An image from Desargues' theorem is scheduled to become picture of the day this coming Wednesday, Nov. 2. So now would be a good time to look over the article and make sure it is as good as it could be for the readers who come to it from the front page. See the article and its talk page for details. — David Eppstein ( talk) 21:19, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Interesting. It says "A diagram of Desargues' theorem, created using Adobe Illustrator. Based on File:Desargues theorem.svg, created by User:DynaBlast." It's an improvement over the picture by DynaBlast in this respect: none of the three depicted lines meeting at the center of perspectivity is parallel to the axis of perspectivity. In DynaBlast's version, one of them is parallel. DynaBlast's version is metrically identical to my earlier version that it superseded; mine had no colors. Mine was based on another identical diagram I drew on graph paper in 1999. Wikipedia didn't exist until 2001, so I could not have imagined that my picture's grandchild would have this career. Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:24, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
Opinions on this? I found the code particularly helpful when it was in. Rschwieb ( talk) 01:58, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
This link was recently added to the Ellipse article. It generates simple problems in conic sections and checks the answer if you type one in. (A similar link is in Factorization.) This doesn't seem to be excluded by ELNO but I'm not sure you can call it a "unique resource" either since you can find similar exercises in any precalculus text. The general question is whether external links are appropriate if they only contain exorcises or drills with no factual information, assuming they are well intentioned. My feeling is no, WP is not a textbook so articles should not be offering a list of exercises at the end as if it were. But I can see how some people might consider such links useful so I'm looking for other opinions.-- RDBury ( talk) 12:10, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
I just got a note questioning this edit. My reasoning is that conjectures are not facts and therefore the rules for verifiability do not apply. From what I can find though there seems to be little guidance from policies and guidelines as to what rules should be applied. My thinking is that the conjecture should meet some criteria for notability adapted from WP:N. Such as:
This reminds me of the discussion on mnemonics here a while ago in that it's a question of when non-factual material should be included in Wikipedia. On the principle that (with apologies to T.H. White) "Everything not forbidden will eventually be added to Wikipedia," I think whether or not things like mnemonics, conjectures, unsolved problems, etc. are encyclopedic should be covered by guidelines more than it is.-- RDBury ( talk) 01:49, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
To me a conjecture is notable if it has been noted in reliable sources, no different from lots of other things. Its unprovenness does not give it any special status that prevents us from writing about it, nor does it excuse us from finding adequate sources. In particular, re the original poster's assertion "conjectures are not facts and therefore the rules for verifiability do not apply": no, whether someone has made a conjecture or not is definitely a fact and should be verifiable. For instance, when one goes back to the original sources, one often finds things that later authors say are conjectures but which the original author stated less strongly. In the edits in question, two questions were stated as conjectures in an unverifiable form, with no references and without even enough information to reliably identify the mathematicians in question. Their removal, until sources could be added, was appropriate. — David Eppstein ( talk) 07:07, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
I like RDBury's criteria. They are moderate, flexible, and would keep out the worst offending material. Rschwieb ( talk) 17:23, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Hi folks, just passing on a question from an anon about the apostrophe in One's complement. Does anyone have a source on hand to verify? The Interior (Talk) 15:30, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Brad7777 ( talk · contribs) is indiscriminately adding mathematics articles to Category:Subdivisions of mathematics despite them (the one's I've checked) already being in more appropriate categories. I've tried explaining but he's dismissed what I've written and continued. Can anyone else get him to stop so we can undo the damage (I've asked him to do that but I doubt he will).-- JohnBlackburne words deeds 00:04, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
See also a related CfD: CfD:Category:Branches of mathematical analysis-- JohnBlackburne words deeds 22:03, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Input at Talk:Tetrimino#Move of Tetromino to Tetrimino would be welcome. Thanks, ἀνυπόδητος ( talk) 11:56, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Brad7777 ( talk) 16:46, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Just to clarify that, contrary to what Dmcq says, the term "Mathematical sciences" is not made up. It is the name of many university departments of mathematics etc. Google it, you'll see. My understanding of the term is that it is exactly designed to encompass the kinds of disciplines that we are discussing here. So, while people may not be happy to call math a science, it is a rather common thing to do. I am personally fine saying that math is not a natural science, nor a social science, but rather a mathematical science. RobHar ( talk) 15:10, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't really understand the debate here. I guess if all else fails, we can ask Oxford's DPMMS or the MSRI at Berkeley exactly what it is that they do... Sławomir Biały ( talk) 19:13, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Automedian triangle is a fairly new article that I find quite unclearly written. Can someone clarify it? Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:51, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
If a triangle is isosceles, the triangle formed by the second intersections of the medians with the circumcircle is also isosceles, by symmetry. The converse is not true: a non-isosceles triangle which gives an isosceles triangle via the medians is called an automedian triangle because of the relationship between the size of its medians and of its sides. Some geometrical properties of an automedian triangle are derived.
Better now? — David Eppstein ( talk) 01:30, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
Far better now! The initial sentence was incomprehensible; now it's crystal-clear. Thanks to David Eppstein. Michael Hardy ( talk) 12:29, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
Look at this: http://stats.grok.se/en/201111/desargues%27_theorem
On November 2nd, the day the picture at the top of this article was on the main page, the article was viewed about 6300 times. On a typical October day, it was viewed around 50 or 60 times. On October 26th, it was viewed 720 times (might that have been the day when it was announced it would be on the main page?).
But on November 2nd, it was never edited a single time. Why not? Michael Hardy ( talk) 22:14, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Bates–Young paradox is a new and very unclearly written article. If there's something legitimate here, it's hard to tell that from what appears. Michael Hardy ( talk) 12:20, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
We now have a list of topics named after Euclid, which can almost certainly be expanded, and a list of topics named after Alfred Tarski.
But we have no list of topics named after Niels Henrik Abel, nor a list of topics named after Pythagoras. Michael Hardy ( talk) 15:29, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
A rough draft is at User:Michael Hardy/Named after Pythagoras. Work on it if you can contributed and you're so inclined. Michael Hardy ( talk) 01:46, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
We also have no list of topics named after Thomas Bayes. Michael Hardy ( talk) 01:46, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Members of this WikiProject may be interested in Wikipedia talk:No original research#Possible enhancement of WP:CALC. Yaris678 ( talk) 14:50, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
I'm having a dispute with an anonymous editor on Square pyramidal number who wants to add a section proving the summation formula for these numbers. My feeling is that the proof (the obvious induction, written badly in the first person and tediously drawn out into many algebraic formulae) does not aid the readers to understand the subject any better and is therefore not a constructive contribution to the article. The anon is characterizing my removal of the proof as vandalism. Third opinions welcome. — David Eppstein ( talk) 21:57, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
There are more illuminating proofs of this result than a straight induction. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 15:05, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
The anonymous has performed seven reverts, two after being warned about WP:3RR. I've filed a report at 3RR/N: [3]. — David Eppstein ( talk) 21:03, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Another math related image File:Helicatenoid.gif is scheduled to be placed on the main page this weekend. The caption to be used is at Template:POTD/2011-11-13; it seems main-page-worthy to me but it might do with another check or two. It might also be a good idea to check over the articles the caption links to since they will be getting increased traffic. Theorema Egregium might also get a bump since the image is used there as well.-- RDBury ( talk) 01:42, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
I've brought this up here before but I suppose it won't hurt to ask again. A little while ago I went through the catenary article and removed the unsourced material in preparation for a GA review. I left in one statement to the effect that a simple suspension bridge follows the catenary curve. To me this is an obvious statement since this kind of bridge is basically a hanging cable which is big enough and flat enough to walk on. Another editor is apparently challenging the statement though and keeps removing it, so it seems that a cite is needed to keep it in the article. Unfortunately I am unable to find a reference so if anyone else can provide one I would appreciate it greatly. I think it would be a shame to remove the statement from the article since it provides a "real world" example of the subject, not to mention that it ties the entire section in with the rest of the article.-- RDBury ( talk) 12:32, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
By the way, there's a broken wikilnk from simple suspension bridge to a section title in catenary that doesn't exist as a section any more. — David Eppstein ( talk) 17:10, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
List of trigonometry topics is currently an unorganized list. Maybe we should work on organizing it. Michael Hardy ( talk) 20:01, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
I've started a draft at User:Michael Hardy/trig list, with the idea that when it's ready it will get moved to List of trigonometry topics and then I will merge the edit-histories of the two. Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:37, 12 November 2011 (UTC) ....I've started moving items from the section called "from the current list" into the sections above it, eliminating it from that bottom section when it appears in an organized section above. I included one of them in two sections; I think we should allow that when appropriate. I haven't limited it to topics that were already there. Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:41, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
I've moved the user-space draft to List of trigonometry topics and merged the edit histories.
The new organized list makes the lists deficiencies clearer. So do something about those if you can and are so inclined. Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:13, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Hermite's cotangent identity is a new article. Do what you can for it. Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:22, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
User Brad7777 has undertaken a massive reorganisation of categories related to mathematical analysis, see http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Special:Contributions&limit=500&target=Brad7777 This should probably be watched. Tkuvho ( talk) 10:09, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
I just checked a random edit by Brad7777 here and found that it added the following characterisation of a Cauchy sequence: a sequence whose elements become arbitrarily close to each other as the sequence progresses Is this accurate? Tkuvho ( talk) 10:14, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Kummer's theorem is a new article, still someone short, and stating but not proving the result. So far the only source cited is PlanetMath. Michael Hardy ( talk) 18:20, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
There's a dispute at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/13 November 2011/Usage share of operating systems that could probably use input from some people who know something about mathematics. Specifically, is identifying the median number out of ~10 numbers (all listed in the article) a sufficiently simple and routine operation as to be permitted under CALC (the {{ supplement}} WP:NOTOR#Simple_calculations says that simple descriptive statistics are okay, but CALC itself is more concerned with arithmetical transformations), or is picking out the middle number such a mathematically challenging exercise that doing so is impermissible OR?
(The amount of heat makes me wonder whether someone believes that the median gives short shrift to the "right" operating system, i.e., if this is a meta-dispute for an underlying problem, especially since most people opposed to providing a median in the text appear to approve of providing basically the same information in a graphic image.) WhatamIdoing ( talk) 16:38, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
At present there are two articles that seem to cover conjugates in field extensions, Conjugate (algebra) and Conjugate element (field theory). Could someone who is versed in the subject have a look to see if they can be merged? By the way, Conjugate elements currently redirects to Conjugacy class. Is this appropriate? Isheden ( talk) 16:53, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
I and User:Cpiral disagree over a change he wants to make to the article E (mathematical constant): he's not accepting my arguments, I'm not accepting his, and we've reached an impasse. Can someone else take a look and see what they think. The thread starts here.-- JohnBlackburne words deeds 22:56, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Brad7777 keeps creating and populating categories such as Category:Articles on branches of mathematical analysis. I believe this is inappropriate overcategorization (and an awkward name). Any ideas about this? Jakob.scholbach ( talk) 12:37, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Brad7777 ( talk) 18:03, 11 November 2011 (UTC) I think it's clear that we should not have both Category:Articles on branches of mathematical analysis and Category:Branches of mathematical analysis. That's just silly. I don't have an opinion on whether Category:Branches of mathematical analysis should be kept. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 13:35, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
There's now a new category Category:Articles on areas of mathematics. Do we need this, what's the difference between a subdivision and an area. Besides I notice subdivisions is being named fields of mathematics. Are we next going to get branches of mathematics? Dmcq ( talk) 13:58, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't see a point in having separate categories Category:Mathematics, Category:Subdivisions of mathematics, and Category:Articles on areas of mathematics. What extra useful meaning do the extra words convey? — David Eppstein ( talk) 19:56, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
The rather new (but good, in my opinion) Category:Theorems in calculus has been (seemingly needlessly) forked into Category:Theorems in differential calculus, Category:Theorems in integral calculus, Category:Theorems in multivariable calculus, Category:Theorems in vector calculus, with articles (apparently randomly) assigned to these subcategories. For instance, Fubini's theorem is in Category:Theorems in integral calculus but not Category:Theorems in multivariable calculus. There really aren't even that many theorems in calculus to necessitate any subcategories. Any opinions on restoring the original Category:Theorems in calculus and nuking the rest as overcategorization? Sławomir Biały ( talk) 14:05, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Many of Brad's edits seem perfectly ok to me, since many of our top level categories are over-populated. But I think some of the new categories are problematic. Also, I'm not quite sure what Brad was thinking with this edit. Nothing prevents a category from being in both a parent and child category, and in this case that seems appropriate. I think maybe Brad could use some guidance in what the purpose, aims, and structure of categories are (by someone who understands and appreciates them better than I do). Sławomir Biały ( talk) 17:52, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
There seems to be a little confusion on how categories work. WP:MATH needs to designate a few particularly important organizational categories that will contain ALL appropriate articles regardless of whether or no they are already in a subcategory. Any "divisions" or "fields of" category you come up with will certainly qualify. So therefore, Algebra can go under "fields" (or "divisions") and "Algebra" just fine. Greg Bard ( talk) 20:24, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Why on earth can't we follow the classification from Zentralblatt or the AMS? I though this encyclopaedia tried to base itself or verifiability. It would solve a lot of problems and conflict. If the area is also part of another thing like Game theory in Economics there will be a problem but at least we'll be able to easily describe the problem and hopefully solve it. Dmcq ( talk) 12:29, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
