List of numbers –
Irrational numbers ζ(3) – √2 – √3 – √5 – φ – α – e – π – δ |
List of numbers –
Irrational numbers γ - ζ(3) – √2 – √3 – √5 – φ – α – e – π – δ | |
Number System | Evaluation of |
---|---|
Binary | 11.00100100001111110110… |
Decimal | |
Hexadecimal | |
Rational approximations | 22⁄7, 223⁄71, 355⁄113, ...
(listed in order of increasing accuracy) |
Continued fraction | [3; 7, 15, 1, 292, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 14, 2, 1, 1, … ]
[1]
(This continued fraction is not periodic. Shown in linear notation) |
Trigonometry |
radians = 180
degrees
|
Earlier today I tried to remove the "infobox" (displayed right), from e (mathematical constant), since it doesn't seem to me to add much of use to the article (as well as the fact that the links listed seem a bit arbitrary), I was reverted with the comment "the same template is used in the aticle about pi and all of the other irrational numbers of interest". And in fact the article for each of the constants listed in that infobox contains the infobox, and some have sprouted more expansive infoboxes (e.g. see the infobox for Pi displayed right). What do others think about these? Paul August ☎ 18:13, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks to everyone for sharing your views. Based upon the above discussion, I intend to remove the infoboxes, and will leave a note on the involved articles' talk pages, as well as on the talk page of the reverting editor ( Robo37), pointing to this discussion and asking anyone who disagree to please join this discussion.
Not that that it matters particularly, but I've discovered that the infoboxes were added, for the most part it seems, by two apparent sockpuppets ( Anton Mravcek ( talk · contribs) and PrimeFan ( talk · contribs)) of Dmetric ( talk · contribs), all of whom (as well as many more see Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Dmetric) have been blocked.
Paul August ☎ 12:25, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
I disagree strongly with the removal of the infoboxes, and especially with the way it was done. First, one editor removed the infobox from e (mathematical constant) with no talk page discussion and no pretense of consensus, essentially because he doesn't like it. Unsurprisingly, this was quickly reverted. Instead of discussing the removal and revert on the article's talk page (see WP:BRD) with the editors who have been maintaining the article and who evidently approve of the infobox, the editor comes here. The editor does not even post notice of this "discussion" on the talk page of that article or on the talk pages of his other target articles. After 20 hours, during about 8 of which most of us were asleep, still with no notice to the editors of any of the articles, the discussion is closed. The editor who initiated the discussion here then removes infoboxes from 10 articles, and then posts notices on the articles' talk pages that invites anyone who objects to join this discussion that has already reached its conclusion.
I object.
Two types of infoboxes were removed:
I am restoring the infoboxes. Please do not remove any of them without first reaching consensus to do so on the talk page of the particular article. Thank you. Finell (Talk) 18:01, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
I support the restoration of the infoboxes, primarily because they were removed with insufficient consensus or even notice on the relevant articles. But in answer to some of the arguments above, I'd say that the continued fraction expansion of pi is of fundamental importance, as with other irrationals, in understanding the nature of its rational approximations. And the binary and hexadecimal fractions are the same kind of trivia as the decimal expansion, useless info that nobody seems to have trouble with, but arguably more useful for someone who wants to make an accurate approximate representation in a computer – not a great reason, but what the heck, it's also infotainment, as I made fun of at my favorite: Square root of 4. Dicklyon ( talk) 18:39, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
For a discussion about the infoboxes in question please see the two following subsection and, for the infobox on pi, see Talk:Pi#Removal_of_infobox. The discussion in this section is about procedure (and in some sense the "past"). Finell has stated (in my opinion correctly) that consensus for the removal should be obtained before re-removing. The discussion above on this page was not announced on the relevant article talk pages and those articles' editors could not be aware of it. The infoboxes should be reinserted pending us reaching a possibly new consensus in which the respective articles' editors have been given the time to weight in. This is the way of wiki ( WP:BRD). If you have an objection to this, this section is where you can voice that. Other discussion should go on in the relevant other section. Ok, let's do this. Cheers. RobHar ( talk) 21:10, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
It has been suggested above to remove the following infobox from all articles it is on:
List of numbers –
Irrational numbers ζ(3) – √2 – √3 – √5 – φ – α – e – π – δ |
To do this in a centralized location, I propose discussing this infobox here.
My personal feelings are that the general idea of the infobox may be appropriate, but the current list of numbers is absurd. α and δ are nowhere near as notable as the other numbers, for example. Overall, the list seems arbitrary. I think a list that could work would be (π, e, φ, √2, -1, i) or (π, e, φ, √2), being lists of classically important numbers. RobHar ( talk) 19:03, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
User:Robo37 has just taken on a more WP:POINTy approach, it appears, which is to add every irrational he can find to the infobox. It seems to me that we ought to have the discussion first. Dicklyon ( talk) 20:29, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
The purpose of a list of numbers is not so much an infobox in a specific number article but rather it is more a navigation template. The purpose of a navigation template is to guide readers to other articles on the same, or a related, subject, in this case to other irrational number articles. The idea that you should only include well known numbers - ie, ones that the reader has already heard of - is, quite frankly, silly. The readers already knows where the pi article is, they don't need a template to find it. The criterion for inclusion should not be "notability", that is a criterion for deciding whether the number should have an article at all, the criterion should be "might a reader reading this article find x interesting also". This could, of course, end up with a very long list, but there is no need to point to every individual number article. On the other hand, the template can and should point to lists of numbers or articles about groups of numbers wherer the reader can find further links to individual articles. Remember, readers are generally trying to find something out from the encyclopedia, not just trying to confirm what they already know. SpinningSpark 22:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
The articles on Apéry's constant, the square roots of 2, 3, and 5, the Golden ratio, and the Euler–Mascheroni constant γ also include an infobox containing expansions of these numbers in different bases and continued fraction expansions. I propose discussing these infoboxes here (for the discussion of the even bigger infobox about π I suggest Talk:Pi#Removal_of_infobox). RobHar ( talk) 19:20, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
This discussion seems to be getting ever longer and I am not sure what will come out of it. To isolate the issue of the list of irrational numbers, I made it into a template (which it almost is). I named it {{ Irrational numbers}} and nominated it for deletion right away. This approach may provide a more organized forum. Oleg Alexandrov ( talk) 01:43, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
Update: The discussion on TfD has ended, with the result being wrong forum. Jim ( talk) 04:05, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry to start another subsection, but I'd like to offer a suggestion that tries to meet each side of this argument half way. Personally, I really like these types of navigational templates because, unless I already know a great deal about a given topic, they often lead me to places I would never have thought to, or known to, look. With this in mind, perhaps we can keep this template if we rename it to something like "Well-known mathematical constants", and then set the bar for inclusion fairly high. For instance, restrict it to constants that have had entire books devoted to them (and only one number from each 'class' of number, in the sense that sqrt(2) is enough representation for numbers of the form a^{1/n}) or that have an overwhelming level of support among contributors. In this case maybe something like {0, 1, pi, e, i, sqrt(2), ln(2), phi, zeta(2), gamma}? I know many curious students would appreciate the bread-crumb trail to follow, and we have a template that is probably as well-defined as is possible (which seems to be one of the big problems noted above). Of course, I'm assuming there aren't entire books written on obscure constants. Ben ( talk) 09:29, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
My apologies to everyone for the sorry way I handled this. It would have been better if I had waited for more editors to comment before I removed the infoboxes, and it would have been better if I had publicized the discussion I started above more widely. My only defense is that I never imagined that anyone really cared much for these things. I am surprised and dismayed at the hornets nest that I have stirred up.
