Talk:Maria Goeppert Mayer/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: LT910001 (talk · contribs) 10:04, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

If there are no objections, I'll take this review. I'll note at the outset I've had no role in editing or creating this article. I welcome other editors at any state to contribute to this review. I will spend a day familiarising myself with the article and then provide an assessment. Kind regards, LT910001 (talk) 10:04, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Drmies per kind request will be taking over this review. LT910001 (talk) 07:57, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

This is very nice of you. I've made a few copy edits, and the editor(s) may note an explanation template in the text. Please see edit summaries as well. For now (I gotta run) let me just say that this looks really good and I have no doubt it can be promoted shortly. Drmies (talk) 20:29, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Here we go:

• 1.a Prose is mostly fine, etc. No plagiarism that I can find. But see below.
• 1.b MOS-compliant.
• 2.a-c: no problems that I can see.
• 3.a-b: no problems.
• 4. plenty neutral.
• 5. plenty stable.
• 6. images are fine.

OK, so there's an "explain" template floating around in the "United States" section--a grammatical/style issue. Needs rephrasing. A bigger hindrance for me is the "Nuclear Shell Model" section. The long blockquote doesn't show up as one because of the image; perhaps moving the image to the right makes it clear that it's a blockquote. But the third paragraph in that section is the problem. Note how it starts "at the same time"--it seems as if this paragraph came from somewhere else. The German scientists are unidentified, and while Jensen is mentioned, Wigner is not. The whole section is (thus) disorganized. Drmies (talk) 01:06, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I've moved the image to the right, and re-worded the "explain" (which I would never have noticed). Wigner is mentioned: These numbers are what Wigner called magic numbers: . Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:25, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

But now the third paragraph starts with a fragment, "German scientists working on solving the same problem." And that paragraph says "In 1963, Goeppert-Mayer and Jensen shared the Nobel Prize for Physics"--and that's where Wigner is not mentioned. Besides, the Nobel Prize is wikilinked twice, and the whole statement duplicates what was already said in the first paragraph. Plus, the chronology is unclear: when were the Germans working on something? When did she collaborate? How did she hook up with them? I think the entire section needs to be reconceived/rewritten. Drmies (talk) 17:06, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I've added some additional dates to make it clearer. I've also added references to the papers, so the readers can read them for themselves. I wish I could source this, but as of 2013, Goeppert-Mayer and Curie are still the only female Nobel laureates in physics. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:53, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Excellent work. I made a tweak or two; please see if you like them. I'm going to have another read-through tonight or tomorrow. Thanks Hawkeye. Drmies (talk) 23:16, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

• Done. Congratulations, Hawkeye7. Drmies (talk) 22:20, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

The article Maria Goeppert-Mayer you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Maria Goeppert-Mayer for comments about the article. Well done! 22:22, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, but I missed one or two things. Hawkeye, I can't find the sexism angle in any of the references that were provided. I've looked at Sachs and Wigner, and they (naturally--given when those things were written and by whom) don't state it as a reason; they cite the Depression and nepotism. I just read through the relevant sections in Ferry and I don't see it there either. Is it in Dash? If so, please reinstate with the verification. Likewise, is the dean's hatred of women in Dash? If so, please insert the reference; the next citation is three pages from Dash; that hatred could do with a single-page reference. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 01:08, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

  We have three pages from Dash. What do they say?

p. 283: "Maria burned, she could not bear for Joe to be fired, she hated feeling she had been to blame... Just how realistic she was in feeling herself to blame is hard to judge. Neither Herzfeld nor Franck had been fired, only shoved and edged out. It seems clear that many mistakes were made at Hopkins during that period, but Joe's being fired suggests a certain animus directly at him. Joe thought it was possible that the dean of physical sciences, a "he-man geologist" hated women. p. 284: Herzfeld apparently agreed with Maria that she might have been indirectly the cause of Joe's being fired, and as Maria's colleagua and supporter he felt he was also involved, for "there was.. an antifeminine bias among some faculty in the department and perhaps the feeling that three Germans - Maria Franck and I were too many." Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:39, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

• Tweaked the references a bit. Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:49, 23 October 2013 (UTC)