Talk:Albert Einstein in popular culture

Move Personal Life section?

Any reason the Personal Life section should be here instead of the main article? It's not about popular culture at all. --RDBury (talk) 04:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• Moved the section--RDBury (talk) 09:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Back to the Future

Would the fact Docs dog on Back to the Futures name is Einstein be in here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.233.103.113 (talk) 23:39, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Paragraph vs. Chart/Bullets

Related to the paragraph "Albert Einstein has been the subject of or inspiration for many novels, films and plays..." The list of references looks strange in this paragraph. It seems we say "he was also in", "was the subject of", "so and so portrayed" a few times. Should we remove this paragraph and instead use a chart or bullet list? Perhaps we can keep the paragraph as a narrative and also add a summary bullet list in another section? Mkrupnic (talk) 13:55, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Einstein mania?

I've read several biographies, and they all mention an Einstein mania during the 20s. I wonder why this isn't to be found here or anywhere on Wikipedia. Paradoctor (talk) 10:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Insignificance (1985)

The Nicholas Roeg movie Insignificance should be mentioned. Paradoctor (talk) 09:00, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Handedness section

The handedness section is currently a mess, with no Reliable Sources for the claim that he was left handed. Two of the sources are to a palmistry website (!), and the third, used as a source for autopsy-based lefthandedness, is at most suggestive rather than definitive. I am open to comments here, but if nothing is suggested, I am going to radically redo that section. --MelanieN (talk) 19:31, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Lacking reliable sources, perhaps it's a good idea to radically dump the section. - DVdm (talk) 22:01, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for agreeing that it's a problem. If I can find some reliable sources I'd rather radically redo it, with factual information on the subject - since there is a widespread belief [1][2] that he was left handed. --MelanieN (talk) 00:19, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

There, I rewrote it. I had wondered why it was in this article (Popular Culture), but it appears it does belong here - since the widespread belief in his left-handedness turns out to be a popular myth. --MelanieN (talk) 01:23, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Good job and properly sourced, although I still think that the entire section could be dumped per lack of notability. But then again, i.m.o. that goes for the entire article, being a mere list of insignificant not-even-factoids. But hey... it keeps the main article clean and stable, right? :-) — Cheers - DVdm (talk) 08:44, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm tempted to add a sentence to the "early life" section of the main article (with appropriate references), pointing out that the "left handed" and the "poor student who flunked math" traditions are both false. Still thinking about that. What do you think? --MelanieN (talk) 15:36, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

On further thought, I think I will add it. According to Google this is one of the most Frequently Asked Questions about Einstein. Our main article is viewed by thousands of people a day and I can well believe some of them are looking for an answer to the handedness question. Better they should get an answer based on Reliable Sources, rather than just somebody's opinion as they will get at many "answers" type sites. It looks as if the "poor student" myth is adequately addressed at that article already, although it is not explicitly debunked. --MelanieN (talk) 18:55, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I added a sentence to the main article, and it is now being discussed at Talk:Albert Einstein/Archive 17#Einstein not left-handed. --MelanieN (talk) 17:03, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Removing 'just passing' references in media.

From wp:In popular culture content, "When trying to decide if a pop culture reference is appropriate to an article, ask yourself the following:

   Has the subject acknowledged the existence of the reference?
   Have multiple reliable sources pointed out the reference?
   Did any real-world event occur because of the cultural element covered by the reference?

If you cannot answer "yes" to at least one of these, you are just adding trivia. Get all three, and you are adding genuinely encyclopedic content."

I have removed significant cultural references which did not satisfy at least two of the above criteria, keeping trivia only encourages more drive-by additions. Moreover, there must be numerous just 'passing references' to him in the various media throughout the world, we need to filter out the few which pass the criteria and are actually notable. -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 12:25, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

I think those criteria are too strict; these are Notability requirements, and Notability is not required for every fact in an article; Notability is a requirement for a standalone article. However, I do think we should require a citation to prove that some independent source has taken notice of the item. I think we can and should keep any mention that has been taken note of by a third party, and delete any that are completely uncited.

Given either your criteria or mine, I don't understand how you chose what to delete in the article and what to keep. You deleted one of the few items that actually did have a citation: The "Star Wars character Yoda's eyes were modeled after Einstein's." I think it should be restored. On the other hand, you let stand a dozen or more trivial and uncited items that I think could be deleted. Want to take another look? --MelanieN (talk) 15:14, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for replying, sure I'll reconsider putting that back but I'm still in doubt. I still feel, though being cited, that's a indirect and passing reference which should just be in the Yoda article. Do you still feel it's really relevant over here? What I did was just a quick clean-up of the obvious depictions which didn't seem depict him in any broad sense, cited or not. I still have to see if I can find references for the rest which seem like proper cultural references, then again I'm still not sure myself. By what you said, won't there still be a lot which are covered by good sources but yet be trivial, shouldn't we exclude those?

(Example: In x movie, y character was said to have the "brains of Einstein".) -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 17:05, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, let's start by either removing or citing the ones that appear to be both trivial AND uncited. Then we can talk about whether to delete some of the cited ones. I do believe the Yoda item should be re-inserted. Even if it is in the Yoda article (as I assume it is - or should be), the Einstein-Yoda connection is well known[3] and deserves to be here IMO. --MelanieN (talk) 17:16, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Okay, done. I've added refs and tagged statements which seem to lack notability/don't seem relevant enough with {{cn}}/{{better source needed}} tags. I think they should be removed soon. -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 19:05, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Great job! --MelanieN (talk) 21:28, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I might later also rearrange the content further, since currently there is a lot of material which is presented only in the lead and no where else. That needs to be moved below. -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 06:20, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

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Notable omission

I was surprised that the section on depictions of Einstein in music did not mention the song "Einstein a go go" by the British synthpop band Landscape. Vorbee (talk) 21:51, 30 November 2017 (UTC)