Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Periodic table (anti)

Periodic table (anti) was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was to delete.

As was already noted on the article's talk page, this is not encyclopedic content. It just duplicates the information in the regular periodic table, has one working link to anti-hydrogen and lots of links to anti-xxx articles. --Pjacobi 14:59, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Does such a concept as a periodic table of anti-matter exist in the real world, or is it something we have made up at Wikipedia? If the latter is not true, i.e. there is such a concept in the real world, then I would vote keep - just add a "stub" message. zoney ♣ talk 10:53, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Antimatter, if it would be prepared in large enough quantities to measure, would behave just the same as ordinary matter, and the postulated periodic table of anti-matter is just a duplication of the normal periodic table. OTOH, it is most unlikely that a signifanct number of anti-elements will be prepared in large enough quantities, just because no new information is expected from this experiment which would be rather difficult and costly. So the periodic table of anti-matter is in some sense both redundant and non-existing. --Pjacobi 11:30, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• Probably delete, unless someone decides to rescue it - it's linked to in the periodic tables box. Incidentally, this has a superior layout to the regular page IMO. zoney ♣ talk 16:26, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• I agree delete...also this design should be used for the standard periodic table, it's more readable. I don't think we have enough information to write even 30 articles about anti-elements. Maybe in 40 years...[[User:BrokenSegue|BrokenSegue]] 20:58, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• May serve as a placeholder pending creation of more antimatter elements. Weak keep. - Mike Rosoft 23:15, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Agree with Mike, Keep as a placeholder type article in a series. —siroχo 00:10, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. NeoJustin 00:56, Nov. 17, 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, has potential to be encyclopedic, even if it's mostly just a placeholder now. Shane King 01:14, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, or anti-delete if you prefer. I think there's a good physics article here, and antimatter research is real stuff. Is it a great article? No, but it's good enough. Lord Bob 01:37, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)
  • to Shane and Lord Bob.. I don't see that there is enough material that can be said about this subject now that isn't already said in the anti-matter article. If we kept articles about all the potentially worthwhile subjects, there would be no such a thing as a vanity article. Everybody might become famous someday.. Mozzerati 20:18, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)
• I don't see how you could make a periodic table of anti-elements, as we haven't gotten enough information about anti-matter to see if the periods and families add up the same way... I suppose it could have a list of two elements as the periodic table (anti-hydrogen and anti-helium). 132.205.15.5 01:51, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • I would actually like to know more about whether this "Periodic table (anti)" is entirely ficticious / a concoction of the contributer. If not, I do see some value for it as a placeholder, or at least to explain how such a table would be different or similar to the ordinary PT. zoney ♣ talk 13:36, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. It's very pretty, but it's enough to note that, so far as known, the periodic table of antimatter is the same as that of matter (if that's even true). If it's not true, then maybe we'll need this. --Improv 05:40, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• delete strongly. This is not close to verification yet. It's not yet been possible to produce sufficiently large quantities of anti-matter to carry out the proper tests. I think that the only reasonable element to include would be anti-hydrogen. All other elements would be misleading speculation. If it should be written then it should just say "people speculate that anti-matter could create elements equivalent to those with matter, but awaits further experimental work". Mozzerati 20:40, 2004 Nov 17 (UTC)
• delete just a duplication of the proper table with a few negative numbers in. Dunc|☺ 21:32, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • The atomic numbers are still positive in it. It's just that they represent the number of antiprotons, instead of protons, per nucleus. Factitious 01:48, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. Maybe we could merge it, but it just doesn't seem worth the effort to create the article. Anyway, it is practically useless. Bart133 21:51, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Keep if substantial evidence is found by the end of the vfd voting period that the antimatter periodic table is the topic of peer-reviewed research. Otherwise it's original research and so it should be deleted. Wile E. Heresiarch 05:57, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • A quick search for "antimatter periodic table" reveals that the term was used by Gerald P. Jackson in "An intense source of antiprotons for antimatter research at FNAL", Hyperfine Interactions, Volume 109, Issue 1-4, 1997, Pages 53 - 61. I'll see if I can find that at a physics library tomorrow — it may have some information that could be incorporated into the article. Factitious 01:48, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)
    • This just seals my keep vote, to me. The fact that it's being used in scholarly publications (and that may not be the only one) justifies some sort of article there. Lord Bob 19:42, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

I have consulted said publication. The phrase has been used once in one article as a short hand for "further multi-particle fermionic antimatter particles". It isn't a real scientific thing. --Bucephalus 23:10, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• delete. this isn't scientific. there is no such thing as the anti-matter periodic table. the only discovered multi-partcle antimatter particles are: Antihydrogen, antideuterium , antitritium , and antihelium. the two articles i have just linked explain the field well. in the article mentioned by Factitious is the phrase "further up the antimatter periodic table" just means that they hope to create further multi-partcle examples of antimatter, not that some "antimatter periodic table" exists within science. i think that wikipedia should describe science especially as accuratly as possible rather than making up things we would like to exist and therefore we should delete this as it is not only unnecessary, it is misleading. --Bucephalus 12:14, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • So the term was just being used informally, not referring to a serious object of study? I suppose that would make this original research, so it should be deleted. Factitious 00:14, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)
• It just occurred to me that it can't be periodic with only one row existing. If antilithium gets created, the idea would make more sense. In any case, unless a better citation than the one I suggested above is found, delete. Factitious 00:14, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)
• Delete --fvw* 07:46, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)
• I moved the basic info contained in this entry - "in theory, if you had enough antimatter, you could have complex anti-nuclei of other anti-elements. These would have the same properties as their positive-matter counterparts. However, since you'd need a star's worth of antimatter to do it, this is thought to be, at best, highly unlikely" - to Antimatter. This entry is now superfluous. Delete. DS 17:27, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. I doubt that anybody doing physics would ever find this useful, and I don't think it clarifies anything for those who are not doing physics. Not scientific, not useful. --Fastfission 23:46, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like other '/delete' pages is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.