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 | | | Subject: This article: plagiarism !
Posted May 31, 2000 by jb
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  | | This is a ridiculous suggestion.
I'm also a PhD student in theoretical physics, and I was just writing an article about what is (I think) a fairly amusing, fairly widely known fact in Physics. I'm not claiming to be the first person to notice this - I have had this pointed out to me by a number of lecturers, and I'm sure that you could find any number of physics books with this in.
Needless to say, I'd never heard of or read the book you mentioned, but
I've just popped down to the physics library to look at a copy. It's a
book about many-body problems, and does have a total of 3 sentences at the
start which state, as I did, that in Newton's time, the 3-body problem was
insoluble, and since then, with the advent of relativity, quantum
mechanics and field theory, the number of bodies required for an insoluble
problem has dropped zero. In fact, the book appears to attribute this
observation to G.E.Brown, which is in the references as unpublished
lecture notes from 1961. However, to suggest plagiarism is to suggest that I copied the above article from the book, which only has 3 sentences about this, and just states the bare facts.
Anyway, the point is, I wrote an article about established historical
fact. The only similarities between what I wrote and what appears in that
book are that we quote the same facts, i.e., I got it right, which I
think is a good thing. As far as I know, you ARE allowed to write about
stuff that has happened, and is common knowledge, and to put your own spin
on it. I was never intending to put across the article as something new
that I had just discovered, just telling the general world in my own words
about something which is WIDELY KNOWN TO BE TRUE within the theoretical physics
and history of physics communities.
Sorry for the delay in replying to this - I've been off H2G2 for a while, and had lost my password. The post above was pointed out to me by the Deputy Editor of the guide, with whom I have corresponded on this subject, and she is also happy that the 'plagiarism` charge is invalid. The article could be amended to include an attribution to e.g. G.E.Brown, but that isn't where I heard the facts from.
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| | | Subject: This article: plagiarism !
Posted Jun 13, 2000 by Researcher 126043
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| | Hi jb and vegiman,
I mentioned that I had browsed through that book for my Ph.D. exam, and this exam was why I did not read your replies before. My h2g2 homepage does not contain any information because I am getting enough junk mail already, but at least I use a real name.
Dear jb, I am sorry if I unjustifiedly accused you of plagiarism, but I found the resemblance of your implementations to those in Mattuck's book too striking to be coincidental.
But if - as you state yourself - you consider what you wrote a 'widely known fact in physics', I think you should have made this clear in your initial posting.
Stefan
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| | | Subject: This article: plagiarism !
Posted Jan 6, 2001 by Tefkat
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| | Oh for crying out loud Stefan.
Of course all those facts are widely known in Physics.
Even I, a granny who hasn't *studied* the subject since my A Levels, too many years ago, was aware of them.
Are you suggesting that the authors of your textbooks (for instance) should have mentioned anyone who ever drew their attention to an idea, no matter how fleetingly or long ago?
Those of you who are lucky enough to have been able to afford a degree (and even a PhD  ) may have the time to wade through reams of acknowledgments but we ordinary people read articles such as this for pleasure, rather than out of a belief that we belong to some kind of exclusive club, and rarely wish to be burdened with such relatively ( ) useless information.
The article was amusing, well-written and interesting, and I'm sure it has piqued the interest of at least a few non-physicists. If you feel you can do better please give us all the benefit of your erudition and insight.
Dear Heart, I hope you learn some tolerance when you leave the hallowed halls of Academia and grow up.
Now excuse me. I have to go and bathe the baby. 
BTW: Has it occurred to you that, in the main, the use of pseudonyms on this site may be evidence of (horror) a sense of humour rather than some sort of underhand conspiracy.
Actually, come to think of it, what are you doing on this site if you don't have a sense of humour? Did you get here by mistake after you had tried to reach that OTHER site (hg2 or h2g or summat, I believe )??
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| | | Subject: This article: plagiarism !
Posted Jun 10, 2004 by Nexton
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| | I totaly agree with the author eaven with my limited knowledge on the subject I got that it was his oppion on the research not his study itself.
I also agree with the content, the more I pretend to learn the more apparent it is that there are alot of poeple with a pretty good idea whats goin on. I think it is beyond our comprehinsion (at this point) to get "the big picture". My being limited to 4 dimensions(3+time) kinda inhibits a good visual image.
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| | | Subject: This article: plagiarism !
Posted Jun 13, 2004 by Nexton
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| | A Midsummer Night's Dream. Parrel planes is my hope.\
There are many who think there is a possibility that only milimeters away from our plane is another. The only thing they say can pass through the "membrane" is gravity. Kinda scarry, what is atracting the gravity(pulling it through)? Dark matter is all throughout the known universe.....ouch better not strain my brain it's still early.
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