Quantcast
  • Register
PhysicsOverflow is a next-generation academic platform for physicists and astronomers, including a community peer review system and a postgraduate-level discussion forum analogous to MathOverflow.

Welcome to PhysicsOverflow! PhysicsOverflow is an open platform for community peer review and graduate-level Physics discussion.

Please help promote PhysicsOverflow ads elsewhere if you like it.

News

PO is now at the Physics Department of Bielefeld University!

New printer friendly PO pages!

Migration to Bielefeld University was successful!

Please vote for this year's PhysicsOverflow ads!

Please do help out in categorising submissions. Submit a paper to PhysicsOverflow!

... see more

Tools for paper authors

Submit paper
Claim Paper Authorship

Tools for SE users

Search User
Reclaim SE Account
Request Account Merger
Nativise imported posts
Claim post (deleted users)
Import SE post

Users whose questions have been imported from Physics Stack Exchange, Theoretical Physics Stack Exchange, or any other Stack Exchange site are kindly requested to reclaim their account and not to register as a new user.

Public \(\beta\) tools

Report a bug with a feature
Request a new functionality
404 page design
Send feedback

Attributions

(propose a free ad)

Site Statistics

205 submissions , 163 unreviewed
5,082 questions , 2,232 unanswered
5,353 answers , 22,789 comments
1,470 users with positive rep
820 active unimported users
More ...

  History of PhysicsOverflow

+ 3 like - 0 dislike
2813 views

Below is the History, or timeline, of PhysicsOverflow. 

asked Mar 21, 2014 in Public Official Posts by dimension10 (1,985 points) [ revision history ]
retagged Apr 12, 2014 by dimension10

1 Answer

+ 5 like - 0 dislike

 First of all, I think we need to give special thanks to PolarKernel. He helped with all our technical issues, starting from installing Q2A, to installing plug-ins, to uploading the site to a host, to solving all sorts of bugs. And as his (very humbly written, given all the work he has done for the site, for all the effort and time he has spent for this site) "About Me" states, he is not a physicist.     

  • 2010-11-13 - Joe Fitzsimons proposes the creation of a research-level Theoretical Physics SE site on Area51.
  • 2012-05-04 - After 233 days in public beta Theoretical Physics SE was shut down by StackExchange, citing "low-traffic" as the reason for the company to do so.
  • 2013 - A group of users decided to revive Theoretical Physics SE in the context of a  future new Q&A site for graduate-level and beyond physics that should have no content censorship, and criticism should not be discouraged or limited in any way. The role model was chosen to be MathOverflow, with the goal to create an analogue site for Physics.
  • 2013-08-14 - Lubos Motl agrees to help set up a thread on his blog, The Reference Frame (TRF), to help such users continue their discussion.  
  • 2013-09-10 - Dilaton sets up a blog, called Schrodinger's Cat Strikes Back for the systematic and relatively more calm-headed discussion specifically about the new site. It was the idea of John McVirgo to set up a blog.     
  • 2013-09-12 - polarkernel, agrees to help setting up PhysicsOverflow, from a technical point of view.  
  • 2013-10-13 - Vote conducted for site name; PhysicsOverflow wins. 
  • 2013-10-23 - Q2A successfully installed, an offline test site is created.  
  • 2014-01-24 - TP.SE questions successfully imported to test site; polarkernel writes plugin to import PSE questions   
  • 2014-02-20 Technical Private Beta of PhysicsOverflow begins
  • 2014-04-04 - Public beta begins
  • 2014-05-31 - The first version of the reviews section, Reviews I is launched earlier than planned.
  • 2014-08-24 - The hierarchial tag system released; leading to the phase Reviews II. The PhysicsOverflow software development has now branched away significantly far from the Question2Answer software development.
  • 2015-11 - PhysicsOverflow is featured in the APPN and in PhysikJournal.

Who is responsible for the founding of the site?

While the community on the blog Schrodinger's cat strikes back  was responsible for the creation of the site, for practical purposes polarkernel, Dilaton, and dimension10 may be considered as the "founders" of PhysicsOverflow.

answered Mar 21, 2014 by dimension10 (1,985 points) [ revision history ]
edited Apr 30, 2017 by Dilaton

Pretty good. I'd leave out the special thanks to PolarKernel since he stands out in the time line anway, and the important part he played is obvious from this.

Your answer

Please use answers only to (at least partly) answer questions. To comment, discuss, or ask for clarification, leave a comment instead.
To mask links under text, please type your text, highlight it, and click the "link" button. You can then enter your link URL.
Please consult the FAQ for as to how to format your post.
This is the answer box; if you want to write a comment instead, please use the 'add comment' button.
Live preview (may slow down editor)   Preview
Your name to display (optional):
Privacy: Your email address will only be used for sending these notifications.
Anti-spam verification:
If you are a human please identify the position of the character covered by the symbol $\varnothing$ in the following word:
p$\varnothing$ysicsOverflow
Then drag the red bullet below over the corresponding character of our banner. When you drop it there, the bullet changes to green (on slow internet connections after a few seconds).
Please complete the anti-spam verification




user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required

Your rights
...