Talk:Steven Weinberg

Worldview section?

This seems to be written in a way that overly concerns itself with putting him at odds with Right Wing Evangelical Christianity. Even the term "worldview" is used extensively in this niche subculture, and the text seems targeted to mark him as an enemy of that subculture. My feeling, reading it, is either the section should be greatly expanded to eliminate the narrow focus on topics only of concern to this subculture, to give it a less biased feel, or eliminate it entirely, because as written it feels very POV — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:7C00:AC50:AC10:2CC8:B135:3AD5 (talk) 05:15, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Weinberg's Principle

Weinberg's Principle (according to the 'net):- An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.

quanto-relativity and the superfield

We should study the visceral motion of both quarks and gluons (including all their virtual apparitions) inside a static atom core (that doesn't travel if compared with the observer), and make quanto-relativistic comparisons among the viscera of different atoms by using vectorized group theory and combinatorics. Also we have to analyze all the different fields and try to create a mathematical model that allows all subsequent fields be expressed as aspects of the "superfield".

quoted by him

We should add more data on this subject! The main article isn't analytical enough! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4109:6700:4CE4:9261:7DC2:6BE2 (talk) 16:11, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Steve Weinberg, journalist

There is a Steve Weinberg who is a journalist, and a separate person from the subject of this article. Here are some links related to him that I am parking here in case we ever make an article for him. He is currently linked as Steve Weinberg (journalist).

• https://steveweinbergauthor.com/
• https://www.c-span.org/person/?steveweinberg

KConWiki (talk) 20:28, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Death

There are some rumors about his death today. Can someone confirm?Almuhammedi (talk) 13:07, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Right now is everywhere on twitter by several trusted sources. I think it should be real.--Pra1998 (talk) 13:33, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

If it's correct, then it will still be correct in a few days - so updating the article can wait for a reliable reference to include as well. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 13:52, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree.--Pra1998 (talk) 13:54, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

I think this is a case for WP:IAR. Yes, tweets in general aren't reliable sources, but the tweets are from people whom I'd consider reliable sources:

• Lawrence Wright [1]
• Sean M. Carroll [2]
• Brian Greene [3]
• John Horgan [4]
• Quanta Magazine [5]
• William Rory Coker (colleague of Weinberg at UT Austin) [6]: "Here at the UT physics department we have lost our most treasured member, Prof. Steven Weinberg. He died in the ICU of a local hospital late last evening."
• Lawrence Krauss [7]
• Mike Boylan-Kolchin (colleague of Weinberg at UT Austin) [8]

We should use these tweets as sources for now. Other reliable sources will be available soon. — Chrisahn (talk) 16:20, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Twitter is not a reliable source.Matt Campbell (talk) 16:58, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

The point is that we know for sure that he died. When there is no dispute about that and a reliable source is only required as a formality instead of actually verifying that he really did die, then one can invoke WP:IAR and mention that he died, refer to a reliable twitter feed, say the one to Quanta Magazine or the editor of the New Yorker, and later when an article in a reliable source appears we can replace the twitter announcement by the reliable source. Count Iblis (talk) 17:10, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I wrote above. But if so many reliable people (including colleagues of Weinberg, who even report details of his death) all say the same thing on Twitter, it's a case for WP:IAR: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." It's extremely unlikely that all these people are wrong. We can be sure that Weinberg has died. There's no good reason for us to not include his death in the article. — Chrisahn (talk) 17:11, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

I find it very odd that a journalist tweeted about this first, yet there have been no news articles about it - you'd think that would be something a journalist would do rather than tweeting! So it's suspicious, even if many people have tweeted about it. No harm will come to Wikipedia if we simply wait a day or two for a reliable reference, if they are forthcoming. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:26, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Nothing odd about it. Most journalists use Twitter, and writing a tweet is much faster than getting something published on a Friday night. Do you really think people like Lawrence Wright (The New Yorker) and John Horgan (National Geographic, Scientific American, The New York Times, etc.) would write these tweets if they had any doubts? And William Rory Coker, a colleague of Weinberg, even had the details – "He died in the ICU of a local hospital late last evening". There's no reasonable doubt that Weinberg has died. This clearly is a case of WP:IAR and WP:NOTBURO. — Chrisahn (talk) 17:39, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

There is no harm in waiting, and plenty of work that could be done improving the rest of the article, if you wanted. Mike Peel (talk) 17:41, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

There is harm in waiting. Not a great deal, but there's no reasonable doubt that Weinberg has died, and we should update the article. Wating for more reliable sources to catch up on a weekend is not a good reason. By the way, Mathrubhumi has a short article [9], referencing some of the tweets I listed above. (Regarding "improving the rest of the article" – please don't change the subject.) — Chrisahn (talk) 17:47, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Let's wait. There might be cases where Twitter suffices as a reliable source if no other is available, by WP:IAR. I think I have used Twitter as a source a few times, too. But never for something as consequential as a person's death. WP:BLP asks for special care in such cases. There have been false reports of deaths before, those can have negative consequences for the people involved (the not-yet-deceased, their relatives, the people quoted...). That should be avoided. Waiting for a reliable source to report this within the next few hours (if it's true) won't hurt anyone. Renerpho (talk) 17:52, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

I found this, but I'm not sure if it will help.

That article does nothing but repeat some of the Twitter posts. Renerpho (talk) 18:04, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

References