Talk:Charles Coulson

extension 1/1/2011

I think Charles deserves a much longer entry than has been here so far. I have done as much as I can tonight. I have restructured and kept old material that had not become redundant relative to new material that is more extensive.

Details that need to be fixed.

1. Provision of full names (or at least initials) of people missing these, and hyperlinks when these exist.

2. Check spelling of names, particularly Alan Lidiard, Joop der (or ter) Heer, and find name of Spanish professor who spent months with us, and later became Rector of major university.

3. What was Crawford's initial?

4. Was Eric Pitts in Coulson's group before goint to work with McVittie?

5. Did Carl Moser spend long visits at King's?

3. More detail from before and after King's -- I am bit vague about this.

4. Check date of Brasenose conference.

Delighted if anyone takes care of these before I can get back to this.

Thanks Michael P. Barnett (talk) 04:41, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Go for it. You need to expand on the last part of his life. You removed a lot of links that need replacing and you need to source some items better. Both you and I may be too close to this topic. I was on sabbatical with Charles in his last year in the Maths Institute and was part time but present in Oxford when he died. --Bduke (Discussion) 06:28, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks. Greatly encouraged. And:

1. The account of the earlier and later parts of Charles life need to be expanded. I do not have the knowledge, but propose action later in this posting.

2. Re closeness. I have read (or at least skimmed) some of the relevant WP guidelines. One potential problem is prejudice, in the sense of value judgment that personal factors may have influenced. OK. I consider Charles to have been of complete integrity, fair and generous. BUT -- can that view be dismissed because he was generous in putting my name first on our Phil Trans paper and in his letter of recommendation when I was given a faculty position at MIT? Other people may claim he did not support them adequately. If my warmth shows through in what I write, am I violating NPOV?

3. Closeness (continued): A quantum chemist X, whose name you certainly know, who is alive, but has aging problems, insisted over the years that another quantum chemist Y, who you may know personally, and whose work you certainly know, but is dead, was highly critical of Coulson's conscientious objection to war work. X's comment, my recollection of it, and my reluctance to accept it without corroboration, are not WP "verifiable". Now, if a wealthy family want to do a hatchet job on Charles' memory, is it possible that they could "encourage" a professional biographer to write a book that quotes X (he can still talk), thereby making the statement WP "verifiable". If, in the future, I had reason to believe that this (or something akin to this) had happened, from conversations with an intermediary speaking on behalf of the biographer, and email with the biographer (deleted), my belief is not "verifiable". This knowledge (or imagined knowledge) could influence my efforts to apply NPOV to an awkward situation. Fortunately, I do not see that happening here. I am editing several articles on matters which I was close to, and saw this as an opportunity to discuss it. I hope it is of sufficient generality to be worth throwing into the development of WP principles.

4. Closeness (the end): Of course the most difficult part is how I mention myself. I explained, in detail, how I got into WP editing in the Discussion on the Rosalind Franklin article. Also, in my latest edit of the Royal Radar Establishment, I gave references to my postings on WP:Notability about the need to show verifiably that someone is WP "notable" in order to mention them, and on WP:COI about my mentioning myself in a few articles up to that time, and what I wanted to put in the Royal Radar Article. So I think I am in the clear so far. But in editing the article about Coulson, or Slater, or the Institute for Computer Science, things get a lot awkwarder.

The obvious answer is -- I miss myself out, and hope someone else will put me in (if this warranted). However, there are situations in which I am the only person still alive who knows I carried out a particular action, which is relevant. A very simple example. When I was at RRE, I spent a large amount of time in literature searches for organic compounds that had properties which might be indicative of semiconductivity. This was not secret. I visited several organic chemistry departments, to "spread the word" about our interest. But the only people who knew I was doing this were Pincherle, MacFarlane and R.A. Smith, going upward in the hierarchy. We sponsored work by Clar at Glasgow University. I visited him to check on progress. There is no acceptable WP verifiability based on really relevant information. BUT, by complete coincidence, I published a paper with Charles Coulson and Carl Moser on a reaction of Clar's hydrocarbon, on work done before I had thought of applying for a job at RRE, but with my RRE affiliation, because it had taken so long to write up. Now, as far as the Coulson article, (and potentially Slater etc) whatever I do can be misconstrued. If I am "bold" and just go ahead an edit the article, it can be considered brash or worse. If I am tentative, and put it in the Discussion under the caveat "does anyone mind if I put this in", then it can look as if I am just trying to cosmeticize being brash or worse. If I put a list of places that I have mentioned myself on my User site under the caveat "Have I gone too far?" then that can look still worse. After I post this round I will be off WP until tomorrow, and there is no hurry resolving this.

