Hello, Geometry guy, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
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Oleg Alexandrov (
talk) 16:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Just wanted to let you know that the central place for math discussion on Wikipedia is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics, in case you ever want to join discussions there or start any. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov ( talk)
Hello all: I just relinked about fifty pages to pushforward, which has now been disambiguated. If I made a mistake for any of these, my apologies! Geometry guy 22:20, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
I also relinked a few pullback pages. Same apology applies! Geometry guy 00:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks - I was hoping you would do that ;) Of course, I don't insist on my choice, but the notation is now at least fairly consistent over the articles tangent space, tangent bundle, pushforward (differential) and pullback (differential geometry), which is surely a desirable feature whatever notation is used. Geometry guy 11:45, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I've rolled out connection (vector bundle). Have a look. Feel free to butcher it if you want to. We can probably remove a good deal of overlapping material from the connection form page. -- Fropuff 07:13, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi Geometry guy,
Welcome to Wikipedia! I like what you're doing for the coordinate-system articles, a few of which I started rather hastily when I first joined. But may I offer some advice? Our audience here is not necessarily mathematics graduate students and professors, but rather lay-people who may have little or no training beyond basic calculus. Also, there may some professionals in other fields such as engineering and physics who may use a different nomenclature. Since we're writing encyclopedia articles and not review articles, I'd advise being cautious in using "scary" nomenclature (e.g., "submanifold" and "1-form") early in the article; I've at least tried to warm up the reader a little before hitting them with the most technical language. ;) Please accept this as friendly and kindly meant advice from a fellow lover of geometry, Willow 20:57, 19 February 2007 (UTC) (Geometry girl?)
Please do not do mass changes in Wikipedia articles replacing italic d with roman d in math notation. This was discussed before, and italic d is preferred. If you want to raise this topic again, please do so at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov ( talk) 03:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi - no, he was right, because I am new and I didn't read up on policy. I have posted my thoughts on the discussion page, and I do take responsibility for the unsolicited edits; after all, I'd be quite annoyed if someone modified to their liking something I had worked hard on without even an explanation!
Thanks for the the support though; do see my explanation on the talk:Integral page - I think on Wikipedia in the mathematics markup there is a lot to be gained from the Roman d. I never knew I would be so passionate about formatting as I have become!!! I will create an account, and I hope to be more constructive in future.
Thank you very much for the support!
Simon
And here I am with the account, and I shall hereby stop spamming your talk page. Thanks once again. Psymun 19:37, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Hello again, and thank you for providing a voice of reason in a chicken-or-egg type discussion. It was very frustrating to run into someone who denies the facts and twists the meanings to promote a pet point of view. Plücker embedding should definitely be written, but given the sensibilities, I won't do it myself. Arcfrk 21:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I saw that you've started an article on Plücker embedding, which was long overdue, and hope that it will develop smoothly! I actually looked at Category:Differential calculus per your suggestion, the two main articles there were indeed in messy state(s), and more than I could handle at the moment, so I didn't do anything about them. Thanks for your tip concerning posting the area of expertise on the user page, I haven't thought about it in those terms. My rationale had been not to post any identifying information, especially, since it's unnecessary for Wikipedia project; but I see how it could have its advantages. As for the experienced editor that you've mentioned, I had been quite impressed by his contributions, but after his conduct in Plücker coordinates discussion, he is off my list of reasonable people (as in: exercising one's reason in a proper manner; those with whom it makes sense to employ reasoning or argument). By the way, if you have time, can you, please, take a look at Abstract algebra#History and examples that I've written and tell me your opinion? Best, Arcfrk 01:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
(From above) ... By the way, if you have time, can you, please, take a look at Abstract algebra#History and examples that I've written and tell me your opinion? Best, Arcfrk 01:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
I read History of algebra, it's an impressive piece of work. In fact, a secondary goal of mine was to fill the void it left concerning abstract algebra. But the primary question is, does the section that I added help to understand what abstract algebra is about? My concern is how to keep a balance between merely providing a list of topics and overwhelming the reader with explanations for which (s)he may be unprepared; in other words, is this section useful to non-algebraists? Arcfrk 05:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for looking at it! Yes, I was rightly worried that it's a bit too much too fast, but cowardly tried to silence my inner editor nonetheless. Some of the group theory related stuff can go into (non-existent) history of abstract algebra, but at the moment I don't have necessary time and resources to write a decent overview of the rest of the history. Probably, you are right that Fermat's last theorem is a better model for exposition of genesis of abstract algebra for more general audience. I'll get around to it in a while, and, please, let me know if you have any more ideas. Arcfrk 03:45, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I added a few maths classifications to some articles I've been involved with. Rather than leave them as unclassified, I made an attempt to rate them myself. Please have a look (anyone) and change them if you want (I may not have been objective). The comment I have left is very bland in most cases, so please replace it with some more concrete suggestions for improvements. Geometry guy 09:35, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I saw your edits to M22, M23, and M24. I think your descriptions were the best anyone had come up with yet. I only made some stylistic changes to the entries (I removed periods and parentheses), but I otherwise left them unchanged. Thank you for the assistance. Dr. Submillimeter 15:00, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I will do that. I am currently cruising through all disambiguation links between M1 and M110 to clean them up. Many of the pages violated multiple guidelines at MoS:DAB. Again, thank you for the explanation on the disambiguation pages.