Going forward, I have no objection to the infoboxes being restored for the duration of this discussion. And until such time as a consensus is reached, I ask that they not be removed again. And I ask all editors to please discuss the issues involved calmly and objectively.
Paul August ☎ 13:27, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
Answers for Finell:
Regards, Paul August ☎ 16:44, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
By my reading and reckoning, eleven editors (listed below with excerpted quotes) have expressed some level of concern with respect to these infoboxes:
So a question for Finell (or others): how do you propose that we should address or accommodate these editor's concerns?
Paul August ☎ 19:54, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
The article Elementary proof has been nominated for deletion. -- Lambiam 14:06, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Relative canonical model could certainly use some work to bring it into line with Wikipedia's usual usages and standards. Michael Hardy ( talk) 19:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
The article commutative matrix multiplication needs help. There are no sources that actually refer to the material in the article (there are two sources that seem to have nothing to do with the subject), and I suspect that it may be original research. The definition itself is rather dubious, only making sense for positive definite self-adjoint matrices, although the article certainly suggests that it makes sense for all matrices. Could someone who knows more about this sort of thing please try to track down some quality sources to base the article on? The only other avenue seems to be deletion. 71.182.236.76 ( talk) 13:08, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Although I have read the guidelines ( WP:PROF) for creating articles on living people, I thought that I should seek clarification here. The article I wish to create is on the mathematician (topologist) Jan Van Mill (no current article). Quite a few topologists have Wikipedia articles already (mostly, differential topologists), and I think that Jan Van Mill, an important general topologist, set-theoretic topologist, dimension theorist et cetera, should have an article as well. He is already widely referenced on many articles in abstract topology (or at least in those articles that I have read), and is the co-editor of the famous " Open Problems in Topology" series; an excellent series on general topology which deserves an article as well. According to the WP:PROF guidelines, I think Van Mill should have an article, being a highly influential topologist. Are there any objections to this, or opinions as to whether there should be an article on the Open Problems in Topology series? -- PS T 02:37, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Where should speed maths redirect to, if anywhere? Thanks a lot— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 14:01, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
There's a proposal to replace − by a template that would display a hyphen in some other font: the font is intended to preserve the visual appearance of the minus sign while using a hyphen instead of an actual minus-sign character allows in-text searching for the number to work (the expectation being that people who search for something are going to type the hyphen and their browser won't match it against the minus sign). Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Reword to prefer minus-key on numeric keypad (the section title is left over from someone's misunderstanding — they thought that the minus sign on the numeric keyboard was a true minus-sign character when in fact it is just the hyphen again) and weigh in with your opinions. — David Eppstein ( talk) 23:25, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Just in case everyone wants to think about something unimportant, how 'bout this: this edit is correct per WP:MOS except for a certain publishing company's name. Guess what? Some people don't know any German. Such people may even think that Springer–Verlag is a company named after two people, one named Springer and the other named Verlag. (And I've even heard people pronounce the name with "v" sounding like that in "very" and "g" like that in "dog".) Translations of "Verlag" into English may be found here. The initial "V" is capital because in German all nouns begin with capital initial letters. It's named after a person named Springer. This way of using a hyphen is standard in German. People who prefer to devote their attention to enterprises of great pith and moment are hereby instructed to ignore these comments. Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:55, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
OK, this is weird: someone at Wiktionary is expecting readers to understand that the pronunciation is reported as a "g", it's because it's pronounced that way in the plural "Verlage" and becomes a "k" when it's at the end only because of a regular pattern of German pronunciation. If he were right to expect people to understand that without being told, then certain parts of this present discussion could not have happened. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:51, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
....omigod.....readers of Wiktionary are apparently expected to know the difference between // and [] in reporting pronunciations. Writing [k] means that's how it's always pronounced and similarly for [g]. But writing /g/ means it's pronounced that way in things like the genitive Verlages or the plural Verlage, but when it's at the end of a word, then it follows regular patterns of the German language and the pronunciation gets changed according to those patterns, so then it's pronounced [k].
I've brought this up on Wiktionary's page on the conventions followed in its German-to-English entries. I had no idea I was opening a can of worms here. Michael Hardy ( talk) 22:03, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
And yet /.../ is what they used. I understand what it means (and there's one other participant in WikiProject Mathematics who I know knows what it means), but I didn't know the conventions until I brought this matter up. "Of interest to professional linguists only" seems like an exaggeration. Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:57, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
Please comment at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_nascent_delta_functions. Le Docteur ( talk) 15:41, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Hey guys. If any of you have done GA reviews and aren't busy, this article's been waiting for three months now. I'm completely unfamiliar with the area else I'd take a crack at it, plus you'd understand the material better. Wizardman 22:06, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
In the process of the inconclusive discussion on whether this should be titled Logical systems, several problems with the article were discussed; it's another of GregBard's -er- idiosyncratic articles. Would someone who is fresher on the subject go in and fix it? The owner has turned up and is complaining. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:03, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
If you are interested, please see the discussion relating to the proposed deletion of the article Uniform Polychora Project. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RDBury ( talk • contribs)
I realize that there is some innate reluctance in some Wikipedia editors to remove any information from an article, no matter how inappropriate it is. I would like, therefore, to bring the state of the article Invalid proof to a wider audience. While I think that it is possible to have an encyclopedia article on this topic, it will look nothing like the present article, which is an endless litany of invalid proofs (many of which are likely WP:OR). I would like to set forth the possibility of transwikiing most of this content to Wikibooks and removing it from the Wikipedia article, but I'm not sure how to bring the issue up to obtain a wider consensus on the matter. Is an RfC the appropriate course of action? Please help, 74.98.44.216 ( talk) 14:13, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
There's a standard book Fallacies in Mathematics by Edwin Arthur Maxwell. It is more interested in geometry than algebra, really. But it is appropriately cited in the article. "Invalid proof" as title is less common but possibly more accurate than "mathematical fallacy": something like affirming the consequent is the application of a non-existent logical rule, while the usual trick of dividing by zero is a kind of sleight of hand, exploiting an exception to a rule that is often left tacit. The article does need taking in hand a bit. Charles Matthews ( talk) 19:47, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
Well the article can be reworked for a more encyclopedic treatment or renamed to reflect the current content more appropriately. The content itself however is imho mostly ok and doesn't really have a WP:OR problem. Most of that are well known examples and the article contains a few references as well. Hence I'd prefer to keep the content in WP rather than moving it somewhere else within Wikimedia.-- Kmhkmh ( talk) 01:05, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
The less I say the better: {{ mathematosis}} !? Le Docteur ( talk) 02:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
User talk:Glenn L is sticking in loads of continued fractions into Cube root and Nth root. I think they are over the top and the source doesn't look very notable. I'm not sure what to say to say and I don't think I'm very diplomatic, would somebody else like to have a look thanks? Dmcq ( talk) 20:51, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
I have posted a thread at Talk:Cube root. The continued fraction section is obviously out of place there, but User:Glenn L is lobbying heavily for its inclusion. Le Docteur ( talk) 18:10, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Could someone else look over Theorem? The introductory sentence has been changed to
Thanks, — Carl ( CBM · talk) 21:48, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
I hope you consider that possibility that it isn't "mind set:" but rather "subject matter." I welcome any cooperation in coming to an agreeable formulation. However, a wholesale delete doesn't help do that. I propose we go line by line in the expanded formulation. I think I have provided enough of the fundamentals to provide a place for all further aspects of the topic in the article. Pontiff Greg Bard ( talk) 22:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
What Gregbard changed it to is (1) nonsense, and (2) philosophically POV. Mathematical logic may model theorems as things of the kind Gregbard described, but to say that a theorem is that, is to say, among other unjustified things, that that mathematical model is the last word on the topic. Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:05, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Among other problems, the lead sentence above seems purposely obtuse. Here for comparison is the introductory sentence from Britannica: "in mathematics and logic, a proposition or statement that is demonstrated." Paul August ☎ 23:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Pontiff Greg Bard ( talk) 00:12, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
In response to Pmanderson, civilly posed question, The subject I claim to be representing is logic. This is to say that logic is well known and accepted as a field within Philosophy, and philosophers such as Carnap, Quine, Putnam, Mendelson, Mates, Smullyan all take the same "view" that I am taking. The source I use is Hunter's Metalogic because it is representive of that subject matter. It has been called by some of you "idiosyncratic", but that can't be the case with all those others considering the same subject matter. These are ideas that we are talking about. When mathematicians use them they are marks of ink on a page. To answer Hardy, with respect, you are specifically incorrect, and this is well known and accepted. Theorems are ideas. Period. Your marks on the page are token instances of those ideas. This clarification avoids paradox in talking about these ideas in language. This is the responsible thing to do, also. It is the same as when someone goes through math articles making sure all the formulas are in italics because use-mention is distinguished. To neglect that is not responsible in the same way as neglecting the type-token distinction. I don't see why there is so much investment in fighting the one, but not the other. they are both metalogical distinctions that should be accounted for in all appropriate math articles.
If we can't get along, then we should just split it like formation rules, theory, symbol, syntax and many others have been. Be well all. Pontiff Greg Bard ( talk) 23:58, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Despite the use of it here, Geoffrey Hunter's Metalogic: an introduction to the metatheory of standard first order logic is a perfectly reasonable book on the foundations of mathematics, which GregBard has misunderstood thoroughly; I hope he is not taking a course either in first order logic or in metaphysics.
Hunter distinguishes, properly, between a theorem in a formal system "a string of formulas in a formal language that satisfies certain formal requirements and has no meaning" and a theorem in a metalanguage: "a true statement about the system, expressed in the metalanguage".
Greg Bard, knowing neither mathematics or philosophy, appears to be attempting to roll these into one statement. Hunter also chooses to define a "formula" as an equivalence class of well-formed strings, rather than as a member of the class; this is where the bafflegab about "tokens" comes from. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:12, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Greg has put the same content at formal theorem — this I think is actually reasonable by and large. At least it does not subsume Greg's personal POV into the name itself; everyone would agree that the notion described is that of a formal theorem. Still it needs POV-checking as regards the details of the description; also I think the hatnote is a bit problematic in how it's worded. -- Trovatore ( talk) 01:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Greg, even if you were technically correct, your beginning would be the most abstract approach to the subject. We don't do that; Manifold does not begin with diffeomorphism or equivalence class. Wikipedia is not Nicholas Bourbaki; we do not assume that our readers already know the subject and need to see it done right.
I also deny that you are correct; citing Carnap and Quine as agreeing on the nature of a statement (let alone the nature of a theorem) demonstrates that you have misunderstood at least one of them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:27, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Gregbard, even if your proposed definition of "theorem" were not silly nonsense, the fact is that that kind of material doesn't belong in the introductory sentence of a Wikipedia article. Michael Hardy ( talk) 07:11, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
It looks to me like formal theorem is a POV fork of theorem. I would propose simply redirecting the former to the latter. The lede of formal theorem is just as wrong there as it was in theorem, and the material on scientific theories is out of place in an article that is supposed to be about formal theorems. There is already a section "theorems in logic" in theorem on the subject of formal theorems. Thoughts? — Carl ( CBM · talk) 05:37, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Should the articles Curvature invariant and Invariants of tensors be merged ? Charvest ( talk) 23:54, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Someone just moved Category:Differential geometry to Category:Differential geometry and topology and has, apparently, been changing all of the old Category:Differential geometry entries to Category:Differential geometry and topology. To me this seems like a step in the wrong direction. Although it may be that it is difficult to draw a bright line between the two subjects, they should not be lumped together like this. If consensus develops to revert this rather large-scale change, then it will involve quite a bit of undo-ing. I thought I should post here for more input. Le Docteur ( talk) 18:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
My understanding is that the problem could be solved more expediently by someone with rollback rights. (Is that correct?) User:Gvozdet's last several hundred contributions appear to be for the purpose of populating this category. Le Docteur ( talk) 22:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
IT SHOULD BE ONE CATEGORY. This way it is better for readers. I did not find any reason above for splitting. Also for most of the pages in this cat, one can not say if it is diff top. or diff geom. -- Tosha ( talk) 15:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
What about keeping Category:Differential geometry and Category:Differential topology as separate categories, making them both subcategories of Category:Differential geometry and topology, and putting articles in the last one only if their classification is ambiguous? — Emil J. 16:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
Forgive me for my ignorance, but what is the current status of the matter? Has Gvozdet agreed with the consensus, and if so, has his edits been reverted (or kept if that is what consensus demands)? I noticed on my watchlist that some of his edits are still being reverted, so I am somewhat confused as to whether consensus has been obtained... -- PS T 12:31, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Both categories point to each other in their "Related category" sections, so I don't think we need to make one a subcat of the other. I don't think it is any great trouble to list articles in both categories where necessary. Charvest ( talk) 16:31, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
195.62.14.150 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been continuing, inappropriately, to move pages over to the new category... and has been very busy. Le Docteur ( talk) 01:24, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
It seems to me that the consensus is against merging Category:Differential geometry and Category:Differential topology into one large category, Category:Differential geometry and topology. I see only two people above who have said they believe this would be a good idea, User:Tosha and User:Gvozdet. The only reasoning given was Tosha's assertion that it can be difficult to tell whether a page is about differential geometry or differential topology. Everyone else who has expressed a clear opinion has opposed merging the two categories into one.
It doesn't seem so clear to me whether we prefer to return to the old state of affairs, or whether we prefer to create an umbrella category and make the two disputed categories into subcategories. But regardless of which way that discussion turns out, most articles will be in one category or the other, not both; few will have to be placed in the umbrella category if it is created. I would like to propose that someone revert Gvozdet's and 195.62.14.150's edits, so that we are back where we started with two separate categories. Any objections? Ozob ( talk) 12:37, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Since there appears to be a consensus in strong favor of rollbacking, I have rollbacked a majority of the edits in question (some of the edits already appear to have been reverted by other users - I have rollbacked most of the remaining edits). However, I have been very careful in this process, and consequently may have failed to revert a few edits. If there are any immediate objections, I can rollback my rollbacks - otherwise, I can revert the last remaining traces of the category change (or let someone else do it). -- PS T 03:32, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
An editor has asked at Talk:Kurt Gödel#Pronunciation_of_Kurt about the German pronunciation of Gödel's first name that appears in the article. If anyone here is fluent in German and IPA, your comments would be appreciated on that talk page. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:54, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
I guess many of the people here have a large collection of research papers on their hard drive. I know there are many organization tools available to manage all these papers, but is there any tool which can also output citations in Wikipedia's citation format (in addition to being able to output citations in some standard format like Bibtex)? -- Robin ( talk) 19:28, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
You do know about zeteo, right? 69.228.171.150 ( talk) 23:57, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
I'd like to propose we turn the Handle_(mathematics) page into a redirect to Handle decomposition. Although the notion of Handle has a life of its own outside of handle decompositions, it's a very limited life and doesn't warrant it's own page. IMO we could put the slightly broader meaning of handle into better context in a proper Handle decomposition page --this would allow for discussion of things like cancelling handles, etc. As is the Handle_(mathematics) page is pretty stunted. Handle decomposition is broken too but I'm happy to work on it. Rybu ( talk) 20:21, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Hello all.
I'm looking for a way to isolate x in this formula. My own mathematical skills look overwhelmed. I searched the web for some time. But, those kind of thing look hard to find (search engines gets nuts). I tought one of you could have the answer at hand.
I don't want to give anybody headach, just see if someone have the answer or a good pointer readyly. Thanks. -- Iluvalar ( talk) 02:48, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Hi.
I saw this page: Divergent_series#Lindel.C3.B6f_summation which seems pretty bogus or at least it contains an error, because the formula given does not seem to work, not even on the simple series for the reciprocal function with singularity at 1. If you set in the formula, which I presume is what represents this series, it doesn't seem to converge at z = -2, which is in the Mittag-Leffler star of the function but outside the radius of convergence of the Taylor series. Is there something wrong with the article, some detail or information that is missing, or an error in the formula, or what? mike4ty4 ( talk) 11:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
I believe that the article multiplicative calculus should be merged into the non-Newtonian calculus article. It has been pointed out on the article talk-page that the subject of the article is barely notable. Moreover, there are serious NPOV and COI issues with the article. (The main proponent of the theory also happens to be a principal editor of the article, and freely cites his own book.) Many of these issues also hold for the non-Newtonian calculus article as well, but at least that subject has been covered by some sources independent of the subject (they need to be moved out of the marginalized "Criticism section", though, and become the main sources for the article). I would like to see a consolidation of these articles, but I anticipate resistance. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 01:20, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
74.166.238.187 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been making a clear push to have "non-Newtonian calculus" and "multiplicative calculus" treated right alongside ordinary calculus topics. This is a clear POV agenda, and the editor has, I believe, asserted that he is Michael Grossman, author of the one book about non-Newtonian calculus (a.k.a. User:Smithpith.) Sławomir Biały ( talk) 01:35, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
But product integral is serious, classical mathematics. One way to handle this area is to give a few indicative references to recent work, in that article only. In other words merge the other articles into a brief "recent developments" section there, ensuring NPOV and proportionate coverage. Charles Matthews ( talk) 15:36, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Can someone comment on the notability of the article Averaging argument? Is this just an application of the probabilistic method? I found an article on Averaging arguments on Tricki, but that seems to be different from this article. -- Robin ( talk) 03:59, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Are there articles that should link to director circle? Michael Hardy ( talk) 17:30, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Hi.
I saw this page: Mittag-Leffler star. It mentions the continuation of a function to the Mittag-Leffler star by a sum of polynomials called a "Mittag-Leffler expansion". Wouldn't it be useful to include the formula for that in the article? Why isn't it there? I noticed a formula is mentioned in the external link, but it does not say what the coefficients are. mike4ty4 ( talk) 19:42, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
I noticed, when looking at Category:Numbers (don't ask why I was looking at it), I found 777 (number) and 8 (number), but no other actual numerals. Obviously, those should only be in Category:Integers, but I was also wondering about Category:Prime numbers, (which includes 231−1 and 261−1 written out as a number). Any ideas on standardization, and whether there should be any articles other than Number in Category:Numbers, rather than in subcategories.
(I'm heading out, or I would have put notes on the talk pages of the categories mentioned.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:15, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Its very difficult to get to Category:Integers from Category:Numbers you have to go via Category:Real numbers and Category:Rational numbers. Would not a flatter tree server readers better? -- Salix ( talk): 15:38, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
This article badly need a major rewrite. For example it starts off with "Let A be a symmetric matrix ... ". The next section starts off with "If p = Skl is apivot element ..."
It appears that now the matrix is being called S. Then is some function not defined in the article.
The Algorithm section is unreadable because so many of the relationships appear only as a blank square.
Dryheataz ( talk) 02:15, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
This article Contractibility_of_unit_sphere_in_Hilbert_space is a disaster. At present I have enough articles on my plate but perhaps someone could take a look at it and start fixing some the the largest disasters? Is this topic even worthy of a Wikipedia page, does it meet Wikipedia's standards? It's a common homework problem in intro algebraic topology courses, I for one would prefer it it was deleted but I could certainly understand if I'm in the minority on this. Rybu ( talk) 06:43, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Every once in awhile someone decides that Template:SpecialChars should be plastered over mathematics articles. I assume that there is unspoken consensus against this. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 19:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
&
name;
syntax but you can add characters such as ≤ directly through the wikipedia edit screen and these aren't coded that way. In fact I would presume that if your browser can't handle ⊂ and ⊃ then it wouldn't be able to handle ≤ and ≥ either, so you'd get funny boxes on the wikipedia editing window and it would be hard to complain about what appears in an article. It's also a bit odd that articles where I do see the funny boxes, such as
Japan, don't seem to have the template. In any case, if there a consensus in the archive it should be added to the MOS instead of having it buried where no one will find it unless they look really hard.--
RDBury (
talk) 22:35, 21 November 2009 (UTC)Please have a look at uncertainty theory. It's entirely unreferenced, with a single link to a website whose owner has the same surname as the supposed originator of "uncertain programming", which work is dated this year. -- Trovatore ( talk) 21:39, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
In the mean time a number of related stubs with little information have been created. Together with the main article they are all at AfD right now. See WP:Articles for deletion/Uncertainty theory. Hans Adler 17:02, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Looking at the table at WP:WPM#Assessment of mathematics articles, there are about 900 articles that are marked as quality=stub but have no priority set. Really all three fields (quality, priority, and field) should be filled in.
Unless there are objections, I think it makes sense to go through and set the priority on these to low (which is a sort of default priority). I will also assign fields to them by manual inspection, and if any article seems like it should have a higher priority I'll take care of that at the same time. I'm just posting here to make sure nobody objects before I start. Of course anyone else can change the ratings at any time if they seem incorrect. I would like to get at least some values into the templates, however. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 16:01, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Re Robhar: The name is not very descriptive, but the idea is that the importance ratings should form a pyramid, with very few "Top" priority, a few "High" priority, some "Mid" priority, and a lot of "Low" priority. I am only talking about articles that are also marked as "stubs", and I will inspect the text of each article before I change the rating, just like I do when making edits by hand. So if I only get halfway through, I only get halfway through. And if anyone thinks I have misrated an article (for example, because they see the edit on their watchlist), I hope they change the rating to whatever they prefer.
At some point, somebody has to go through and actually assign ratings to all the math articles, and so I am planning to put in the time to get it done before the next release version (0.8) is selected next year. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 17:25, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Right now, each article that is assessed with the maths rating template can be assigned a "field"; VeblenBot makes per-field tables that make it easy to browse by field. Here are a couple thoughts and requests for comment:
— Carl ( CBM · talk) 17:06, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
I've just created the List of topics named after Fibonacci. (So get busy improving it and linking to it from other articles.)
Guess what? There appears to be no List of topics named after Augustin-Louis Cauchy. We've got these for Riemann, Gauss, Euler, and various others (Hilbert?). (I created the one for Riemann? I'm not sure if I created the one for Euler.) Shall we compile a list of those that ought to be created? Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:02, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure we've got one for Erdos. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:08, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
....and should we have an article that is a list of these lists? It should of course include the ones that don't exist but ought to. And should we codify (gasp) the relevant notability standards? Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:08, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
OK, I've put Cauchy there. But it's incomplete. Work on it. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:22, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
... how 'bout Arthur Cayley? Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:23, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
A conspicuous thing about Category:Lists of things named after mathematicians is how many names are not there. Thomas Bayes and David Hilbert are conspicuous among them. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:50, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Henri Poincaré is another one. Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:45, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
I was going over the articles needing attention list and noticed that Topology was on the list of articles needing references. It does have Further reading and External links sections, but there are no inline citations and an article of that size and importance should certainly list some general references. For now, I demoted the class to Start quality but this is a high visibility article and it would probably be a good idea to find some good sources and do some fact checking.-- RDBury ( talk) 15:29, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
List of numbers –
Irrational numbers ζ(3) – √2 – √3 – √5 – φ – α – e – π – δ |
List of numbers –
Irrational numbers γ - ζ(3) – √2 – √3 – √5 – φ – α – e – π – δ | |
Number System | Evaluation of |
---|---|
Binary | 11.00100100001111110110… |
Decimal | |
Hexadecimal | |
Rational approximations | 22⁄7, 223⁄71, 355⁄113, ...
(listed in order of increasing accuracy) |
Continued fraction | [3; 7, 15, 1, 292, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 14, 2, 1, 1, … ]
[1]
(This continued fraction is not periodic. Shown in linear notation) |
Trigonometry |
radians = 180
degrees
|
Earlier today I tried to remove the "infobox" (displayed right), from e (mathematical constant), since it doesn't seem to me to add much of use to the article (as well as the fact that the links listed seem a bit arbitrary), I was reverted with the comment "the same template is used in the aticle about pi and all of the other irrational numbers of interest". And in fact the article for each of the constants listed in that infobox contains the infobox, and some have sprouted more expansive infoboxes (e.g. see the infobox for Pi displayed right). What do others think about these? Paul August ☎ 18:13, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks to everyone for sharing your views. Based upon the above discussion, I intend to remove the infoboxes, and will leave a note on the involved articles' talk pages, as well as on the talk page of the reverting editor ( Robo37), pointing to this discussion and asking anyone who disagree to please join this discussion.
Not that that it matters particularly, but I've discovered that the infoboxes were added, for the most part it seems, by two apparent sockpuppets ( Anton Mravcek ( talk · contribs) and PrimeFan ( talk · contribs)) of Dmetric ( talk · contribs), all of whom (as well as many more see Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Dmetric) have been blocked.
Paul August ☎ 12:25, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
I disagree strongly with the removal of the infoboxes, and especially with the way it was done. First, one editor removed the infobox from e (mathematical constant) with no talk page discussion and no pretense of consensus, essentially because he doesn't like it. Unsurprisingly, this was quickly reverted. Instead of discussing the removal and revert on the article's talk page (see WP:BRD) with the editors who have been maintaining the article and who evidently approve of the infobox, the editor comes here. The editor does not even post notice of this "discussion" on the talk page of that article or on the talk pages of his other target articles. After 20 hours, during about 8 of which most of us were asleep, still with no notice to the editors of any of the articles, the discussion is closed. The editor who initiated the discussion here then removes infoboxes from 10 articles, and then posts notices on the articles' talk pages that invites anyone who objects to join this discussion that has already reached its conclusion.
I object.
Two types of infoboxes were removed:
I am restoring the infoboxes. Please do not remove any of them without first reaching consensus to do so on the talk page of the particular article. Thank you. Finell (Talk) 18:01, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
I support the restoration of the infoboxes, primarily because they were removed with insufficient consensus or even notice on the relevant articles. But in answer to some of the arguments above, I'd say that the continued fraction expansion of pi is of fundamental importance, as with other irrationals, in understanding the nature of its rational approximations. And the binary and hexadecimal fractions are the same kind of trivia as the decimal expansion, useless info that nobody seems to have trouble with, but arguably more useful for someone who wants to make an accurate approximate representation in a computer – not a great reason, but what the heck, it's also infotainment, as I made fun of at my favorite: Square root of 4. Dicklyon ( talk) 18:39, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
For a discussion about the infoboxes in question please see the two following subsection and, for the infobox on pi, see Talk:Pi#Removal_of_infobox. The discussion in this section is about procedure (and in some sense the "past"). Finell has stated (in my opinion correctly) that consensus for the removal should be obtained before re-removing. The discussion above on this page was not announced on the relevant article talk pages and those articles' editors could not be aware of it. The infoboxes should be reinserted pending us reaching a possibly new consensus in which the respective articles' editors have been given the time to weight in. This is the way of wiki ( WP:BRD). If you have an objection to this, this section is where you can voice that. Other discussion should go on in the relevant other section. Ok, let's do this. Cheers. RobHar ( talk) 21:10, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
It has been suggested above to remove the following infobox from all articles it is on:
List of numbers –
Irrational numbers ζ(3) – √2 – √3 – √5 – φ – α – e – π – δ |
To do this in a centralized location, I propose discussing this infobox here.
My personal feelings are that the general idea of the infobox may be appropriate, but the current list of numbers is absurd. α and δ are nowhere near as notable as the other numbers, for example. Overall, the list seems arbitrary. I think a list that could work would be (π, e, φ, √2, -1, i) or (π, e, φ, √2), being lists of classically important numbers. RobHar ( talk) 19:03, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
User:Robo37 has just taken on a more WP:POINTy approach, it appears, which is to add every irrational he can find to the infobox. It seems to me that we ought to have the discussion first. Dicklyon ( talk) 20:29, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
The purpose of a list of numbers is not so much an infobox in a specific number article but rather it is more a navigation template. The purpose of a navigation template is to guide readers to other articles on the same, or a related, subject, in this case to other irrational number articles. The idea that you should only include well known numbers - ie, ones that the reader has already heard of - is, quite frankly, silly. The readers already knows where the pi article is, they don't need a template to find it. The criterion for inclusion should not be "notability", that is a criterion for deciding whether the number should have an article at all, the criterion should be "might a reader reading this article find x interesting also". This could, of course, end up with a very long list, but there is no need to point to every individual number article. On the other hand, the template can and should point to lists of numbers or articles about groups of numbers wherer the reader can find further links to individual articles. Remember, readers are generally trying to find something out from the encyclopedia, not just trying to confirm what they already know. SpinningSpark 22:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
The articles on Apéry's constant, the square roots of 2, 3, and 5, the Golden ratio, and the Euler–Mascheroni constant γ also include an infobox containing expansions of these numbers in different bases and continued fraction expansions. I propose discussing these infoboxes here (for the discussion of the even bigger infobox about π I suggest Talk:Pi#Removal_of_infobox). RobHar ( talk) 19:20, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
This discussion seems to be getting ever longer and I am not sure what will come out of it. To isolate the issue of the list of irrational numbers, I made it into a template (which it almost is). I named it {{ Irrational numbers}} and nominated it for deletion right away. This approach may provide a more organized forum. Oleg Alexandrov ( talk) 01:43, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
Update: The discussion on TfD has ended, with the result being wrong forum. Jim ( talk) 04:05, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry to start another subsection, but I'd like to offer a suggestion that tries to meet each side of this argument half way. Personally, I really like these types of navigational templates because, unless I already know a great deal about a given topic, they often lead me to places I would never have thought to, or known to, look. With this in mind, perhaps we can keep this template if we rename it to something like "Well-known mathematical constants", and then set the bar for inclusion fairly high. For instance, restrict it to constants that have had entire books devoted to them (and only one number from each 'class' of number, in the sense that sqrt(2) is enough representation for numbers of the form a^{1/n}) or that have an overwhelming level of support among contributors. In this case maybe something like {0, 1, pi, e, i, sqrt(2), ln(2), phi, zeta(2), gamma}? I know many curious students would appreciate the bread-crumb trail to follow, and we have a template that is probably as well-defined as is possible (which seems to be one of the big problems noted above). Of course, I'm assuming there aren't entire books written on obscure constants. Ben ( talk) 09:29, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
My apologies to everyone for the sorry way I handled this. It would have been better if I had waited for more editors to comment before I removed the infoboxes, and it would have been better if I had publicized the discussion I started above more widely. My only defense is that I never imagined that anyone really cared much for these things. I am surprised and dismayed at the hornets nest that I have stirred up.
Going forward, I have no objection to the infoboxes being restored for the duration of this discussion. And until such time as a consensus is reached, I ask that they not be removed again. And I ask all editors to please discuss the issues involved calmly and objectively.
