See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of important publications in mathematics for the AfD. In particular, similar lists in bio and sociology have been deleted per WP:OR even though a majority supported keep. What kind of references exist for this list? RobHar ( talk) 15:41, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
I notice that the same editor has nominated six such lists for deletion, in six subject areas that don't have much in common. This is the sort of action that causes a great deal of disruption on Wikipedia. In each case the reason given for nomination is search revealed no compilation of important works in this field. But it's unlikely that this editor has specialist knowledge of all six fields; such compilations have been found by others in the cases of mathematics and geology. So it strikes me as a frivolous sort of nomination. Does Wikipedia have an appropriate forum for protesting against actions of this kind? There should be one place for discussion of all these nominations, instead of it being fragmented across six different pages. Jowa fan ( talk) 23:58, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
Guys, if you think that "List of important publications in X" are helpful to the reader – provided that suitable inclusion criteria are defined – you should consider voting at the sister AfDs mentioned down at the Afd page. Nageh ( talk) 10:51, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
This is the only AFD proposal I've seen that made no attempt to state any particular grounds for deletion. Michael Hardy ( talk) 12:49, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
Well not that I need to see it deleted, but the list has definitely issues (from my perspective in particular the somewhat arbitrary book section). The WP:OR charge is not completely false either, since textbook section is mostly unsourced and to me it is not at all clear to me how these books are selected (either it is extremely incomplete or rather arbitrary).
I agree that asking for sources for the selection criteria itself, i.e. the definition of the list, is not an appropriate request as defining that criteria can be seen as a mere editorial decision. In fact most lists in WP, that I've encountered, work that way. However asking for sources for the individual entries, showing that they meet the defining criteria of the list is an appropriate request. If we don't have that, it easily turns into a list of publications that WP author X deems important, which is indeed WP:OR.-- Kmhkmh ( talk) 13:27, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
The issue of textbooks is raised above quite rightly. In fact texts to not meet the criteria that is at the top of the page. The template that adds this was altered by the geology list editors a few weeks ago to remove all mention of textbooks and I added back the criteria that was already in place on the chemistry list, "or has had a massive impact on the teaching of XX" to the "Influence" section. The massive influence of course needs strong sources. I suggest you remove all textbooks that do not meet that criteria. Also please note that I am User:Bduke NOT User:BDuke. The latter was created by a sockpuppet, who I had irritated, many years ago-- Bduke (Discussion) 21:42, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
Mathematical statement redirects to Proposition; yet the term does not occur in the article, which is all concerned with philosophy and logic, and not with mathematics per se. There is also Statement (logic), which leaves out the philosophical context, but is also not a good redirection target for Mathematical statement for the same reasons. In fact, Proposition and Statement (logic) might well be merged.
A closer fit in some sense is Sentence (mathematical logic), but again, it does not use the term (and there is no natural way to introduce it there), and is also not concerned with mathematics per se, but only aspects of mathematics that are, or have been modelled in terms of, mathematical formal logic.
I feel that Mathematical statement is a fundamental notion, used for instance in Effective method ("Church's thesis is not a mathematical statement") and Mathematical proof ("a convincing demonstration ... that some mathematical statement is necessarily true"). How can we best enlighten a reader who seeks to understand that notion? Should Mathematical statement have an article on its own? Or should it redirect somewhere – but then where? Ideas on how to handle this? -- Lambiam 10:23, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
A new article Rocket Dynamics has a load of personal maths in it. I put a prod on but that has been removed. I'm raising it here in case either there are some citations to cover the area or the person writing it can be talked to better than I do and might be a useful editor. Dmcq ( talk) 16:54, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
I write to seek consensus that the theory of separable algebraic extensions should be discussed in Separable extension. User:TakuyaMurata recently made a number of edits to the article which focused almost exclusively on the general theory of separable algebras over a field without putting any weight on the case of algebraic field extensions where the notion of separability is fundamental to Galois theory.
Of course, User:TakuyaMurata's additions to the article were very good because non-algebraic separable extensions are important in commutative algebra and algebraic geometry. However, my concern is based on WP:UNDUE; the theory of separable algebraic extensions is more fundamental in mathematics (largely because of Galois theory) than the theory of general separable extensions and weight should be placed on the former in Separable extension. In particular, separable algebraic extensions should at least be discussed in Separable extension; User:TakuyaMurata removed this discussion.
I have no objection to User:TakuyaMurata's additions to the article on Separable extension; I only have objection to that which he has removed from this article. I feel that both the theory of algebraic separable extensions and the theory of non-algebraic separable extensions should be discussed in Separable extension with weight placed on the former hence the current revision of the article. User:TakuyaMurata's edits remain as well as the general theory of algebraic separable extensions.
However, I think User:TakuyaMurata feels that only the general theory of separable extensions (without any weight on the theory of algebraic separable extensions) should be discussed hence his revision of the article. He has not explained the reasons for his edits except that he has created a new article Separable algebraic extension discussing solely the theory of algebraic separable extensions. I do not strongly object to having two different articles but I think it is far more appropriate to have one article discussing both aspects of the theory especially if the article is titled " Separable extension".
Let me also remark that an article on separable extensions should be aimed at people who are interested in Galois theory as well as commutative algebra and algebraic geometry. The article should also be accessible to as broad an audience as possible; I think it is reasonable to assume that the intended audience has some background in the rudimentary theory of field extensions and the current revision of the article is, in my opinion, accessible to such an audience.
I welcome any views on this matter with evidence for these views. -- PS T 03:05, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure what to do with an editor with good intentions, but just can't see why his stuff is problematic. Wikipedia simply doesn't have a mechanism dealing with them. Anyway, in short, I replaced his version, basically because it's not good. It seems to me the only solution is content fork, which I did: separable algebraic extension. In any case, we need a tie-breaker; I just can't do anything since he can't have any reasonable content debate.
Taku's content fork (hiving off PST's stuff to a separate page, where nobody ever needs to look at it) was clearly inappropriate. PST's characterization of the content dispute is misleading: Taku's version of the article is mostly about the algebraic case, just as PST's is. There is actually very little about the non-algebraic case in Taku's version - it's just that he gives the general definition first, which is not a good idea. By the way, reverting immediately isn't "waiting". -- Zundark ( talk) 13:34, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Hello all. I think it's pretty consistent that people either boldface or italicize important terms, but I wanted to see if there were any feelings about using the MoS to encourage boldfacing. I checked the MoS but I couldn't see anything addressing this. While both italics and bold serve to set apart words, italics simply are harder to see in a paragraph. Boldface letters are far more visually effective when you are scanning text to find a term (for instance, if you were redirected to a page containing the definition.) Rschwieb ( talk) 19:54, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Bold is used for the title word or title phrase or some variant of it early in the article, usually in the first sentence, and for synonyms and abbreviations introduced in the same sentence or close to it. Michael Hardy ( talk) 00:44, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
While I believe that one should follow the MOS unless there is a very good reason not to, I am a little troubled by this recommendation. I find that italics in a sans serif font is just not effective enough, a problem I don't seem to have with a font like Times New Roman for instance. When a term is newly defined in an article I want the reader to be able to scan the page quickly when they see the term again and locate that definition. This may very well be a distraction for a casual reader, but for someone trying to understand a concept it seems much more natural than having to use a search function while reading a page. Just my two cents worth. Bill Cherowitzo ( talk) 02:15, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Thank you TR for the recommendation to ask on the MoS page. I hadn't thought of posting directly there, I didn't know how much attention it would get. I'll restart this discussion there. Rschwieb ( talk) 20:59, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Category:Mathematical function templates is undergoing a bit of a cleanup at the moment with quite a few of the templates there being sent to TfD. These include several templates for performing specific calculations: {{ Oom}}, {{ Absolute value}}, {{ Sgn}}, {{ Root}}, {{ Addition}}, {{ Add optional}}, {{ Subtraction}}, {{ Factorial}}, {{ Rangemap}}. See the discussion at Category talk:Mathematical function templates.-- Salix ( talk): 06:28, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
While looking at the new article Mark Vishik (mathematician) (which has a "no categ." tag) I have noticed that there is no category for mathematicians working in PDE. I guess the reason is that it is not clear how should it be called. Is there a standard noun for this? Sasha ( talk) 02:47, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
Hello. I'm struggling to remember the following: let D be a division ring with discrete topology, and U be a D vector space with the product topology. Then the D linear transformations of U to U can use at least two topologies: the subspace topology inherited from UU, or the compact-open topology. I rusty enough not to remember which is proper for Jacobson_density_theorem#Topological_characterization. Maybe they are the same in the case when D has the discrete topology? Thanks for the help. Rschwieb ( talk) 19:47, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
There's a minor dispute at Sieve of Eratosthenes (yes, again) about whether a poem should be included in the article or not. Please comment at Talk:Sieve of Eratosthenes.
CRGreathouse ( t | c) 18:50, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
To all participants - the matter is now reopen for new vote in light of reliable secondary source. Please cast your vote on Talk:Sieve of Eratosthenes. So far I count 2 votes TO KEEP. WillNess ( talk) 18:33, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Does WP:NOTGALLERY apply to Gallery of curves ? Discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gallery of curves (2nd nomination). Gandalf61 ( talk) 20:11, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gallery of named graphs - same nominator, same reason given for nomination. Gandalf61 ( talk) 21:15, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
Per my year-old request to merge bimagic cube, trimagic cube, and tetramagic cube into multimagic cube, and in the total absence of comment, I've done it. Please check to see if any of the references to the embedded stubs need to be changed. The only ones I can see are some of the semi-automated lists, and Book:Recreational mathematics. I don't understand Books....
I may also handle trimagic and tetramagic squares, per a request at the same time, but I haven't decided yet. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
The article, initiated by David Eppstein, has received many helpful reviews from this project already. The FA project would benefit from mathematicians' insights, from simple support/oppose judgments, to short copy-editing volunteering, to more ambitious commenting/editing.
Best regards, Kiefer. Wolfowitz 22:59, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Is there a simpler discussion of product function, than the universal definition given in product (category theory)?
In advanced measure-theory, the Shapley–Folkman lemma has been used to prove Lyapunov's theorem, which states that the range of a vector measure is convex. [1] Here, the traditional term "range" (alternatively, "image") is the set of values produced by the function. A vector measure is a vector-valued generalization of a measure; for example, if p1 and p2 are probability measures defined on the same measurable space, then the product function (p1, p2) is a vector measure, where (p1, p2) is defined for every event ω by
- (p1, p2)(ω)=(p1(ω), p2(ω)).
- ^ Tardella (1990, pp. 478–479): Tardella, Fabio (1990). "A new proof of the Lyapunov convexity theorem". SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization. 28 (2): 478–481. doi: 10.1137/0328026. MR 1040471.
{{ cite journal}}
: Invalid|ref=harv
( help)
Will anybody create an animation to illustrate the SF lemma?
{{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help); URL–wikilink conflict (
help); Unknown parameter |newedition=
ignored (
help)Editor Ucucha asked for editors to examine the images of the article and to provide a spot-check of the references (which imho are very carefully done). Best regards, Kiefer. Wolfowitz 18:45, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
English-speaking mathematicians need to be very careful about the use of this word. At supremum I found this:
I changed it to this:
"any" is absolutely the worst possible word that could be used here. Reasonable readers could see "x is the least element that is is greater than or equal to any element of S" and think it means x is the least element for which there is any element of S that x is greater than or equal to. That is obviously not what is intended. Michael Hardy ( talk) 16:00, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Drmcq wrote, "You also have to be careful about whether you assume the domain is always non-empty. When the domain may be empty the translation can get even more convoluted. Dmcq ( talk) 07:46, 10 October 2011 (UTC)"
We have long had the usual 24-letter Greek alphabet available in TeX on Wikipedia (since early 2003, I think):
We now also have two archaic letters, koppa and stigma:
I'm going to use these in some edits of Ptolemy's table of chords. They may also be useful in articles about traditional sexagesimal systems. Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:10, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Test:
I'm wondering to what extent the appearance of these letters depends on the browser and its preferences. Michael Hardy ( talk) 22:48, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
There is no infinite-dimensional Lebesgue measure strikes me as one of the oddest titles that I've seen for an article, does anyone have any ideas on what to change it to? Naraht ( talk) 14:16, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
The current title seems just fine. It says exactly what the article is about. The claim that the sources are primary is mistaken. This is a well-known fact in functional analysis, and these can be used as secondary sources for the fact. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 16:18, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
The title is currently a violation of WP:NOUN, so I've moved it to Infinite-dimensional Lebesgue measure. If someone prefers non-existence of infinite-dimensional Lebesgue measure then they can move it there; I wouldn't mind. Ozob ( talk) 11:59, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
I finally got around to creating Tree of primitive Pythagorean triples. Probably more articles should link to it than currently do, and it needs other further work as well. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:16, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
So far only three articles link to the new article, if you don't count disambiguation pages and topics lists. Michael Hardy ( talk) 15:17, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
A user has added nearly 100 links to XScreenSaver in the 'See also' section of various math and computer articles. The only relation XScreenSaver has to these subjects is that there exist modules that convert something to do with the article into an animation, but you have to download the software and run in it in a compatible OS to actually see these animations. If there are no objections I'm going to start reverting these links based on they are not relevant to the subjects.-- RDBury ( talk) 05:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Vitez helix is a new article on something in combinatorial mathematics that no other articles link to. I've done some cleanup on it, moving it closer to the norms of WP:MOS and WP:MOSMATH. If it's worth keeping then it needs more work, both within the article and in the form of links from other articles to it. Michael Hardy ( talk) 17:14, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
When I'm logged in, using MathJax, this table looks OK:
While not logged in and viewing it, all I see is error messages saying something failed to parse. Why? It's at User:Michael Hardy/Greek.chord.table.
Notice the format of one line:
I had hoped that would result in two parallel vertical lines close together in two places. That actually works when LaTeX is used in a normal way on the Linux machine I'm typing this on. It doesn't work here. Is there some way to get that two work here, or, failing that, to get a thicker vertical line than in those places where one sees only a single vertical slash? Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:48, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Happydaysarehere ( talk · contribs) seems to have it in for MATLAB. He has removed at least four mentions of it from various articles. Since I am not familiar with MATLAB, I am asking you-all whether there is any basis for his actions or is this just vandalism/spite? JRSpriggs ( talk) 08:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Other MATLAB removers: Susie8876 ( talk · contribs) and Frogman10k ( talk · contribs). Apparent sockpuppetry. -- Lambiam 01:14, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
The article on Nash has changed a bit in the recent days; I am a bit critical (e.g. "visionary" links to "Defined broadly, a visionary, is one who can envision the future. For some groups this can involve the supernatural or drugs."; does this apply to Nash??) Sasha ( talk) 15:31, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Another maverick article name. I'm thinking change to 'Prime reciprocal series' but other possibilities are 'Series of reciprocal primes' and 'Prime harmonic series' (which already exists as a redirect). The French version of the article is "Série des inverses des nombres premiers" or "Series of inverses of prime numbers" if that helps. I'm looking for suggestions if you have a preference for the name or a better name to suggest, or do the move if you feel strongly enough.-- RDBury ( talk) 15:39, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
I've moved it to Divergence of the sum of the reciprocals of the primes. Michael Hardy ( talk) 22:01, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
I stumbled on Inverse Laplace transform of derivatives while on new page patrol. As my mathematical skills are rather limited, I came here to ask if this article is viable stub, something that might merged or redirected or a completely trivial mathematical piece that does not belong in Wikipedia? MKFI ( talk) 17:01, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
I was just reading the Help:Displaying a formula page, and I was surprised to see that people have been looking for a \oiint. I suppose I had a few comments and questions. First, in case you were wondering, archaic greek characters got supported before integrals simply because someone filed a bug report requesting archaic greek characters, but no bug reports mention \oiint. I can't fault anyone for not submitting bug reports because texvc has received little attention over the years. But bug reports are good things that do get noticed and eventually might make things happen.
As I looked at implementing something to enable this command, I checked the comprehensive symbols list, and immediately noticed it involves a) loading a new package, and b) several packages exist. The the question becomes, which \oiint should be implemented.
The following packages exist:
The question I am looking to answer is as follows. If I decide to implement a \oiint command, which package does the community prefer? My personal preference is towards txfonts/pxfonts. But to be honest I don't use these symbols much as it stands. Images of these fonts can be found in the "Comprehensive Symbol List" [1] on pages 29 to 33. Thenub314 ( talk) 21:44, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
This looks very good when I'm not logged in, but when I'm logged in (and hence using mathJax), I get neither an error message nor the intended image; rather I just get TeX code, all on one long line, so that I have to scroll a long distance to the right to see the end of it. What's going on? Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:39, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Category:Mathematical theorems currently has over a thousand articles and is pretty much useless for navigation. There a few subcategories by area but not enough to make a dent in main category. I'd like to propose splitting the category into subcategories by the list of areas we use in the 'maths rating' tag, specifically:
I'm leaving out probability and statistics since they are already covered, and the other areas because they're either not applicable for theorems or they aren't specific areas of mathematics. If no one has objections or a better idea I was going to get the process started by creating and populating 'Theorems in geometry'; I just spent an hour trying to locate articles on two theorems in geometry and in that time I could probably have gotten most of the possibles into a category so the next person will be able to do it more easily.-- RDBury ( talk) 05:44, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Since one might want to put a current article of the category "Mathematical theorems" in to several subcategories, would there be a way to first save a list of all the current articles in "Mathematical theorems"? This way one could go through that list in order to more properly diffuse "Mathematical theorems". RobHar ( talk) 20:37, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
If we are already cleaning the categories, I have suggested "Category:Mathematical theorems with German names" for deletion (there are 3 articles there). Sasha ( talk) 22:39, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Currently, the second-order disambig page has a link to second order equation mentioning that it is for a second order differential equation. Yet, clicking on that link redirects you to quadratic equation. I looked for a better re-direct but was unable to find one. Maybe the best place to link it to is a section in differential equation but the section that deals with that isn't clear enough. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. TStein ( talk) 02:04, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
I have just written this new section of Ptolemy's table of chords, which I could not write until we recently acquired the ability to include some archaic Greek letters in TeX.
