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 speedy keep. Nomination withdrawn. (non-admin closure)‎ Wombat140 (talk) 01:29, 18 November 2023 (UTC) [reply]

Mercury vortex engine (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

I'm not sure about any of the following.

I'm not sure whether this is the right place to put this, but I don't know what to do with Mercury vortex engine, and Doug Weller suggested putting it in for AfD.

Currently, it redirects to Vaimanika Shastra, which doesn't mention mercury anywhere, so that's no good. In fact, after reading the translated text of V.S. I think the "mercury vortex engine" is probably based on Samarangana Sutradhara and not on V.S. at all, V.S. makes various mentions of mercury as a component of alloys but nothing about using it by itself or about it rotating, and from the translations I've seen S.S. does, very briefly.

It seems unfortunate not to have anything on this, as a lot of people seem to be under the impression that this is a real scientifically recognised thing and it would be useful for Wikipedia to have something on it that people could find if they searched for it. I suspect that if it's deleted, somebody will just put it up again with some shouting that Wikipedia is suppressing the truth. But I can't find good sources on it, even ones saying that it doesn't exist. The places where it's widely discussed are all non-RS-type places - ancient astronaut books from small publishers, forums, YouTube videos and so on.

A search only turns up this Grunge article https://www.grunge.com/1179379/just-how-possible-is-anti-gravity-technology/ which mentions it in passing, this https://www.skyfilabs.com/project-ideas/mercury-vortex-engines which doesn't look real, this https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a25242578/apollo-fusion-mercury/ which I don't think is the same thing, and this https://techiescientist.com/is-mercury-magnetic/ which seems to be about a different phenomenon, along with various YouTube videos, crackpot sources and forums which aren't usable sources.

Google Books has only assorted small press stuff.

Google News and Google News Archive add this https://thewire.in/education/satya-pal-singh-ancient-vimana-shivkar-talpade-research and this https://thewire.in/education/charles-darwin-satyapal-singh-ram-madhav .

Google Scholar has a long list of articles in Indian engineering journals, but I don't have the background to know whether the authors or the journals are reliable sources or not. One article I glanced at appeared to make the rookie mistake of confusing benzoin (the chemical name) with benzoin (the plant substance, which is mainly a different compound called benzoic acid) in a recipe for an alloy, so that's not promising.

There are frequent references to NASA working on some kind of ion engine involving mercury and possibly solar power, which the authors often seem to think is the same thing, but I'm not convinced that it is.

Possible options include:

• Delete the thing as a bad job.
• Redirect to Vimana#Samarangana Sutradhara, which at least makes a passing mention of mercury.
• Redirect to Die Glocke (conspiracy theory), which does describe something self-explanatorily similar and seems to be the other source for the "mercury vortex engine" idea.
• Add something to Vimana, Vaimanika Shastra or David Hatcher Childress saying what the "mercury vortex engine" theory is and what its status is among reputable sources and redirect to that.
• Write a "Mercury vortex engine" article. Somebody else will probably have to do it if so, I'm sick of the dratted thing and I don't know Sanskrit and I don't know what is or isn't a reliable Indian scientific article and I don't have access to any of David Hatcher Childress's books (he seems to be the main populariser of this theory in English) except snippets online.

Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2023 November 17. —^{cyberbot I}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 17:41, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

seems like this is the wrong venue as should be at WP:RFD JMWt (talk) 17:53, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like, I dunno how to move it, I dunno what I'm doing. Could somebody else that actually knows how to do it do it? Wombat140 (talk) 17:59, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Science, Technology, and India. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 20:28, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Wrong venue This belongs at RfD, not AfD. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 20:44, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: I saw this on one of those hokum pseudo-history shows on History Channel, the airplane was "invented" in India before the Wright Brothers flew, but was suppressed for bla bla reasons. Oaktree b (talk) 20:45, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]