Paul August ☎ 13:27, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
Answers for Finell:
Regards, Paul August ☎ 16:44, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
By my reading and reckoning, eleven editors (listed below with excerpted quotes) have expressed some level of concern with respect to these infoboxes:
So a question for Finell (or others): how do you propose that we should address or accommodate these editor's concerns?
Paul August ☎ 19:54, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
The article Elementary proof has been nominated for deletion. -- Lambiam 14:06, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Relative canonical model could certainly use some work to bring it into line with Wikipedia's usual usages and standards. Michael Hardy ( talk) 19:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
The article commutative matrix multiplication needs help. There are no sources that actually refer to the material in the article (there are two sources that seem to have nothing to do with the subject), and I suspect that it may be original research. The definition itself is rather dubious, only making sense for positive definite self-adjoint matrices, although the article certainly suggests that it makes sense for all matrices. Could someone who knows more about this sort of thing please try to track down some quality sources to base the article on? The only other avenue seems to be deletion. 71.182.236.76 ( talk) 13:08, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Although I have read the guidelines ( WP:PROF) for creating articles on living people, I thought that I should seek clarification here. The article I wish to create is on the mathematician (topologist) Jan Van Mill (no current article). Quite a few topologists have Wikipedia articles already (mostly, differential topologists), and I think that Jan Van Mill, an important general topologist, set-theoretic topologist, dimension theorist et cetera, should have an article as well. He is already widely referenced on many articles in abstract topology (or at least in those articles that I have read), and is the co-editor of the famous " Open Problems in Topology" series; an excellent series on general topology which deserves an article as well. According to the WP:PROF guidelines, I think Van Mill should have an article, being a highly influential topologist. Are there any objections to this, or opinions as to whether there should be an article on the Open Problems in Topology series? -- PS T 02:37, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Where should speed maths redirect to, if anywhere? Thanks a lot— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 14:01, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
There's a proposal to replace − by a template that would display a hyphen in some other font: the font is intended to preserve the visual appearance of the minus sign while using a hyphen instead of an actual minus-sign character allows in-text searching for the number to work (the expectation being that people who search for something are going to type the hyphen and their browser won't match it against the minus sign). Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Reword to prefer minus-key on numeric keypad (the section title is left over from someone's misunderstanding — they thought that the minus sign on the numeric keyboard was a true minus-sign character when in fact it is just the hyphen again) and weigh in with your opinions. — David Eppstein ( talk) 23:25, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Just in case everyone wants to think about something unimportant, how 'bout this: this edit is correct per WP:MOS except for a certain publishing company's name. Guess what? Some people don't know any German. Such people may even think that Springer–Verlag is a company named after two people, one named Springer and the other named Verlag. (And I've even heard people pronounce the name with "v" sounding like that in "very" and "g" like that in "dog".) Translations of "Verlag" into English may be found here. The initial "V" is capital because in German all nouns begin with capital initial letters. It's named after a person named Springer. This way of using a hyphen is standard in German. People who prefer to devote their attention to enterprises of great pith and moment are hereby instructed to ignore these comments. Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:55, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
OK, this is weird: someone at Wiktionary is expecting readers to understand that the pronunciation is reported as a "g", it's because it's pronounced that way in the plural "Verlage" and becomes a "k" when it's at the end only because of a regular pattern of German pronunciation. If he were right to expect people to understand that without being told, then certain parts of this present discussion could not have happened. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:51, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
....omigod.....readers of Wiktionary are apparently expected to know the difference between // and [] in reporting pronunciations. Writing [k] means that's how it's always pronounced and similarly for [g]. But writing /g/ means it's pronounced that way in things like the genitive Verlages or the plural Verlage, but when it's at the end of a word, then it follows regular patterns of the German language and the pronunciation gets changed according to those patterns, so then it's pronounced [k].
I've brought this up on Wiktionary's page on the conventions followed in its German-to-English entries. I had no idea I was opening a can of worms here. Michael Hardy ( talk) 22:03, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
And yet /.../ is what they used. I understand what it means (and there's one other participant in WikiProject Mathematics who I know knows what it means), but I didn't know the conventions until I brought this matter up. "Of interest to professional linguists only" seems like an exaggeration. Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:57, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
Please comment at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_nascent_delta_functions. Le Docteur ( talk) 15:41, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Hey guys. If any of you have done GA reviews and aren't busy, this article's been waiting for three months now. I'm completely unfamiliar with the area else I'd take a crack at it, plus you'd understand the material better. Wizardman 22:06, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
In the process of the inconclusive discussion on whether this should be titled Logical systems, several problems with the article were discussed; it's another of GregBard's -er- idiosyncratic articles. Would someone who is fresher on the subject go in and fix it? The owner has turned up and is complaining. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:03, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
If you are interested, please see the discussion relating to the proposed deletion of the article Uniform Polychora Project. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RDBury ( talk • contribs)
I realize that there is some innate reluctance in some Wikipedia editors to remove any information from an article, no matter how inappropriate it is. I would like, therefore, to bring the state of the article Invalid proof to a wider audience. While I think that it is possible to have an encyclopedia article on this topic, it will look nothing like the present article, which is an endless litany of invalid proofs (many of which are likely WP:OR). I would like to set forth the possibility of transwikiing most of this content to Wikibooks and removing it from the Wikipedia article, but I'm not sure how to bring the issue up to obtain a wider consensus on the matter. Is an RfC the appropriate course of action? Please help, 74.98.44.216 ( talk) 14:13, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
There's a standard book Fallacies in Mathematics by Edwin Arthur Maxwell. It is more interested in geometry than algebra, really. But it is appropriately cited in the article. "Invalid proof" as title is less common but possibly more accurate than "mathematical fallacy": something like affirming the consequent is the application of a non-existent logical rule, while the usual trick of dividing by zero is a kind of sleight of hand, exploiting an exception to a rule that is often left tacit. The article does need taking in hand a bit. Charles Matthews ( talk) 19:47, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
Well the article can be reworked for a more encyclopedic treatment or renamed to reflect the current content more appropriately. The content itself however is imho mostly ok and doesn't really have a WP:OR problem. Most of that are well known examples and the article contains a few references as well. Hence I'd prefer to keep the content in WP rather than moving it somewhere else within Wikimedia.-- Kmhkmh ( talk) 01:05, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
The less I say the better: {{ mathematosis}} !? Le Docteur ( talk) 02:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
User talk:Glenn L is sticking in loads of continued fractions into Cube root and Nth root. I think they are over the top and the source doesn't look very notable. I'm not sure what to say to say and I don't think I'm very diplomatic, would somebody else like to have a look thanks? Dmcq ( talk) 20:51, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
I have posted a thread at Talk:Cube root. The continued fraction section is obviously out of place there, but User:Glenn L is lobbying heavily for its inclusion. Le Docteur ( talk) 18:10, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Could someone else look over Theorem? The introductory sentence has been changed to
Thanks, — Carl ( CBM · talk) 21:48, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
I hope you consider that possibility that it isn't "mind set:" but rather "subject matter." I welcome any cooperation in coming to an agreeable formulation. However, a wholesale delete doesn't help do that. I propose we go line by line in the expanded formulation. I think I have provided enough of the fundamentals to provide a place for all further aspects of the topic in the article. Pontiff Greg Bard ( talk) 22:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
What Gregbard changed it to is (1) nonsense, and (2) philosophically POV. Mathematical logic may model theorems as things of the kind Gregbard described, but to say that a theorem is that, is to say, among other unjustified things, that that mathematical model is the last word on the topic. Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:05, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Among other problems, the lead sentence above seems purposely obtuse. Here for comparison is the introductory sentence from Britannica: "in mathematics and logic, a proposition or statement that is demonstrated." Paul August ☎ 23:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Pontiff Greg Bard ( talk) 00:12, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
In response to Pmanderson, civilly posed question, The subject I claim to be representing is logic. This is to say that logic is well known and accepted as a field within Philosophy, and philosophers such as Carnap, Quine, Putnam, Mendelson, Mates, Smullyan all take the same "view" that I am taking. The source I use is Hunter's Metalogic because it is representive of that subject matter. It has been called by some of you "idiosyncratic", but that can't be the case with all those others considering the same subject matter. These are ideas that we are talking about. When mathematicians use them they are marks of ink on a page. To answer Hardy, with respect, you are specifically incorrect, and this is well known and accepted. Theorems are ideas. Period. Your marks on the page are token instances of those ideas. This clarification avoids paradox in talking about these ideas in language. This is the responsible thing to do, also. It is the same as when someone goes through math articles making sure all the formulas are in italics because use-mention is distinguished. To neglect that is not responsible in the same way as neglecting the type-token distinction. I don't see why there is so much investment in fighting the one, but not the other. they are both metalogical distinctions that should be accounted for in all appropriate math articles.
