Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:00, 13 June 2006

Re: Tidal locking, Tidal friction, and Tidal acceleration

Hi Deuar,

You wrote on my talk page regarding my edits on the Tidal acceleration page. Interesting, I live in Amsterdam too, but I don't suppose you have had occasion to learn Nederlands so I'll continue in English.

Unfortunately I've only been here 2 months, so my Nederlands is worse than poor Deuar 15:33, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Concerning my credentials: bringing in "an astronomer" would not really help, unless (s)he were an expert in the field. I do have a scientific background and I have been following the scientific literature since my study time in the 1980's, so I consider myself second only to geophysicists and astronomers who actually do the research. Having read their papers, I think I can write the Misplaced Pages article; whether it is understandable for someone who does not have the same background is another issue, so if you can simplify things go ahead, but please do not sacrifice accuracy.

Cool. Yeah, I try not to ... (add sheepish grin) Deuar

IIRC some time ago I started or enhanced the Tidal acceleration page separately from the Tidal friction and Tidal locking pages. The latter is more about the general phenomenon, and I kind of used the former for our specific case, because it actually has an influence on everybodies daily lives (leap seconds etc. - hm, I should add that to the page). Also there is some detailed quantitative information available for the Earth-Moon system that is better placed under its own lemma than as an elaboration on the general page.

Regarding your work on the Tidal locking page: I find the explanations rather involved. The concept of torque would sum most of it up in one word. Maybe review what I put back in the Tidal acceleration page and use it to slim down the Tidal locking page. Also, you might want to add the orbital and rotation resonance of Venus with the orbit of the Earth, which IIRC is believed to be caused by a subtle tidal influence, but not fully explained.

Tom Peters 15:11, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll have a think and try to slim it down. Does it look factually correct to you, though? I had a rather long discussion on the talk page with William M. Connolley where he had reservations but wasn't able to clearly specify what they were. The tidal influences are back. Deuar 15:33, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

re: Meteorite image

You have a point. I've thought about that on and off since I posted the image. I used the plaque from the meteorite itself as the basis for the caption (i.e., the real-world plaque claims it shows the Widmanstatten pattern). I can't decide if I just took a lousy photograph or if they were wrong in their caption...

Either way, it's probably best to remove the Widmanstatten reference, as it's not clearly visible in the image, even if it really was there on the meteorite.

--Dante Alighieri | ] 20:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Resisters or terrorists ?

Cześć Piotr,

You ask a very good question here : Talk:Resistance movement

Let me know if you want to talk seriously about this.

Sincerely,

AtiN 12:04, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Template:User:V.Molotov/Welcome!Molotov (talk) 22:33, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Polish Wikipedians' notice board

Hi! You may be interested in checking our noticeboard. Welcome!--SylwiaS 16:15, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

TNOs

Kuiper Belt

Peter, we still have 'Mars or Earth size object' in our leading section on KB, I’ve noticed you spared it. Have you read recently about such conjectures? People talk about 'missing mass' problem but as far as I know have long time ago stopped assuming that a biggy must be there.. Am I wrong? Eurocommuter 21:07, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

It looks strange to me too, but I spared it just because I havent read anything relevant in ages, and don't know. On gut feeling, I could swallow the Mars-sized out in the scattered disk, but an Earth-sized object sounds a lot like wishful thinking. Show no mercy if you think it's out of date. Deuar 22:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Peter, Thank you for cleaning my modest contributions. Misplaced Pages articles about TNO are still a bit confusing (according to my boy, Thomas, 13). This was what finally made me register and add a few pieces a week ago. I’m trying to generate another graphic illustrating where the objects are (axis, eccentricity- and maybe inclination-wise); projections of orbits graphs are confusing (to me). Eurocommuter 00:08, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

(Diagrams) Dziekuje! Did you notice my attempt at a multiscale map? (click on one diagram and scroll down to the description) One can do better (clicking on the map, opening articles on specific objects) in svg but I have no clue how wiki handles svg; will try one day Eurocommuter 11:12, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed the multiscale thumbnails, although I wasn't sure what they were for until I clicked them (I havent seen this solution before). Another good idea! Deuar 20:39, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the edits, Piotr. Feels good not to be alone in this obscure area…The total mass of the objects is thought to decrease with a power of the distance to the Sun. I have a conjecture, (can’t publish though, no original work is allowed on wiki…) The number of editors follows the same power low Eurocommuter 15:21, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, there is definately a trend like that... also: the number of editors decreases along with the mass of the object. I hang around a lot in the asteroids, and the density of editors is similar to the TNOs -- low once you leave asteroid (a vandal and crank attractor). On the other end of the scale you get e.g. Sun or planet which are huge vandal magnets - had them on my watchlist once, and it wasn't a pretty sight. I dare not put poor old Uranus on my watchlist...

