Talk:Hubble's law
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Requested move 1 January 2023
[edit]- The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The result of the move request was: not moved. Numbers are moderately in favour of remaining in place (nb, two IP comments from very similar origin in Belgium were in support and counted as distinct). Support comments preferred to follow the IAU as authoritative, with expectation that WP:COMMONNAME would follow, while oppose comments held that the common name has not yet shifted, but may yet change in future. (non-admin closure) — HTGS (talk) 02:15, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Hubble's law → Hubble–Lemaître law – This is now the new WP:COMMONNAME, after it was renamed in 2018. It is used by the relevant academic literature, see https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-80654-5_5 for example. Sadly Google Ngram is not yet usable since it only works up to 2019. PhotographyEdits (talk) 17:26, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
- See also previous discussion on this. Banedon (talk) 22:18, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
- Same as previous. Lean yes since it's the IAU and it represents the consensus of most astronomers. Similarly when the IAU redefined Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006 we didn't adopt a wait-and-see-if-it-becomes-common stance. However I don't feel strongly either way. It's just a name, and it's obvious what is being referred to regardless of whether it's called Hubble's law or Hubble-Lemaitre law. Banedon (talk) 12:44, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose. True common names are not determined by decree or by polls conducted only among specialist experts. — BarrelProof (talk) 04:48, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
- Disagree: specialists have thought this through. Common names can still be used in the article (as is currently the case).
- alex (talk) 13:05, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose. WP:COMMONNAME. The purpose of a name is to place a relatively-permanent label on an object, not to ascribe credit from moment to moment. Tarl N. (discuss) 12:16, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
- Disagree: look at country names: they can change too. alex (talk) 13:06, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose. This is still the common name for the relation. It will take some years before we know whether the IAU recommendation becomes the name in common use. Their recommendations are not always followed, though it is good to recognize Lemaître. Common use means more than just academic papers, but textbooks and popular science articles. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:47, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
- Disagree:
- 1. Delaying the name change will make the common use more difficult, leading to a vicious circle.
- 2. Fact is that the name change has been approved by a reference body.
- alex (talk) alex (talk) 12:58, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
- Support.
- - This is now the correct name for this law, as decided by a reference organisation.
- - It should be introduced as soon as possible to prevent memory to fade again.
- - One should also take into account the risk of resistance to a name that could be seen as belonging to / originating from the English language region,
- alex (talk) 13:03, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
- Wikipedia does not make the news, and should only reflect what is going on in the real world. If not changing the article title causes the
memory to fade again
, then it was not the common name in the first place (or at the very least, can be shown to have not been a significant-enough part of history to merit changing the page name). In other words, we cannot make fetch happen. Primefac (talk) 13:43, 3 January 2023 (UTC) I also changed the indenting of your message mainly for formatting purposes. One should also take into account the risk of resistance to a name that could be seen as belonging to / originating from the English language region
@Axd: I'm not sure what you mean by that. Could you please explain. Maybe you are trying to say that we should be careful because refusing to adopt the non-English name "Lemaître" could be seen as cultural bias on our part? That's the opposite of what you wrote, so I apologize, but hence why I ask for clarification. Renerpho (talk) 21:32, 5 January 2023 (UTC)- Or maybe you mean that the name "Hubble", which is an English name, may run into resistance from those who oppose the influence of English/American culture? I am guessing. Renerpho (talk) 21:35, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
- Wikipedia does not make the news, and should only reflect what is going on in the real world. If not changing the article title causes the
- Support It is now the official name by the IAU. 2A02:A03F:AA2C:7200:D01A:6015:8D63:34BB (talk) 13:40, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
- Support. The International Astronomical Union is the internationally offically recognised body in charge of the nomenclature of everything in astronomy. And, although the International Astronomical Union cannot enforce the application of its resolutions, the fact that resolution B4 was adopted in October 2018, effectively means that the official name of the law is since then the "Hubble-Lemaître law". (by Thierry Pauwels, member of the IAU) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A03F:F8CE:7300:F943:ECF2:918D:792A (talk) 15:42, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
