There has been a lot of pressure lately to summarily delete all inadequately-sourced biographical articles, and some of these articles are ones this project may wish to preserve. Please see Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics, especially the sections on unsourced articles and unreliably sourced articles and add appropriate sources to the biographical articles (and others, but the biographical ones are urgent). — David Eppstein ( talk) 19:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
By the way, there is a recently opened RfC, in progress, on the unreferenced BLP controversy, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people. Those with an interest in the issue might want to comment there. Nsk92 ( talk) 01:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Luigi Ambrosio -
Lennart Åqvist -
Basilio de Bragança Pereira -
Christopher Daykin -
Ryszard Engelking -
Wally Feurzeig -
Richard Fikes -
William Floyd (mathematician) -
Bent Fuglede -
Jean-François Le Gall -
Peter Geach -
Jayanta Kumar Ghosh -
Massimo Gobbino -
Paul Gochet -
Valery Goppa -
Lothar Göttsche -
Alex Grossmann -
Gu Chaohao -
Otomar Hájek -
Les Hatton -
Alexander Hurwitz -
Eugenio Oñate Ibañez de Navarra -
Ronald L. Iman -
Robert Jueneman -
Hartmut Jürgens -
David Klein (California State University Northridge) -
Karl-Rudolf Koch -
Volodymyr Korolyuk -
Dan Krewski -
Phillip Longman -
Michael Makkai -
Stuart J. Murphy -
S. Jay Olshansky -
Volker Oppitz (scientist) -
Julian Peto -
Stanisław Radziszowski -
Olivier Ramaré -
Gregory G. Rose -
Craig L. Russell (software architect) -
Mohammad Sharif (Afghanistan) -
Tanush Shaska -
Larry E. Smith -
Emilio Spedicato -
Matthew Stephens (statistician) -
Jacques Stern -
Martin Stokhof -
Arthur Swersey -
Minoru Tanaka (mathematician) -
Lester G. Telser -
Reginald P. Tewarson -
Walter Thirring -
Walter Trump -
Bryan Tse (prodded) -
Tathagat Avatar Tulsi -
Douglas Wiens -
Mike Wissot -
Peter Wludyka -
Mario Wschebor -
Miloš Zahradník -
Christoph Zenger
This was obtained by category intersection. Pcap ping 04:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
Apparently there are several IP editors that just add back the {{ unreferencedBLP}} tag. I've noticed this on several articles. An example relevant here is [1]. Pcap ping 05:02, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
FYI: I asked Jimbo about his opinion about the article, after the AfD had closed. He thinks that having articles like that around is "probably a lot more trouble on average than they are worth". Pcap ping 10:17, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Note: I restored the above thread. Do we still need this? Paul August ☎ 20:09, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Regressive discrete Fourier series was until moments ago a complete orphan; now it's linked to from the list of Fourier analysis topics. I added Category:Fourier analysis, so the bots should add it to the list of mathematics articles and then to our current activities page. In the mean time, do what you can with it. Michael Hardy ( talk) 19:30, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
I added a few items. Enjoy, but if not, undo.-- RDBury ( talk) 19:44, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
A third set of eyes would be appreciated at Gravitational potential. I draw the line at personal attacks like this. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 02:22, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
I've done enough cleanup on elliptic curve primality testing for one night. Various conventions of WP:MOS and WP:MOSMATH still need to get applied here.
But also: the article is an orphan: lots of other articles should link to it and do not. Michael Hardy ( talk) 04:16, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Is the article titled reciprocal property worth anything? Michael Hardy ( talk) 04:32, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello, I am wondering whether 0 is a perfect cube or not? Math Champion | sign! 04:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
What do we think of the article titled Covariance (categories)? Michael Hardy ( talk) 19:49, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Nonsense, but rather well-written and clever nonsense, not like most attempts. Michael Hardy ( talk) 16:27, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Not sure how to mark this in the prod template, but IMHO it would be better to redirect the article to Functor#Covariance and contravariance than to delete it.— Emil J. 15:37, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
A trigonometric identity for a circulant matrix seems to be the work of a competent mathematician unaware of Wikipedia's policy against original research and the one against identifying the author by name within the article. It's on AfD. Michael Hardy ( talk) 04:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
The section Homogeneous structure was recently added to the hyperbolic geometry article. Apart from not including sources, and not being particularly clear, the question I wanted to ask is: in what sense is a geometric space "isomorphic" to some group? Does this mean the symmetry group of the space is isomorphic to the group ? There are other wikipedia aricles that also say such and such a space is isomorphic to such and such a group without first defining a group on the space. Charvest ( talk) 14:53, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I was wondering what I can do in the following situation: I am reading an article and there is a statement I cannot prove myself nor do I know any source as where to find a proof for the statement. What is the best way to request a source or reference for the statement? Is it ok to do so even? I think that every statement made in an article should be either clear to the reader with a certain mathematical eduaction or should be referenced. Quiet photon ( talk) 15:08, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
{{
cn}}
template after the statement. However, bear in mind that if it is not a high-traffic article, it may easily take months until someone adds a source (or deletes the claim). If you really need a proof now, you may be better off by asking at the
Math Reference Desk.—
Emil
J.
15:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)One might also try: (1) asking the person who put the statement there in the first place; and (2) asking at Wikipedia's mathematics reference desk. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
@Quiet photon: If you want to provide access to proofs to the readers of a math article, you can do so by providing references to literature/journal articles containing them (also online copies of them). In addition you could provide link to some website or a wikibook containing the proof in the external links section.-- Kmhkmh ( talk) 22:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
A thread related to the article Zeno's paradoxes has been opened at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Steaphen. Nsk92 ( talk) 23:51, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Of the two recent nominations for featured picture, File:Pythagoras-2a.gif was promoted and is now a featured picture. File:Penrose Tiling (Rhombi).svg did was not promoted even though there were no oppose votes. Thanks to User:Noodle snacks for making the nominations. There is a new nomination File:Desargues theorem.svg with discussion at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Desargues theorem.svg.
These featured picture discussions don't appear in either Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity or in Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Article alerts, nor do the featured pictures appear in Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Recognized content. One issue seems to be that the 'maths rating' template does not include a file class so pictures related to WPM use the outdated 'maths banner' template instead.-- RDBury ( talk) 02:42, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Remember a few months ago when someone tried to rename Seifert–van Kampen theorem to "Seifert – van Kampen theorem" because the Manual of Style said that was the right thing to do, despite the fact that no math publications spell it that way? There's now an RFC going on about this issue (and about en-dashes used to separate multiple items in similar contexts): please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC: Disjunctive en dashes should be unspaced, and leave your opinion there if you have one. — David Eppstein ( talk) 04:30, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
< removing my own entry here; belongs in Talk:Coxeter–Dynkin diagram > — Tamfang ( talk) 20:01, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
Opinions of mathematicians (and others) are welcomed at Talk:Trigonometric_functions#Pros_and_cons_of_notations_for_series. Michael Hardy ( talk) 05:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
FYI [ [4]] 65.46.253.42 ( talk) 21:28, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Should the page be moved to Continuous map? Comment at talkpage. Tkuvho ( talk) 12:26, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm considering merging Real part and Imaginary part into a new article Real and imaginary parts; would anyone object to that? ― A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 15:54, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't really have particularly strong feelings one way or the other about this proposed deletion, but the comments in the deletion discussion so far seem like examples of the reasons why I sometimes feel as if people who spend all their time hanging around the AfD pages are not respectable: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Research_Students_Conference_Probability_and_Statistics#Research_Students_Conference_Probability_and_Statistics. Michael Hardy ( talk) 06:41, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
The article titled Young's lattice refers to the "skew shape" p/q, at the point where it's giving the Möbius function of the lattice. It is unclear what that term means. In Young_tableau#Skew_tableaux we find the term again, but it's not clear how the reader of Young's lattice would find his way there. It says "if the skew shape is a disjoint union of squares", but I wonder what in this context could possibly not be a disjoint union of squares.
So can someone clarify, within the article? Michael Hardy ( talk) 19:37, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
It may be a case of "too much of a good thing" (by an expert). A clear enough definition appears in the first line, but it is then obscured by too many caveats and qualifiers. I did a bit of detective work. Here is an old revision where skew diagrams are defined the way I first wrote it, and here is Marc's expansion that's closer to the present form. As for the course of action, a picture would help a lot, and I don't think it's worthwhile to accent attention on the ambiguity of the notation ("skew diagram" vs "skew shape") too much. Arcfrk ( talk) 05:16, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
An alternate version of the Desargues theorem diagram File:Desargues theorem alt.svg was promoted to featured picture. However, with all the changes that happened in the process the lines are slightly misaligned at the point c so some repair would be helpful. Meanwhile there is a new nomination, see Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:BIsAPseudovector.svg.-- RDBury ( talk) 05:18, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
IRP has proposed a merger of Mathematical constant and Constant (mathematics). Discussion is here. Gandalf61 ( talk) 11:04, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
The article History of logic has been nominated for a featured article here. The nominating editor has asked me for help concerning the post-WWII period, asking if forcing was the only significant result, and if "reverse mathematics" ought to be mentioned (see: User talk:Paul August#Logic after WW2). Any assistant anyone could give would be appreciated. Thanks, Paul August ☎ 15:21, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Could those who know algebraic geometry comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Crooked egg curve? Michael Hardy ( talk) 03:26, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
I posted a few months ago about plans to work on the article assessments. Here is a progress report on wha's been accomplished, some issues I noticed when I was doing it. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 13:17, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Right now, each article with a maths rating template is assigned to exactly one of these fields:
There are a few problems I noticed when I was assessing articles:
It's certainly worth making it possible to put more than one field on an article. But I think that revisiting the selection of fields would be worthwhile.
One nice thing about our current system is that it is not too fine. I think that the MSC rating system is too fine four our needs. But one possibility for us would be to start with the MSC 2010 system (just the 2-digit codes) and then combine those into groups to form our fields. For example, we could make a list of the MSC codes corresponding to "topology", and then say that our "topology" field corresponds to the topics listed under those MSC codes. If a topic would be normally be filed under more than one MSC code, then we can assign it to more than one of our "fields" as appropriate. How do other people feel about that? — Carl ( CBM · talk) 13:17, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
I mentioned this above, but if there changes being made anyway, is there any chance of getting file class added so we don't have to mess around with a separate template for images? There has been a lot of activity for featured pictures lately and while I don't mind posting notification manually it would be nice if it was handled by the normal machinery. There are a few other non-rating classes that other projects use as well such as list.-- RDBury ( talk) 14:41, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
I went through the list of top-level MSC fields and tried to fit them into a small number of fields that we could use to classify articles. Here is the resulting list. I've left out 00-XX General, since it doesn't fit anywhere. I've put several MSC fields into several WP fields; sometimes this is because a single MSC field doesn't fit well anywhere (such as K-theory) and other times it's because the MSC fields are too broad (e.g., 01-XX History and biography). Keep in mind that I'm way out of my depth here, as I've never read even a single paper in most of these fields. Some of my choices will be completely wrong, so I invite corrections.
Field | MSC numbers |
---|---|
History |
|
Biography |
|
Foundations |
|
Discrete mathematics |
|
Algebra |
|
Number theory |
|
Geometry and topology |
|
Analysis |
|
Mathematical physics |
|
Applied mathematics |
|
Probability and statistics |
|
Education |
|
Ozob ( talk) 17:27, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Keep in mind that the MSC mainly covers research mathematics, but our encyclopedia articles are broader, also covering e.g. school textbook mathematics. So even if we wanted to go to a finer-grained system such as the MSC, the MSC itself would probably be inadequate: for instance, where does elementary arithmetic fit? Maybe 11-XX, maybe 97-XX, but neither is really a good fit. — David Eppstein ( talk) 20:15, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
I've taken the liberty of slightly tweaking Ozob's list above. In particular, I moved special functions to analysis as any special function I know of is related to some differential equation/integral/series (though, of course, any specific special function may be in many other fields). But in looking through the list, it's clear that the top-level MSC is both too fine and too coarse. I do think it gives a good understanding of which fields we need though, but I don't think it succeeds in allowing for a clear way to classify any given article. RobHar ( talk) 02:56, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
My main concern about Ozob's list is that it still has algebraic geometry under geometry. Is the idea to simply put both "algebra" and "geometry" fields on those articles? — Carl ( CBM · talk) 11:28, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Optimization algorithm is currently a redirect and until less than an hour ago, didn't even exist as a redirect. I found that quite surprising.
Should there be such an article? Michael Hardy ( talk) 04:26, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
I am going now to create an article about equidistant interpolation but have a trouble with Gauss interpolation formula. Can anyone please verify this formula: [5]. I have tried but unsuccessfully.-- MathFacts ( talk) 10:17, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Square (algebra) is such a simple subject that it doesn't need attention from mathematicians. (?)
