Talk:Peter Debye
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ALERT: Debye had some nazi preferences. Readhttp://www.observant.unimaas.nl/jrg26/obs19/index.htm (Dutch)
Ongoing Dutch scientific historical resarch by Sybe Rispens came up with quite some bad results. It seems that Albert Einstein issued some warnings against Debyes character, when Debye was moving to the US in 1940.
removed one edit with material from unreferenced source, makes the statement that the letter was not written by but only in his name. A reference or source should be includedV8rik18:23, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Micha,
Thanks for correcting the quote in the Debye article but according to my source the quote ends with an exclamation mark and I think that is relevant. What should we do?V8rik16:40, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I feel it is premature to include the allegations of Sybe Rispens. Every body is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of justice. And this hold for Debye as well. So until the allegations of Rispens are cnfirmed by independent invstigators it is premature to include that in an encyclopedia
M. and V. onthis site orthis DPG-site you find more information about that letter!
I can only repeat what I have said before and that is: This section does not belong in an encyclopedia. What this is about is a recent controversy, and the issue has not been settled, not in a long stretch. What is happened is that this section now represent the major portion of this article; the description of Debye's life and scientific contributions has been marginalized. I have just added a reference to a recent news article in Science that further clarifies the controversial character of all of this. I urge people to come to their senses, and reduce this section to a single sentence saying something like "recently there has been a controversy about Debye's role during the war", giving only one single reference to the Science article I just added. For the rest I would suggest to move that section to the talk page insteadJdH12:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is said that
..Because of this letter and perhaps due to long standing professional competition, Albert Einstein actively tried to prevent Debye from being appointed in the United States.[2]
The only reference is to Sybe Rispens' work. Elsewhere I see that the factuality of this rather hotly contested. If there is no direct proof for this it really has no place in an encyclopedia. At most it can be said that this is Rispens'allegation.
Either: add real proof that Einstein has actually done this or say it is merely an allegation.
Jcwf19:39, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
ThanksJcwf for your edit and your comment on this page. I do think the content should stay as it is and let me try to convice you by explaining what I think the facts are:
Not a fact and therefore not included in the article as a fact: Debye had Nazi sympathies.
I hope this clears things upV8rik20:24, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I can't remember what Debye's picture looked like before, but the current one is really pixellated. Can someone decrease the size of it? I tried to but adding "|100px" to the infobox didn't do anything.Tocharianne00:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
According to the articleRumford Medal and other various sources on the internet, Peter Debye obtained the Rumford Medal in 1930 but it doesn't seem to appear in the article...Amhantar19:06, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is unacceptable to just delete material this way. the NRC article is a valid source and is an article about the report. The Volkskrant on the other hand just published an open letter. In many articles in wikipedia these sort of publications are not considered valid. User 12.77.44.158 is obviously biased and feeling in a position to defend Debye. I am not going to criticize that but it should be remembered that the article is not a fan page, it represents the facts. On the other hand if user 12.77.44.158 is connected to Debye in any professional way then it would a decent that this user would make himself or herself known. ThanksV8rik (talk)18:11, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"he became director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics (named then the Max-Planck-Institut)": probably this not what the author of these lines intended, because what he/she wrote means that the institute is currently called Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, and in 1934 it was called Max Planck Institute. However, the reverse is true. In 1934 the name was Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. What are currently called Max Planck Institutes can be considered successors of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute; seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck_Society. Somebody should correct this. ThanksMateat (talk •contribs)20:15, 31 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How was his field chemistry and how was he a physical chemist? This point is misleading. He was a physicist by training and like many other physicists of the time he applied the then-current ideas to the problems of chemistry, but not just chemistry though.71.103.51.35 (talk)06:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)Ur[reply]
Between his arrival at Cornell, in 1940, and his death, in 1966, he was a professor in the Chemistry Department at Cornell. His work, which centered on physical properties of polymer molecules, was considered to be chemistry research. His Nobel Prize was in chemistry.Davost (talk)16:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest that the article has lost focus: it is supposed to be about the man, it is not supposed tofocus on debates that began long after his death. A better place for the content, separate from this article should be found, and linked to.Just because an aspect of his life might be 'controversial', doesn't mean that it deserves the overwhelming focus of the article.—DIV (128.250.80.15 (talk)06:36, 29 March 2008 (UTC))[reply]
I've just now readded a sentence in a footnote regarding Debye's final resting place. The original sentence was deleted as being unverified. Other than the fact that I've visited Debye's gravesite a few times over the past 20 years, I'm not sure how one should independently verify such a thing. Wikipedia has many gravesites listed in many places (e.g.,Rock Creek Cemetery) and listing Debye's is certainly not unusual. -- Incidentally,Thomas Gold, the cosmologist, is buried near Debye. -Astrochemist (talk)14:16, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The odd phrase "just 30 km away" has appeared.— Precedingunsigned comment added by81.148.105.41 (talk)12:35, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Please, this is an article on Peter Debye, not Sybe Rispens. Large part of Rispens' accusations have been refuted, so it is absurd to concentrate so much on something that is likely untrue, and completely wrong according to Wiki guidelineWP:UNDUE. While the controversy should be noted, this is excessive and made the article completely unbalanced. Someone please trim that section.Hzh (talk)16:10, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is better to replace "the units of molecular dipole moments are termed debyes in his honor" with "the unit of the molecular dipole moment is termed Debye in his honor".https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units#Lexicographic_conventions does not say much on this, helas, but may be wrong.Simon de Danser (talk)12:02, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited.
Links in the "External links" section should be kept to a minimum. A lack of external links or a small number of external links is not a reason to add external links.
There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to the external links section of an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia. On articles about topics with many fansites, for example, including a link to one major fansite may be appropriate.
Minimize the number of links. --Otr500 (talk)16:19, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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