- The officialness of IAU's role is overstated, both on this talk page, and in general. They have no mandate to name physical laws. All they can do is make recommendations, which they call resolutions. People will follow those recommendations when they are convenient, and ignore them otherwise. That is a democratic process, but there are no actual votes involved. Scientists vote with what they publish in scientific journals, not with what they vote on at IAU meetings. The ongoing discussion about the term dwarf planet (used in the IAU sense by some astronomers, not used in the IAU sense by most planetary scientists, and no consensus on Wikipedia as of November 2022) is a good example, as is IAU's recommendation to stop using the unit erg (see my comments here). And even if IAU were the most official body in the world, that still would not matter. There is a policy WP:COMMONNAME on Wikipedia, and there is WP:OFFICIALNAME. Only one of those is a policy saying what the title of a Wikipedia page should be (hint, it's not WP:OFFICIALNAME). Renerpho (talk) 16:26, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. We use the most common English term for article titles, which is not necessarily the officially sanctioned term. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:49, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
- Support. The IAU carries sufficient weight for its resolutions to be considered common use in encyclopedias and other reference works. In fact, IAU resolutions are challenged so rarely that the exceptions (see: status of Pluto) become newsworthy on their own.--Lieven Smits (talk) 11:00, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:11, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
- Support. If anyone gets to decide the names of astronomy-related things, it's the IAU. - Parejkoj (talk) 15:53, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
- Comment What source are we using for determining the WP:COMMONNAME? I don't think it's fair to use sources from before the renaming, because that heavily skews it towards the old name. In newer academic sources, the longer name is being used. And it's not popular subject that newspapers and magazines write about, so purely using academic sources seems fine to me. PhotographyEdits (talk) 17:27, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Nothing changed since Talk:Hubble's_law/Archive_3#Requested_move_1_November_2018. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:42, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
- Comment On another note, the WP:NAMECHANGES policy has not been mentioned yet, which says: "we give extra weight to independent, reliable English-language sources ("reliable sources") written after the name change. If the reliable sources written after the change is announced routinely use the new name, Wikipedia should follow suit and change relevant titles to match.". So that means my previous comment applies here. PhotographyEdits (talk) 18:24, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose. Considering Google Scholar results since 2019, I found 344 results for "Hubble's law", 1040 results for "Hubble law", and 239 results for "Hubble-Lemaître law" (dash/hyphen and diacritic don't matter for the numbers). While there are significant caveats in taking those numbers too seriously, I would generally conclude that, although Hubble–Lemaître has increased in popularity in the past few years, it has not (yet?) turned into the common name, even if we accept that WP:NAMECHANGES applies. Separately, I think the level of officialness of the 2018 recommendation is overstated; there's neither formal authority nor de facto precedent. From Nature news coverage: "The move seems to be the first time an organization has voted to alter the name of a scientific law — although some scientists doubt whether the change will be noticed. The IAU has been the arbiter of planet and moon names since 1919, and oversees astronomers’ official catalogue of star names, but it has no formal mandate over the names of scientific laws. Piero Benvenuti, a former IAU general secretary who proposed the motion, says that the new terminology is a recommendation only. 'If people will continue to use the Hubble law naming, nobody will object,' he says." (See also [1] for other coverage of the 2018 vote.) Adumbrativus (talk) 06:46, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose, for now Nothing significant has changed since I voted oppose on this in November 2018, and what I said in the previous discussion still applies.[2] IAU has given a recommendation, nothing more; they could not do more since they have no mandate to name physical laws. IAU has demonstrated in other instances that they often do not follow their own recommendations (see the ergs example I gave in the old discussion). While Hubble–Lemaître law has been used in a number of publications (20-30%, going by Adumbrativus's count above), that does not yet make it the common name. We are not here to set (or even to follow) trends, but to report on current knowledge. The common name may still change in the future, but we are not there yet. Renerpho (talk) 15:57, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Hubble tension article
[edit]Would it be advisable to start a separate article on the Hubble tension? It has a lot of traction in science news and would be easier to follow the developments. A small section in this article does not seem enough. ReyHahn (talk) 11:20, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
- I'd support a split, but someone who have to write the separate article. Banedon (talk) 00:44, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Wirtz paragraph
[edit]@AThinkingScientist added the following paragraph and I want to explain why I am taking it out.
- Before Hubble, German astronomer Carl Wilhelm Wirtz had, in two publications dating 1922[1] and 1924 [2], already deduced with his own data that galaxies that appeared smaller and dimmer had larger redshifts and thus that more distant galaxies recede faster from the observer.
