Talk:Physics#The scientific method

In the History section, shouldn't there be a separate section about 21st-century physics? Because the 20th century section ends with the discovery of the Higgs boson, an option would be to rename "20th century" into "20th and 21st century".

Hi {{U|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):

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)

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

::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)

I added {{tl|Use Oxford spelling}}. User Johnjbarton objected on grounds that language tags are "always" contentious, but did not base this objection in policy. Another user changed the tag to {{tl|Use American English}} as per MOS:RETAIN. I have no objection to this. cagliost (talk) 06:33, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

:Thank you for opening this topic. That is the right way to settle these dumb language issues. Contentious issues are settled on Wikipedia by Wikipedia:Consensus.

:I agree with {{tl|Use American English}} per MOS:RETAIN. I assume @ZergTwo agrees. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:33, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

::I do. ZergTwo (talk) 23:59, 19 June 2025 (UTC)