Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Louis Slotin

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 16:32, 20 December 2007.

Louis Slotin[edit]

I'm nominating this article because I think it meets the featured article criteria. The subject is quite interesting. He was a top scientist on the Manhattan Project, and he, unfortunately, became second person to die as a result of a criticality accident. Nishkid64 (talk) 06:28, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support, excellent article, nice work. Redrocketboy 00:22, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak opposeSupport after copyedit A good article, but even after my attempts to edit the lead and some easy fixes in the body there are still problems with tone, flow, and citations that need to be addressed by a thorough copy-edit. Madcoverboy 07:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I must disagree with your edits to the lead. Per WP:LEAD, the lead of the article "should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article". It must summarize the main points of the entire article, not just some parts. Nishkid64 (talk) 12:23, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • The lead was far too large and specific for the size of the article. "briefly summarize the most important points", "consideration should be given to creating interest in reading the whole article", "Avoid lengthy paragraphs and over-specific descriptions, especially if it is not central to the main facts of whatever the article describes", "Because introductory summations in any information source should not introduce significant material that does not appear in the main text, editors adding new material to the lead should be prepared to add and source it in greater detail in the body." Madcoverboy 15:22, 4 December 2007 (UTC)][reply]
        • "consideration should be given to creating interest in reading the whole article". The current lead creates interest in reading 1 section of the article (the incident). Personally, I thought it was not over-specific. The text you removed just contained educational background, which I felt was necessary. Nishkid64 (talk) 20:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • I've added back the previous lead section. I will try to remove any over-specific details or other material that may not be necessary. Is that okay with you? Nishkid64 (talk) 20:45, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I added the requested citation. I will also see if I can get someone to look at the article. Nishkid64 (talk) 14:40, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - passes FAC criteria in my opinion, assertively referenced, the prose is excellent and the above responses show the nominator is willing to get this to FA. — Rudget speak.work 20:17, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Needs tidying up (1a). Here are random examples.

  • "After the conclusion of World War II, Slotin continued his research at Los Alamos." Spot the three redundant words.
  • "Slotin's radiation dose would be identical to the amount he would have received"—was identical.
  • "Slotin's colleagues rushed him to the hospital, but the irreversible damage had already been done." Remove both "thes". Plus more. Tony (talk) 15:36, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - wonderful article - it seems it needs a copy edit.--Keerllston 21:56, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The article has been copyedited by Awadewit (talk · contribs). There are still some issues that need to be fixed (she noted them on the talk page), but once I get to them, the article should satisfy the 1a issues. Nishkid64 (talk) 07:26, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Oppose Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:42, 19 December 2007 (UTC) Comments by user:Fowler&fowler: I'm afraid (in spite of user:Awadewit's editing) the article has too many deficiencies. It's main problem, as I see it, is that it is insufficiently developed. Most of the article consists of sentences that don't connect with each other. (I will give examples soon.) There are also inaccuracies in the text. In my view, the article needs to be withdrawn, developed much further (and expanded to at least twice its current text size of 11KB), allowed to "simmer" a little, carefully copy-edited again, and then resubmitted. (I am traveling and dependent on the erratic wi-fi's I catch here and there, so my comments will be brief for now.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:42, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From Early Life:

Slotin was the first of three children born to Israel and Sonia Slotin, Yiddish-speaking refugees who had fled the pogroms of Russia to Winnipeg, Manitoba. He grew up in the North End neighborhood of Winnipeg, an area with a large concentration of Eastern European immigrants.

  • When you provide that information in the text, the reader expects you to do something with it. Tell us how his parents' background (especially if the escaped the pogroms) affected his upbringing. Similarly, if he grew up in a large East European neighborhood, the reader expects to be told something distinctive about it. How was it different from growing up somewhere else?
    • See my general comments at the bottom of the FAC. There are no thorough biographical sketches of Slotin, period. Everything I cover is from material available in journals and books. Nishkid64 (talk) 07:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From his early days at Machray Elementary School through his teenage years at St. John's Technical High School, Slotin was an exceptional student. His younger brother, Sam, later remarked that his brother "had an extreme intensity that enabled him to study long hours".

  • How was he an exceptional student? What does that mean? How many students were there in his class? The ability to study long hours is hardly particularly decisive evidence of intensity, especially when it is provided in a brother's reminiscence. We need something more.
    • Academically. For the reasons mentioned above, I can't provide you details of the number of students. As for the quote, Slotin's brother attributed the long hours of studying and concentration to Louis's academic success. I have added that detail after the quote, as clarification. Nishkid64 (talk) 07:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At the age of 16, Slotin entered the University of Manitoba, to pursue his interest in science. During his undergraduate years, he received a University Gold Medal in both physics and chemistry. Slotin received a Bachelor of Science degree in geology from the university in 1932 and a Master of Science degree in 1933.

