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Stephen Hawking

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I've listed this article for peer review because I'd like to push it further on the path towards FA. It's only recently got its GA classification, and is one of those wonderful articles that had arisen through many thousands of editors making one or two changes, I'd like to shepherd it as far towards FA as I can. :)

Thanks, Fayedizard (talk) 16:25, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The article currently characterizes Hawking's field of research as "cosmology and quantum gravity". To me this seems to miss his momentous contribution to (classical) general relativity. Some of these contribution could (with some stretching) be classified as either cosmology or quantum gravity, but some certainly cannot. The most immediate example, is his work on the singularity theorems, especially as it relates to black holes. Some alternative phrasing seems to be in order. (Still think about what would be the best alternative.)TR 15:31, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Will happily take your judgement on this - had a bit of a browse for a source that gave a definite answer but not much came up - let me know if you think of any alternative phrasing :) Fayedizard (talk) 12:54, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Though this is a biography, it is of a scientist. Should this be under Natural sciences and mathematics peer reviews ?--Harizotoh9 (talk) 23:38, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Entirely happy for it to be moved that would be fine :) Fayedizard (talk) 12:54, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment regarding citation style, adapted from my talk page:
Some of the articles do not display their titles inside quote marks, and some cited works are not italicised. An example of both problems: Professor Stephen Hawking quotes on God and Religion, Age of the Sage. Another example is The Observer (needs italics). The wikilinks for books and cites are not consistent. Sometimes Running Press is wikilinked, sometimes not. Same with Bantam Press. (I just noticed that "Professor Hawking's Universe" is not listed under "Films and series".) Also, you will need a page number for the V-2 landing near the Hawking home in London (page 3, I think.)
  • I expect that the Star Trek book will not be seen as important enough to be included in the Bibliography.
Understood, I'd like to leave it in for now - It was such a faff finding a source that wasn't IMDB that I was quite proud of it...? Fayedizard (talk) 13:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Um, I'm not currently seeing any double periods at the moment - possible this went away following some other changes...Fayedizard (talk) 13:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
DoneFayedizard (talk) 13:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sometimes Guardian is capitalised, sometimes it is italicised, and sometimes it is written in web style as guardian.co.uk, and italicised.
I believe this is now fixed... Fayedizard (talk) 13:15, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The BBC is not named as the sources in "The Stephen Hawking Building..." cite, and the notional article title is not inside quote marks.
Done :) Fayedizard (talk) 13:15, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "St Albans School Website" is not the name of the cited page; it is "Hawking Lectures Sign Off with Dinner".
Done :) Fayedizard (talk) 13:15, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In most cases, the date of the cited piece is in parentheses, but this is not the case for The Observer, the Charles Arthur piece, the "Man must conquer" piece, and the Cambridgenetwork.co.uk piece,
Fixed for Observer, Charles Arthur has been removed, but in general this appears to be a issue with the {{cite news}}template when sources don't have an author - compare
  • "Man must conquer other planets to survive, says Hawking". Daily Mail. Associated Newspapers. 13 June 2006. Retrieved 16 February 2012. and;
  • guy, some (13 June 2006). "Man must conquer other planets to survive, says Hawking". Daily Mail. Associated Newspapers. Retrieved 16 February 2012..
I'm not sure what to do about this... :( any ideas? Fayedizard (talk) 13:15, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm... I guess we live with it. Binksternet (talk) 16:48, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]


  • which incidentally is titled "Time to unveil Corpus Clock", not "News from Cambridge UK".
DoneFayedizard (talk)
I believe I've now put all the footnotes into cite templates, I'm planning to do this for the books he's written as well but wanted to get a little bit more feedback about that section anyway - this should have sorted out some of the above in the process... Fayedizard (talk) 12:54, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome - this is the sort of detailed review that the article really needs - will do some inline replies assuming you don't mind. On touched on it with today's editing but will be back soon. Fayedizard (talk) 12:54, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I see some other things I will post here about later today. Finetooth (talk) 18:22, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments

edit

Finetooth comments: Thanks for your work on this interesting and important article. I can't comment on the physics and mathematics directly, but I'm sure that the explanations of Hawking's scientific ideas need to be supported by reliable sources. When I saw that in the "Career" section some of the explanations seemed to come from nowhere, I thought it important to point this out. That's what I would fix first, and you might need the help of a scientist to point you to the best sources. Who has explained those ideas most clearly for the general public, insofar as that is possible? I have quite a few other suggestions, listed below.