It just seems to me that there are two ways to resolve this: (A) argue about it for a long time, until most people lose interest and the few survivors write the policy, or (B) find some citable classifications, follow them, and be done with it. Approach (B) has the advantage of lessening the subjectivity and bias inherent in classifying such things. Approach (A) has the advantage that argument is usually more fun than diligent research. Mgnbar ( talk) 20:45, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
The preceding edit of mine seems a bit hostile, upon re-reading. Sorry about that. But it does seem to me that using an established classification system, rather than inventing one from scratch, is more likely to lead to an acceptable categorization quickly. Mgnbar ( talk) 22:02, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Now there is Category:History of geometry (as distinct from Category:History of mathematics). Considering that, until relatively recently, all mathematics was geometry, this seems like overcategorization to me. What are our thoughts about this? Should Brad stop creating new categories? Sławomir Biały ( talk) 20:24, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Please bear in mind that no written rule should be followed blindly. Every set of rules is inadequate to describe the real world or how we should interact with it. So you must always exercise caution and use common sense. Make sure you understand what is going on before you act. Instead of making massive changes in categories, you should make a separate judgement in each case after you have experience using the articles and categories in question. JRSpriggs ( talk) 20:33, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
The category Category:Italian mathematicians (and categories like Category:Xth-century Italian people for numerous values of X) have been entirely decimated by Brad7777 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Someone will definitely need to fix this. The {{ allincluded}} template seems relevant. There is, after all, no guarantee that someone browsing Italian mathematicians will wish to do it by year. We can keep the intersection categories, but we should restore the original parent categories too. (This is a textbook example of non-diffusing categories.) Sławomir Biały ( talk) 13:30, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
This morning, someone created Category:Mathematics of ancient history and started moving stuff out of Category:History of mathematics. Not only do I find this new category unnecessary, but the title is a bit dubious. Also, apparently the only way to get to these articles from Category:History of mathematics is by navigating to it through Category:Mathematics by era, and then selecting a relevant subcategory before you ever even see an article! Enough is enough! Someone undo all of Brad's edits and block him. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 14:22, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Brad7777 ( talk) 17:19, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
I believe that at this point a user-conduct RFC is fully warranted. That would be the next step to take, before a block, I think, if he won't voluntarily stop his disruption on his own. — David Eppstein ( talk) 17:46, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
let me know what you think Brad7777 ( talk) 10:11, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Category:Theorems in fourier analysis (with incorrect capitalization), and articles removed from Category:Theorems in analysis and Category:Fourier analysis. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 20:54, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
I thought it would make sense to merge the categories (hence remove them from the parents) as Category:Theorems in fourier analysis is in both Category:Fourier analysis and Category:Theorems in analysis. I see you have removed most of the theorems from Category:Theorems in fourier analysis with the note "Obtain consensus before creating any more categories.", leaving only Bochner's theorem and Convolution theorem in it.
I've found several math articles (e.g. Dedekind number, 1729 (number), History of calculus, Tetrahedron) using MathPages.com as a reference. The consensus here seems to be that although the site is more than suitable for the External links section, it does not meet the criteria for a reliable source. There seems to have been no input from this project in the discussion though and the site seems authoritative, so I'm wondering if an overly literal interpretation of WP:V was being applied. In any case, I'd like to add a discussion of the site to Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Reference resources and create a template for linking to the site since there are links in over a hundred articles. I'm also wondering if a Wikipedia article should be created for the site, I'm not finding many independent sources for it however.-- RDBury ( talk) 02:33, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
MathPages is a one man project (I think). And although many of the essays are excellent and on the ball, they are the opinion of just one man. As such, care needs to be taken when using it as a source. In particular, on several subjective issues the essays aren't entirely neutral. One particular issue is that Kevin doesn't cite any sources. This carries the risk that he is using wikipedia as a source for some of his statements. Consequently, referencing Mathpages may lead to circular sourcing without it being detected. Still the pages tend to give very good expositions of basic facts. T R 12:02, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
Could someone in the field verify the references? The article is so badly written than I can't match statements to references, and some of the references are copied by name from another article. I've tried to clean up the article, but the editor who has repurposed the article is adding references faster than I can check them. Other problems include:
I thought this was near enough to one of the fields ( coding theory and information theory) in which I am expert than I could understand it, but the editor objects to my changes, so perhaps it isn't.
Also I would like someone to note that the 6 tags I've added in the heading are minimal; I could probably find 4 or 5 more which are relevant. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:10, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Does Fermat's Last Theorem in fiction fall into the scope of this WikiProject? If so, {{ Maths rating}} should perhaps be added to the talk page and the article be added to List of mathematics articles. Now I am aware the article is not directly about a mathematical topic, but rather a list of appearances of a mathematical topic in works of fiction. However, the same could be said about an article such as Gödel Prize, which is also not directly about a mathematical topic. So does this list fall into the scope of this WikiProject? Toshio Yamaguchi ( talk) 16:13, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
I have nominated the following articles for deletion that are in the scope of this project: Semiotics of the structure and Ashay Dharwadker. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 14:07, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
In spite of efforts by many editors (incl. myself), the random matrix article is still in poor shape. Help is welcome. Sasha ( talk) 16:33, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
Slffea ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been very intent on removing content from Discrete Poisson equation, and I have been reverting him (three times now). I have tried to engage the editor at User talk:Slffea, but without much avail. Please comment at Talk:Discrete Poisson equation. Thanks, Sławomir Biały ( talk) 22:37, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
An anonymous editor (that's me) and some other guys are having an intellectual debate over whether the stellated octahedron, stella octangula, small stellated octahedron, and great octahedron are regular polyhedra. (Just like Gadhafi, Q(w)addafi, and Kaddafi are all dead.) This article really needs some special attention from the crew. See the talk page for more info. 20:05, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
The Wikipedia:India Education Program is a program where college students are asked to work on WP pages as a course assignments; there are probably others but this one has appeared in my radar twice now. I'm conflicted about this kind of thing. On one hand it might be a great way of getting some improvements done on some important articles that are otherwise being neglected. On the other hand it seems like getting volunteers from WP to evaluate students' assignments is taking away work from a starving TA somewhere; as a former starving TA myself I'm a bit sensitive about that kind of thing. In any case, a disproportionate number of the assigned articles fall under this project and many of the students are new to WP, so there may be an uptick in amateurish, if well-intentioned edits to the assigned articles and it might be a a good idea to keep an eye on them. Lists of assigned articles can be found here and the math related articles are mainly in the section 'College Of Engineering, Pune'.-- RDBury ( talk) 17:44, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
I have nominated this as a good article, and thought I would mention it here. Thenub314 ( talk) 07:07, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
See Talk:Cauchy_product#Summations regarding the "Cauchy product" of finite sequences. Thanks. Jowa fan ( talk) 23:16, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
I have proposed deletion of this file: Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2011_November_22#File:TnormCDF.png The vertical axis says "probability density", and that is false, and cannot be edited. The values of a cumulative probability distribution function are probabilities, not probability densities. The values of a probability density function are probability densities. This is obvsiouly not a probability density function. Michael Hardy ( talk) 05:54, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
I think we should create and article Transform (mathematics). We used to have one, but in 2009 it was changed by Christophre ( talk · contribs) to a redirect to Integral transform. Unless anyone has a good reason not to, I will bring back this version of the article. Yaris678 ( talk) 13:07, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
The article Real analysis does not seem very good at all, even though it is arguably is the most fundamental mathematical discipline towards grasping higher leveled mathematics.