By the way, your diagrams are getting more and more interesting. e.g. Image:TheTransneptunians_73AU.svg I hadn't realised there's a centaur bigger than Chiron out there. Deuar 22:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Colours

Thank you! I’ve spent a week trying to render colour indices as "reasonable" RGB by filtering the simulated spectra and the colours seem still… odd! (e.g. 2002 QZ₃₂ in centaurs). Rendering the albedo in linear gradient proved also challenging and a bit disappointing: the differences are too big; had to cheat and went non-linear. There’s no light there anyway, right? NASA’s images of Pluto are also "software artist's" impressions I suppose…Good to have you back! Eurocommuter 22:52, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Thermal method

Agree, a better explanation. Remains to mention the assumptions about the rotational speed and the orientation of the rotation axis to the observer…! One day someone should write a few formulas in a separate article I suppose. Eurocommuter 22:38, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

It starts to get involved at that point, a separate article is probaby not a bad idea. There's also the issue of the thermal properties of the surface. There was a massive work by J.S. Lagerros on this (which I haven't really read) Deuar 10:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Binary/double planet

I see the addition you've made to the planet page. I'm a keen follower of astronomy but I've never heard of the term "binary planet", although I am aware its used for Stars. Could you possibly point me in the direction of where you got this term from, and how it is distinguished from a double planet? I have no big beef about this but I just want to make sure the article is accurate. 130.126.76.27 01:31, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I saw the term here on the New Horizons website (that page has an interesting animation, as well). Actually from what I can see there's no real consensus on the terminology, i've seen at least "double", "twin" and "binary" referring to two related objects of similar mass, and I suspect there are no universally accepted rules. I think "binary" is the best for a pair like Pluto-Charon because of the analogy to stars which do a similar gravitational dance. If you have know how to make the planet page more accurate, go for it! Deuar 09:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Asteroids: families

I’ve just discovered your graphs Flora. Fantastic!!! Eurocommuter 17:29, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

PS. The link to data (in the image description) appears to be broken.

Well, um, thanks! Actually, I got the idea to represent asteroid sizes from your diagrams on Trans-Neptunian Object and surrounds.

I worry that my diagrams might be too cluttered, though.

That link didn't last long, did it! what a pain. fixing... Deuar 20:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Cluttering is a potential problem. I’m trying to mitigate it by using ‘two-level’ diagrams, first with only major objects for illustration and the second with details (i.e. cluttered) for an eager reader. Talking about inspiration, I took the e/i graph hint from your diagrams, and the funny thing is, it does show the KBO families (cubewanos v plutinos for example) as (kind of…) distinct. The problem is to render it in readable way and I’m not exactly an artist… Still, the first attempt should be out there (cubewanos, I think) tonight/tomorrow. Eurocommuter 21:22, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The two-level diagram is an interesting idea, i'll have to have a think about how to apply that! I always find that "if I could only make this diagram two times bigger, it wouldn't be cluttered", but of course those asteroid family diagrams are at the practical size limit already. Deuar 15:50, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

What do you think of my first attempt at using cartographic colours for e/t charts ?(cubewano) Eurocommuter 16:46, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

That's a pretty cute idea - and I bet you had a bit of fun trying to set the right bin size. Have you tried making the i/e ranges smaller so that the colorful part of the graphs takes up more space? Then again with only a few hundred bodies it's a tradeoff with how much blockiness is tolerable. I usually end up using scatter diagrams (like your main graph) because I find them easier to understand at a glance, but they also have their own problems with showing structure both in the dense and rarefied regions... Finally, That's a lot of interesting information in one diagram! Deuar 10:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! To avoid the overloading, I split the new one scattered disk so the text comment can follow more easily. On the e/i ranges: I’ve got the auto-scale written (a logarithmic scale for colours for example is supposed to handle valleys and peaks) but as I’m comparing different families I felt better to avoid different ranges between graphs. Eurocommuter 13:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC) PS. Have you read my half-cooked comment about your diagrams (below)?

