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I agree on the pic not having much information. Nevertheless, I appreciate to have any pic, somehow related and nicely rendered, at the top of a page. It appears as a mouse-over, confirming a suitable link, it attracts the focus when getting rendered, it primes the thoughts when seen, ... Any article looks to me more inviting by far, if there is a pic at the top, and if the lead does not start right out with frightening math prose. Certainly, not for all math topics there are suitable pics, but this saturated red spot, depicting a well-known ratio, signalizes a welcome with an almost historic ratio.
I hope you do not mind my cheekiness of inserting the pic (I really have no personal relation to it) at a place with related content, but I honestly estimate the looks of the article higher, when having the pic atop - really better than an info-box in this case. May I ask to reestablish it at the previous place? Purgy ( talk) 16:28, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
Why is the aspect ratio of SD television given so much prominence, especially considering that it's 2020 and that the article has no other illustrations? There are much better aspect ratio pictures on Commons and I don't think a general article about ratios should focus on television so much. What about paper? What about ratios in nature? Or architecture? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A457:9497:1:F938:499E:52BC:CB4C ( talk) 11:33, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
In edit 1122988576, Peter M. Brown tagged the description of ratios as using the colon character with a Template:Citation needed. At first I thought that the concern was needing a citation for the use of U+003A : COLON over U+2236 ∶ RATIO, but then I saw that this wasn't the case. My second impression was that they wanted a citation that the colon notation is at all common—and I thought they must be having a bit of a laugh, questioning whether the notation that's constantly present throughout the entire article is really used!
Then I finally slowed down and looked more carefully at what they actually wrote: The questionable implication is that a ratio is more commonly presented in the A:B form than as a fraction or percentage.
And this leaves me somewhat bewildered, as I don't read the statement in question in that way at all. I read it as "when the A:B form is used, the two-dot character is a colon", not "the A:B form is a more common way to compare two quantities than fractions or percentages". But perhaps because I don't read it that way, I'm not sure how to rephrase the sentence so as to not give that impression. Any ideas? --
Perey (
talk) 14:31, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
-- :: Perey ( talk) 03:55, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
@
Peter M. Brown: Regarding
your change of wording from "is usually the colon" to "is sometimes the colon". I disagree with your statement in the edit summary, "The cited source does not support the stronger claim.
" On the contrary, I think the source does not support the weaker claim. It says, "The colon is the symbol ':'... [used to] denote ratio" (emphasis mine). No ifs or buts, no hedging. Even my use of "usually" was a mistake here!
I think the issue might be a confusion between "the symbol is the colon" and "the symbol is U+003A : COLON". I'm not sure I can explain this well, but let me try. The former is the abstract identity of the character; the latter is its concrete computer encoding. For comparison:
(In all cases, I am leaving aside the possibility of choosing an entirely different symbol for the same meaning. A comma could be used for a decimal point, a commercial minus sign for negative numbers, a fraction bar for a ratio, or a dot for a time separator.)
Anyway, I think the MathWorld source is a pretty clear statement that the mathematical sign and the punctuation colon are considered the same—no "usually" or "sometimes" about it. (And what else would it be, anyway?) -- Perey ( talk) 13:01, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
Indeed, your hypothetical source doesn't support a claim that only iron is used, to the exclusion of all other elements... but it does support a claim that iron is always used. An exception (a completely iron-free car) would then be the unusual case requiring a citation.
As applied to the present case: The notation "A:B" is not used to the exclusion of other notations (fractions et al.), but when it is used, that two-dot symbol in the middle is a colon. That's what I believe to be true, that's what I read the MathWorld source to say, and that is all that I intended to say with the sentence in the article. And I think that your implication that it could be some other two-dot symbol, not identifiable with the colon, is then the extraordinary claim that you need to cite. -- Perey ( talk) 00:03, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Please discuss at Talk:Proportion (mathematics)#Split. fgnievinski ( talk) 18:43, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
The opening line is "In mathematics, a ratio shows how many times one number contains another."
The example given is "if there are eight oranges and six lemons in a bowl of fruit, then the ratio of oranges to lemons is eight to six" But while the bowl (total 14 fruit) contains 8 of one and 6 of the other, six does not 'contain' eight and of course eight _oranges_ cannot 'contain' six lemons. A better short description would be "a ratio shows the relative size of two numbers" SLR Ellison ( talk) 10:43, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Ratio article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Archives:
1,
2Auto-archiving period: 730 days
![]() |
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects. | ||||||||||
|
I agree on the pic not having much information. Nevertheless, I appreciate to have any pic, somehow related and nicely rendered, at the top of a page. It appears as a mouse-over, confirming a suitable link, it attracts the focus when getting rendered, it primes the thoughts when seen, ... Any article looks to me more inviting by far, if there is a pic at the top, and if the lead does not start right out with frightening math prose. Certainly, not for all math topics there are suitable pics, but this saturated red spot, depicting a well-known ratio, signalizes a welcome with an almost historic ratio.
I hope you do not mind my cheekiness of inserting the pic (I really have no personal relation to it) at a place with related content, but I honestly estimate the looks of the article higher, when having the pic atop - really better than an info-box in this case. May I ask to reestablish it at the previous place? Purgy ( talk) 16:28, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
Why is the aspect ratio of SD television given so much prominence, especially considering that it's 2020 and that the article has no other illustrations? There are much better aspect ratio pictures on Commons and I don't think a general article about ratios should focus on television so much. What about paper? What about ratios in nature? Or architecture? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A457:9497:1:F938:499E:52BC:CB4C ( talk) 11:33, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
In edit 1122988576, Peter M. Brown tagged the description of ratios as using the colon character with a Template:Citation needed. At first I thought that the concern was needing a citation for the use of U+003A : COLON over U+2236 ∶ RATIO, but then I saw that this wasn't the case. My second impression was that they wanted a citation that the colon notation is at all common—and I thought they must be having a bit of a laugh, questioning whether the notation that's constantly present throughout the entire article is really used!
Then I finally slowed down and looked more carefully at what they actually wrote: The questionable implication is that a ratio is more commonly presented in the A:B form than as a fraction or percentage.
And this leaves me somewhat bewildered, as I don't read the statement in question in that way at all. I read it as "when the A:B form is used, the two-dot character is a colon", not "the A:B form is a more common way to compare two quantities than fractions or percentages". But perhaps because I don't read it that way, I'm not sure how to rephrase the sentence so as to not give that impression. Any ideas? --
Perey (
talk) 14:31, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
-- :: Perey ( talk) 03:55, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
@
Peter M. Brown: Regarding
your change of wording from "is usually the colon" to "is sometimes the colon". I disagree with your statement in the edit summary, "The cited source does not support the stronger claim.
" On the contrary, I think the source does not support the weaker claim. It says, "The colon is the symbol ':'... [used to] denote ratio" (emphasis mine). No ifs or buts, no hedging. Even my use of "usually" was a mistake here!
I think the issue might be a confusion between "the symbol is the colon" and "the symbol is U+003A : COLON". I'm not sure I can explain this well, but let me try. The former is the abstract identity of the character; the latter is its concrete computer encoding. For comparison:
(In all cases, I am leaving aside the possibility of choosing an entirely different symbol for the same meaning. A comma could be used for a decimal point, a commercial minus sign for negative numbers, a fraction bar for a ratio, or a dot for a time separator.)
Anyway, I think the MathWorld source is a pretty clear statement that the mathematical sign and the punctuation colon are considered the same—no "usually" or "sometimes" about it. (And what else would it be, anyway?) -- Perey ( talk) 13:01, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
Indeed, your hypothetical source doesn't support a claim that only iron is used, to the exclusion of all other elements... but it does support a claim that iron is always used. An exception (a completely iron-free car) would then be the unusual case requiring a citation.
As applied to the present case: The notation "A:B" is not used to the exclusion of other notations (fractions et al.), but when it is used, that two-dot symbol in the middle is a colon. That's what I believe to be true, that's what I read the MathWorld source to say, and that is all that I intended to say with the sentence in the article. And I think that your implication that it could be some other two-dot symbol, not identifiable with the colon, is then the extraordinary claim that you need to cite. -- Perey ( talk) 00:03, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Please discuss at Talk:Proportion (mathematics)#Split. fgnievinski ( talk) 18:43, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
The opening line is "In mathematics, a ratio shows how many times one number contains another."
The example given is "if there are eight oranges and six lemons in a bowl of fruit, then the ratio of oranges to lemons is eight to six" But while the bowl (total 14 fruit) contains 8 of one and 6 of the other, six does not 'contain' eight and of course eight _oranges_ cannot 'contain' six lemons. A better short description would be "a ratio shows the relative size of two numbers" SLR Ellison ( talk) 10:43, 16 February 2024 (UTC)