Should this page be worked on?
In the see also section, there is a link to List of real analysis topics which would be of more interest to anybody looking at real analysis for key concepts, but this also need working on. I have made aload of edits (some are possibly innacurate, sorry). But i think this page would be more appealable if instead it was changed to Glossary of real analysis, similar to for example Glossary of field theory or Glossary of category theory. Especially because of the importance of this discipline. should it be worked on/renamed or even reverted?? Brad7777 ( talk) 22:42, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Calculus:Category Tree |
---|
... I think it could be improved so that it is easier to find relevant articles. For example I think there should be
Category:Applications of calculus (containing relevant articles from applied mathematics and in other areas of mathematics) in Category:Calculus.
The subcategories should be more predictable. Brad7777 ( talk) 17:10, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
I created a new category at Category:Theorems and conjectures about prime numbers which I want to fill with the entries from Category:Conjectures about prime numbers and with proven theorems. Another user reminded me of the fact that this creates a redundancy with Category:Conjectures about prime numbers. Category:Theorems about prime numbers does not exist. I do not think it is really necessary to create seperate categories for theorems and conjectures, but I might be mistaken with this thought. Input and feedback welcome. Thanks. Toshio Yamaguchi ( talk) 16:13, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Having a look at...
Prime numbers:Category tree |
---|
...you to have to go through Category:Theorems and conjectures about prime numbers first to get to Category:Conjectures about prime numbers. To me, it suggests either i) Category:Theorems about prime numbers does need to be created, in which case I would then think Category:Theorems and conjectures about prime numbers should be scrapped or ii) Category:Conjectures about prime numbers should be scrapped Brad7777 ( talk) 15:50, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
I noticed that Category:Prime numbers contains conjectures, theorems and other information about prime numbers in general. I would like to create a category for individual prime numbers, such as 2 (number), 3 (number), 5 (number) etc. So should this category perhaps be renamed to make that name free for a category containing individual primes? Toshio Yamaguchi ( talk) 18:26, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Category:Perfect numbers, which is under the purview of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:30, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
List of mathematics problems named after places is no longer a userspace draft. It needs work. In particular:
Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:59, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Also see Lists of things named after places, a new article. Michael Hardy ( talk) 18:00, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
There is an operation, "truncated subtraction", sometimes considered in recursion theory and other contexts, which is a sort of subtraction on natural numbers, except that if the answer would have been negative, the result is 0 instead. That is:
Where "S" denotes the successor operation.
We don't have an article on truncated subtraction, and I was not able to find it under another name. Do we have it under another name? — Mark Dominus ( talk) 19:05, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
The article on primitive recursive functions calls it limited subtraction, but we don't have an article on it under that name either. — Mark Dominus ( talk) 19:13, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
primitive recursive function also calls it proper subtraction. — Mark Dominus ( talk) 19:35, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
There is an AfD on Basic concepts of quantum mechanics that raises some important questions for many technical articles:
It looks like the developers are discussing MathJax on the dev mailing list [7] and things are looking promising. Main issues seems to be suport for mobile browsers. Brions added a note at User talk:Nageh#MathJax integration into stock MediaWiki.-- Salix ( talk): 07:52, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
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The main issue, beside mobile browsers, will be getting the fallback correct so that users who don't have Javascript will still see images rather than LaTeX source. Other sites like MathOverflow don't have this problem because they don't fall back to images. But the devs are committed to making Mediawiki work acceptably well without Javascript. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:55, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Here's the feature request I put in in almost two months ago:
I'm glad to hear it's moving along. Michael Hardy ( talk) 05:15, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
An image from Desargues' theorem is scheduled to become picture of the day this coming Wednesday, Nov. 2. So now would be a good time to look over the article and make sure it is as good as it could be for the readers who come to it from the front page. See the article and its talk page for details. — David Eppstein ( talk) 21:19, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Interesting. It says "A diagram of Desargues' theorem, created using Adobe Illustrator. Based on File:Desargues theorem.svg, created by User:DynaBlast." It's an improvement over the picture by DynaBlast in this respect: none of the three depicted lines meeting at the center of perspectivity is parallel to the axis of perspectivity. In DynaBlast's version, one of them is parallel. DynaBlast's version is metrically identical to my earlier version that it superseded; mine had no colors. Mine was based on another identical diagram I drew on graph paper in 1999. Wikipedia didn't exist until 2001, so I could not have imagined that my picture's grandchild would have this career. Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:24, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
Opinions on this? I found the code particularly helpful when it was in. Rschwieb ( talk) 01:58, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
This link was recently added to the Ellipse article. It generates simple problems in conic sections and checks the answer if you type one in. (A similar link is in Factorization.) This doesn't seem to be excluded by ELNO but I'm not sure you can call it a "unique resource" either since you can find similar exercises in any precalculus text. The general question is whether external links are appropriate if they only contain exorcises or drills with no factual information, assuming they are well intentioned. My feeling is no, WP is not a textbook so articles should not be offering a list of exercises at the end as if it were. But I can see how some people might consider such links useful so I'm looking for other opinions.-- RDBury ( talk) 12:10, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
I just got a note questioning this edit. My reasoning is that conjectures are not facts and therefore the rules for verifiability do not apply. From what I can find though there seems to be little guidance from policies and guidelines as to what rules should be applied. My thinking is that the conjecture should meet some criteria for notability adapted from WP:N. Such as:
This reminds me of the discussion on mnemonics here a while ago in that it's a question of when non-factual material should be included in Wikipedia. On the principle that (with apologies to T.H. White) "Everything not forbidden will eventually be added to Wikipedia," I think whether or not things like mnemonics, conjectures, unsolved problems, etc. are encyclopedic should be covered by guidelines more than it is.-- RDBury ( talk) 01:49, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
To me a conjecture is notable if it has been noted in reliable sources, no different from lots of other things. Its unprovenness does not give it any special status that prevents us from writing about it, nor does it excuse us from finding adequate sources. In particular, re the original poster's assertion "conjectures are not facts and therefore the rules for verifiability do not apply": no, whether someone has made a conjecture or not is definitely a fact and should be verifiable. For instance, when one goes back to the original sources, one often finds things that later authors say are conjectures but which the original author stated less strongly. In the edits in question, two questions were stated as conjectures in an unverifiable form, with no references and without even enough information to reliably identify the mathematicians in question. Their removal, until sources could be added, was appropriate. — David Eppstein ( talk) 07:07, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
