There's some fairly good work on WP about determinacy, but it's a bit haphazard. The axiom of determinacy article doesn't explain very clearly what a game or a strategy, or in particular a winning strategy, is. Winning strategy itself tries to be all things to all people. See my remarks in Talk:Axiom of determinacy and Talk:Winning strategy#Organizational questions for some thoughts with no clear conclusions, but I think a good starting place for trying to get the (nonexistent) category into better shape.
A couple of things of which I recently became aware have given me a little more sense of urgency about this. There's a Wikipedia:WikiProject Game theory, and they added winning strategy to it, which may be appropriate if that article should be ceded to the game theorists, and another written for the determinacy theorists (I'm thinking of writing a Game (set theory) article to subsume a whole bunch of these things, and change links from other articles to it). See my remarks in User talk:Kzollman#Game theory wikiproject.
Also there's apparently a category, Category:Combinatorial game theory, which deals with John Horton Conway type games.
I think this needs to be sorted out before it becomes an irretrievable mess. Would anyone be willing to work on a Wikipedia:WikiProject Determinacy?
On further reflection, I think the central article of the Determinacy category should just be called Determinacy. It's a much more general topic than Axiom of determinacy, which currently serves the purpose of a central reference point. You can see an outline at User:Trovatore/Sandbox/Determinacy. -- Trovatore 01:45, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
I like the intent of this new stub, but I think this material really belongs in Elementary algebra. In a sense, the material is already there, but Elementary algebra seems to already assume that the reader is familiar with the semantics of "=". In other words, Elementary algebra is not quite as elementary as it could be. The new article Axioms of an equation appears to be attempting to fill the gap for, say, late primary or early secondary school students, by explaining more explicitly how to work with "=". Dmharvey File:User dmharvey sig.png Talk 02:57, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
This discussion is already archived, but I want to report that I've merged the article into Equation. Melchoir 00:18, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Exactly how long should an article be before it stops being considered a stub? I removed [Digamma function]] and earlier (before Linas's major edit) Harmonic number from Category:Mathematics stubs, but I am not currently sure if articles such as Omega constant are still to be considered stubs or not. Scythe33 01:57, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
I just discovered this new category as a subcategory in Category:Mathematics. While I have nothing against Indian mathematics, I wonder if it is wise to have such a category. Next thing we know is Category:Mathematics in United States followed by 100-200 more subcategories in Category:Mathematics. What do people think of this? Oleg Alexandrov 23:16, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
I asked the creator of this category to comment about it.
Oleg Alexandrov
22:29, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
I am vaguely thinking of starting an insane and hopeless task, and that is to create a page listing low-dimensional, non-supersymmetric Lie groups and algebras, thier properties, isomorphisms, topologies, etc. I despair, because this seems like a collossal project trying to describe a hopelessly tangled web of inter-relationships. I was irked because what I really wanted was a list of (examples of) infranil manifolds. Any suggestions on how to minimize the pain and maximize the gain? linas 15:19, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
There is a start to this project at the list of simple Lie groups; this still needs some work in filling in the properties of these groups. This will not help much if you want to know about nilpotent groups. R.e.b. 20:31, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity there are now 10029 mathematics articles and mathematician biographies. Now, around 500 of them are redirects, a bunch are arguably more physics or related than math, and a rather good chunck are stubs. Still, this is something of a milestone.
This also makes me think (again) that with so many articles, there is just not enough manpower to even check articles for vandalism and style, not to talk about the mathematical correctness and if articles are coherent rather than just a bunch of text put together by different contributors.
This is probably a good moment to think of where we are, and wonder what the future will hold. Oleg Alexandrov 22:59, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
The article lemma was moved to lemma (mathematics), with the former being made into a disamibig. I disagree with the move, as the absolute majority of pages linking there are about the mathematical term. And even if one agrees with the move, one needs to disambiguate the links, and having them point to the correct destination. I asked the person who did the move to comment here. Other opinions welcome. Oleg Alexandrov 21:58, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
I think it is probably better this way. -- MarSch 11:12, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
By the way, I suggest that this discussion (that is, all the above text) be moved to, and continued at, Talk:Lemma. That's a better place for people to find it in the future, and it's "neutral ground" so to speak. -- Trovatore 16:41, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
For several months, I have been doing occasional clean-up work on the pages related to connectedness, connectivity, etc. Things are still a little messy, but I am not sure what to do about some issues. In particular:
— Nowhither 00:01, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
Do we have a specific math article on Omega? The specific one that states that mathematics can't be strung together and that discoveries are just luck? It also states that its goal is to try and find the halting possibility of a computer when faced with an infinite answer.
See Wikipedia:Village_pump (miscellaneous)#Riemann_zeta_function. Oleg Alexandrov 03:56, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
I think both Charles, Avocado, and Dysprosia have very good points. A great many math articles are written for an audience which knows at least as much as the person writing the article. In many cases there is no motivation, no intuitive explanation, no gradual development from easy to complex, no pictures, no examples, and the list can go on. If one would teach in college with the same attitude, one would get quickly fired (well, ideally :)
However, there is only that far one can go in making a topic acessible. For example consider the meromorphic function article, which now has a {{ technical}} template slapped upon. If you know anything about the complex plane and about functions, you should understand from the examples and the picture that a meromorphic function is roughly a fraction of two functions, with the denominator going bad every now and then. However, if you say that you don't understand the statement:
then that's your fault. You cannot possibly understand meromorphic functions unless you know what holomorphic functions and poles are. Oleg Alexandrov 17:30, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
It sounds good to me. I do think we should be careful that this solution not become a way to remove all pressures to add intuition and motivation, though. In my own case, I know that my Prewellordering article is guilty of the offenses Oleg mentions, particularly the Prewellordering property section.
The other side of that is that it is better to have something than nothing, I think. Prewellordering needs to be motivated, but for me at the moment finishing the Determinacy article is a higher priority, and I do have non-Wikipedia tasks as well. In the mean time I think it is better that there be an unmotivated article on the prewellordering property than none at all. -- Trovatore 18:00, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
I can find nothing above with which I disagree ;-) Per Euclid, There is no royal road. But we need to keep trying to make the road as short and smooth as possible. Paul August ☎ 18:53, September 11, 2005 (UTC)
Having math overview articles aimed somewhat lower than the normal math articles is a good idea. My suggested "connectedness" article (see "Connected, connectivity, etc." above) could be one of these. However, I must agree with Dysprosia, that educational works belong in Wikibooks. In fact, the linear algebra tutorial suggested by R.Koot has already been started there; see wikibooks:Linear algebra. — Nowhither 00:31, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
I like Linas' suggestion at least in principle (with the caveat that it not become an excuse to avoid adding motivation to articles). I'd suggest further that there be a uniform naming scheme for the simpler articles, say Foo (introduction) or Foo (elementary) for the beginners' version of Foo. But it does seem like something of an "unfunded mandate"; I'm not personally volunteering to produce these articles for the hundreds if not thousands of topics that'd need them. Any further thoughts? I hate to see the matter just dropped, without a clear decision. -- Trovatore 20:13, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
As a less radical measure, how about updating just the introductions of some of the math articles to be more accessible. For instance, something to the effect of:
-- Avocado 21:29, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
From the back-jacket information for Itay Neeman's book on The Determinacy of Long Games, which I will likely cite:
-- Trovatore 18:41, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
As suggested above in a couple of places, I have written a new article: connectedness. This is supposed to be an overview of mathematical uses of the term (and similar words), written at a somewhat lower level than most mathematical articles. I would be interested in hearing what people think about:
By the way, I also put a note linking to the new article in connected, which is a general (non-mathematical) disambig. And I removed "connected" from the List of mathematical topics (C) and replaced it with "connectedness". And ... I'm still wondering what to do with connectivity.
— Nowhither 03:12, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
And, speaking of RfC, one of the topics there is:
I'm not making this up; if anyone has an opinion on the matter (I did) do go share it with Talk:Bertrand Russell; maybe we can drown out the various contending nationalisms. Septentrionalis 22:46, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
Currently, List of publications in mathematics has at the bottom 31 mathematics categories. Some explanation for that is here. The whole thing seeems to be an effort by APH as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Science pearls. I truly doubt that there is any article under the wiki Sun so important as to be included in that many categories. Oleg Alexandrov 06:24, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
Hello, Please notice this project. I hope that the List of publications in mathematics, List of publications in statistics and List of publications in computer science will be adopted by the mathematics project. Thanks, APH 06:48, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
It seems to me that the article on logical converse is incomplete. It has the schoolbook definition of the converse, which is that the converse of a statement of the form (A → B) is the statement (B → A). But I think that "converse", as the term is used by mathematicians, is actually a more subtle and complex concept. I've put some simple examples at Talk:Converse (logic).
I think that if we actually look at examples, we'll find all sorts of different forms that the converse can take, and that this information should be incorporated into the Converse article.
I hope people will assist me in this. -- Dominus 13:32, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
Once again someone has been trying to rewrite the Boolean algebra article based on the preconception that it's about the logical calculus sometimes called "Boolean algebra". I'm afraid I got into a mini-editwar with him; he got tired of it and went to write his own article called Boolean algebra (basic concepts). I think he wants to rename Boolean algebra to Boolean algebra (complex theory).
I think there should be two articles, but I see dark clouds on the horizon with this editor. He doesn't show any signs of wanting to believe me that a Boolean algebra is something like a group or ring, rather than a "complex" version of what he thinks of as "Boolean algebra" as a mass noun. I'm worried that he'll try to incorporate material about the algebraic-structure notion into his "basic" article, which will only confuse the issue. I could use some help here, guys.... -- Trovatore 21:26, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
My five cents (yeah there's been some inflation): if we have a decent article on Boolean algebra as envisaged by StuRat et al (i.e. currently named "basic concepts"), then that should get primary status as Boolean algebra, simply because it's the one more likely to be searched for by a general audience; and there should be a dab notice on that pointing to something like Boolean algebra (algebraic structure). Dmharvey File:User dmharvey sig.png Talk 23:57, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
I think both things are and should be called "Boolean algebra" with at least one being of the form "Boolean algebra ( … )". I suggest that we set aside for the moment which, if either, should simply be called "Boolean algebra". Let's assume for the moment that both articles need parenthetical disambiguation, and try to decide what they should be.
Paul August ☎ 22:02, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
I see that one of Paul's suggestions I overlooked was Boolean algebra (object). That's not bad, though I think I still prefer "mathematical structure". I don't like the plural because it (1) suggests that these things are somehow "alternative versions of Boolean algebra" and (2) is not in line with the naming given to other structures, like Group (mathematics). -- Trovatore 20:07, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Indicial Calculus claims that it is "the calculus used to extract root indices of order x, where x is an element of a Galois splitting field for a given polynomial equation of ductivity ." Does this ring a bell to somebody? The reference to " Little Bride Bonnie (1859-1941), a German mathematician known for early work in group theory" made me suspicious, and a quick search on MathSciNet and Google didn't yield any results. -- Jitse Niesen ( talk) 21:18, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
I decided to replace the article by a redirect to cyclic group, which is where index calculus also redirects to (KSmrq found this out, thanks). Saves a trip to AfD. -- Jitse Niesen ( talk) 14:39, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
See discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requested articles/mathematics#MathWorld?. Comments welcome. Oleg Alexandrov 03:20, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
... We will find out. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Schmitt. Oleg Alexandrov 02:01, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
Anybody heard of the "corank" of a Lie algebra? An anon replaced "rank" with "corank" at Affine Lie algebra, and I don't know if that's correct or not. Oleg Alexandrov 16:06, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Just a reminder that when you've guessed the name of an article you're linking to, and it comes up blue and you save your edit, it's worth clicking through to those links and seeing if they say something sensible and relevant to the meaning you have in mind.
I happened across a page called complete Boolean algebra that had some trivial nonsense in it, nothing to do with CBAs, yet it was linked to from complete lattice.
Another possibility is that the link from "complete lattice" was originally red, and then someone came along and filled in the incorrect "complete Boolean algebra" page. To protect against this sort of thing, click through to your redlinks and add them to your watchlist (yes, this works). -- Trovatore 17:32, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Our articles Isometry and Metric space have different definitions of isometry. The former requires an isometry to be onto, the latter does not. There is a discussion at Talk:Metric_space#Isometry, about which is more standard, and what we should do about it. Please share your thoughts there. Thanks Paul August ☎ 16:38, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
The bot User talk:Curpsbot-unicodify has started crawling the math pages and converting html greek characters, such as γ, into glyphs that are hard to work with (although they render the same way). I don't think this is a good idea for math formulas and math expressions, although I support it for the other cases (people/place names, etc.) I'd like to see some sort of majority consensus developed on this, for or against, at User talk:Curpsbot-unicodify. linas 14:56, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
First of all, the bot has not started systematically crawling the math pages. It only happened to crawl the
Wess-Zumino-Witten model article because that was on a list of requested articles sent to me by
User:Beland, and he only wanted that article processed because it contained two spaces instead of one in a [[Riemann sphere]]
link (the bot also does this, although its main function is Unicode conversion). The bot is mostly concentrating on eastern European pages and such at the moment (for instance, see
this edit to
Russian grammar).
For the time being, I have edited the bot code to skip any page that contains a <math> tag. It might revisit them later with a flag set to avoid processing Greek letters. In the long run, however, you might be better off to use <math>\gamma</math> instead of γ as Arthur Rubin suggests, because the visual appearance of and γ is usually quite different, and if you're arguing that the visual appearance of γ is confusing in the editor window then it's surely equally confusing in the reader window (displayed browser page). Or perhaps even more confusing, since readers are sometimes less sophisticated than editors and the two different-looking gammas might be mistaken for different symbols.
By the way, I presume you folks know that ε φ (ε,φ) are not the same things as \epsilon \phi ( or ε,ϕ)? According to the TeX book and Unicode.org respectively, the latter are supposed to be "lunar" epsilon and "unbroken-circle" phi with bar extending above the circle, although the glyphs used in various fonts may render them identically (as seems to be the case under Windows XP, for instance). See [1] and compare U+03B5 vs. U+03F5 and U+03C6 vs. U+03D5. This is another argument against using HTML entities when TeX math symbols are intended. -- Curps 20:21, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
What are the prospects for commuting diagrams in TeX on WP? Most pages that have them seem to have custom-generated PNG's. My attempts to create a native diagram result only in ugliness:
and a triangle:
The markup is complicated too ... Any better way of doing this? linas 00:01, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
The article manifold has been rewritten at manifold/rewrite. Manifold/rewrite has had around 225 edits since June 19 when Jitse started it as a text in his sandbox to offer some constructive suggestions to the arguments at talk:manifold. Now the rewritten article looks nice and needs to be merge into manifold, which itself underwent around 58 edits since June 19. The big question is, how to merge them? One can merge the edit histories, see Wikipedia:How to fix cut and paste moves, but it could be a mess. The only other choice is I think to give up on the history of one of the two articles. What should be the right decision? Let us discuss this at talk:manifold/rewrite. Oleg Alexandrov 04:27, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Proposals#More_Math_stubs. Oleg Alexandrov 00:51, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
At Talk:Birthday paradox it is being proposed to delete from the article the section on Paul Halmos' view of the matter. That is the only section that takes the reader beyond the stage that any freshman who thinks the problem through would figure out. It's a fairly short section. Three Wikipedian support deletion; only I have opposed it. Would mathematicians please comment at Talk:Birthday paradox? Michael Hardy 22:41, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Dave Petry (I'm 99% sure it's he) has started a new article called Controversy over Cantor's Theory. Dave's been showing up from time to time on sci.math and sci.logic for some years with variations on this theme--set theory is "mythological" and has nothing to do with "reality" as defined by things that can be observed on a computer. He's not stupid or crazy, just wrong; it's sort of amusing how he says (on the article's talk page)
because the less sensible views are those of certain individuals at least one of whom has a WP article about him ( Archimedes Plutonium).
Anyway the project itself is perhaps worthwhile; I don't see anything wrong with having an article about philosophical views hostile to the use of set theory in mathematics, and how they have evolved, if indeed they have, as a result of the "computer age". This particular article in its current form, though, is very much OR and very POV. I hope others will take a look at it and figure out how to fix it or whether it's worth fixing; I really should be working on that paper.... -- Trovatore 04:12, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
I missed this thread first time around, but I noticed Charles Matthews say:
This isn't quite right: domain theory (and especially synthetic domain theory) wants to build better mathematical structures for doing Tarski-style interpretations of programs into, but in turn the foundations of domain theory are regular set theory. It might be better to call it a better interface onto set theory than a rival to set theory. Martin-Loef's type theory is an example of an actual rival to set theory, which is, again, peddled mostly by theoretical computer scientists.
I agree with Charles M's objection though. The section of that article called "recent attacks" has as its most recent commentator Hermann Weyl! In the mathematicians section, Kline is not objecting to set theory as a mathematical structure, but to its role in mathematical education, in particular the air of unreality refers to the lack of good intuition a certain kind of emphasis on farmalism and foundations can lack (caveat: I don't recognise this particular passage of Kline, but I've read a lot of Kline and I know his hobby horses).
Having said that, I think that if we find the right home for this, there might be a nice article that can be grown for it. I don't like "criticisms", I'll make a proposal for alternative name candidates at Talk:Controversy over Cantor's Theory --- Charles Stewart 15:24, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Paskal's triangle has been moved to Khayyam-Pascal's triangle. It is claimed there now that the latter is the internationally recognized name. Discussion is welcome at Talk:Khayyam-Pascal's triangle. Oleg Alexandrov 21:35, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
This category has some proofs, as subpages. It seems to be at odds with two widely held views, one that there should be no subpages ( Christoffel symbols/Proofs is a subpage to Christoffel symbols), and that the proofs should not be on separate pages. Also, wonder I, why is this separate from Category:Proofs. I myself would suggest the proofs in there, together with the mother category, be deleted. Wonder what other opinions are. Oleg Alexandrov 00:16, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
How about putting back those proofs into the articles? -- MarSch 15:01, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't want to lose these proofs, I think they are valuable. I don't see the problem in having them on a subpage. Can someone explain the harm in that? If we don't want them there, or in the article, or in a seperate article of their own, then we could always put them on the talk page, but I would be strongly opposed to just deleting that content. Paul August ☎ 15:20, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
The {{ style}} template pops up every now and then at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics) and is there now. I would argue that it is unnecessary. Its only purpose is for a user to hop from manual of style to manual of style, but for people who actually use a particular manual of style, like our math manual, the links to the manual of style about writing China-related articles, how to write footnotes, etc, are not be helpful. I would argue that a link to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style on top of our manual of style should be enough. From there, one can access any other style manual if one wishes so. Wonder what people think. Oleg Alexandrov ( talk) 04:12, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I posted a note on this guideline's talk page proposing a change in this policy ( Wikipedia talk:Make technical articles accessible). --- Charles Stewart 02:22, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Please vote at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of lists of mathematical topics. Otherwise, the issue may be decided by (from the looks of it at this time) people who never heard of mathematics until they saw this nomination. Michael Hardy 03:35, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
I am attending an AMS sectional conference this weekend, and once again listening to everyone complain about how badly math is taught in the US, how lousy all the grade school textbooks are (except the Singapore textbooks), and how the three big textbook publishers are so powerful that nobody has a ghost of a chance of making things better.
Naturally, I thought of Wiki.
What I propose is a series of articles on mathematics written at the grade school level, so students and teachers who actually care about mathematics can have at least one source to which to turn.
I'm going to start at Grade school mathematics and take it from there.
Want to help?
Rick Norwood 22:46, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Just in case there are still Quantum and GR types lurking here, who haven't yet found Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics ... well, now you know: there's a physics project as well. Add your name to the list, and visit the talk page as well: I'm sure the topics are as lively and maybe more argumentative than those here! linas 00:28, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
As most readers here know, Dmharvey is working on a MathML solution for Wikipedia, called Blahtex. A perennial problem in mathematics is the large number of potential characters, and the MathML spec defines quite a large list. For your viewing pleasure, I have made a page where you can try to see many of them in your browser. (The list does not include all the fraktur, script, and blackboard-bold characters, some of which are in a higher Unicode plane.) Using a Gecko-based browser (from the Mozilla Foundation) and the Code2000 font, I see excellent coverage. That's a Good Thing, because the STIX fonts have had their projected release pushed back to mid-2006. In light of evolving developments, the question here is, what do we do now in editing articles?
Because Wikipedia has switched to UTF-8, it directly accepts any Unicode character. We can also use HTML named entities, and character entities. Come MathML, readers must be prepared to cope with these. Meanwhile, the processing of <math> allows a limited subset, producing either an image or HTML markup. (The subset does not include the full set of LaTeX characters, much less the complete range of MathML characters.) Finally, outside of the <math> tags we can use images of characters.
Folks writing in other scripts, from Cyrillic to Devanāgarī to IPA to Hangul and others, seem unapologetic about the need for their kind of characters in their kind of article. With the advent of MathML presentation it will become extremely awkward and ugly to use the image crutch; we need our characters, too.
How many people are going to scream if I start writing the cross product properly as A⨯B (using U+2a2f, ⨯) instead of A×B (using U+00d7, ×)? That's silly, right; who needs the fancy character? But I've also gotten curses for using the semidirect product, N⋉H (using U+22c9, ⋉), which LaTeX calls "\ltimes" but <math> does not allow. (Especially annoying, the complainant thought a picture of ⋊ was a fine substitute, even though it's the wrong character and precludes <math>!)
So, are all characters fair game as numeric entities? As UTF-8? (Clearly not as <math>!) If not, which do we exclude, why do we exclude them, how do we substitute (in all contexts), and what do we do when MathML arrives? -- KSmrq T 13:33, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
An approach I've taken is to provide links to bitmap images for characters which don't display on every browser. That way, at a minimum, users can click on a link to see characters like ∈, ∉, ∅, ⊆, ⊂, ⊇, and ⊃; if they don't display on that user's browser. StuRat 00:12, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
The common notation of a semidirect product seems to be G = N File:Rtimes2.png H, with the normal subgroup at the left, while the symbol is a cross with a vertical bar at the right (see e.g. [3]), although the names of the symbols seem to suggest that the bar should be at the side of the normal subgroup ( [4], [5]). Have other people any thoughts?-- Patrick 13:37, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
The main article was moved, but the two subpages weren't. differentiable manifold, topological manifold redirect there. Admin privileges probably needed, since I couldn't do it. -- MarSch 11:14, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
This is not about math, but might be helpful to the fellow mathematician. I found a very userful tool in my opinion, Pilaf's Live Preview at Wikipedia:Tools#Alternative_previews. It allows one to do instant preview, without waiting for seconds or more after hitting the "Preview" buttion. It works by some javascript magic, and is just as easy to install as pasting several lines of text into a file and doing a reload of your preferences (control-shift-r for Mozilla, Ctrl-F5 in IE, and F5 in Opera). I already love this tool. :) Oleg Alexandrov ( talk) 12:51, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Hey! In a case of absent mindedness, you forgot to classify the numbers. I searched a lot. If already present, I apologize. -- Davy Jones 02:50, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Please note the plural numbers. Its like : numbers have been classified as Real numbers and complex numbers. complex numbers are further classified as complex and imaginary. Real numbers are further classified as rational and irrational. Rational numbers = fractions + integers. Integers = (negative numbers) + (Whole numbers). Whole numbers = 0 + (natural numbers). Further, a different symbol is used to represent each set. I thought of adding a page, if not already present. -- Electron Kid 01:00, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
The article Differentiating Functions is on AfD (doesn't show up in the Current Activity page because it's not in any math category). The article is very badly written, though one editor seems to think it's more accessible than Calculus with polynomials, which I find hard to credit.-- Trovatore 05:52, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Without some support on Boolean algebra, I think I may just merge it into Boolean logic, take the flak and pick up the pieces later. It is clear that making it a purist page meets continuing resistance. I don't do edit wars. Charles Matthews 21:40, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I've done a little research on this, and the split over the articles is typical of mathematical encyclopedias (the Soviet one has algebra of logic + Boolean algebra, the Japanese some sections on symbolic logic + Boolean algebra). So it is not actually eccentric to divide it the way it currently is. That being said, I've heard nothing that convinces me there are two separate subjects, any more than discrete mathematics is disjoint from logic or computing applications. Charles Matthews 06:39, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
There's some fairly good work on WP about determinacy, but it's a bit haphazard. The axiom of determinacy article doesn't explain very clearly what a game or a strategy, or in particular a winning strategy, is. Winning strategy itself tries to be all things to all people. See my remarks in Talk:Axiom of determinacy and Talk:Winning strategy#Organizational questions for some thoughts with no clear conclusions, but I think a good starting place for trying to get the (nonexistent) category into better shape.
A couple of things of which I recently became aware have given me a little more sense of urgency about this. There's a Wikipedia:WikiProject Game theory, and they added winning strategy to it, which may be appropriate if that article should be ceded to the game theorists, and another written for the determinacy theorists (I'm thinking of writing a Game (set theory) article to subsume a whole bunch of these things, and change links from other articles to it). See my remarks in User talk:Kzollman#Game theory wikiproject.
Also there's apparently a category, Category:Combinatorial game theory, which deals with John Horton Conway type games.
I think this needs to be sorted out before it becomes an irretrievable mess. Would anyone be willing to work on a Wikipedia:WikiProject Determinacy?
On further reflection, I think the central article of the Determinacy category should just be called Determinacy. It's a much more general topic than Axiom of determinacy, which currently serves the purpose of a central reference point. You can see an outline at User:Trovatore/Sandbox/Determinacy. -- Trovatore 01:45, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
I like the intent of this new stub, but I think this material really belongs in Elementary algebra. In a sense, the material is already there, but Elementary algebra seems to already assume that the reader is familiar with the semantics of "=". In other words, Elementary algebra is not quite as elementary as it could be. The new article Axioms of an equation appears to be attempting to fill the gap for, say, late primary or early secondary school students, by explaining more explicitly how to work with "=". Dmharvey File:User dmharvey sig.png Talk 02:57, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
This discussion is already archived, but I want to report that I've merged the article into Equation. Melchoir 00:18, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Exactly how long should an article be before it stops being considered a stub? I removed [Digamma function]] and earlier (before Linas's major edit) Harmonic number from Category:Mathematics stubs, but I am not currently sure if articles such as Omega constant are still to be considered stubs or not. Scythe33 01:57, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
I just discovered this new category as a subcategory in Category:Mathematics. While I have nothing against Indian mathematics, I wonder if it is wise to have such a category. Next thing we know is Category:Mathematics in United States followed by 100-200 more subcategories in Category:Mathematics. What do people think of this? Oleg Alexandrov 23:16, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
I asked the creator of this category to comment about it.
Oleg Alexandrov
22:29, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
I am vaguely thinking of starting an insane and hopeless task, and that is to create a page listing low-dimensional, non-supersymmetric Lie groups and algebras, thier properties, isomorphisms, topologies, etc. I despair, because this seems like a collossal project trying to describe a hopelessly tangled web of inter-relationships. I was irked because what I really wanted was a list of (examples of) infranil manifolds. Any suggestions on how to minimize the pain and maximize the gain? linas 15:19, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
There is a start to this project at the list of simple Lie groups; this still needs some work in filling in the properties of these groups. This will not help much if you want to know about nilpotent groups. R.e.b. 20:31, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity there are now 10029 mathematics articles and mathematician biographies. Now, around 500 of them are redirects, a bunch are arguably more physics or related than math, and a rather good chunck are stubs. Still, this is something of a milestone.
This also makes me think (again) that with so many articles, there is just not enough manpower to even check articles for vandalism and style, not to talk about the mathematical correctness and if articles are coherent rather than just a bunch of text put together by different contributors.
This is probably a good moment to think of where we are, and wonder what the future will hold. Oleg Alexandrov 22:59, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
The article lemma was moved to lemma (mathematics), with the former being made into a disamibig. I disagree with the move, as the absolute majority of pages linking there are about the mathematical term. And even if one agrees with the move, one needs to disambiguate the links, and having them point to the correct destination. I asked the person who did the move to comment here. Other opinions welcome. Oleg Alexandrov 21:58, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
I think it is probably better this way. -- MarSch 11:12, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
By the way, I suggest that this discussion (that is, all the above text) be moved to, and continued at, Talk:Lemma. That's a better place for people to find it in the future, and it's "neutral ground" so to speak. -- Trovatore 16:41, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
For several months, I have been doing occasional clean-up work on the pages related to connectedness, connectivity, etc. Things are still a little messy, but I am not sure what to do about some issues. In particular:
— Nowhither 00:01, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
Do we have a specific math article on Omega? The specific one that states that mathematics can't be strung together and that discoveries are just luck? It also states that its goal is to try and find the halting possibility of a computer when faced with an infinite answer.
See Wikipedia:Village_pump (miscellaneous)#Riemann_zeta_function. Oleg Alexandrov 03:56, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
I think both Charles, Avocado, and Dysprosia have very good points. A great many math articles are written for an audience which knows at least as much as the person writing the article. In many cases there is no motivation, no intuitive explanation, no gradual development from easy to complex, no pictures, no examples, and the list can go on. If one would teach in college with the same attitude, one would get quickly fired (well, ideally :)
However, there is only that far one can go in making a topic acessible. For example consider the meromorphic function article, which now has a {{ technical}} template slapped upon. If you know anything about the complex plane and about functions, you should understand from the examples and the picture that a meromorphic function is roughly a fraction of two functions, with the denominator going bad every now and then. However, if you say that you don't understand the statement:
then that's your fault. You cannot possibly understand meromorphic functions unless you know what holomorphic functions and poles are. Oleg Alexandrov 17:30, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
It sounds good to me. I do think we should be careful that this solution not become a way to remove all pressures to add intuition and motivation, though. In my own case, I know that my Prewellordering article is guilty of the offenses Oleg mentions, particularly the Prewellordering property section.
The other side of that is that it is better to have something than nothing, I think. Prewellordering needs to be motivated, but for me at the moment finishing the Determinacy article is a higher priority, and I do have non-Wikipedia tasks as well. In the mean time I think it is better that there be an unmotivated article on the prewellordering property than none at all. -- Trovatore 18:00, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
I can find nothing above with which I disagree ;-) Per Euclid, There is no royal road. But we need to keep trying to make the road as short and smooth as possible. Paul August ☎ 18:53, September 11, 2005 (UTC)
Having math overview articles aimed somewhat lower than the normal math articles is a good idea. My suggested "connectedness" article (see "Connected, connectivity, etc." above) could be one of these. However, I must agree with Dysprosia, that educational works belong in Wikibooks. In fact, the linear algebra tutorial suggested by R.Koot has already been started there; see wikibooks:Linear algebra. — Nowhither 00:31, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
I like Linas' suggestion at least in principle (with the caveat that it not become an excuse to avoid adding motivation to articles). I'd suggest further that there be a uniform naming scheme for the simpler articles, say Foo (introduction) or Foo (elementary) for the beginners' version of Foo. But it does seem like something of an "unfunded mandate"; I'm not personally volunteering to produce these articles for the hundreds if not thousands of topics that'd need them. Any further thoughts? I hate to see the matter just dropped, without a clear decision. -- Trovatore 20:13, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
As a less radical measure, how about updating just the introductions of some of the math articles to be more accessible. For instance, something to the effect of:
-- Avocado 21:29, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
From the back-jacket information for Itay Neeman's book on The Determinacy of Long Games, which I will likely cite:
-- Trovatore 18:41, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
As suggested above in a couple of places, I have written a new article: connectedness. This is supposed to be an overview of mathematical uses of the term (and similar words), written at a somewhat lower level than most mathematical articles. I would be interested in hearing what people think about:
By the way, I also put a note linking to the new article in connected, which is a general (non-mathematical) disambig. And I removed "connected" from the List of mathematical topics (C) and replaced it with "connectedness". And ... I'm still wondering what to do with connectivity.
— Nowhither 03:12, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
And, speaking of RfC, one of the topics there is:
I'm not making this up; if anyone has an opinion on the matter (I did) do go share it with Talk:Bertrand Russell; maybe we can drown out the various contending nationalisms. Septentrionalis 22:46, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
Currently, List of publications in mathematics has at the bottom 31 mathematics categories. Some explanation for that is here. The whole thing seeems to be an effort by APH as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Science pearls. I truly doubt that there is any article under the wiki Sun so important as to be included in that many categories. Oleg Alexandrov 06:24, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
Hello, Please notice this project. I hope that the List of publications in mathematics, List of publications in statistics and List of publications in computer science will be adopted by the mathematics project. Thanks, APH 06:48, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
It seems to me that the article on logical converse is incomplete. It has the schoolbook definition of the converse, which is that the converse of a statement of the form (A → B) is the statement (B → A). But I think that "converse", as the term is used by mathematicians, is actually a more subtle and complex concept. I've put some simple examples at Talk:Converse (logic).
I think that if we actually look at examples, we'll find all sorts of different forms that the converse can take, and that this information should be incorporated into the Converse article.
I hope people will assist me in this. -- Dominus 13:32, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
Once again someone has been trying to rewrite the Boolean algebra article based on the preconception that it's about the logical calculus sometimes called "Boolean algebra". I'm afraid I got into a mini-editwar with him; he got tired of it and went to write his own article called Boolean algebra (basic concepts). I think he wants to rename Boolean algebra to Boolean algebra (complex theory).
I think there should be two articles, but I see dark clouds on the horizon with this editor. He doesn't show any signs of wanting to believe me that a Boolean algebra is something like a group or ring, rather than a "complex" version of what he thinks of as "Boolean algebra" as a mass noun. I'm worried that he'll try to incorporate material about the algebraic-structure notion into his "basic" article, which will only confuse the issue. I could use some help here, guys.... -- Trovatore 21:26, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
My five cents (yeah there's been some inflation): if we have a decent article on Boolean algebra as envisaged by StuRat et al (i.e. currently named "basic concepts"), then that should get primary status as Boolean algebra, simply because it's the one more likely to be searched for by a general audience; and there should be a dab notice on that pointing to something like Boolean algebra (algebraic structure). Dmharvey File:User dmharvey sig.png Talk 23:57, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
I think both things are and should be called "Boolean algebra" with at least one being of the form "Boolean algebra ( … )". I suggest that we set aside for the moment which, if either, should simply be called "Boolean algebra". Let's assume for the moment that both articles need parenthetical disambiguation, and try to decide what they should be.
Paul August ☎ 22:02, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
I see that one of Paul's suggestions I overlooked was Boolean algebra (object). That's not bad, though I think I still prefer "mathematical structure". I don't like the plural because it (1) suggests that these things are somehow "alternative versions of Boolean algebra" and (2) is not in line with the naming given to other structures, like Group (mathematics). -- Trovatore 20:07, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Indicial Calculus claims that it is "the calculus used to extract root indices of order x, where x is an element of a Galois splitting field for a given polynomial equation of ductivity ." Does this ring a bell to somebody? The reference to " Little Bride Bonnie (1859-1941), a German mathematician known for early work in group theory" made me suspicious, and a quick search on MathSciNet and Google didn't yield any results. -- Jitse Niesen ( talk) 21:18, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
I decided to replace the article by a redirect to cyclic group, which is where index calculus also redirects to (KSmrq found this out, thanks). Saves a trip to AfD. -- Jitse Niesen ( talk) 14:39, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
See discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requested articles/mathematics#MathWorld?. Comments welcome. Oleg Alexandrov 03:20, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
... We will find out. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Schmitt. Oleg Alexandrov 02:01, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
Anybody heard of the "corank" of a Lie algebra? An anon replaced "rank" with "corank" at Affine Lie algebra, and I don't know if that's correct or not. Oleg Alexandrov 16:06, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Just a reminder that when you've guessed the name of an article you're linking to, and it comes up blue and you save your edit, it's worth clicking through to those links and seeing if they say something sensible and relevant to the meaning you have in mind.
I happened across a page called complete Boolean algebra that had some trivial nonsense in it, nothing to do with CBAs, yet it was linked to from complete lattice.
Another possibility is that the link from "complete lattice" was originally red, and then someone came along and filled in the incorrect "complete Boolean algebra" page. To protect against this sort of thing, click through to your redlinks and add them to your watchlist (yes, this works). -- Trovatore 17:32, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Our articles Isometry and Metric space have different definitions of isometry. The former requires an isometry to be onto, the latter does not. There is a discussion at Talk:Metric_space#Isometry, about which is more standard, and what we should do about it. Please share your thoughts there. Thanks Paul August ☎ 16:38, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
The bot User talk:Curpsbot-unicodify has started crawling the math pages and converting html greek characters, such as γ, into glyphs that are hard to work with (although they render the same way). I don't think this is a good idea for math formulas and math expressions, although I support it for the other cases (people/place names, etc.) I'd like to see some sort of majority consensus developed on this, for or against, at User talk:Curpsbot-unicodify. linas 14:56, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
First of all, the bot has not started systematically crawling the math pages. It only happened to crawl the
Wess-Zumino-Witten model article because that was on a list of requested articles sent to me by
User:Beland, and he only wanted that article processed because it contained two spaces instead of one in a [[Riemann sphere]]
link (the bot also does this, although its main function is Unicode conversion). The bot is mostly concentrating on eastern European pages and such at the moment (for instance, see
this edit to
Russian grammar).
For the time being, I have edited the bot code to skip any page that contains a <math> tag. It might revisit them later with a flag set to avoid processing Greek letters. In the long run, however, you might be better off to use <math>\gamma</math> instead of γ as Arthur Rubin suggests, because the visual appearance of and γ is usually quite different, and if you're arguing that the visual appearance of γ is confusing in the editor window then it's surely equally confusing in the reader window (displayed browser page). Or perhaps even more confusing, since readers are sometimes less sophisticated than editors and the two different-looking gammas might be mistaken for different symbols.
By the way, I presume you folks know that ε φ (ε,φ) are not the same things as \epsilon \phi ( or ε,ϕ)? According to the TeX book and Unicode.org respectively, the latter are supposed to be "lunar" epsilon and "unbroken-circle" phi with bar extending above the circle, although the glyphs used in various fonts may render them identically (as seems to be the case under Windows XP, for instance). See [1] and compare U+03B5 vs. U+03F5 and U+03C6 vs. U+03D5. This is another argument against using HTML entities when TeX math symbols are intended. -- Curps 20:21, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
What are the prospects for commuting diagrams in TeX on WP? Most pages that have them seem to have custom-generated PNG's. My attempts to create a native diagram result only in ugliness:
and a triangle:
The markup is complicated too ... Any better way of doing this? linas 00:01, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
The article manifold has been rewritten at manifold/rewrite. Manifold/rewrite has had around 225 edits since June 19 when Jitse started it as a text in his sandbox to offer some constructive suggestions to the arguments at talk:manifold. Now the rewritten article looks nice and needs to be merge into manifold, which itself underwent around 58 edits since June 19. The big question is, how to merge them? One can merge the edit histories, see Wikipedia:How to fix cut and paste moves, but it could be a mess. The only other choice is I think to give up on the history of one of the two articles. What should be the right decision? Let us discuss this at talk:manifold/rewrite. Oleg Alexandrov 04:27, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Proposals#More_Math_stubs. Oleg Alexandrov 00:51, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
At Talk:Birthday paradox it is being proposed to delete from the article the section on Paul Halmos' view of the matter. That is the only section that takes the reader beyond the stage that any freshman who thinks the problem through would figure out. It's a fairly short section. Three Wikipedian support deletion; only I have opposed it. Would mathematicians please comment at Talk:Birthday paradox? Michael Hardy 22:41, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Dave Petry (I'm 99% sure it's he) has started a new article called Controversy over Cantor's Theory. Dave's been showing up from time to time on sci.math and sci.logic for some years with variations on this theme--set theory is "mythological" and has nothing to do with "reality" as defined by things that can be observed on a computer. He's not stupid or crazy, just wrong; it's sort of amusing how he says (on the article's talk page)
because the less sensible views are those of certain individuals at least one of whom has a WP article about him ( Archimedes Plutonium).
Anyway the project itself is perhaps worthwhile; I don't see anything wrong with having an article about philosophical views hostile to the use of set theory in mathematics, and how they have evolved, if indeed they have, as a result of the "computer age". This particular article in its current form, though, is very much OR and very POV. I hope others will take a look at it and figure out how to fix it or whether it's worth fixing; I really should be working on that paper.... -- Trovatore 04:12, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
I missed this thread first time around, but I noticed Charles Matthews say:
This isn't quite right: domain theory (and especially synthetic domain theory) wants to build better mathematical structures for doing Tarski-style interpretations of programs into, but in turn the foundations of domain theory are regular set theory. It might be better to call it a better interface onto set theory than a rival to set theory. Martin-Loef's type theory is an example of an actual rival to set theory, which is, again, peddled mostly by theoretical computer scientists.
I agree with Charles M's objection though. The section of that article called "recent attacks" has as its most recent commentator Hermann Weyl! In the mathematicians section, Kline is not objecting to set theory as a mathematical structure, but to its role in mathematical education, in particular the air of unreality refers to the lack of good intuition a certain kind of emphasis on farmalism and foundations can lack (caveat: I don't recognise this particular passage of Kline, but I've read a lot of Kline and I know his hobby horses).
Having said that, I think that if we find the right home for this, there might be a nice article that can be grown for it. I don't like "criticisms", I'll make a proposal for alternative name candidates at Talk:Controversy over Cantor's Theory --- Charles Stewart 15:24, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Paskal's triangle has been moved to Khayyam-Pascal's triangle. It is claimed there now that the latter is the internationally recognized name. Discussion is welcome at Talk:Khayyam-Pascal's triangle. Oleg Alexandrov 21:35, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
This category has some proofs, as subpages. It seems to be at odds with two widely held views, one that there should be no subpages ( Christoffel symbols/Proofs is a subpage to Christoffel symbols), and that the proofs should not be on separate pages. Also, wonder I, why is this separate from Category:Proofs. I myself would suggest the proofs in there, together with the mother category, be deleted. Wonder what other opinions are. Oleg Alexandrov 00:16, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
How about putting back those proofs into the articles? -- MarSch 15:01, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't want to lose these proofs, I think they are valuable. I don't see the problem in having them on a subpage. Can someone explain the harm in that? If we don't want them there, or in the article, or in a seperate article of their own, then we could always put them on the talk page, but I would be strongly opposed to just deleting that content. Paul August ☎ 15:20, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
The {{ style}} template pops up every now and then at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics) and is there now. I would argue that it is unnecessary. Its only purpose is for a user to hop from manual of style to manual of style, but for people who actually use a particular manual of style, like our math manual, the links to the manual of style about writing China-related articles, how to write footnotes, etc, are not be helpful. I would argue that a link to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style on top of our manual of style should be enough. From there, one can access any other style manual if one wishes so. Wonder what people think. Oleg Alexandrov ( talk) 04:12, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I posted a note on this guideline's talk page proposing a change in this policy ( Wikipedia talk:Make technical articles accessible). --- Charles Stewart 02:22, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Please vote at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of lists of mathematical topics. Otherwise, the issue may be decided by (from the looks of it at this time) people who never heard of mathematics until they saw this nomination. Michael Hardy 03:35, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
I am attending an AMS sectional conference this weekend, and once again listening to everyone complain about how badly math is taught in the US, how lousy all the grade school textbooks are (except the Singapore textbooks), and how the three big textbook publishers are so powerful that nobody has a ghost of a chance of making things better.
Naturally, I thought of Wiki.
What I propose is a series of articles on mathematics written at the grade school level, so students and teachers who actually care about mathematics can have at least one source to which to turn.
I'm going to start at Grade school mathematics and take it from there.
Want to help?
Rick Norwood 22:46, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Just in case there are still Quantum and GR types lurking here, who haven't yet found Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics ... well, now you know: there's a physics project as well. Add your name to the list, and visit the talk page as well: I'm sure the topics are as lively and maybe more argumentative than those here! linas 00:28, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
As most readers here know, Dmharvey is working on a MathML solution for Wikipedia, called Blahtex. A perennial problem in mathematics is the large number of potential characters, and the MathML spec defines quite a large list. For your viewing pleasure, I have made a page where you can try to see many of them in your browser. (The list does not include all the fraktur, script, and blackboard-bold characters, some of which are in a higher Unicode plane.) Using a Gecko-based browser (from the Mozilla Foundation) and the Code2000 font, I see excellent coverage. That's a Good Thing, because the STIX fonts have had their projected release pushed back to mid-2006. In light of evolving developments, the question here is, what do we do now in editing articles?
Because Wikipedia has switched to UTF-8, it directly accepts any Unicode character. We can also use HTML named entities, and character entities. Come MathML, readers must be prepared to cope with these. Meanwhile, the processing of <math> allows a limited subset, producing either an image or HTML markup. (The subset does not include the full set of LaTeX characters, much less the complete range of MathML characters.) Finally, outside of the <math> tags we can use images of characters.
Folks writing in other scripts, from Cyrillic to Devanāgarī to IPA to Hangul and others, seem unapologetic about the need for their kind of characters in their kind of article. With the advent of MathML presentation it will become extremely awkward and ugly to use the image crutch; we need our characters, too.
How many people are going to scream if I start writing the cross product properly as A⨯B (using U+2a2f, ⨯) instead of A×B (using U+00d7, ×)? That's silly, right; who needs the fancy character? But I've also gotten curses for using the semidirect product, N⋉H (using U+22c9, ⋉), which LaTeX calls "\ltimes" but <math> does not allow. (Especially annoying, the complainant thought a picture of ⋊ was a fine substitute, even though it's the wrong character and precludes <math>!)
So, are all characters fair game as numeric entities? As UTF-8? (Clearly not as <math>!) If not, which do we exclude, why do we exclude them, how do we substitute (in all contexts), and what do we do when MathML arrives? -- KSmrq T 13:33, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
An approach I've taken is to provide links to bitmap images for characters which don't display on every browser. That way, at a minimum, users can click on a link to see characters like ∈, ∉, ∅, ⊆, ⊂, ⊇, and ⊃; if they don't display on that user's browser. StuRat 00:12, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
The common notation of a semidirect product seems to be G = N File:Rtimes2.png H, with the normal subgroup at the left, while the symbol is a cross with a vertical bar at the right (see e.g. [3]), although the names of the symbols seem to suggest that the bar should be at the side of the normal subgroup ( [4], [5]). Have other people any thoughts?-- Patrick 13:37, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
The main article was moved, but the two subpages weren't. differentiable manifold, topological manifold redirect there. Admin privileges probably needed, since I couldn't do it. -- MarSch 11:14, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
This is not about math, but might be helpful to the fellow mathematician. I found a very userful tool in my opinion, Pilaf's Live Preview at Wikipedia:Tools#Alternative_previews. It allows one to do instant preview, without waiting for seconds or more after hitting the "Preview" buttion. It works by some javascript magic, and is just as easy to install as pasting several lines of text into a file and doing a reload of your preferences (control-shift-r for Mozilla, Ctrl-F5 in IE, and F5 in Opera). I already love this tool. :) Oleg Alexandrov ( talk) 12:51, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Hey! In a case of absent mindedness, you forgot to classify the numbers. I searched a lot. If already present, I apologize. -- Davy Jones 02:50, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Please note the plural numbers. Its like : numbers have been classified as Real numbers and complex numbers. complex numbers are further classified as complex and imaginary. Real numbers are further classified as rational and irrational. Rational numbers = fractions + integers. Integers = (negative numbers) + (Whole numbers). Whole numbers = 0 + (natural numbers). Further, a different symbol is used to represent each set. I thought of adding a page, if not already present. -- Electron Kid 01:00, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
The article Differentiating Functions is on AfD (doesn't show up in the Current Activity page because it's not in any math category). The article is very badly written, though one editor seems to think it's more accessible than Calculus with polynomials, which I find hard to credit.-- Trovatore 05:52, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Without some support on Boolean algebra, I think I may just merge it into Boolean logic, take the flak and pick up the pieces later. It is clear that making it a purist page meets continuing resistance. I don't do edit wars. Charles Matthews 21:40, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I've done a little research on this, and the split over the articles is typical of mathematical encyclopedias (the Soviet one has algebra of logic + Boolean algebra, the Japanese some sections on symbolic logic + Boolean algebra). So it is not actually eccentric to divide it the way it currently is. That being said, I've heard nothing that convinces me there are two separate subjects, any more than discrete mathematics is disjoint from logic or computing applications. Charles Matthews 06:39, 29 October 2005 (UTC)