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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 21:35, 3 January 2009 [1].

Quark

Nominator(s): User:Anonymous Dissident
previous FAC (00:50, 7 October 2008)

I'm here to try again. Myself and others have continued to do work towards the improving of this article; concerns cited last time mainly revolved around perceived problems with clarity and tone. Now that the article is slightly longer and more detailed, with a longer lead and clearer explanation, I'd hope that these problems would be fixed. While some of the omissions in content noted at the last FAC have been remedied, we have still taken care to give a comprehensive but not overly scientific coverage; this is, after all, an encyclopedia, and we wouldn't want a book length analysis of a topic that could become easily convoluted with too much advanced scientific and/or theoretical exploration. I'm perfectly happy to act upon any concerns mentioned. I just hope that this article will be deemed simple enough but detailed enough now; last time, we had one camp saying that the article wasn't written simply enough, while another was calling for greater technical expansion. It's my belief we have a better mix of both now. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 09:51, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Template:Hidden

Some more issues I know I said I was going to support, but I've recently notice potential issues about factual accuracy and completeness of coverage.

  • Charm quark says they (charm quarks) were theorized by Glashow, Illious, and Maini in 1970. This article (quark) says they were theorized by Glashow and Bjorken in 1964. One of the two articles has to be wrong. Which is it?
  • The down quark and up quark pages said they were discovered in 1967, not 1968 as quark says (I changed the down quark based on the quark article, so it now says 1968). However the articles used as refs to back the claim of 1968 are from 1969. So which way is it?
  • This article is definitely right, my sources are reliable. I'll now fix up and down quark articles. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 09:40, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Yuval Ne'eman proposed a SU(3) scheme to classify hadrons in 1961/62, similar to/the same as Gell-Man's SU(2) in 1962. Both event take place before 1964, which is the "birth" of the quark model/eightfold way/aces. What is Ne'eman's role in the quark thing? How is the 1961/62 version of things from Ne'eman and Gell-Man different from the Eightfold way?
  • From my understanding, Ne'eman has little to with quarks. He independtly proposed the Eightfold way from Gell-Mann in the same year. The Eightfold way eventually led to the postulation of quarks. I don't really understand what your question is; you seem to be implying that there is something historically wrong with the eightfold way being proposed before quarks, but the eightfold way concerns octets of mesons and baryons, so I don't see where the problem is. In regard to your last question: from what I know, the two proposed a notion that was almost identical. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 09:53, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
  • I think I've confused the color SU(3) with the approximate flavour SU(3). Seems consistent with the content of the "color" section.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:31, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 13:12, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Template:DABcheck SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:14, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Done, except for triplet and degree of freedom for which I'm not very sure about the best link target. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 17:13, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Fixed the remaining disambiguation links. Wronkiew (talk) 18:42, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose for now, in light of the comments I made above. Markus Poessel (talk) 14:28, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Support: No other reviewers seem prepared to !vote on this. Writing as an "outsider" (I am a microbiologist and perhaps therefore an average reader); I find this article fascinating, engaging and very well-written. It has taught me very much. It seems to me that the discussions above pertain to criterion 4, mainly wrt summary style, and this is so difficult to get right. This is a damn good article. Period. I would be pleased to see this on the Main Page. There is room for improvement in all articles, including those that are featured. No doubt, such improvements will be made to this one—but I see no reasons, based on the Featured Article Criteria, to withhold the bronze star. Graham Colm Talk 22:52, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

  • Support I supported this article two months ago, and I should admit that it has become much better since then. I copy-edited it slightly. There is, of course, a room for improvement, but think the article is very close to FA level. Ruslik (talk) 10:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose.Neutral. [Changed because some specific concerns have been addressed. Only neutral, I'm afraid, because I do not think the article quite meets the high standard of writing demanded in a featured article, and therefore does not succeed in delivering its content as efficiently as it might. I will not, however, oppose its promotion on that ground. I'll have no more to say here.–⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝoNoetica!T– 20:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)]

Support All my concerns have been addressed, so "support".Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:31, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose until the referencing issues are addressed, and until the Gell-Man and Ne'eman thing in 1961 is clarified.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 11:28, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

This is the third time in this review that I've come across a reference that doesn't contain the information it's meant to provide, which I think is very, very worrying. I'm going to make spot-checks on some of the other references, but for now I'm going back to Oppose - this indicates serious problems with the way references have been added to this lemma. Markus Poessel (talk) 14:41, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Image review: I'm commenting on the licensing of the images only. I am unable to comment on the accuracy of the self-made images.

  • I have a question about File:Charmed-dia-w.png. I am confused because it is marked as PD US Gov, and I read the permissions exchange linked in the Source. It acknowledges the image is PD, but asks for no proprietary use for the image. I am unclear why someone would ask such a thing of a public domain image. I have asked for further clarification on that image in particular.
  • All other images appear to be fine. --Moni3 (talk) 15:18, 19 December 2008 (UTC)



  • "These partons were later identified as up and down quarks when the other flavors were beginning to surface.[23]" where the reference is L.M. Lederman, D. Teresi (2006). The God Particle. Mariner Books. p. 208. Template:ISBN. The book is online at Google Books, and there is nothing on p. 208 to support this particular sentence, as far as I can see. Markus Poessel (talk) 12:01, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
    • That is weird. I'm going to remove this reference; I'm not sure who added it - it may well have been me - but, you're right, it isn't pertinent. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 15:40, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
  • "Various theories have been offered to explain this very large mass. The Standard Model posits that elementary particles derive their masses from the Higgs mechanism, related to the unobserved Higgs boson. Physicists hope that, in the next years, the detection of the Higgs boson in particle accelerators—such as the Large Hadron Collider—and the study of the top quark's interaction with the Higgs field might help answer the question.[28]" where 28 is this press release. As far as I can see, the press release says nothing about the LHC, and about explaining the interaction of Higgs and top quark. It's all about the upper limit on the Higgs mass from measurements of the top quark mass.
    • You haven't read it, then. Please see "Physics: The mass of the top quark (pp638-642; N&V)", the second section. It does mention the LHC, and how the Higgs boson may be related to the top quark mass. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 15:40, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
      • I've most certainly read that section. Where does it say anything about answering the question of why the top quark mass is so large? As I wrote above: It's all about the upper limit on the higgs mass from measurements of the top quark mass, as far as I can see. Here is a nice little summary on how top quark mass and higgs mass are related. Markus Poessel (talk) 20:50, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
        • "For example, the mass of the top quark is related to the mass of the long-hypothesized but still undetected Higgs boson. Properties of the (equally hypothetical) field associated with this particle would help explain why matter is, not to put too fine a point on it, 'massive.' In principle, the top quark is point-like and should have no mass; yet, through its interactions with the Higgs field, the physical mass of the top quark appears to be about that of a gold nucleus." - that is a valid and appropriate reference to "Various theories have been offered to explain this very large mass. The Standard Model posits that elementary particles derive their masses from the Higgs mechanism, related to the unobserved Higgs boson. Physicists hope that, in the next years, the detection of the Higgs boson in particle accelerators—such as the Large Hadron Collider—and the study of the top quark's interaction with the Higgs field might help answer the question.[28]" —Anonymous DissidentTalk 00:30, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
          • No. What you quote simply describes the Higgs mechanism, which is how all quarks get their mass. It does not tell us anything about why the top quark mass is so much heavier than expected – it does not "answer the question" of why the mass has the value it does have, as the statement claims. Also, what is the "study of the top quark's interaction with the Higgs field" the statement is talking about? Is it anything other than measuring the top quark's mass more precisely than before? If yes, then the article basically says that measuring the top quark's mass more precisely might help answer the question of why the top quark's mass is so large. How is that supposed to work? Markus Poessel (talk) 14:59, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
            • Who said the ref has to provide an answer? All that needs to be referenced is that elementary particles are affected by the Higgs mechanism, and, as you yourself stated, it does. This was the statement, and the source backs up and parallels the statement. That's what a reference is. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 15:19, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
              • The reference is meant to provide support for the assertion that "Physicists hope that, in the next years, the detection of the Higgs boson in particle accelerators—such as the Large Hadron Collider—and the study of the top quark's interaction with the Higgs field might help answer the question." - the question being, as stated earlier, why the top quark is so heavy. The reference given does not say anything about physicists hoping to answer, by detecting the Higgs boson and studying the top quark's interaction with the Higgs field, the question of why the top quark is so heavy. That's not what a reference is supposed to be. Markus Poessel (talk) 17:20, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
                • The reference says ".In principle, the top quark is point-like and should have no mass; yet, through its interactions with the Higgs field, the physical mass of the top quark appears to be about that of a gold nucleus." then followed by "Further improvements in precision are to be expected from the Tevatron at Fermilab, and from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (the European nuclear research laboratory at Geneva) when it becomes operational after 2007." I don't know what more you could ask for as a ref for the statement that the interaction of the top quark with the higgs fields is the proposed reason why the top quark is so heavy, and that physicist are looking forward to the LHC experiments to probe the interaction of the top and the higgs so they can understand it.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 05:38, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

More on references.

  • The current ref. 1 is "Fundamental Particles". Oxford Physics. http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/documents/pUS/dIS/fundam.htm. Retrieved on 2008-06-29. "Oxford Physics" is a bit grand - if you look at the author information, it was written by an undergraduate and a sixth-form student. Yes, it was written for the public webpages of the Oxford Physics Department, and they probably looked some or all of it over, but it's still an inappropriate source. If this statement needs a reference at all, it should be one of the text-books used elsewhere in the article.
  • Current ref. 4 is to HyperPhysics - why, when there is the online Review of Particle Properties, which has the same information, much more authoritative?
It's a simple ref right at the beginning that goes straight to the point. Quarks are fundamental fermions that compose baryons (groups of 3), such as protons and neutrons, and mesons (groups of q-antiq), and talks about confinment. And it covers their names.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:23, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Current ref. 8 apparently gives the same information as ref 4. (six flavors). Better to have both point to the same reference, and the natural choice is the Review of Particle Properties.
Used the hyperphysics refs.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:23, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Current ref. 3 is meant to support the statements 1) top and bottom sometimes known as truth and beauty, and 2) Color confinement; all we know from quarks is from studying hadrons. The page reference is to page 169, which does mention in passing truth/topness and beauty/bottomness, but nothing about color confinement or the necessary of inferring quark properties from hadrons.
Fixed. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:45, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Current ref 5. is an article from an institutional newsletter/journal ("Beamline"). The article itself is about the top quark discovery. Seeing how much literature is out there on the history of physics, this is not a very suitable reference for the quark model being proposed by Gell-Mann and Zweig in 1964.
It's suitable enough to establish that Gell-Man and Zweig proposed it. Nevertheless I've placed the original articles from Gell-Man and Zweig next to it.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:49, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
  • A page or section number would be helpful for the current ref 10, J. Barrow (1997) [1994]. "The Singularity and Other Problems". The Origin of the Universe (Reprint ed.). Basic Books. Template:ISBN - it's not very helpful if readers have to search the whole book to find the information they're after.
    —This is part of a comment by Markus Poessel (of 17:20, 26 December 2008 (UTC)), which was interrupted by the following:
    "The Singularity and Other Problems" is a (relatively short) chapter, the book being The Origin of the Universe. I only have the Italian translation of the book. The TOC of the book is available online for preview on (IIRC) Amazon and it is where I took the English title of the chapter (which, incidentally, had been translated verbatim in Italian), but that chapter wasn't on preview, so I couldn't add page numbers. (If someone has either the original language edition of that book or another source which says the same thing, please add page numbers and/or the other source.) -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 17:58, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Current ref. 12, P. Rowlands (2008). Zero to Infinity. World Scientific. p. 406. Template:ISBN: Reference for statement that antiparticles have the same mass, life-time, spin. That particular page is part of the limited preview on Google Books, and has no statements about antiparticles whatsoever, as far as I can see.
Switched it to Introductionary Nuclear Physics by Samuel Wong. There's a paragraph directly on that.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 06:19, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Current ref. 17: A. Pickering (1984). Constructing Quarks. University of Chicago Press. p. 84. Template:ISBN. Reference is to p. 84, but should probably better be to section 4.4, where the question is discussed of the reality is discussed in more detail
  • Current ref. 18: B.J. Bjorken, S.L. Glashow (1964). "Elementary Particles and SU(4)". Physics Letters 11 (3): 255. doi:10.1016/0031-9163(64)90433-0 is the reference for a fourth flavour of quark being proposed. I might have overlooked it, but I don't find the word "quark" in the article. My impression is that Bjorken and Glashow at that time did not think the constituent quarks were all that relevant. It's all about the symmetry groups, not about partons.
The publication predicted what became known as the charm quark, even thought it might not have been proposed as a quark. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:45, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Current ref 23, here, is just a text-only timeline, no indication of any publication, apparently part of lecture notes by an astronomer. Surely, there must be a reliable alternative source. Also, I see no indication that the text on that page supports the statement for which it is listed as a reference: "These partons were later identified as up and down quarks when the other flavors were beginning to surface. Their discovery also validated the existence of the strange quark, because it was necessary to the model Gell-Mann and Zweig had proposed." It doesn't use the word parton, it just lists the Stanford experiment without pointing to later identification of the particles observed, and it certainly doesn't say anything about the strange quark being indirectly validated.