  • All this doesn't tell us a thing about the person. "pursue his interest in science" It is said as if we had already been told about it. What sort of science? What does it mean to receive a gold medal in physics and chemistry, especially when he seemed to be majoring in geology. (The university couldn't really be handing out "real" gold medals for doing well in subjects one wasn't majoring in.) What did he receive his MS in? All this is too anonymous. We need some real information. Where did he live? Did he socialize? Who were his friends?
    • Reworded to "pursue a degree in science". There are no details of his college life. I will look into the gold medal (I just know that it is awarded for academic achievement in certain fields) and what subject he received his MS in. Nishkid64 (talk) 07:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

With the assistance of one of his mentors, he obtained a fellowship to study at King's College London, under the instruction of A. J. Allmand.

  • What does "With the assistance of one of his mentors" tell us? Who was the mentor? What sort of assistance did she/he give? "under the instruction of A. J. Allmand" Who was A. J. Allmand? The text doesn't come back to Allmand later. What kind of a science did Allmand study or do research in? (I'm assuming, btw, it is "under the supervision" of Allmand.)
    • One of his professors pulled some strings to get Slotin the fellowship to study at King's College. Replaced "under the instruction" to "under the supervision". I added more on Allmand. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a distinguished scholar on photochemistry and electrochemistry. Nishkid64 (talk) 07:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While at King's College, Slotin distinguished himself as an amateur boxer by winning the college's amateur bantam-weight boxing championship.

  • How did he get into boxing? If he won the college's championship, he likely didn't start in graduate school. How come we didn't hear about the boxing in Manitoba? Also, in the British system that I am aware of, graduate students don't really compete in college championships. So, I'm confused about what kind of championship this was. The bantam-weight tells us something (if we go check), but you haven't even told us how big he was or how tall.

To his friends back home, he managed to give the impression that he had fought for the Spanish Republic and flown fighter jets with the Royal Air Force.

  • Just as we had an abrupt transition from going to London to work with Allmand to boxing, we next have another abrupt transition to the Spanish Civil War. Did he fight for the republicans? When did he say he fought? What years? How did he learn to fly? Or, how did he explain this to his family and friends back home. I'm afraid there's just not enough information here.

Author Robert Jungt recounts in his book Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, "[e]ver since his earliest youth [Slotin] had gone in search of fighting, excitement, and adventure. He had volunteered for service in the Spanish Civil War, more for the sake of the thrill of it than on political grounds."

  • Well, Jungt does tell us something, but it only makes more curious. "ever since his earlist youth?" What does that mean? Does that include teenage years? If so, what kinds of adventures had he gone on? Is there earlier history of this? If he did volunteer for service, what battles did he fight in? How long was he in Spain? (i.e. what did he tell his family?) What were his politics?

During an interview years later, Sam stated that his brother had gone "on a walking tour in Spain", and he "did not take part in the war" as previously thought.

  • A walking tour of Spain during the Spanish Civil War? Where did he go on this tour? If his brother's statement is true, then obviously Slotin had some "issues." They need to be explored more. Did he lie about other things? What, for example, did he write about Allmand, the guy he was supposed to be working with?

Slotin received a doctorate in physical chemistry from the university in 1936. He won a prize for his thesis entitled "An Investigation into the Intermediate Formation of Unstable Molecules During some Chemical Reactions".

  • Well, all of a sudden, he now has his Ph. D. This is the first that we hear of physical chemistry. We were never told that somewhere in his academic career he changed his focus from geology to physical chemistry. Was Allmand his supervisor for this thesis? Again, you give us artificial milestones like winning the prize, but you don't tell us what he did in his thesis. The title, unfortunately doesn't give us any clues. Which unstable molecules? Which chemical reactions?

Afterwards, he spent six months working as a special investigator for Dublin, Ireland's Great Southern Railways, testing the Drumm nickel-zinc rechargeable batteries used on the Dublin-Bray line

  • Minor problem: Dublin, Ireland's Great Southern Railways? We don't say, New York, USA's subway. More importantly, what was the connection of his thesis with the rechargeable batteries? How were the batteries used on the Dublin-Bray line? I'm afraid, again all too anonymous.

