Wikipedia:Peer review/Force/archive1

Force

I've listed this article for peer review because I would like additional input on what needs to be done to bring this article up to FA standards. Also, please check for general readability, errors, and places where clarity is needed.

Thanks,

ScienceApologist (talk) 10:51, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style. If you would find such a review helpful, please click here. Thanks, APR _t 06:05, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I like to nitpick by section, so here we go:

• Lead
  • I like how the lead pulls in some of the earliest history after hitting the basic properties, although it kinda shifts rapidly into quantum, which is to some extent unavoidable. But in the sentence starting "Following the development of quantum mechanics...", it isn't clear that the second statement follows from the first. Also, I think idea of forces being mediated by gauge bosons needs more than one sentence to be clear, even when condensed down in the lead.
• History
  • Avoid unnecessarily roundabout wording, such as, "Philosophical development of the concept of a force proceeded through the work of Aristotle." That just says, "Aristotle's philosophy further developed the concept of force."
  • I rather think that encyclopedias should avoid too many parentheses, so I've turned some into commas.
  • The last paragraph is so condensed, there's too much that would require clicking through to other articles to mean anything to the average reader. Why mention that Coulomb used a torsion balance when the inverse square law isn't even elaborated upon, or any further info on the history of the electric force given?
  • I think that fundamental forces are now called fundamental interactions primarily because they are mediated by gauge bosons rather than anything to do with symmetry. That last paragraph could safely end before mentioning 4-momentum, QED, or Noether's theorem.

More to come later. I'm too slow and will have to do this piecemeal. — Laura Scudder ☎ 20:58, 14 January 2008 (UTC)