Questions that need to be closed

Question

There are currently only 8 users with the 500+ rep required to vote to close questions, and to actually close a question 5 votes are required. With that in mind, I think it might be best to have a meta thread where people can post a link to questions that need to be closed. This was something that was done in the early days of CSTheory, so I'm copying them. The basic idea is for high rep users to have a single place that will tell them of any questions they might want to close, so that they get enough attention, rather than surviving by simply being ignored. If there is some dispute over whether a question should be on this list, then discussion can take place in the comment thread for that answer.

Please post only one problem question per answer. If we down-vote resolved questions, then the fresh ones rise to the top.

Note: There is no onus on high rep users to actually close questions listed here. It is merely a way of drawing attention to problem questions.

UPDATE: Since we now have moderators, this thread is no longer needed. Please flag, leave a comment or vote to close to provide feedback on questions.

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Comments

Oops, down instead of upvoting this, strangely I cannot fix that...

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@Moshe: countered. you can only undo votes within 5 minutes or so

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Yeah, noticed it too late, apologies.

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@Moshe: you can change your vote if the question gets edited.

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This question should be closed: http://theoreticalphysics.stackexchange.com/questions/290/some-questions-about-the-theory-of-complex-scalar-fields. (this was supposed to an answer but it was short so it was converted to a comment)

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Incidentally, closed questions stay on the front page, unless they accumulate enough downvotes as well. So, if you are like me and don't see the point of having a whole slew of questions which were deemed to be inappropriate for this site, nevertheless displayed prominently, downvote the question as well (which for most reasons for closing a question really should be implied).

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@Moshe: I think we'll have community mods soon who can delete posts.

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Answer 1

This is more about initiating a discussion than necessarily expressing an opinion. The question is here

Some questions about the theory of complex scalar fields

It is a homework question in Peskin and Schroeder, and it is quite elementary as far as these things go, more about being organized than about understanding any deep concepts. The worry is that such questions have such high entropy, they are so easy to generate and to answer, that they will overwhelm the site. One suggestion is to decide based on whether or not such question illuminate or explain enough physics as to be generally interesting even though it is clearly not research level.

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Comments

I agree that this type of questions would fit better on Physics.SE.

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I agree too. Homework questions should usually be off topic. However, such questions may inspire broader questions, as you mention, which I suspect is far more interesting for the community as a whole.

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Answer 2

which letter to use for a CFT?

I fail to see that such semantical questions without physical content are of general interest. Do we really want to fill the site with which notation to use for XYZ type questions, when a simple check of the existing literature could establish a precedence?

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Comments

I agree that this is certainly not the type of question we want to make up any significant fraction of the site, but I haven't voted to close yet because I simply can't think of a specific premise of the site it violates. Maybe it is simply to localized...

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I think "too localized" might stand for uninteresting in such cases, I'd probably vote to close but now it is too late.

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Answer 3

Three questions on meta titled "On-topic vs. Off-topic questions" are duplicates of a question of a similar title from yesterday.

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Answer 4

I don't think this question can Feynman's assumption about self energy be reformulated, is research-related, at least not mainstream research done in the last half-century.

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Answer 5

Recommendations for time-line and road map in graduate school towards specializing in Maldacena's conjecture

This question should be closed. It's a valid question. But a good question to ask your adviser and not appropriate for this forum.

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Comments

Agreed, voted to close.

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Yep, I'm with you on this.

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Agreed, but what differentiates this question from http://theoreticalphysics.stackexchange.com/questions/321/graduate-school-for-theoretical-physics? Both seem to be asking for advice on graduate school, and the only difference I can find is that the one Yaniel posted is asking for wants answers to questions that will depend on the student, while the one I've linked to has some potential to have a fairly general answer. Is that what separates the two? Both are valid questions which are better left to an advisor.

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I am equally uncomfortable with both questions -- all questions for advice (and not just information) need personal attention, otherwise you can do more damage than good. In the first question, for example, you could sense quite a few misconceptions that would have to be corrected for any advice to be valuable. Taking the question too literally instead of dealing with those would not make for a good advice, and might have adverse effects. This is just one of those things that cannot be done on the internet. Either way, I really don't think that is what this site should be about.

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Answer 6

Solar irradiance/insolation daa

This is valid research question but hardly relevant for theoretical physics.

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Answer 7

What are some predictions from string theory that say some crystalline materials “will end up in one of many lowest-energy ground states?”

For the reasons succinctly expressed by Moshe already in his comment: namely, that this site's purpose is not to comment on statements appearing in popularisations.

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Answer 8

Progress in Twistor theory research

"What is the current state of progress in twistor theory research?

(A list of important / landmark papers [from the last 10 years onwards] - with a short summary for each, and its importance / relevance to the field - would be greatly welcomed and appreciated.)"

I don't have sufficient reputation points to close it directly.

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Answer 9

Graduate School for Theoretical Physics

This falls into the same category as the one Yaniel posted. It's a real question that we can't possibly answer without making a lot of assumptions about the OP, and would be best discussed with an advisor.

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Comments

Agreed, voted to close. This is already done, but we probably want to get our position together before more of those come our way.

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Answer 10

From Manifold to Manifold?

This question is at textbook-level rather than research-level.

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Comments

Probably right, but now the dust is already settled. You can flag questions in the future to attract attention to a specific question, or add some comments. Community feedback helps in borderline cases, I'd hesitate to take action if I am under the impression nobody else cares.

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@Moshe: we can probably close this thread, since there are mods now.

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@Joe, good idea, I’ll do that.

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