Talk:Q-ball

Language of this Article is Too Technical

In Light of Wikipedia's Mission, Topic should also include language understandable for Non-Scientists.

Wikipedia is a public use online encyclopedia. The audience is the general public. Therefore the science jargon this article should be in parallel to lay descriptions for the average reader.

(OK to have science language as long as it is also translated and explained for the average reader. There is no such translation here, meaning you have to be a physicist to understand it).

Sean7phil (talk) 17:25, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

One additional point--

Remember that science is supported (and funded) by the general public. It is therefore always in the interest of science to provide a lay-description for non-scientists.

Sean7phil (talk) 17:31, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind, I shortened the title of your section.

The topic of Q-balls is inherently rather technical. They are purely hypothetical, have never been observed, and are not an important component of any mainstream theories in particle physics. So there isn't much to say about them that the lay reader would be interested in. As a start, though, what if we moved the "Occurrence in nature" section up to the beginning? That would give the reader some idea of why people have studied the idea, before the technical section of the article puts the reader to sleep. Dark Formal (talk) 23:56, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I just read the "Occurrence in Nature" section and even that is extremely technical. Dark Formal, if by "there isn't much to say about them that the lay reader would be interested in" you mean "there's no point in translating the equations for the average reader," you're right. If you mean "no one but a scientist could have possibly ever heard of these or want to have a vague understanding of what they might be," you're wrong. I'm not saying the entire article should be put into lay terms, but it'd be nice if the basic description were, at the very least. 70.94.242.178 (talk) 04:29, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, well I agree that the article is too heavy on equations and contains none of the intuitive understanding that is in fact possible for Q-balls. And looking at it again now that a year has passed, I can see that the "Occurrence in Nature" section is not that helpful, perhaps because Q-balls haven't in fact been seen in nature and remain speculations by theoretical physicists. I would like to improve the article, if I find time. I know what needs to be said but I don't know what citations to use to give it proper wikipedia-style sourcing.... Dark Formal (talk) 03:35, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and added an "Intuitive explanation" section. I hope it is helpful, please feel free to make comments here or modify it directly. I am not sure how to source it properly; leave that for later... Dark Formal (talk) 03:14, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

New material

The "min=" equation near the end of the "thin-wall Q-ball" section is mangled. Or at least, I can't understand it. Also, I have never heard of a thin-wall Q-ball being called a "Coleman Q-ball". Could you provide evidence that this is a common practice? Dark Formal (talk) 23:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Rename

This page should be called Q-ball, but there is a redirect with two edits at that location. The appropriate request has now been made. Archelon (talk) 19:14, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

The Sliders Reference

In Sliders, Quinn is given the nickname by Rembrandt Brown, an R&B singer. To suggest that the nickname refers to a fairly obscure area of theoretical physics is far from justified. The nickname might refer to Quinn's last name, or it might refer to Quinn being an egghead (a "cue-ball head") in Rembrandt's estimation. It's VERY unlikely that there is any implied reference to solitons. rowley (talk) 23:11, 15 February 2009 (UTC)