There does not appear to be an article on the important "Hopkin's theorem" due to Charles Hopkins. Although I am aware that this theorem is referred to by other names (such as in the Wikipedia article Artinian ring), none of these names seem to yield an article. Does anyone know if there is an article on the fact that a right (or left) artinian ring is right (or left) Noetherian? Thanks, -- PS T 09:26, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
Hi - I thought what I had up was more or less in line with WP:SCICITE -- after all, the material is basically formulae pulled out of a textbook, and inline referencing would have been fairly redundant. I'm a little hesitant to remove the tags the newpage patroller put up, and I would like some feedback -- are there any glaring deficiencies in the article? Thanks, Ray Talk 06:51, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
I know this is not the right place to ask this but I really would like to find the guidelines/policy for how to format math equations and the like on wiki. cheers. 114.30.110.26 ( talk) 10:55, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
I tagged Mathematical Association of America with your project. Cheers. APK that's not my name 21:43, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
I know for the most part we've decided to ignore GA and I support that, but I don't think the unilateral action by User:Gary King is tolerable. Please take a look. -- Trovatore ( talk) 04:24, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
Suggestions? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
I would say that if we ignore GA, this is more a problem for GA than for us. The tension around the citation issue is certainly to do mostly with a stylistic preference, but the preference is for writing surveys of mathematical topics in a style that is not neurotic about details. That is what is needed: that is what (in fact) the mathematical literature is short of. The narrower the topic, the greater density of required citation (certain facts, at the limit, are only written down in one place). This actually fits the GA/FA worldview of trying to optimise an article, which frankly for a topic like topology is just ridiculous (no way can one write that article in such a way as to get close to a comprehensive treatment). Anyway, the schism is going to be made worse if inappropriate reviews of broad mathematics articles are carried out by applying myopic templates to the situation, not better. Charles Matthews ( talk) 21:18, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
Oh my, what a lot of fuss over one crap review. Two line reassessments are totally against the spirit and practice of the GA process, but bad stuff happens. Instead of dealing with it like adults we have a furore that pits the "math people" against the "GA people" and demands a take over or withdrawal of maths from GA. The argument is soooo 2007. Such tribalism fails to take into account that Wikipedia is a bunch of individuals. Some mathematical editors find GA very helpful, others do not: each to their own. The GA process has good reviewers and reviews and ones which are not so good. It deals with the lack of uniformity by making it relatively easy to list or delist, and providing a reassessment process in the event of disagreement. It is akin to simulated annealing, and right now the temperature is a touch too high.
Community reassessment is needed to reach a consensus and hopefully improve the article in the process. I encourage editors to engage with the article and with Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Mathematics/1. In particular, something needs to be done with Mathematics#Common misconceptions: cutting it entirely is one option; leaving unsourced opinion isn't. Geometry guy 09:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't mind seeing one line of review if it's a pass, but the situation is that it was on hold with 2 sentences provided. If the reviewer doesn't have the time to identify the specific for improvement, then don't do it. It is causing more drama than it is worth. User:Gary King should not be playing a game and passes the ball off to community GAR when he couldn't find more words to defend his poor review. What I propose is to amend the GA criteria by adding WP:SCG to 1(b). It will not affect projects outside of Mathematics, Physics, Molecular and cellular biology and Chemistry while adequately addresses any present and potential concerns raised in future WP:GAN and WP:GAR where the articles fall within the scope those projects mentioned. OhanaUnited Talk page 18:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
While we're on the topic, Maximum spacing estimation has been brought to GA, and is currently undergoing an A-class discussion, possibly in preparation for a FAC. -- Avi ( talk) 14:31, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
How do I join this WikiProject? 116.14.72.74 ( talk) 12:49, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Besides the fact that we don't have an article on a topic that is included in MacLane's book and in Borceaux's 1st volume, does anyone here happen to know who gave the modern definition of internal categories? There's been some discussion/confusion at cat theory timeline page.
There's a high-level description of the Ehresmann-Schein-Nambooripad theorem in the inverse semigroup article, but a prerequisite for writing that in more detail is defining an inductive groupoid, which is an ordered groupoid, which is an ordered category, which in turn is an internal category. I'm guessing the first three of these concepts aren't used often enough outside semigroup theory to justify separate articles, although according to Ehresmann's wife ordered categories appeared in some 700 papers (see link in the discussion above). Pcap ping 18:07, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Since the (more "modern") notion of a monotone Galois connection and (unary) residuated mapping essentially coincide, I was wondering what's the best way to deal with these two topics. I was the one that started residuated mapping a year or so ago; the latter notion suffers from much fewer vagaries in terminology and notation.
A possible approach would be to delete most of the "properties" stuff from Galois connection, which appear written in a rather rambling manner (and using non-standard notations), but keep the rest, essentially the examples, some of which naturally appear as antitone Galois connections, and also keep how the Galois connections relate with other notions from math, while the "low level" stuff could be expanded in residuated mapping, where it also benefits from a more standard notation.
One could also redirect residuated mapping to Galois connection, but then one would need to explain yet another set of synonyms for lower/upper adjoint. More troubling though, a binary operator is defined to be residuated in a manner that gives rise to left and right division, but that's not the same as the mapping (considered as a unary map being residuated). This and other notions of residuation, e.g. quasi-residuals in a semigroup, feel off-topic for someone wanting to read just what a Galois connection is.
Some suggestions how to organize/divide this material would be appreciated. Pcap ping 01:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
The article Monus is unsourced and gives what I think is an incorrect description of a subject in ordered monoids. I know almost nothing about this subject, so I would appreciate a look from expert eyes. In summary the article defines the monus of elements a, b as max(a−b, 0), which seems problematic because we don't know there is a subtraction operation in the monoid. I only found one discussion of monus online ( here); the definition there is more plausible, namely as the smallest c such that a ≤ b + c. Thanks for any attention to this article. -- Uncia ( talk) 13:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Dear all, it appears that the term Heegner number was most likely made up by mathworld. I've started a section on the talk page to discuss whether or not this is so. If it is, I believe the correct course of action is to delete and merge content into other articles. Opinions welcome. RobHar ( talk) 00:36, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
(Cross-posting from Comp. Sci. wikiproject since activity is rather low there) Can someone with (at least) a graduate-level understanding of the topic take a look at the article, in particular the confusion with various typed lambda calculi; see the article's talk page for details. Pcap ping 17:33, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
On Talk:Exponential_function#Overview and motivation an editor has replied to my objections citing the maths manual of style with 'I wipe my arse with the Mathematics manual of style!!'. I don't mind arguing about whether some ground rules should or should not apply or what they mean or whether they should be disregarded in particular instances, but this doesn't sound like a basis for constructive discussion. Dmcq ( talk) 16:19, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I've put a prod on Pie method which is a putative method of fair division because I believe it is simply wrong. I actually found a place on the internet though where somebody quoted it though not as the 'pie method' and it probably didn't come from wikipedia! I sort of wonder if it is notably wrong and I should keep it and say it is rubbish? Perhaps I should put it under Proportional (fair division) as an attempt which is wrong and explain - but then the explanation could be counted as WP:OR. Dmcq ( talk) 23:34, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
By a very simple verified equation we wiped out Prime numbers and Riemanns Hypothesis articles that are rendered obsolete and Wikipedia is the first place we went because you treated us with freedom and respect. The simple equation that is verifiable at face value was posted at the Math forums etc 4 hrs ago"IS 180-PRIME NUMBER(below180)= 180+PRIME NUMBER(any over 180) Till infinity ,So there is no need to be digging for these prime numbers now any more. See also the site Inverse19mathematics.com, or google inverse19 mathematics. THIS IS SIMPLE VERIFIABLE AS IT IS(ipso facto ). GO WIKPEDIA BE THE FIRST. Vinoo Cameron M.D , Theo Denotter.-- Vinoo Cameron ( talk) 05:38, 8 August 2009 (UTC)-- Vinoo Cameron ( talk) 05:38, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Edge3 has started a GA review of Proof without words. Their main concern so far is that the article does not give sufficient coverage of its topic. Review status is "On hold: this article is awaiting improvements before it is passed or failed". If anyone has the time and inclination to expand the article, please do so. Gandalf61 ( talk) 10:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
This is perhaps a trivial topic but I feel that some discussion is necessary. In calculus, functions are often composed from right to left and this is therefore the convention with which most people are familiar. However, group theorists prefer to compose from left to right, and in general, many influential algebraists have selected this convention. Consequences of this convention include the consideration of only right modules (rather than left modules) and specific cases of this (for instance, right ideals rather than left ideals). However, in Wikipedia, for the most part, only left ideals, left modules and related concepts associated to "left" rather than "right" are considered. In my opinion, this is an inconsistency, and at can at times lead to incorrect assertions (in the context of rings, only, since a ring need not be isomorphic to its opposite ring). Should something be done about this? -- PS T 14:58, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
\fatsemi
does not work on Wikipedia because it doesn't include the right package. If you read the
Composition of functions article on Linux, or on anything else with decent Unicode fonts (Mac?), the Unicode fatsemi appears correctly; but not on Windows XP.
Pcap
ping 17:21, 11 August 2009 (UTC)Failed to parse (unknown function "\fatsemi"): {\displaystyle \fatsemi}
Can someone review that article and remove, or at least frame properly, the ramblings that permeate it? I've done a little work on it, but I have the rewriting fish to fry, for which there are way fewer knowledgeable Wikipedians around (as far as I can tell given how bad the article was). Pcap ping 17:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I've added a section to the article on Closure (mathematics) article describing a related notion. The name used by Baader and Nipkow is somewhat non-descriptive. Has anyone encountered it under some other name? Also, is that article the best place to discuss it? Pcap ping 18:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Did anyone see how terrible our article on predicate (mathematical logic) is? Pcap ping 20:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Am I just blind, or we don't have an article on this? Equational theory redirects to Universal algebra, which sort of touches on the idea of a model theory, but I don't see the fundamental result that equational logic is sound and complete mentioned there. I was trying to find something to link to from rewriting in order to explain what the motivation is, but no luck... Compare with [3]. Pcap ping 02:45, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Could anyone give some feedback on the discussion under Talk:Bijection#Terminology? It might not be a very deep discussion, but I think it's important nontheless. Some extra views would be more than welcome. Thanks! 145.88.209.33 ( talk) 08:27, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
We have these "general" articles:
We also have much better articles on the important topics, recursion theory, lambda calculus, Turing machine, and random access machine; we also have a decent overview article on register machines in general.
The way I see it computability should be is a high-level intro to the often encountered equivalent models of computation: recursion theory, lambda calculus, Turing machine, and random access machine. This is along the along the outline of S. Barry Cooper's Computability Theory ( see pp. 7-8), which despite being written by mathematician was quite satisfying for me as a computer scientist (despite the many misprints, and his insistence on calling RAMs URMs, but that's another matter).
(I will cross-post to the CS wikiproject to attract participants from there too, but that project is nearly dead.)
Thoughts? Pcap ping 11:22, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
I would like to propose a change for the convention. Can we assume that a compact space is Hausdorff (and use quasi-compact for a space where an open cover has a finite subcover)? I think today this is fairly standard and helps to reduce clutters.
One problem with this change is what we do with other related notions like locally compact, or compact generated space (i.e., k-space): should we assume them also to be Hausdorff or not. I don't have a concrete idea for this problem. -- Taku ( talk) 12:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
The "usual" definition of compact does not include Hausdorff. This is supported by the "standard" texts, Willard, General Toplogy (1970), Steen & Seebacch, Counterexamples in Topology (1970), Armstrong, Basic Topology (1997), Bredon, Topology and Geometry (1997), Munkres Topology (1999), etc., as well as references like Schecthter, Handbook of Analysis and Its Foundations (1997) and Hazewinkel, Encyclopaedia of Mathematics (2002). In my experience as a practicing topologist Bourbaki is definitely in the minority. Whatever our personal definitional preferences our, we should follow the standard sources. Paul August ☎ 16:01, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
I am somewhat inclined to the view that:
I'd rather keep the terminology as is.
Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
In model theory, we have an invariant of complete first order theories that is called the Lascar group. Its inventor defined that a theory is called G-compact if its Lascar group is a compact Hausdorff group. Since the group is always quasicompact, this amounts to saying that it's Hausdorff. This may make sense in French, but based on observations on several occasions I would say it confuses most model theorists outside France, because they expect compact=quasicompact.
I still maintain that the best thing we can do is to use quasicompact or compact Hausdorff whenever there is a difference, and compact when there is none. Since we are writing for an international audience of people from different subfields of mathematics, this is the only way to make sure that our readers needn't guess what we mean. Even if we could agree on one of the two main conventions for the entire project, there would always be some articles that wouldn't follow the convention, e.g. because they are recent additions by a new author who doesn't know about the convention. And it still leaves the flexibility of defining compact as one of the two variants at the beginning of an article, if it's necessary to prevent awkward language. Hans Adler 23:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Let's look at some other Wikipedias:
Hans Adler 06:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I very much favour Hans's position above - "use only the terms compact Hausdorff and quasicompact in topology contexts, except where the two notions are equivalent. This is analogous to how we are already dealing with ." Where authors are inconsistent, the best way to avoid confusion is to rely solely on unambiguous terms, even if that usage isn't consistent with any particular author. Dcoetzee 07:37, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
In Encyclopaedia of Mathematics, "Compact space" [4] has this comment:
I'm somehow unsure about the accuracy of this. I thought "quasicompact" typically appears in algebraic geometry. -- Taku ( talk) 12:29, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
So much discussion. We have basic conventions to avoid getting sucked into such time-consuming stuff. "Quasi-compact" as used in scheme theory is a standard definition and means what you'd guess, but it is not a definition most mathematicians have to worry about. I think Bourbaki had a rather limited point in making that definition back in the day, and we lose little by ignoring the point in our conventions. Charles Matthews ( talk) 16:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Let me weigh in, as someone who has spent some time re/writing the articles on general topology. I have various comments:
1) Both conventions have a great deal of support. The use of quasi-compact is more widespread in French than it is in English (indeed, the above references seem to show that compact virtually always implies Hausdorff in French), but it is certainly widespread in English as well. As a rough rule of thumb, "quasicompact" is preferred by the algebraists (including algebraic geometers, algebraic number theorists, model theorists, etc.) whereas "compact" is preferred by the analysts and geometric topologists. There is enough use of each convention that it seems absolutely mandatory to mention both alternatives as being in common use.
2) In terms of authoritative texts on General Topology, in my opinion (as someone who has spent some time perusing them) the following are the most authoritative, in historical order:
1955 Kelley's General Topology 1958 Bourbaki's Topologie Generale 1970 Willard's General Topology 1975/1977 Engelking's General Topology
I find it strange that nowadays people seem to name Munkres' book as the definitive reference on the subject. It is a very nicely written book (it was used for my first course on topology, and I had an entirely positive experience with it), but it does not have the scope of a reference. From the author's preface: "This book is intended as a text for a one- or two-semester introduction to topology, at the senior or first-year graduate level."
In terms of the authority of the above books, I would rank them in descending order as: Bourbaki, Engelking, Willard, Kelley. Note that the first two of these use the term "quasi-compact".
3) Except for the fact that it is probably not in majority use among English-speaking mathematicians, I have never heard a reasonable argument against Bourbaki's convention. There are many arguments for it, most of all the fact that it clues the student in to the fact that many of the nice properties of compactness in metric spaces hold only when the Hausdorff axiom is assumed. Moreover, the alternate terminology gets awkward when one is seriously interested in non-Hausdorff spaces. For instance the term "compactification" is used in every text I have ever seen to mean "Hausdorff compactification", but the fact that this is not built into the terminology can cause confusion.
4) I would myself prefer that wikipedia adopt the quasi-compact convention. This would be a progressive move: choosing terminology that we feel is best even if it is not in the majority use. I appreciate though that this is a big step for wikipedia to take. I think that Hans Adler's advice is ultimately best: mention both conventions in the foundational articles, and then in the applications try to phrase things so as to make sense independent of which convention has been chosen. Plclark ( talk) 21:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
To respond to Plclark's 3), I'm no expert but I believe that the strongest argument against the inclusion of Hausdorff-ness would be that the category of Hausdorff spaces is not well behaved (I never quite understood what topologists mean by "not-well-behaved"). Hence, it is important to work with -- in algebraic topology in particular -- the category of spaces with some weaker separation axioms such as weak Hausdorff space. (See also [5]) This is not surprising since Bourbaki introduced their convention before the category theory became mainstream. -- Taku ( talk) 11:59, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
The consensus seems clear by now, but let me indulge a bit more, because I don't understand Charles Matthews' comment at all. Yes, it is true that there is no serious problem that could be solved by adopting a new convention: there is nothing wrong with "compact Hausdorff", especially because like 99% of times spaces are Hausdorff and so this is usually simply non-issue. (Likely, I was bored before a new semester, which started the whole thing :) But, but, why reject the idea of having a discussion on conventions at all? It is important to adopt a correct convention; not just because that helps the reader but because that's the whole point of this project. Isn't it? We strive for the accurate description of (contemporary) mathematics, and the choices of conventions are therefore extremely important because they're reflection of philosophy. It is possible that, as PST pointed out, adopting the Bourbaki convention gives a wrong impression that certain materials in topology are unimportant (because they are?) I don't see why we, as the authors of this encyclopedia, can't have a long discussion then choose conventions that best reflect views that we think correct? Because we can't agree ever or why try? (Excuse me for ranting.) -- Taku ( talk) 01:34, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
See discussion here Count Iblis ( talk) 15:01, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, we gotta be careful with every comma in a science article on this wiki or the world might explode! Seesh... Pcap ping 17:22, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Protonk has started a GA Review of Mathematics and art ( review page) and Jeep problem ( review page). In both cases Protonk feels that the articles are some distance away from GA quality. Mathematics and art has "many challenges", which Protonk has listed in detail; Jeep problem "requires a substantial rewrite" and so Protonk has given it a more summarised review. Both reviews have a status of "On hold: this article is awaiting improvements before it is passed or failed". If anyone has the time and inclination to improve these articles, please do so. Gandalf61 ( talk) 10:25, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
I just wrote Theta function (disambiguation) as a possible expansion to the hatnote at Theta function. I think that the list of functions should be split into the true theta functions (Jacobi's, Ramanujan's, and the q-theta functions, at least) from the other functions that merely use (or are called) theta. Something like
A theta function is a special function in complex analysis.
Other theta functions include |
Other possibilities: leave all 10 functions in one large list; split by field (analysis/number theory/set theory).
Here's a list of possibly-related pages for comparison:
Any thoughts? I wanted to at least let some other people look it over before I put an {{ about}} tag on Theta function.
CRGreathouse ( t | c) 18:11, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
I've just created a new article titled Bonse's inequality. It's a stub. So:
Michael Hardy ( talk) 00:16, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Following a suggestion of Emil J., I've created a new section of the math MOS: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics)#Conventions. This is mostly a link to the current page on conventions, Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Conventions. I feel like it would be a big improvement if the conventions page were merged into the MOS: The conventions page is short, is highly relevant to the MOS, and would be easier to find and maintain. Does anyone else have an opinion on this? Ozob ( talk) 15:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to write this (please delete if so), but there needs to be more consistency with respect to how formula are presented. For example, consider the difference between how relations are written in the definition of an asymmetric relation and an anti-symmetric relation (i.e. aRb vs. R (a, b)). Conventional consistency seems to always be preferable here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.90.67.27 ( talk) 18:27, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
The definition of differential of a function that appears in that new article has appeared in calculus textbooks for more than 30 years now, and that's an unfortunate gap between mathematicians and authors of calculus textbooks. You'd hope that authors of calculus textbooks would be mathematicians, but it seems they're a different culture (I don't mean Spivak and Apostol, and I think there are a few others....). And they write books by zeroxing each other's books. It might not be politic to propose burning them at the stake as heretics, so I won't mention anything like that. But I've made some comments here.
Would other mathematicians here agree with me that this abomination is an abomination? Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I for one have tried to redirect the new article to a section of the existing article, plus I have made some other comments in the new article's page. As for calculus textbook, I can't say much: I am Italian, and textbooks when I was a student had, if anything, the opposite problem, being a bit too formal for, say, first-year students. But I see that presently there is a tendency towards "American" calculus, using new books translated from English and even renaming courses from "Analisi matematica" to "Calcolo". Goochelaar ( talk) 07:34, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Clearly the notion of an n-tuple is distinct from that of a word, but I but a quick search in google books failed to find a set theory definition for tuple; only n-tuple is defined. This is related to a debate on List (computing), but the article on tuple could use some clarification as well. Pcap ping 12:49, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I think that the definition of tuple from that article is a Wikipedia original, and that it was caused by renaming the article some four years ago from n-tuple; according to MathWorld "tuple" means just n-tuple for some fixed n obvious from context; it does not mean word. See further discussion at Talk:Tuple#Problem_with_def_of_tuple. Pcap ping 13:42, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
There is a distinction: perhaps it should be clarified by means of the concepts of internal operation and external operation. The "point" of words is that concatenation is an internal binary operation - we are living in the free monoid. Obviously you can concatenate tuples of any finite length, but this then appears as an external operation on two Cartesian powers ending up in a third. In other words (in other tuples?) as soon as you write * for concatenation with its type data you become conscious of an overloading of the notation. Charles Matthews ( talk) 14:54, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Content from the archive. The issue is still unresolved. Cs32en 13:04, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
We could use some help to resolve a controversy about the correct formulae for the matrix differential and the matrix derivative at the article Matrix calculus. See the talk page, especially the section Disputed information: Matrix derivative. Cs32en 22:52, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
This really should be resolved by verifying that the formulae stand as stated in the references (and noting the conventions in operation, per reference). I edited the section on the nature of the so-called "matrix derivative" - and there doesn't seem to be controversy about that. So that leaves only the formulae collected from the literature. Charles Matthews ( talk) 14:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
With respect to article Leibniz function, can someone please verify its meaning in regards to its derivative ( f ( x ) f ' ( x ) = 1 ). Not familiar with the term in this context and the word "Leibniz" is not found anywhere inside the books listed as references.
My addition/contribution to the article is with respect to Lie groups/algebra, with cleanup under the good-faith assumption that such an identity exists and is named after Leibniz. Henry Delforn ( talk) 16:56, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Cat Data types lists Cat Type theory as sub-category, which causes a lot of data types articles, e.g. some, but not all in Category:Composite data types, to be added (manually) to type theory as well. This appears wrong to me as a way of organizing this stuff. Pcap ping 03:20, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
← Which "people" are we talking about? See the pretty picture in theoretical computer science. Pcap ping 21:08, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
Someone just created symbol (formal) with a redirect from symbol (logic). In my opinion such mini-articles with no potential are a maintainability nightmare and should be merged. In a note to the editor I was about to write that symbol (formal) is redundant with formal language in the same way that element (mathematics) doesn't exist because it's redundant with set (mathematics). Fortunately I checked this first: It turns out that we do have this article.
Do we really need this? Hans Adler 10:26, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
At Henry Gordon Rice, we are informed that:
No dates of birth and death. Only the word "was" implies he is deceased. But on the talk page it says the article must comply with Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living persons.
Which is it? Michael Hardy ( talk) 04:20, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
Shouldn't we cite this as a reference instead of external link in math logic articles? The two math articles I've looked at Type Theory, and Second-order and Higher-order Logic are written by published academics, and in the type theory case, by a well-known researcher in that area (despite the fact that he doesn't get a Wikipedia article), so the article is much better than what we have here, which describes type theory up to 1941 or so. Pcap ping 16:38, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
Count me among the people who do not want to see us citing SEP. The problem is not the word "encyclopedia", although that is related. There are two sorts of refernces that we should cite predominately in our "content articles" (for lack of a better term).
We generally avoid the following for general content:
In essentially every case, the sorts of facts that we could source to these will also be covered in book-length treatments that provide much more value to the reader than these sorts of references provide. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 21:02, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
I have created an external link template for the Encyclopedia at {{ SEP}}. Skomorokh 22:42, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
I've just written a short article titled Bhatia–Davis inequality. I could use work both on itself and on links to it from other articles. Michael Hardy ( talk) 18:11, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
I have just radically revised the whole article.
I deleted the "Disputed" tag I added earlier.
You'll notice the definition of total differential and partial differential. One of the various great virtues of the Leibniz notation is that it makes ideas like this so simple. Is there any easier heuristic argument for the chain rule for partial derivatives than that?
(And at this time, chain rule for partial derivatives is a red link! Should we remedy that?)
Also, I've proposed a merger with differential (calculus).
We should consider adding to the article the more advanced and otherwise different viewpoints, including 1-forms. Michael Hardy ( talk) 16:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
....and now I see that someone else has drastically revised it after my edits. Michael Hardy ( talk) 16:58, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Every so often it seems schools come up with some yet sillier way to make maths inaccessible. Lots of different words to learn about distinctions between different triangles, funny rigmaroles when adding or subtracting, points will be taken off for misspellings and suchlike. I noticed in article Negative and non-negative numbers someone put in raised minus as in −5 for instance. Seemingly they are now learning to put in +5 and −5 to show the numbers are positive or negative and should say subtract, negative or opposite of in the appropriate situations. I was wondering if an article on such ideas might be an idea or what it should be called? I probably would have too strong a POV for it :) I suppose it would be something referenced from Mathematics education as I can see it growing quite large so it wouldn't fit within that. Dmcq ( talk) 18:25, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
I read this article a while ago, and thought that it is someone's attempt at creating a page on efficient algorithms. Perhaps I am mistaken, but what in the world is a "fast algorithm"? Is this a field of research in computational mathematics? How is this different from the usual algorithm design that computer scientists do? -- Robin ( talk) 21:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Here's a page talking about automating the process of creating fast algorithms: Automatic Generation of Transform Algorithms "it is possible to automatically generate fast algorithms for discrete signal transforms". Charvest ( talk) 22:38, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
(ec) Let's recap:
Although this has marked as a computer science topic (by changing its category), it doesn't contain any programming or the like, and it tries, but fails to define a mathematical concept. The article has good number of issues. See it's talk page. Pcap ping 02:01, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
Algorithm has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. Wizardman 22:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
This article has been proposed for deletion. Would merging it to Weight (representation theory) be a good alternative to deletion? If so, or if there's a better merge target, could someone do the merge? My maths doesn't extend to understanding this. Fences& Windows 01:35, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
I've recently been doing quite a bit of deletion sorting, and while many topics have associated deletion sorting lists, mathematics is a notable exception. I find this surprising given that maths is a subject that can be completely impenetrable to someone like me who has no understanding of almost everything above GCSE level. This means that there is often a need for input from someone able to understand the importance (or otherwise) of the subject being nominated.
My question therefore is whether people here feel there would be a benefit in creating such a list? Thryduulf ( talk) 20:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Comments welcome at Wikipedia:Peer review/Evenness of zero/archive1. (I suppose this'll be picked up on current activity soon enough, but why wait?) Cheers, Melchoir ( talk) 03:31, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
After having a look at math article alerts, as well as Jitse's activity bot, I concluded that a lot of that stuff could be done by a simple feature in Wikimedia: "intersection categories". Basically to find out if a math article is nominated for whatever, or needs expert input (cleanup and what not) could be done almost trivially if Wikimedia natively supported intersection of categories. I see that there's actually a request for enhancement on bugzilla; somebody even wrote the code, it just needs to be tested and committed. Perhaps you could weigh in on that? Pcap ping 07:28, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Just for fun, a quote: "We thank the anonymous referees of the conference and journal versions of the paper for providing useful comments and references, and the anonymous writers of the article on the central limit theorem in Wikipedia for leading us on to the Berry-Esséen theorem." Page 510 of the journal Algorithmica (2009), vol. 55, the paper "Random Measurement Bases, Quantum State Distinction and Applications to the Hidden Subgroup Problem" by Jaikumar Radhakrishnan, Martin Rötteler and Pranab Sen. Boris Tsirelson ( talk) 16:03, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm in the process of bringing the Hilbert space article up to scratch for GA. It was delisted by User:Geometry guy last year, but it has progressed substantially since that time. It's almost in a shape that I would consider nominating for relisting as GA, but I thought I should solicit input here somewhat unofficially before doing so. Thanks, Sławomir Biały ( talk) 18:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
There is a naming dispute considering the correct name for the category for the main article Markov chain and related articles, see WP:CFD. 76.66.192.144 ( talk) 03:20, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
The article titled Point on plane closest to origin is in pretty sorry shape. I thought of correcting its many obvious failures to follow usual and useful Wikipedia conventions, but it's not clear that the article is worth keeping.
Using Lagrange multipliers for this thing that can be done by simple geometric or algebraic methods is not so different from some things I've seen actual mathematicians do, even if it is swatting a fly with a pile driver. But it's certainly needless complication. I'd think of two things: (1) inner-product-space methods; and (2) secondary-school algebra and geometry. Those two points of view seem worth mentioning if there is to be such an article. But Lagrange multipliers don't seem worth more than a terse statement. Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:04, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
There does not appear to be an article on the important "Hopkin's theorem" due to Charles Hopkins. Although I am aware that this theorem is referred to by other names (such as in the Wikipedia article Artinian ring), none of these names seem to yield an article. Does anyone know if there is an article on the fact that a right (or left) artinian ring is right (or left) Noetherian? Thanks, -- PS T 09:26, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
Hi - I thought what I had up was more or less in line with WP:SCICITE -- after all, the material is basically formulae pulled out of a textbook, and inline referencing would have been fairly redundant. I'm a little hesitant to remove the tags the newpage patroller put up, and I would like some feedback -- are there any glaring deficiencies in the article? Thanks, Ray Talk 06:51, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
I know this is not the right place to ask this but I really would like to find the guidelines/policy for how to format math equations and the like on wiki. cheers. 114.30.110.26 ( talk) 10:55, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
I tagged Mathematical Association of America with your project. Cheers. APK that's not my name 21:43, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
I know for the most part we've decided to ignore GA and I support that, but I don't think the unilateral action by User:Gary King is tolerable. Please take a look. -- Trovatore ( talk) 04:24, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
Suggestions? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
I would say that if we ignore GA, this is more a problem for GA than for us. The tension around the citation issue is certainly to do mostly with a stylistic preference, but the preference is for writing surveys of mathematical topics in a style that is not neurotic about details. That is what is needed: that is what (in fact) the mathematical literature is short of. The narrower the topic, the greater density of required citation (certain facts, at the limit, are only written down in one place). This actually fits the GA/FA worldview of trying to optimise an article, which frankly for a topic like topology is just ridiculous (no way can one write that article in such a way as to get close to a comprehensive treatment). Anyway, the schism is going to be made worse if inappropriate reviews of broad mathematics articles are carried out by applying myopic templates to the situation, not better. Charles Matthews ( talk) 21:18, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
Oh my, what a lot of fuss over one crap review. Two line reassessments are totally against the spirit and practice of the GA process, but bad stuff happens. Instead of dealing with it like adults we have a furore that pits the "math people" against the "GA people" and demands a take over or withdrawal of maths from GA. The argument is soooo 2007. Such tribalism fails to take into account that Wikipedia is a bunch of individuals. Some mathematical editors find GA very helpful, others do not: each to their own. The GA process has good reviewers and reviews and ones which are not so good. It deals with the lack of uniformity by making it relatively easy to list or delist, and providing a reassessment process in the event of disagreement. It is akin to simulated annealing, and right now the temperature is a touch too high.
Community reassessment is needed to reach a consensus and hopefully improve the article in the process. I encourage editors to engage with the article and with Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Mathematics/1. In particular, something needs to be done with Mathematics#Common misconceptions: cutting it entirely is one option; leaving unsourced opinion isn't. Geometry guy 09:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't mind seeing one line of review if it's a pass, but the situation is that it was on hold with 2 sentences provided. If the reviewer doesn't have the time to identify the specific for improvement, then don't do it. It is causing more drama than it is worth. User:Gary King should not be playing a game and passes the ball off to community GAR when he couldn't find more words to defend his poor review. What I propose is to amend the GA criteria by adding WP:SCG to 1(b). It will not affect projects outside of Mathematics, Physics, Molecular and cellular biology and Chemistry while adequately addresses any present and potential concerns raised in future WP:GAN and WP:GAR where the articles fall within the scope those projects mentioned. OhanaUnited Talk page 18:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
While we're on the topic, Maximum spacing estimation has been brought to GA, and is currently undergoing an A-class discussion, possibly in preparation for a FAC. -- Avi ( talk) 14:31, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
How do I join this WikiProject? 116.14.72.74 ( talk) 12:49, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Besides the fact that we don't have an article on a topic that is included in MacLane's book and in Borceaux's 1st volume, does anyone here happen to know who gave the modern definition of internal categories? There's been some discussion/confusion at cat theory timeline page.
There's a high-level description of the Ehresmann-Schein-Nambooripad theorem in the inverse semigroup article, but a prerequisite for writing that in more detail is defining an inductive groupoid, which is an ordered groupoid, which is an ordered category, which in turn is an internal category. I'm guessing the first three of these concepts aren't used often enough outside semigroup theory to justify separate articles, although according to Ehresmann's wife ordered categories appeared in some 700 papers (see link in the discussion above). Pcap ping 18:07, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Since the (more "modern") notion of a monotone Galois connection and (unary) residuated mapping essentially coincide, I was wondering what's the best way to deal with these two topics. I was the one that started residuated mapping a year or so ago; the latter notion suffers from much fewer vagaries in terminology and notation.
A possible approach would be to delete most of the "properties" stuff from Galois connection, which appear written in a rather rambling manner (and using non-standard notations), but keep the rest, essentially the examples, some of which naturally appear as antitone Galois connections, and also keep how the Galois connections relate with other notions from math, while the "low level" stuff could be expanded in residuated mapping, where it also benefits from a more standard notation.
One could also redirect residuated mapping to Galois connection, but then one would need to explain yet another set of synonyms for lower/upper adjoint. More troubling though, a binary operator is defined to be residuated in a manner that gives rise to left and right division, but that's not the same as the mapping (considered as a unary map being residuated). This and other notions of residuation, e.g. quasi-residuals in a semigroup, feel off-topic for someone wanting to read just what a Galois connection is.
Some suggestions how to organize/divide this material would be appreciated. Pcap ping 01:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
The article Monus is unsourced and gives what I think is an incorrect description of a subject in ordered monoids. I know almost nothing about this subject, so I would appreciate a look from expert eyes. In summary the article defines the monus of elements a, b as max(a−b, 0), which seems problematic because we don't know there is a subtraction operation in the monoid. I only found one discussion of monus online ( here); the definition there is more plausible, namely as the smallest c such that a ≤ b + c. Thanks for any attention to this article. -- Uncia ( talk) 13:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Dear all, it appears that the term Heegner number was most likely made up by mathworld. I've started a section on the talk page to discuss whether or not this is so. If it is, I believe the correct course of action is to delete and merge content into other articles. Opinions welcome. RobHar ( talk) 00:36, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
(Cross-posting from Comp. Sci. wikiproject since activity is rather low there) Can someone with (at least) a graduate-level understanding of the topic take a look at the article, in particular the confusion with various typed lambda calculi; see the article's talk page for details. Pcap ping 17:33, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
On Talk:Exponential_function#Overview and motivation an editor has replied to my objections citing the maths manual of style with 'I wipe my arse with the Mathematics manual of style!!'. I don't mind arguing about whether some ground rules should or should not apply or what they mean or whether they should be disregarded in particular instances, but this doesn't sound like a basis for constructive discussion. Dmcq ( talk) 16:19, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I've put a prod on Pie method which is a putative method of fair division because I believe it is simply wrong. I actually found a place on the internet though where somebody quoted it though not as the 'pie method' and it probably didn't come from wikipedia! I sort of wonder if it is notably wrong and I should keep it and say it is rubbish? Perhaps I should put it under Proportional (fair division) as an attempt which is wrong and explain - but then the explanation could be counted as WP:OR. Dmcq ( talk) 23:34, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
By a very simple verified equation we wiped out Prime numbers and Riemanns Hypothesis articles that are rendered obsolete and Wikipedia is the first place we went because you treated us with freedom and respect. The simple equation that is verifiable at face value was posted at the Math forums etc 4 hrs ago"IS 180-PRIME NUMBER(below180)= 180+PRIME NUMBER(any over 180) Till infinity ,So there is no need to be digging for these prime numbers now any more. See also the site Inverse19mathematics.com, or google inverse19 mathematics. THIS IS SIMPLE VERIFIABLE AS IT IS(ipso facto ). GO WIKPEDIA BE THE FIRST. Vinoo Cameron M.D , Theo Denotter.-- Vinoo Cameron ( talk) 05:38, 8 August 2009 (UTC)-- Vinoo Cameron ( talk) 05:38, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Edge3 has started a GA review of Proof without words. Their main concern so far is that the article does not give sufficient coverage of its topic. Review status is "On hold: this article is awaiting improvements before it is passed or failed". If anyone has the time and inclination to expand the article, please do so. Gandalf61 ( talk) 10:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
This is perhaps a trivial topic but I feel that some discussion is necessary. In calculus, functions are often composed from right to left and this is therefore the convention with which most people are familiar. However, group theorists prefer to compose from left to right, and in general, many influential algebraists have selected this convention. Consequences of this convention include the consideration of only right modules (rather than left modules) and specific cases of this (for instance, right ideals rather than left ideals). However, in Wikipedia, for the most part, only left ideals, left modules and related concepts associated to "left" rather than "right" are considered. In my opinion, this is an inconsistency, and at can at times lead to incorrect assertions (in the context of rings, only, since a ring need not be isomorphic to its opposite ring). Should something be done about this? -- PS T 14:58, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
\fatsemi
does not work on Wikipedia because it doesn't include the right package. If you read the
Composition of functions article on Linux, or on anything else with decent Unicode fonts (Mac?), the Unicode fatsemi appears correctly; but not on Windows XP.
Pcap
ping 17:21, 11 August 2009 (UTC)Failed to parse (unknown function "\fatsemi"): {\displaystyle \fatsemi}
Can someone review that article and remove, or at least frame properly, the ramblings that permeate it? I've done a little work on it, but I have the rewriting fish to fry, for which there are way fewer knowledgeable Wikipedians around (as far as I can tell given how bad the article was). Pcap ping 17:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I've added a section to the article on Closure (mathematics) article describing a related notion. The name used by Baader and Nipkow is somewhat non-descriptive. Has anyone encountered it under some other name? Also, is that article the best place to discuss it? Pcap ping 18:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Did anyone see how terrible our article on predicate (mathematical logic) is? Pcap ping 20:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Am I just blind, or we don't have an article on this? Equational theory redirects to Universal algebra, which sort of touches on the idea of a model theory, but I don't see the fundamental result that equational logic is sound and complete mentioned there. I was trying to find something to link to from rewriting in order to explain what the motivation is, but no luck... Compare with [3]. Pcap ping 02:45, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Could anyone give some feedback on the discussion under Talk:Bijection#Terminology? It might not be a very deep discussion, but I think it's important nontheless. Some extra views would be more than welcome. Thanks! 145.88.209.33 ( talk) 08:27, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
We have these "general" articles:
We also have much better articles on the important topics, recursion theory, lambda calculus, Turing machine, and random access machine; we also have a decent overview article on register machines in general.
The way I see it computability should be is a high-level intro to the often encountered equivalent models of computation: recursion theory, lambda calculus, Turing machine, and random access machine. This is along the along the outline of S. Barry Cooper's Computability Theory ( see pp. 7-8), which despite being written by mathematician was quite satisfying for me as a computer scientist (despite the many misprints, and his insistence on calling RAMs URMs, but that's another matter).
(I will cross-post to the CS wikiproject to attract participants from there too, but that project is nearly dead.)
Thoughts? Pcap ping 11:22, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
I would like to propose a change for the convention. Can we assume that a compact space is Hausdorff (and use quasi-compact for a space where an open cover has a finite subcover)? I think today this is fairly standard and helps to reduce clutters.
One problem with this change is what we do with other related notions like locally compact, or compact generated space (i.e., k-space): should we assume them also to be Hausdorff or not. I don't have a concrete idea for this problem. -- Taku ( talk) 12:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
The "usual" definition of compact does not include Hausdorff. This is supported by the "standard" texts, Willard, General Toplogy (1970), Steen & Seebacch, Counterexamples in Topology (1970), Armstrong, Basic Topology (1997), Bredon, Topology and Geometry (1997), Munkres Topology (1999), etc., as well as references like Schecthter, Handbook of Analysis and Its Foundations (1997) and Hazewinkel, Encyclopaedia of Mathematics (2002). In my experience as a practicing topologist Bourbaki is definitely in the minority. Whatever our personal definitional preferences our, we should follow the standard sources. Paul August ☎ 16:01, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
I am somewhat inclined to the view that:
I'd rather keep the terminology as is.
Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
In model theory, we have an invariant of complete first order theories that is called the Lascar group. Its inventor defined that a theory is called G-compact if its Lascar group is a compact Hausdorff group. Since the group is always quasicompact, this amounts to saying that it's Hausdorff. This may make sense in French, but based on observations on several occasions I would say it confuses most model theorists outside France, because they expect compact=quasicompact.
I still maintain that the best thing we can do is to use quasicompact or compact Hausdorff whenever there is a difference, and compact when there is none. Since we are writing for an international audience of people from different subfields of mathematics, this is the only way to make sure that our readers needn't guess what we mean. Even if we could agree on one of the two main conventions for the entire project, there would always be some articles that wouldn't follow the convention, e.g. because they are recent additions by a new author who doesn't know about the convention. And it still leaves the flexibility of defining compact as one of the two variants at the beginning of an article, if it's necessary to prevent awkward language. Hans Adler 23:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Let's look at some other Wikipedias:
Hans Adler 06:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I very much favour Hans's position above - "use only the terms compact Hausdorff and quasicompact in topology contexts, except where the two notions are equivalent. This is analogous to how we are already dealing with ." Where authors are inconsistent, the best way to avoid confusion is to rely solely on unambiguous terms, even if that usage isn't consistent with any particular author. Dcoetzee 07:37, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
In Encyclopaedia of Mathematics, "Compact space" [4] has this comment:
I'm somehow unsure about the accuracy of this. I thought "quasicompact" typically appears in algebraic geometry. -- Taku ( talk) 12:29, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
So much discussion. We have basic conventions to avoid getting sucked into such time-consuming stuff. "Quasi-compact" as used in scheme theory is a standard definition and means what you'd guess, but it is not a definition most mathematicians have to worry about. I think Bourbaki had a rather limited point in making that definition back in the day, and we lose little by ignoring the point in our conventions. Charles Matthews ( talk) 16:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Let me weigh in, as someone who has spent some time re/writing the articles on general topology. I have various comments:
1) Both conventions have a great deal of support. The use of quasi-compact is more widespread in French than it is in English (indeed, the above references seem to show that compact virtually always implies Hausdorff in French), but it is certainly widespread in English as well. As a rough rule of thumb, "quasicompact" is preferred by the algebraists (including algebraic geometers, algebraic number theorists, model theorists, etc.) whereas "compact" is preferred by the analysts and geometric topologists. There is enough use of each convention that it seems absolutely mandatory to mention both alternatives as being in common use.
2) In terms of authoritative texts on General Topology, in my opinion (as someone who has spent some time perusing them) the following are the most authoritative, in historical order:
1955 Kelley's General Topology 1958 Bourbaki's Topologie Generale 1970 Willard's General Topology 1975/1977 Engelking's General Topology
I find it strange that nowadays people seem to name Munkres' book as the definitive reference on the subject. It is a very nicely written book (it was used for my first course on topology, and I had an entirely positive experience with it), but it does not have the scope of a reference. From the author's preface: "This book is intended as a text for a one- or two-semester introduction to topology, at the senior or first-year graduate level."
In terms of the authority of the above books, I would rank them in descending order as: Bourbaki, Engelking, Willard, Kelley. Note that the first two of these use the term "quasi-compact".
3) Except for the fact that it is probably not in majority use among English-speaking mathematicians, I have never heard a reasonable argument against Bourbaki's convention. There are many arguments for it, most of all the fact that it clues the student in to the fact that many of the nice properties of compactness in metric spaces hold only when the Hausdorff axiom is assumed. Moreover, the alternate terminology gets awkward when one is seriously interested in non-Hausdorff spaces. For instance the term "compactification" is used in every text I have ever seen to mean "Hausdorff compactification", but the fact that this is not built into the terminology can cause confusion.
4) I would myself prefer that wikipedia adopt the quasi-compact convention. This would be a progressive move: choosing terminology that we feel is best even if it is not in the majority use. I appreciate though that this is a big step for wikipedia to take. I think that Hans Adler's advice is ultimately best: mention both conventions in the foundational articles, and then in the applications try to phrase things so as to make sense independent of which convention has been chosen. Plclark ( talk) 21:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
To respond to Plclark's 3), I'm no expert but I believe that the strongest argument against the inclusion of Hausdorff-ness would be that the category of Hausdorff spaces is not well behaved (I never quite understood what topologists mean by "not-well-behaved"). Hence, it is important to work with -- in algebraic topology in particular -- the category of spaces with some weaker separation axioms such as weak Hausdorff space. (See also [5]) This is not surprising since Bourbaki introduced their convention before the category theory became mainstream. -- Taku ( talk) 11:59, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
The consensus seems clear by now, but let me indulge a bit more, because I don't understand Charles Matthews' comment at all. Yes, it is true that there is no serious problem that could be solved by adopting a new convention: there is nothing wrong with "compact Hausdorff", especially because like 99% of times spaces are Hausdorff and so this is usually simply non-issue. (Likely, I was bored before a new semester, which started the whole thing :) But, but, why reject the idea of having a discussion on conventions at all? It is important to adopt a correct convention; not just because that helps the reader but because that's the whole point of this project. Isn't it? We strive for the accurate description of (contemporary) mathematics, and the choices of conventions are therefore extremely important because they're reflection of philosophy. It is possible that, as PST pointed out, adopting the Bourbaki convention gives a wrong impression that certain materials in topology are unimportant (because they are?) I don't see why we, as the authors of this encyclopedia, can't have a long discussion then choose conventions that best reflect views that we think correct? Because we can't agree ever or why try? (Excuse me for ranting.) -- Taku ( talk) 01:34, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
See discussion here Count Iblis ( talk) 15:01, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, we gotta be careful with every comma in a science article on this wiki or the world might explode! Seesh... Pcap ping 17:22, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Protonk has started a GA Review of Mathematics and art ( review page) and Jeep problem ( review page). In both cases Protonk feels that the articles are some distance away from GA quality. Mathematics and art has "many challenges", which Protonk has listed in detail; Jeep problem "requires a substantial rewrite" and so Protonk has given it a more summarised review. Both reviews have a status of "On hold: this article is awaiting improvements before it is passed or failed". If anyone has the time and inclination to improve these articles, please do so. Gandalf61 ( talk) 10:25, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
I just wrote Theta function (disambiguation) as a possible expansion to the hatnote at Theta function. I think that the list of functions should be split into the true theta functions (Jacobi's, Ramanujan's, and the q-theta functions, at least) from the other functions that merely use (or are called) theta. Something like
A theta function is a special function in complex analysis.
Other theta functions include |
Other possibilities: leave all 10 functions in one large list; split by field (analysis/number theory/set theory).
Here's a list of possibly-related pages for comparison:
Any thoughts? I wanted to at least let some other people look it over before I put an {{ about}} tag on Theta function.
CRGreathouse ( t | c) 18:11, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
I've just created a new article titled Bonse's inequality. It's a stub. So:
Michael Hardy ( talk) 00:16, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Following a suggestion of Emil J., I've created a new section of the math MOS: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics)#Conventions. This is mostly a link to the current page on conventions, Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Conventions. I feel like it would be a big improvement if the conventions page were merged into the MOS: The conventions page is short, is highly relevant to the MOS, and would be easier to find and maintain. Does anyone else have an opinion on this? Ozob ( talk) 15:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to write this (please delete if so), but there needs to be more consistency with respect to how formula are presented. For example, consider the difference between how relations are written in the definition of an asymmetric relation and an anti-symmetric relation (i.e. aRb vs. R (a, b)). Conventional consistency seems to always be preferable here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.90.67.27 ( talk) 18:27, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
The definition of differential of a function that appears in that new article has appeared in calculus textbooks for more than 30 years now, and that's an unfortunate gap between mathematicians and authors of calculus textbooks. You'd hope that authors of calculus textbooks would be mathematicians, but it seems they're a different culture (I don't mean Spivak and Apostol, and I think there are a few others....). And they write books by zeroxing each other's books. It might not be politic to propose burning them at the stake as heretics, so I won't mention anything like that. But I've made some comments here.
Would other mathematicians here agree with me that this abomination is an abomination? Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I for one have tried to redirect the new article to a section of the existing article, plus I have made some other comments in the new article's page. As for calculus textbook, I can't say much: I am Italian, and textbooks when I was a student had, if anything, the opposite problem, being a bit too formal for, say, first-year students. But I see that presently there is a tendency towards "American" calculus, using new books translated from English and even renaming courses from "Analisi matematica" to "Calcolo". Goochelaar ( talk) 07:34, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Clearly the notion of an n-tuple is distinct from that of a word, but I but a quick search in google books failed to find a set theory definition for tuple; only n-tuple is defined. This is related to a debate on List (computing), but the article on tuple could use some clarification as well. Pcap ping 12:49, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I think that the definition of tuple from that article is a Wikipedia original, and that it was caused by renaming the article some four years ago from n-tuple; according to MathWorld "tuple" means just n-tuple for some fixed n obvious from context; it does not mean word. See further discussion at Talk:Tuple#Problem_with_def_of_tuple. Pcap ping 13:42, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
There is a distinction: perhaps it should be clarified by means of the concepts of internal operation and external operation. The "point" of words is that concatenation is an internal binary operation - we are living in the free monoid. Obviously you can concatenate tuples of any finite length, but this then appears as an external operation on two Cartesian powers ending up in a third. In other words (in other tuples?) as soon as you write * for concatenation with its type data you become conscious of an overloading of the notation. Charles Matthews ( talk) 14:54, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Content from the archive. The issue is still unresolved. Cs32en 13:04, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
We could use some help to resolve a controversy about the correct formulae for the matrix differential and the matrix derivative at the article Matrix calculus. See the talk page, especially the section Disputed information: Matrix derivative. Cs32en 22:52, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
This really should be resolved by verifying that the formulae stand as stated in the references (and noting the conventions in operation, per reference). I edited the section on the nature of the so-called "matrix derivative" - and there doesn't seem to be controversy about that. So that leaves only the formulae collected from the literature. Charles Matthews ( talk) 14:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
With respect to article Leibniz function, can someone please verify its meaning in regards to its derivative ( f ( x ) f ' ( x ) = 1 ). Not familiar with the term in this context and the word "Leibniz" is not found anywhere inside the books listed as references.
My addition/contribution to the article is with respect to Lie groups/algebra, with cleanup under the good-faith assumption that such an identity exists and is named after Leibniz. Henry Delforn ( talk) 16:56, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Cat Data types lists Cat Type theory as sub-category, which causes a lot of data types articles, e.g. some, but not all in Category:Composite data types, to be added (manually) to type theory as well. This appears wrong to me as a way of organizing this stuff. Pcap ping 03:20, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
← Which "people" are we talking about? See the pretty picture in theoretical computer science. Pcap ping 21:08, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
Someone just created symbol (formal) with a redirect from symbol (logic). In my opinion such mini-articles with no potential are a maintainability nightmare and should be merged. In a note to the editor I was about to write that symbol (formal) is redundant with formal language in the same way that element (mathematics) doesn't exist because it's redundant with set (mathematics). Fortunately I checked this first: It turns out that we do have this article.
Do we really need this? Hans Adler 10:26, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
At Henry Gordon Rice, we are informed that:
No dates of birth and death. Only the word "was" implies he is deceased. But on the talk page it says the article must comply with Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living persons.
Which is it? Michael Hardy ( talk) 04:20, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
Shouldn't we cite this as a reference instead of external link in math logic articles? The two math articles I've looked at Type Theory, and Second-order and Higher-order Logic are written by published academics, and in the type theory case, by a well-known researcher in that area (despite the fact that he doesn't get a Wikipedia article), so the article is much better than what we have here, which describes type theory up to 1941 or so. Pcap ping 16:38, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
Count me among the people who do not want to see us citing SEP. The problem is not the word "encyclopedia", although that is related. There are two sorts of refernces that we should cite predominately in our "content articles" (for lack of a better term).
We generally avoid the following for general content:
In essentially every case, the sorts of facts that we could source to these will also be covered in book-length treatments that provide much more value to the reader than these sorts of references provide. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 21:02, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
I have created an external link template for the Encyclopedia at {{ SEP}}. Skomorokh 22:42, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
I've just written a short article titled Bhatia–Davis inequality. I could use work both on itself and on links to it from other articles. Michael Hardy ( talk) 18:11, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
I have just radically revised the whole article.
I deleted the "Disputed" tag I added earlier.
You'll notice the definition of total differential and partial differential. One of the various great virtues of the Leibniz notation is that it makes ideas like this so simple. Is there any easier heuristic argument for the chain rule for partial derivatives than that?
(And at this time, chain rule for partial derivatives is a red link! Should we remedy that?)
Also, I've proposed a merger with differential (calculus).
We should consider adding to the article the more advanced and otherwise different viewpoints, including 1-forms. Michael Hardy ( talk) 16:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
....and now I see that someone else has drastically revised it after my edits. Michael Hardy ( talk) 16:58, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Every so often it seems schools come up with some yet sillier way to make maths inaccessible. Lots of different words to learn about distinctions between different triangles, funny rigmaroles when adding or subtracting, points will be taken off for misspellings and suchlike. I noticed in article Negative and non-negative numbers someone put in raised minus as in −5 for instance. Seemingly they are now learning to put in +5 and −5 to show the numbers are positive or negative and should say subtract, negative or opposite of in the appropriate situations. I was wondering if an article on such ideas might be an idea or what it should be called? I probably would have too strong a POV for it :) I suppose it would be something referenced from Mathematics education as I can see it growing quite large so it wouldn't fit within that. Dmcq ( talk) 18:25, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
I read this article a while ago, and thought that it is someone's attempt at creating a page on efficient algorithms. Perhaps I am mistaken, but what in the world is a "fast algorithm"? Is this a field of research in computational mathematics? How is this different from the usual algorithm design that computer scientists do? -- Robin ( talk) 21:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Here's a page talking about automating the process of creating fast algorithms: Automatic Generation of Transform Algorithms "it is possible to automatically generate fast algorithms for discrete signal transforms". Charvest ( talk) 22:38, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
(ec) Let's recap:
Although this has marked as a computer science topic (by changing its category), it doesn't contain any programming or the like, and it tries, but fails to define a mathematical concept. The article has good number of issues. See it's talk page. Pcap ping 02:01, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
Algorithm has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. Wizardman 22:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
This article has been proposed for deletion. Would merging it to Weight (representation theory) be a good alternative to deletion? If so, or if there's a better merge target, could someone do the merge? My maths doesn't extend to understanding this. Fences& Windows 01:35, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
I've recently been doing quite a bit of deletion sorting, and while many topics have associated deletion sorting lists, mathematics is a notable exception. I find this surprising given that maths is a subject that can be completely impenetrable to someone like me who has no understanding of almost everything above GCSE level. This means that there is often a need for input from someone able to understand the importance (or otherwise) of the subject being nominated.
My question therefore is whether people here feel there would be a benefit in creating such a list? Thryduulf ( talk) 20:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Comments welcome at Wikipedia:Peer review/Evenness of zero/archive1. (I suppose this'll be picked up on current activity soon enough, but why wait?) Cheers, Melchoir ( talk) 03:31, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
After having a look at math article alerts, as well as Jitse's activity bot, I concluded that a lot of that stuff could be done by a simple feature in Wikimedia: "intersection categories". Basically to find out if a math article is nominated for whatever, or needs expert input (cleanup and what not) could be done almost trivially if Wikimedia natively supported intersection of categories. I see that there's actually a request for enhancement on bugzilla; somebody even wrote the code, it just needs to be tested and committed. Perhaps you could weigh in on that? Pcap ping 07:28, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Just for fun, a quote: "We thank the anonymous referees of the conference and journal versions of the paper for providing useful comments and references, and the anonymous writers of the article on the central limit theorem in Wikipedia for leading us on to the Berry-Esséen theorem." Page 510 of the journal Algorithmica (2009), vol. 55, the paper "Random Measurement Bases, Quantum State Distinction and Applications to the Hidden Subgroup Problem" by Jaikumar Radhakrishnan, Martin Rötteler and Pranab Sen. Boris Tsirelson ( talk) 16:03, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm in the process of bringing the Hilbert space article up to scratch for GA. It was delisted by User:Geometry guy last year, but it has progressed substantially since that time. It's almost in a shape that I would consider nominating for relisting as GA, but I thought I should solicit input here somewhat unofficially before doing so. Thanks, Sławomir Biały ( talk) 18:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
There is a naming dispute considering the correct name for the category for the main article Markov chain and related articles, see WP:CFD. 76.66.192.144 ( talk) 03:20, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
The article titled Point on plane closest to origin is in pretty sorry shape. I thought of correcting its many obvious failures to follow usual and useful Wikipedia conventions, but it's not clear that the article is worth keeping.
Using Lagrange multipliers for this thing that can be done by simple geometric or algebraic methods is not so different from some things I've seen actual mathematicians do, even if it is swatting a fly with a pile driver. But it's certainly needless complication. I'd think of two things: (1) inner-product-space methods; and (2) secondary-school algebra and geometry. Those two points of view seem worth mentioning if there is to be such an article. But Lagrange multipliers don't seem worth more than a terse statement. Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:04, 28 August 2009 (UTC)