As written, the paragraph disputes the title of the article: how can it be Hubble's law if Wirtz discovered it? The claim may be 100% accurate but we have no way to verify this claim. The paragraph now has primary references (which are nice to have) but as explained in WP:PRIMARY such references are not adequate for controversial content. If this claim is "notable", that is important enough to be included in the encyclopedia, then there should be secondary references to back up the claim. See also WP:PSTS. To put it another way, wikipedia editors don't do historical analysis, we summarize historical analysis.
An addition issue is including the content directly in the lead is not correct.
The content needs to be in the body of the article.
References
- ^ Wirtz, C. W. (April 1922). "Einiges zur Statistik der Radialbewegungen von Spiralnebeln und Kugelsternhaufen". Astronomische Nachrichten. 215, Page 349 (AN Homepage) (17): 349–354. Bibcode:1922AN....215..349W. doi:10.1002/asna.19212151703.
- ^ Wirtz, C. W. (1924). "De Sitters Kosmologie und die Radialbewegungen der Spiralnebel". Astronomische Nachrichten. 222 (5306): 21–26. Bibcode:1924AN....222...21W. doi:10.1002/asna.19242220203.
Johnjbarton (talk) 15:47, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you Johnbarton. This can be placed into the body. It is true that the discovery of the expanding Universe was achieved by Wirtz, at a time when astronomers had not realised this to be possible. It is correct to document this properly. Hubble did not discover the expansion, although he contributed significantly to constrain it with improved data. Given the political turmoils of that time, the German contribution was "forgotten".
- A secondary reference is by Prof. Dr. Immo Appenzeller, Sterne und Weltraum, November 2009, pages 44-52 ("Carl Wirtz und die Hubble Beziehung"), wherein the history and contribution by Wirtz are accounted for. Would this be acceptable as a secondary reference? Not many people have followed this up, precisely because this collides with the generally-held view that Hubble discovered the expansion.
- (I am not German by the way and am merely aiming to have a correct historical record of this affair on Wikipedia.) AThinkingScientist (talk) 16:25, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
- I tried to place this under "Slipher's observations with the secondary reference to Prof. Appenzeller's article.
=== Wirtz's observations ===
Before Hubble, German astronomer [[Carl Wilhelm Wirtz]] had, in two publications dating 1922
<ref name="Wirtz-1922">{{Cite journal
|last1=Wirtz |first1=C. W.
|date = April 1922
|title = Einiges zur Statistik der Radialbewegungen von Spiralnebeln und Kugelsternhaufen
|journal = Astronomische Nachrichten
|volume = 215; Page 349 (AN Homepage)
|issue=17
|pages=349–354
|bibcode = 1922AN....215..349W
|doi = 10.1002/asna.19212151703|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1424934
}}</ref>
and 1924
<ref name="Wirtz-1924">{{cite journal
|last1=Wirtz |first1=C. W.
|year=1924
|title=De Sitters Kosmologie und die Radialbewegungen der Spiralnebel
|journal=[[Astronomische Nachrichten]]
|volume=222|issue=5306|pages=21–26
|bibcode=1924AN....222...21W
|doi=10.1002/asna.19242220203}}</ref>,
already deduced with his own data that galaxies that appeared smaller and dimmer had larger redshifts and thus that more distance galaxies recede faster from the observer
<ref name="Appenzeller-2009"{{cite journal
|last1=Appenzeller |first1=I.
|year=2009
|title=Carl Wirtz und die Hubble-Beziehung
|journal=[[Sterne und Weltraum]]
|volume=2009|issue=11|pages=44–52}}</ref>
.
- But it gives an error message I cannot solve. It would be welcome if someone can help to import this properly. Wikipedia has a page on Sterne und Weltraum. AThinkingScientist (talk) 16:52, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
- I think we need to do some more research. See This suggests the story is more complicated. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:25, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
- Some more refs:
- GLASS, I.S., 'EDWIN HUBBLE: JOURNEYING TO THE EDGE', Revolutionaries of the Cosmos: The Astro-Physicists (Oxford, 2008; online edn, Oxford Academic, 1 Jan. 2010), https://doi-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199550258.003.0009,
- "Duerbeck and Seitter (2000) cynically remark that ‘Hubble was the last of the early cosmologists who believed that his result confirmed the de Sitter model’. While this is superficially true, Hubble's work was by far the most systematic, especially as to finding distances, so he was not just the last person to point out the result, but he had said the last word on the matter. Other investigators, such as de Sitter himself, Wirtz, Lundmark and Silberstein had been hinting that the high velocities of the galaxies were of cosmological origin. Hetherington (1986) suggests that Hubble's pre-eminence was a result of his legal training that made him adept at advocating his point of view in a highly convincing manner."
- "Modern Cosmology in Retrospect", ISBN:9780521372138 United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 1990. contains a chapter by Seitter and Duerbeck devoted to Wirtz's work. Also discusses Lundmark and others.
- Kragh, H. (2014, November). Historical aspects of post-1850 cosmology. In AIP Conference Proceedings (Vol. 1632, No. 1, pp. 3-26). American Institute of Physics.
- "With more and better data than previous workers in the field, Hubble showed that up to a distance of two megaparsecs (corresponding to a recessional velocity v ≅ 1,000 km/s) the redshifts or Doppler-velocities varied roughly linearly with the distances. In other words, he established as an empirical law that v = Hr, with H soon to be known as the Hubble constant."
- "It is important to recognize that he did not interpret the redshifts or “apparent velocities” as Doppler shifts caused by the galaxies actually receding from the observer. Nor did he suggest that space is expanding, such as Lemaître had done. As he emphasized in a letter to de Sitter of 1931, he was content having demonstrated an empirical correlation."
- GLASS, I.S., 'EDWIN HUBBLE: JOURNEYING TO THE EDGE', Revolutionaries of the Cosmos: The Astro-Physicists (Oxford, 2008; online edn, Oxford Academic, 1 Jan. 2010), https://doi-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199550258.003.0009,
- Johnjbarton (talk) 16:37, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
- Some more refs:
- I think we need to do some more research. See This suggests the story is more complicated. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:25, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
Reference thoughts
[edit]With >150 references, most of them being journal articles and most of those being dozen-author articles, I was thinking it might be best for readability of the code to go with a list-defined reference as seen in places like List of largest stars and other journal-heavy articles. However, I know this can be potentially controversial so I thought I would bring it up before I spend the time to do so unilaterally. Primefac (talk) 18:52, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
- Sorry I don't follow your suggestion. How about splitting the long list out and only having a summary here. Johnjbarton (talk) 21:44, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
- Johnjbarton, see Template:Reflist § List-defined references. Instead of having each reference clogging up the body of the text, they're listed at the bottom as named references to make reading the wikitext a bit easier. Primefac (talk) 22:26, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
- It seems like this can be done selectively? If yes, it is a clear win if the clog bothers you. Johnjbarton (talk) 22:52, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
- Johnjbarton, see Template:Reflist § List-defined references. Instead of having each reference clogging up the body of the text, they're listed at the bottom as named references to make reading the wikitext a bit easier. Primefac (talk) 22:26, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
Update potentially needed for Hubble Tension section?