Doubtless further work on that section could get done, and for the rest of the article, there is a "to do" list at talk:Ptolemy's table of chords. Michael Hardy ( talk) 20:51, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
I was wondering whether others agree that there should be a page of tables of convex conjugates. Similarly for Laplace transforms (though such a table exists in the page itself). Mostly I'm wondering when such a table deserves its own page, if ever. Zfeinst ( talk) 01:04, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi! In Marcinkiewicz–Zygmund inequality for example, one of the categories is a supercategory of the other two listed categories. Does it make sense to leave the supercategory tag in cases like this? I've also been passing over DAB pages with the Mathematical theorems category. Is there a rule of thumb about categorieson DAB pages? Thanks. Rschwieb ( talk) 00:37, 18 October 2011 (UTC) Also, any input about the best subcategory for Category theory? Rschwieb ( talk) 02:19, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
There's a proposal to adjust one of the main section titles used in "Wikipedia's contents", which will affect the order in which the section titles are presented. See Portal talk:Contents#Proposal for main section title adjustment. The Transhumanist 02:20, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Here's something really weird: I type this table:
When I view this while logged in (so I'm using MathJax), it looks exactly the way I intended: a column of Greek letters, followed by a column with their names written in Latin letters, followed by a Hindu-Arabic numeral.
But when I view this while I'm _not_ logged in, I see the names of the letters written in---of all things!--- Greek letters. And some of them are spelled wrong. The code looks like this:
\begin{array}{|rlr|rlr|rlr} \alpha & \text{alpha} & 1 & \iota & \text{iota} & 10 & \varrho & \text{rho} & 100 \\ \beta & \text{beta} & 2 & \kappa & \text{kappa} & 20 \\ \gamma & \text{gamma} & 3 & \lambda & \text{lambda} & 30 \\ \delta & \text{delta} & 4 & \mu & \text{mu} & 40 \\ \varepsilon & \text{epsilon} & 5 & \nu & \text{nu} & 50 \\ \stigma & \text{stigma (archaic)} & 6 & \xi & \text{xi} & 60 \\ \zeta & \text{zeta} & 7 & \omicron & \text{omicron} & 70 \\ \eta & \text{eta} & 8 & \pi & \text{pi} & 80 \\ \vartheta & \text{theta} & 9 & \koppa & \text{koppa (archaic)} & 90 \end{array}
Where it says \text{alpha}, I see . Why would I see Greek letters there? (And the correct spelling, if I'm not mistaken, should be ). Michael Hardy ( talk) 03:54, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Another difference: when I view it logged in and with MathJax, I see nice top and bottom lines on both versions of the table. But not-logged-in (under both Chrome and Safari on OS X) they are not there. — David Eppstein ( talk) 05:28, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Thank you Thenub. Michael Hardy ( talk) 13:28, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks are due to Zfeinst, Thenub, and Nageh.
I now have a section at Ptolemy's table of chords that includes what you see above and explains how to understand the base-10 and base-60 numerals that were used in the table. Michael Hardy ( talk) 16:11, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
We need math expert help at Coordinate space and Coordinate vector. Merge if warranted, otherwise delete the tags. Also, an ip commented that the page is confusing and non-standard. Fix that if needed. Thanks, D O N D E groovily Talk to me 04:47, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
The article on Gröbner bases has many definitions, listings of properties, characterizations, and so forth, but no examples. This makes it hard to understand even for someone like me who might be expected to understand it. I cannot fix this myself, and my request on the talk page has gone unanswered. Is there anyone here who would be interested in fleshing out this article? — Mark Dominus ( talk) 14:18, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Would anyone care to review the rewrite of the Proof section at Intermediate value theorem by Toolnut ( talk · contribs). I reverted their first rewrite because they did not use the property of continuity (see Talk:Intermediate value theorem#Error in proof?), but they have now done a second rewrite. Gandalf61 ( talk) 09:48, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
There are many proofs, probably some deserving of at least mention in the article. Bolzano's original proof uses the method of bisection. This proof is important in the modern world because it uses a procedure for solving the equation that can be implemented on a computer. The standard topological proof (a la Rudin) is also a nice proof because it validates our intuition about why the theorem is true. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 14:28, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
A suggestion to change the template in that way has been made at Template talk:OEIS#This is an external link. Lipedia ( talk) 15:59, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
The site Math Études has a collection of short movies on mathematical topics. I seem to be unable to play them in my browser though. If you have a moment, please try viewing one of the movies, if I'm the only one that's having the problem and the quality is decent it might be worthwhile putting some of them in the 'External links' section of the corresponding articles. If a special download is required to view them then I think WP:ELNO says they shouldn't be linked.-- RDBury ( talk) 14:55, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
The page on the quasi-interior seems very bare to me. And I'm not sure if it is notable since the only reference of the sort I can find is the reference provided. I would propose it for deletion except I: 1) wonder if anyone is more knowledgeable on this topic and can help with the page, and 2) don't know how to do that. Help in either direction would be appreciated. Zfeinst ( talk) 00:55, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
(I moved some of the discussion on limits of functions, which has gone off on a tangent and overcrowded the section on IVT proof, into this new section.)
@Toolnut: Derivatives are defined by certain limits:
If this limit could not exist without the difference quotient being a continuous function of Δx at the point where Δx = 0, then there would be no point in taking a limit: one would simply plug in 0 in place of Δx and be done with it. If it were true that a function can have a limit at a point only if it's continuous at that point, then one could find all limits just be plugging in the point that is being approached. Then there would be no reason to have such a concept as limits. Michael Hardy ( talk) 00:16, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
You are invited to continue the discussion of this thread at User_talk:Toolnut#Functions_and_their_Limits Toolnut ( talk) 20:29, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Following on from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2011/Sep#Undiscussed List -> Outline moves, people might like to follow the discussion at Talk:Outline of arithmetic#Outlines versus bare lists. This time round, only three pages are affected. They were originally called "Outline...", I renamed them to "List..." a few weeks ago for consistency with other lists, and they're now called "Outline..." again. Jowa fan ( talk) 07:13, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Is there, or will there be a new category for Theorems in set theory? If not, where's the best place for them? Thanks, Rschwieb ( talk) 22:53, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Please make the choice which is easiest to sort articles with :) Rschwieb ( talk) 15:54, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
User:Lipedia has changed about 30 articles using Template:OEIS2C to use Template:OEIS instead. The fact that there are two of these OEIS templates with difference usages was discussed last month. From the edits comments it appears that the editor does not understand that the templates are different, so it might be a good idea to review the changes to see if they're appropriate. In the mean time, this is the second time in a matter of a week or two that someone has made wholesale edits to math articles without bringing it up here first. I say next time it happens we break out the torches and pitchforks.-- RDBury ( talk) 23:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
On a related note, I thought we had already agreed that the icon in this templates is inappropriate, but yet it remains. Should someone remove it then? Sławomir Biały ( talk) 10:27, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Formerly the name OEIS2C (2C = 2nd citation) made sense, because only the long template linked to OEIS. At the moment the long and the short template are coequal ways to link sequences, because also the short template links to the article in the icon. So my intention was, to reflect this change in the character of the short template in it's name. "oeis" is easier to write and to remember than "OEIS2C", and I think it's quite logical that capital letters give the long and small letters give the short template. Sorry when I was too bold, but I didn't realize objection against the icon, so I came to the conclusion that the name change makes sense. Lipedia ( talk) 13:09, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
{{
OEIS|A000001}}
and {{
oeis|A000001}}
give different results when OEIS/oeis is an interwiki prefix and
OEIS:A000001 and
oeis:A000001 give the same result (interwiki prefixes are not case dependent). I think {{
oeis}} should be deleted or redirected to {{
OEIS}}, and all your changes from {{
OEIS2C}} to {{
oeis}} in articles should be reverted. You can propose a new name for {{
OEIS2C}} if you want but I would oppose {{
oeis}} when we already have a different template called {{
OEIS}}. Difference in capitalization is not a good method to convey information.
PrimeHunter (
talk) 15:00, 21 October 2011 (UTC)See this edit.
One of the most absurd things I've seen in a while is that Wigner-Ville distribution, with a hyphen, and Wigner–Ville distribution, with an en-dash, redirected to two different articles. The now both redirect to the same target, but the question is whether it's the right target? Or maybe that other one is the right one? (Or even a third one?) Michael Hardy ( talk) 22:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
We currently have a number of articles that use the word converse with a link. Many of these go, some via redirects, to Conversion (logic). The problem is that the target article seems to be written for someone with a degree in logic; it even assumes familiarity with the classical names of syllogisms. This makes it inappropriate for what we're using it for, namely a definition for people who are unfamiliar with a somewhat jargony term. In other words I think the links are intended to go to something like the version of Converse (logic) before it was changed to a redirect. Another issue is that converse and conversion are two different things, the former being the result of the latter. Perhaps a better target would be Converse (mathematics), though this is currently an unreferenced orphan and might be changed to a redirect any second. There is also an article called Converse implication, but it's about a binary operator in Boolean logic, and an article called Converse theorem but it's about something different altogether. What I'd like to do to replace all the links to 'Conversion (logic)' from math articles; right now I'm thinking the best replacement is to a suitable anchor point in Theorem#Terminology. Another viable option would be to merge 'Converse (mathematics)' into List of mathematical jargon and change the links to an anchor point there. Yet another would be to restore 'Converse (logic)', clean it up a bit and link to it. None of these options is perfect so it will be nice someone can come up with a better idea.-- RDBury ( talk) 06:24, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Re: Fractions ( talk). There has been a long ongoing discussion on the introduction to this article, and the use of technical terms. It would be help to have some input (on the Fractions talk page). -- Iantresman ( talk) 12:54, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
The question needs to be asked properly then.
It's a no-brainer that certain mathematical concepts can only be understood in context. That is, in terms of other, more basic mathematical concepts. Those, in turn, need to be explained in terms of other, yet simpler concepts, until we finally find the concepts can be explained in "plain english".
Now, to what extent do we have to explain the backstory for a higher-level concept? That is:
would be a self-contained definition.
If you are then going to make the jolly-complicated-widget page completely comprehensible to the idle browser who happens to come across it by pressing "Random page", you then have to explain (on the same page) what a complicated-widget and a jolly-wobbler are.
I suggest No: we just need to offer up a sentence saying: "For an explanation of complicated-widget click this link, and for an explanation of jolly-wobbler click this link."
Otherwise we are going to be filling the encyclopedia with colossal amounts of repetition, every time you need to explain a concept which uses another concept to explain it.
Examples from the "fraction" thread above: do we need to explain "integer", "expression" and what-all every time we use it? No, we just make "integer" a link and expect the mouth-breathing knuckle-dragger of a user to click on it to find out what it is.
Same applies to the "Converse" page - if the user needs to know what a "converse" is, then he/she is probably already doing an assignment requiring at least a basic understanding of a "conditional" and what the "implies" arrow is. So why do we have to retread every single concept on every single page? -- Matt Westwood 14:37, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
In Expectation–maximization algorithm, after the heading "Alternative description", the two lines of TeX after "expectation step" and "maximization step" are not getting rendered when I view them while logged in (and using MathJax. What's going on? Michael Hardy ( talk) 19:50, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Just came across the same issue in Möbius transformation. Math like this not rendering
adding extra braces fixed it.
The problem was with both \hat and \widehat commands in about half a dozen formulae, so it looks like it's a more general problem with how the parser of these things works.-- JohnBlackburne words deeds 21:58, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
In the german Wikipedia we have the same problem and I created a little Bash-script in order to find some still uncorrected errors. There is no guarantee that script will find every error, but it finds at least more errors than google.
#!/bin/sh
# No warranty, use at your own risk!
# As the first parameter you need a CatScan
# (http://toolserver.org/~magnus/catscan_rewrite.php?interface_language=en)
# with format "TSV" (with first two lines deleted)
if $# -ne 1
then
echo "Calling: $0 <CatScan>"
exit
fi
if test -f $1
then
if test -f $1.out
then
rm $1.out
fi
for i in `cut -f 1 $1`; do
lynx -source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$i | grep "Failed to parse" > /dev/null
if $? = "0" ; then
echo \* \[\[$i\]\] | tee -a $1.out
fi
sleep 0.2
done
else
echo "File $1 doesn't exist"
fi
I didn't tested it in WP-en, maybe there is still some localisation work to be done. -- KMic ( talk) 00:04, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
I've done a few more using Google to find them, but one was especially interesting: [4]. In it I fixed four lines even though only one was a 'Failed to parse' error. The others I found by finding '\dot\hat' in the edit window, after spotting two at once. The problem is it will happily render this, but incorrectly, e.g.
This was brought up in the VP thread but I didn't think through the implications. Neither ways of searching (the script or Google) will find these, and they're very difficult to spot (these are often very formula heavy pages). There's no easy way to search the wikisource that I know, and potentially a large number of patterns to match (many symbols, maybe spaced or with other things involved).-- JohnBlackburne words deeds 00:43, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
<math>\operatorname{sen}x</math>
which would get parsed to something like $${\operatorname {sen}}x$$ which obliterates the point of \operatorname. To fixed this bug I removed some unneeded braces (uneeded from the latex point of view, clearly needed from the texvc point of view). Unfortunately there is lots of latex code which seems like it should compile under latex but doesn't. For example, at least on my systems $$\hat\mathbf{C}$$ fails to LaTeX, but the extra braces that texvc was putting in would sanitize this to something that would LaTeX. To complicate all of this some of it is system dependent. This seems system depedent. For example on my University's Unbuntu system $$\dot\hat {x}$$ simply doesn't compile under LaTeX, while under Mageia it does compile but offset as shown above, and in any case it should be sanitized as it used to be. I just had this bug called to my attention and I am working on it now.
Thenub314 (
talk) 23:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)<math>\frac 1 \sqrt{2}</math>
not working,
<math>\frac 1 {\sqrt{2}}</math>
does. (Note: I don't know whether this problem is due to MW 1.18, nor if it has already been fixed). --
KMic (
talk) 13:11, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
\frac{1}{\sqrt} {2}
, which won't work, whereas the previous version of the parser would somehow do look-ahead and some right-to-left parsing to get the intended meaning.I'm going to go ahead an remove the icon from the OEIS template per the discussions above. An example using my test version is:
The people who like the icon don't seem to be in the majority or feel that strongly about it. Plus, as mentioned above, putting in-line icons in text is contrary to the MOS. Another problem is that doing a text search for "OEIS" does not work when it's an icon. It's not a straight revert though since I left out the fullurl code; the only effects this seems to have is to add a link icon and remove the mouse-over text. I'll make the change tomorrow sometime unless there's a strong objection (e.g. someone says it will break hundreds of article pages). The issue of whether links to OEIS should be changed to references or moved the 'External links' section of an article is still being debated, and the discussion of what to do with redundant OEIS variants is still unresolved.-- RDBury ( talk) 15:52, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
My user page has been sent to MfD. If you have an opinion on this, you may express it at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:JRSpriggs. JRSpriggs ( talk) 12:54, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
The Roman arithmetic page really needs help. I think the Romans themselves didn't use them for math, but there's no decent sources in the article to suggest who, if anyone, ever did try to use them in that fashion. Is there anyone here who can help this poor thing out? Maybe it needs to be moved to Arithmetic using Roman numerals, or this article needs to explain how Romans did math, which it doesn't.--~ T P W 16:25, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I originally created the article based on some notes from an old college handout but lost interested in it when 95% of my work was removed in 2007. I am against deletion - not because I created it - but that there is value from a history of Roman science and technology perspective. As pointed out here, very little is available to cite (as far as we know) but that makes it all the more important that is known is preserved. I advocate that the article get restarted with a better foundation of what is known about how the Roman's did math. Even if it is stub, it will still accurately what is currently known about that historical period. At present, there is a redirect to Roman Abacus, so there is need to rush to AfD. --D. Norris 10:53, 22 October 2011 (UTC) — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Denorris (
talk •
contribs)
Hello. It looks like the Mathematical theorems category is much improved, since the subcategories are all under 200 pages. I was wondering if there was any work still left, or if it is pretty much "mission accomplished" for now. Rschwieb ( talk) 14:07, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I took the liberty of creating a new section, Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Reference resources#Guidelines for selected websites in our Reference resources page. I believe this captures the outcomes of several discussions here on which math websites should be considered reliable sources. Discuss, revise or revert as you see fit.-- RDBury ( talk) 19:12, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
The community is invited to participate in a request for comment about my editing: WP:Requests_for_comment/Kiefer.Wolfowitz. Kiefer. Wolfowitz 20:54, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi!
The RfC is about to close.
I'd like to thank the project members for supportive comments and helpful, thoughtful statements, from which I can learn.
Best regards,
Kiefer. Wolfowitz 16:30, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
I've recently rewritten the lead of Bijection, hopefully making it more accessible. Because the article is about bijections, I was able to define bijections first and only later bring up surjections and injections ... not the traditional way to broach the subject. What I've done is elementary, jargon-free and non-controversial, but if pressed I don't think that I could come up with a reference for this approach. The issue in my mind is whether or not this is considered to be OR. Let me point out that I would not have done this or anything similar in the body of the article – I would consider that OR. I am only talking about taking this kind of liberty in the lead, for the purpose of providing a gentler introduction to a topic. I am confident that this issue or something similar has been brought up before (in reference to math articles) and would appreciate any pointers to previous discussions. Bill Cherowitzo ( talk) 21:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments. A section of Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines dealt directly with my concern, it seems that I was being a little too hawkish with my interpretation of NOR. I've re-edited the page, incorporating the suggestions made here and elsewhere, so again thanks. Bill Cherowitzo ( talk) 03:12, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Here: Support check: a Wikipedia math naming principle?.-- JohnBlackburne words deeds 15:19, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
I've asked to move the article Gauss–Codazzi equations around. Feel free to join the discussion. -- The Evil IP address ( talk) 10:45, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of important publications in mathematics for the AfD. In particular, similar lists in bio and sociology have been deleted per WP:OR even though a majority supported keep. What kind of references exist for this list? RobHar ( talk) 15:41, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
I notice that the same editor has nominated six such lists for deletion, in six subject areas that don't have much in common. This is the sort of action that causes a great deal of disruption on Wikipedia. In each case the reason given for nomination is search revealed no compilation of important works in this field. But it's unlikely that this editor has specialist knowledge of all six fields; such compilations have been found by others in the cases of mathematics and geology. So it strikes me as a frivolous sort of nomination. Does Wikipedia have an appropriate forum for protesting against actions of this kind? There should be one place for discussion of all these nominations, instead of it being fragmented across six different pages. Jowa fan ( talk) 23:58, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
Guys, if you think that "List of important publications in X" are helpful to the reader – provided that suitable inclusion criteria are defined – you should consider voting at the sister AfDs mentioned down at the Afd page. Nageh ( talk) 10:51, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
This is the only AFD proposal I've seen that made no attempt to state any particular grounds for deletion. Michael Hardy ( talk) 12:49, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
Well not that I need to see it deleted, but the list has definitely issues (from my perspective in particular the somewhat arbitrary book section). The WP:OR charge is not completely false either, since textbook section is mostly unsourced and to me it is not at all clear to me how these books are selected (either it is extremely incomplete or rather arbitrary).
I agree that asking for sources for the selection criteria itself, i.e. the definition of the list, is not an appropriate request as defining that criteria can be seen as a mere editorial decision. In fact most lists in WP, that I've encountered, work that way. However asking for sources for the individual entries, showing that they meet the defining criteria of the list is an appropriate request. If we don't have that, it easily turns into a list of publications that WP author X deems important, which is indeed WP:OR.-- Kmhkmh ( talk) 13:27, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
The issue of textbooks is raised above quite rightly. In fact texts to not meet the criteria that is at the top of the page. The template that adds this was altered by the geology list editors a few weeks ago to remove all mention of textbooks and I added back the criteria that was already in place on the chemistry list, "or has had a massive impact on the teaching of XX" to the "Influence" section. The massive influence of course needs strong sources. I suggest you remove all textbooks that do not meet that criteria. Also please note that I am User:Bduke NOT User:BDuke. The latter was created by a sockpuppet, who I had irritated, many years ago-- Bduke (Discussion) 21:42, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
Mathematical statement redirects to Proposition; yet the term does not occur in the article, which is all concerned with philosophy and logic, and not with mathematics per se. There is also Statement (logic), which leaves out the philosophical context, but is also not a good redirection target for Mathematical statement for the same reasons. In fact, Proposition and Statement (logic) might well be merged.
A closer fit in some sense is Sentence (mathematical logic), but again, it does not use the term (and there is no natural way to introduce it there), and is also not concerned with mathematics per se, but only aspects of mathematics that are, or have been modelled in terms of, mathematical formal logic.
I feel that Mathematical statement is a fundamental notion, used for instance in Effective method ("Church's thesis is not a mathematical statement") and Mathematical proof ("a convincing demonstration ... that some mathematical statement is necessarily true"). How can we best enlighten a reader who seeks to understand that notion? Should Mathematical statement have an article on its own? Or should it redirect somewhere – but then where? Ideas on how to handle this? -- Lambiam 10:23, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
A new article Rocket Dynamics has a load of personal maths in it. I put a prod on but that has been removed. I'm raising it here in case either there are some citations to cover the area or the person writing it can be talked to better than I do and might be a useful editor. Dmcq ( talk) 16:54, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
I write to seek consensus that the theory of separable algebraic extensions should be discussed in Separable extension. User:TakuyaMurata recently made a number of edits to the article which focused almost exclusively on the general theory of separable algebras over a field without putting any weight on the case of algebraic field extensions where the notion of separability is fundamental to Galois theory.
Of course, User:TakuyaMurata's additions to the article were very good because non-algebraic separable extensions are important in commutative algebra and algebraic geometry. However, my concern is based on WP:UNDUE; the theory of separable algebraic extensions is more fundamental in mathematics (largely because of Galois theory) than the theory of general separable extensions and weight should be placed on the former in Separable extension. In particular, separable algebraic extensions should at least be discussed in Separable extension; User:TakuyaMurata removed this discussion.
I have no objection to User:TakuyaMurata's additions to the article on Separable extension; I only have objection to that which he has removed from this article. I feel that both the theory of algebraic separable extensions and the theory of non-algebraic separable extensions should be discussed in Separable extension with weight placed on the former hence the current revision of the article. User:TakuyaMurata's edits remain as well as the general theory of algebraic separable extensions.
However, I think User:TakuyaMurata feels that only the general theory of separable extensions (without any weight on the theory of algebraic separable extensions) should be discussed hence his revision of the article. He has not explained the reasons for his edits except that he has created a new article Separable algebraic extension discussing solely the theory of algebraic separable extensions. I do not strongly object to having two different articles but I think it is far more appropriate to have one article discussing both aspects of the theory especially if the article is titled " Separable extension".
Let me also remark that an article on separable extensions should be aimed at people who are interested in Galois theory as well as commutative algebra and algebraic geometry. The article should also be accessible to as broad an audience as possible; I think it is reasonable to assume that the intended audience has some background in the rudimentary theory of field extensions and the current revision of the article is, in my opinion, accessible to such an audience.
I welcome any views on this matter with evidence for these views. -- PS T 03:05, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure what to do with an editor with good intentions, but just can't see why his stuff is problematic. Wikipedia simply doesn't have a mechanism dealing with them. Anyway, in short, I replaced his version, basically because it's not good. It seems to me the only solution is content fork, which I did: separable algebraic extension. In any case, we need a tie-breaker; I just can't do anything since he can't have any reasonable content debate.
Taku's content fork (hiving off PST's stuff to a separate page, where nobody ever needs to look at it) was clearly inappropriate. PST's characterization of the content dispute is misleading: Taku's version of the article is mostly about the algebraic case, just as PST's is. There is actually very little about the non-algebraic case in Taku's version - it's just that he gives the general definition first, which is not a good idea. By the way, reverting immediately isn't "waiting". -- Zundark ( talk) 13:34, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Hello all. I think it's pretty consistent that people either boldface or italicize important terms, but I wanted to see if there were any feelings about using the MoS to encourage boldfacing. I checked the MoS but I couldn't see anything addressing this. While both italics and bold serve to set apart words, italics simply are harder to see in a paragraph. Boldface letters are far more visually effective when you are scanning text to find a term (for instance, if you were redirected to a page containing the definition.) Rschwieb ( talk) 19:54, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Bold is used for the title word or title phrase or some variant of it early in the article, usually in the first sentence, and for synonyms and abbreviations introduced in the same sentence or close to it. Michael Hardy ( talk) 00:44, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
While I believe that one should follow the MOS unless there is a very good reason not to, I am a little troubled by this recommendation. I find that italics in a sans serif font is just not effective enough, a problem I don't seem to have with a font like Times New Roman for instance. When a term is newly defined in an article I want the reader to be able to scan the page quickly when they see the term again and locate that definition. This may very well be a distraction for a casual reader, but for someone trying to understand a concept it seems much more natural than having to use a search function while reading a page. Just my two cents worth. Bill Cherowitzo ( talk) 02:15, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Thank you TR for the recommendation to ask on the MoS page. I hadn't thought of posting directly there, I didn't know how much attention it would get. I'll restart this discussion there. Rschwieb ( talk) 20:59, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Category:Mathematical function templates is undergoing a bit of a cleanup at the moment with quite a few of the templates there being sent to TfD. These include several templates for performing specific calculations: {{ Oom}}, {{ Absolute value}}, {{ Sgn}}, {{ Root}}, {{ Addition}}, {{ Add optional}}, {{ Subtraction}}, {{ Factorial}}, {{ Rangemap}}. See the discussion at Category talk:Mathematical function templates.-- Salix ( talk): 06:28, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
While looking at the new article Mark Vishik (mathematician) (which has a "no categ." tag) I have noticed that there is no category for mathematicians working in PDE. I guess the reason is that it is not clear how should it be called. Is there a standard noun for this? Sasha ( talk) 02:47, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
Hello. I'm struggling to remember the following: let D be a division ring with discrete topology, and U be a D vector space with the product topology. Then the D linear transformations of U to U can use at least two topologies: the subspace topology inherited from UU, or the compact-open topology. I rusty enough not to remember which is proper for Jacobson_density_theorem#Topological_characterization. Maybe they are the same in the case when D has the discrete topology? Thanks for the help. Rschwieb ( talk) 19:47, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
There's a minor dispute at Sieve of Eratosthenes (yes, again) about whether a poem should be included in the article or not. Please comment at Talk:Sieve of Eratosthenes.
