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	Physics was one of the good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result January 14, 2006 Good article nominee Listed August 15, 2006 Good article reassessment Delisted October 28, 2006 Articles for deletion Speedily kept May 22, 2009 WikiProject peer review Reviewed July 24, 2010 Peer review Reviewed April 1, 2012 Articles for deletion Speedily kept Current status: Delisted good article

Hi Johnjbarton, I am reasonably familiar with the guidance on short descriptions, and do not see how "Scientific field of study" is a better navigational aid than "Study of matter, energy, forces and motion", particularly when Physics is listed along with assorted other scientific fields of study, as can and does happen (and is why I was motivated to change it to a less ambiguous version). Perhaps you could explain your reasoning. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk):

@Pbsouthwood (I can't "Reply" to the previous topic)

The way I understand Short Description is to type "Physics" into search, then ask "What is the shortest way to ensure that readers can pick the right entry?" This is the only criteria.

The reason I prefer "Scientific field of study" is that it is shorter and it avoids endless arguments which ensue if one attempts to condense an entire article into 40 characters. "Study of matter, energy, forces and motion" sounds reasonable, but someone may come along and say, No! physics is only about matter and energy! "Study of matter and energy". If you look through the history of the page you will see that happen here.

To be sure we do end up with discussions like this one on occasion. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:57, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there seems to be some sort of malfunction and the [reply] link is missing. Most strange. However, if you directly edit using the [edit source] link it can probably be replied to in the old way. The [subscribe] link also seems to be missing.

I don't know how familiar you are with Wikipedia:Short description, but there is no hard limit of 40 characters, and there is a requirement for the short description to fulfill a set of WP:SDPURPOSEs, not just a search with "physics" as the only search string. I would be happy to compromise with Study of matter and energy if you prefer hit, as that would distinguish it from biology, chemistry, geology, ecology, astronomy, etc, which are all scientific fields of study. I based the reverted version on the contents of the lead paragraph, which is the usual and recommended way, and which works adequately in most cases. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 17:34, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What is your criteria for "works adequately in most cases"? No purpose listed suggests the short description needs to be a definition. The top purpose is "a very brief indication of the field covered by the article".

I find short descriptions are among the top sources of pointless churn for articles. It will be wonderful when the search bar uses AI instead.

"Study of matter and energy" assumes readers thing of "matter" and "energy" as we do, as fundamental issues, and not as in "what matters to me" and "fossil fuel".

But if you insist, change it and let the churn begin. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:51, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Earth science 102.220.249.243 (talk) 12:29, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The two subsections of History, "Classical" and "Modern" need work. In my opinion they fail to express the history of physics. If we scale the content of the History section to the impact on physics, all of the other subsections combined would amount to two sentences. As they appear here, the bulk of physics, occurring as it did in the 19th and 20th centuries, looks like an after thought.

I think the solution is to do just that: cut all of the pre-Classical content to a summary section and add summary sections to the Classical and Modern based on the many histories of the subfields. I would rename "Classical" to "19th century" and "Modern" to "20th century" and place "Distinction between classical and modern physics" in "20th century". Johnjbarton (talk) 18:25, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I did the renaming part of this. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:54, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Indeed, it's better for Physics#History to be a streamlined version of History of physics. fgnievinski (talk) 02:53, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The history section has more image content than will fit on the right side with the text. I think a better solution would be a pair of images in each of Scientific Revolution, 19th, and 20th centuries (Galileo/Newton) (Maxwell/Boltzmann) (Planck/Einstein). I tried one pairing but I guess the layout needs work. Johnjbarton (talk) 19:37, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]