Lead

  • Generally, it's not necessary to include inline citations to sources for claims made in the lead. If the lead is a summary of the main text sections (as it should be, according to WP:LEAD), the claims appear in the main text and should be sourced there rather than in the lead.
Done - also very useful exercise as it was obvious when something was in the lede but not in the text :) Fayedizard (talk) 15:07, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for 30 years, taking up the post in 1979 and retiring on 1 October 2009. He is now Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. He is also a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and a Distinguished Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario." - This uses too many capital letters, an ambiguous "now", and repetition of the University of Cambridge. Maybe this: "Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for 30 years, taking up the post in 1979 and retiring from it on 1 October 2009. Subsequently, he became research director at the university's Centre for Theoretical Cosmology. He is also a fellow of Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge and a distinguished research chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario"?
DoneFayedizard (talk) 09:15, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "these include the runaway best seller A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times best-sellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks" - The combination of "runaway best seller", "best-sellers" and "record-breaking" are a bit much. I would tone this down one notch to "these include A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times best-sellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks".
DoneFayedizard (talk) 09:15, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The last two paragraphs of the lead are one-sentence orphans. It shouldn't be hard to beef them up a bit to include something about his other scientific investigations and his family life.
DoneFayedizard (talk) 09:15, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Early life

  • "As University College did not have a mathematics fellow at that time, it would not accept applications from students who wished to read that discipline." - This is a minor issue, but North Americans and perhaps others might not understand the word "read" when used in this way. Would "study" be better?
DoneFayedizard (talk) 09:15, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Blockquotes are generally used for quotations of four lines or more on a computer screen. I wouldn't set one- and two-liners off in blockquotes.
Reduced to fit under 40 words and done. Fayedizard (talk) 09:15, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Research fields

  • To keep articles from looking and feeling choppy, it's generally a good idea to avoid one-sentence orphan paragraphs. Two possibilities are to merge or to expand. Three of the paragraphs in this section are orphans.
Done (amongst other big changes that occured in the section)Fayedizard (talk) 15:07, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "He supplied a mathematical proof, along with Brandon Carter, Werner Israel and D. Robinson, of John Wheeler's no-hair theorem – namely, that any black hole is fully described by the three properties of mass, angular momentum, and electric charge." - This needs a citation to a reliable source. My rule of thumb is to provide an inline citation for every paragraph as well as every direct quotation, every set of statistics, and every unusual claim. If a paragraph has an inline citation in the middle somewhere, that citation does not cover the remainder of the paragraph, which may need additional sourcing.
Cited Fayedizard (talk) 15:07, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Paragraphs 5, 6, and 7 of this section need sources. Since they lack sources, the claims (explanations) seem to be coming from a Wikipedia editor rather than a reliable source.
DoneFayedizard (talk) 11:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thorne–Hawking–Preskill bet

  • The first paragraph lacks citation(s) to reliable sources.
DoneFayedizard (talk) 11:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Awards and honours

  • The lower sections of the article are list-y. This particular list, I think, might be better if converted to a two-sentence prose paragraph. Something like "Early awards include... " and "Awards since 2000 are... " might do it.
So I'm not entirely sure one-way or the other on this - personally I think there might be a little two much information the paragraphs to be clear... if you don't mind I'll leave this one hanging and see if anyone else raises it - to try and compensate for the list-y-ness I've reduced the publications part down somewhat, hope that helps. Fayedizard (talk) 15:28, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Personal life

  • I'd recommend shortening and combining the four short paragraphs at the end of this section into perhaps two paragraphs. I'm not sure the quote about IQ is important enough to include. From the context of the article, readers already know that he is unusually intelligent.
Removed IQ bit, combined paragraphs :) Fayedizard (talk) 23:36, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Other

  • Generally, it's sufficient to link an uncommon term no more than once in the lead and perhaps once again in the main text. I would not, for instance, link A Brief History of Time multiple times or the names of people like Leonard Mlodinow.
  • The lists in the article, including things like "Bibliography" and "Further reading" should be arranged alphabetically. The bibliography order should be last name first.
Done (with the exception of awards and publications which are both arranged by data at the moment...) Fayedizard (talk) 11:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The link checker at the top of this review page finds one dead URL in the citations and a couple that are marked "forbidden". The forbidden ones might need to be identified as "subscription only".
Done (resulted in more accurate content as well)Fayedizard (talk)
  • Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)
To the best of my ability *worries* Fayedizard (talk) 11:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 20:22, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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