Remove maintenance template?[edit]

Maintenance templates are not meant to be in articles permanently.

As I just made a number of changes, I probably should not be the one to remove the template. But does the template still belong, or has the article come along enough to not warrant it? -- Rei (talk) 11:59, 15 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Which template are you referring to Rei? I have just started some copyediting and cleanup to eliminate a lot of the top-of-article orange banners, and started a new Talk section to discuss it earlier today. (see bottom of this Talk page) N2e (talk) 18:59, 6 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The idea was around since 1910 so how did Elon Musk propose the idea?[edit]

Robert Goddar actually invented the idea of vacuum trains. It is just that Elon calls it Hyperloop instead. Synerator (talk) 06:03, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Look at Related projects\Historical section. War (talk) 06:27, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Synerator, you are partially correct. Vac trains have indeed been around for a long time. However, vac trains want to get as close to a power vacuum as than can, subject to to technical and economic limits. The closer to a vacuum they get then the better they perform. But Hyperloop (at least in its initially proposed form) requires a certain amount of residual atmosphere to make the aerofoils work to lift the vehicle up. If the vacuum gets too pure then the aerofoils stop working and the vehicle rubs on the floor instead of floating above it.  Stepho  talk  07:54, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I think this overlooks the fundamental problem with this article. What we're really talking about is a lot of different variations on a single idea that has been around since the 18th century. The article makes it sound as though Elon Musk has some kind of unique claim on it simply because he was responsible for attaching the word "hyperloop" to it. I'm not interested in the kind of pro/anti Elon Musk edit war thing that seems to happen with him on Wikipedia, I just find the way this article deals with the topic a bit muddled. Part of it reads like a discussion of Musk's version and part of it reads like a discussion of the broader idea. One of the main reasons for that is the history section is almost entirely (save for the first paragraph) about Musk's idea then there's the rest of the history tacked on at the end under the heading "related projects". This doesn't make any sense because if "hyperloop" is now the word we attach to this idea (which is debatable) then these "related projects" belong in the history section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:6616:CE00:CC32:D393:2FF1:7A39 (talk) 07:56, 26 January 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The idea that "This article is part of a series about Elon Musk" is ridiculous. The whole article has to be recast from scratch with Musk demoted to his proper place in the succession of ideas, one of which might be his variation. Zaslav (talk) 06:07, 23 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Well, it's his name on the hyperloop white paper. No-one is claiming that he invented vac trains - only that he thought of a new variation (partial vacuum instead of pure vacuum, using aerofoils for lift and a propeller for movement).  Stepho  talk  07:17, 23 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
There is no variation. This is retarded, even your source, (IEEE) claims that musk's total contribution is the stupid name. 2600:6C64:493F:7900:DED7:6A1C:789B:E44 (talk) 01:28, 20 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I see you adhere to the Trump school of debating:
  1. Always give a derogatory label (eg "retarded") to your opponent and/or their argument.
  2. Don't bother addressing any point they raised. In fact, don't even bother reading what they said. After all, if they were saying anything smart then they would be agreeing with you.
  3. Don't bother adding anything of substance. You've already said it's retarded with conviction. Trying to substantiate it will only sound defensive - the act of a weak player.
  4. If there are 10 references against your view and 1 for it then that single reference is the only valid reference - the rest are obviously rubbish.
Let's deal with facts:
  1. Vac trains work better the closer the vacuum gets to 100%. Only the ability and economics of maintaining that vacuum get in the way of going all the way.
  2. The Hyperloop (at least in the alpha proposal) requires some air pressure for the air foils to work. No air pressure means no lift.
  3. The Hyperloop (at least in the alpha proposal) requires some air pressure for the propulsion fans to work. No air pressure means no propulsion.
  4. The addition of air foils and propulsion fan are what differentiate the Hyperloop from vac trains.
  5. That IEEE reference (which was not added by me) did not address the use of air foils or propulsion fan, therefore it totally misunderstood the difference from vac trains.
  6. There are many other references praising Musk. I have some respect for Musk (he does get things done) but I am not particularly a great fan of his (he also cuts corners and over-hypes things). To ignore many, many references saying the Hyperloop is great and using only a single reference that says he's a charlatan is not a balanced view. For the record, only taking the references that say he's great is also not a balanced view.
  7. I do grant that many of the later implementations have dropped the air foils and fan. These later ones are in fact just vac trains and are just using the Hyperloop name as free PR.