The 1968 section matches with "There partons were later identified as as up and down quarks" and the "without mentioning the name quark" means they were using the name "parton". If you really want to be picky about it, I suppose it is a bit of a strech, but the five refs of this paragraphs do cover all the paragraph, even if they aren't rigoursly aligned statement by statement.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:49, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Current ref. 26, M. Kobayashi, T. Maskawa (1973). "CP-Violation in the Renormalizable Theory of Weak Interaction". Progress of Theoretical Physics 49 (2): 652–657. doi:10.1143/PTP.49.652. http://ptp.ipap.jp/link?PTP/49/652/pdf, doesn't appear to say anything about naming the two additional quarks top and bottom.
Moved ref to relevant part, and placed a Template:Cn tag for the names.
  • "The building blocks of the atomic nucleus—the proton and the neutron—are baryons" - I agree it's a small step from "proton and neutron are made of three quarks", which is what the reference says, to "... are baryons", but still: if there's a reference for such a straightforward sentence at all, why not one that actually talks about baryons (this reference doesn't mention the word)?
I've added the Hyperphysics ref so the word baryon is explicit.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 10:00, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Current reference 33, E.V. Shuryak (2004). The QCD Vacuum, Hadrons and Superdense Matter. World Scientific. pp. 59. Template:ISBN, does mention pentaquarks, but not tetraquarks, as far as I can see.
I've added the 2008 PDG review on tetraquarks.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 06:19, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Current reference 34 (Povh et al.) should have a page or a section number. Otherwise it's not very helpful.
  • Ref. 37 (Demtröder): The limited review available on Google books has p. 39-40 all about the mass of the electron, not about atomic nuclei, protons and neutrons.
  • Current ref 38: F. Close (2006). The New Cosmic Onion. CRC Press. p. 82. Template:ISBN. Cited in support of the spin of quarks, and the fact they are fermions. Page cited is about quark spins combining to form hadron spins. Quark spin itself is one page earlier; I don't see anything about fermions.
"Half-integer spin" and "fermions" are synonyms. I've changed the page to 81 though.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 06:19, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Wow that is a horrible ref. I've removed it.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 10:00, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Current ref 52, M. Veltman (2003). Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics. World Scientific. p. 46. Template:ISBN. - again going by the preview available on Google Books: On the page cited, nothing I can see about the different contribution to hadron mass, which accounts for two of three uses of this reference. The third use is close, although on Google, the color changes are on p. 47.
I've fixed the Velman refs, the pages now fit the statements.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 06:47, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Current ref. 62 , Papenfuss/Luest/Schleich, is a collection of contributions by many authors. Quoting it in support of a very specific statement without giving a page or section number is rather pointless.
  • "Therefore, although the color of each quark is always changing, a bound hadron will constantly retain a set of colors that will preserve the force of attraction, therefore forever disallowing quarks to exist in isolation" - current ref. 67, S. Webb (2004). Out of this World. Springer. p. 91. Template:ISBN. As far as I can see, nothing about confinement or about the statement about bound hadrons retaining a set of colors on that particular page.
  • Ref. 69, J.T.V. Tran (1996). '96 Electroweak Interactions and Unified Theories. Atlantica Séguier Frontières. p. 60. Template:ISBN. is not cited properly. This is a contribution by Michael Doser, titled "Status of Glueballs", in the proceedings. Tran isn't the author of the contribution, he/she's the editor of the proceedings.
Fixed.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 06:47, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Ref. 72: National Research Council (U.S.). Elementary-Particle Physics Panel (1986). Elementary-particle Physics. National Academies Press. p. 62. Template:ISBN. Reference doesn't say anything about colloquial usage. Also, "the sea" is not a quote from there (although "a neutral sea of gluons" and "a sea of low-energy virtual quark-antiquark pairs" does occur on that page).
"A neutral sea of gluons" and the like is good enough I say.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 06:47, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Ref. 73 (Perkins) doesn't say anything about CERN experiments. Any reference for the quark stars etc. in the second part of the paragraph?