CRGreathouse ( t | c) 18:50, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
To all participants - the matter is now reopen for new vote in light of reliable secondary source. Please cast your vote on Talk:Sieve of Eratosthenes. So far I count 2 votes TO KEEP. WillNess ( talk) 18:33, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Does WP:NOTGALLERY apply to Gallery of curves ? Discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gallery of curves (2nd nomination). Gandalf61 ( talk) 20:11, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gallery of named graphs - same nominator, same reason given for nomination. Gandalf61 ( talk) 21:15, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
Per my year-old request to merge bimagic cube, trimagic cube, and tetramagic cube into multimagic cube, and in the total absence of comment, I've done it. Please check to see if any of the references to the embedded stubs need to be changed. The only ones I can see are some of the semi-automated lists, and Book:Recreational mathematics. I don't understand Books....
I may also handle trimagic and tetramagic squares, per a request at the same time, but I haven't decided yet. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
The article, initiated by David Eppstein, has received many helpful reviews from this project already. The FA project would benefit from mathematicians' insights, from simple support/oppose judgments, to short copy-editing volunteering, to more ambitious commenting/editing.
Best regards, Kiefer. Wolfowitz 22:59, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Is there a simpler discussion of product function, than the universal definition given in product (category theory)?
In advanced measure-theory, the Shapley–Folkman lemma has been used to prove Lyapunov's theorem, which states that the range of a vector measure is convex. [1] Here, the traditional term "range" (alternatively, "image") is the set of values produced by the function. A vector measure is a vector-valued generalization of a measure; for example, if p1 and p2 are probability measures defined on the same measurable space, then the product function (p1, p2) is a vector measure, where (p1, p2) is defined for every event ω by
- (p1, p2)(ω)=(p1(ω), p2(ω)).
- ^ Tardella (1990, pp. 478–479): Tardella, Fabio (1990). "A new proof of the Lyapunov convexity theorem". SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization. 28 (2): 478–481. doi: 10.1137/0328026. MR 1040471.
{{ cite journal}}
: Invalid|ref=harv
( help)
Will anybody create an animation to illustrate the SF lemma?
{{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help); URL–wikilink conflict (
help); Unknown parameter |newedition=
ignored (
help)Editor Ucucha asked for editors to examine the images of the article and to provide a spot-check of the references (which imho are very carefully done). Best regards, Kiefer. Wolfowitz 18:45, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
English-speaking mathematicians need to be very careful about the use of this word. At supremum I found this:
I changed it to this:
"any" is absolutely the worst possible word that could be used here. Reasonable readers could see "x is the least element that is is greater than or equal to any element of S" and think it means x is the least element for which there is any element of S that x is greater than or equal to. That is obviously not what is intended. Michael Hardy ( talk) 16:00, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Drmcq wrote, "You also have to be careful about whether you assume the domain is always non-empty. When the domain may be empty the translation can get even more convoluted. Dmcq ( talk) 07:46, 10 October 2011 (UTC)"
We have long had the usual 24-letter Greek alphabet available in TeX on Wikipedia (since early 2003, I think):
We now also have two archaic letters, koppa and stigma:
I'm going to use these in some edits of Ptolemy's table of chords. They may also be useful in articles about traditional sexagesimal systems. Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:10, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Test:
I'm wondering to what extent the appearance of these letters depends on the browser and its preferences. Michael Hardy ( talk) 22:48, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
There is no infinite-dimensional Lebesgue measure strikes me as one of the oddest titles that I've seen for an article, does anyone have any ideas on what to change it to? Naraht ( talk) 14:16, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
The current title seems just fine. It says exactly what the article is about. The claim that the sources are primary is mistaken. This is a well-known fact in functional analysis, and these can be used as secondary sources for the fact. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 16:18, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
The title is currently a violation of WP:NOUN, so I've moved it to Infinite-dimensional Lebesgue measure. If someone prefers non-existence of infinite-dimensional Lebesgue measure then they can move it there; I wouldn't mind. Ozob ( talk) 11:59, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
I finally got around to creating Tree of primitive Pythagorean triples. Probably more articles should link to it than currently do, and it needs other further work as well. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:16, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
So far only three articles link to the new article, if you don't count disambiguation pages and topics lists. Michael Hardy ( talk) 15:17, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
A user has added nearly 100 links to XScreenSaver in the 'See also' section of various math and computer articles. The only relation XScreenSaver has to these subjects is that there exist modules that convert something to do with the article into an animation, but you have to download the software and run in it in a compatible OS to actually see these animations. If there are no objections I'm going to start reverting these links based on they are not relevant to the subjects.-- RDBury ( talk) 05:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Vitez helix is a new article on something in combinatorial mathematics that no other articles link to. I've done some cleanup on it, moving it closer to the norms of WP:MOS and WP:MOSMATH. If it's worth keeping then it needs more work, both within the article and in the form of links from other articles to it. Michael Hardy ( talk) 17:14, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
When I'm logged in, using MathJax, this table looks OK:
While not logged in and viewing it, all I see is error messages saying something failed to parse. Why? It's at User:Michael Hardy/Greek.chord.table.
Notice the format of one line:
I had hoped that would result in two parallel vertical lines close together in two places. That actually works when LaTeX is used in a normal way on the Linux machine I'm typing this on. It doesn't work here. Is there some way to get that two work here, or, failing that, to get a thicker vertical line than in those places where one sees only a single vertical slash? Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:48, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Happydaysarehere ( talk · contribs) seems to have it in for MATLAB. He has removed at least four mentions of it from various articles. Since I am not familiar with MATLAB, I am asking you-all whether there is any basis for his actions or is this just vandalism/spite? JRSpriggs ( talk) 08:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Other MATLAB removers: Susie8876 ( talk · contribs) and Frogman10k ( talk · contribs). Apparent sockpuppetry. -- Lambiam 01:14, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
The article on Nash has changed a bit in the recent days; I am a bit critical (e.g. "visionary" links to "Defined broadly, a visionary, is one who can envision the future. For some groups this can involve the supernatural or drugs."; does this apply to Nash??) Sasha ( talk) 15:31, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Another maverick article name. I'm thinking change to 'Prime reciprocal series' but other possibilities are 'Series of reciprocal primes' and 'Prime harmonic series' (which already exists as a redirect). The French version of the article is "Série des inverses des nombres premiers" or "Series of inverses of prime numbers" if that helps. I'm looking for suggestions if you have a preference for the name or a better name to suggest, or do the move if you feel strongly enough.-- RDBury ( talk) 15:39, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
I've moved it to Divergence of the sum of the reciprocals of the primes. Michael Hardy ( talk) 22:01, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
I stumbled on Inverse Laplace transform of derivatives while on new page patrol. As my mathematical skills are rather limited, I came here to ask if this article is viable stub, something that might merged or redirected or a completely trivial mathematical piece that does not belong in Wikipedia? MKFI ( talk) 17:01, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
I was just reading the Help:Displaying a formula page, and I was surprised to see that people have been looking for a \oiint. I suppose I had a few comments and questions. First, in case you were wondering, archaic greek characters got supported before integrals simply because someone filed a bug report requesting archaic greek characters, but no bug reports mention \oiint. I can't fault anyone for not submitting bug reports because texvc has received little attention over the years. But bug reports are good things that do get noticed and eventually might make things happen.
As I looked at implementing something to enable this command, I checked the comprehensive symbols list, and immediately noticed it involves a) loading a new package, and b) several packages exist. The the question becomes, which \oiint should be implemented.
The following packages exist:
The question I am looking to answer is as follows. If I decide to implement a \oiint command, which package does the community prefer? My personal preference is towards txfonts/pxfonts. But to be honest I don't use these symbols much as it stands. Images of these fonts can be found in the "Comprehensive Symbol List" [1] on pages 29 to 33. Thenub314 ( talk) 21:44, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
This looks very good when I'm not logged in, but when I'm logged in (and hence using mathJax), I get neither an error message nor the intended image; rather I just get TeX code, all on one long line, so that I have to scroll a long distance to the right to see the end of it. What's going on? Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:39, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Category:Mathematical theorems currently has over a thousand articles and is pretty much useless for navigation. There a few subcategories by area but not enough to make a dent in main category. I'd like to propose splitting the category into subcategories by the list of areas we use in the 'maths rating' tag, specifically:
I'm leaving out probability and statistics since they are already covered, and the other areas because they're either not applicable for theorems or they aren't specific areas of mathematics. If no one has objections or a better idea I was going to get the process started by creating and populating 'Theorems in geometry'; I just spent an hour trying to locate articles on two theorems in geometry and in that time I could probably have gotten most of the possibles into a category so the next person will be able to do it more easily.-- RDBury ( talk) 05:44, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Since one might want to put a current article of the category "Mathematical theorems" in to several subcategories, would there be a way to first save a list of all the current articles in "Mathematical theorems"? This way one could go through that list in order to more properly diffuse "Mathematical theorems". RobHar ( talk) 20:37, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
If we are already cleaning the categories, I have suggested "Category:Mathematical theorems with German names" for deletion (there are 3 articles there). Sasha ( talk) 22:39, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Currently, the second-order disambig page has a link to second order equation mentioning that it is for a second order differential equation. Yet, clicking on that link redirects you to quadratic equation. I looked for a better re-direct but was unable to find one. Maybe the best place to link it to is a section in differential equation but the section that deals with that isn't clear enough. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. TStein ( talk) 02:04, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
I have just written this new section of Ptolemy's table of chords, which I could not write until we recently acquired the ability to include some archaic Greek letters in TeX.
