Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Spryng

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. No prejudice towards future notability. kur ykh 02:23, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Spryng[edit]

Also nominating:

Non-notable topic, not found with Google or Google Scholar, possible WP:NEO or WP:MADEUP. —Largo Plazo (talk) 15:48, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. —Largo Plazo (talk) 17:07, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete both - nonlinear systems that nobody else bothers to discuss. - Eldereft (cont.) 18:18, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

~~Delete spryng, but for now Neutral sprong~~ The name is certainly covered by WP:NEO, but cubic restoring force actually comes up enough that it may be worth discussing the general case with reference to specific examples. The term sprong does not seem to be in wide circulation, so I would prefer to rename the article; on the other foot, cubic restoring force or x³ spring are less than elegant titles. Nonlinear dynamics (sometimes likened to the study of non-human animals) is important, but I am not at present convinced that this particular example is better treated as a unified article on the differential equation or if we should just mention it as a model system in relevant application-specific articles (especially wherever aerodynamic drag and vibration in wings is treated). Example citations: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] (although some of these actually deal with spring hardening, where a cubic term is added to the linear restoring force as a first approximation to the difference between an ideal spring and something made of matter). A solid reference to a well-developed and decently cited article on the use of this system in teaching or finding it in a standard mathematical handbook or two would push me to keep sprong. - Eldereft (cont.) 18:38, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I cannot find either of these systems treated in Goldstein (ISBN 0201657023) or Arfken & Weber (ISBN 0120598256), indicating that neither is hugely important to modern physics. Perhaps materials engineering or aeronautics source would be better. AlB1337, you say that you attended a few relevant lectures - perhaps the presenters have published notable material? - Eldereft (cont.) 17:44, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Absent better sources, delete both. - Eldereft (cont.) 23:39, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Check the textbook, just because something isn't online doesn't mean it's not worthy. I attended a few lectures discussing sprongs and related materials, the others already had articles (ie constant force springs, metamaterials), but the sprong is a fairly recent addition, maybe I can provide more references? -Albi —Preceding unsigned comment added by AlB1337 (talk • contribs) 19:49, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- The issue isn't whether or not someone used these terms in one textbook or whether the concepts they describe aren't "worthy" under someone's definition. The issues I cited related to Wikipedia's guidelines explained in WP:Notability, WP:Neologism, WP:MADEUP. Also, you wrote in the article that the concept is "popular in materials engineering", but evidently not yet popular enough for anyone to have mentioned it yet anyplace that Google has indexed. —Largo Plazo (talk) 19:52, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Lazgo, it appears that the "spryng" article seems to have compromised the credibility of mine. May I mention that while sprong is indeed a notable concept, a spryng seems to be nothing but a copy-paste of my article. While it is possible to manipulate three dimensional geometry to achieve such a dependence on length, a spryng has no clear way of doing this, and furthermore seems to be plagiarized.
  - Tell me what I can do to prove this article's crediblity, I could maybe post some of the math mentioned, although I have very little knowledge of latex and it would take a while. Also, the differential equations are somewhat complicated and long, which is why I ommitted them. Perhaps you would like me to cite more textbooks that mention this idea?
  - I agree that googling this concept it indeed appears to be made up, but you have to realize this is the initial reason I made the article. Please tell me what I can do to prove its notability, or as you say, prove that it is not a neologism or made up. Perhaps I can post the original discussion between Celaj and Knight? Just give me some ideas, I was shocked to find this article nominated for deletion. -Albi —Preceding unsigned comment added by AlB1337 (talk • contribs) 20:01, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

find two authoritative widely used textbooks. Or perhaps some published lecture notes on the web by authoritative professors? With respect to the MOS page on neologism, I point out the the MOS is not where notability is decided. I have proposed a modification on the talk page there to bring it in line with general policy and guidelines. Finding some concept to be widely used is not OR, just assembling the material for an article. DGG (talk) 22:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

