Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ning Li (physicist)

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. I see a consensus here to Keep this article. It would be helpful if interested editors could add newly found sources to the article in case there are future AFDs. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:39, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ning Li (physicist)

If you came here because someone asked you to, or you read a message on another website, please note that this is not a majority vote, but instead a discussion among Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia has policies and guidelines regarding the encyclopedia's content, and consensus (agreement) is gauged based on the merits of the arguments, not by counting votes.

However, you are invited to participate and your opinion is welcome. Remember to assume good faith on the part of others and to sign your posts on this page by adding ~~~~ at the end.

Note: Comments may be tagged as follows: suspected single-purpose accounts: {{subst:spa|username}}; suspected canvassed users: {{subst:canvassed|username}}; accounts blocked for sockpuppetry: {{subst:csm|username}} or {{subst:csp|username}}.

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

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

This is an article on an "anti-gravity researcher." It is filled with a dozen sources, however, on close examination these are things like U.S. Government grant filings, business registrations, papers Li herself authored, and a paid obit.

We currently have three pieces of biographical coverage: one paragraph in a WIRED article, a captioned photo in a Popular Mechanics article, and a very robust article in the Huntsville Business Journal. The first two certainly don't pass the threshold of WP:SIGCOV; as for the third, we have consistently considered trade publications--specifically including Business Journal-brand papers--as non-contributive to WP:N (though otherwise reliable) due to their articles being WP:ROUTINE.
Researcher does not have a remarkable H-Index, nor did she hold a named chair, that would allow her to crest WP:NPROF.