So, as you will have now seen above, there are many things that need to be explored further. The rest of the article has the same problems and perhaps I will find some more time tomorrow to address those issues. The article needs a lot more work. I think you should withdraw the article, read up more on it, develop it much further, and then resubmit it when it is ready. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:42, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to expand the article, but there is no material that would help me do so. I have exhausted all possible reference materials for Slotin, so far. The reason why I can't go into specifics is because specifics were never provided. I'll try to patch up some holes, but I can't promise anything. Nishkid64 (talk) 07:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by user:Fowler&fowler December 20, 2007: Hi, I noticed you have changed some of the language for the better, however, there is still a lot more that can be added. For example, with just a simple search on Google Scholar, I was able to find eight or nine papers of Slotin including three papers he wrote in 1933 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. You might want to talk to someone in the WP Chemistry portal and ask them to summarize the content of those papers. That content should certainly be included. The papers also suggest that he must have changed his area of study to Physical Chemistry for his MSc. There is also a book: Jews in Manitoba: A Social History by A. A. Chiel, University of Toronto Press, which refers to Louis Slotin, but more importantly, it will likely give you some material for reconstructing the kind of environment Slotin grew up in.

Here is the "University of Chicago" section (with my comments):

In 1937, after unsuccessfully applying for a job with Canada's National Research Council, the University of Chicago accepted him as a research associate later that year.

  • Why tell us about his unsuccessful application at Canada's NRC, if there is no more to the story than that? I think the version of the story in the Science obit is better. i.e. he was driving back to Manitoba, happened to stop in Chicago, etc. etc. ...

There, Slotin gained his first experience with nuclear chemistry, helping to build the first cyclotron in the midwestern United States.

  • A JSTOR search on Louis Slotin turned up a description of how the cyclotron is used to produce Carbon 14. I think that should certainly be explained in some detail.

The job paid poorly and Slotin's father had to support him for two years.

  • Again not sure why this is important.

From 1939 to 1940, Slotin collaborated with Earl Evans, the head of the university's biochemistry department, to produce radiocarbon and Carbon-11 from the cyclotron. While working together, the two men also used 11C to demonstrate that animal cells had the capacity to use carbon dioxide for carbohydrate synthesis, through carbon fixation.

  • Google Scholar turned up three or four papers of Slotin written between 1939 and 42 on "Carbon dioxide utilization by pigeon liver," and so forth (Journal of Biological Chemistry). I think you should devote at least one paragraph to a description of that research, and not just one sentence. You might want to get help from the chemistry or biology portals. Since this article is about Louis Slotin and not about criticality accidents, all areas of Slotin's career need to be considered.

Slotin may have been present at of the start-up of Enrico Fermi's "Chicago Pile-1" (the first man-made nuclear reactor) on December 2, 1942; however, the accounts of the event do not agree on this point. (reference: A 1962 University of Chicago document says that Slotin "was present on December 2, 1942, when the group of 'Met Lab' [Metallurgical Laboratory] scientists working under the late Enrico Fermi achieved man's first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in a pile of graphite and uranium under the West Stands of Stagg Field." Slotin's colleague, Henry W. Newson, recollected that he and Slotin were not present during the scientists' experimentation.)

  • I think the actual 33 minute chain reaction was a bit of a media event, and Slotin's presence or absence shouldn't be given too much emphasis. What is more important is that he became expert enough at the science and engineering involved in the Chicago pile that he was sent to Oakridge to set up the Oakridge "pile" in 1943. There is a Oakridge lab History of Oak Ridge Critical Experiments Program that describes that process. That should be described in some detail.

During this time, Slotin also contributed to a number of papers in the field of radiobiology. His expertise on the subject garnered the attention of the United States government, and as a result, he was invited to join the Manhattan Project, the United States' effort to develop a nuclear bomb. Slotin worked on the production of plutonium under future Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner at the university and later at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He moved to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in December 1944 to work in the bomb physics group of Robert Bacher.

  • I couldn't find the papers on radiobiology. Where did you get that information? You say, "Slotin worked with Eugene Wigner at the university ..." Which university? I ask because Wigner was at Princeton, not Chicago. But he did go to Oak Ridge of course (which you mention). Also, Slotin applied for a patent on Method of Dissolving Uranium in 1944. That was probably his work at Oak Ridge. You should certainly describe the method of the patent in some detail.
  • There is a lot of literature on criticality/radiation accidents and prevention. Papers on chromosomal damage etc., which can be used to add a "Science Legacy" section. In other words, a section on how Slotin's death resulted in accident prevention protocols etc. If you don't have JSTOR access, I am happy to send you any paper you might need.

There may not be a huge amount of literature on Slotin, but I think there are at least a dozen papers or reports and one book (Jews of Manitoba) that haven't been used in this article and should be. There is enough there that this article could be expanded significantly (and by that I mean by at least six or seven medium sized paragraphs, and likely even more). Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, I'll get working on those bits. I totally forgot about using Google Scholar to locate Slotin's published works. Nishkid64 (talk) 06:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.
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