- - - Unfortunately, the word "notability" as used on Wikipedia is misleading because of the ambiguity of the word. If it isn't talked about anywhere, than by Wikipedia's definition, it isn't notable. It isn't a matter of demonstrating its significance despite its being mentioned nowhere. Also, it isn't a matter of whether you've provide enough information about the topic: showing more math would be great if it's a notable topic, but won't help with the notability issue. Now, if you have textbooks to cite, that might be adequate, provided that they meet the requirements. Though I wonder, if the topic is discussed in several textbooks, how has any discussion of it managed to avoid being on the Web?
    - Understood, what you've said about Spryng being a separate issue. I believe the deciding administrator here would have the option of finding in favor of keeping your article and deleting the other, if the consensus should suggest that to be the most appropriate outcome. —Largo Plazo (talk) 01:37, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lazgo, I understand your concerns. The thing is, I'll be honest with you: this is somewhat of an esoteric concept, I think the professors just give us this idea to help us practice with our TI-84's and get us thinking about the nature of materials. That being said, it is mentioned in a few encyclopedias specifically about materials engineering, I'm kind of perplexed as to why it isn't in google as well. I did find an online discussion of sprongs, although he does not mention it by name: http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-149740.html, this is similar to an assignment I had to do, the kx^4 spring was proven to be infeasible due to it violating the second law of thermodynamics (thres both a logical and mathematic explanation for this), I think he just tries avoiding the jargon as it's easily understood without a name.

Also, here's a rather low level textbook that mentions the idea by name: http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:OvflOrCvnO8J:www.gfy.ku.dk/~pditlev/fysik1/Knight_kap11.pdf+%22a+clever+engineer%22+%22sprong%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca&client=firefox-a

I do encourage you to check out the Knight textbook I cited if you get the chance though, it's probably the most understandable thing mentioning this. I'll search for journals as well, it's just kind of late now, but I could go to the library for 20 minutes tommorow. As for lecture notes, they are not available to the public, I'm not sure how i'd go about citing them? Do I cite my professor or what? And the fact that they're inaccessible makes it inverifiable...maybe I could post them somewhere but they're copyrighted, I'll just email my prof and ask where he got the info.

Also, I've been surprised in my recent studies to the degree of information that is NOT available on the internet from google. For example, I had to provide a mechanism for the dehydration of glucose by sulfuric acid to yield carbon and water(for a totally unrelated class). This reaction appears in many chemistry books as it's not very complicated, but the mechanism is not posted ANYWHERE by googling, but a quick trip to the library found it quite easily.

Anyway, if you don't feel that Wikipedia could use an article about something like this, I understand, I just felt it didn't get enough coverage. I don't see the harm in keeping it though, the information is all accurate, and it's a neat concept despite the issues we're having regarding its notability. -Albi Oops, forgot to log in. Last edit is indeed me.

Comment The pdf conversion is incorrect for the above link (it shows a time dependent force); the actual scan does indeed give a problem from a textbook discussing cubic restoring force as being given by a "sprong". I would not say that this is really encyclopedic coverage - the authors' needed a relatively simple analytically solvable system, and chose the name to suggest to students the techniques presumably used in the preceding chapter to derive the simple harmonic oscillator. - Eldereft (cont.) 18:38, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, –Juliancolton ^Tropical ^Cyclone 04:28, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete No independent sources. No brainer. Ddawkins73 (talk) 08:40, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ddawkins, you obviously didn't read the discussion very thoroughly...yes I've been slacking off a bit with finding sources, tommorow for sure, not trying to postpone anything, I'm just incredibly busy :\. --Albi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.48.229.93 (talk) 03:27, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, delete Spryng. I haven't even looked up Sprong. So my bad in that sense, yes. - Ddawkins73 (talk) 11:32, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete both Checked on google, google news, and google scholar, and I can't find any information about these two topics other than this article. I'm not sure what's written in that textbook, but it could easily be the author's own neologisms for the words. I doubt he would expect the physics community at large to use them, since it's apparant that they aren't a part of the physics lexicon. Themfromspace (talk) 22:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.