Question, as an outsider (a linguist, for my sins), this relates to something I have been pondering since seeing the surprisingly strong support from what appear to be mathematics editors for the long-umlaut Hungarian spelling of the subject at the recent Talk:Paul Erdős RM. It shows a surprising preference of mathematical sources for what most newspapers would find a spelling not worth getting right. Either that or mathematicians are all Magyarphiles. But I was just looking pn Google Books at references to the two "fathers" of Vietnamese mathematics Hoàng Tụy and Lê Văn Thiêm and found Neal Koblitz' autobiography spelling their names correctly. Is this kind of exactness with foreigners's names usual in the mathematics world, or is it just because of Koblitz' ties to Vietnam? Specifically, do the databases that mathematics papers are filed in preserve the spelling of Vietnamese mathematicians? I can see they do for Czechs and Croats. In ictu oculi ( talk) 16:06, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
Well, Øystein Ore's name is spelled the way he spelled it in the Wikipedia article about him, and when I cited one of his books in a published paper, I had no trouble writing it that way, since the typesetting software designed by Knuth, Lamport, etc. make that easy. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:48, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
File:2D Greek Cross Fractal.png has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.252 ( talk) 04:15, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
There are lots of mathematical and scientific AFD's today:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jasinski Flower,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Iteration of mathematical curves,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Local maximum intensity projection,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Streamsurface,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Skin friction lines,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Asymptotic Decider,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lagrangian-Eulerian Advection,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vortex Core Line,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Streamlet (Scientific Visualization),
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tensor glyph,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Worley noise,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Image-based flow visualization.
You views are welcome. The first two of which have been mention on this page before.--
Salix (
talk):
22:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
Most of the nominations in this list are from a person who says of each article that he does not see how it can be expanded beyond a dictionary definition, when there are already dozens of published papers on the concept and anyone with a bit of experience in such matters would expect that they can be greatly expanded, just based on seeing what's already there. Michael Hardy ( talk) 18:04, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
Is it sensible to add this article or disambiguation page (to defining sections in relevant articles, still to be added)? I see the term generated recurring frequently (in groups, modules, rings, vector spaces, etc.), and the concept is possibly complex enough to need more than a dictionary definition. It strikes me that the average reader may be a little unsure about inferring its exact meaning from the context, and digging WP around does not easily yield a definition. — Quondum ☏ 09:10, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
I've created the two redirects. Michael Hardy ( talk) 18:17, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
I propose merging Abelian variety of CM-type into Complex multiplication (and finding some sources too). If that makes the latter article too long, then it seems that splitting out Complex multiplication of elliptic curves would be preferable. Deltahedron ( talk) 10:59, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
It was wrong and harmful that Joel B. Lewis ( talk · contribs) merged Square (algebra) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) into square number without any announcement and substantiation, an article with two dozens of interlanguage links distinct from "square number". These things are very distinct! "Square (algebra)" is relevant not only to integers, not only to numbers, and even not only to mathematical abstractions. There are squares in algebras. There are square units and squares of physical quantities. There are x2 terms in rings of polynomials, at last. The merger was egregiously wrong. I cannot trust an user which makes such bold mergers of significant topics (well beyond a stub) without a trace of justification. It introduce a confusion, disruption of interlanguage links structure and constitutes an attempt to bypass a due process. I thing, the user’s contributions have to be examined. Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 09:03, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
oldid
link to a revision of "square (algebra)" with {{
merge}} or something like it. I still insist that redirecting "square (algebra)" to a number-theory article was a pure damage to Wikipedia – a good, tidy user could just move a part of content, thus reducing "square (algebra)" to a stub. BTW, the paragraph about statistics was clearly off-topical to number theory. So, D.Lazard is not entirely right in his point that the old article "considered only squares of integers". In a new place, such content incorrectly suggested that square (integer) numbers have some relevance to statistics. I would call this just a vandalism if had doubts in JBL’s good faith.
Incnis Mrsi (
talk)
17:54, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
I have added several links in the "see also" section of square (algebra). IMO, they deserve to have a section in this article, with a hatnote "main". The same is true for some other links, like quadratic residue. D.Lazard ( talk) 13:30, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, it is a quite different episode, but directly caused by the case of "square (algebra)". Colleagues, what should I do with [1] in Square number? Revert, ignore, and yet revert? To post to the article's talk page? To post something marginally civil to her(?) user_talk? How could they judge whether my contributions are bad or good, if they do not read discussions and are unaware of the situation?! Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 19:02, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
Robo37’s remark in the infamous merge discussion has possibly the only good consequence: it pointed to another article suffering the syndrome described by D.Lazard. Cubic number was a redirect from the very beginning and hence, there were no mergers. But the disease itself is probably even more acute, as one can observe
“ | A cube number usually has a small 3 above it for example x³. | ” |
If one has a positive thought, then implement it please. I will look, but will not interfere nor even criticize ☺ Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 10:40, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Please see Portal talk:Mathematics#Selected picture if you care about how pictures are "featured" at Portal:Mathematics. In a nutshell, I'd like to move to a "random portal component" system from the current "monthly" system. I'd also like opinions on the actual collection of images to use. Interested parties can comment over there. - dcljr ( talk) 06:14, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Today I did a bit of editing of this section, changing a sort of html table or array, or whatever it's called, that included TeX in math tags, to a single set of math tags using "align". When I clicked on "preview", I saw the TeX code, but it was not rendered. For a thing like this, a small typo could cause the whole thing to come out as a mess, with an error message displayed, so one definitely wants to see the preview before saving it. This used to work. Now it doesn't. Have others seen this or is it just something about my own account, or what? Should we report this to bugzilla? Michael Hardy ( talk) 17:14, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
oldid
s.
Incnis Mrsi (
talk)
19:18, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
The article recently moved to Arnold tongue has a glaring omission that dominates the article: it doesn't say who it's name after. I'm guessing Vladimir Arnold. Can anyone deny or confirm anything? Michael Hardy ( talk) 04:32, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
webzoom.freewebs.com/cvdegosson/arnold4.pdf
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=arnold%20tongue%20-%20vladimir%20arnold&source=web&cd=12&ved=0CCgQFjABOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcmup.fc.up.pt%2Fcmup%2Fv2%2Finclude%2Ffiledb.php%3Fid%3D196%26table%3Dpublicacoes%26field%3Dfile&ei=JEZIUJuoEca00QXK9oDoDw&usg=AFQjCNGoqabcWCbCISgKPpj-RtzXGZ0TsA
Hi again. I take it that Pham Minh Hoang has no notability as a mathematician to add to sources? (not related to the Neal Koblitz-names WP:RM above, just tidying stubs). In ictu oculi ( talk) 07:06, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
Hi,
Apparently, there is a rumor that he proved the abc conjecture. (I was not aware and was pointed out to me by Sławomir.) It is thus essential that we have at least very basics on him (whence, the article was created.) It discusses very little on his work (for example, it doesn't discuss Grothendieck conjecture, which he apparently proved.) since I don't have enough background. Unlike Michael Hardy, I cannot order people to work on it, but it would be nice if someone with more background can take a look at it. Best, -- Taku ( talk) 22:30, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
Paul August ☎ 00:45, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
You are invited to comment on the following RfC:
Talk:Monty Hall problem#Conditional or Simple solutions for the Monty Hall problem?
The Monty Hall problem is an especially interesting one because for many people it is their first exposure to probability calculations, and because it has a distinct psychological aspect; why do so many engineers, scientists and mathematicians get it wrong at first?
The question the RfC asks concerns the place conditional probability should have in the Monty Hall problem article. We could really use some informed opinions on this. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 01:15, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
I have made a new page Power residue symbol. Over the next week or so I will be making an article on Eisenstein reciprocity and linking existing pages. - Virginia-American ( talk) 11:43, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
Exact c*-algebra should be Exact C*-algebra. Could someone help move it? Mct mht ( talk) 22:09, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
I have added a page on Eisenstein reciprocity and linked it. - Virginia-American ( talk) 11:06, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
I have created the page subresultant, which is only a redirect to a new section of Polynomial greatest common divisor. By the way, I have started to expand this article by introducing in it the new results or clarifications which have been developed since circa 50 years for the need of computer algebra. Subresultant is one of them. For the moment, some sections are yet reduced to their title, in particular the section "references". Cleaning up of the yet written sections would be welcome. D.Lazard ( talk) 11:59, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
The article Inter-universal Teichmüller theory has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}}
notice, but please explain why in your
edit summary or on
the article's talk page.
Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}}
will stop the
proposed deletion process, but other
deletion processes exist. In particular, the
speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and
articles for deletion allows discussion to reach
consensus for deletion. —
David Eppstein (
talk)
15:54, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
Hello. I am not sure if this is the right place to ask, but does anybody know what 0.5×106 m3 is? I have been collecting information to make an article, but stuff like this puzzels me as I don't have a good degree in math. Volcano guy 19:39, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Bigger than 108 = 100,000,000 and smaller than 109 = 1,000,000,000. Maschen ( talk) 19:19, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Lyapunov-fractal.png will be appearing as picture of the day on September 13, 2012. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2012-09-13. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! — howcheng { chat} 17:28, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
Reading about the ABC conjecture I came across Tijdeman's theorem. There was a notice on that wikipedia page complaining that the article had multiple issues concerning sourcing: there was just one reference and that was to a primary source, the original article by Robert Tijdeman himself. I added some further references which pay attention to the theorem within various bigger contexts (the proof of Catalan's conjecture; Fermat's last theorem; ABC ...). Perhaps some experts on number theory will be able to replace these with better references or make other corrections. Richard Gill ( talk) 13:17, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
I do not know where report about this bug: When entering in a page by following a link to a section, the pointer is placed at the beginning of the section before mathjax computation. If there is many formulas in the page, it results that after mathjax computation, the target of the link is misplaced in the window and sometimes outside of the window, like in Polynomial greatest common divisor#Sturm sequence. D.Lazard ( talk) 13:08, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
<div style="min-height:Xem">...</div>
Should Beurling zeta function be merged into this article? Deltahedron ( talk) 21:33, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
{{
cite book}}
: Unknown parameter |coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (
help) which is cited in
Abstract analytic number theory. They say Some writers avoid the term 'Beurling' and instead discuss 'arithmetic semigroups'. The mathematics is the same in either case.
Deltahedron (
talk)
06:09, 15 September 2012 (UTC)I asked this in the talk page of Jacobian matrix and determinant, but seems nobody reads that! I want to add a (long) list of jacobians, mostly of matrix functions. Where should that go? In mentiones article, or should it be an article by itself?
Kjetil Halvorsen 01:11, 14 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kjetil1001 ( talk • contribs)
It's been a couple of days now since we had new articles at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity. Is one of the bots down? — David Eppstein ( talk) 01:44, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
The edit history of the "current activity" page shows Jitse's bot doing daily updates at the usual times. But for new articles, it relies on information from user:mathbot. That bot's list of user contributions shows much activity on September 14th and 16th, and only a small amount on the 15th. It could be that on that day, it didn't do all its usual stuff. Maybe we'll be back to normal when Jitse's bot does its next update. Michael Hardy ( talk) 17:26, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
Members of this wikiProject may be interested in Wikipedia talk:Vital articles#Mathematics -> Philosopher. Yaris678 ( talk) 15:15, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
I have rewritten the article stiffness matrix; before, it was kind of a jumble and didn't clearly explain what the stiffness matrix was for a given finite element discretization of a PDE. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Compsonheir ( talk) 00:25, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
Working to elevate Palindromic polynomial beyond stub class. See Talk page for thoughts. I've already made a start. Martin Packer ( talk) 10:25, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
Sensibly it's been pointed out we need references - especially for the properties list. Can someone help? Martin Packer ( talk) 09:43, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
Wondering what was the Last Fermat's Theorem, I accessed the wiki article. For my surprise, I took a while to "find" an + bn = cn. I didn't anything because it must be a very well cared article. But I think it would be a good thing for general users an effective highlight for the math notation of the Theorem (an + bn = cn). At least a bold.
The first paragraph would be like this:
"In
number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (an + bn = cn) (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three
positive
integers a, b, and c can satisfy the equation for any integer value of n greater than two."
I prefer in the title of the article -
Fermat's Last Theorem (an + bn = cn)
Thanks for your attention. You, from WP:WPM, must know what is the best thing to do... maybe nothing.
Caiaffa (
talk)
15:27, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
When discussing two symbols denoting a trapezoid in the lead, I see a little trapezoid symbol for the first, and a little square box with a question mark on the second. That would seem to be a display issue (or a very poorly designed symbol for a trapezoid). Rschwieb ( talk) 15:45, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
J. E. Littlewood's advice to Wikipedians (p. 164)
"Always verify references." This is so absurd in mathematics that I used to say provocatively: "never ..."
- Virginia-American ( talk) 23:05, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
I've come across Scholarpedia cited (in article Axiom A). Is this regarded as a reliable source? Deltahedron ( talk) 11:01, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
I'd call it "reliable enough, for now". Even textbooks occasionally have famous bloopers in them. When a WP article is short, stubby and inadequate, then links to superior-quality scholarpedia articles seem appropriate. But, over time, perceptions of quality may change. We've been through this before: a decade ago, Wolfram's mathworld seemed to be this vast source of information, with more extensive, reliable and professional coverage of math topics, than what WP had. This has changed: these days, most mathworld articles are pathetic stubs compared to their WP analogs, and removing refs to them is sometimes a good idea.
The point is to offer the reader an easy-to-get-to, more-or-less-correct, reliable on-line source for pursuing a topic. Books are hard to get: expensive to buy, a trek to a library, which may not have a copy, etc. and all that just so you can verify one or two sentences? Ugh. linas ( talk) 15:33, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
I see that WP:V has received some great improvements in the past year or so "You may remove any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source." And someone, who is an admin now, put it in practice. And the guy who first came to his aid, also made admin since then. See oppose #4 at Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Bbb23#Oppose. Tijfo098 ( talk) 07:31, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
Sheesh. it seems User:Bbb23 is an admin. This is a misdemeanor for anyone; but for an admin to behave like a snot-nosed punk... that's wrong. linas ( talk) 16:30, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure what to make of these two edits: [8], [9]. Jowa fan ( talk) 03:08, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Also see this edit by the same user. -- JBL ( talk) 14:55, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
This unreferenced article appears to make no sense. Can anyone vouch for it, preferably by reference to reliable sources? Deltahedron ( talk) 17:10, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
The Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/FAQ currently explains "Why [it is] so difficult to learn mathematics from Wikipedia articles" ( WP:NOTTEXTBOOK). Perhaps it would be a good idea if that section also briefly explained or pointed to what Wikipedia math articles are or do/what one can expect to get from them. In other words, a partially positive answer instead of a wholly negative one. Hyacinth ( talk) 07:18, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
Per a request by User:Trovatore that I stop by here and "[explain] what [I] have in mind": my intention was to create a template. I expected there already to be a discussion going on. Hyacinth ( talk) 02:37, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
“In other words, general set theory is pretty trivial stuff really, but, if you want to be a mathematician, you need some and here it is: Read it, absorb it, and forget it.”
— Paul Halmos, Naive set theory
It would be a good idea to document the supposed aversion to navigation templates in math articles, perhaps at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics, so in the future one could point to that instead of to supposed or actual discussions. Hyacinth ( talk) 02:59, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
Nav boxes were hotly debated here, in 2006 or thereabouts. I remember there being a consensus against them, but maybe that is because I was on the winning side. Very roughly, the split was between senior/experienced/sophisticated editors/mathematicians, and young students trying to master the topics for the first time. For the young student, nav boxes are insanely great: they immediately clue you in on what topics are "important", in the sense of "will be on the mid-term/final exam". These are the core/central topics that you are expected to know and have mastered. But, for the old-timers, these templates are a distraction, a waste of space, and almost always have the wrong emphasis: they mix really important stuff with really trivial stuff. For old-timers, the "important stuff" are the deep theorems: ones perspective changes as one gets more sophisticated. viz: "set theory" vs. "elementary set theory": if you are an old-timer, then, indeed, that nav-box completely fails to mention the important topics of set theory; it only covers naive topics in elementary set theory. But if you're studying elementary set theory for the first time .... And so it goes... linas ( talk) 15:54, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Is it easily possible to obtain a list containing the links in an article (or WP page, I'm interested in Wikipedia:Pages_needing_attention/Mathematics) that fall in a certain category, say Category:Algebra? Thanks, Jakob.scholbach ( talk) 18:37, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Maybe somebody is willing to talk there about this. The dispute is neither civilized nor really important, but some participation from here can help me. Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 16:17, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
I've created a page titled mathematical research that currently redirects to mathematics and is labeled via the standard template as a "redirect with possibilities".
