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ZETA is perhaps one of the most (in)famous machines in the history of fusion power. I think I've got the relevant information and avoided most of the sins of omission, except in the operational history sections (which just aren't well covered, sadly). I am worried about prose, however.
Thanks, Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:15, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Finetooth comments: This is a fascinating account. In terms of prose, I found it easy to read, though I am only slightly familiar with many of the technical terms. It would be good to have a content expert look over this too; I can comment on Manual of Style issues but can say nothing useful about the physics. Here are my suggestions for further improvement.
Heads and subheads
- WP:MOSHEAD advises against repeating the main words of the title in the heads and subheads and suggests making each head and subhead unique within a page. Also, Wikepedia's telegraphic heads generally leave out "the", "a", and "an". Thus, under the "History" head, I would suggest removing "The" from "The pinch concept" and changing "Early pinch results" to "Early results". Also, the ZETA head should be changed to something else if possible.
Sourcing
- In order to meet the WP:V guidelines, the whole article should be supported by reliable sources. Although most of this article appears to be adequately sourced, some paragraphs are without support. In addition, an in-line citation in the middle of a paragraph provides no support for claims made later in the paragraph. My rule of thumb is to provide a source for every paragraph as well as every set of statistics, every direct quotation, and every unusual claim. For example, the claims in these sentences need support: "By 1951 there were numerous pinch devices in operation; Cousins and Ware had built several follow-on machines, Tuck built his Perhapsatron, and another team at Los Alamos built a linear machine known as Columbus. It was later learned that Fuchs had passed on the UK work to the Soviets, and they had started a pinch program as well."
Lead
- "which sees continued development to this day." - Words like "now", "current", "today" and phrases like "to this day" are problematic in Wikipedia articles because what is current in 2011 may not be current in, say, 2014. In this case, I think I would just delete "to this day".
- "US researchers questioned ZETA's results, which was initially dismissed by UK observers as jingoism, but over time similar US experiments demonstrated the same neutron bursts at temperatures that were clearly not high enough for fusion." - This is a bit awkward because it seems to suggest that the results were "jingoism". Suggestion: "When US researchers questioned ZETA's results, their comments were initially dismissed by UK observers as jingoism, but over time similar US experiments demonstrated the same neutron bursts at temperatures that were clearly not high enough for fusion."
Conceptual development
- "The simplest device to understand is a tube placed inside the open core of a solenoid. The solenoid created a magnetic field running down the center of the tube. An electric charge passed through the gas will turn it into a low temperature plasma, and the plasma will follow the magnetic lines, confining itself to the center of the tube." - This needs a citation to a reliable source. Without a source, the explanation appears to be coming from Wikipedia in violation of WP:NOR guidelines.
Early pinch results
- "*"In 1950 Fuchs admitted to turning UK and US atomic secrets over to the USSR." - Link USSR to Soviet Union on first use? Readers under 20 might not recognize the abbreviation.
- "The Imperial team under Ware was set up at the Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) labs at Aldermaston while the Oxford team under Thonemann were moved to Harwell." - Should "The Imperial team under Ware were" instead of "was" for consistency?
- "Perhaps the earliest photograph of the kink instability in action – the 3 by 25 pyrex tube at Aldermaston" - Add the units to the caption; that is, 3 by 25 centimetres? Also, explain what is being measured; e.g., radius of the torus, diameter of the tube? Even looking at the license page for the image does not make this entirely clear to me.
ZETA
- Would it be useful to convert metric units to Imperial, at least in places like this: "had an internal bore of 1 meter diameter and a major radius of 3 meters"? This could become "had an internal bore of 1.0 metre (3.3 ft) in diameter and a major radius of 3.0 metres (9.8 ft), over three times the size of previous devices".
- "currents up to 200,000 Amps" - Spell out, abbreviate, and link on first use, i.e., 200,000 amperes (amps).
Fusion
- "This position had been brought forward by Tuck himself, who stated that stabilized pinch looked so promising that releasing data before we knew one way or the other was premature." - Who is the "we" in this sentence?
- Spell out UKAEA and abbreviate United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority on first use? Or am I just not seeing the first instance?
Release
- "Papers from the rest of the world ignored the US efforts, Radio Moscow went so far to publicly congratulate them while failing to mention the US results at all." - It's not clear who "them" refers to in this sentence.
Retraction
- I would merge the one-sentence orphan that begins this section with the paragraph below it.
- "ZETA was always known as an example of British folly.[34][14][35]" - Series of citations are usually arranged in ascending order; i.e., [14][34[35].
Success through failure
- "becoming the most studied device today" - Maybe "most studied device in the early 21st century" to avoid the ambiguity of "today"?
Notes
- Citations 11, 17, 19, 24, 28, 35, 38, 39, 40, and 44 are incomplete. Citations to Internet sources should include author, title, publisher, date of publication, URL, and date of most recent access, if all of these are known or can be found. It's always possible to add the date of most recent access, for example.
- Wikipedia house style takes preference over source house style when it comes to ALL CAPs in titles. For example, "BRITAIN CONFIRMS MAJOR ATOM GAIN" in citation 20 should be rendered as "Britain Confirms Major Atom Gain". Ditto for the other similar titles in citations.
References
- The author names should be last name first; e.g., Thomson, George.
- The entries should be arranged alphabetically by author's last name.
- The entries for books should include the place of publication. If you don't have this information in your notes, you can usually find it via WorldCat.
I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. Since 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) 03:15, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
North8000 comments
First, to understand my biases/strengths/weaknesses, I'm engineering/scientific, eat up and teach engineering/scientific, know a tiny bit about fusion, and near-nothing about the subject of the article.
Second, on behalf of all Wikipedia readers, thank you for the immense amount of work and information you have put into this article!
Third, with that perspective having been established, I hope that my directness is of some value. My one vague comment/complaint that it it's style is sort of like "I'll let you listen to my conversation on this" instead of having empathy with the reader and focus on informing the reader. Of course, I know that is not your intent or attitude, I'm just talking about wording and nature/structure of statements. To give a few examples, the section titles seem to be witty/conversational but undescriptive, and the article seems to be lacking in direct definitions, and direct explanatory and overview type statements. For example, I read 1,000+ words on the pinch concept, and nowhere in there did I see direct statement/overview/definition of what the pinch concept is. Again, hopefully my 2 cents helps a little, and please feel free to ignore my 2 cents :-)
Again, on behalf of all Wikipedia readers, thank you for the immense amount of work and information you have put into this article! Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:39, 25 January 2011 (UTC)