Doubtless further work on that section could get done, and for the rest of the article, there is a "to do" list at talk:Ptolemy's table of chords. Michael Hardy ( talk) 20:51, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
I was wondering whether others agree that there should be a page of tables of convex conjugates. Similarly for Laplace transforms (though such a table exists in the page itself). Mostly I'm wondering when such a table deserves its own page, if ever. Zfeinst ( talk) 01:04, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi! In Marcinkiewicz–Zygmund inequality for example, one of the categories is a supercategory of the other two listed categories. Does it make sense to leave the supercategory tag in cases like this? I've also been passing over DAB pages with the Mathematical theorems category. Is there a rule of thumb about categorieson DAB pages? Thanks. Rschwieb ( talk) 00:37, 18 October 2011 (UTC) Also, any input about the best subcategory for Category theory? Rschwieb ( talk) 02:19, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
There's a proposal to adjust one of the main section titles used in "Wikipedia's contents", which will affect the order in which the section titles are presented. See Portal talk:Contents#Proposal for main section title adjustment. The Transhumanist 02:20, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Here's something really weird: I type this table:
When I view this while logged in (so I'm using MathJax), it looks exactly the way I intended: a column of Greek letters, followed by a column with their names written in Latin letters, followed by a Hindu-Arabic numeral.
But when I view this while I'm _not_ logged in, I see the names of the letters written in---of all things!--- Greek letters. And some of them are spelled wrong. The code looks like this:
\begin{array}{|rlr|rlr|rlr} \alpha & \text{alpha} & 1 & \iota & \text{iota} & 10 & \varrho & \text{rho} & 100 \\ \beta & \text{beta} & 2 & \kappa & \text{kappa} & 20 \\ \gamma & \text{gamma} & 3 & \lambda & \text{lambda} & 30 \\ \delta & \text{delta} & 4 & \mu & \text{mu} & 40 \\ \varepsilon & \text{epsilon} & 5 & \nu & \text{nu} & 50 \\ \stigma & \text{stigma (archaic)} & 6 & \xi & \text{xi} & 60 \\ \zeta & \text{zeta} & 7 & \omicron & \text{omicron} & 70 \\ \eta & \text{eta} & 8 & \pi & \text{pi} & 80 \\ \vartheta & \text{theta} & 9 & \koppa & \text{koppa (archaic)} & 90 \end{array}
Where it says \text{alpha}, I see . Why would I see Greek letters there? (And the correct spelling, if I'm not mistaken, should be ). Michael Hardy ( talk) 03:54, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Another difference: when I view it logged in and with MathJax, I see nice top and bottom lines on both versions of the table. But not-logged-in (under both Chrome and Safari on OS X) they are not there. — David Eppstein ( talk) 05:28, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Thank you Thenub. Michael Hardy ( talk) 13:28, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks are due to Zfeinst, Thenub, and Nageh.
I now have a section at Ptolemy's table of chords that includes what you see above and explains how to understand the base-10 and base-60 numerals that were used in the table. Michael Hardy ( talk) 16:11, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
We need math expert help at Coordinate space and Coordinate vector. Merge if warranted, otherwise delete the tags. Also, an ip commented that the page is confusing and non-standard. Fix that if needed. Thanks, D O N D E groovily Talk to me 04:47, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
The article on Gröbner bases has many definitions, listings of properties, characterizations, and so forth, but no examples. This makes it hard to understand even for someone like me who might be expected to understand it. I cannot fix this myself, and my request on the talk page has gone unanswered. Is there anyone here who would be interested in fleshing out this article? — Mark Dominus ( talk) 14:18, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Would anyone care to review the rewrite of the Proof section at Intermediate value theorem by Toolnut ( talk · contribs). I reverted their first rewrite because they did not use the property of continuity (see Talk:Intermediate value theorem#Error in proof?), but they have now done a second rewrite. Gandalf61 ( talk) 09:48, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
There are many proofs, probably some deserving of at least mention in the article. Bolzano's original proof uses the method of bisection. This proof is important in the modern world because it uses a procedure for solving the equation that can be implemented on a computer. The standard topological proof (a la Rudin) is also a nice proof because it validates our intuition about why the theorem is true. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 14:28, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
A suggestion to change the template in that way has been made at Template talk:OEIS#This is an external link. Lipedia ( talk) 15:59, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
The site Math Études has a collection of short movies on mathematical topics. I seem to be unable to play them in my browser though. If you have a moment, please try viewing one of the movies, if I'm the only one that's having the problem and the quality is decent it might be worthwhile putting some of them in the 'External links' section of the corresponding articles. If a special download is required to view them then I think WP:ELNO says they shouldn't be linked.-- RDBury ( talk) 14:55, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
The page on the quasi-interior seems very bare to me. And I'm not sure if it is notable since the only reference of the sort I can find is the reference provided. I would propose it for deletion except I: 1) wonder if anyone is more knowledgeable on this topic and can help with the page, and 2) don't know how to do that. Help in either direction would be appreciated. Zfeinst ( talk) 00:55, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
(I moved some of the discussion on limits of functions, which has gone off on a tangent and overcrowded the section on IVT proof, into this new section.)
@Toolnut: Derivatives are defined by certain limits:
If this limit could not exist without the difference quotient being a continuous function of Δx at the point where Δx = 0, then there would be no point in taking a limit: one would simply plug in 0 in place of Δx and be done with it. If it were true that a function can have a limit at a point only if it's continuous at that point, then one could find all limits just be plugging in the point that is being approached. Then there would be no reason to have such a concept as limits. Michael Hardy ( talk) 00:16, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
You are invited to continue the discussion of this thread at User_talk:Toolnut#Functions_and_their_Limits Toolnut ( talk) 20:29, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Following on from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2011/Sep#Undiscussed List -> Outline moves, people might like to follow the discussion at Talk:Outline of arithmetic#Outlines versus bare lists. This time round, only three pages are affected. They were originally called "Outline...", I renamed them to "List..." a few weeks ago for consistency with other lists, and they're now called "Outline..." again. Jowa fan ( talk) 07:13, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Is there, or will there be a new category for Theorems in set theory? If not, where's the best place for them? Thanks, Rschwieb ( talk) 22:53, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Please make the choice which is easiest to sort articles with :) Rschwieb ( talk) 15:54, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
User:Lipedia has changed about 30 articles using Template:OEIS2C to use Template:OEIS instead. The fact that there are two of these OEIS templates with difference usages was discussed last month. From the edits comments it appears that the editor does not understand that the templates are different, so it might be a good idea to review the changes to see if they're appropriate. In the mean time, this is the second time in a matter of a week or two that someone has made wholesale edits to math articles without bringing it up here first. I say next time it happens we break out the torches and pitchforks.-- RDBury ( talk) 23:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
On a related note, I thought we had already agreed that the icon in this templates is inappropriate, but yet it remains. Should someone remove it then? Sławomir Biały ( talk) 10:27, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Formerly the name OEIS2C (2C = 2nd citation) made sense, because only the long template linked to OEIS. At the moment the long and the short template are coequal ways to link sequences, because also the short template links to the article in the icon. So my intention was, to reflect this change in the character of the short template in it's name. "oeis" is easier to write and to remember than "OEIS2C", and I think it's quite logical that capital letters give the long and small letters give the short template. Sorry when I was too bold, but I didn't realize objection against the icon, so I came to the conclusion that the name change makes sense. Lipedia ( talk) 13:09, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
{{
OEIS|A000001}}
and {{
oeis|A000001}}
give different results when OEIS/oeis is an interwiki prefix and
OEIS:A000001 and
oeis:A000001 give the same result (interwiki prefixes are not case dependent). I think {{
oeis}} should be deleted or redirected to {{
OEIS}}, and all your changes from {{
OEIS2C}} to {{
oeis}} in articles should be reverted. You can propose a new name for {{
OEIS2C}} if you want but I would oppose {{
oeis}} when we already have a different template called {{
OEIS}}. Difference in capitalization is not a good method to convey information.
PrimeHunter (
talk) 15:00, 21 October 2011 (UTC)See this edit.
One of the most absurd things I've seen in a while is that Wigner-Ville distribution, with a hyphen, and Wigner–Ville distribution, with an en-dash, redirected to two different articles. The now both redirect to the same target, but the question is whether it's the right target? Or maybe that other one is the right one? (Or even a third one?) Michael Hardy ( talk) 22:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
We currently have a number of articles that use the word converse with a link. Many of these go, some via redirects, to Conversion (logic). The problem is that the target article seems to be written for someone with a degree in logic; it even assumes familiarity with the classical names of syllogisms. This makes it inappropriate for what we're using it for, namely a definition for people who are unfamiliar with a somewhat jargony term. In other words I think the links are intended to go to something like the version of Converse (logic) before it was changed to a redirect. Another issue is that converse and conversion are two different things, the former being the result of the latter. Perhaps a better target would be Converse (mathematics), though this is currently an unreferenced orphan and might be changed to a redirect any second. There is also an article called Converse implication, but it's about a binary operator in Boolean logic, and an article called Converse theorem but it's about something different altogether. What I'd like to do to replace all the links to 'Conversion (logic)' from math articles; right now I'm thinking the best replacement is to a suitable anchor point in Theorem#Terminology. Another viable option would be to merge 'Converse (mathematics)' into List of mathematical jargon and change the links to an anchor point there. Yet another would be to restore 'Converse (logic)', clean it up a bit and link to it. None of these options is perfect so it will be nice someone can come up with a better idea.-- RDBury ( talk) 06:24, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Re: Fractions ( talk). There has been a long ongoing discussion on the introduction to this article, and the use of technical terms. It would be help to have some input (on the Fractions talk page). -- Iantresman ( talk) 12:54, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
The question needs to be asked properly then.
