Welcome to my user page. I'm an industrial physicist, specializing in lasers and optics, although I have pretty broad interests and edit articles on a wide range of topics.

I think Wikipedia is quite possibly the best invention since the library.

Feel free to leave a message for me on my talk page.

Rants

Good links

1. Good links are singular nouns, noun phrases, or gerunds.
2. Good links are as specific as possible. The specific article will provide links to more general ones, if needed.
3. Good links point to the article title that is most appropriate to the context, even if that title redirects elsewhere.
4. Good links can be red.
5. Links that are not good links are bad links, even if they happen to work.

Wikipedia is not a dictionary

Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Dictionaries are about words. Encyclopedias are about things. This has several implications:

• Different things that share the same name get separate articles.
• Different names for the same thing are covered in one article.
• Articles that begin something like "In <field> the term x refers to..." should usually be rewritten in the form "In <field>, an x is a...".
• Articles should never lead off with the etymology of the article title. In most cases, the etymology will not even be important enough to mention in the introduction. In many cases, it may not be worth mentioning at all.
• Articles often introduce the pronunciation of the article's subject in the first sentence. I'm open to discussion on whether this is appropriate. It may well be the best place for it, when the pronunciation is difficult or unclear. Pronunciation should not be given unless it is difficult or unusual, however.

Favorite references

• Collett, Edward (2005). Field Guide to Polarization. SPIE Field Guides vol. FG05. SPIE. ISBN 0-8194-5868-6.
• Greivenkamp, John E. (2004). Field Guide to Geometrical Optics. SPIE Field Guides vol. FG01. Bellingham, Wash: SPIE. ISBN 9780819452948. OCLC 53896720.
• Hecht, Eugene (1987). Optics (2nd ed.). Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-11609-X.
• Jackson, John D. (1975). Classical Electrodynamics (2nd ed.). Wiley. ISBN 0-471-43132-X.
• Siegman, Anthony E. (1986). Lasers. University Science Books. ISBN 0-935702-11-3.
• Paschotta, Rüdiger. "**Article title**". Encyclopedia of Laser Physics and Technology. RP Photonics.

Not a reliable source per se, but widely used by people working in the field, and commonly cited on Wikipedia. I've noticed that citations of articles on this site commonly fail to provide all the bibliographic info, and in particular the author is rarely cited.

• Taylor, Nick (2000). LASER: The inventor, the Nobel laureate, and the thirty-year patent war. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-83515-0.
• Wangsness, Roald K. (1986). Electromagnetic Fields (2nd ed.). Wiley. ISBN 0-471-81186-6.
• Yariv, Amnon (1989). Quantum Electronics (3rd ed.). Wiley. ISBN 0-4716-0997-8.