Talk:Glossary of physics

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Confusions[edit]

Firstly, the article as it stands is not a glossary but rather part list and part glossary. A glossary is a list together with definitions of the elements in that list i.e a dictionary by any other name.

Providing a links to an article is not the same as providing a definition. The result of this second confusion is that many of the definitions in the glossary are less definitions than explanations akin to the introductory sentences of the articles referred to. The key difference between the two is that one needs the remainder of the article concerned, to clarify and eliminate ambiguity, while the other does not, but rather holds discrete. This is the esssnce of a definition.

IMO the article also needs to provide definitions for predicates of the definitions where these have more than one possible definition. For instance, there are at least 20 definitions for the word "body" given in TheFreeDictionary, whereas only one is used in physics. Many definitions in the glossary rely on this word which I suggest might be defined as: "A mass of matter that is distinct from other masses". The word "matter" is defined but IMO is too wooly to be considered a definition, even if it is accurate, which I doubt: "Generally considered to be a substance (often a particle) that has rest mass and (usually) also volume.". There are many such predicates that need to be defined for the definitions given to be in any way robust.

The driver of a natural science is to be robust and concrete from the ground up, so while these issues may appear minor or even pedantic I believe they are vital to an understanding of the discipline involved.

LookingGlass (talk) 09:07, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Flashcards link[edit]

We wanted to learn all these terms in a flashcard format so we built one and made it freely available. Thought it would be helpful for anyone who wanted to learn the content of this glossary in a flashcard format like Anki to also be able to discover that they exist and have access to it from the source.

Was going to suggest it to be added in an external links section like the following but as it is linking to our own site, following the instructions of the Wikipedia guidelines, thought it would be best to leave this in the talk page for other contributors to see if it would be relevant or see if there was a better place/format to put it

Flashcard version of the Wikipedia Glossary of physics in an Anki-readable format

Darigov Research (talk) 11:25, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]