I was looking at the article titled List of common misconceptions, and under "Mathematics" only one item was listed. I thought of adding another: Many educated people think that mathematics is a subject in which everything is already known, but in fact a vast torrent of new research keeps producing new discoveries, as much as in other sciences such as physics and biology. I read the list of inclusion criteria:
We all know that this is widely believed, but is that in fact sourced somewhere? In the course of thinking about that, I decided to look for the article titled mathematical research or mathematics research. Michael Hardy ( talk) 19:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
In general I'm opposed to "misconceptions" language in WP articles. We're a reference work, not a pedagogical one. Let's just give the facts, and let the reader figure out what's a misconception. --
Trovatore (
talk)
03:30, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
The claim "mathematics in now inactive" is trivially wrong, but here is a more problematic claim: "now mathematics produces only results that a non-mathematician cannot understand and therefore cannot use; mathematicians pretend to be still useful, but they are not". Boris Tsirelson ( talk) 07:15, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Math is very seldom in the news; occasionally you see an article "new prime number discovered", and Andrew Wiles was in People magazine, but that's about it. - Virginia-American ( talk) 09:07, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
I don't understand and cannot use a whole lot that physicists or medical researchers come up with, but I still think they're useful. Rschwieb ( talk) 15:11, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Question, as an outsider (a linguist, for my sins), this relates to something I have been pondering since seeing the surprisingly strong support from what appear to be mathematics editors for the long-umlaut Hungarian spelling of the subject at the recent Talk:Paul Erdős RM. It shows a surprising preference of mathematical sources for what most newspapers would find a spelling not worth getting right. Either that or mathematicians are all Magyarphiles. But I was just looking pn Google Books at references to the two "fathers" of Vietnamese mathematics Hoàng Tụy and Lê Văn Thiêm and found Neal Koblitz' autobiography spelling their names correctly. Is this kind of exactness with foreigners's names usual in the mathematics world, or is it just because of Koblitz' ties to Vietnam? Specifically, do the databases that mathematics papers are filed in preserve the spelling of Vietnamese mathematicians? I can see they do for Czechs and Croats. In ictu oculi ( talk) 16:06, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
Well, Øystein Ore's name is spelled the way he spelled it in the Wikipedia article about him, and when I cited one of his books in a published paper, I had no trouble writing it that way, since the typesetting software designed by Knuth, Lamport, etc. make that easy. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:48, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
File:2D Greek Cross Fractal.png has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.252 ( talk) 04:15, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
There are lots of mathematical and scientific AFD's today:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jasinski Flower,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Iteration of mathematical curves,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Local maximum intensity projection,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Streamsurface,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Skin friction lines,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Asymptotic Decider,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lagrangian-Eulerian Advection,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vortex Core Line,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Streamlet (Scientific Visualization),
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tensor glyph,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Worley noise,
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Image-based flow visualization.
You views are welcome. The first two of which have been mention on this page before.--
Salix (
talk):
22:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
Most of the nominations in this list are from a person who says of each article that he does not see how it can be expanded beyond a dictionary definition, when there are already dozens of published papers on the concept and anyone with a bit of experience in such matters would expect that they can be greatly expanded, just based on seeing what's already there. Michael Hardy ( talk) 18:04, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
Is it sensible to add this article or disambiguation page (to defining sections in relevant articles, still to be added)? I see the term generated recurring frequently (in groups, modules, rings, vector spaces, etc.), and the concept is possibly complex enough to need more than a dictionary definition. It strikes me that the average reader may be a little unsure about inferring its exact meaning from the context, and digging WP around does not easily yield a definition. — Quondum ☏ 09:10, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
I've created the two redirects. Michael Hardy ( talk) 18:17, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
I propose merging Abelian variety of CM-type into Complex multiplication (and finding some sources too). If that makes the latter article too long, then it seems that splitting out Complex multiplication of elliptic curves would be preferable. Deltahedron ( talk) 10:59, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
It was wrong and harmful that Joel B. Lewis ( talk · contribs) merged Square (algebra) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) into square number without any announcement and substantiation, an article with two dozens of interlanguage links distinct from "square number". These things are very distinct! "Square (algebra)" is relevant not only to integers, not only to numbers, and even not only to mathematical abstractions. There are squares in algebras. There are square units and squares of physical quantities. There are x2 terms in rings of polynomials, at last. The merger was egregiously wrong. I cannot trust an user which makes such bold mergers of significant topics (well beyond a stub) without a trace of justification. It introduce a confusion, disruption of interlanguage links structure and constitutes an attempt to bypass a due process. I thing, the user’s contributions have to be examined. Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 09:03, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
oldid
link to a revision of "square (algebra)" with {{
merge}} or something like it. I still insist that redirecting "square (algebra)" to a number-theory article was a pure damage to Wikipedia – a good, tidy user could just move a part of content, thus reducing "square (algebra)" to a stub. BTW, the paragraph about statistics was clearly off-topical to number theory. So, D.Lazard is not entirely right in his point that the old article "considered only squares of integers". In a new place, such content incorrectly suggested that square (integer) numbers have some relevance to statistics. I would call this just a vandalism if had doubts in JBL’s good faith.