[edit]Saw this ... https://www.science.org/content/article/space-telescope-data-reignite-debate-over-how-fast-universe-expanding-and-whether-new ... with links to this ... https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.06153 ... which suggests new insight for the Hubble Tension section; someone more understanding that I on this subject could probably do a better edit to the main article itself. (Apologies in advance if this isn't the correct format or forum) BlaineGond (talk) 03:28, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
- This is definitely worth adding. I'll do it sometime in the future unless someone beats me to it (the text does not easily fit into the article right now). Banedon (talk) 08:48, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
- We should wait until the paper is reviewed or cited by a significant number of other papers. The paper very carefully avoids claiming any resolution of the Hubble tension. The discussion concerns highly technical details of data analysis that are not easy to summarize without a secondary reference. Johnjbarton (talk) 14:59, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
- Well it's easy enough to summarize: systematic effects appear to be the cause. Furthermore, the paper is making waves already among cosmologists (this is a field that widely relies on arXiv), and the paper is also likely to pass peer review substantially unchanged. I think we should add this directly. We don't say the tension is resolved, we say there is some indication that it is due to systematics. Banedon (talk) 08:37, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- How is your view of what makes waves or your judgement that the paper is likely to pass peer review relevant? Wikipedia relies on verifiable sources, not rumors posted to Talk pages. Why should we take @Banedon's word for it? Johnjbarton (talk) 15:00, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- Does this convince you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkGUoKukwk8 Banedon (talk) 22:59, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- I happen to think you are right. But if we include this pre-publication result on any basis short of the criteria given across wikipedia, WP:SOURCES, then how do we revert fringe additions and random news additions? These additions is how our article get clogged up with non-encyclopedic junk. Essentially the same kind of discussion regarding the "making waves" and "likely to pass peer review" can be launched for many new arXiv preprints. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:39, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- The argument here is that Cosmology Talks is run by an expert in Cosmology (Shaun Hotchkiss - [3]). So the fact that the paper is featured on that channel implies that it has already passed some level of peer review. As for how the same argument can be made for many new arXiv preprints - can you name some? One might name the OPERA faster-than-light results, but those still made waves, even if the "groundbreaking" result had been refuted before it was formally published. Banedon (talk) 06:44, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- WP:EXPERTSPS is solid ground for including this pre-print. Tercer (talk) 21:36, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- I happen to think you are right. But if we include this pre-publication result on any basis short of the criteria given across wikipedia, WP:SOURCES, then how do we revert fringe additions and random news additions? These additions is how our article get clogged up with non-encyclopedic junk. Essentially the same kind of discussion regarding the "making waves" and "likely to pass peer review" can be launched for many new arXiv preprints. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:39, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- Does this convince you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkGUoKukwk8 Banedon (talk) 22:59, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- How is your view of what makes waves or your judgement that the paper is likely to pass peer review relevant? Wikipedia relies on verifiable sources, not rumors posted to Talk pages. Why should we take @Banedon's word for it? Johnjbarton (talk) 15:00, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- I strongly oppose adding the material, similar to the statements by Johnjbarton.
- Since anyone can post to youtube the accepted wikipedia view is that it is not a reputable source. I don't think we want to start into "well, this youtube is and this is not". Since youtube (the company) does not cross-check, such videos have to remain as unverified (but useful) sources.
- Why is there a rush? If it passes review and then there are 12-20 other preprints quoting it, then it is a fairly standard exception to WP:TOOSOON. However, it needs more than just passing review, it needs the community to commit (not just youtube) to that it is notable.Ldm1954 (talk) 16:14, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- Well it's easy enough to summarize: systematic effects appear to be the cause. Furthermore, the paper is making waves already among cosmologists (this is a field that widely relies on arXiv), and the paper is also likely to pass peer review substantially unchanged. I think we should add this directly. We don't say the tension is resolved, we say there is some indication that it is due to systematics. Banedon (talk) 08:37, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- I have a posted on physics and astronomy for comments.
- Based on the feedback so far I reverted the addition. If the tide turns on feedback or citations arrive we can revisit. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:52, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- I'll echo the "Why the rush?" attitude shared above. If it really does make a splash, or waves, or whatever, then that will become obvious soon enough. XOR'easter (talk) 21:24, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- Depends on how you define "soon enough" I suppose. I wouldn't expect any new developments w.r.t this paper for months, since it involves new data (unless there's an OPERA-style retraction). Banedon (talk) 05:29, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
- I'll echo the "Why the rush?" attitude shared above. If it really does make a splash, or waves, or whatever, then that will become obvious soon enough. XOR'easter (talk) 21:24, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- The news section in Science magazine can be considered a secondary source, and a well vetted one; that alone justifies the addition. That's specially so as it does not involve an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary evidence. All it's saying is systematic errors seem to be a likely reason for the Hubble tension. fgnievinski (talk) 02:17, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
- FWIW, I made the edit, but I hadn't checked the talk page and I got pointed here by a friendly revert message (thanks, Johnjbarton). One important thing to note is that Wendy Freedman is a very well-known and respected expert on the subject of H0 measurements. Some preprints aren't worth the bits they're rendered with, but she's a Reliable Source on the subject even without additional peer review. (That's why I didn't hesitate to drop the result straight into the article.)
- Per Johnjbarton above, I definitely agree that the conclusions need to be carefully phrased, and I tried to do that in my edit. The tension isn't resolved until the problem with Cepheids is identified; this study only suggests (pretty strongly) that there is a problem which will resolve the tension once found.