I like RDBury's criteria. They are moderate, flexible, and would keep out the worst offending material. Rschwieb ( talk) 17:23, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Hi folks, just passing on a question from an anon about the apostrophe in One's complement. Does anyone have a source on hand to verify? The Interior (Talk) 15:30, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Brad7777 ( talk · contribs) is indiscriminately adding mathematics articles to Category:Subdivisions of mathematics despite them (the one's I've checked) already being in more appropriate categories. I've tried explaining but he's dismissed what I've written and continued. Can anyone else get him to stop so we can undo the damage (I've asked him to do that but I doubt he will).-- JohnBlackburne words deeds 00:04, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
See also a related CfD: CfD:Category:Branches of mathematical analysis-- JohnBlackburne words deeds 22:03, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Input at Talk:Tetrimino#Move of Tetromino to Tetrimino would be welcome. Thanks, ἀνυπόδητος ( talk) 11:56, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Brad7777 ( talk) 16:46, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Just to clarify that, contrary to what Dmcq says, the term "Mathematical sciences" is not made up. It is the name of many university departments of mathematics etc. Google it, you'll see. My understanding of the term is that it is exactly designed to encompass the kinds of disciplines that we are discussing here. So, while people may not be happy to call math a science, it is a rather common thing to do. I am personally fine saying that math is not a natural science, nor a social science, but rather a mathematical science. RobHar ( talk) 15:10, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't really understand the debate here. I guess if all else fails, we can ask Oxford's DPMMS or the MSRI at Berkeley exactly what it is that they do... Sławomir Biały ( talk) 19:13, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Automedian triangle is a fairly new article that I find quite unclearly written. Can someone clarify it? Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:51, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
If a triangle is isosceles, the triangle formed by the second intersections of the medians with the circumcircle is also isosceles, by symmetry. The converse is not true: a non-isosceles triangle which gives an isosceles triangle via the medians is called an automedian triangle because of the relationship between the size of its medians and of its sides. Some geometrical properties of an automedian triangle are derived.
Better now? — David Eppstein ( talk) 01:30, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
Far better now! The initial sentence was incomprehensible; now it's crystal-clear. Thanks to David Eppstein. Michael Hardy ( talk) 12:29, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
Look at this: http://stats.grok.se/en/201111/desargues%27_theorem
On November 2nd, the day the picture at the top of this article was on the main page, the article was viewed about 6300 times. On a typical October day, it was viewed around 50 or 60 times. On October 26th, it was viewed 720 times (might that have been the day when it was announced it would be on the main page?).
But on November 2nd, it was never edited a single time. Why not? Michael Hardy ( talk) 22:14, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Bates–Young paradox is a new and very unclearly written article. If there's something legitimate here, it's hard to tell that from what appears. Michael Hardy ( talk) 12:20, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
We now have a list of topics named after Euclid, which can almost certainly be expanded, and a list of topics named after Alfred Tarski.
But we have no list of topics named after Niels Henrik Abel, nor a list of topics named after Pythagoras. Michael Hardy ( talk) 15:29, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
A rough draft is at User:Michael Hardy/Named after Pythagoras. Work on it if you can contributed and you're so inclined. Michael Hardy ( talk) 01:46, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
We also have no list of topics named after Thomas Bayes. Michael Hardy ( talk) 01:46, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Members of this WikiProject may be interested in Wikipedia talk:No original research#Possible enhancement of WP:CALC. Yaris678 ( talk) 14:50, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
I'm having a dispute with an anonymous editor on Square pyramidal number who wants to add a section proving the summation formula for these numbers. My feeling is that the proof (the obvious induction, written badly in the first person and tediously drawn out into many algebraic formulae) does not aid the readers to understand the subject any better and is therefore not a constructive contribution to the article. The anon is characterizing my removal of the proof as vandalism. Third opinions welcome. — David Eppstein ( talk) 21:57, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
There are more illuminating proofs of this result than a straight induction. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 15:05, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
The anonymous has performed seven reverts, two after being warned about WP:3RR. I've filed a report at 3RR/N: [3]. — David Eppstein ( talk) 21:03, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Another math related image File:Helicatenoid.gif is scheduled to be placed on the main page this weekend. The caption to be used is at Template:POTD/2011-11-13; it seems main-page-worthy to me but it might do with another check or two. It might also be a good idea to check over the articles the caption links to since they will be getting increased traffic. Theorema Egregium might also get a bump since the image is used there as well.-- RDBury ( talk) 01:42, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
I've brought this up here before but I suppose it won't hurt to ask again. A little while ago I went through the catenary article and removed the unsourced material in preparation for a GA review. I left in one statement to the effect that a simple suspension bridge follows the catenary curve. To me this is an obvious statement since this kind of bridge is basically a hanging cable which is big enough and flat enough to walk on. Another editor is apparently challenging the statement though and keeps removing it, so it seems that a cite is needed to keep it in the article. Unfortunately I am unable to find a reference so if anyone else can provide one I would appreciate it greatly. I think it would be a shame to remove the statement from the article since it provides a "real world" example of the subject, not to mention that it ties the entire section in with the rest of the article.-- RDBury ( talk) 12:32, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
By the way, there's a broken wikilnk from simple suspension bridge to a section title in catenary that doesn't exist as a section any more. — David Eppstein ( talk) 17:10, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
List of trigonometry topics is currently an unorganized list. Maybe we should work on organizing it. Michael Hardy ( talk) 20:01, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
I've started a draft at User:Michael Hardy/trig list, with the idea that when it's ready it will get moved to List of trigonometry topics and then I will merge the edit-histories of the two. Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:37, 12 November 2011 (UTC) ....I've started moving items from the section called "from the current list" into the sections above it, eliminating it from that bottom section when it appears in an organized section above. I included one of them in two sections; I think we should allow that when appropriate. I haven't limited it to topics that were already there. Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:41, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
I've moved the user-space draft to List of trigonometry topics and merged the edit histories.