Now, do you have anything of substance to add or are you just blowing wind?  Stepho  talk  06:55, 20 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I will try to answer your comments.
1. Nobody here ever made the claim that lowering pressure would not reduce drag.
2.-4. Your are hung up on the initial Whitepaper released by Musk and see its as the sole Authority on the matter. A whitepaper for developent is a theoretical Proof of concept, nobody has to validate the assumptions done in such a paper. You even ignore later statements by the very same people who authored the paper. In the "SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition Rules and Requirements" from 2015 they specifically do not require an air cushion as a component of a pod. Additionally you made a comparison to the Rainhill trials. This is not applicable as they used production ready locomotives in that trial. The winner model was then later used on said line. No person will ever be able to use the pods from the Hyperloop competition. Just by scaling up a model one generates engineering challenges. Some aspects get easier and some harder. So you would then have to design something from the ground up anyway for production use. Additionally the winners of said competition used magnetic levitation. How can it be that the winner of a Hyperloop competition hosted by the person who created the Hyperloop Whitepaper does not use the core aspect of a hyperloop you consider important. Even in the first competition instance they used linear induction and not fans to propel themselves. Some pods had fans, but that was to reduce drag and the TUM model dropped it afterwards. Additionally TUM, the winners of many competitions, now scale up their research and will focus on magnetic levitation. They state the definition is as followed: "The hyperloop system consists of sealed and partially evacuated tubes, connecting mobility hubs in large metropolitan areas, and pressurized vehicles, usually called pods, which can move at very high speeds, thanks to contactless levitation and propulsion systems as well as to the low aerodynamic drag.". Under their service module they list that they use magnetic levitation. I found no mention of air cushion levitation.
5. IEEE is nothing but not authoritative(is it always right or good? No.). As goes with any other large certifying or standardization body. TUV Sued specifically, but not exclusively mention magnetic levitation. Why do you assume authority on what a hyperloop consists of when the people responsible for manufacturing, researching or certifying it do not make this distinction?
6. Please post these recent praises of Musk wrt. the hyperloop. Because I could only find articles stating that the "the train trumps it every time" or "What happend to it?". In these articles Musk is only mentioned as a side node that he thought up the idea or held a competition.
7. If the distinction of it having an air cushion is that important, then why are there statements of companies and organisations who do not make this distinction. One such example would be the Hyperloop competition, the whole segment about "Hyperloop research programs" BikingFish (talk) 14:27, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Can somebody please go take a look at the 1974 concept art of a vac train, as found here for example and explain how putting propellers on a vac train is a revolutionary brand new idea invented by Elon Musk? As far as I can tell, the only innovation in Musk's "hyperlook" proposal is that instead of having vacuum trains that can carry hundreds of passengers, he has vacuum pods that can carry a couple dozen passengers at most. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.176.183.197 (talk) 09:11, 24 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sure. It's a 2018 article listing vac trains, atmospheric railways, pneumatic trains, etc. Each type gets a single paragraph with few details beyond time and place before hastily moving on. The 1974 image has the caption "A 1974 concept painting of a vacuum train." and attributed to a Flickr user (who lists hundreds of similar historic magazine covers and movie images but I couldn't find this image in the first 10 out of 218 pages). The article never mentions anything from anywhere near 1974 in the text. That leaves us to derive everything form the 1974 image itself. We see a cutaway of the tube with a capsule inside. Each end has 3 legs from the capsule to the tube that appear to just rub along the inner surface of the tube. So, no aerofoils to worry about. That leaves us to speculate about the fan at the back. We don't know what air pressure is inside the tube or in what form (vacuum, partial vacuum, atmospheric pressure, high pressure). Without further information about where that image came from it is hard to make any solid conclusions. It's obviously an artist's impression but whether it is for a serious design or just the artist imagining something vaguely futuristic is unknown to me.
The article never points out that somebody had previously thought of putting a capsule with its own fan in a tunnel. It does however say that MIT had a 1990 design for a magnetic track "like Musk's plan". Except that Musk's alpha plan didn't have a magnetic track - that was added as an option in the 2016 competition. To me, the article looks like a filler piece that was put together quickly. Three of its images come from Wikipedia, plus the one copied from Flickr (twice). Nothing radiates professionalism like copying from Flickr. It also attributes some facts to a gizmodo article and a few other news articles that could have been easily found in a minute by web searching, further confirming the rushed nature of the article rather than serious research.  Stepho  talk  16:06, 24 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Why is this "Part of a Series About Elon Musk"?[edit]

I haven't checked, but do all pre-existing inventions and concepts become "Part of a Series About Elon Musk" as soon as he decides to start ham-fistedly muddling around in them? Are the articles on electric vehicles, social media, flamethrowers, rocketry, and neuroscience also "Part of a Series About Elon Musk"? If not, do they need to be updated to reflect his status as the preeminent factor in all things toward which he casts his glorious, shining countenanance? 2600:6C40:4300:2A6:A5C5:5D69:5D38:8344 (talk) 16:36, 2 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Considering that he came up with the idea of using a fan and aerofoils (which require air pressure) inside a vacuum tunnel (which has minimal air pressure) and then also put his companies at work to flesh out the idea and then used his companies to run trials. I'm no Musk fanboy but yes, I do believe he should get credit for this one.  Stepho  talk  00:08, 3 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
"I'm no Musk fanboy" - Yes. Yes you are. 24.182.239.226 (talk) 18:13, 4 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
No, no I am not. He hypes up nearly every press release, promises things that happen much later then told. There are allegations about many of his wrong doings that I would be willing to believe (although I have no direct proof and am not making that an official claim). But when he does come through with something positive then I give him credit for that. If you believe that he didn't come up with a new wrinkle to vac tunnels then it is up to you to show that it is not sufficiently different (ie, in the requirement of partial pressure for fans and aerofoils) or that it wasn't him that came up with this new wrinkle.  Stepho  talk  22:10, 4 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
"That word, coined by Elon Musk, constitutes his main original contribution to the technology." 2600:6C64:493F:7900:DED7:6A1C:789B:E44 (talk) 01:30, 20 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That's from the IEEE. 2600:6C64:493F:7900:DED7:6A1C:789B:E44 (talk) 01:30, 20 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
See my detailed reply in #The idea was around since 1910 so how did Elon Musk propose the idea? for why that IEEE is rubbish.  Stepho  talk  06:58, 20 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@24.182.239.226: Your comment and name-calling make it obvious that you have an axe to grind against Musk. See WP:NOTHERE. 2001:569:7F63:5900:817E:84EF:6D3D:815A (talk) 21:28, 21 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I dont share that sentiment, while he put the idea into the current conscious. His involment doesnt go futher than hosting a science competition between universities. The companies which actively try to build that product In the recent years there also has not a mention of the hyperloop in any serious manner on the sides of Musk(if there was any). Its also debatable how much the competition even contributes to the specific research as the designparameters of the tube are fixed which is in contrast to maglev systems where the track and train are developed in symbiosis BikingFish (talk) 13:10, 26 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Your "debatable" comment reminded me of the Rainhill trials. The organisers built the track and requested others to bring the engines. This is listed as a significant event in almost every train history book.  Stepho  talk  21:19, 26 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Im not saying research is bad. But in those trials they evaluated a near production ready product(its quite normal that companies do irl tests of products, military does it often) and started a a year after its use in transport. How is this in any way comparable? This is a competition where unis train their EE students. BikingFish (talk) 21:31, 26 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
You made a point about the track being fixed making the competition useless. I addressed this by pointing out that the Rainhill trials also had a fixed track. Fixing certain variables makes it easier to compare competing theories.  Stepho  talk  22:09, 26 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
No, my point is that in all maglev development projects the track is developed in combination with the train. And musk never made the claim that the wants to run a train on that specific track system shortly after the competition concluded. BikingFish (talk) 22:38, 26 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@2600:6C40:4300:2A6:A5C5:5D69:5D38:8344: Your comment and edit make it obvious that you have an axe to grind against Musk. See WP:NOTHERE. 2001:569:7F63:5900:817E:84EF:6D3D:815A (talk) 21:28, 21 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

silent Is The Best Answer All Stupids Question 🙂 Bijoy90 (talk) 22:38, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In my view, while it is probably fair to include "Hyperloop" in the Musk series template, by whatever editors care to work on such templates; there is no need for THIS ARTICLE to prominently display the "Part of a series on Elon Musk" template.