5. Links and sourcing. Almost every statement is WP verifiable from the St.Andrews obit and Royal Society obit. Both were on the screen. I put a blanket reference early in the revision, for expediency -- it was getting late -- with the intent of expansion asap. My preference is to put a citation number after each statement, that points to the relevant passage in one or both obits. This increases the length of the list of references, but I would rather err that way, than contribute to the practice of just citing a book of several hundred pages repeatedly, without giving page number references within it, particularly when the book, whilst praised for the exhaustive research that went into it, has a long bibliography, but no pointers to this from the text.

6. As regards follow up, the sequence I would like to follow is (i) expand mention of St. Andrews to accommodate fact he was at Dundee before it became independent, (ii) provide the references just mentioned, (iii) put in initials, (iii) Google to track people who might still be with us who have knowledge of earlier and later periods of Charles' life. Michael P. Barnett (talk) 14:44, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Revisions 1/2/11

1. Overall styling. Tentatively, the only references in the lead (introduction) are to the three most informative obituaries that I have seen so far, and to the four books by Coulson that I think are regarded, by consensus, as most important.

2. The name of the Fellowship at Oxford and the college where it was held need to be found. I thought the article about Roy McWeeny implied Charles was at University College, and emailed their archivist, but think now that it meant Roy was there. I think Charles had an ICI fellowship, and that this may be mentioned in a Nature article published at the time he joined King's Nature 159, 632 (10 May 1947) | doi:10.1038/159632a0. I cannot read the text until later this week, but hopefully it will give the necessary information. If it was published after his inaugural lecture, it may contain part of that, including the "key to the room that is in disorder" metaphor (my words).

3. Will put in date for start of Mathematical Institution.

4. Will reorder medals chronologically. The reference for the Davy medal was a short obituary notice that gave negligible information about Coulson, and certainly not about the medal, so I took it out.

5. For sections 1 and 2, have provided hyperlinks, and put reference at end of each paragraph that applies to all the sentences in it -- hope this is adequate -- can be explained at start of list of references.

6. I used the style of back-referencing obituaries with page and paragraph number. I hope I can avoid the style of numbered notes and bulleted references that seems prevalent in WP. I assume it is not mandated because I think I have seen articles where it is not used.

7. I emailed the Labour Party office in Cambridge asking if the Alex Wood who stood for parliament in the 1930s was the physicist.

8. re Christopher: I took out the "distinguished" because it boxes us into arbitrating the adjectives to apply to Charles' other students. I took out the theochem reference because it points to preface of a thematic issue about quantum chemistry, that can go back later in the article, in due course.

9. For references to Waves, Electricity and Valence, I intended to show the time span over which they have been considered significant. I need to add reference to Roy's posthumous revision of Valence, and to Pauling's review: Coulson's Valence, Linus Pauling, Nature 284, 685-686 (24 April 1980) doi:10.1038/284685a0

10. I asked three people well qualified to comment if they thought someone who was deeply religious might be describable by the sentence I have used and they said yes.

11. I emailed Chairman of Chemistry dept at U. Pisa asking if Roy can be reached by email Michael P. Barnett (talk) 02:03, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Additions Jan 5 all verifiable from Royal Society obit. Will put in paragraph references later. Michael P. Barnett (talk) 03:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Impasse Feb 4

In case anyone else is interested in this article, I have reached an impasse. I wanted the opening sentences to link to reasonable articles, but was unimpressed by theoretical chemistry, reactivity (chemistry), molecular structure, molecular dynamics. I have tried tactic of replacing lede with a sentence that I think is reasonable, followed by Another approach over the material that was there already. With a hatnote questioning the content. But with applied mathematics I seem to have run into an Editor who controls articles about mathematics. I put quite a bit of effort into a suggested revision of the lede, which has been cut off rather contemptuously. Meanwhile, in another context, I seem to have been told that "experienced editors" can warn off critics of articles that are atrocious. This is discouraging. 128.112.70.138 (talk) 00:36, 5 February 2011 (UTC) Michael P. Barnett (talk) 00:39, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I commented on one aspect of this at your talk. Johnuniq (talk) 02:41, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Opening Section POV

This article is to my mind not as neutral as it should be. The opening sentence that he was a "religious leader" seems to be going too far. He was a religious author and broadcaster, but that is far from being a leader. The final sentences are uncited and seem to be a personal reflection, which is not wikipedia practice. If it is a quotation it should be given as such.Chemical Engineer (talk) 16:55, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I have removed the last sentence in the lede, and the one above does need attention. I think the term "religious leader" is appropriate as he was Vice President of the Methodist Church, a yearly appointment to a senior lay person in the church (The President is always an ordained minister). However, I looked long ago and could not find a list of the Vice-Presidents. I recall he was VP in the late 1960s or maybe very early 1970s. --Bduke (Discussion) 22:53, 22 April 2011 (UTC)