The new organized list makes the lists deficiencies clearer. So do something about those if you can and are so inclined. Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:13, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Hermite's cotangent identity is a new article. Do what you can for it. Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:22, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
User Brad7777 has undertaken a massive reorganisation of categories related to mathematical analysis, see http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Special:Contributions&limit=500&target=Brad7777 This should probably be watched. Tkuvho ( talk) 10:09, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
I just checked a random edit by Brad7777 here and found that it added the following characterisation of a Cauchy sequence: a sequence whose elements become arbitrarily close to each other as the sequence progresses Is this accurate? Tkuvho ( talk) 10:14, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Kummer's theorem is a new article, still someone short, and stating but not proving the result. So far the only source cited is PlanetMath. Michael Hardy ( talk) 18:20, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
There's a dispute at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/13 November 2011/Usage share of operating systems that could probably use input from some people who know something about mathematics. Specifically, is identifying the median number out of ~10 numbers (all listed in the article) a sufficiently simple and routine operation as to be permitted under CALC (the {{ supplement}} WP:NOTOR#Simple_calculations says that simple descriptive statistics are okay, but CALC itself is more concerned with arithmetical transformations), or is picking out the middle number such a mathematically challenging exercise that doing so is impermissible OR?
(The amount of heat makes me wonder whether someone believes that the median gives short shrift to the "right" operating system, i.e., if this is a meta-dispute for an underlying problem, especially since most people opposed to providing a median in the text appear to approve of providing basically the same information in a graphic image.) WhatamIdoing ( talk) 16:38, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
At present there are two articles that seem to cover conjugates in field extensions, Conjugate (algebra) and Conjugate element (field theory). Could someone who is versed in the subject have a look to see if they can be merged? By the way, Conjugate elements currently redirects to Conjugacy class. Is this appropriate? Isheden ( talk) 16:53, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
I and User:Cpiral disagree over a change he wants to make to the article E (mathematical constant): he's not accepting my arguments, I'm not accepting his, and we've reached an impasse. Can someone else take a look and see what they think. The thread starts here.-- JohnBlackburne words deeds 22:56, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Brad7777 keeps creating and populating categories such as Category:Articles on branches of mathematical analysis. I believe this is inappropriate overcategorization (and an awkward name). Any ideas about this? Jakob.scholbach ( talk) 12:37, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Brad7777 ( talk) 18:03, 11 November 2011 (UTC) I think it's clear that we should not have both Category:Articles on branches of mathematical analysis and Category:Branches of mathematical analysis. That's just silly. I don't have an opinion on whether Category:Branches of mathematical analysis should be kept. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 13:35, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
There's now a new category Category:Articles on areas of mathematics. Do we need this, what's the difference between a subdivision and an area. Besides I notice subdivisions is being named fields of mathematics. Are we next going to get branches of mathematics? Dmcq ( talk) 13:58, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't see a point in having separate categories Category:Mathematics, Category:Subdivisions of mathematics, and Category:Articles on areas of mathematics. What extra useful meaning do the extra words convey? — David Eppstein ( talk) 19:56, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
The rather new (but good, in my opinion) Category:Theorems in calculus has been (seemingly needlessly) forked into Category:Theorems in differential calculus, Category:Theorems in integral calculus, Category:Theorems in multivariable calculus, Category:Theorems in vector calculus, with articles (apparently randomly) assigned to these subcategories. For instance, Fubini's theorem is in Category:Theorems in integral calculus but not Category:Theorems in multivariable calculus. There really aren't even that many theorems in calculus to necessitate any subcategories. Any opinions on restoring the original Category:Theorems in calculus and nuking the rest as overcategorization? Sławomir Biały ( talk) 14:05, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Many of Brad's edits seem perfectly ok to me, since many of our top level categories are over-populated. But I think some of the new categories are problematic. Also, I'm not quite sure what Brad was thinking with this edit. Nothing prevents a category from being in both a parent and child category, and in this case that seems appropriate. I think maybe Brad could use some guidance in what the purpose, aims, and structure of categories are (by someone who understands and appreciates them better than I do). Sławomir Biały ( talk) 17:52, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
There seems to be a little confusion on how categories work. WP:MATH needs to designate a few particularly important organizational categories that will contain ALL appropriate articles regardless of whether or no they are already in a subcategory. Any "divisions" or "fields of" category you come up with will certainly qualify. So therefore, Algebra can go under "fields" (or "divisions") and "Algebra" just fine. Greg Bard ( talk) 20:24, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Why on earth can't we follow the classification from Zentralblatt or the AMS? I though this encyclopaedia tried to base itself or verifiability. It would solve a lot of problems and conflict. If the area is also part of another thing like Game theory in Economics there will be a problem but at least we'll be able to easily describe the problem and hopefully solve it. Dmcq ( talk) 12:29, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
It just seems to me that there are two ways to resolve this: (A) argue about it for a long time, until most people lose interest and the few survivors write the policy, or (B) find some citable classifications, follow them, and be done with it. Approach (B) has the advantage of lessening the subjectivity and bias inherent in classifying such things. Approach (A) has the advantage that argument is usually more fun than diligent research. Mgnbar ( talk) 20:45, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
The preceding edit of mine seems a bit hostile, upon re-reading. Sorry about that. But it does seem to me that using an established classification system, rather than inventing one from scratch, is more likely to lead to an acceptable categorization quickly. Mgnbar ( talk) 22:02, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Now there is Category:History of geometry (as distinct from Category:History of mathematics). Considering that, until relatively recently, all mathematics was geometry, this seems like overcategorization to me. What are our thoughts about this? Should Brad stop creating new categories? Sławomir Biały ( talk) 20:24, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Please bear in mind that no written rule should be followed blindly. Every set of rules is inadequate to describe the real world or how we should interact with it. So you must always exercise caution and use common sense. Make sure you understand what is going on before you act. Instead of making massive changes in categories, you should make a separate judgement in each case after you have experience using the articles and categories in question. JRSpriggs ( talk) 20:33, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
The category Category:Italian mathematicians (and categories like Category:Xth-century Italian people for numerous values of X) have been entirely decimated by Brad7777 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Someone will definitely need to fix this. The {{ allincluded}} template seems relevant. There is, after all, no guarantee that someone browsing Italian mathematicians will wish to do it by year. We can keep the intersection categories, but we should restore the original parent categories too. (This is a textbook example of non-diffusing categories.) Sławomir Biały ( talk) 13:30, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
This morning, someone created Category:Mathematics of ancient history and started moving stuff out of Category:History of mathematics. Not only do I find this new category unnecessary, but the title is a bit dubious. Also, apparently the only way to get to these articles from Category:History of mathematics is by navigating to it through Category:Mathematics by era, and then selecting a relevant subcategory before you ever even see an article! Enough is enough! Someone undo all of Brad's edits and block him. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 14:22, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Brad7777 ( talk) 17:19, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
I believe that at this point a user-conduct RFC is fully warranted. That would be the next step to take, before a block, I think, if he won't voluntarily stop his disruption on his own. — David Eppstein ( talk) 17:46, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
let me know what you think Brad7777 ( talk) 10:11, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Category:Theorems in fourier analysis (with incorrect capitalization), and articles removed from Category:Theorems in analysis and Category:Fourier analysis. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 20:54, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
I thought it would make sense to merge the categories (hence remove them from the parents) as Category:Theorems in fourier analysis is in both Category:Fourier analysis and Category:Theorems in analysis. I see you have removed most of the theorems from Category:Theorems in fourier analysis with the note "Obtain consensus before creating any more categories.", leaving only Bochner's theorem and Convolution theorem in it.
