The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:16, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Alejandro Jenkins[edit]

Alejandro Jenkins (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Academic with an h-factor of 16, no major awards and a low publication rate. Article survived a PROD in 2017, but was not discussed further. Minor mentions in scientific info journals/blogs, but I do not see this as meeting WP:NPROF now or before. (He seems to be a serious scientist, but not notable.) Ldm1954 (talk) 20:25, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Ldm1954 (talk) 20:25, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Academics and educators, Costa Rica, California, Florida, and Massachusetts. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 21:52, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article was created by User:Joehubris (apparently no longer active) in 2010 because Jenkins was co-author of a cover story in Scientific American. This was covered by MIT News and FSU's news website. The same work was featured in a 2015 episode of the TV show Through the Wormhole, hosted by Morgan Freeman. Jenkins appeared in person in that show. Also, there are number of published books that cite Jenkins for this work (one can try a Google Books search of his name). There's also a news story from 2020 in Physics World, based on different and later work. This seem to me to be a feature story and includes a picture of Jenkins and his collaborator Alicki. It seems to me that this reflects a significant amount of exposure in the media for a theoretical physicist. A number of physics pages, including Triboelectric effect and Self-oscillation, currently link to this bio based on the subject's work in those areas. - Eb.hoop2 (talk) 23:34, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep -- member of the national academy of sciences for a country. Evidence from @Eb.hoop2 (which I think should be counted as a Keep vote) suggests other evidence of notability. -- Michael Scott Asato Cuthbert (talk) 09:48, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. Is membership in the Costa Rica NAS enough? It's not clear to me that it operates as an extremely selective org recognizing significant impact in one's field the way the US NAS or UK RS do. I couldn't find anything about its election/nomination/application process on the website or even a description of what membership means. The executive director is someone with a master's in management, for example, and its Board of Directors includes people with only a master's and very recent PhDs.
  Jenkins has very low citation counts for this field, though the PhysicsWorld piece is promising, if rather routine, for C7/GNG. The MIT and FSU pieces are not independent and so do not count toward notability. JoelleJay (talk) 17:35, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep The ratio of National Science Academy membership to national population is about 1.6 times as high for Costa Rica (60/5,000,000) as for the US (2400/335,000,000), so the Costa Rican Academy is still rather selective. Jenkins's papers, though few, are well cited and unusually wide-ranging, including high energy physics, cosmology, quantum thermodynamics, and science pedagogy and history. Jenkins pointed out, in a paper on quark masses, that what is now called the anthropic principle was enunciated in 1844 by Arthur Schopenhauer, long before it was rediscovered and named in the 20th century.CharlesHBennett (talk) 23:33, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I revised the above numbers for Costa Rica to 60/5,000,000 because I had erroneously included 20 deceased members yesterday. The US National Academy of Sciences has two Costa Rican members. Both are members of the Costa Rican National Academy of Sciences. I too could not find how the Costa Rican National Academy selects its members. The Royal Society, arguably the most prestigious learned society, is less selective relative to the population of its host country (1600/67,000,000) than either the NAS or the Costa Rican Academy, perhaps because it includes a significant number of members from other Commonwealth countries.CharlesHBennett (talk) 13:05, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The appearance on a television program to discuss his work (as well as cover story on same material in Scientific American) establish notability. Membership in Costa Rican National Academy of Sciences also independently establishes notability. A scientist’s h-index need not be high for them to be notable (Eg, Peter Higgs has an h-index of 7 or 8). Gsbsmith (talk) 09:50, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Neither of the first two items you mention contributes at all to notability... Thousands of non-notable researchers appear on TV or publish articles in pop science magazines. And without knowing what the qualifications are for membership in the Costa Rican NAS we don't know whether it actually is selective (it looks more likely to be a governmental advisory body than an org whose membership is restricted to the top scientists in their field). I also didn't mention h-index in my evaluation, I mentioned citations; Higgs has three solo-authored research papers totaling 6800+ citations, that's clearly a C1 pass by itself. Jenkins has one review article with 245 citations and a co-authored paper with 97 citations. Is that really a high enough standard for theoretical physics? JoelleJay (talk) 11:03, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Owen× ☎ 22:46, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. I'm happy with the principle that membership in a nation's official national academy passes WP:PROF#C3. It helps counter our anglocentric bias. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.