Freebase: Discussion about Education

Degree: A.M. and other names for a Master of Arts...

2009-12-15T06:24:04.0005Z

Also beware that there are semantically different Master of Arts degrees, which should be separate topics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Arts_(disambiguation)

Degree: A.M. and other names for a Master of Arts...

2009-12-14T22:30:23.0013Z

I agree that the reference to the degree should be as it was awarded, but unfortunately there's no way to do that currently with Freebase. The link is symbolic and the name at the end of the link is used universally for all occurrences so you can't have Artium Magister one place and Master of Arts another. The are occasional places in the schema where the actual value is preserved (Book Edition "credited as" for authors comes to mind), but when a literal string is used like that you lose the power of the symbolic connection. There isn't yet a good way to have your cake and eat it too.

Degree: A.M. and other names for a Master of Arts...

2009-12-14T21:24:29.0000Z

The standard practice in Freebase is not to create multiple topics for things that are identical except in name, so the practice with degrees has always been to use the same degree topic, no matter how called by the granting institution at the time. Thus degrees of "Artium Magister", "Master of Arts", and "M.A." are all represented by http://www.freebase.com/view/en/master_of_arts. Or, in other words, the name isn't as important as what it represents. Hence, there is also some variability on how the degree topics themselves are named, based on whatever the user who created (or renamed) the topic entered. (E.g, Bachelor of Arts vs M.A.) I'd personally support expanding the names, since it's less ambiguous that way, but as long as aliases are entered for variants, they'll still show up for autocompletion and reconciliation, which is the most important thing.

Degree: A.M. and other names for a Master of Arts...

2009-12-14T21:01:23.0013Z

Some institutions use, or have used "the Latin degree names, such as Artium Magister (AM) or Scientiæ Magister (SM)." Though the wikipedia gives examples of institutions that currently use these names, "Harvard University, the University of Chicago, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania use the degree abbreviations A.M. and S.M. for some of their master's degrees." it does not say what institutions have used them in the past.

I suspect that the use of such names was much more popular in the past and many bio's list degrees as such.

See, for example: http://www.freebase.com/edit/topic/en/john_erskine_1879

My question--yes, there is a question--is: how should degree information be entered?

As awarded, or as known today? I think it should be as awarded, but I'd like to see a mapping to the current nomenclature, which I suspect exists, but I can't see in action.

Additionally, I'd like to see more discussion of this in the help text, right now it just says to enter info about the degree: http://rookery5.aviary.com/storagev12/2678000/2678399_95c4_625x625.jpg

It should give instructions as to how to enter the degree: In the original form. In fully qualified format and not an abbreviation. ...and other stuff

Robert Andrews Millikan: Academic, Physicist, Nobel Laureate...which ONE?

2009-12-12T01:30:24.0000Z

humm...first question: What's the correct term for this..."most notable type"?

Is there no way to override this?

Better question: It would be interesting to write a query to display all Nobel laureates most notable types to assess this routine to say nothing of the exercise.

any pointers on where/how to start?

Robert Andrews Millikan: Academic, Physicist, Nobel Laureate...which ONE?

2009-12-12T01:18:42.0033Z

It's based on an algorithm which tries to guess the most notable type. I agree it's not always ideal.

Robert Andrews Millikan: Academic, Physicist, Nobel Laureate...which ONE?

2009-12-12T00:56:39.0025Z

Dr. Millikan was indeed an Academic, Physicist, Nobel Laureate...which ONE?

I am talking about what shows up (or drops down) from the search box when I type in ``Robert Andrews Millikan.''

I guarantee you that the Nobel was the first thing mentioned in his obituary, why is it that he comes up as an ``Academic''?

Is this set someplace or is this an automatic function of Freebase?

Jeffrey Friedman: split

2009-12-11T21:03:02.0017Z

I moved the film credits to the correct Jeffrey Friedman and removed those tyoes - the film credit related ID's still need to be moved.

Robert S. Mulliken: Whoa...Dr. Mulliken's Education appears to be very seriously WRONG.

2009-12-11T07:29:51.0013Z

Ok, ok, I'm eating my words now. My tail is firmly between my legs.

Learn from my mistake. Double, triple, check the NAME--be sure to include the middle name or initial. Check the name AGAIN.

I confused Dr. Robert A. Millikan with Robert S. Mulliken; let me say that with yet more clarity: I confused Dr. Robert Andrews Millikan with Dr. Robert Sanderson Mulliken.

oops. --Dan Eldridge

Robert S. Mulliken: Whoa...Dr. Mulliken's Education appears to be very seriously WRONG.

2009-12-11T07:14:28.0018Z

I am beginning a review of Nobel laureates by university affiliation--and I'm using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_laureates_by_university_affiliation.

