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PlanetPhysics was a virtual community with several Internet sites supported by a non-profit organization registered in the USA in an
open science Open science is the movement to make scientific research (including publications, data, physical samples, and software) and its dissemination accessible to all levels of society, amateur or professional. Open science is transparent and accessib ...
,
open data Open data are data that are openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shareable by anyone for any purpose. Open data are generally licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-so ...
, peer-to-peer review mode that aimed to help make physics, and related mathematics, knowledge much more accessible, as well as to further develop physical, logical, computational and mathematical physics concepts. PlanetPhysics was also a
free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, the ability to act or change without constraint or restriction * Emancipate, attaining civil and political rights or equality * Free (''gratis''), free of charge * Gratis versus libre, the difference betw ...
, collaborative, online
physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
,
mathematical physics Mathematical physics is the development of mathematics, mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The ''Journal of Mathematical Physics'' defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the de ...
,
computational physics Computational physics is the study and implementation of numerical analysis to solve problems in physics. Historically, computational physics was the first application of modern computers in science, and is now a subset of computational science ...
and physical mathematics project, including original articles, lectures, books and
encyclopedia An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...
entries. The emphasis was on openness,
pedagogy Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political, and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...
, real-time content, rigour, interlinked content, and also based on a virtual
community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...
, or virtual group, of about 600 people with various physics, mathematical physics, physical mathematics, logic (such as quantum logic, relational logic and many-valued logics), axiomatics and mathematics interests.


Content

The main PlanetPhysics.org focus was on both original research and
encyclopedic An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by artic ...
entries; with over 3,400 physics and mathematics concepts edited in
LaTeX Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latices are found in nature, but synthetic latices are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a wikt:milky, milky fluid, which is present in 10% of all floweri ...
and rendered in
HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
, the PlanetPhysics Encyclopedia is at present the largest Physics encyclopedia written in LaTeX, containing both introductory as well as advanced level presentations. Moreover, its sections on papers and expositions, are second only to
CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...
and
arXiv arXiv (pronounced as "archive"—the X represents the Chi (letter), Greek letter chi ⟨χ⟩) is an open-access repository of electronic preprints and postprints (known as e-prints) approved for posting after moderation, but not Scholarly pee ...
physics preprint archives. In addition, the PlanetPhysics.org new websites also included extensive graphics illustrations of physics experiments, and also forum discussions. The emphasis was on modern physics contents, including advanced physics and mathematical physics concepts as well. The project hosted data containing physics, applied physics, engineering and mathematics books, lectures, preprints and research-level papers. A system for both private and semi-private messaging among users was also in place. , the Physics and Mathematical Physics projects hosted over 2,000 entries, containing more than 30,000 ''concepts'' in books, lectures, expositions, encyclopedia entries, and papers. Several Wikipedia entries also incorporate text from PlanetPhysics articles, and ''vice versa'', several PlanetPhysics articles contain links or refer to Wikipedia entries.


Content development models

PlanetPhysics implemented several specific content creation systems based on the ''Noosphere versions 1.0/1.5'', ''Planetary'' (powered by
Drupal Drupal () is a free and open-source web content management system (CMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. Drupal provides an open-source back-end framework for at least 14% of the top 10,000 websites worldwide ...
), and
MediaWiki MediaWiki is free and open-source wiki software originally developed by Magnus Manske for use on Wikipedia on January 25, 2002, and further improved by Lee Daniel Crocker,mailarchive:wikipedia-l/2001-August/000382.html, Magnus Manske's announc ...
currently being updated to allow peer-to-peer review, as well as preprints and encyclopedic contributions. This was significantly different from the so-called ''authority model'' previously adopted by
PlanetMath PlanetMath is a free content, free, collaborative, mathematics online encyclopedia. Intended to be comprehensive, the project is currently hosted by the University of Waterloo. The site is owned by a US-based nonprofit corporation, "PlanetMath.org ...
. Only registered users could create and edit their own entries, or contribute jointly, by agreement, to various topical entries. The
MediaWiki MediaWiki is free and open-source wiki software originally developed by Magnus Manske for use on Wikipedia on January 25, 2002, and further improved by Lee Daniel Crocker,mailarchive:wikipedia-l/2001-August/000382.html, Magnus Manske's announc ...
''version 1.17'' approach was mostly utilized at PlanetPhysics for creating books, uploading PDF files of open access articles, and also for graphics-intensive physics animations and graphical applications to physical problems. ''MediaWiki version 1.17'' Applications Main page at PlanetPhysics.org
/ref> An author who published a new article with ''Noosphere version 1.5'' (created by Aaron Krowne) retains intellectual property ownership of that entry, and is the only person authorized to edit that article, unless the author allows other contributors to edit as part of an editor group selected by the author. Other users could, however, add corrections and discuss improvements that must be approved by the original author so that the resulting modifications of the article, if any, were always made by the owner. When there are long lasting (>30 days) unresolved necessary corrections, either the ownership or the entry could be removed by the web site administration. A major strength of the ''Noosphere'' versions 1.0 and 1.5 ''planetphysics.us'' website is its capability of linking in real time conceptually related entries, as well as automatically listing all the concepts either defined by the article or related to the article in the Physics and Mathematical Physics encyclopedia. Any PlanetPhysics contributor can explicitly create links to other articles, and the Noosphere 1.0 system also automatically turns certain words into links to the defining articles. The topic area of every article is classified by either the
Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme The Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme (PACS) is a scheme developed in 1970 by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) for classifying scientific literature using a hierarchical set of codes. PACS has been used by over 160 international j ...
(PACS) or the
Mathematics Subject Classification The Mathematics Subject Classification (MSC) is an alphanumerical classification scheme that has collaboratively been produced by staff of, and based on the coverage of, the two major mathematical reviewing databases, Mathematical Reviews and Zen ...
(MSC).


See also

*
PlanetMath PlanetMath is a free content, free, collaborative, mathematics online encyclopedia. Intended to be comprehensive, the project is currently hosted by the University of Waterloo. The site is owned by a US-based nonprofit corporation, "PlanetMath.org ...
*
Open science Open science is the movement to make scientific research (including publications, data, physical samples, and software) and its dissemination accessible to all levels of society, amateur or professional. Open science is transparent and accessib ...
* planetphysics.Co.uk


References

{{Notability, Web, date=May 2012 Physics websites Online encyclopedias Wiki communities American online encyclopedias