Talk:Ferroelectricity

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[edit] Naming conventions

Piezoelectric effect redirects to piezoelectricity, and pyroelectric effect redirects to pyroelectricity, but ferroelectricity redirects to ferroelectric effect. These should all be consistent. The "-ity" sounds rather odd to me, and I think " effect" is better. Any opinions? –radiojon 15:01, 2004 Apr 16 (UTC)

Perhaps we should bring it up on wikipedia:naming conventions. I'd vote for "piezoelectric" etc. myself, for easy linking. These are often used as both nouns and adjectives, and all "proper" forms can be made by appending a few letters (such as "ity", "ally", etc.) outside the link.--Joel 06:34, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

QUESTION: Why can you change the polarization direction of a ferroelectric material using an external electrical field, but not the polarization direction of a pyro or piezoelectric material? What occurs in these materials that causes the dipoles to be fixed/unfixed? AND why do many ferroelectric materials have such high nonlinearities and dielectric constants? Is it related to Kerr Effect or Pockels Effect?

[edit] Technical language

The article is written for people who already know about the subject, we need to make this more approachable to people without the prerequisite knowledge.  ALKIVAR™ 17:28, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Here are some more ideas for dealing with moderately or highly technical subjects:

• The most accessible parts of the article should be up front. It's perfectly fine for later sections to be highly technical, if necessary. Those who are not interested in details will simply stop reading at some point, which is why the material they are interested in needs to come first.

• Add a concrete example. Many technical articles are inaccessible (and more confusing even to expert readers) only because they are abstract.

• Add a picture. Many people learn better, and many technical concepts are communicated better, through visual depictions, rather than words or symbols. Diagrams should be related to symbolic or verbal descriptions where appropriate.

• Use jargon and acronyms judiciously. In addition to explaining jargon and expanding acronyms at first use, you might consider using them sparingly thereafter, or not at all. Especially if there are many new terms being introduced all at once, substituting a more familiar English word might help reduce confusion (as long as accuracy is not sacrificed).

Holy hell. What is it about "experts" that makes them write so inaccessibly? (Bryan - I'm-a talkin' 'bout YOU. Among others.) This article is only even VAGUELY comprehensible to OTHER people outside the (broad) field of expertise.

I have an Ivy-League MBA AND have studied AI and networking theory (at the graduate level) at Stanford and Penn ("oooh!....aaahhhh!"). I'm working on mesoscale microchemical reactors. I'm pretty damned technical, for someone outside this field -- and I couldn't get mental traction on this stupid, jargon-laden, inaccessible, P.O.S. Wikipedia entry.

LOOK: write an introductory paragraph that your grandma would understand. "Ferroelectric materials (do this). That's interesting because of (that). People use them for (this kind of thing, and that). They're interesting in the fields of (foo, bar, and blah -- because they yadda, fing, and plugh).

Einstein wrote a very nice, brief, and COMPREHENSIBLE to the layman - summary of both general and special relativity. It's on my bookshelf - it's probably less than 1/2" thick. I understand it.

If you nerd-nuts can't match him - it's a comment on YOUR abilities and intelligence. Not OURS.

Sheesh.
A Doon 20:07, 5 September 2006 (UTC)