- But given that we have a list of frustratingly inconclusive 21st century measurements wrestling with the tension, this is an important addition and deserves of a place there. We should limit our dispute to what conclusions to draw from the observed discrepancy between the three methods. Would people be happy with something like "this made measurements using three distance-ladder techniques, with two results consistent with the CMB value and the Cepheid-derived result consistent with other Cepheid-based measurements," and no statement about the implications? It's suggestive, and I'll link the news articles, but WP will refrain (I'll add a comment in the wikitext!) from drawing any inferences. 97.102.205.224 (talk) 21:48, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- First I want to thank everyone here for especially civil discussions. Second I want to restate the case in favor of an exception to our general approach to new preprints. As various posts here have clarified, my previous summary was incomplete and (accidentally) biased. Here is my new case:
- The lead author is a subject-matter expert, a specifically called out exception for preprints on the verifiability policy.
- The preprint has multiple senior authors, an important form of review.
- Science.org generally produces reliable news content, it exercises scientifically trained editorial supervision on its news, and in this case the article includes an opinion by an outside subject matter expert, Saul Perlmutter. The author of the news article was an experienced science writer, Daniel Clery.
- The video amounts to something of a review a the host is a cosmologist, Shaun Hotchkiss - [4].
- The claim to be inserted in the page does not seem to be extraordinary.
- Numerous editors who posted here are in favor of adding the content.
- I feel confident that making this exception will not create a precedent we will regret.
- If I may summarize the main case against addition it is that "there's no rush", which is to say that an encyclopedia acts as a summary of knowledge, not a news publication. I agree, but this is also an online volunteer encyclopedia. As a practical matter we have limited attention and no real mechanism to come back in six months. Competent editor enthusiasm is perhaps our most important asset and I think the arguments in favor presented here are compelling.
- @Ldm1954 @XOR'easter @Parejkoj: I have taken another look and changed my opinion: I think this is a reasonable exception to our normal practice. I hope you will reconsider as well. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:18, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- I support making an exception in this case, per the above. Renerpho (talk) 00:37, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- If this requires an exception to our policies, I'd say our policies should be changed. Banedon (talk) 01:54, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- Wait/Oppose as before. I don't feel vehement about this, so will accept the consensus. That said, I remain of the opinion that there is no need to rush. For certain I am wary of exceptions, as that opens a massive can of worms. Which other YouTube channels are RS, which are not, and how is that determined? To be truly NPOV this should be posted to the reliable sources talk page for a wider concensus rather than being a physics decision IMO. Ldm1954 (talk) 02:11, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- I don't see why we need to involve WP:RS, and there's no "precedent" to be created. The rules for this haven't changed in a while. Whether a YouTube channel is a RS is clearly stated in WP:RSSELF:
... personal pages on social networking sites, tweets, and posts on Internet forums are all examples of self-published media. Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter ...
It doesn't matter if it's YouTube, Twitter, or any other non-peer-reviewed source. What matters is whether the person who runs the channel is considered an expert. There's a reason why we have things like Template:Cite YouTube and Template:Cite Twitter. Renerpho (talk) 02:20, 21 August 2024 (UTC) - @Ldm1954: The question is whether a specific person (the question remains who exactly, since this may have to be discussed individually) qualifies as a subject matter expert. The last such discussion I was involved in was Talk:Barbara Blackburn (typist). This can get funny. Renerpho (talk) 02:28, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Johnjbarton, Ldm1954, and Renerpho: Well, I went ahead and added it to the article. Ldm1954, the rush is simply that it's interesting now, and editors are motivated now. I don't want to succumb to death by delay. It's not like we're giving it WP:UNDUE weight; it's not presented as divine revelation, just one entry in a long list of attempts to resolve the tension, and the list is presented primarily as evidence of the conflicts. 97.102.205.224 (talk) 05:54, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Renerpho @Ldm1954 In my opinion, the Youtube interview video is a minor aspect of this issue. It amounts to the opinion of one cosmologist. Strike it from the list in your mind. I mainly mentioned it to clarify that the video was not being used as a reliable reference. Johnjbarton (talk) 14:40, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- I don't see why we need to involve WP:RS, and there's no "precedent" to be created. The rules for this haven't changed in a while. Whether a YouTube channel is a RS is clearly stated in WP:RSSELF:
I've reverted the addition of material based on a preprint. Peer-review exists for a reason. Let the process happen. Once it clears peer-review, then we can include it. Being an expert does not mean you can't make mistakes in analysis. That's what peer-review is for. And even then it doesn't catch everything (e.g. BICEP2 results not taking cosmic dust into consideration, even thought their statistics confirmed things at the 7-sigma level). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:14, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- I support your reversion. There was (is) no consensus as yet to add it, the inclusion by 97.102.205.224 was premature. Ldm1954 (talk) 07:51, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- Can someone address the argument that the paper has already passed some level of peer review since it was featured by Cosmology Talks? Banedon (talk) 14:30, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- From the webpage description:
- Technical Cosmology talks. Aimed at cosmology students, current researchers and former researchers. An online version of a departmental seminar.
- Cosmology is well into my areas of incompetence. That said, this is not the same as standard peer review. Many people (myself included) will include a little preliminary/unpublished work in seminars -- dessert, not the main course.
- And, as been already been said, why the rush?
- From the webpage description:
- Ldm1954 (talk) 14:45, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Personally I think the interview is a sign of notability which is not debated here and -- I meant to say not -- a peer review. The interview of two well known cosmologists it not a sign that the interviewer studied the paper or even is himself an expert on the particulars of the methodology. The reputation of the multiple authors is a better argument and one that is directly discussed in the WP policy. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:21, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- It's a sign of notability, yes, but it is not peer-review. These things are hugely complex. Computer code matters. Assumptions matter. Calculation mistakes happen. If "they're experts, therefore they're reliable" was a valid argument for this sort of thing, peer-review would be pointless. They're experts after all. They're reliable after all. It's one thing to use an expert opinion to state something like "There's tension in the measurements of the Hubble constant". It's another thing to say according to Bob the Expert, the Hubble constant is 72.5 ± 0.8 km/(MPc·s). Bob could well have made a calculation error, or bad assumptions, or included/excluded data that should have been left out/in. Things, that when properly accounted for brings the value to 76 ± 4 km/(MPc·s) or to 69.08 ± 0.09 km/(MPc·s). Or completely invalidate the calculation, à la BICEP2. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:54, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- I think it is incorrect to suggest that those are reasons to wait for peer review. Peer review is highly unlikely to find any of those errors if they exist. Your argument would imply that we should wait not for peer review but for independent confirmation. Aseyhe (talk) 22:01, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Peer review finds errors all the time. Sometimes they're little. Something everything checks out. Sometimes it's something more fundamental than needs to rewrite a major part of the paper. And yes, that's exactly why you wait for peer-review. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:10, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- You mentioned BICEP2. The BICEP2 B-mode discovery paper passed peer review and was published in Physical Review Letters. Peer review has its purposes, but it is not for finding errors of the sort you are suggesting. Aseyhe (talk) 00:01, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- Aseyhe is right. Peer-review has little to do with the issues you've mentioned, Headbomb. Renerpho (talk) 00:08, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- I've reviewed 3 papers in my life. On two papers, I found mathematical mistakes (one had a factor of π missing, the other had some sign mistakes). Both revised and updated their results accordingly. On the other, they presented collision safety in terms of impact energy rather than the more important impact force (fall on the floor from the same height on a cushion vs concrete and you'll see why force is more important to safety than energy). This lead to a complete rewrite of the paper.