Asteroid families -3D phase space

Peter, I’m looking at your diagrams (Flora) trying to imagine the 3D phase space. Namely i/a diagram (on the left) as the front face of a cube and i/e diagram (on the right) as its right side. Orbits on the front face are circular and orbits behind them are getting more and more eccentric. With this thinking, one can easily imagine the two clumps (visual regroupings) in 3D. (The one at ~6 deg is 'in front' of the one at 2 degs). Maybe you could hint this type of thinking to the reader and help with some perspective plotting the diagram. For example, Ariadne on the left diagram should be slightly in front (smaller e) and you could help this perception by making Ariadne’s disk hiding partly the Flora’s disk. Using a sort of z-ordering and greying out the objects not members of the Flora family you could help the reader to imagine the diagrams as projections of the 3D phase space. I have no idea if this would help other people but this is the way I struggle with 3D+ It could be a part of a simplified 1st level graph, suggesting the position of Flora’s family in 3D phase space in relation to other families and Jupiter resonances. What d’you think? Eurocommuter 23:13, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll have to have a think about implementing your idea - it's very interesting. I also usually try to imagine 3D with a similar method to yours: faces of a cube etc. If it was a surface it'd be easy, but isolated points in space like this are always a major problem for me. Funnily I find it easier to imagine the 3D if there is no explicitly 3D diagram but just the projections (I think the perspective-like diagrams boggle me visually somehow, and I find it hard to get a handle on what the actual shape of the "cloud of objects" is). That's why I tend to go with projections. What I find easiest to grasp for 3D diagrams is something like a colour-coded elevation map with the 3rd dimension represented purely by colours or shading (like your recent diagram). Unfortunately that's only good for surfaces :( In any case, i'll have a go at the kind of diagram you suggest once i have a bit of a think about it, and we'll see.. Deuar 13:58, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Peter, I went through your impressive and growing collection of families Gefion family et al. Ceres is sure a sizeable interloper! Is 93 Minerva a member? Would be a better (bigger) choice than the current namesake! On Vesta family I've discovered the name for the big agglomeration one cannot miss on Flora. A master ‘big picture’ diagram with arrows to major families would help IMHO. It could become a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Belt! As for me, I’ve added a house-wife-level (almost) physical space orbit plot to illustrate scattered disk v classical. What d’you think? Eurocommuter 12:08, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

(your comment on my projection)Ouch. Touché. Thanks for the remark on the strange projection! I spend too much time fighting with Java/svg to get a clear diagram, then quickly type in the description without thinking….Well, maybe it was a bug but I’d pretend it was a feature… Cheers Eurocommuter 22:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Borusewicz.JPG

Thanks for uploading Image:Borusewicz.JPG. However, the image may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and copyright status. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about the images included in Misplaced Pages because of copyright law (see Misplaced Pages's Copyright policy).

The copyright holder is usually the creator, the creator's employer, or the last person who was transferred ownership rights. Copyright information on images is signified using copyright templates. The three basic license types on Misplaced Pages are open content, public domain, and fair use. Find the appropriate template in Misplaced Pages:Image copyright tags and place it on the image page like this: {{TemplateName}}.

Please signify the copyright information on any other images you have uploaded or will upload. Remember that images without this important information can be deleted by an administrator. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, or ask them at the Image legality questions page. Thank you. Stan 14:26, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting that the Senate website has adopted GFDL! I would suggest doing a couple things to avoid future confusion; first, create a special category for all these images (template is overkill, cat is sufficient), and put a more extended discussion of the situation on the category's page. You might also consider moving these images to commons, so en:, pl:, etc, can all use the same images, again making the special category with explanation. Stan 19:14, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Reference style

Hi! Thanks for expanding the asteroid articles, especially 15 Eunomia looks really comprehensive now. When you insert the references, please consider using the new <ref> referencing style -- it is far more powerful than the various tweaks used earlier because it is formatted automatically by the code. It is really easy to use: In the first occurrence of a source, write <ref name="name">(text that will be visible in references section)</ref> and in later occurrences just the <ref name="name"/> tag. Insert the <references/> tag where you want to see the references. The stuff put into the <ref></ref> tags is not actually inside any template, so it's safe to use in an infobox, too. See for example 258 Tyche article how this is done. Also, the use of article source templates (Misplaced Pages:Template messages/Sources of articles) helps managing the standard citation style. For more information, see Misplaced Pages:Footnotes, or drop a message.--Jyril 22:34, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's good to hear. ;) Really, I can't completely disagree with you in the earlier post. Putting reference information within the tags makes the code unnecessarily messy, but it seems to be inavoidable for now. Hopefully the system is developed further to more user friendly. However, it makes references less likely getting mixed up which is in my opinion more important. Actually, a proper referencing system should have been included in the MediaWiki software when it was developed.--JyriL 18:03, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Flamarande, + Quo vadis