Incnis Mrsi (
talk)
17:54, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
I have added several links in the "see also" section of square (algebra). IMO, they deserve to have a section in this article, with a hatnote "main". The same is true for some other links, like quadratic residue. D.Lazard ( talk) 13:30, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, it is a quite different episode, but directly caused by the case of "square (algebra)". Colleagues, what should I do with [1] in Square number? Revert, ignore, and yet revert? To post to the article's talk page? To post something marginally civil to her(?) user_talk? How could they judge whether my contributions are bad or good, if they do not read discussions and are unaware of the situation?! Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 19:02, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
Robo37’s remark in the infamous merge discussion has possibly the only good consequence: it pointed to another article suffering the syndrome described by D.Lazard. Cubic number was a redirect from the very beginning and hence, there were no mergers. But the disease itself is probably even more acute, as one can observe
“ | A cube number usually has a small 3 above it for example x³. | ” |
If one has a positive thought, then implement it please. I will look, but will not interfere nor even criticize ☺ Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 10:40, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Please see Portal talk:Mathematics#Selected picture if you care about how pictures are "featured" at Portal:Mathematics. In a nutshell, I'd like to move to a "random portal component" system from the current "monthly" system. I'd also like opinions on the actual collection of images to use. Interested parties can comment over there. - dcljr ( talk) 06:14, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Today I did a bit of editing of this section, changing a sort of html table or array, or whatever it's called, that included TeX in math tags, to a single set of math tags using "align". When I clicked on "preview", I saw the TeX code, but it was not rendered. For a thing like this, a small typo could cause the whole thing to come out as a mess, with an error message displayed, so one definitely wants to see the preview before saving it. This used to work. Now it doesn't. Have others seen this or is it just something about my own account, or what? Should we report this to bugzilla? Michael Hardy ( talk) 17:14, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
oldid
s.
Incnis Mrsi (
talk)
19:18, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
The article recently moved to Arnold tongue has a glaring omission that dominates the article: it doesn't say who it's name after. I'm guessing Vladimir Arnold. Can anyone deny or confirm anything? Michael Hardy ( talk) 04:32, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
webzoom.freewebs.com/cvdegosson/arnold4.pdf
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=arnold%20tongue%20-%20vladimir%20arnold&source=web&cd=12&ved=0CCgQFjABOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcmup.fc.up.pt%2Fcmup%2Fv2%2Finclude%2Ffiledb.php%3Fid%3D196%26table%3Dpublicacoes%26field%3Dfile&ei=JEZIUJuoEca00QXK9oDoDw&usg=AFQjCNGoqabcWCbCISgKPpj-RtzXGZ0TsA
Hi again. I take it that Pham Minh Hoang has no notability as a mathematician to add to sources? (not related to the Neal Koblitz-names WP:RM above, just tidying stubs). In ictu oculi ( talk) 07:06, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
Hi,
Apparently, there is a rumor that he proved the abc conjecture. (I was not aware and was pointed out to me by Sławomir.) It is thus essential that we have at least very basics on him (whence, the article was created.) It discusses very little on his work (for example, it doesn't discuss Grothendieck conjecture, which he apparently proved.) since I don't have enough background. Unlike Michael Hardy, I cannot order people to work on it, but it would be nice if someone with more background can take a look at it. Best, -- Taku ( talk) 22:30, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
Paul August ☎ 00:45, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
You are invited to comment on the following RfC:
Talk:Monty Hall problem#Conditional or Simple solutions for the Monty Hall problem?
The Monty Hall problem is an especially interesting one because for many people it is their first exposure to probability calculations, and because it has a distinct psychological aspect; why do so many engineers, scientists and mathematicians get it wrong at first?
The question the RfC asks concerns the place conditional probability should have in the Monty Hall problem article. We could really use some informed opinions on this. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 01:15, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
I have made a new page Power residue symbol. Over the next week or so I will be making an article on Eisenstein reciprocity and linking existing pages. - Virginia-American ( talk) 11:43, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
Exact c*-algebra should be Exact C*-algebra. Could someone help move it? Mct mht ( talk) 22:09, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
I have added a page on Eisenstein reciprocity and linked it. - Virginia-American ( talk) 11:06, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
I have created the page subresultant, which is only a redirect to a new section of Polynomial greatest common divisor. By the way, I have started to expand this article by introducing in it the new results or clarifications which have been developed since circa 50 years for the need of computer algebra. Subresultant is one of them. For the moment, some sections are yet reduced to their title, in particular the section "references". Cleaning up of the yet written sections would be welcome. D.Lazard ( talk) 11:59, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
The article Inter-universal Teichmüller theory has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}}
notice, but please explain why in your
edit summary or on
the article's talk page.
Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}}
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speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and
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consensus for deletion. —
David Eppstein (
talk)
15:54, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
Hello. I am not sure if this is the right place to ask, but does anybody know what 0.5×106 m3 is? I have been collecting information to make an article, but stuff like this puzzels me as I don't have a good degree in math. Volcano guy 19:39, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Bigger than 108 = 100,000,000 and smaller than 109 = 1,000,000,000. Maschen ( talk) 19:19, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Lyapunov-fractal.png will be appearing as picture of the day on September 13, 2012. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2012-09-13. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! — howcheng { chat} 17:28, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
Reading about the ABC conjecture I came across Tijdeman's theorem. There was a notice on that wikipedia page complaining that the article had multiple issues concerning sourcing: there was just one reference and that was to a primary source, the original article by Robert Tijdeman himself. I added some further references which pay attention to the theorem within various bigger contexts (the proof of Catalan's conjecture; Fermat's last theorem; ABC ...). Perhaps some experts on number theory will be able to replace these with better references or make other corrections. Richard Gill ( talk) 13:17, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
I do not know where report about this bug: When entering in a page by following a link to a section, the pointer is placed at the beginning of the section before mathjax computation. If there is many formulas in the page, it results that after mathjax computation, the target of the link is misplaced in the window and sometimes outside of the window, like in Polynomial greatest common divisor#Sturm sequence. D.Lazard ( talk) 13:08, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
<div style="min-height:Xem">...</div>
Should Beurling zeta function be merged into this article? Deltahedron ( talk) 21:33, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
{{
cite book}}
: Unknown parameter |coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (
help) which is cited in
Abstract analytic number theory. They say Some writers avoid the term 'Beurling' and instead discuss 'arithmetic semigroups'. The mathematics is the same in either case.
Deltahedron (
talk)
06:09, 15 September 2012 (UTC)I asked this in the talk page of Jacobian matrix and determinant, but seems nobody reads that! I want to add a (long) list of jacobians, mostly of matrix functions. Where should that go? In mentiones article, or should it be an article by itself?
Kjetil Halvorsen 01:11, 14 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kjetil1001 ( talk • contribs)
It's been a couple of days now since we had new articles at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity. Is one of the bots down? — David Eppstein ( talk) 01:44, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
The edit history of the "current activity" page shows Jitse's bot doing daily updates at the usual times. But for new articles, it relies on information from user:mathbot. That bot's list of user contributions shows much activity on September 14th and 16th, and only a small amount on the 15th. It could be that on that day, it didn't do all its usual stuff. Maybe we'll be back to normal when Jitse's bot does its next update. Michael Hardy ( talk) 17:26, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
Members of this wikiProject may be interested in Wikipedia talk:Vital articles#Mathematics -> Philosopher. Yaris678 ( talk) 15:15, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
I have rewritten the article stiffness matrix; before, it was kind of a jumble and didn't clearly explain what the stiffness matrix was for a given finite element discretization of a PDE. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Compsonheir ( talk) 00:25, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
Working to elevate Palindromic polynomial beyond stub class. See Talk page for thoughts. I've already made a start. Martin Packer ( talk) 10:25, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
Sensibly it's been pointed out we need references - especially for the properties list. Can someone help? Martin Packer ( talk) 09:43, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
Wondering what was the Last Fermat's Theorem, I accessed the wiki article. For my surprise, I took a while to "find" an + bn = cn. I didn't anything because it must be a very well cared article. But I think it would be a good thing for general users an effective highlight for the math notation of the Theorem (an + bn = cn). At least a bold.
The first paragraph would be like this:
"In
number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (an + bn = cn) (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three
positive
integers a, b, and c can satisfy the equation for any integer value of n greater than two."
I prefer in the title of the article -
Fermat's Last Theorem (an + bn = cn)
Thanks for your attention. You, from WP:WPM, must know what is the best thing to do... maybe nothing.
Caiaffa (
talk)
15:27, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
When discussing two symbols denoting a trapezoid in the lead, I see a little trapezoid symbol for the first, and a little square box with a question mark on the second. That would seem to be a display issue (or a very poorly designed symbol for a trapezoid). Rschwieb ( talk) 15:45, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
J. E. Littlewood's advice to Wikipedians (p. 164)
"Always verify references." This is so absurd in mathematics that I used to say provocatively: "never ..."