- Peer review is not rubber stamping. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:51, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- That said, looking at some of the criticism from the Riess team about the new research paper, it may indeed be best to wait for some time to pass (and this to get properly published) before including it. Renerpho (talk) 00:26, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- Aseyhe is right. Peer-review has little to do with the issues you've mentioned, Headbomb. Renerpho (talk) 00:08, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- You mentioned BICEP2. The BICEP2 B-mode discovery paper passed peer review and was published in Physical Review Letters. Peer review has its purposes, but it is not for finding errors of the sort you are suggesting. Aseyhe (talk) 00:01, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, waiting for a secondary reference to a primary source is the common bar we apply. Johnjbarton (talk) 00:41, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- Peer review finds errors all the time. Sometimes they're little. Something everything checks out. Sometimes it's something more fundamental than needs to rewrite a major part of the paper. And yes, that's exactly why you wait for peer-review. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:10, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- they're experts, therefore they're reliable This is not what was said. Read what was said carefully. Cosmology Talks is run by a cosmology expert, someone who clearly could peer review that paper for a journal if asked. And they chose to feature it. If you don't call that peer review, what do you call it? Aseyhe is also right in saying that peer review does not fix every error. Errors are published all the time, I can find you several if you wish (including some that won the Nobel prize). Banedon (talk) 00:29, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- It is called a Department seminar. That is what the site claims, no more. Ldm1954 (talk) 02:23, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- A seminar is definitely not peer-review. The criteria to hold a seminar about something are informal, and change from university to university, but usually boil down to the result being of interested to the audience. There's no presumption of correctness, and often not even a way to check that, as seminars are often held about unpublished results. Of course, some informal sort of peer-review happens, but the limitations of the format imply that nothing deep can be checked. When doing formal peer-review for a journal you have much more time, and access to all the relevant data. That's when it counts.
- That said, I really don't get the opposition I'm seeing here. Wikipedia accepts citing pre-prints as a matter of policy (WP:EXPERTSPS), and routinely does so, even for much more bombastic claims (e.g. in Connes embedding problem). Here the claim is rather mild, and even if turns out to be wrong we'll still have to cover the paper as it's clearly notable. Tercer (talk) 08:16, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- Just to add to the list of citations to tis result, https://youtube.com/watch?v=T1JuCPhONlg&t=814. Becky Smethurst is not a subject-matter expert on Hubble constant issues per se (her area of research is galactic SMBHs), but is a professional astrophysicist clearly taking the preprint seriously. I feel that people here are missing, or underweighting, two important points:
- Astrophysics, and cosmology in particular, runs on the arXiv. Nobody waits for formal publication; checking the latest preprints is part of everyone's morning routine, along with getting coffee.
- It's Wendy freaking Freedman. Has nobody noticed what all her awards are for? "a decade of fundamental contributions to the areas of the extra galactic distance scale" and "for her outstanding contributions ... to greatly improve the accuracy of the cosmic distance scale." She has been working on this issue for 30 years (e.g. https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9612024), is one of the top experts in the world on this subject, does not publish junk, is working with a large enough group of co-authors that any glaring mistakes will have been caught, and the claims in the paper are careful and not at all extraordinary.
- @Tercer: what you said. The challenge, as I mentioned above already, is to give an accurate lay summary for WP, because some reports are getting a little overexcited. The heart of the paper is not the H0 computations themselves (they're basically just a sanity check), but rather the galactic distance measurements which show they have two techniques which agree with each other, while the Cepheid distances are biased a few percent low. What has everyone interested is that those few percent are just about the amount needed to resolve the Hubble tension. As I previously mentioned, the tension won't be resolved until the problem with Cepheid measurements is found; this paper only suggests that maybe there is one. 97.102.205.224 (talk) 08:45, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- Just to add to the list of citations to tis result, https://youtube.com/watch?v=T1JuCPhONlg&t=814. Becky Smethurst is not a subject-matter expert on Hubble constant issues per se (her area of research is galactic SMBHs), but is a professional astrophysicist clearly taking the preprint seriously. I feel that people here are missing, or underweighting, two important points:
- I think it is incorrect to suggest that those are reasons to wait for peer review. Peer review is highly unlikely to find any of those errors if they exist. Your argument would imply that we should wait not for peer review but for independent confirmation. Aseyhe (talk) 22:01, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- It's a sign of notability, yes, but it is not peer-review. These things are hugely complex. Computer code matters. Assumptions matter. Calculation mistakes happen. If "they're experts, therefore they're reliable" was a valid argument for this sort of thing, peer-review would be pointless. They're experts after all. They're reliable after all. It's one thing to use an expert opinion to state something like "There's tension in the measurements of the Hubble constant". It's another thing to say according to Bob the Expert, the Hubble constant is 72.5 ± 0.8 km/(MPc·s). Bob could well have made a calculation error, or bad assumptions, or included/excluded data that should have been left out/in. Things, that when properly accounted for brings the value to 76 ± 4 km/(MPc·s) or to 69.08 ± 0.09 km/(MPc·s). Or completely invalidate the calculation, à la BICEP2. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:54, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
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