So one might be tempted to think.
I found it a horrible mess. I did some cleanup. At one point it asserted that the "general term" of the series
is
Someone out there is challenged by the task of understanding what "general term" means. Should that be who writes this article?
Which topics should be included is a question that needs to be considered by someone who has some competence. The present choice of topics is a bit weird, to say the least. Michael Hardy ( talk) 18:42, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zenzizenzizenzic (2nd nomination). Gandalf61 ( talk) 11:29, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Professor of mathematics is a red link. Two articles link to it. Should we redirect it? Or create an article? Or delete the links? Or let our posterity decide six months from now? Michael Hardy ( talk) 22:26, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
OK, I've done that. Now a question of no immediate practical import occurs to me. Is there any way to tell which articles formerly linked to a particular title? Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:38, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
User:Noodle snacks didn't do a nomination this week so I decided to try one. See Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Helicatenoid.gif. If you have some knowledge of differential geometry it would be helpful to check the caption; I tried to describe a local isometry in layman's terms, but maybe it could be done better.-- RDBury ( talk) 06:50, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
I made some changes to the Applied Mathematics template a month or so ago. I proposed similar expansion and organization of the Pure Mathematics template. (Following the earlier discussion (on the mathematics template's talk page), I suggest that somebody develop a "Basic mathematics" template. Thanks Kiefer.Wolfowitz ( talk) 17:50, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
I boldly changed the title to reflect the established usage of SIAM, British, and European organizations, and reflecting the problem that "applied mathematics" is often narrowly understood in terms of the grand British tradition of using analytic methods on problems in the physical sciences, etc. Kiefer.Wolfowitz ( talk) 21:00, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
This is probably the best venue for this discussion. There was recently a discussion on the talk page for the " P versus NP problem" article. There appears to be a consensus that Theoretical Computer Science is not in Applied Mathematics. With this in mind, I propose that the Applied Mathematics footer be modified. I would be bold and just make the change, but several articles would likely need to be modified to fully effectuate the change. And it might also be affected by the discussion Kiefer started above. Jwesley 78 18:11, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
{{
cite book}}
: |first=
has generic name (
help); Unknown parameter |coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (
help)Following the discussion, I removed " Theoretical computer science" and replaced it with " Computational mathematics", there being no short way to write "mathematics associated with theoretical computer science". Does this deal with the problem? (It may be useful to change the name of the footer to "industrial and applied mathematics", which is established at least). Kiefer.Wolfowitz ( talk) 20:36, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Re:
There are many subjects listed in the "Applied Math" footer that do not belong. Apparently there's a disagreement about which attributes distinguish "applied" from "pure" mathematics. This might be a good place to discuss it. Jwesley 78 21:06, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
If applied means analysis then Theoretical computer science does overlap with applied. Not that the talking about pure/applied makes much sense. The applied math template should be merged with the main math footer template.
Theoretical computer science considers both discrete and continuous computational processes, and both discrete and continuous input/output:
Including P!=NP over R
Many concepts in analysis have discrete versions giving rise to discrete analysis. See discrete mathematics for examples. So analysis shouldn't be contrasted with discrete. Analysis isn't just about limits or continuity, it is a collection of concepts and methods about functions and function spaces, be they discrete or continuous.
Other topics often categorized as part of discrete mathematics:
What is the most pure mathematics subject ? The queen of mathematics, number theory.
What is the most applied ? Mathematical physics.
Here are the Google results for "Number theory and physics"
Number theory isn't concerned solely discrete objects: Transcendental numbers, Diophantine approximation, p-adic analysis, function fields
There is no pure. There is no applied. And discrete mathematics as a distinct branch of mathematics is a nonsense.
Bethnim ( talk) 13:04, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Some editors use the " financial mathematics" rather than the standard term " mathematical finance". This seems as imperialistic as the use of " Bayesian mathematics" (sic.) to refer to Bayesian statistics (imho)! Kiefer.Wolfowitz ( talk) 19:10, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Another editor might be able to cast a fresh eye at Talk:Tesseract#New_Animations where User:Jgmoxness wishes to insert a new animation into the article but I'm objecting. Dmcq ( talk) 21:35, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Here is the current template (footer):
Would the following navigational-box template be an improvement, and useful for further discussion?
Thanks! Kiefer.Wolfowitz ( talk) 20:05, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
We also have Portal:Mathematics with a section "Topics in mathematics" that looks quite good on first sight. It might be good if the presentation there could be harmonised with the template, so that people find it easier to switch from one to the other. Hans Adler 00:56, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Please, discuss this proposal. Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 21:30, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to go ahead and make a proposal regarding changes discussed above to the article assessment categories and such.
