling you can get a rough description 
of its structure and general method of operation, but the explanation
of how it works is obviously bogus.  So you start to wonder, how 
does the thing actually work?  Are there perhaps some important 
components and/or procedures that have not been mentioned?  Is
there perhaps a modified version that works better and/or is 
easier to explain?  Etc. etc. etc.

My explanation is not finished, but you can see where it is
going.  It is markedly different than most of the other alleged
explanations out there.