It's a no-brainer that certain mathematical concepts can only be understood in context. That is, in terms of other, more basic mathematical concepts. Those, in turn, need to be explained in terms of other, yet simpler concepts, until we finally find the concepts can be explained in "plain english".
Now, to what extent do we have to explain the backstory for a higher-level concept? That is:
would be a self-contained definition.
If you are then going to make the jolly-complicated-widget page completely comprehensible to the idle browser who happens to come across it by pressing "Random page", you then have to explain (on the same page) what a complicated-widget and a jolly-wobbler are.
I suggest No: we just need to offer up a sentence saying: "For an explanation of complicated-widget click this link, and for an explanation of jolly-wobbler click this link."
Otherwise we are going to be filling the encyclopedia with colossal amounts of repetition, every time you need to explain a concept which uses another concept to explain it.
Examples from the "fraction" thread above: do we need to explain "integer", "expression" and what-all every time we use it? No, we just make "integer" a link and expect the mouth-breathing knuckle-dragger of a user to click on it to find out what it is.
Same applies to the "Converse" page - if the user needs to know what a "converse" is, then he/she is probably already doing an assignment requiring at least a basic understanding of a "conditional" and what the "implies" arrow is. So why do we have to retread every single concept on every single page? -- Matt Westwood 14:37, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
In Expectation–maximization algorithm, after the heading "Alternative description", the two lines of TeX after "expectation step" and "maximization step" are not getting rendered when I view them while logged in (and using MathJax. What's going on? Michael Hardy ( talk) 19:50, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Just came across the same issue in Möbius transformation. Math like this not rendering
adding extra braces fixed it.
The problem was with both \hat and \widehat commands in about half a dozen formulae, so it looks like it's a more general problem with how the parser of these things works.-- JohnBlackburne words deeds 21:58, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
In the german Wikipedia we have the same problem and I created a little Bash-script in order to find some still uncorrected errors. There is no guarantee that script will find every error, but it finds at least more errors than google.
#!/bin/sh
# No warranty, use at your own risk!
# As the first parameter you need a CatScan
# (http://toolserver.org/~magnus/catscan_rewrite.php?interface_language=en)
# with format "TSV" (with first two lines deleted)
if $# -ne 1
then
echo "Calling: $0 <CatScan>"
exit
fi
if test -f $1
then
if test -f $1.out
then
rm $1.out
fi
for i in `cut -f 1 $1`; do
lynx -source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$i | grep "Failed to parse" > /dev/null
if $? = "0" ; then
echo \* \[\[$i\]\] | tee -a $1.out
fi
sleep 0.2
done
else
echo "File $1 doesn't exist"
fi
I didn't tested it in WP-en, maybe there is still some localisation work to be done. -- KMic ( talk) 00:04, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
I've done a few more using Google to find them, but one was especially interesting: [4]. In it I fixed four lines even though only one was a 'Failed to parse' error. The others I found by finding '\dot\hat' in the edit window, after spotting two at once. The problem is it will happily render this, but incorrectly, e.g.
This was brought up in the VP thread but I didn't think through the implications. Neither ways of searching (the script or Google) will find these, and they're very difficult to spot (these are often very formula heavy pages). There's no easy way to search the wikisource that I know, and potentially a large number of patterns to match (many symbols, maybe spaced or with other things involved).-- JohnBlackburne words deeds 00:43, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
<math>\operatorname{sen}x</math>
which would get parsed to something like $${\operatorname {sen}}x$$ which obliterates the point of \operatorname. To fixed this bug I removed some unneeded braces (uneeded from the latex point of view, clearly needed from the texvc point of view). Unfortunately there is lots of latex code which seems like it should compile under latex but doesn't. For example, at least on my systems $$\hat\mathbf{C}$$ fails to LaTeX, but the extra braces that texvc was putting in would sanitize this to something that would LaTeX. To complicate all of this some of it is system dependent. This seems system depedent. For example on my University's Unbuntu system $$\dot\hat {x}$$ simply doesn't compile under LaTeX, while under Mageia it does compile but offset as shown above, and in any case it should be sanitized as it used to be. I just had this bug called to my attention and I am working on it now.
Thenub314 (
talk) 23:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)<math>\frac 1 \sqrt{2}</math>
not working,
<math>\frac 1 {\sqrt{2}}</math>
does. (Note: I don't know whether this problem is due to MW 1.18, nor if it has already been fixed). --
KMic (
talk) 13:11, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
\frac{1}{\sqrt} {2}
, which won't work, whereas the previous version of the parser would somehow do look-ahead and some right-to-left parsing to get the intended meaning.I'm going to go ahead an remove the icon from the OEIS template per the discussions above. An example using my test version is:
The people who like the icon don't seem to be in the majority or feel that strongly about it. Plus, as mentioned above, putting in-line icons in text is contrary to the MOS. Another problem is that doing a text search for "OEIS" does not work when it's an icon. It's not a straight revert though since I left out the fullurl code; the only effects this seems to have is to add a link icon and remove the mouse-over text. I'll make the change tomorrow sometime unless there's a strong objection (e.g. someone says it will break hundreds of article pages). The issue of whether links to OEIS should be changed to references or moved the 'External links' section of an article is still being debated, and the discussion of what to do with redundant OEIS variants is still unresolved.-- RDBury ( talk) 15:52, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
My user page has been sent to MfD. If you have an opinion on this, you may express it at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:JRSpriggs. JRSpriggs ( talk) 12:54, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
The Roman arithmetic page really needs help. I think the Romans themselves didn't use them for math, but there's no decent sources in the article to suggest who, if anyone, ever did try to use them in that fashion. Is there anyone here who can help this poor thing out? Maybe it needs to be moved to Arithmetic using Roman numerals, or this article needs to explain how Romans did math, which it doesn't.--~ T P W 16:25, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I originally created the article based on some notes from an old college handout but lost interested in it when 95% of my work was removed in 2007. I am against deletion - not because I created it - but that there is value from a history of Roman science and technology perspective. As pointed out here, very little is available to cite (as far as we know) but that makes it all the more important that is known is preserved. I advocate that the article get restarted with a better foundation of what is known about how the Roman's did math. Even if it is stub, it will still accurately what is currently known about that historical period. At present, there is a redirect to Roman Abacus, so there is need to rush to AfD. --D. Norris 10:53, 22 October 2011 (UTC) — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Denorris (
talk •
contribs)
Hello. It looks like the Mathematical theorems category is much improved, since the subcategories are all under 200 pages. I was wondering if there was any work still left, or if it is pretty much "mission accomplished" for now. Rschwieb ( talk) 14:07, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I took the liberty of creating a new section, Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Reference resources#Guidelines for selected websites in our Reference resources page. I believe this captures the outcomes of several discussions here on which math websites should be considered reliable sources. Discuss, revise or revert as you see fit.-- RDBury ( talk) 19:12, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
The community is invited to participate in a request for comment about my editing: WP:Requests_for_comment/Kiefer.Wolfowitz. Kiefer. Wolfowitz 20:54, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi!
The RfC is about to close.
I'd like to thank the project members for supportive comments and helpful, thoughtful statements, from which I can learn.
Best regards,
Kiefer. Wolfowitz 16:30, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
I've recently rewritten the lead of Bijection, hopefully making it more accessible. Because the article is about bijections, I was able to define bijections first and only later bring up surjections and injections ... not the traditional way to broach the subject. What I've done is elementary, jargon-free and non-controversial, but if pressed I don't think that I could come up with a reference for this approach. The issue in my mind is whether or not this is considered to be OR. Let me point out that I would not have done this or anything similar in the body of the article – I would consider that OR. I am only talking about taking this kind of liberty in the lead, for the purpose of providing a gentler introduction to a topic. I am confident that this issue or something similar has been brought up before (in reference to math articles) and would appreciate any pointers to previous discussions. Bill Cherowitzo ( talk) 21:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments. A section of Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines dealt directly with my concern, it seems that I was being a little too hawkish with my interpretation of NOR. I've re-edited the page, incorporating the suggestions made here and elsewhere, so again thanks. Bill Cherowitzo ( talk) 03:12, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Here: Support check: a Wikipedia math naming principle?.-- JohnBlackburne words deeds 15:19, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
I've asked to move the article Gauss–Codazzi equations around. Feel free to join the discussion. -- The Evil IP address ( talk) 10:45, 31 October 2011 (UTC)