The current list is:
I would like to propose the following list:
In words:
Thoughts? RobHar ( talk) 23:40, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
It was suggested above to think about using the fields from the IMU (see [6]). At the least, I'd like to think about how to group the fields there to arrive at our list. Unfortunately, I have been traveling, so I will not be able to write more about this until tomorrow sometime. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 02:46, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Currently, you can only specify one field in the maths rating template. I'd like to propose allowing more than one. Math isn't always so clear cut. RobHar ( talk) 23:40, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Currently, the possible quality ratings for math articles are Stub, Start, B, B+, GA, A, FA. There was a discussion at the assessment talk page about changing this. I'd like to propose adding a 'C' rating to this scheme. I find there are articles better than a 'Start', but not yet a 'B'. Additionally, most (all?) other projects have a 'C' rating (so sometimes our articles end up with C ratings, which we must correct). RobHar ( talk) 23:40, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
If we include biography & history as suggested above, there needs to be some cooperation with the Wikiproject Biographies, which is doing their own separate article assessment. At least it doesn't make much sense sense when the article's discussion pages get 2 competing templates.-- Kmhkmh ( talk) 17:02, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Our special functions articles are, by and large, in a dreadful state. They are typically nothing more than a minimally differentiated list of formulas. This situation appears to be exacerbated by the edits of A. Pichler ( talk · contribs · logs), whose contributions to the project have, for a long time, consisted almost entirely of adding unreferenced identities to special function articles, some of which are quite dubious. User:Stevenj has warned him than once in the past to give references for the content he adds, but he continues not to give them. So Stevenj continues to revert many of this editor's contributions. More expert eyes on the contributions of this editor would be helpful. I've already gone one round with him. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 10:43, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
This article requires attention from an algebraic topologist. It appears to contain some recent research (see the refs), and I'd like to have some idea of the notability of the topic. There is now a version at Künneth theorem that contains the material; and after Stanley–Reisner ring was updated by User:Arcfrk some other related material was reposted at Stanley-Reisner ring (binary operations). There is an underlying point at the chain level about simplicial complexes, it seems, but if it is worth inclusion here, it might be more in the nature of a remark that should be in simplicial complex or simplicial homology. Charles Matthews ( talk) 13:50, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
This article's talk page is currently blank. 99% of the time, when I come across such an article, I try to attach a wikiproject banner to the talk page - though most of the time I can't say very much useful about the article rating, I know that the wikiproject involved usually finds this useful and particularly so if they subcribe to an automated article alerts service. However, when I naively tried to add {{ WP Mathematics}} I got a rather scary-looking warning sign. Should I simply add {{ maths rating}}, even though I wouldn't know how to rate it, in the hopes that somebody else will notice the blank template, come along and do so? Or are there WP Math reviewers who have a big list of unreviewed articles, regardless of whether they have a template on the talkpage, and are steadily working through the lot? Or infact, do y'all actually care about your project ratings at all, given that your articles (including this one) are included in comprehensive lists? I suppose what I really want to know is (a) if I come across such an article again, should I make an effort to bring its lack of a {{ maths rating}} to somebody's attention, or even make an attempt at filling out the more obvious parts of it, or just leave it alone; and (b) the rather naive question, why isn't {{ WP Mathematics}} a redirect to {{ maths rating}}, since the latter seems to fulfil a similar if not entirely analogous purpose to the "WP Whatever" templates of other projects? TheGrappler ( talk) 15:23, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
And why the name discrete geometry ? Do we have a better definition than the article currently uses: "the study that does not essentially rely on the notion of continuity." I mean circle packing involves arranging objects which are continuous, within a space which is continuous, in such a way that the circles only touch at tangent points (i.e. at infinitesimal points). What the heck is discrete about that ? ;-p Seriously though, surely combinatorial geometry is a better name. Bethnim ( talk) 21:22, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
David, I notice that on your page http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/junkyard/combinatorial.html you say "This is a difficult topic to define precisely without including all of discrete and computational geometry." Jwesley, for now I've added a concise non-negative definition to the article: "Discrete geometry and combinatorial geometry are about combinatorial properties of discrete collections of geometrical objects.". The article is of course a stub at the moment, but do you think there should eventually be separate articles for Discrete geometry and combinatorial geometry, or not ? Bethnim ( talk) 07:56, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Tate has received an Abel Prize (couldn't have happened to a nicer guy). The page is currently linked from the Main Page, so please watch for vandalism. Charles Matthews ( talk) 19:48, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
The ω in the title is the smallest infinite ordinal, and is not usually spelled out as omega. I thought the move to what I consider the only correct title would be totally uncontroversial, but apparently all page titles with non-Latin letters are currently on the blacklist for page moves. So I requested the move, and currently the situation at Talk:Omega automaton looks as if it might not pass due to the number (not quality) of objections – all by editors with no editing history in mathematics or computer science articles. I guess this is because of editors frequenting WP:RM who treat this ω-automaton if it was a silly trademark.
The case is similar to sigma-algebra/σ-algebra, but not the same: sigma-algebra appears more often than σ-algebra in Google Books, but ω-automaton appears much more often than omega-automaton.
Do we have consensus within the project? Hans Adler 08:21, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
The choice between anglicized and local spellings should follow English-language usage [...]
If there are too few English-language sources to constitute an established usage, follow the conventions of the language appropriate to the subject [...]
Names not originally in a Latin alphabet, such as Greek, Chinese or Russian names, must be transliterated. Established systematic transliterations, such as Hanyu Pinyin, are preferred. However if there is a common English-language form of the name, then use it, even if it is unsystematic (as with Tchaikovsky and Chiang Kai-shek). For a list of transliteration conventions by language, see Wikipedia:Romanization.
The technical term "observation space" for codomain of a random variable was used by User:Winterfors on 14 Feb 2008 in Bayesian experimental design, then by User:3mta3 on 7 May 2009 in Probability distribution, by an anon on 26 Aug 2009 in Random variable, and by User:Stpasha on 27 Nov 2009 in Probability density function. Now User:WestwoodMatt and a `random passerby' are unhappy with it, see Talk:Probability distribution#Observation Space.
As far as I understand, the term is used mostly by non-mathematicians, and its use in such articles as random variable is a bit off-label. On the other hand, it could be rather convenient here. Maybe we should mention it, but use sparingly.
However, the very idea to define a random variable as a measurable map from a probability space to an arbitrary measurable space could be a WP:POV. Maybe some sources use such terminology, but not the mainstream. Checking four books, "Probability: theory and examples" by Richard Durrett, "Probability with martingales" by David Williams, "Theory of probability and random processes" by Leonid Koralov and Yakov Sinai, and "Measure theory and probability theory" by Krishna Athreya and Soumendra Lahiri, I observe in all the four cases that a random variable is a measurable map from a probability space to the real line. More general objects are called random vectors, random functions and, most generally, random elements (of a given measurable space).
Any opinions, please? Boris Tsirelson ( talk) 16:36, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
The Heawood conjecture states that "the minimum number of colors necessary to color all graphs drawn on an orientable surface of that genus (or equivalently to color the regions of any partition of the surface into simply connected regions) is given by ...". I'm unable to understand how a particular graph can be a "counterexample to the Heawood conjecture" - as far as I can imagine, a "counterexample" should consist in some particular surface (presumably, the klein bottle in this case) and a proof that any graph on that surface can be colored with less than colors.