Fails WP:GNG. Chetsford (talk) 01:36, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Physics-related deletion discussions. Chetsford (talk) 01:36, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Academics and educators, Businesspeople, Women, China, and Alabama. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 06:15, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I am not finding anything relevant in GScholar except for citations of the work of other people with the same name. Based on the content on the article, this sounds like a WP:FRINGE situation, in which case we should go by the WP:BIO standards. Except for the Huntsville Business Journal article, there does not appear to be sufficient sources providing specific significant WP:BIO type coverage here. Moreover, for WP:FRINGE cases we would need some more substantive WP:RS than the Huntsville Business Journal discussing the relevant scientific facts and background. Nsk92 (talk) 12:05, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The only source that potentially contributes to notability here is the Huntsville Business Journal. However, it's not stellar, and even though the article claims that her research was " big news in both scientific journals and mainstream press", I can't find any evidence of that. Cortador (talk) 12:52, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:GREL sources like New Scientist, Science and Wired did cover Ning Li's work in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Examples: Going up, Anti-gravity research on the rise, Breaking the Law of Gravity, Holden, Constance (1996-10-11). "NASA's fling with anti-gravity". Science. 274 (5285): 183–185. doi:10.1126/science.274.5285.183. ISSN 0036-8075. JSTOR 2892153. - Amigao (talk) 00:50, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Each of these vary between two to three sentences (within very long articles) about Ning Li, and none of them provide biographical information; rather she's incidentally mentioned in a tangential manner in regard to her research. That's certainly enough to prove Ning Li was a real person. But notability is about more that simply demonstrating the person is non-fictional. Chetsford (talk) 06:12, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Science article cited above would not be considered a mere "tangential" mention. In fact, Ning Li and her work are central to that article. - Amigao (talk) 16:03, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as the threshold of WP:NBASIC appears to be covered from the cited sources. Also, per WP:SIGCOV, Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material. Thus, this Wired article discussing some of Ning Li's work would likely still count. - Amigao (talk) 23:25, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources. The subject passes Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Basic criteria, which says:
People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject.
- If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability; trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not usually sufficient to establish notability.
Sources
1. The sources found by Amigao.
2. Powell, Corey S. (May 1999). "Zero gravity". Discover. Vol. 20, no. 5. pp. 31–32. EBSCOhost 1769172. ProQuest 205987827.
  The article notes: "In her laboratory at the University of Alabama, Ning Li tinkers time and again with a device she believes will transform the world. ... Nevertheless, Ning Li, who had published theoretical papers on antigravity in the late 1980s and early 1990s, promptly rose to the challenge. In collaboration with a NASA team, she constructed superconducting flywheels as much as a foot in diameter-a messy and technically demanding project-and tried to reproduce the results of Podkletnov's experiments. Li and the NASA group have since undergone an amicable split. NASA is focusing on validating the basic experiments, while Li is concentrating more on applications. She has stopped publishing papers and no longer speaks of her techniques or experimental results, saying she fears any delays will give foreign researchers the lead.
3. Logan, Noah (2023-07-30). "Uncovering the mystery of Huntsville's brilliant anti-gravity scientist". Huntsville Business Journal. Archived from the original on 2023-08-11. Retrieved 2025-11-04.
  The article notes: "Not only was Dr. Ning-Li from Huntsville, she was also a trailblazer in the field of anti-gravity research. After migrating to America from China in 1983, Li began working at the University of Alabama Huntsville’s (UAH) Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research. She became famous and somewhat controversial for a series of papers she co-authored from 1991 – 1993. In her work, Li described a practical method of producing an anti-gravity field, which had never been done before. It’s always been held that, because gravity is a basic force of nature, constructing an antigravity machine is theoretically impossible. However, Li and her co-author, Douglass Torr, theorized ways around this belief using a high temperature superconductor (HTSD.)
4. Burkey, Martin (1996-12-07). "UAH co-workers have spat over laboratory space". The Huntsville Times. Archived from the original on 2025-11-04. Retrieved 2025-11-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  The article notes: "Dr. Ning Li, who made news recently when she made an agreement with NASA to develop an experiment that could measurably decrease the effect of gravi-ty, came to her lab at the UAH optics building Friday to find the contents of one lab in a hall. She was using the equipment to heat-treat high temperature superconducting powder to be pressed into a disc for the gravity experiment. A shaken Li said Friday she believes she's the victim of an academic turf war with colleagues who question the value of her research."
5. Burkey, Martin (1996-09-22). "Report levitates interest here in gravity experiment" (pages 1 and 2). The Huntsville Times. Archived from the original (pages 1 and 2) on 2025-11-04. Retrieved 2025-11-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  The article notes: "After reading about the research in London's Sunday Telegraph on Sept. 1, Stanford University scientists reportedly are planning to visit UAH soon to discuss the research with theorist Dr. Ning Li. Stanford is also rumored to be trying to woo the physicist, sources said. Li's research is paid for partly by NASA's advanced propulsion program, Brantley said, which is divided into a small booster program, air-breathing rockets, orbital transfer stages and propulsion research. ... Both apparently were unaware of Li's theory, first published in Physical Review D in 1991, then Physical Review B in 1992 and Foundations of Physics Letters in 1993, UAH officials said. ... Instead of measuring a very large mass spinning very slowly, however, Dr. Li's theory proposes it can be measured in quadrillions of atoms spinning quadrillions of times per second in the same direction, Koczor said. That, she says, is what occurs in the highly ordered lattice structure of a superconducting material."