As for Mathieu group, it at least looks like an effort to explain this concept in layman's terms. It's an improvement over the previous version of the article, although it is still tough to follow. Thank you for working on it. (If it makes you feel any better, I see the same problems with physics articles.) I leave it to you to decide on whether to remove the "technical" template. Dr. Submillimeter 19:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi Geometry guy,
Could I ask a favor of you? ... I'd appreciate it muchly! :) Geometry girl 21:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi Geometry guy, in case you didn't see it, I've directed a comment to you here. Regards, Paul August ☎ 21:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, thx. I actually had pretty good luck in the end with Edits in the end, though not at first. Similar to some of your experience, possibly. Best wishes. -- Thomasmeeks 21:29, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Here's what I think might make a better introduction to the linear algebra article. I've tried to give some more idea what the field is about (in my own view), to explain the key words a little bit (so hopefully it won't scare off all laymen), and to provide some idea of applications. Use it (with or without modifications) or disregard as you please. Good luck. GV, 1 april 2007. (User Special:Contributions/82.95.55.226)
"Linear algebra is the branch of mathematics concerned with the study of vector spaces (also called linear spaces) and linear maps (also called linear transformations). Like other algebraic structures, vector spaces are defined as sets of elements, with operations that yield elements of the same set - just like adding or multiplying numbers yield another number. For such a set to be called a vector space (and its elements, vectors) the operations have to obey certain rules, or axioms. From these axioms and further definitions many useful and interesting properties of vector spaces can be proved.
In particular, vector spaces can be mapped onto other vector spaces or themselves; meaning that there are functions that take one vector as argument, and that when applied to all vectors in a vector space yield a new set that once again obeys the axioms of a vector space. Such functions are called linear transformations and are computationally represented by matrices.
Vector spaces are a central theme in modern mathematics because many objects of mathematical study exhibit the structure of a vector space, e.g. Euclidean space, sets of functions, and n-tuples of (rational, real or complex) numbers. This explains the use of vectors in analytic geometry (readily generalizable to more than 3 dimensions), in solving systems of linear equations (and hence of partial differential equations), and in statistics. In the natural sciences and the social sciences nonlinear models are often approximated by linear ones in order to make use of the computational methods of linear algebra."
Dear Geometry guy, I am getting a bit tired and fed up with the insulting remarks you leave in your edit summaries when you edit my contributions. I'm referring in particular to the comment you left here, although your latest comment suggests you might be making a habit of it. Let me remind you to be civil to your fellow wikipedians and to stop making personal attacks such as calling me an "idiot", or telling me to "get it right the first time". Yes I make mistakes from time-to-time, but there is no need for these kinds of comments. What is worse, is that you do not seem to be so rude to other wikipedians, which makes me suspect you might be wikistalking me. Please stop. Geometry guy 08:46, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Sorry if I am poking my nose into someone's family business, but do you by any chance suffer any form of split personality? Arcfrk 07:00, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi Geometry guy,
Thank you very much for all your kindness and hard work, on the Encyclopædia Britannica and elsewhere. It was wonderful how you were able to pinpoint the difficulties and improve the article so much. I also really appreciate how you assumed good faith about me, even if I didn't deserve it; your faith and honesty helped me become a better person, which is all that we can hope for among ourselves, no? The fine draught of absinthe was medicinal indeed, despite the wormwood it held for me initially. I foresee that you have work on the EB still ahead of you, as do I, for which I thank you already. Please let me know if I can help you as you have helped me; in devoted friendship, Willow 11:19, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
P.S. Sorry that the image is not geometrical! ;)
Ah Geometry Girl, there is geometry in everything ;) It was a pleasure to help out at EB and thank you so much for adding some colour to my talk page! In your case I did not need to assume good faith: it is obvious from everything you do on WP! As for EB, I think it is in a very good state now: informative, comprehensive, balanced and encyclopedic. All thanks to one determined and energetic editrix, and a little encouragement from her many friends. Geometry guy 12:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi again, G! I'd be glad to help out, although I feel out of my depth. I have a vague notion of what physics and mathematics are, but I'm a little hazy about mathematical physics. Does it mean "mathematics that was developed to create theories of physics"? In my mind, I'm distinguishing it from physics-related mathematics, which I would imagine is mathematics that was inspired by or grew out of physical theories but then developed independently, kind of like the mathematics of torsion tensors and general connections arose from general relativity. Am I understanding that correctly? Willow 15:46, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
P.S. I'm going to visit my family soon, so I may not be able to reply soon. I have a sister graduating from college this weekend, and another sister from grad school in a few weeks. I'll try to write, but my family is a little old-fashioned and it might be difficult to get connected. Willow 15:46, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
PS. Oh, I almost forgot! I've been working a bit on equipartition theorem. If you can spare a moment, any thoughts or suggestions you might have would be most welcome! :) Thanks, G-guy! Willow 22:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you once again for your wonderful edits to equipartition theorem, and, more personally, for your kind comment above, which I only just noticed. The right honourable lady appreciates your great help and insights into things beyond her own vision, and the graceful gentility with which they are uniformly delivered. :) Willow 14:25, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Here there be dragons... ;) I've been flayed a few times (luckily, dragons can shed their skins) over not putting the History section first; I think there's a policy somewhere about it, although I keep forgetting where. :( Still, I think we might get away with it here; the history seems quite hard to explain unless you've introduced the theorem, don't you agree?
At first, I was concerned about putting the quantum effects at the very end, since the role that equipartition played in showing the need for quantum mechanics was pretty important. But now I see that it makes more sense, given that the applications are all classical. Oh, do you know where we can find a nice Figure illustrating the development of ergodicity; I remember seeing some kind of "breakdown of invariant tori" Poisson-mapping kind of image, but I'm not sure where and whether it were free. I'll add some other Figures for color and fun. Willow 17:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Votre visite me ferait grand plaisir, Votre Eminence; vous etes toujours bien venu chez nous. Je vous en prie, entrez et de votre propre vouloir, comme il dut un si grande Seigneur anglais. ;) Restez chez nous et editez avec une liberte (et j'espere contentment) plusplarfaite.
Forgive me for not having replied right away to your wonderful suggestions, which as you see I tried to bring to life. But I'm happy to see that you're diving in yourself now, as befits the Englishman: "once more into the breech, dear friends, once more; in peace, nothing so becomes a man — as editing Wikipedia." Wait, is that how it goes? ;) Willow 22:47, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, I wouldn't want to stray into discourtesy or morbid thoughts; I couldn't ask such a high price of you for fixing up equipartition. ;) Besides, I conked out long before you did, the result of overly enthusiastic gardening. ;) Thanks for all your manifold improvements to equipartition! Speaking of manifolds, may I tinker a bit with affine connection? Although I'm not very good about it in my own articles, I think we ought to be more gentle with the reader there, starting with flowers before flours, ramping up gradually to the terribly twisted torsion tensor. ;) Although I'd intended to start in on making knitting into a Featured Article, this might be a fun diversion for a while, if you'll be patient with my limitations. :) Willow 15:27, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
P.S. I might have to revert to "bottle" of beer, because the equipartition theorem requires that equilibrium has been established, which could take weeks. I wouldn't want the beer in the glass to go flat! :)
Dear G-guy,
PLease don't worry about adding the {{ fact}} tag. I'm grateful; I would be rightfully ashamed if we coasted into FA-land with a substandard article. As the saying goes, seats in Valhalla should not be cheap. ;) We should recruit Awadewit and others to review the article; I suspect that they'll bring a good perspective to the article and help us to gauge how intelligible the writing is.
Someday, I may also conquer my irrational fear of differential forms; how tough can they be? ;) From dribs and drabs in random books, I sort of get the torsion tensor now, so maybe it won't be so hard to cross over into that promised land. Willow 15:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
PS. Although I'm not sure I will like the taste of my own medicine, if you do stop by and would like something to do in a spare moment, take a look at Derivative or Affine connection, into both of which I have put quite a lot of work recently, but I am not sure what to do with them now. The latter, in particular, is rather advanced maths! Geometry guy 19:40, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, straight away you spotted the main thing that I would like to add to the article (leaving me impressed, yet again)! At the moment, the construction of an affine connection by embedding a manifold in Euclidean space is limited to the example of the 2-sphere in 3-dimensional space (7.1). I would like to explain the construction in general, giving the 2-sphere as an example. Geometry guy 09:17, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm very glad you would like to work on affine connection. As for limitations, well if you'll be epsilon, I will be your delta ;) It is fun working on an article with you, and hopefully it will also inspire me to make the improvements I mentioned before. Geometry guy 16:04, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I've just been looking at your sandbox, and I realise that there is something I should mention. This subject has two origins and two points of view, which might be called the French and the Italian, since the former is represented by Darboux and Cartan, the latter by Ricci and Levi-Civita. The French school developed the geometry, the Italian school the tensor calculus (although Bianchi contributed to both). In some sense, the Italian school "won" because they provided hands-on tools for Einstein to use in his theory of general relativity. The geometric point of view then became a minority interest for over half a century.
Why do I mention this? Well, there already exists an article — covariant derivative (perhaps misleadingly named) — which develops the notion of an affine connection from the tensor calculus point of view, although it still needs a lot of work. One of the main reasons I contributed to affine connection was that the most recent previous edits had put it on a collision course with covariant derivative and a merger was suggested (see the talk page and history of affine connection). Consequently, in my rewrite of the article, I took the point of view that readers might already have met the covariant derivative point of view, and so I tried to introduce them to Cartan's geometric point of view with that in mind.
Affine connection could certainly be made much more accessible, and I'm sure your input will be invaluable, but at first sight, it seems to me that many of the ideas you are developing fit better as (much needed) improvements to the covariant derivative article. I would be happy to join in an effort to improve both articles, but would be sad if the contrast between them was lost. I hope you see where I am coming from here. Geometry guy 02:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
PS. I've seen your sandbox is aimed at several articles. I just wanted to mention that another article where you/we could really make a difference is connection (mathematics) which is the lead article in the whole connections category. Geometry guy 02:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
In reply, I should probably ask you to be patient with the whole connections category ;) since it is still in rather a mess, although it has much improved recently thanks to the efforts of User:Fropuff and User:Silly rabbit. As for references, I guess even with your fondness for French, you might not want to tackle Darboux's multivolume Leçons ;) but the book of Sharpe (cited in affine connection) is quite good. Geometry guy 12:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Please don't be discouraged! The problem with this stuff is that everyone wants to do it differently. In half a day you already managed to produce a better formulation than the covariant derivative article does! Trust your pen; I'm sure there is a place for all of your thoughts. Geometry guy 22:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
You added a comment to the talk page of Plücker coordinates saying
That may be your opinion, but by putting it where you did you make it damned awkward to have a discussion about it, so I am removing it and bringing the discussion here for the moment. I scanned the article to see what could possibly have supported it, and found myself baffled. There is a brief mention in the intro, that "[t]hey have proved useful for computer graphics, …" and both "External links" happen to be computer graphics related; but I find nothing in the body of the article. Since I wrote (almost all of) the body of the article, and did so by transcribing material on Grassmann coordinates straight out of Hodge & Pedoe (1994), but specializing it for Plücker line coordinates, I know first-hand that your characterization is not supported by the genesis. Furthermore, robotics was using Plücker coordinates (Mason & Salisbury 1985) long before computer graphics (and continues to), and they are also discussed in contemporary works on Clifford/geometric algebras, and in computational geometry (Stolfi 1991). I happen to think many computer graphics discussions are amateurish, but others insisted on adding the two external links; I'd be satisfied to see them both removed. The use of Plücker coordinates for lines in 3D may be trivial and boring from the view of research mathematics, but it is hardly so for applications. I apologize for handling the case of Plücker coordinates while leaving the greater spread of Grassmann coordinates untouched, but I was tired of wading through index soup, and not ready to write that separate article. And, so far, no one else has written even a stub. -- KSmrq T 03:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
I think I should give you an explanation, because you haven't seen me before. (Before this, I've mostly stuck to advanced articles like spectral sequence and sheaf (mathematics)—I'm rather proud of those two—and my only serious foray into more elementary topics, Riemann integral, didn't elicit any response.) First, I take the commandment be bold very seriously, and if I want to change something then I change it. If you don't like it, you should be bold and change it yourself. With an article as good as this one I'm changing mainly the exposition, not the content, and that's something that can be tinkered with endlessly. Second, I like my anonymity, and I want to remain anonymous even among Wikipedians. I'm well-aware that you can see my IP address and that an account will bring privileges I don't have. I'm still not getting one. (I seem to be an Exopedian.) I hope that clears things up a little. 141.211.62.20 15:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Hello, I've added a couple of things to Manifold and left some comments at the talk page, can you, please, take a look? I know it's all part of your grand plan! Arcfrk 02:27, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Take a look at your edit to the discussion page of calculus. You posted in the middle of the WP:M at the top of the page and messed up the box a little bit and you copied almost word for word what was said in the to do list box. Just letting you know. Cronholm144 00:31, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks and no problem about the copy, frankly I was worried that I had subconsciously copied you after staring at the talk page for too long. I couldn't be more pleased with the welcome I have received here and hope to continue to add constructively wherever I go. I think we are getting close on the article and this, being my first major contribution here, is a very exiting feeling. If you ever want my inexperienced eye on an article your working on don't hesitate to ask. I will always do my best to help. Cronholm144 05:55, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I updated the bot's source code to match your changes. The way the bot is implemented, it does not merge the new table into the page, it just overwrites the entire page with the new table (including the noinclude part). So any changes to that page need to be made to the bot source code rather than to the table page itself. CMummert · talk 17:47, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Pedantry is always welcome! We must put our best foot forward on our project page, after all. If you want extreme pedantry, I would point out that typically there are no spaces surrounding an m-dash—just like in this sentence. Since you've started hanging around here, I've seen a lot of you doing lots of good things. Thanks for being helpful! VectorPosse 00:16, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I added code to VeblenBot to make the mathematician table. I also made all of the other tables sortable while I was at it. Please let me know if I have left any mistakes. CMummert · talk 14:23, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that problem out; I changed the unassessed-class handling again and now it appears to work correctly. The problem is that the category is Category:Unassessed mathematics articles instead of Category:Unassessed-Class mathematics articles and so I have to translate back and forth between the category name and the name of the quality grade. Also the category is empty most of the time and so it isn't obvious during testing that there is an error. CMummert · talk 16:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
The mathematicians page was much easier. If there are more changes I need to make for it, please let me know. I didn't know there was an unsortable option, but it makes sense to use it where you did. CMummert · talk 16:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Hey there! I think you are right, for whatever reasons there is a lack of boldness in editing the Theorem article. Anyway, just a reminder to work on that article, as you instructed on the talk page :-). Whatever you can do to make it better would be great! Kier07 00:01, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
As a representative of the educated but not scientifically-trained masses (and an avid reader of popular science books), Willow asked me to look over the equipartition theorem article again for overly obscure language. As I wrote in my earlier peer review, I am not sure that this article is one that anyone will stumble on who doesn't have some mathematical and physical knowledge already (unlike, for example, natural selection), but I do believe that at least the lead of every article should make an attempt to be comprehensible by the non-specialist. I think that the lead for this article has improved, but, to me, the opening paragraph is overly specific (I am thinking here of for example, the average kinetic energy in the translational motion of a molecule should equal the average kinetic energy in its rotational motion). "Translation motion" and "rotational motion" may be obvious terms to physicists and mathematicians, but they were not to me (but perhaps that is just me). I would suggest that every attempt be made in the lead to explain equipartition in simple terms and leave the "meat" for the article. Unfortunately, I understood equipartition not from this article, but from my live-in physics expert who explained it to me after I read the article. There must be some way to convey the gist of equipartition to the non-specialist in this article - perhaps in a separate section? Awadewit Talk 20:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Copy away - I am on an ongoing quest to make the science articles on wikipedia more accessible to the lay reader; often, I find that science articles, even basic articles such a physics, are written by editors who think that they are addressing broad audiences but the articles end up being written only for highly-educated audiences. By the way, I don't understand the "despite" in your comment - I thought mathematics was all about simplification and reduction. My live-in physics expert is one of those physics people who loves math and he is always trying to explain the wonder of math to me. Just the other day, he showed me some equation that encompassed the entirety of our understanding of electricity and magnetism in it to try and inspire me to learn more math (an ongoing project of his). Awadewit Talk 22:51, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Hello, Geometry guy, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a
Wikipedian! Please
sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out
Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}}
on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome!
Oleg Alexandrov (
talk) 16:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Just wanted to let you know that the central place for math discussion on Wikipedia is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics, in case you ever want to join discussions there or start any. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov ( talk)
Hello all: I just relinked about fifty pages to pushforward, which has now been disambiguated. If I made a mistake for any of these, my apologies! Geometry guy 22:20, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
I also relinked a few pullback pages. Same apology applies! Geometry guy 00:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks - I was hoping you would do that ;) Of course, I don't insist on my choice, but the notation is now at least fairly consistent over the articles tangent space, tangent bundle, pushforward (differential) and pullback (differential geometry), which is surely a desirable feature whatever notation is used. Geometry guy 11:45, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I've rolled out connection (vector bundle). Have a look. Feel free to butcher it if you want to. We can probably remove a good deal of overlapping material from the connection form page. -- Fropuff 07:13, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi Geometry guy,
Welcome to Wikipedia! I like what you're doing for the coordinate-system articles, a few of which I started rather hastily when I first joined. But may I offer some advice? Our audience here is not necessarily mathematics graduate students and professors, but rather lay-people who may have little or no training beyond basic calculus. Also, there may some professionals in other fields such as engineering and physics who may use a different nomenclature. Since we're writing encyclopedia articles and not review articles, I'd advise being cautious in using "scary" nomenclature (e.g., "submanifold" and "1-form") early in the article; I've at least tried to warm up the reader a little before hitting them with the most technical language. ;) Please accept this as friendly and kindly meant advice from a fellow lover of geometry, Willow 20:57, 19 February 2007 (UTC) (Geometry girl?)
Please do not do mass changes in Wikipedia articles replacing italic d with roman d in math notation. This was discussed before, and italic d is preferred. If you want to raise this topic again, please do so at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov ( talk) 03:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi - no, he was right, because I am new and I didn't read up on policy. I have posted my thoughts on the discussion page, and I do take responsibility for the unsolicited edits; after all, I'd be quite annoyed if someone modified to their liking something I had worked hard on without even an explanation!
Thanks for the the support though; do see my explanation on the talk:Integral page - I think on Wikipedia in the mathematics markup there is a lot to be gained from the Roman d. I never knew I would be so passionate about formatting as I have become!!! I will create an account, and I hope to be more constructive in future.
Thank you very much for the support!
Simon
And here I am with the account, and I shall hereby stop spamming your talk page. Thanks once again. Psymun 19:37, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Hello again, and thank you for providing a voice of reason in a chicken-or-egg type discussion. It was very frustrating to run into someone who denies the facts and twists the meanings to promote a pet point of view. Plücker embedding should definitely be written, but given the sensibilities, I won't do it myself. Arcfrk 21:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I saw that you've started an article on Plücker embedding, which was long overdue, and hope that it will develop smoothly! I actually looked at Category:Differential calculus per your suggestion, the two main articles there were indeed in messy state(s), and more than I could handle at the moment, so I didn't do anything about them. Thanks for your tip concerning posting the area of expertise on the user page, I haven't thought about it in those terms. My rationale had been not to post any identifying information, especially, since it's unnecessary for Wikipedia project; but I see how it could have its advantages. As for the experienced editor that you've mentioned, I had been quite impressed by his contributions, but after his conduct in Plücker coordinates discussion, he is off my list of reasonable people (as in: exercising one's reason in a proper manner; those with whom it makes sense to employ reasoning or argument). By the way, if you have time, can you, please, take a look at Abstract algebra#History and examples that I've written and tell me your opinion? Best, Arcfrk 01:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
(From above) ... By the way, if you have time, can you, please, take a look at Abstract algebra#History and examples that I've written and tell me your opinion? Best, Arcfrk 01:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
I read History of algebra, it's an impressive piece of work. In fact, a secondary goal of mine was to fill the void it left concerning abstract algebra. But the primary question is, does the section that I added help to understand what abstract algebra is about? My concern is how to keep a balance between merely providing a list of topics and overwhelming the reader with explanations for which (s)he may be unprepared; in other words, is this section useful to non-algebraists? Arcfrk 05:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for looking at it! Yes, I was rightly worried that it's a bit too much too fast, but cowardly tried to silence my inner editor nonetheless. Some of the group theory related stuff can go into (non-existent) history of abstract algebra, but at the moment I don't have necessary time and resources to write a decent overview of the rest of the history. Probably, you are right that Fermat's last theorem is a better model for exposition of genesis of abstract algebra for more general audience. I'll get around to it in a while, and, please, let me know if you have any more ideas. Arcfrk 03:45, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I added a few maths classifications to some articles I've been involved with. Rather than leave them as unclassified, I made an attempt to rate them myself. Please have a look (anyone) and change them if you want (I may not have been objective). The comment I have left is very bland in most cases, so please replace it with some more concrete suggestions for improvements. Geometry guy 09:35, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I saw your edits to M22, M23, and M24. I think your descriptions were the best anyone had come up with yet. I only made some stylistic changes to the entries (I removed periods and parentheses), but I otherwise left them unchanged. Thank you for the assistance. Dr. Submillimeter 15:00, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I will do that. I am currently cruising through all disambiguation links between M1 and M110 to clean them up. Many of the pages violated multiple guidelines at MoS:DAB. Again, thank you for the explanation on the disambiguation pages.
As for Mathieu group, it at least looks like an effort to explain this concept in layman's terms. It's an improvement over the previous version of the article, although it is still tough to follow. Thank you for working on it. (If it makes you feel any better, I see the same problems with physics articles.) I leave it to you to decide on whether to remove the "technical" template. Dr. Submillimeter 19:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi Geometry guy,
Could I ask a favor of you? ... I'd appreciate it muchly! :) Geometry girl 21:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi Geometry guy, in case you didn't see it, I've directed a comment to you here. Regards, Paul August ☎ 21:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, thx. I actually had pretty good luck in the end with Edits in the end, though not at first. Similar to some of your experience, possibly. Best wishes. -- Thomasmeeks 21:29, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Here's what I think might make a better introduction to the linear algebra article. I've tried to give some more idea what the field is about (in my own view), to explain the key words a little bit (so hopefully it won't scare off all laymen), and to provide some idea of applications. Use it (with or without modifications) or disregard as you please. Good luck. GV, 1 april 2007. (User Special:Contributions/82.95.55.226)
"Linear algebra is the branch of mathematics concerned with the study of vector spaces (also called linear spaces) and linear maps (also called linear transformations). Like other algebraic structures, vector spaces are defined as sets of elements, with operations that yield elements of the same set - just like adding or multiplying numbers yield another number. For such a set to be called a vector space (and its elements, vectors) the operations have to obey certain rules, or axioms. From these axioms and further definitions many useful and interesting properties of vector spaces can be proved.
In particular, vector spaces can be mapped onto other vector spaces or themselves; meaning that there are functions that take one vector as argument, and that when applied to all vectors in a vector space yield a new set that once again obeys the axioms of a vector space. Such functions are called linear transformations and are computationally represented by matrices.
Vector spaces are a central theme in modern mathematics because many objects of mathematical study exhibit the structure of a vector space, e.g. Euclidean space, sets of functions, and n-tuples of (rational, real or complex) numbers. This explains the use of vectors in analytic geometry (readily generalizable to more than 3 dimensions), in solving systems of linear equations (and hence of partial differential equations), and in statistics. In the natural sciences and the social sciences nonlinear models are often approximated by linear ones in order to make use of the computational methods of linear algebra."
Dear Geometry guy, I am getting a bit tired and fed up with the insulting remarks you leave in your edit summaries when you edit my contributions. I'm referring in particular to the comment you left here, although your latest comment suggests you might be making a habit of it. Let me remind you to be civil to your fellow wikipedians and to stop making personal attacks such as calling me an "idiot", or telling me to "get it right the first time". Yes I make mistakes from time-to-time, but there is no need for these kinds of comments. What is worse, is that you do not seem to be so rude to other wikipedians, which makes me suspect you might be wikistalking me. Please stop. Geometry guy 08:46, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Sorry if I am poking my nose into someone's family business, but do you by any chance suffer any form of split personality? Arcfrk 07:00, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi Geometry guy,
Thank you very much for all your kindness and hard work, on the Encyclopædia Britannica and elsewhere. It was wonderful how you were able to pinpoint the difficulties and improve the article so much. I also really appreciate how you assumed good faith about me, even if I didn't deserve it; your faith and honesty helped me become a better person, which is all that we can hope for among ourselves, no? The fine draught of absinthe was medicinal indeed, despite the wormwood it held for me initially. I foresee that you have work on the EB still ahead of you, as do I, for which I thank you already. Please let me know if I can help you as you have helped me; in devoted friendship, Willow 11:19, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
P.S. Sorry that the image is not geometrical! ;)
Ah Geometry Girl, there is geometry in everything ;) It was a pleasure to help out at EB and thank you so much for adding some colour to my talk page! In your case I did not need to assume good faith: it is obvious from everything you do on WP! As for EB, I think it is in a very good state now: informative, comprehensive, balanced and encyclopedic. All thanks to one determined and energetic editrix, and a little encouragement from her many friends. Geometry guy 12:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi again, G! I'd be glad to help out, although I feel out of my depth. I have a vague notion of what physics and mathematics are, but I'm a little hazy about mathematical physics. Does it mean "mathematics that was developed to create theories of physics"? In my mind, I'm distinguishing it from physics-related mathematics, which I would imagine is mathematics that was inspired by or grew out of physical theories but then developed independently, kind of like the mathematics of torsion tensors and general connections arose from general relativity. Am I understanding that correctly? Willow 15:46, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
P.S. I'm going to visit my family soon, so I may not be able to reply soon. I have a sister graduating from college this weekend, and another sister from grad school in a few weeks. I'll try to write, but my family is a little old-fashioned and it might be difficult to get connected. Willow 15:46, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
PS. Oh, I almost forgot! I've been working a bit on equipartition theorem. If you can spare a moment, any thoughts or suggestions you might have would be most welcome! :) Thanks, G-guy! Willow 22:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you once again for your wonderful edits to equipartition theorem, and, more personally, for your kind comment above, which I only just noticed. The right honourable lady appreciates your great help and insights into things beyond her own vision, and the graceful gentility with which they are uniformly delivered. :) Willow 14:25, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Here there be dragons... ;) I've been flayed a few times (luckily, dragons can shed their skins) over not putting the History section first; I think there's a policy somewhere about it, although I keep forgetting where. :( Still, I think we might get away with it here; the history seems quite hard to explain unless you've introduced the theorem, don't you agree?
At first, I was concerned about putting the quantum effects at the very end, since the role that equipartition played in showing the need for quantum mechanics was pretty important. But now I see that it makes more sense, given that the applications are all classical. Oh, do you know where we can find a nice Figure illustrating the development of ergodicity; I remember seeing some kind of "breakdown of invariant tori" Poisson-mapping kind of image, but I'm not sure where and whether it were free. I'll add some other Figures for color and fun. Willow 17:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Votre visite me ferait grand plaisir, Votre Eminence; vous etes toujours bien venu chez nous. Je vous en prie, entrez et de votre propre vouloir, comme il dut un si grande Seigneur anglais. ;) Restez chez nous et editez avec une liberte (et j'espere contentment) plusplarfaite.
Forgive me for not having replied right away to your wonderful suggestions, which as you see I tried to bring to life. But I'm happy to see that you're diving in yourself now, as befits the Englishman: "once more into the breech, dear friends, once more; in peace, nothing so becomes a man — as editing Wikipedia." Wait, is that how it goes? ;) Willow 22:47, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, I wouldn't want to stray into discourtesy or morbid thoughts; I couldn't ask such a high price of you for fixing up equipartition. ;) Besides, I conked out long before you did, the result of overly enthusiastic gardening. ;) Thanks for all your manifold improvements to equipartition! Speaking of manifolds, may I tinker a bit with affine connection? Although I'm not very good about it in my own articles, I think we ought to be more gentle with the reader there, starting with flowers before flours, ramping up gradually to the terribly twisted torsion tensor. ;) Although I'd intended to start in on making knitting into a Featured Article, this might be a fun diversion for a while, if you'll be patient with my limitations. :) Willow 15:27, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
P.S. I might have to revert to "bottle" of beer, because the equipartition theorem requires that equilibrium has been established, which could take weeks. I wouldn't want the beer in the glass to go flat! :)
Dear G-guy,
PLease don't worry about adding the {{ fact}} tag. I'm grateful; I would be rightfully ashamed if we coasted into FA-land with a substandard article. As the saying goes, seats in Valhalla should not be cheap. ;) We should recruit Awadewit and others to review the article; I suspect that they'll bring a good perspective to the article and help us to gauge how intelligible the writing is.
Someday, I may also conquer my irrational fear of differential forms; how tough can they be? ;) From dribs and drabs in random books, I sort of get the torsion tensor now, so maybe it won't be so hard to cross over into that promised land. Willow 15:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
PS. Although I'm not sure I will like the taste of my own medicine, if you do stop by and would like something to do in a spare moment, take a look at Derivative or Affine connection, into both of which I have put quite a lot of work recently, but I am not sure what to do with them now. The latter, in particular, is rather advanced maths! Geometry guy 19:40, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, straight away you spotted the main thing that I would like to add to the article (leaving me impressed, yet again)! At the moment, the construction of an affine connection by embedding a manifold in Euclidean space is limited to the example of the 2-sphere in 3-dimensional space (7.1). I would like to explain the construction in general, giving the 2-sphere as an example. Geometry guy 09:17, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm very glad you would like to work on affine connection. As for limitations, well if you'll be epsilon, I will be your delta ;) It is fun working on an article with you, and hopefully it will also inspire me to make the improvements I mentioned before. Geometry guy 16:04, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I've just been looking at your sandbox, and I realise that there is something I should mention. This subject has two origins and two points of view, which might be called the French and the Italian, since the former is represented by Darboux and Cartan, the latter by Ricci and Levi-Civita. The French school developed the geometry, the Italian school the tensor calculus (although Bianchi contributed to both). In some sense, the Italian school "won" because they provided hands-on tools for Einstein to use in his theory of general relativity. The geometric point of view then became a minority interest for over half a century.
Why do I mention this? Well, there already exists an article — covariant derivative (perhaps misleadingly named) — which develops the notion of an affine connection from the tensor calculus point of view, although it still needs a lot of work. One of the main reasons I contributed to affine connection was that the most recent previous edits had put it on a collision course with covariant derivative and a merger was suggested (see the talk page and history of affine connection). Consequently, in my rewrite of the article, I took the point of view that readers might already have met the covariant derivative point of view, and so I tried to introduce them to Cartan's geometric point of view with that in mind.
Affine connection could certainly be made much more accessible, and I'm sure your input will be invaluable, but at first sight, it seems to me that many of the ideas you are developing fit better as (much needed) improvements to the covariant derivative article. I would be happy to join in an effort to improve both articles, but would be sad if the contrast between them was lost. I hope you see where I am coming from here. Geometry guy 02:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
PS. I've seen your sandbox is aimed at several articles. I just wanted to mention that another article where you/we could really make a difference is connection (mathematics) which is the lead article in the whole connections category. Geometry guy 02:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
In reply, I should probably ask you to be patient with the whole connections category ;) since it is still in rather a mess, although it has much improved recently thanks to the efforts of User:Fropuff and User:Silly rabbit. As for references, I guess even with your fondness for French, you might not want to tackle Darboux's multivolume Leçons ;) but the book of Sharpe (cited in affine connection) is quite good. Geometry guy 12:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Please don't be discouraged! The problem with this stuff is that everyone wants to do it differently. In half a day you already managed to produce a better formulation than the covariant derivative article does! Trust your pen; I'm sure there is a place for all of your thoughts. Geometry guy 22:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
You added a comment to the talk page of Plücker coordinates saying
That may be your opinion, but by putting it where you did you make it damned awkward to have a discussion about it, so I am removing it and bringing the discussion here for the moment. I scanned the article to see what could possibly have supported it, and found myself baffled. There is a brief mention in the intro, that "[t]hey have proved useful for computer graphics, …" and both "External links" happen to be computer graphics related; but I find nothing in the body of the article. Since I wrote (almost all of) the body of the article, and did so by transcribing material on Grassmann coordinates straight out of Hodge & Pedoe (1994), but specializing it for Plücker line coordinates, I know first-hand that your characterization is not supported by the genesis. Furthermore, robotics was using Plücker coordinates (Mason & Salisbury 1985) long before computer graphics (and continues to), and they are also discussed in contemporary works on Clifford/geometric algebras, and in computational geometry (Stolfi 1991). I happen to think many computer graphics discussions are amateurish, but others insisted on adding the two external links; I'd be satisfied to see them both removed. The use of Plücker coordinates for lines in 3D may be trivial and boring from the view of research mathematics, but it is hardly so for applications. I apologize for handling the case of Plücker coordinates while leaving the greater spread of Grassmann coordinates untouched, but I was tired of wading through index soup, and not ready to write that separate article. And, so far, no one else has written even a stub. -- KSmrq T 03:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
I think I should give you an explanation, because you haven't seen me before. (Before this, I've mostly stuck to advanced articles like spectral sequence and sheaf (mathematics)—I'm rather proud of those two—and my only serious foray into more elementary topics, Riemann integral, didn't elicit any response.) First, I take the commandment be bold very seriously, and if I want to change something then I change it. If you don't like it, you should be bold and change it yourself. With an article as good as this one I'm changing mainly the exposition, not the content, and that's something that can be tinkered with endlessly. Second, I like my anonymity, and I want to remain anonymous even among Wikipedians. I'm well-aware that you can see my IP address and that an account will bring privileges I don't have. I'm still not getting one. (I seem to be an Exopedian.) I hope that clears things up a little. 141.211.62.20 15:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Hello, I've added a couple of things to Manifold and left some comments at the talk page, can you, please, take a look? I know it's all part of your grand plan! Arcfrk 02:27, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Take a look at your edit to the discussion page of calculus. You posted in the middle of the WP:M at the top of the page and messed up the box a little bit and you copied almost word for word what was said in the to do list box. Just letting you know. Cronholm144 00:31, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks and no problem about the copy, frankly I was worried that I had subconsciously copied you after staring at the talk page for too long. I couldn't be more pleased with the welcome I have received here and hope to continue to add constructively wherever I go. I think we are getting close on the article and this, being my first major contribution here, is a very exiting feeling. If you ever want my inexperienced eye on an article your working on don't hesitate to ask. I will always do my best to help. Cronholm144 05:55, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I updated the bot's source code to match your changes. The way the bot is implemented, it does not merge the new table into the page, it just overwrites the entire page with the new table (including the noinclude part). So any changes to that page need to be made to the bot source code rather than to the table page itself. CMummert · talk 17:47, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Pedantry is always welcome! We must put our best foot forward on our project page, after all. If you want extreme pedantry, I would point out that typically there are no spaces surrounding an m-dash—just like in this sentence. Since you've started hanging around here, I've seen a lot of you doing lots of good things. Thanks for being helpful! VectorPosse 00:16, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I added code to VeblenBot to make the mathematician table. I also made all of the other tables sortable while I was at it. Please let me know if I have left any mistakes. CMummert · talk 14:23, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that problem out; I changed the unassessed-class handling again and now it appears to work correctly. The problem is that the category is Category:Unassessed mathematics articles instead of Category:Unassessed-Class mathematics articles and so I have to translate back and forth between the category name and the name of the quality grade. Also the category is empty most of the time and so it isn't obvious during testing that there is an error. CMummert · talk 16:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
The mathematicians page was much easier. If there are more changes I need to make for it, please let me know. I didn't know there was an unsortable option, but it makes sense to use it where you did. CMummert · talk 16:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Hey there! I think you are right, for whatever reasons there is a lack of boldness in editing the Theorem article. Anyway, just a reminder to work on that article, as you instructed on the talk page :-). Whatever you can do to make it better would be great! Kier07 00:01, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
As a representative of the educated but not scientifically-trained masses (and an avid reader of popular science books), Willow asked me to look over the equipartition theorem article again for overly obscure language. As I wrote in my earlier peer review, I am not sure that this article is one that anyone will stumble on who doesn't have some mathematical and physical knowledge already (unlike, for example, natural selection), but I do believe that at least the lead of every article should make an attempt to be comprehensible by the non-specialist. I think that the lead for this article has improved, but, to me, the opening paragraph is overly specific (I am thinking here of for example, the average kinetic energy in the translational motion of a molecule should equal the average kinetic energy in its rotational motion). "Translation motion" and "rotational motion" may be obvious terms to physicists and mathematicians, but they were not to me (but perhaps that is just me). I would suggest that every attempt be made in the lead to explain equipartition in simple terms and leave the "meat" for the article. Unfortunately, I understood equipartition not from this article, but from my live-in physics expert who explained it to me after I read the article. There must be some way to convey the gist of equipartition to the non-specialist in this article - perhaps in a separate section? Awadewit Talk 20:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Copy away - I am on an ongoing quest to make the science articles on wikipedia more accessible to the lay reader; often, I find that science articles, even basic articles such a physics, are written by editors who think that they are addressing broad audiences but the articles end up being written only for highly-educated audiences. By the way, I don't understand the "despite" in your comment - I thought mathematics was all about simplification and reduction. My live-in physics expert is one of those physics people who loves math and he is always trying to explain the wonder of math to me. Just the other day, he showed me some equation that encompassed the entirety of our understanding of electricity and magnetism in it to try and inspire me to learn more math (an ongoing project of his). Awadewit Talk 22:51, 6 May 2007 (UTC)