I obviously don't mean that Franklin was wrong, I just have the impression that the way this is stated on the two pages is by far too simplicistic... -- Toobaz ( talk) 21:39, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
I found this in an article:
I changed it to this:
I'd have guessed that the seemingly purposeless extra curly braces, although they might be inconvenient for those who edit (and who cares about them?) would not affect what the reader sees. But if your browser is like mine, there's a clearly visible difference. Why? (I also changed "l" to "\ell".) Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:04, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
My guess is also that the first expression's image is being cached from a previous version of the mediawiki TeX system. For example, when I copied the same exact code for the first expression to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sandbox and previewed it, the appearance was like the second expression. If it was just a rasterizer issue, the appearance should not change when I do that. The server software on meta is going to be identical to the current server software here. I seem to remember encountering this issue before. Usually, just adding some meaningless change to the TeX is enough to force the rendering to update. At some point we should file a bug asking them to purge the oldest images. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 02:42, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
There has been a lot of pressure lately to summarily delete all inadequately-sourced biographical articles, and some of these articles are ones this project may wish to preserve. Please see Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics, especially the sections on unsourced articles and unreliably sourced articles and add appropriate sources to the biographical articles (and others, but the biographical ones are urgent). — David Eppstein ( talk) 19:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
By the way, there is a recently opened RfC, in progress, on the unreferenced BLP controversy, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people. Those with an interest in the issue might want to comment there. Nsk92 ( talk) 01:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Luigi Ambrosio -
Lennart Åqvist -
Basilio de Bragança Pereira -
Christopher Daykin -
Ryszard Engelking -
Wally Feurzeig -
Richard Fikes -
William Floyd (mathematician) -
Bent Fuglede -
Jean-François Le Gall -
Peter Geach -
Jayanta Kumar Ghosh -
Massimo Gobbino -
Paul Gochet -
Valery Goppa -
Lothar Göttsche -
Alex Grossmann -
Gu Chaohao -
Otomar Hájek -
Les Hatton -
Alexander Hurwitz -
Eugenio Oñate Ibañez de Navarra -
Ronald L. Iman -
Robert Jueneman -
Hartmut Jürgens -
David Klein (California State University Northridge) -
Karl-Rudolf Koch -
Volodymyr Korolyuk -
Dan Krewski -
Phillip Longman -
Michael Makkai -
Stuart J. Murphy -
S. Jay Olshansky -
Volker Oppitz (scientist) -
Julian Peto -
Stanisław Radziszowski -
Olivier Ramaré -
Gregory G. Rose -
Craig L. Russell (software architect) -
Mohammad Sharif (Afghanistan) -
Tanush Shaska -
Larry E. Smith -
Emilio Spedicato -
Matthew Stephens (statistician) -
Jacques Stern -
Martin Stokhof -
Arthur Swersey -
Minoru Tanaka (mathematician) -
Lester G. Telser -
Reginald P. Tewarson -
Walter Thirring -
Walter Trump -
Bryan Tse (prodded) -
Tathagat Avatar Tulsi -
Douglas Wiens -
Mike Wissot -
Peter Wludyka -
Mario Wschebor -
Miloš Zahradník -
Christoph Zenger
This was obtained by category intersection. Pcap ping 04:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
Apparently there are several IP editors that just add back the {{ unreferencedBLP}} tag. I've noticed this on several articles. An example relevant here is [1]. Pcap ping 05:02, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
FYI: I asked Jimbo about his opinion about the article, after the AfD had closed. He thinks that having articles like that around is "probably a lot more trouble on average than they are worth". Pcap ping 10:17, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Note: I restored the above thread. Do we still need this? Paul August ☎ 20:09, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Regressive discrete Fourier series was until moments ago a complete orphan; now it's linked to from the list of Fourier analysis topics. I added Category:Fourier analysis, so the bots should add it to the list of mathematics articles and then to our current activities page. In the mean time, do what you can with it. Michael Hardy ( talk) 19:30, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
I added a few items. Enjoy, but if not, undo.-- RDBury ( talk) 19:44, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
A third set of eyes would be appreciated at Gravitational potential. I draw the line at personal attacks like this. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 02:22, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
I've done enough cleanup on elliptic curve primality testing for one night. Various conventions of WP:MOS and WP:MOSMATH still need to get applied here.
But also: the article is an orphan: lots of other articles should link to it and do not. Michael Hardy ( talk) 04:16, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Is the article titled reciprocal property worth anything? Michael Hardy ( talk) 04:32, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello, I am wondering whether 0 is a perfect cube or not? Math Champion | sign! 04:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
What do we think of the article titled Covariance (categories)? Michael Hardy ( talk) 19:49, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Nonsense, but rather well-written and clever nonsense, not like most attempts. Michael Hardy ( talk) 16:27, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Not sure how to mark this in the prod template, but IMHO it would be better to redirect the article to Functor#Covariance and contravariance than to delete it.— Emil J. 15:37, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
A trigonometric identity for a circulant matrix seems to be the work of a competent mathematician unaware of Wikipedia's policy against original research and the one against identifying the author by name within the article. It's on AfD. Michael Hardy ( talk) 04:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
The section Homogeneous structure was recently added to the hyperbolic geometry article. Apart from not including sources, and not being particularly clear, the question I wanted to ask is: in what sense is a geometric space "isomorphic" to some group? Does this mean the symmetry group of the space is isomorphic to the group ? There are other wikipedia aricles that also say such and such a space is isomorphic to such and such a group without first defining a group on the space. Charvest ( talk) 14:53, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I was wondering what I can do in the following situation: I am reading an article and there is a statement I cannot prove myself nor do I know any source as where to find a proof for the statement. What is the best way to request a source or reference for the statement? Is it ok to do so even? I think that every statement made in an article should be either clear to the reader with a certain mathematical eduaction or should be referenced. Quiet photon ( talk) 15:08, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
{{
cn}}
template after the statement. However, bear in mind that if it is not a high-traffic article, it may easily take months until someone adds a source (or deletes the claim). If you really need a proof now, you may be better off by asking at the
Math Reference Desk.—
Emil
J.
15:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)One might also try: (1) asking the person who put the statement there in the first place; and (2) asking at Wikipedia's mathematics reference desk. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
@Quiet photon: If you want to provide access to proofs to the readers of a math article, you can do so by providing references to literature/journal articles containing them (also online copies of them). In addition you could provide link to some website or a wikibook containing the proof in the external links section.-- Kmhkmh ( talk) 22:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
A thread related to the article Zeno's paradoxes has been opened at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Steaphen. Nsk92 ( talk) 23:51, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Of the two recent nominations for featured picture, File:Pythagoras-2a.gif was promoted and is now a featured picture. File:Penrose Tiling (Rhombi).svg did was not promoted even though there were no oppose votes. Thanks to User:Noodle snacks for making the nominations. There is a new nomination File:Desargues theorem.svg with discussion at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Desargues theorem.svg.