I've found several math articles (e.g. Dedekind number, 1729 (number), History of calculus, Tetrahedron) using MathPages.com as a reference. The consensus here seems to be that although the site is more than suitable for the External links section, it does not meet the criteria for a reliable source. There seems to have been no input from this project in the discussion though and the site seems authoritative, so I'm wondering if an overly literal interpretation of WP:V was being applied. In any case, I'd like to add a discussion of the site to Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Reference resources and create a template for linking to the site since there are links in over a hundred articles. I'm also wondering if a Wikipedia article should be created for the site, I'm not finding many independent sources for it however.-- RDBury ( talk) 02:33, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
MathPages is a one man project (I think). And although many of the essays are excellent and on the ball, they are the opinion of just one man. As such, care needs to be taken when using it as a source. In particular, on several subjective issues the essays aren't entirely neutral. One particular issue is that Kevin doesn't cite any sources. This carries the risk that he is using wikipedia as a source for some of his statements. Consequently, referencing Mathpages may lead to circular sourcing without it being detected. Still the pages tend to give very good expositions of basic facts. T R 12:02, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
Could someone in the field verify the references? The article is so badly written than I can't match statements to references, and some of the references are copied by name from another article. I've tried to clean up the article, but the editor who has repurposed the article is adding references faster than I can check them. Other problems include:
I thought this was near enough to one of the fields ( coding theory and information theory) in which I am expert than I could understand it, but the editor objects to my changes, so perhaps it isn't.
Also I would like someone to note that the 6 tags I've added in the heading are minimal; I could probably find 4 or 5 more which are relevant. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:10, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Does Fermat's Last Theorem in fiction fall into the scope of this WikiProject? If so, {{ Maths rating}} should perhaps be added to the talk page and the article be added to List of mathematics articles. Now I am aware the article is not directly about a mathematical topic, but rather a list of appearances of a mathematical topic in works of fiction. However, the same could be said about an article such as Gödel Prize, which is also not directly about a mathematical topic. So does this list fall into the scope of this WikiProject? Toshio Yamaguchi ( talk) 16:13, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
I have nominated the following articles for deletion that are in the scope of this project: Semiotics of the structure and Ashay Dharwadker. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 14:07, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
In spite of efforts by many editors (incl. myself), the random matrix article is still in poor shape. Help is welcome. Sasha ( talk) 16:33, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
Slffea ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been very intent on removing content from Discrete Poisson equation, and I have been reverting him (three times now). I have tried to engage the editor at User talk:Slffea, but without much avail. Please comment at Talk:Discrete Poisson equation. Thanks, Sławomir Biały ( talk) 22:37, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
An anonymous editor (that's me) and some other guys are having an intellectual debate over whether the stellated octahedron, stella octangula, small stellated octahedron, and great octahedron are regular polyhedra. (Just like Gadhafi, Q(w)addafi, and Kaddafi are all dead.) This article really needs some special attention from the crew. See the talk page for more info. 20:05, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
The Wikipedia:India Education Program is a program where college students are asked to work on WP pages as a course assignments; there are probably others but this one has appeared in my radar twice now. I'm conflicted about this kind of thing. On one hand it might be a great way of getting some improvements done on some important articles that are otherwise being neglected. On the other hand it seems like getting volunteers from WP to evaluate students' assignments is taking away work from a starving TA somewhere; as a former starving TA myself I'm a bit sensitive about that kind of thing. In any case, a disproportionate number of the assigned articles fall under this project and many of the students are new to WP, so there may be an uptick in amateurish, if well-intentioned edits to the assigned articles and it might be a a good idea to keep an eye on them. Lists of assigned articles can be found here and the math related articles are mainly in the section 'College Of Engineering, Pune'.-- RDBury ( talk) 17:44, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
I have nominated this as a good article, and thought I would mention it here. Thenub314 ( talk) 07:07, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
See Talk:Cauchy_product#Summations regarding the "Cauchy product" of finite sequences. Thanks. Jowa fan ( talk) 23:16, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
I have proposed deletion of this file: Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2011_November_22#File:TnormCDF.png The vertical axis says "probability density", and that is false, and cannot be edited. The values of a cumulative probability distribution function are probabilities, not probability densities. The values of a probability density function are probability densities. This is obvsiouly not a probability density function. Michael Hardy ( talk) 05:54, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
I think we should create and article Transform (mathematics). We used to have one, but in 2009 it was changed by Christophre ( talk · contribs) to a redirect to Integral transform. Unless anyone has a good reason not to, I will bring back this version of the article. Yaris678 ( talk) 13:07, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
The article Real analysis does not seem very good at all, even though it is arguably is the most fundamental mathematical discipline towards grasping higher leveled mathematics.
Should this page be worked on?
In the see also section, there is a link to List of real analysis topics which would be of more interest to anybody looking at real analysis for key concepts, but this also need working on. I have made aload of edits (some are possibly innacurate, sorry). But i think this page would be more appealable if instead it was changed to Glossary of real analysis, similar to for example Glossary of field theory or Glossary of category theory. Especially because of the importance of this discipline. should it be worked on/renamed or even reverted?? Brad7777 ( talk) 22:42, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Calculus:Category Tree |
---|
... I think it could be improved so that it is easier to find relevant articles. For example I think there should be
Category:Applications of calculus (containing relevant articles from applied mathematics and in other areas of mathematics) in Category:Calculus.
