User:JocK

Started contributing to Wikipedia (in earnest) June 2006. So far I have mainly contributed (and initiated)

suit combinations that occur in the game of bridge

. (See, however, the section "Beware of OR-fundamentalists" below.)

I am a starter and much less a completer. As I have strong faith in the 'wiki process', I experience little thresholds in initialising new articles. I do post immature articles and love to see these grow and improve thanks to your contributions. When an article is in an early stage of development, I am less interested in details, spelling, lay-out, formatting, etc. This 'slopiness' does not mean that I have any tolerance for content that is factually incorrect.

WikiProjects

I participate in WikiProject Contract bridge, WikiProject Board and Table Games, WikiProject Mathematics, and WikiProject Physics.

Articles I've created

In order of creation. The bold titles refer to contributions that have escaped 'stub-status':

Theodore Jacobson

Beware of OR-fundamentalists

Some Wikipedia editors seem to take the
Suit combinations
, but currently it seems that even this article is under attack.
Personally, I strongly feel that the group of OR-fundamentalists are losing sight of the original intentions^[2] of the no-OR policy, and are pushing Wikipidia in a wrong direction. However, I don't have the time nor the energy to keep combatting this. Let's see how thing develop. JocK 20:26, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

^ Yes, that indeed means that you would not be allowed to include in a Wikipedia article - say - the result 2,007*2,007 = 4,028,049, in case you have obtained this result in Excel and you can't find a reputable source for this specific multiplication result. Your argument that you have tested your Excel worksheet against published results for all squares up to 100*100 will not impress them...

^ Wikipedia's co-founder, Jimbo Wales, has described the origin of the original research policy as follows: "The phrase 'original research' originated primarily as a practical means to deal with physics cranks, of which of course there are a number on the Web. The basic concept is as follows: It can be quite difficult for us to make any valid judgment as to whether a particular thing is true or not. It isn't appropriate for us to try to determine whether someone's novel theory of physics is valid; we aren't really equipped to do that. But what we can do is check whether or not it actually has been published in reputable journals or by reputable publishers. So it's quite convenient to avoid judging the credibility of things by simply sticking to things that have been judged credible by people much better equipped to decide. The exact same principle will hold true for history." (Wales, Jimmy. "Original research", December 3, 2004)

Did you know...

... that a bridge-playing robot managed to defeat two reigning European bridge champions?

... that the self-teaching robots
were analyzed playing the game?

... that upon
any amount above 43, but not 43
?

... that in recent years the alcoholic beverage ouzo has been subject of intense scientific study?

... that due to the subtly non-local nature of
quantum reality, apparent telepathy can be achieved in games
between separated players ?

... that the preceding DYK - whilst on Wikipedia's
once every 6 seconds
?

... that you don't need to go through the hassle of writing a
Main page?

On

31 July, 2006, Did you know? on Wikipedia's Main Page was updated with a fact from the article Computer bridge

, which I created.

Wikipedia

On

7 August, 2006, Did you know? on Wikipedia's Main Page was updated with a fact from the article Backgammon opening theory

, which I created.

Wikipedia

On 2 february, 2008, Did you know? on Wikipedia's Main Page was updated with a fact from the article Ouzo effect, which I created.

Wikipedia

On

4 December, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Quantum pseudo-telepathy

, which I created.

Wikipedia

And did you know ... that you can also suggest interesting facts from recently created articles?

Wikipedia, its strengths and weaknesses

An excellent essay on the history of Wikipedia, and how Wikipedia captures history: Roy Rosenzweig in The Journal of American History, Vol. 93, Number 1 (June, 2006), p. 117-46.

Interesting User-pages

Views of spacetime along the world line of a rapidly accelerating observer in a Newtonian universe. The events ("dots") that pass the horizontal line are the current events visible to the observer.

Views of spacetime along the world line of a rapidly accelerating observer in a relativistic universe. The events ("dots") that pass the two diagonal lines in the bottom half of the image (the past light cone of the observer in the origin) are the events visible to the observer.

User:Rocchini : Lots of beautiful math-related graphics. I like his moving sofa animation!

User:Oleg Alexandrov/Pictures : Some more nice math graphics.

User:JasonHise : Animated 4D graphics.

User:Tetracube : More 4D stuff.

User:Michael Hardy : Originator of many great articles on math.

User:Tomruen : A page with thought-provocative graphs.

User:Cyp : Some more polyhedra. More interestingly, Cyp also appears to be the creator of two beautiful animations on Galilean and Lorentz transformations - see animations to the left and right:

Vertical direction indicates time. Horizontal indicates distance (only one spatial dimension is taken into account), and the thick dashed line is the spacetime trajectory ("world line") of the observer. The small dots indicate specific (past and future) events in spacetime.

The slope of the world line (deviation from being vertical) gives the relative velocity to the observer. Note how in both pictures the view of spacetime changes when the observer accelerates. In the Newtonian description these changes are such that time is absolute: the movements of the observer do not influence whether an event occurs in the 'now' (i.e. whether an event passes the horizontal line through the observer). However, in the relativistic description the observability of events is absolute: the movements of the observer do not influence whether an event passes the light cone of the observer. Notice that with the change from a Newtonian to a relativistic description, absolute time is no longer applicable: events move up-and-down in the figure depending on the acceleration of the observer.

User:Fred Hsu Another stunning animation: a dynamic random dot autostereogram. (Have a look yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stereogram_Tut_Animated_Shark.gif)

Places I've been to

I've worked and lived in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. Including visits and holidays, I have been to 34 nations spread over the same four continents: