Talk:Eunice Newton Foote/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Gog the Mild (talk · contribs) 18:37, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I'll have a look at this. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:37, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

You're the best! Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it and look forward to improving it. (I know you always ask and I usually say no, but this time I am thinking FA). SusunW (talk) 18:44, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, yeah. Quick fail: "Foote" is consistently missplet.

AE, dearest, misspelled, but missplet seems off-foote for even BE. SusunW (talk) 22:37, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Emtirely correct, but I thought it may raise your eyebrow.

• "in the epicenter of social and political movements of her day". A bit flowery for an encyclopedia? 'at the center of the social and political movements of her day'?

• Okay, done.

• "She attended the Troy Female Seminary and the Rensselaer School from age seventeen to nineteen". Do you mean that? Or 'She attended the Troy Female Seminary and, from age seventeen to nineteen, the Rensselaer School'?

• Yes, I mean that. Both schools at the same time. She took different things at the schools which were according to sources "adjacent". SusunW (talk) 22:37, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

• "the first gathering to discuss and examine women's rights". Ever? In the whole world, in the whole of history?

• Yep. It had been a side topic at abolition conventions, anti-slavery meetings and the organizational meeting of the Bábí religion in Persia, but never the sole focus of a gathering. Maybe the clarification I added works?

• "theorized". I think that the correct scientific term (as opposed to common usage) would be 'hypothesized'.

• done

More to follow. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:35, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Let me know if there are still issues with any of that. SusunW (talk) 22:37, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

• "the first known publication in physics by a woman". In the world?

• Yes, I think so, but it's implied and not stated. The quote is "the only woman to be published in serious physics journals until Madame Curie", who obviously was Polish and working in France, so at the very least in Western culture. I added in a scientific journal for clarification.

That works, nice.

• "Her father was a farmer and entrepreneur in East Bloomfield, amassing wealth and losing money through speculation. Her father was a ..." "Her father was a ... Her father was a ..." And two sentences later "Her father ..."

• Good catch, thanks. I revised it.

• "Girls attending the school studied astronomy, chemistry, geography, and meteorology." Are you implying that she didn't?

• Not implying anything. Since we don't know what she actually studied there, I listed the entire curriculum offered (to girls, at Rensselaer) at both schools. I tweaked the wording to say could study, which perhaps makes it clearer? (I wrote to Perlin to see if additional biographical information had been discovered. He was given a grant in 2015 by UC-Santa Barbara to write her bio. Like every other male academic I have ever written, crickets.)

• Link suffragist?

• done.

More to follow. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:50, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Think I have these. Let me know if there is anything further to clarify. SusunW (talk) 14:53, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Looking pretty good so far. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:42, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

• No usable images of Foote? [1]

• No confirmed images. The one with the dog was on the article and removed. Clearly not her, as the dress/hair style is in the period of 1880-1890s and too young for her at that time - it's very likely her daughter Mary. (Compare the first photo in the first row of photos in your link with the fourth, which is definitely Mary.) The one on the far right of that row in the earliest article I could find said it may be her, or may be one of her daughters (unlikely as the style of dress/hair is from the 1860s and they would have been teenagers), or it might be a friend. No clue where they got it from. Multiple sources confirm that there is no definitively identified image, even after contact with descendants. *sigh* SusunW (talk) 18:34, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

And here is absolute proof that the image with the dog is Mary, Foote's daughter, from 1904. SusunW (talk) 18:47, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Completely arbitrary break for ease of editing

• "She used an air pump with limited power to adjust the air pressure in a tube about two feet long and three inches in diameter and sealed at the ends with brass caps." Is it known what the tubes were made of?

• added glass

• Do you want your links archiving? (Open question.)

• Because I have lots of trouble linking websites from Mexico, I usually archive everything (unless there is a doi or other link, like jstor, muse, etc). If it is live, I generally try to use url-status=live, but admittedly sometimes I forget to do that. If this is about Reed, the url-link is dead and I added that.

• "Attached to the caps was a gold leaf electrometer". This is not clear to me. Were both caps connected tot he same electrometer? Or each to a separate one?

• I have no idea. Reed says "she reported experiments with a glass tube filled with different gases and attached to a gold leaf electrometer"…"and consisted of evacuating the tube and replacing the air with oxygen, hydrogen or carbon dioxide. She noted the effects of changing pressures [by the use of an air pump] and also the effects of heat and humidity upon electrical charges as indicated by the action of the gold leaves". (Reed's brackets, not mine.) In the first sentence, she says a tube and an electrometer, but then says multiple gold leaves. Okay, but Ortiz/Jackson say she used "a glass tube about twenty-two inches in height and three in diameter, with its ends closed by brass caps cemented to it. At the bottom was a stop-cock and a screw by which it was attached to the air pump. She goes on to describe the electrical components of the apparatus". Which makes me think one end was affixed to the pump and the other had the electrometer attached. I've changed it to read: "Attached to one cap was a gold leaf electrometer, which allowed her to measure electrical charges and the other cap was attached to the pump". Better?

• "Vacuuming out the atmospheric air, she tested oxygen, hydrogen, and CO2, as well as dry and damp air." How did "Vacuuming out the atmospheric air" permit her to test these other things? Surely vacuuming out the atmospheric air would leave, er, a vacuum?

• Well now, it seems logical to me that if you have air in the tube and you wanna test something else, you have to get rid of what's in there first. Reed says the experiment "consisted of evacuating the tube and replacing the air with oxygen, hydrogen or carbon dioxide". So I've changed it to read "Vacuuming out the atmospheric air, she replaced it with oxygen, hydrogen, and CO2, as well as dry and damp air for testing the effect upon the electrical charge". Better?

• "and gases in the air which could generate static electricity." Do you mean 'and which gases in the air could generate static electricity'?

• Ortiz/Jackson say the study tested the "impact of moisture and gaseous composition on the ability of air to generate static electricity.", so probably you are correct. Changed.

• "The work postulated that". By "The work", do you mean 'The paper'? Which has not yet been introduced.

• No I meant the testing/the study/the research. I changed it to read "She was working from an assumption". Is that better?

It is. Work, for all its advantages, is poor at postulation.

• "the first known publication in the field by a woman." Optional: add 'anywhere'.

• I hesitate to say that

Why? I mean, you have already said it. If you are doubtful about it you shouldn't be saying "the first known publication in the field by a woman."

But, but, what if they failed to check in China or Timbuktu? (I struggle with absolutes so much.) But, okay, known, limits it and if knowledge changes, we can change it, so done.

[2]

• "proving that adiabatic heating or cooling" is not grammatical.

• I'm not sure what you mean by that but if you meant by proving, I added "by"

Nope. I mean you need to say something like ""proving that adiabatic heating or cooling caused changes in pressure" or "proving that adiabatic heating or cooling turned her urine purple" or whatever.

I am still confused. The sentence reads "by proving that adiabatic heating or cooling… is a result of pressure". The phrase that explains what adiabatic heating/cooling is between these two parts but is necessary IMO to help mere mortals understand what adiabatic means. Whether the phrase is there or not, it is still a proper s/v clause. I could say "results from pressure", but other than that, I still don't follow. Sorry.

You're right. Apologies. I think that the length of this sentence "The article about Foote's findings published in The New-York Daily Times on August 18, 1857, claimed that her findings had been "never heretofore proven", though in fact, they confirmed the ideal gas law, published in 1834, by proving that adiabatic heating or cooling, in other words change that occurs in temperature without adding or removing heat, is a result of pressure" caused me to lose the thread. I'm male. I can't concentrate for that long.

Okay. I put a period after 1834, i.e. "The article about Foote's findings published in The New-York Daily Times on August 18, 1857, claimed that her findings had been "never heretofore proven", though in fact, they confirmed the ideal gas law, published in 1834. She proved that adiabatic heating or cooling…" Better?

• "which in turn, impacts the generation of electricity." Is this missing the word 'static'?

• added static

• "noted that the 1842 patent Elijah filed on a thermostatically-controlled cooking stove, was made by Eunice." This states that the patent was made by Eunice. I don't think that's what you mean.

• "Elijah filed a patent in 1842, on a thermostatically-controlled cooking stove, which had been invented by Eunice." Better?

• "Rachel Brazil, a science writer for Chemistry World, noted that". Is it known when this was noted?

• added "in 2020"

• "the machine allowed better wrapping and printing paper to be manufactured". Perhaps 'better quality'? If that is what is meant.

• The Daily Evening Star says: "An improvement in the manufacture of wrapping and printing paper has recently been invented by Mrs. Eunice N. Foote…This is said to be a very valuable invention and one certain to make paper better and cheaper." I struggled with this because cheaper generally means that quality suffers, but if we're talking of going from hand-crafted with imperfections to machine-made with consistency, then likely quality would go up. Your thoughts?

Looking at the source I think you could go with "better quality".

Done.

More to follow. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:05, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

We're getting to the parts that make my head spin, so I might have to "phone a friend". I literally read these scientific papers multiple times to have even a slight clue as to what they were trying to convey. SusunW (talk) 21:19, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

I thought that the explanation of the first paper was excellent, and with this one the main issue seems to be the obtuseness of the source.

You are kind. It could well be the obtuseness of the writer.

• "Some writers nevertheless credit the greenhouse effect to Svante Arrhenius". Delete "nevertheless".

• done

• "for increased representation in academia". Perhaps 'for increased female representation in academia' or similar?

• I avoid female as it is a politically charged (i.e. non neutral) word,[3] so went with "for increased representation of women"

"“female” has biological overtones and focusses too narrowly on the reproductive system." You have got to be kidding me. "You would never refer to Cory Booker as “a male candidate,”" Of course you would - a skim of the coverage of the ongoing contest to become UK prime minister yields dozens of examples. Hey ho, it's your article, by all means let us not ruffle the tender sensitivities of the woke.

• "hoping to address historical omissions and address discrimination". "... address ... address ..."

• changed 2nd to eliminate.

• "academic inclusion of women". What does this mean?

• changed it to read "The push for the inclusion of women as both historical subjects and a field of study for academics resulted in the first university women's studies program". Better?

Yep.

More to follow. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:34, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

That part was not brutal. Still in my comfort zone. Next part won't be so easy for me. But, I truly appreciate your attention to getting the article right and making it better. SusunW (talk) 14:45, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

• "Roland Jackson, a visiting scholar at the London-based Royal Institution, set out to analyze the questions of priority of Foote's work". When?

• added 2019

• "as did Hayhoe." When?

• added 2016

• "could not distinguish between the effects of energy emitted from the sun and the earth's heat, infrared radiation, in other words visible and invisible radiation." I am not convinced you have this right. If you have, I don't understand it.

• Jackson says "Foote's experimental apparatus was simple… her experimental arrangement does not differentiate between the direct effect of solar radiation and that (in modern terms) of radiated longwave infra-red from the earth's surface". Hayhoe says "her rudimentary experimental design of simply putting jars out in the sun did not actually allow her to isolate the effects of the infrared (heat) radiation given off by the earth from the higher-wavelength energy given off by the sun." Hecht says "solar radiation reaching the ground was mostly visible, but the "heat" radiated by the Earth and hot surface objects was largely infrared…invisible to the eye". Thus, to my eye, they are saying that she couldn't tell if sunlight was causing the gases to heat or if it was radiation causing them to heat? Your thoughts? Yeah, you got that right, and I can now see what the original was driving at. How about '"could not distinguish between the effects of energy emitted from the sun and infrared energy radiated by the Earth.' or similar?

Thanks, done.

• "Does the composition of the gas in the atmosphere affect its warming response to the Sun’s rays?" Perhaps 'Does the composition of gases in the atmosphere affect its warming response to the Sun’s rays?' ?

• The three questions are a direct quote from the source.

• "and Can the effect of different gases on the warming response of the Sun’s rays be ranked?" "Can" → 'can'. Perhaps 'and can the warming response to the Sun’s rays of different gases be ranked?" ?

• Ditto to above

• "they could not be elevated to the titles of". I think one can be given a title or elevated to a position.

• okay. Changed to given

• "Katharine Wilkinson, climate activist and writer acknowledged that social norms may have played a part in Foote not presenting her own paper. When?

• 2019 added

• "Washington Post journalist Gillian Brockell wrote that perhaps Henry presented the work so that male scientists would take it seriously." Ditto.

• 2021 added

Et fin. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:18, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your patience with me and your help to clarify the article. I genuinely wanted to improve our article on her and her work and truly could not have done so without the collaboration of many. I think we are down to the one question, but let me know your thoughts. SusunW (talk) 17:35, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

So when would you like this wrapping up? Gog the Mild (talk) 18:59, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

I think I have answered all of your questions and those of BennyOnTheLoose on Reed, so, whenever y'all are ready to push the buttons, I think we can go to DYK with the double hook. SusunW (talk) 19:16, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

• Excellent article, on a woman who sorely needed the skilled attention. A privilege to be promoting it. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:20, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed