Talk:Rutherford Aris

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Problems

First, this paragraph is unclear:

During his lifetime, Rutherford Aris published 13 books and more than 300 research articles, and mentored more than 65 M.S. and Ph.D. students. Some of its most prevalent are The Optimal Design of Chemical Reactors (1961); Mathematical Theory of Diffusion and Reaction in Permeable Catalysts, vols 1 & 2, and Mathematical Modeling: A Chemical Engineer's Perspective (1999).

What is the "it"? And are these Ph.D. dissertations? Books? Research articles? All of the above?

Also, the structure of this article is a mess. It basically re-starts halfway through: it starts with a complete summary of his technical career, and re-starts with a summary of his personal life.

And what's up with this paragraph? It totally obfuscates whatever it is trying to communicate:

Aris had already made a legitimate appearance in Who's Who, when its publishers wrote to him demanding a biography for someone with his names reversed. He replied explaining the mistake, but the editors kept insisting. So the real professor obliged with an invention that was instantly accepted - despite his mention, among other teasers, of Aris MacPherson Rutherford's stint in the Argyll and Sutherland Regiment (instead of its correct title, Highlanders).

Also, there is repeated and contradicting information in the article. At the beginning:

He was the son of Algernon Aris & Janet Elford. Born in Bournemouth, U.K. His genius showed early, as he finalised a maths degree from London university at the age of 16, which he was granted when he became 18.

And 3/4 of the way through:

Aris's scholastic brilliance emerged early; his parents helped him to fulfil, aged 16, the requirements of a London University maths degree - though it was not granted until he was 19 years old. He later acquired his science doctorate from London through correspondence, writing his thesis in six weeks but never attending in person.

This information is also repeated (albeit in a manner that clarifies what the titles actually mean):

Among his books were The Optimal Design of Chemical Reactors (1961); Mathematical Theory of Diffusion and Reaction in Permeable Catalysts, vols 1 & 2, and Mathematical Modeling: A Chemical Engineer's Perspective (1999).

This whole article looks like someone literally threw together whatever scraps of information they could find without even looking at what information was already in the article... or maybe copied and pasted from other parts of the article?

--Charlesreid1 (talk) 03:44, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. Rewrote the article so that it is written in sensible English that conforms to Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Please let me know if you see anything wrong, or be bold and fix it yourself. --Charlesreid1 (talk) 19:21, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Amusing anecdote

Although it does not necessarily fit in to the article, I came across an amusing anecdote regarding Rutherford Aris from the February 15, 1975 edition of the Lodi News-Sentinel wherein he created a Who's Who's entry for an "Aris Rutherford" with amusing results. The entire story can be found here. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 20:27, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

auto archiving

The contents of this talk page will be auto-archived after 365 days. See User:Lowercase_sigmabot_III/Archive_HowTo and the MiszaBot config template at the top of this page for deets. -- Charlesreid1 (talk) 15:14, 4 July 2022 (UTC)