Some other statements I came across while checking on references:

  • "Gell-Mann and Zweig postulated just three flavors of quarks—up, down and strange—to which they at first ascribed such properties as spin and electric charge." - why only "at first"? Surely quarks still have these properties?
I think it's because later physicists added more properties such as weak isospin, etc... Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 10:00, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Section "Weak interaction": The second paragraph doesn't make clear the connection to the first paragraph. We're talking about W bosons in both cases, after all.

Markus Poessel (talk) 17:20, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

  • Query: I've never understood why this article can't begin with a clear definition of a quark, such as here or here. Two subsequent sentences in the lead start with "because", and this article still lacks a clear and cohesive lead. Quarks are not rocket science: an older person who studied physics before quarks were observed should be able to read the lead and understand what changed when they were discovered and why it mattered. The lead isn't doing it; perhaps the authors don't remember how exciting the discoveries in the mid-90s were, or understand the context that should be established in the lead for older readers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:47, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Headbomb and I have tried to address this. I think that the third sentence is way too soon to mention such technical terms as "color confinement", considering that most people reading the lead word-by-word are likely to have never heard of quarks before. (People who already know what a quark is are likely to just skim the lead through and go to the TOC.) Now, such people would know almost exactly what the heck we're talking about by the end of the third sentence, provided they know what "subatomic particle", "matter", "proton", "neutron", and "atomic nucleus" mean. I think that the second sentence ("In technical terms, quarks ...") could be moved below, too, but I'm not sure about where to place it. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 12:39, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment, leaning Support Sandy beat me to it, dammit. I've been meaning to return to this article for three or four days. My main reservations two days ago (left unposted) were first that I didn't walk away from the lede knowing what a quark really was in relation to other subatomic particles and second that I wanted to see closure on all the objections by Markus to the refs. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 20:25, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. The fractional electric charge is one of the most peculiar features of quarks, do you people think it might be mentioned in the lead somehow? -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 11:03, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
I've mentionned it.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 13:04, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment from nominator - I have been meaning to set to work on some of the concerns mentioned, but I have been extremely busy, and unable to even edit let alone attend to the FAC. I hope to be back in a few days; until then, I hope you all understand and can bear with me. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 12:36, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment—The mathematical notation and wording in the "Cabibbo angle and CKM matrix" section seems much too technical for the large majority of readers. I'm not clear what value this provides to an overview article. This by itself is sufficient to prevent me from supporting the article, without re-reading the remainder. Please see Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible.—RJH (talk) 23:28, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
There is practically unanimous consensus that the CKM matrix should be mentioned, but I didn't do that in the first place, because I tried to find a way to state what it is without using terms which only readers fluent in linear algebra and its application to QM can understand, such as "eigenstate", and without lying, but I failed. Is there a channeler around here who can ask Dick how he would explain that? -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 22:04, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't think even Feynman could explain the CKM matrix in less than three or four paragraphs. I mean you can simply say something like "The CKM matrix is a way to keep track of how often the quarks decays into other quarks" (and it is said), but then you'd still haven't covered a thing about the CKM matrix and its importance. I would find it rather frustrating that this article fails its FAC because it is complete in coverage. There is no FAC criteria saying that articles should be dumbed down to the point that it becomes pablum. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 22:52, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
Well sorry we have to disagree on this, but my answer is no. Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible is a MoS criteria. I also think the notation fails WP:Explain jargon. Removing (or explaining) mathematics that only makes sense to a university upperclassman in physics is hardly dumbing it down. Your argument is hyperbole, and my objection remains unresolved. If you are going to include mathematics of that nature in the article, then you must make an effort to render it comprehensible to the majority of readers. "If you can't explain something to a first year student, then you haven't really understood it." ;-) —RJH (talk) 18:04, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." (Yes, that guy managed to explain how the principle of stationary action is a consequence of interference between wave functions in a way that even my mother would likely understand, so maybe he did understand it to some extent.) Well, we might start drawing a pair of Cartesian axes, labeled |d> and |s>, and another pair rotated by 13°, labeled |d'> and |s'>, showing that |d'> equals 0.974 times |d> plus 0.226 times |s>... Maybe I'm getting somewhere. But I don't know how far WP:NOR allows me to go with an intuitive explanation like that. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 18:46, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
In google books I seem to be able to find a number of works that explain the Cabibbo angle in a clearer manner. For example, just by writing the equation this way: |d′⟩=|d⟩cos⁡θC+|s⟩sin⁡θC, the math already seemed clearer, at least to me.—RJH (talk) 00:06, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
I really don't see how that clarifies anything. |d′⟩=|d⟩cos⁡θC+|s⟩sin⁡θC or |d′⟩=cos⁡θC|d⟩+sin⁡θC|s⟩ is exactly the same thing, with the later having the advanage of being the conventional way of writing things. As for google books, got links?.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 00:56, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose—I was ready to support, but started to find too great a density of issues in the prose to do so. It requires another copy-edit by someone fresh to the text.