The subcategories should be more predictable. Brad7777 ( talk) 17:10, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
I created a new category at Category:Theorems and conjectures about prime numbers which I want to fill with the entries from Category:Conjectures about prime numbers and with proven theorems. Another user reminded me of the fact that this creates a redundancy with Category:Conjectures about prime numbers. Category:Theorems about prime numbers does not exist. I do not think it is really necessary to create seperate categories for theorems and conjectures, but I might be mistaken with this thought. Input and feedback welcome. Thanks. Toshio Yamaguchi ( talk) 16:13, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Having a look at...
Prime numbers:Category tree |
---|
...you to have to go through Category:Theorems and conjectures about prime numbers first to get to Category:Conjectures about prime numbers. To me, it suggests either i) Category:Theorems about prime numbers does need to be created, in which case I would then think Category:Theorems and conjectures about prime numbers should be scrapped or ii) Category:Conjectures about prime numbers should be scrapped Brad7777 ( talk) 15:50, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
I noticed that Category:Prime numbers contains conjectures, theorems and other information about prime numbers in general. I would like to create a category for individual prime numbers, such as 2 (number), 3 (number), 5 (number) etc. So should this category perhaps be renamed to make that name free for a category containing individual primes? Toshio Yamaguchi ( talk) 18:26, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Category:Perfect numbers, which is under the purview of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:30, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
List of mathematics problems named after places is no longer a userspace draft. It needs work. In particular:
Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:59, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Also see Lists of things named after places, a new article. Michael Hardy ( talk) 18:00, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
There is an operation, "truncated subtraction", sometimes considered in recursion theory and other contexts, which is a sort of subtraction on natural numbers, except that if the answer would have been negative, the result is 0 instead. That is:
Where "S" denotes the successor operation.
We don't have an article on truncated subtraction, and I was not able to find it under another name. Do we have it under another name? — Mark Dominus ( talk) 19:05, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
The article on primitive recursive functions calls it limited subtraction, but we don't have an article on it under that name either. — Mark Dominus ( talk) 19:13, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
primitive recursive function also calls it proper subtraction. — Mark Dominus ( talk) 19:35, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
There is an AfD on Basic concepts of quantum mechanics that raises some important questions for many technical articles:
It looks like the developers are discussing MathJax on the dev mailing list [7] and things are looking promising. Main issues seems to be suport for mobile browsers. Brions added a note at User talk:Nageh#MathJax integration into stock MediaWiki.-- Salix ( talk): 07:52, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
<span class="texhtml">2<sup><i>ω</i><sub>1</sub></sup> = 2<sup><i>ω</i></sup> = c</span>
<span class="MathJax" role="textbox" aria-readonly="true" style="">
<nobr>
<span class="math" id="MathJax-Span-64">
<span style="display: inline-block; position: relative; height: 0px; font-size: 135%; width: 5.356em; ">
<span style="position: absolute; top: -2.136em; left: 0em; clip: rect(1.267em 1000em 2.327em -0.438em); ">
<span class="mrow" id="MathJax-Span-65">
<span class="msubsup" id="MathJax-Span-66">
<span style="display: inline-block; position: relative; height: 0px; width: 1.394em; ">
<span style="position: absolute; top: -2.136em; left: 0em; clip: rect(1.308em 1000em 2.299em -0.438em); ">
<span class="mn" id="MathJax-Span-67" style="font-family: MathJax_Main; ">2</span>
<span style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; height: 2.136em; "></span>
</span>
<span style="position: absolute; top: -2.529em; left: 0.562em; ">
<span class="texatom" id="MathJax-Span-68">
<span class="mrow" id="MathJax-Span-69">
<span class="msubsup" id="MathJax-Span-70">
<span style="display: inline-block; position: relative; height: 0px; width: 0.809em; ">
<span style="position: absolute; top: -2.136em; left: 0em; clip: rect(1.66em 1000em 2.306em -0.476em); ">
<span class="mi" id="MathJax-Span-71" style="font-size: 70.7%; font-family: MathJax_Math; font-style: italic;">ω</span>
<span style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; height: 2.136em; "></span>
</span>
<span style="position: absolute; top: -2.03em; left: 0.486em; ">
<span class="mn" id="MathJax-Span-72" style="font-size: 50%; font-family: MathJax_Main; ">1</span>
<span style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; height: 2.136em; "></span>
</span>
</span>
</span>
</span>
</span>
<span style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; height: 2.136em; "></span>
</span>
</span>
</span>
<span class="mo" id="MathJax-Span-73" style="font-family: MathJax_Main; padding-left: 0.278em; ">=</span>
<span class="msubsup" id="MathJax-Span-74" style="padding-left: 0.278em; ">
<span style="display: inline-block; position: relative; height: 0px; width: 1.07em; ">
<span style="position: absolute; top: -2.136em; left: 0em; clip: rect(1.308em 1000em 2.299em -0.438em); ">
<span class="mn" id="MathJax-Span-75" style="font-family: MathJax_Main; ">2</span>
<span style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; height: 2.136em; "></span>
</span>
<span style="position: absolute; top: -2.529em; left: 0.562em; ">
<span class="mi" id="MathJax-Span-76" style="font-size: 70.7%; font-family: MathJax_Math; font-style: italic; ">ω</span>
<span style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; height: 2.136em; "></span>
</span>
</span>
</span>
<span class="mo" id="MathJax-Span-77" style="font-family: MathJax_Main; padding-left: 0.278em; ">=</span>
<span class="texatom" id="MathJax-Span-78" style="padding-left: 0.278em; ">
<span class="mrow" id="MathJax-Span-79">
<span class="mi" id="MathJax-Span-80" style="font-family: MathJax_Fraktur; ">c</span>
</span>
</span>
</span>
<span style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; height: 2.136em; "></span>
</span>
</span>
<span style="border-left-width: 0em; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: initial; display: inline-block; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; width: 0px; height: 0.994em; vertical-align: -0.039em; "></span>
</span>
</nobr>
</span>
The main issue, beside mobile browsers, will be getting the fallback correct so that users who don't have Javascript will still see images rather than LaTeX source. Other sites like MathOverflow don't have this problem because they don't fall back to images. But the devs are committed to making Mediawiki work acceptably well without Javascript. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:55, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Here's the feature request I put in in almost two months ago:
I'm glad to hear it's moving along. Michael Hardy ( talk) 05:15, 30 November 2011 (UTC)