These featured picture discussions don't appear in either Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity or in Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Article alerts, nor do the featured pictures appear in Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Recognized content. One issue seems to be that the 'maths rating' template does not include a file class so pictures related to WPM use the outdated 'maths banner' template instead.-- RDBury ( talk) 02:42, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Remember a few months ago when someone tried to rename Seifert–van Kampen theorem to "Seifert – van Kampen theorem" because the Manual of Style said that was the right thing to do, despite the fact that no math publications spell it that way? There's now an RFC going on about this issue (and about en-dashes used to separate multiple items in similar contexts): please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC: Disjunctive en dashes should be unspaced, and leave your opinion there if you have one. — David Eppstein ( talk) 04:30, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
< removing my own entry here; belongs in Talk:Coxeter–Dynkin diagram > — Tamfang ( talk) 20:01, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
Opinions of mathematicians (and others) are welcomed at Talk:Trigonometric_functions#Pros_and_cons_of_notations_for_series. Michael Hardy ( talk) 05:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
FYI [ [4]] 65.46.253.42 ( talk) 21:28, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Should the page be moved to Continuous map? Comment at talkpage. Tkuvho ( talk) 12:26, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm considering merging Real part and Imaginary part into a new article Real and imaginary parts; would anyone object to that? ― A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 15:54, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't really have particularly strong feelings one way or the other about this proposed deletion, but the comments in the deletion discussion so far seem like examples of the reasons why I sometimes feel as if people who spend all their time hanging around the AfD pages are not respectable: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Research_Students_Conference_Probability_and_Statistics#Research_Students_Conference_Probability_and_Statistics. Michael Hardy ( talk) 06:41, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
The article titled Young's lattice refers to the "skew shape" p/q, at the point where it's giving the Möbius function of the lattice. It is unclear what that term means. In Young_tableau#Skew_tableaux we find the term again, but it's not clear how the reader of Young's lattice would find his way there. It says "if the skew shape is a disjoint union of squares", but I wonder what in this context could possibly not be a disjoint union of squares.
So can someone clarify, within the article? Michael Hardy ( talk) 19:37, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
It may be a case of "too much of a good thing" (by an expert). A clear enough definition appears in the first line, but it is then obscured by too many caveats and qualifiers. I did a bit of detective work. Here is an old revision where skew diagrams are defined the way I first wrote it, and here is Marc's expansion that's closer to the present form. As for the course of action, a picture would help a lot, and I don't think it's worthwhile to accent attention on the ambiguity of the notation ("skew diagram" vs "skew shape") too much. Arcfrk ( talk) 05:16, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
An alternate version of the Desargues theorem diagram File:Desargues theorem alt.svg was promoted to featured picture. However, with all the changes that happened in the process the lines are slightly misaligned at the point c so some repair would be helpful. Meanwhile there is a new nomination, see Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:BIsAPseudovector.svg.-- RDBury ( talk) 05:18, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
IRP has proposed a merger of Mathematical constant and Constant (mathematics). Discussion is here. Gandalf61 ( talk) 11:04, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
The article History of logic has been nominated for a featured article here. The nominating editor has asked me for help concerning the post-WWII period, asking if forcing was the only significant result, and if "reverse mathematics" ought to be mentioned (see: User talk:Paul August#Logic after WW2). Any assistant anyone could give would be appreciated. Thanks, Paul August ☎ 15:21, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Could those who know algebraic geometry comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Crooked egg curve? Michael Hardy ( talk) 03:26, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
I posted a few months ago about plans to work on the article assessments. Here is a progress report on wha's been accomplished, some issues I noticed when I was doing it. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 13:17, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Right now, each article with a maths rating template is assigned to exactly one of these fields:
There are a few problems I noticed when I was assessing articles:
It's certainly worth making it possible to put more than one field on an article. But I think that revisiting the selection of fields would be worthwhile.
One nice thing about our current system is that it is not too fine. I think that the MSC rating system is too fine four our needs. But one possibility for us would be to start with the MSC 2010 system (just the 2-digit codes) and then combine those into groups to form our fields. For example, we could make a list of the MSC codes corresponding to "topology", and then say that our "topology" field corresponds to the topics listed under those MSC codes. If a topic would be normally be filed under more than one MSC code, then we can assign it to more than one of our "fields" as appropriate. How do other people feel about that? — Carl ( CBM · talk) 13:17, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
I mentioned this above, but if there changes being made anyway, is there any chance of getting file class added so we don't have to mess around with a separate template for images? There has been a lot of activity for featured pictures lately and while I don't mind posting notification manually it would be nice if it was handled by the normal machinery. There are a few other non-rating classes that other projects use as well such as list.-- RDBury ( talk) 14:41, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
I went through the list of top-level MSC fields and tried to fit them into a small number of fields that we could use to classify articles. Here is the resulting list. I've left out 00-XX General, since it doesn't fit anywhere. I've put several MSC fields into several WP fields; sometimes this is because a single MSC field doesn't fit well anywhere (such as K-theory) and other times it's because the MSC fields are too broad (e.g., 01-XX History and biography). Keep in mind that I'm way out of my depth here, as I've never read even a single paper in most of these fields. Some of my choices will be completely wrong, so I invite corrections.
Field | MSC numbers |
---|---|
History |
|
Biography |
|
Foundations |
|
Discrete mathematics |
|
Algebra |
|
Number theory |
|
Geometry and topology |
|
Analysis |
|
Mathematical physics |
|
Applied mathematics |
|
Probability and statistics |
|
Education |
|
Ozob ( talk) 17:27, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Keep in mind that the MSC mainly covers research mathematics, but our encyclopedia articles are broader, also covering e.g. school textbook mathematics. So even if we wanted to go to a finer-grained system such as the MSC, the MSC itself would probably be inadequate: for instance, where does elementary arithmetic fit? Maybe 11-XX, maybe 97-XX, but neither is really a good fit. — David Eppstein ( talk) 20:15, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
I've taken the liberty of slightly tweaking Ozob's list above. In particular, I moved special functions to analysis as any special function I know of is related to some differential equation/integral/series (though, of course, any specific special function may be in many other fields). But in looking through the list, it's clear that the top-level MSC is both too fine and too coarse. I do think it gives a good understanding of which fields we need though, but I don't think it succeeds in allowing for a clear way to classify any given article. RobHar ( talk) 02:56, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
My main concern about Ozob's list is that it still has algebraic geometry under geometry. Is the idea to simply put both "algebra" and "geometry" fields on those articles? — Carl ( CBM · talk) 11:28, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Optimization algorithm is currently a redirect and until less than an hour ago, didn't even exist as a redirect. I found that quite surprising.
Should there be such an article? Michael Hardy ( talk) 04:26, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
I am going now to create an article about equidistant interpolation but have a trouble with Gauss interpolation formula. Can anyone please verify this formula: [5]. I have tried but unsuccessfully.-- MathFacts ( talk) 10:17, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Square (algebra) is such a simple subject that it doesn't need attention from mathematicians. (?)
So one might be tempted to think.
I found it a horrible mess. I did some cleanup. At one point it asserted that the "general term" of the series
is
Someone out there is challenged by the task of understanding what "general term" means. Should that be who writes this article?
Which topics should be included is a question that needs to be considered by someone who has some competence. The present choice of topics is a bit weird, to say the least. Michael Hardy ( talk) 18:42, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zenzizenzizenzic (2nd nomination). Gandalf61 ( talk) 11:29, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Professor of mathematics is a red link. Two articles link to it. Should we redirect it? Or create an article? Or delete the links? Or let our posterity decide six months from now? Michael Hardy ( talk) 22:26, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
OK, I've done that. Now a question of no immediate practical import occurs to me. Is there any way to tell which articles formerly linked to a particular title? Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:38, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
User:Noodle snacks didn't do a nomination this week so I decided to try one. See Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Helicatenoid.gif. If you have some knowledge of differential geometry it would be helpful to check the caption; I tried to describe a local isometry in layman's terms, but maybe it could be done better.-- RDBury ( talk) 06:50, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
I made some changes to the Applied Mathematics template a month or so ago. I proposed similar expansion and organization of the Pure Mathematics template. (Following the earlier discussion (on the mathematics template's talk page), I suggest that somebody develop a "Basic mathematics" template. Thanks Kiefer.Wolfowitz ( talk) 17:50, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
I boldly changed the title to reflect the established usage of SIAM, British, and European organizations, and reflecting the problem that "applied mathematics" is often narrowly understood in terms of the grand British tradition of using analytic methods on problems in the physical sciences, etc. Kiefer.Wolfowitz ( talk) 21:00, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
This is probably the best venue for this discussion. There was recently a discussion on the talk page for the " P versus NP problem" article. There appears to be a consensus that Theoretical Computer Science is not in Applied Mathematics. With this in mind, I propose that the Applied Mathematics footer be modified. I would be bold and just make the change, but several articles would likely need to be modified to fully effectuate the change. And it might also be affected by the discussion Kiefer started above. Jwesley 78 18:11, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
{{
cite book}}
: |first=
has generic name (
help); Unknown parameter |coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (
help)Following the discussion, I removed " Theoretical computer science" and replaced it with " Computational mathematics", there being no short way to write "mathematics associated with theoretical computer science". Does this deal with the problem? (It may be useful to change the name of the footer to "industrial and applied mathematics", which is established at least). Kiefer.Wolfowitz ( talk) 20:36, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Re:
There are many subjects listed in the "Applied Math" footer that do not belong. Apparently there's a disagreement about which attributes distinguish "applied" from "pure" mathematics. This might be a good place to discuss it. Jwesley 78 21:06, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
If applied means analysis then Theoretical computer science does overlap with applied. Not that the talking about pure/applied makes much sense. The applied math template should be merged with the main math footer template.
Theoretical computer science considers both discrete and continuous computational processes, and both discrete and continuous input/output:
Including P!=NP over R
Many concepts in analysis have discrete versions giving rise to discrete analysis. See discrete mathematics for examples. So analysis shouldn't be contrasted with discrete. Analysis isn't just about limits or continuity, it is a collection of concepts and methods about functions and function spaces, be they discrete or continuous.
Other topics often categorized as part of discrete mathematics:
What is the most pure mathematics subject ? The queen of mathematics, number theory.
What is the most applied ? Mathematical physics.
Here are the Google results for "Number theory and physics"
Number theory isn't concerned solely discrete objects: Transcendental numbers, Diophantine approximation, p-adic analysis, function fields
There is no pure. There is no applied. And discrete mathematics as a distinct branch of mathematics is a nonsense.
Bethnim ( talk) 13:04, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Some editors use the " financial mathematics" rather than the standard term " mathematical finance". This seems as imperialistic as the use of " Bayesian mathematics" (sic.) to refer to Bayesian statistics (imho)! Kiefer.Wolfowitz ( talk) 19:10, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Another editor might be able to cast a fresh eye at Talk:Tesseract#New_Animations where User:Jgmoxness wishes to insert a new animation into the article but I'm objecting. Dmcq ( talk) 21:35, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Here is the current template (footer):
Would the following navigational-box template be an improvement, and useful for further discussion?
Thanks! Kiefer.Wolfowitz ( talk) 20:05, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
We also have Portal:Mathematics with a section "Topics in mathematics" that looks quite good on first sight. It might be good if the presentation there could be harmonised with the template, so that people find it easier to switch from one to the other. Hans Adler 00:56, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Please, discuss this proposal. Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 21:30, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to go ahead and make a proposal regarding changes discussed above to the article assessment categories and such.
The current list is:
I would like to propose the following list:
In words:
Thoughts? RobHar ( talk) 23:40, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
It was suggested above to think about using the fields from the IMU (see [6]). At the least, I'd like to think about how to group the fields there to arrive at our list. Unfortunately, I have been traveling, so I will not be able to write more about this until tomorrow sometime. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 02:46, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Currently, you can only specify one field in the maths rating template. I'd like to propose allowing more than one. Math isn't always so clear cut. RobHar ( talk) 23:40, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Currently, the possible quality ratings for math articles are Stub, Start, B, B+, GA, A, FA. There was a discussion at the assessment talk page about changing this. I'd like to propose adding a 'C' rating to this scheme. I find there are articles better than a 'Start', but not yet a 'B'. Additionally, most (all?) other projects have a 'C' rating (so sometimes our articles end up with C ratings, which we must correct). RobHar ( talk) 23:40, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
If we include biography & history as suggested above, there needs to be some cooperation with the Wikiproject Biographies, which is doing their own separate article assessment. At least it doesn't make much sense sense when the article's discussion pages get 2 competing templates.-- Kmhkmh ( talk) 17:02, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Our special functions articles are, by and large, in a dreadful state. They are typically nothing more than a minimally differentiated list of formulas. This situation appears to be exacerbated by the edits of A. Pichler ( talk · contribs · logs), whose contributions to the project have, for a long time, consisted almost entirely of adding unreferenced identities to special function articles, some of which are quite dubious. User:Stevenj has warned him than once in the past to give references for the content he adds, but he continues not to give them. So Stevenj continues to revert many of this editor's contributions. More expert eyes on the contributions of this editor would be helpful. I've already gone one round with him. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 10:43, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
This article requires attention from an algebraic topologist. It appears to contain some recent research (see the refs), and I'd like to have some idea of the notability of the topic. There is now a version at Künneth theorem that contains the material; and after Stanley–Reisner ring was updated by User:Arcfrk some other related material was reposted at Stanley-Reisner ring (binary operations). There is an underlying point at the chain level about simplicial complexes, it seems, but if it is worth inclusion here, it might be more in the nature of a remark that should be in simplicial complex or simplicial homology. Charles Matthews ( talk) 13:50, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
This article's talk page is currently blank. 99% of the time, when I come across such an article, I try to attach a wikiproject banner to the talk page - though most of the time I can't say very much useful about the article rating, I know that the wikiproject involved usually finds this useful and particularly so if they subcribe to an automated article alerts service. However, when I naively tried to add {{ WP Mathematics}} I got a rather scary-looking warning sign. Should I simply add {{ maths rating}}, even though I wouldn't know how to rate it, in the hopes that somebody else will notice the blank template, come along and do so? Or are there WP Math reviewers who have a big list of unreviewed articles, regardless of whether they have a template on the talkpage, and are steadily working through the lot? Or infact, do y'all actually care about your project ratings at all, given that your articles (including this one) are included in comprehensive lists? I suppose what I really want to know is (a) if I come across such an article again, should I make an effort to bring its lack of a {{ maths rating}} to somebody's attention, or even make an attempt at filling out the more obvious parts of it, or just leave it alone; and (b) the rather naive question, why isn't {{ WP Mathematics}} a redirect to {{ maths rating}}, since the latter seems to fulfil a similar if not entirely analogous purpose to the "WP Whatever" templates of other projects? TheGrappler ( talk) 15:23, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
And why the name discrete geometry ? Do we have a better definition than the article currently uses: "the study that does not essentially rely on the notion of continuity." I mean circle packing involves arranging objects which are continuous, within a space which is continuous, in such a way that the circles only touch at tangent points (i.e. at infinitesimal points). What the heck is discrete about that ? ;-p Seriously though, surely combinatorial geometry is a better name. Bethnim ( talk) 21:22, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
David, I notice that on your page http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/junkyard/combinatorial.html you say "This is a difficult topic to define precisely without including all of discrete and computational geometry." Jwesley, for now I've added a concise non-negative definition to the article: "Discrete geometry and combinatorial geometry are about combinatorial properties of discrete collections of geometrical objects.". The article is of course a stub at the moment, but do you think there should eventually be separate articles for Discrete geometry and combinatorial geometry, or not ? Bethnim ( talk) 07:56, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Tate has received an Abel Prize (couldn't have happened to a nicer guy). The page is currently linked from the Main Page, so please watch for vandalism. Charles Matthews ( talk) 19:48, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
The ω in the title is the smallest infinite ordinal, and is not usually spelled out as omega. I thought the move to what I consider the only correct title would be totally uncontroversial, but apparently all page titles with non-Latin letters are currently on the blacklist for page moves. So I requested the move, and currently the situation at Talk:Omega automaton looks as if it might not pass due to the number (not quality) of objections – all by editors with no editing history in mathematics or computer science articles. I guess this is because of editors frequenting WP:RM who treat this ω-automaton if it was a silly trademark.
The case is similar to sigma-algebra/σ-algebra, but not the same: sigma-algebra appears more often than σ-algebra in Google Books, but ω-automaton appears much more often than omega-automaton.
Do we have consensus within the project? Hans Adler 08:21, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
The choice between anglicized and local spellings should follow English-language usage [...]
If there are too few English-language sources to constitute an established usage, follow the conventions of the language appropriate to the subject [...]
Names not originally in a Latin alphabet, such as Greek, Chinese or Russian names, must be transliterated. Established systematic transliterations, such as Hanyu Pinyin, are preferred. However if there is a common English-language form of the name, then use it, even if it is unsystematic (as with Tchaikovsky and Chiang Kai-shek). For a list of transliteration conventions by language, see Wikipedia:Romanization.
The technical term "observation space" for codomain of a random variable was used by User:Winterfors on 14 Feb 2008 in Bayesian experimental design, then by User:3mta3 on 7 May 2009 in Probability distribution, by an anon on 26 Aug 2009 in Random variable, and by User:Stpasha on 27 Nov 2009 in Probability density function. Now User:WestwoodMatt and a `random passerby' are unhappy with it, see Talk:Probability distribution#Observation Space.
As far as I understand, the term is used mostly by non-mathematicians, and its use in such articles as random variable is a bit off-label. On the other hand, it could be rather convenient here. Maybe we should mention it, but use sparingly.
However, the very idea to define a random variable as a measurable map from a probability space to an arbitrary measurable space could be a WP:POV. Maybe some sources use such terminology, but not the mainstream. Checking four books, "Probability: theory and examples" by Richard Durrett, "Probability with martingales" by David Williams, "Theory of probability and random processes" by Leonid Koralov and Yakov Sinai, and "Measure theory and probability theory" by Krishna Athreya and Soumendra Lahiri, I observe in all the four cases that a random variable is a measurable map from a probability space to the real line. More general objects are called random vectors, random functions and, most generally, random elements (of a given measurable space).
Any opinions, please? Boris Tsirelson ( talk) 16:36, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
The Heawood conjecture states that "the minimum number of colors necessary to color all graphs drawn on an orientable surface of that genus (or equivalently to color the regions of any partition of the surface into simply connected regions) is given by ...". I'm unable to understand how a particular graph can be a "counterexample to the Heawood conjecture" - as far as I can imagine, a "counterexample" should consist in some particular surface (presumably, the klein bottle in this case) and a proof that any graph on that surface can be colored with less than colors.
I obviously don't mean that Franklin was wrong, I just have the impression that the way this is stated on the two pages is by far too simplicistic... -- Toobaz ( talk) 21:39, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
I found this in an article:
I changed it to this:
I'd have guessed that the seemingly purposeless extra curly braces, although they might be inconvenient for those who edit (and who cares about them?) would not affect what the reader sees. But if your browser is like mine, there's a clearly visible difference. Why? (I also changed "l" to "\ell".) Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:04, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
My guess is also that the first expression's image is being cached from a previous version of the mediawiki TeX system. For example, when I copied the same exact code for the first expression to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sandbox and previewed it, the appearance was like the second expression. If it was just a rasterizer issue, the appearance should not change when I do that. The server software on meta is going to be identical to the current server software here. I seem to remember encountering this issue before. Usually, just adding some meaningless change to the TeX is enough to force the rendering to update. At some point we should file a bug asking them to purge the oldest images. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 02:42, 29 March 2010 (UTC)