Hi, I have a doubt which you might resolve. Reading the article about Henryk Sienkiwicz, one can read that he recieved the Nobel prize because his outstanding works (i.e. several books). But in a lot of articles it is written that he recieved the prize mainly because of Quo vadis. Now, is the first statement (several books) a bit of "political correctness" by part of the Nobel-comite. or is the second statement a bit of english egocentric worldview? Perhaps both are true. You may answer here, please. Thanks Flamarande 17:41, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm not a literature buff, so I don't have any hard knowledge (like a reference) to give you, but here's some facts from a Polish perspective, and an educated (hopefully) guess:

• The Nobel prize site says "because of his outstanding merits as an epic writer".
• He wrote a fair number of historical epics - pl:Henryk Sienkiewicz lists them - all but the last one under the "Powieści" heading are historical epics.
• Quo Vadis is best known outside of Poland, because most of the other works deal with various episodes of Polish history, and so, presumably might be considered less "universal" than a Roman epic in some sense. It's reasonable to assume that the popularity of Quo Vadis at the time is probably what brought him to the attenttion of the Nobel committee. It was also one of his more recent works at the time when he was awarded the Nobel prize.
• In contrast, in Poland, his best known works are the Trylogia (Trilogy), which have been read and liked by almost every Pole alive (even today). In fact I don't think I've ever met any Pole who hasn't read it. In my opinion, it's really well written, with a gripping and complex plot, so it remains popular just because it's fun to read. (Having said that, Quo Vadis, and several other of his books: Krzyżacy, W pustyni i w puszczy, are also very well known in Poland). All made into movies.
• I'm guessing that once Sienkiewicz was being considered as a candidate for the prize, they investigated his other works, and found them to be of "outstanding merit" as well - hence the decision to award him the prize, and give the above explanation.

Hope that's useful to you. Deuar 18:21, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, ok. I can see that it is a bit of both then. Someday, someone will corect the various articles (I would do it, but I am too lazy). Flamarande 18:32, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Same here. Well - actually, also, my musings are just educated guesses, so i'm not sure whether to charge in there and change all the articles. :-) Deuar 18:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

orbit.svg

Thank you for your suggessions. I have made some changes. Scalable Vector Graphics is a quite good vector graphics format and it is easy to change with the free Inkscape. Unfortunately the Misplaced Pages renders it sometimes incorrect. (I must arrow heads write as triangles and now the big omega as a curve.) -- Harp 09:07, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Re: Lightcurve Shape models

>I wonder what your thoughts are on this - do you think the reconstructions are reasonable and qualitatively trustworthy? Do you have any suggestions for better wording when describing them in the article?<

Even Mikko Kaasalainen, the leading proponent of the lightcurve-inversion technique, admits that the lightcurve-derived shape models are only accurate for large-scale structure. His models typically contain only tens of facets, which is enough to obtain a good idea of the object's elongation and perhaps any large-scale asymmetries, but insufficient to identify surface features. To give an example: a large filled-in crater cannot be distinguished from a facet (an area of surface with no relief) or a surface that is relatively smooth but carpeted in smaller craters. I think the best idea is to say what the lightcurves can tell us about the large-scale structure and no more. Michaelbusch 16:32, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

>One pointy and one broad end trustworthy?

Maybe, maybe not. A narrow end could also be an area with different scattering properties in the optical.Michaelbusch 03:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Pando

Thanks for commenting on the Pando (Quaking Aspen) article. We are currently trying to have it achieve featured article status. Any input on its peer review would be helpful. Thank you again. Globeism 16:19, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

License tagging for Image:Naiad Voyager.png

Thanks for uploading Image:Naiad Voyager.png. Misplaced Pages gets hundreds of images uploaded every day, and in order to verify that the images can be legally used on Misplaced Pages, the source and copyright status must be indicated. Images need to have an image tag applied to the image description page indicating the copyright status of the image. This uniform and easy-to-understand method of indicating the license status allows potential re-users of the images to know what they are allowed to do with the images.

For more information on using images, see the following pages:

• Misplaced Pages:Image use policy
• Misplaced Pages:Image copyright tags

This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. If you need help on selecting a tag to use, or in adding the tag to the image description, feel free to post a message at Misplaced Pages:Media copyright questions. 20:07, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Doh! forgot the tag. That's a quick bot. Deuar 20:32, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Notice of arbitration

n arbitration request involving you has been filed.--AndriyK 20:00, 13 June 2006 (UTC)