This is the first, the VERY FIRST record I am reviewing (yes, yes, it's also the only record I have reviewed) and the ERRORS ARE ALARMING.

FB lists Dr. Mulliken's education as: Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of Chicago Harvard University

while the Wikipedia no NO RECORD OF MIT, U. CHICAGO, nor HARVARD whatsoever; the wikipedia lists his degrees as being issued by Oberlin College (in 1891) and his doctorate in physics from Columbia University (in 1895); NOTE: He was the very first person to earn a Ph.D. from that department @ Columbia University.

Particle physics: Particle type?

2009-12-07T22:12:10.0022Z

Phil: Ahh, I see. There is no way to make a model like that which will work in the client. MQL doesn't care about nested CVTs, but the client balks at them.

Particle physics: Particle type?

2009-12-06T18:40:32.0008Z

Jeff: composition is already non-unique. Ideally, what I'd like to end up with is something like the structure pictured here, but none of the "xxx" nodes make sense to be topics themselves.

Particle physics: Particle type?

2009-12-05T11:00:08.0020Z

I've deleted particle statistical family and group - the particle type is looking nice and clean now.

For π⁰, I guess we could have a formula (i.e. text) similar to a chemical compound formula, but then we lose the linkage to the quarks it makes up. Otherwise I think we'll have to leave composition of π⁰ etc and self antiparticles as open questions for now.

Another question: why doesn't the Browse view for an Electron display its particle properties?

Particle physics: Particle type?

2009-12-04T18:37:21.0013Z

Composition of π⁰: Could composition be non-unique, and defined as "possible compositions"?

Particle physics: Particle type?

2009-12-04T12:05:57.0011Z

I've added particle family to the particle type so I think we can now drop particle statistical family and group. I've also engaged in some property reciprocation.

Self antiparticles: ugh. The double links solution is pretty horrible. The only other solution I can think of would be to have a "self antiparticle" boolean, but that's probably even worse.

Composition of π⁰: in slight handwaving terms, the π⁰ can be thought of as alternating between being composed of (an up quark and an up antiquark) and (a down quark and a down antiquark), but never (an up quark and a down antiquark) or any of the other combinations. The only ways I can see to model this either end up with CVTs inside CVTs or creating a topic for something like "composition of the π⁰".

Spin: yeah, I screwed up the pion spins. Good catch. Now fixed, I think.

Particle physics: Particle type?

2009-12-04T00:49:03.0013Z

I like the hadron type!

I've changed spin to float and updated the spins that were already entered in (note: Wikipedia says pions have zero spin? also, should spins be negative?). I'll start moving types from my base to the new base soon.

Particle physics: Particle type?

2009-12-03T18:48:31.0031Z

Self antiparticles: There isn't a way to set a particle to be its own antiparticle using a sibling-relationship CVT -- the CVT has only one property to hold both particles, and you cannot enter the same topic as a value for a property more than one time. The only work-around would be to use something that resembled a phylogeny pattern, with two linked properties "antiparticle" and "antiparticle of". This is kind of ugly, but would handle the π⁰ case. The problem with this pattern is that you have to enter all the relationships in twice for all particles that aren't antiparticles of themselves -- once in the "antiparticle" property, and once in "antiparticle of".

Composition of π⁰: I'm not sure what "linear combination of (up-antiup) and (down-antidown)" means, but I can see in Wikipedia's list of mesons that there are several mesons with similarly complex compositions.

Uncertainties: we can do this -- see how we handled it for atomic masses.

Spin: Agreed -- let's make it just be a float for the particles. We can refactor the Particle Spin type separately.

Particle physics: Particle type?

2009-12-03T13:07:45.0013Z

More from me... it doesn't at the moment to seem possible to set a particle to be its own antiparticle (try it with the π⁰). Any thoughts on a way round this one?

Also, we need to find a way to model the composition of the π⁰, which is a linear combination of (up-antiup) and (down-antidown).

I'll shut up for a bit now and let other people get a word in edgeways :-)

Particle physics: Particle type?

2009-12-03T10:14:50.0012Z

Two more thoughts from the way to work: do we want to include uncertainties on properties like mass, etc? Also, I created a hadron type to model the composition of baryons and mesons.

Particle physics: Particle type?

2009-12-03T08:38:34.0006Z

Yes, it would allow people to enter the class as "fermion". If we really wanted to avoid that possibility, we could have "particle family" type (quark, gauge boson, meson, etc) which link to a "particle class" type (fermion, boson, hadron), but that seems to me to be to getting towards creating types for the sake of it.

Spin: just a floating point number, yes. The particle spin used in chemistry is the same concept, but it's typically expressed in a different way.

In other news, I've created the particle [physics bas](http://particlephysics.freebase.com/)e and added the particle family type. Luke, you're an admin so you can move your types over there if you want.