If we can't get along, then we should just split it like formation rules, theory, symbol, syntax and many others have been. Be well all. Pontiff Greg Bard ( talk) 23:58, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Despite the use of it here, Geoffrey Hunter's Metalogic: an introduction to the metatheory of standard first order logic is a perfectly reasonable book on the foundations of mathematics, which GregBard has misunderstood thoroughly; I hope he is not taking a course either in first order logic or in metaphysics.
Hunter distinguishes, properly, between a theorem in a formal system "a string of formulas in a formal language that satisfies certain formal requirements and has no meaning" and a theorem in a metalanguage: "a true statement about the system, expressed in the metalanguage".
Greg Bard, knowing neither mathematics or philosophy, appears to be attempting to roll these into one statement. Hunter also chooses to define a "formula" as an equivalence class of well-formed strings, rather than as a member of the class; this is where the bafflegab about "tokens" comes from. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:12, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Greg has put the same content at formal theorem — this I think is actually reasonable by and large. At least it does not subsume Greg's personal POV into the name itself; everyone would agree that the notion described is that of a formal theorem. Still it needs POV-checking as regards the details of the description; also I think the hatnote is a bit problematic in how it's worded. -- Trovatore ( talk) 01:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Greg, even if you were technically correct, your beginning would be the most abstract approach to the subject. We don't do that; Manifold does not begin with diffeomorphism or equivalence class. Wikipedia is not Nicholas Bourbaki; we do not assume that our readers already know the subject and need to see it done right.
I also deny that you are correct; citing Carnap and Quine as agreeing on the nature of a statement (let alone the nature of a theorem) demonstrates that you have misunderstood at least one of them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:27, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Gregbard, even if your proposed definition of "theorem" were not silly nonsense, the fact is that that kind of material doesn't belong in the introductory sentence of a Wikipedia article. Michael Hardy ( talk) 07:11, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
It looks to me like formal theorem is a POV fork of theorem. I would propose simply redirecting the former to the latter. The lede of formal theorem is just as wrong there as it was in theorem, and the material on scientific theories is out of place in an article that is supposed to be about formal theorems. There is already a section "theorems in logic" in theorem on the subject of formal theorems. Thoughts? — Carl ( CBM · talk) 05:37, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Should the articles Curvature invariant and Invariants of tensors be merged ? Charvest ( talk) 23:54, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Someone just moved Category:Differential geometry to Category:Differential geometry and topology and has, apparently, been changing all of the old Category:Differential geometry entries to Category:Differential geometry and topology. To me this seems like a step in the wrong direction. Although it may be that it is difficult to draw a bright line between the two subjects, they should not be lumped together like this. If consensus develops to revert this rather large-scale change, then it will involve quite a bit of undo-ing. I thought I should post here for more input. Le Docteur ( talk) 18:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
My understanding is that the problem could be solved more expediently by someone with rollback rights. (Is that correct?) User:Gvozdet's last several hundred contributions appear to be for the purpose of populating this category. Le Docteur ( talk) 22:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
IT SHOULD BE ONE CATEGORY. This way it is better for readers. I did not find any reason above for splitting. Also for most of the pages in this cat, one can not say if it is diff top. or diff geom. -- Tosha ( talk) 15:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
What about keeping Category:Differential geometry and Category:Differential topology as separate categories, making them both subcategories of Category:Differential geometry and topology, and putting articles in the last one only if their classification is ambiguous? — Emil J. 16:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
Forgive me for my ignorance, but what is the current status of the matter? Has Gvozdet agreed with the consensus, and if so, has his edits been reverted (or kept if that is what consensus demands)? I noticed on my watchlist that some of his edits are still being reverted, so I am somewhat confused as to whether consensus has been obtained... -- PS T 12:31, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Both categories point to each other in their "Related category" sections, so I don't think we need to make one a subcat of the other. I don't think it is any great trouble to list articles in both categories where necessary. Charvest ( talk) 16:31, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
195.62.14.150 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been continuing, inappropriately, to move pages over to the new category... and has been very busy. Le Docteur ( talk) 01:24, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
It seems to me that the consensus is against merging Category:Differential geometry and Category:Differential topology into one large category, Category:Differential geometry and topology. I see only two people above who have said they believe this would be a good idea, User:Tosha and User:Gvozdet. The only reasoning given was Tosha's assertion that it can be difficult to tell whether a page is about differential geometry or differential topology. Everyone else who has expressed a clear opinion has opposed merging the two categories into one.
It doesn't seem so clear to me whether we prefer to return to the old state of affairs, or whether we prefer to create an umbrella category and make the two disputed categories into subcategories. But regardless of which way that discussion turns out, most articles will be in one category or the other, not both; few will have to be placed in the umbrella category if it is created. I would like to propose that someone revert Gvozdet's and 195.62.14.150's edits, so that we are back where we started with two separate categories. Any objections? Ozob ( talk) 12:37, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Since there appears to be a consensus in strong favor of rollbacking, I have rollbacked a majority of the edits in question (some of the edits already appear to have been reverted by other users - I have rollbacked most of the remaining edits). However, I have been very careful in this process, and consequently may have failed to revert a few edits. If there are any immediate objections, I can rollback my rollbacks - otherwise, I can revert the last remaining traces of the category change (or let someone else do it). -- PS T 03:32, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
An editor has asked at Talk:Kurt Gödel#Pronunciation_of_Kurt about the German pronunciation of Gödel's first name that appears in the article. If anyone here is fluent in German and IPA, your comments would be appreciated on that talk page. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:54, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
I guess many of the people here have a large collection of research papers on their hard drive. I know there are many organization tools available to manage all these papers, but is there any tool which can also output citations in Wikipedia's citation format (in addition to being able to output citations in some standard format like Bibtex)? -- Robin ( talk) 19:28, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
You do know about zeteo, right? 69.228.171.150 ( talk) 23:57, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
I'd like to propose we turn the Handle_(mathematics) page into a redirect to Handle decomposition. Although the notion of Handle has a life of its own outside of handle decompositions, it's a very limited life and doesn't warrant it's own page. IMO we could put the slightly broader meaning of handle into better context in a proper Handle decomposition page --this would allow for discussion of things like cancelling handles, etc. As is the Handle_(mathematics) page is pretty stunted. Handle decomposition is broken too but I'm happy to work on it. Rybu ( talk) 20:21, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Hello all.
I'm looking for a way to isolate x in this formula. My own mathematical skills look overwhelmed. I searched the web for some time. But, those kind of thing look hard to find (search engines gets nuts). I tought one of you could have the answer at hand.
I don't want to give anybody headach, just see if someone have the answer or a good pointer readyly. Thanks. -- Iluvalar ( talk) 02:48, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Hi.
I saw this page: Divergent_series#Lindel.C3.B6f_summation which seems pretty bogus or at least it contains an error, because the formula given does not seem to work, not even on the simple series for the reciprocal function with singularity at 1. If you set in the formula, which I presume is what represents this series, it doesn't seem to converge at z = -2, which is in the Mittag-Leffler star of the function but outside the radius of convergence of the Taylor series. Is there something wrong with the article, some detail or information that is missing, or an error in the formula, or what? mike4ty4 ( talk) 11:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
I believe that the article multiplicative calculus should be merged into the non-Newtonian calculus article. It has been pointed out on the article talk-page that the subject of the article is barely notable. Moreover, there are serious NPOV and COI issues with the article. (The main proponent of the theory also happens to be a principal editor of the article, and freely cites his own book.) Many of these issues also hold for the non-Newtonian calculus article as well, but at least that subject has been covered by some sources independent of the subject (they need to be moved out of the marginalized "Criticism section", though, and become the main sources for the article). I would like to see a consolidation of these articles, but I anticipate resistance. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 01:20, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
74.166.238.187 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been making a clear push to have "non-Newtonian calculus" and "multiplicative calculus" treated right alongside ordinary calculus topics. This is a clear POV agenda, and the editor has, I believe, asserted that he is Michael Grossman, author of the one book about non-Newtonian calculus (a.k.a. User:Smithpith.) Sławomir Biały ( talk) 01:35, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
But product integral is serious, classical mathematics. One way to handle this area is to give a few indicative references to recent work, in that article only. In other words merge the other articles into a brief "recent developments" section there, ensuring NPOV and proportionate coverage. Charles Matthews ( talk) 15:36, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Can someone comment on the notability of the article Averaging argument? Is this just an application of the probabilistic method? I found an article on Averaging arguments on Tricki, but that seems to be different from this article. -- Robin ( talk) 03:59, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Are there articles that should link to director circle? Michael Hardy ( talk) 17:30, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Hi.
I saw this page: Mittag-Leffler star. It mentions the continuation of a function to the Mittag-Leffler star by a sum of polynomials called a "Mittag-Leffler expansion". Wouldn't it be useful to include the formula for that in the article? Why isn't it there? I noticed a formula is mentioned in the external link, but it does not say what the coefficients are. mike4ty4 ( talk) 19:42, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
I noticed, when looking at Category:Numbers (don't ask why I was looking at it), I found 777 (number) and 8 (number), but no other actual numerals. Obviously, those should only be in Category:Integers, but I was also wondering about Category:Prime numbers, (which includes 231−1 and 261−1 written out as a number). Any ideas on standardization, and whether there should be any articles other than Number in Category:Numbers, rather than in subcategories.
(I'm heading out, or I would have put notes on the talk pages of the categories mentioned.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:15, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Its very difficult to get to Category:Integers from Category:Numbers you have to go via Category:Real numbers and Category:Rational numbers. Would not a flatter tree server readers better? -- Salix ( talk): 15:38, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
This article badly need a major rewrite. For example it starts off with "Let A be a symmetric matrix ... ". The next section starts off with "If p = Skl is apivot element ..."
It appears that now the matrix is being called S. Then is some function not defined in the article.
The Algorithm section is unreadable because so many of the relationships appear only as a blank square.
Dryheataz ( talk) 02:15, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
This article Contractibility_of_unit_sphere_in_Hilbert_space is a disaster. At present I have enough articles on my plate but perhaps someone could take a look at it and start fixing some the the largest disasters? Is this topic even worthy of a Wikipedia page, does it meet Wikipedia's standards? It's a common homework problem in intro algebraic topology courses, I for one would prefer it it was deleted but I could certainly understand if I'm in the minority on this. Rybu ( talk) 06:43, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Every once in awhile someone decides that Template:SpecialChars should be plastered over mathematics articles. I assume that there is unspoken consensus against this. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 19:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
&
name;
syntax but you can add characters such as ≤ directly through the wikipedia edit screen and these aren't coded that way. In fact I would presume that if your browser can't handle ⊂ and ⊃ then it wouldn't be able to handle ≤ and ≥ either, so you'd get funny boxes on the wikipedia editing window and it would be hard to complain about what appears in an article. It's also a bit odd that articles where I do see the funny boxes, such as
Japan, don't seem to have the template. In any case, if there a consensus in the archive it should be added to the MOS instead of having it buried where no one will find it unless they look really hard.--
RDBury (
talk) 22:35, 21 November 2009 (UTC)Please have a look at uncertainty theory. It's entirely unreferenced, with a single link to a website whose owner has the same surname as the supposed originator of "uncertain programming", which work is dated this year. -- Trovatore ( talk) 21:39, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
In the mean time a number of related stubs with little information have been created. Together with the main article they are all at AfD right now. See WP:Articles for deletion/Uncertainty theory. Hans Adler 17:02, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Looking at the table at WP:WPM#Assessment of mathematics articles, there are about 900 articles that are marked as quality=stub but have no priority set. Really all three fields (quality, priority, and field) should be filled in.
Unless there are objections, I think it makes sense to go through and set the priority on these to low (which is a sort of default priority). I will also assign fields to them by manual inspection, and if any article seems like it should have a higher priority I'll take care of that at the same time. I'm just posting here to make sure nobody objects before I start. Of course anyone else can change the ratings at any time if they seem incorrect. I would like to get at least some values into the templates, however. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 16:01, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Re Robhar: The name is not very descriptive, but the idea is that the importance ratings should form a pyramid, with very few "Top" priority, a few "High" priority, some "Mid" priority, and a lot of "Low" priority. I am only talking about articles that are also marked as "stubs", and I will inspect the text of each article before I change the rating, just like I do when making edits by hand. So if I only get halfway through, I only get halfway through. And if anyone thinks I have misrated an article (for example, because they see the edit on their watchlist), I hope they change the rating to whatever they prefer.
At some point, somebody has to go through and actually assign ratings to all the math articles, and so I am planning to put in the time to get it done before the next release version (0.8) is selected next year. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 17:25, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Right now, each article that is assessed with the maths rating template can be assigned a "field"; VeblenBot makes per-field tables that make it easy to browse by field. Here are a couple thoughts and requests for comment:
— Carl ( CBM · talk) 17:06, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
I've just created the List of topics named after Fibonacci. (So get busy improving it and linking to it from other articles.)
Guess what? There appears to be no List of topics named after Augustin-Louis Cauchy. We've got these for Riemann, Gauss, Euler, and various others (Hilbert?). (I created the one for Riemann? I'm not sure if I created the one for Euler.) Shall we compile a list of those that ought to be created? Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:02, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure we've got one for Erdos. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:08, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
....and should we have an article that is a list of these lists? It should of course include the ones that don't exist but ought to. And should we codify (gasp) the relevant notability standards? Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:08, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
OK, I've put Cauchy there. But it's incomplete. Work on it. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:22, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
... how 'bout Arthur Cayley? Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:23, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
A conspicuous thing about Category:Lists of things named after mathematicians is how many names are not there. Thomas Bayes and David Hilbert are conspicuous among them. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:50, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Henri Poincaré is another one. Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:45, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
I was going over the articles needing attention list and noticed that Topology was on the list of articles needing references. It does have Further reading and External links sections, but there are no inline citations and an article of that size and importance should certainly list some general references. For now, I demoted the class to Start quality but this is a high visibility article and it would probably be a good idea to find some good sources and do some fact checking.-- RDBury ( talk) 15:29, 24 November 2009 (UTC)