PROPOSAL: I propose we remove the prominent visibility here, in the Hyperloop article, 'cause while the term and alpha concept are Muskian, the hyperloop concept and what it has come to mean in common use are clearly much much wider than Musk. — N2e (talk) 18:35, 6 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Seeing no support for leaving it in, have removed the template. That template and the large amount of article real estate it takes put WP:UNDUE emphasis on Musk here, where Hyperloop is just one of many many ideas Musk has produced, and "Hyperloop" in this article has gone on to be in much wider use than the particular alpha concept Musk and his engineers published a decade ago. N2e (talk) 01:42, 15 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Merge with the Vactrain article[edit]

The whole basis for this being a separate article is that the hyperloop proposed by Musk is different in function to the Vactrain. But this contradicts his own actions by funding/hosting a competition where magnetic levitation is explicitly allowed.

As such the best pod from the last competition used magnetic levitation. It cant be therefor be argued that the hyperloop as it currently exists acts different to a vac train. Its akin to suggesting that preproduction car designs are representative of the final product.

BikingFish (talk) 13:27, 26 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There is a final product? When (if) it is finally made and if it does not use aerodynamic lift and also does not use aerodynamic propulsion, then yes, you can have your wish at that time. Who knows, maybe the next competition will return to both of those features. Be careful not to put the cart before the horse at 400 km/h.  Stepho  talk  21:07, 26 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
SCMaglev manages easily 500km/h and is in an actual construction phase. Also how do you then justify the existence of a separate article? Can reverse your argument and claim that as there is not even a prototype using aerodynamic propulsion the idea is just a continuation BikingFish (talk) 21:33, 26 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
All the Hyperloop projects (commercial/academic) that i know of, you can list others, use magnetic levitation. How would a air cushion then arise in development? BikingFish (talk) 21:37, 26 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
You mention lift a lot. Is it the same story with propulsion? But this debate won't be finished until they actually start operation. Until then we have no idea whether it will be a traditional vac tunnel with magnetic levitation/propulsion (Hyperloop in name but not really matching the original idea) or Musk's original idea with aerodynamic lift/propulsion or something else.  Stepho  talk  22:17, 26 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Then why split the articles if we dont know? BikingFish (talk) 22:38, 26 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In my view, a merge would be a poor idea, and would be a net loss for the encyclopedia of all human knowledge.

As a wise Wikipedia administrator told me once—in a contested debate over the appropriateness of having an article on a proposed spaceplane that, at the time was only in prototype form (of a less capable version) and still in the hangar having not yet been flown—paraphrasing here: "Heck, Wikipedia can have an article about a balsa-wood spaceplane model, as long as there are sufficient verifiable sources to demonstrate notability of the balsa-wood model." Cheers. N2e (talk) 18:43, 6 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

But this article is not about a specific prototype/model/.. but about a general transportation concept, the core differentiation to vactrains is touted as the air cushion from the original whitepaper. Nowadays the concept of a hyperloop moved to include any levitation train in a low air pressure tube, which brings us back to vactrains. A person reading an article about hyperloops in context of goverments or companies will likely land on this page and would get a wrong image of the proposed technology. My position is that the whitepaper is superseded and a tighter integration with the vac train article is beneficial. BikingFish (talk) 15:44, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Reliable sources tend to treat it as a distinct concept, thus so should Wikipedia. It is not up to us to 'fix' what the independent sources are doing (see WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS). MrOllie (talk) 16:08, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Which sources? I find certification, standardization bodies and universities(not research papers but the university statement) highly reliable. I elaborated in #The idea was around since 1910 so how did Elon Musk propose the idea? that these bodies explicitly do not make that distinction. This whole debate sole revolves around the conceptualization of a whitepaper and not the use of the term as it currently is. BikingFish (talk) 17:08, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Which sources? - The ones cited in the article. Your personal standard of reliability doesn't really matter here, the one in explained in Wikipedia:Reliable sources does. MrOllie (talk) 17:21, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
So we have contradicting sources what now? In the article the IEEE source quickly moves on to maglevs. No mention of air-bearings is in the article which is the source for that statement. And the other is the white paper. While a certification body and university building a hyperloop research campus specifically do not mention the use of air bearings. BikingFish (talk) 17:43, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I don't see any evidence that there are contradicting sources. I also do not see the relevance of the points you raise here to a potential article merge. MrOllie (talk) 18:07, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The reason why its separate is due to it using an air cushion. TuvSud and HyperloopTT define it as not requiring that and only state a minimum levitation height[1], TU Munich, winner of the Hyperloop competition, do not define it as a requirement [2]. I checked the sources in the article and could not find any reliable source defining what a Hyperloop is. BikingFish (talk) 20:58, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Multiple article-level improvement tags[edit]