  • "Quarks (and antiquarks) are the only known particles whose electric charge is a fractional multiple of the elementary charge, although this can never be directly observed, as hadrons all have integer charge." The "as" causality has lost me, and it's still the lead. Can you be a little kinder to non-experts just here? Why does hadron integer charge preclude the observation of the elementary charge of a quark? (In addition, consider removing "all"; does "this" refer to "elementary charge" or "fractional multiple of the elementary charge"?
    • Because quarks are only found in hadrons, as the previous sentence says. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 12:05, 31 December 2008 (UTC) (Headbomb moved the sentence higher, now it's clearer. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 14:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC))
  • Remove "the" from the last sentence in the lead.
  • This is clunky: "plus the unobserved (as of 2008) Higgs boson"; why not "plus the Higgs boson (unobserved as of 2008)"?
  • The flavour names are italicised in the first section, but roman in the lead. And are you going to use the symbols introduced in the lead?
    • You italicize words when you introduce them for the first time (that's what the <dfn> tag does in HTML), no point to always italicize them. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 12:05, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
    • As for using the symbols, there is little point in using them in prose, but in places such as uud and in the indices of matrix entries they're useful. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 14:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
  • "All quarks of the same flavor are identical particles, meaning that all of their properties are the same." "Identical particles" links to a definition that does not specifically mention properties. Here, properties are elevated to the definitional. Why not "All quarks of the same flavor are identical particles with the same properties." Perhaps I'm not getting something here.
    • Going to clarify that. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 14:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
  • "they are subject to the Pauli exclusion principle, stating that no two fermions of the same flavor can ever simultaneously occupy the same state."—"..., which states that ...". What about three fermions? Why not remove "two"? Do you need "ever" as an amplifier?
  • Fragmented sentence structure: "This contrasts with particles that mediate forces: such particles are bosons, meaning that they have integer spin; the Pauli exclusion principle does not apply to them." Again, the ", meaning that ..." formula is used, possibly misleading us.
    • Given that "integer spin" is sometimes used as a definition of "boson", it's not misleading. But sometimes "symmetrical wave function" is used as a definition, so it isn't misleading even if the reader interprets "meaning" as "implying". Given that the two definitions are equivalent, there's no point in discussing which one is the right one. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 14:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
  • " This interaction is the reason why quarks attract each other to form hadrons". Do we need both "reason" and "why"?
    • http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22reason+why%22 gives over 33 million hits. It's a quite common idiom in English. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 12:05, 31 December 2008 (UTC) (Fixed by Headbomb. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 14:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC))
      • Ah, yes. Because the majority of the population writes poorly, so should we. As a writing teacher, I am saddened by that argument. Awadewit (talk) 14:08, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
        • I can see nothing poorer in "the reason why" than in "the person who", or "the place where". -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 14:31, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
          • They introduce redundancies and can be eliminated in favor of stronger, crisper writing. "This interaction is the reason why quarks attract each other to form hadrons" or "This interaction is the reason why quarks attract each other to form hadrons". ("France is the place where he went." "The person who won the election was Obama" -> "Obama won the election", etc.). BuddingJournalist 15:49, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
  • "In the same way that the electric force is responsible for atoms attracting each other to form molecules, the strong interaction is responsible for protons and neutrons attracting each other to form atomic nuclei." The old noun + ing urchin, twice. "for the atomic attraction that brings atoms together to form molecules"? etc.
    • Do you really want to invent names such as "atomic attraction" even if almost no-one uses that name? (2,380 ghits for "atomic attraction", and many of the ones in the first page mean different things.) -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 14:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
  • "Elementary fermions are grouped into three generations, each one comprising two leptons and two quarks." Spot the redundant word. Tony (talk) 06:56, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I don't like using "bare" adjectives as pronouns very much, but if our goal is to use as few words as possible, I'm removing that one. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 14:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC) (It was already removed. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 14:27, 31 December 2008 (UTC))

