Wikipedia:Peer review/Maxwell's equations/archive1

Maxwell's equations edit

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A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for October 2008.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it seems a well-written and informative article on electromagnetism that deserves recognition.

Thanks, Twin Bird (talk) 19:59, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: I am not sure what the goal of this PR is (recognition?), but here are some suggestions for improvement as if it were going for WP:GAN or WP:FAC.

Please see WP:LEAD as an article this long should have a lead that is four paragraphs long. The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article. Nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself. My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way, but the article probably needs fewer sections / header too
Biggest problem wit the article is a lack of references - Conceptual description has no refs for example. My rule of thumb is that every quote, every statistic, every extraordinary claim and every paragraph needs a ref.
Per WP:CITE references come AFTER punctuation, and are usually at the end of a sentence or phrase, so fix as one example ... the units commonly used are Gaussian units (based on the cgs system and considered to have some theoretical advantages over SI[2]), ...
Internet refs need URL, title, author and date if known, publisher and date accessed. {{cite web}} and other cite templates may be helpful. For example Current reference 36 "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies". Fourmilab.ch. Retrieved on October 19, 2008. should give the author (Einstein) and date written (1905). See WP:CITE and WP:V
The Headers do not meet WP:HEAD - for example "The term Maxwell's equations" could just be "The term" or perhaps even better just "Name" (do not repeat the title)
There are a lot of short (one or two sentence) paragraphs and some short sections - these should could be combined with others or perhaps expanded.
The See also section has way too many items. If a term has already been linked in the article, it generally should not be here.
Article does not seem to have an encyclopedic tone in several places.
The article is written at a fairly difficult level for the non-expert to comprehend. Would it make sense to have some sort of brief overview at a simple level to help introduce the article?

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:26, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Jakob.scholbach (talk) 13:27, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, this is a pretty good article. In general, it is well-written and detailed. There are several points to criticize, which I would recommend working on before going to GA nomination. (I'm not a physicist, so I cannot check the validity of physical statements made. Also, I didn't attempt to follow the blue links).
The lead is way too short. Roughly, any section should show up in the lead with about one sentence or two.
Lead: "these equations are used to show that light..." ? How can equations "show" (in a mathematical-proof-sense) something? Don't you need an experiment?
The "Conceptual description" is probably your best section. Perhaps you could open up with a short mentioning that there are two concepts electricity and magnetism involved, with one or two brief examples for both effects.
Same section: you say "tend to" pretty often. This could be more precise.
You sorely need illustrations. I bet there are tons of images of a magnetic dipole and its field. That would be really enlightening.
What is an hydroelectric dam? Perhaps give a more everyday example?
"as are X-rays, radio waves, and others" I would remove "and others"
Citations: for GA and even more so for FA, you absolutely have to provide more references. For example "Maxwell's equations are not unchanged in other unit systems." would be tagged with ^{[citation needed]}. An easy and generally useful rule: the first sentence in the paragraph should have some ref.
"General formulation". What does "SI" mean? (you explain the abbreviations somewhere below, move this up there). Also the section has a bit of repetetive wordind (used 2 times). Also, in general, you use parentheses pretty often. I would try to minimize that.
The whole organization of the formula-content is not optimal. Your tables with the formulae are nice and handy, but prose text incorporating the stuff would be better. Even more disturbingly is the fact that the reader has to scroll back and forth between the equations and the explanation of the terms. Thirdly, I (a non phys-guy) don't understand why you devote so much space to the units (a whole column in the table!). From the article it seems that it is just a linear rescaling. Unless you make somehow clearer the impact of the units, this is a bit uninteresting.
When comparing Table 1 and 2, I wondered about the relation of E and D. You explain that under "Bound charge and current", but the question arises at that point. I would move the "Bound charge and current" section (which is really well explaining the difference, which I didn't understand before) up.
Two more examples (out of many) where a citation is needed: "generally an intractable problem", "which vary wildly on a micro. scale..."
The History section is pretty unorganized. You succeed to make clear that there is more than Maxwell, but do so in a very repetetive way. I suggest organizing the stuff in a more chronological order, trying to mention the content of M's paper at one spot, and not dispersed over the whole section.
What does EMF mean? (History section)
General formatting problems: be sure not to use "--" or "-" where endashes or emdashes are appropriate. Also, I personally find links a la see this book pretty ugly. Reformat this using a footnote. Likewise the formatting of the see also note in "Maxwell's On physcial ..." is a bit ugly. Scientific papers should be formatted in italics. Sometimes you missed that.
The mentioning of "equation (56)" and the like is IMO overly detailed. If you want to give this information, I'd take a footnote.
"when Lorentz was still a young boy" - awkward wording and unclear meaning.
Repeating the notation H, J etc. is not necessary (unless there are differences, which I didn't see)
In the several cases (e.g. "Case without magnetic or dielectric materials"), the discussion is a bit repetetive, insofar that the formulae are practically identic. I would try to write down the formula only once, and explaining the different meaning of μ and ε depending on the context.
"If further there are dependencies on:" is an extremly long sentence.
With magn. monopoles section: "has never been seen and may not exist" needs a citation (both parts of the statement)
"Classically the question is "Why does ..."" is awkward wording.
"An entire physical apparatus ... has developed" should be "has been developed"
Historical developments of SR: "he motivated his theory by nothing that a..." --> nothing but that a
"By Helmholtz's theorem..." -- is this a consequence of Stokes theorem?
"These equations appear more complicated..." -- to whom? citation!
The el. and magn fields are now jointly described by a 2-form F in a 4-dim. spacetime manifold" -- do you refer to Minkowski space here? Perhaps single out a simple example case (as opposed to general relativity).
"Conceptual insight" - remove underlining of text.
I didn't read the "Curved spacetime" section, but this should already be a bit to work on :) Ping me if you want me to reread it after some improvements. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 13:27, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Nousernamesleft (talk)

The "introduction" to the first section seems a bit awkward to me. Could it be eliminated, and the first two sections merged?
An explanation why the equations are changed when expressed in alternate systems of units would be helpful.
Perhaps the legend should be located before the formula tables? Also, a brief explanation of the closed line integral would be helpful to make the article more accessible.
"Controversy has always surrounded the term Maxwell's equations concerning the extent to which Maxwell himself was involved in these equations." - this sentence doesn't really make sense. The controversy over the naming was caused by the extent, but not "concerned" with it.
Not a concern, but the irony in the introduction to "History" made me laugh.
"See pages 110–112 of Nahin's book" links to page 113 for some indiscernible reason.
"The fourth was a partial time derivative version" - more explanation would be nice.

I'll have more comments later when I get around to finishing my read-through of the article. Nousernamesleft (talk) 01:37, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]