There are multiple article-level improvement tags at the top of the article, but I'm not finding any discussion on the Talk page about them. These include allegations of WP:NPOV and WP:ADVERT, as well as problems with the Criticism section.

I have begun a thorough WP:COPYEDIT of the article, looking in particular for these problems. Through the History section, I'm not seeing any of these issues. In the Proposed routes section, there are many problems, and the section length is likely WP:UNDUE for a number of what are merely early proposals and feasibility studies. I've tagged several specific issues, and added section-level tags for the more general problem.

I'll plan to continue the copyedit and working through the article, but am not seeing that the article-level tags are appropriate. I'll remove them in a few days unless other editors have reasons they should remain. Cheers. N2e (talk) 18:17, 6 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

 Done; removed the article-level tags. Believe that a number of weak areas in the article are now tagged at the statement (often, needs a source) or at the section level. In my view, the article continues to need substantial work in those sections tagged for improvement, to avoid the article being a hodge-podge of various groups putting a Powerpoint presentation together and saying they have big ideas, while attaching the (noteable) name "Hyperloop" to whatever it is they are doing. Need some sign of serious capital raises or government commitments to make these myriad announcements be wiki-worthy. N2e (talk) 23:40, 14 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Original whitepaper or current use authoritative on hyperloop definition[edit]

Should a hyperloop be defined as a system requiring an air-cushion based levitation mechanism, as by the Hyperloop alpha proposal, or as a maglev/not mandating a specific levitation scheme, as done by companies, governments, and technical bodies? Does the original definition of the term or its current use take precedent.

BikingFish (talk) 20:25, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Short bit of My position.
As many other commentators have pointed out an article should use the consensus definition of a term. In the article MrOllie nicely provided they explicitly state that the idea "quickly" moved on from the original paper [3]. I see no bigger consensus than industry, research and governments using the same definition, which by the way is inclusive of the original proposal BikingFish (talk) 07:52, 1 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
What is the issue with defining both terms (The Alpha proposal & the maglev definition)? I don't see why having information on both routes would be disadvantageous, if phrased properly. MaximusEditor (talk) 02:34, 14 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I think that having some information on both is necessary. We need at least enough to help the reader find out whether they're in the right article, and help them get to the right article if they're not. A hatnote won't be enough for this purpose; we need a bit of a compare-and-contrast thing, and some way to acknowledge the reader's potential confusion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:36, 14 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Adding prior concept mentions to the article.[edit]

So, we have consensus that the Hyperloop is derived from earlier projects such as the Vactrain. We also have consensus that this should be mentioned in the article.

I believe these concepts should have mentions higher up in the article. I'm adding those mentions in an edit to the lead section and the history section. These are key talking points used by YouTube channels such as Thunderf00t. (Yes, i watch those videos.)

I don't expect this to be universally accepted. The Musk fandom might try to argue about things such as the WP:ONEWAY principle and the fact that the article already talks about prior/similar concepts near the bottom. Due to this, i suggest you raise any complaints in the talk page or with an RfC before we break out the WikiRifles and start another edit war. 187.46.129.25 (talk) 13:36, 31 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Youtube videos are not reliable sources and don't influence what we put in the lead sections of articles. Also, vactrains are already mentioned in the opening paragraph. We do not need a second, redundant sentence. MrOllie (talk) 13:43, 31 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Italic 64.226.63.202 (talk) 06:18, 1 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Then also please add your opinion in the RFC. BikingFish (talk) 07:56, 1 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
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