All that jazz about words and stuff is nice, but could we get to the real problems of this articles. Aka, the two Template:Cn tags, clarifying the contradiction between Gell-Man and Ne'eman in 1964 vs. Gell-Man and Zweig in 1964, writing in non-klingon, and addressing the ref issues? Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 16:01, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I too am very keen on seeing Markus' concerns about the refs fully addressed. You know, Wikipedia is an imperfect process, and even at the FA level we field articles that probably could still be improved in some manner or other. And that's OK. But in general, in academic writing, the refs are sacrosanct, at least IMO. If they don't match the content, or if the content is not fully reflected in the refs, then the article cannot be FA. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 21:28, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Notice of withdrawal - I'm sorry to do this, but it's the right thing to do. I will be extremely busy until February because of personal commitments related to my schooling situation. I will literally be unable to edit any day until January 29. I therefore think it only right that I withdraw from this nomination, but it is certainly my intent to fix the problems and concerns brought up here as soon as I am able. I hope everyone understands. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 01:42, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment HB said: "I don't think even Feynman could explain the CKM matrix in less than three or four paragraphs. I mean you can simply say something like 'The CKM matrix is a way to keep track of how often the quarks decays into other quarks' (and it is said), but then you'd still haven't covered a thing about the CKM matrix and its importance."
  • Hey. People. I greatly fear my voice will be pooh-poohed here. In fact. I would bet on it. But it shouldn't. To paraphrase Feynman (if I followed the logic of the threads correctly): "I think I can safely say that this article doesn't need CKM in it." If it takes three or four paragraphs, then it needs its own article. End of story. Please see Wikipedia:Summary style, esp. the part that says: "The idea is to summarize and distribute information across related articles in a way that can serve readers who want varying amounts of detail." IF CKM isn't an example of a section where readers would want varying amounts of detail, then I don't know what is... So I repeat: This article does not need it or want it and should not have it. End of story. You can put in a few sentences about the importance of CKM and give its definition an oversimplified miss. It is safe and fair to give it a miss, since it needs its own article. Crap, you can even redlink CKM (I haven't looked to see if the article exists yet) and I would Support. Some person might Oppose based on 1b (Comprehensive), but that would be.. what's the word for "following rules in a single-minded manner, to the detriment of any meaningful measure of reality"? So. try to find a few sentences about the importance of CKM. Put in a definition like the one above about "a way to keep track of how often the quarks decays into other quarks" and state explicitly that this is an oversimplification. Fix the references of this article (absolutely required) then PASS it FA then work on the CKM article. I hope I can make you see the light with respect to the fact that any topic which requires so much explication does not belong in this article. It belongs in its own article. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 01:23, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Have you noticed what is between the section header and the sentence "In 1963, Nicola Cabibbo ..."? -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 01:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Or for what matters what comes after? It was very jargon-y before, but things have been reworded to be more accessible to everyone. If you have a way to improve the section, go ahead I'm all ears, but it's completely unacceptable not to have a section on the CKM matrix, its signicance, its accounting of CP violation, and its prediction of the third generation of quarks. Not having it would be like not speaking of speciation on in the evolution article. By comparison, this section is IMO far more accessible to the layfolk than the Enzymatic function section in the Exosome complex article, riddle with unexplained jargon such as "These are all 3'-5' exoribonuclease domains, meaning the enzymes degrade RNA molecules from their 3' end." yet that one got featured too. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 05:28, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
If I were the author of this article, I would not include CKM subsection too. It introduces too much technical information, which is not interesting for a casual reader, who only wants to know what quark is. Ruslik (talk) 08:41, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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