6. Burkey, Martin (1993-08-16). "UAH duo hopes to reverse gravity: Revolutionary theory awaits proof in lab" (pages 1 and 2). The Huntsville Times. Archived from the original (pages 1 and 2) on 2025-11-04. Retrieved 2025-11-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  The article notes: "In the August issue of Foundations of Physics Letters, physicists Dr. Douglas Torr and Dr. Ning Li offer mathematic justification for an anti-gravity field. They call it "gravito-electric-electric coupling via superconductivity." ... Torr and Li don't take gravitational humor or skepticism lightly, and they reject any possibility that their gravity-in-a-bottle project could be another false alarm like "cold fusion" research of a few years ago. ... Torr and Li's experimental hardware would consist of a chamber less than two feet in diameter, made completely of high-temperature superconducting metal and immersed in liquid helium."
7. "Taming gravity — it's no longer impossible". Orlando Sentinel. 2000-10-07. Archived from the original on 2025-11-04. Retrieved 2025-11-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  The article notes: "Prospects for the Alabama HTSD are attracting serious attention because this particular disc was fabricated by Ning Li, one of the world's leading scientists. In the 1980s, Li predicted that if a time-varying magnetic field were applied to superconductor ions trapped in a lattice structure, the ions would absorb enormous amounts of energy. Confined in the lattice, the ions would begin to rapidly spin, causing each to create a minuscule gravitational field."
8. Faulk, Kent (1996-10-14). "Can gravity be bent? Marshall scientists trying to duplicate Russian experiment" (pages 1 and 2). The Birmingham News. Archived from the original (pages 1 and 2) on 2025-11-04. Retrieved 2025-11-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  The article notes: "Ning Li, a research scientist at UAH's Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research, some graduate students and Marshall engineers are working to duplicate Eugene E. Podkletnov's experiment. ... Ms. Li had already been working for years to prove a theory that could lead to the creation of measurable man-made gravitational fields when the results of Podkletnov's experiment were reported."
9. Cook, Nick (2002) [2001]. The Hunt for Zero Point: Inside the Classified World of Antigravity Technology. New York: Broadway Books. pp. 103–104. ISBN 0-7679-0628-4. Retrieved 2025-11-04 – via Google Books.
  The article notes: "In 1993, the Advanced Concepts office at the Marshall Space Flight Center was handed a copy of a paper written by two physicists, Douglas Torr and Ning Li, at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. It was called "Gravitoelectric-electric coupling via superconductivity" and predicted how superconductors ... In their paper, Torr and Li went out of their way to avoid the term "antigravity." One whiff of it, they knew, and no one would take their work seriously. It worked. NASA promised money for an experiment. ... At first, Ning Li, the brilliant Chinese woman scientist who had Ning Li, predicted a one percent weight change in her original calculations, joined forces with the DeltaG effort. Then, apparently frustrated by the pace of work at Marshall, she set up to pursue the experiments on her own. If she was getting anywhere with them, she wasn't saying, all her most recent tests having been conducted behind closed doors."
10. Highfield, Roger (2002). The Science of Harry Potter: How Magic Really Works. New York: Penguin Books. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-14-200355-8. Retrieved 2025-11-04 – via Google Books.
  The article notes: "In the case of anti-gravity, another scientist, Ning Li, had been independently researching gravity modification at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and had studied the possibility that superconductors might generate unexpected gravitational effects, as predicted by Einstein's theory of gravity (general relativity). In the mid 1990s she, too, seemed to be getting somewhere - fast-spinning charged atoms in her superconductor produced a measurable change in a gravitational field - but then she dropped out of sight."
There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Ning Li (simplified Chinese: 李宁; traditional Chinese: 李寧) to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".
Cunard (talk) 10:13, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Cunard - can you start using the reflisttalk template instead of blasting discussions with these walls of text? Thanks. In any case, I'm not questioning whether she was a real, living person; she was. I'm questioning whether she was notable. You've provided proof -- via one or two sentence mentions nestled within multipage articles -- that she was alive, on Earth, for a period of time. However, "trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources ... is not usually sufficient to establish notability"; see WP:NBASIC. Chetsford (talk) 15:20, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

These are hardly WP:TRIVIALMENTIONS. With all these mentions, WP:NBASIC appears to be more than satisfied (i.e., If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability.). - Amigao (talk) 15:57, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Don’t delete this is an important part of the UAP discussion,

Deletion would be suppression of important information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2025-31204-61 (talk • contribs) 17:26, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Cunard's refs are enough to establish notability. -Guy Macon (talk) 23:37, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as meets BASIC. Cunard provides sources from newspaper articles and books with enough different authors and time periods to meet notability guidelines. Some of these are in the Wikipedia article, which could use some clean-up. Nnev66 (talk) 21:49, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: She got a half a million dollar grant from the DoD regarding her anti-gravity work, the work at that point became classified and she was no longer allowed to discuss it publicly. I think your average person would find that notable, nevermind what became of the work.~2025-31400-00 (talk) 01:25, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note to Closer This AfD is the subject of offsite canvassing in the fever emporiums (e.g. [1], etc.). Chetsford (talk) 02:53, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, per argumnets by User:Nnev66. -Mardus /talk 16:01, 7 November 2025 (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.