- Virginia-American ( talk) 23:05, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
I've come across Scholarpedia cited (in article Axiom A). Is this regarded as a reliable source? Deltahedron ( talk) 11:01, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
I'd call it "reliable enough, for now". Even textbooks occasionally have famous bloopers in them. When a WP article is short, stubby and inadequate, then links to superior-quality scholarpedia articles seem appropriate. But, over time, perceptions of quality may change. We've been through this before: a decade ago, Wolfram's mathworld seemed to be this vast source of information, with more extensive, reliable and professional coverage of math topics, than what WP had. This has changed: these days, most mathworld articles are pathetic stubs compared to their WP analogs, and removing refs to them is sometimes a good idea.
The point is to offer the reader an easy-to-get-to, more-or-less-correct, reliable on-line source for pursuing a topic. Books are hard to get: expensive to buy, a trek to a library, which may not have a copy, etc. and all that just so you can verify one or two sentences? Ugh. linas ( talk) 15:33, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
I see that WP:V has received some great improvements in the past year or so "You may remove any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source." And someone, who is an admin now, put it in practice. And the guy who first came to his aid, also made admin since then. See oppose #4 at Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Bbb23#Oppose. Tijfo098 ( talk) 07:31, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
Sheesh. it seems User:Bbb23 is an admin. This is a misdemeanor for anyone; but for an admin to behave like a snot-nosed punk... that's wrong. linas ( talk) 16:30, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure what to make of these two edits: [8], [9]. Jowa fan ( talk) 03:08, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Also see this edit by the same user. -- JBL ( talk) 14:55, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
This unreferenced article appears to make no sense. Can anyone vouch for it, preferably by reference to reliable sources? Deltahedron ( talk) 17:10, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
The Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/FAQ currently explains "Why [it is] so difficult to learn mathematics from Wikipedia articles" ( WP:NOTTEXTBOOK). Perhaps it would be a good idea if that section also briefly explained or pointed to what Wikipedia math articles are or do/what one can expect to get from them. In other words, a partially positive answer instead of a wholly negative one. Hyacinth ( talk) 07:18, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
Per a request by User:Trovatore that I stop by here and "[explain] what [I] have in mind": my intention was to create a template. I expected there already to be a discussion going on. Hyacinth ( talk) 02:37, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
“In other words, general set theory is pretty trivial stuff really, but, if you want to be a mathematician, you need some and here it is: Read it, absorb it, and forget it.”
— Paul Halmos, Naive set theory
It would be a good idea to document the supposed aversion to navigation templates in math articles, perhaps at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics, so in the future one could point to that instead of to supposed or actual discussions. Hyacinth ( talk) 02:59, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
Nav boxes were hotly debated here, in 2006 or thereabouts. I remember there being a consensus against them, but maybe that is because I was on the winning side. Very roughly, the split was between senior/experienced/sophisticated editors/mathematicians, and young students trying to master the topics for the first time. For the young student, nav boxes are insanely great: they immediately clue you in on what topics are "important", in the sense of "will be on the mid-term/final exam". These are the core/central topics that you are expected to know and have mastered. But, for the old-timers, these templates are a distraction, a waste of space, and almost always have the wrong emphasis: they mix really important stuff with really trivial stuff. For old-timers, the "important stuff" are the deep theorems: ones perspective changes as one gets more sophisticated. viz: "set theory" vs. "elementary set theory": if you are an old-timer, then, indeed, that nav-box completely fails to mention the important topics of set theory; it only covers naive topics in elementary set theory. But if you're studying elementary set theory for the first time .... And so it goes... linas ( talk) 15:54, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Is it easily possible to obtain a list containing the links in an article (or WP page, I'm interested in Wikipedia:Pages_needing_attention/Mathematics) that fall in a certain category, say Category:Algebra? Thanks, Jakob.scholbach ( talk) 18:37, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Maybe somebody is willing to talk there about this. The dispute is neither civilized nor really important, but some participation from here can help me. Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 16:17, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
I've created a page titled mathematical research that currently redirects to mathematics and is labeled via the standard template as a "redirect with possibilities".
I was looking at the article titled List of common misconceptions, and under "Mathematics" only one item was listed. I thought of adding another: Many educated people think that mathematics is a subject in which everything is already known, but in fact a vast torrent of new research keeps producing new discoveries, as much as in other sciences such as physics and biology. I read the list of inclusion criteria:
We all know that this is widely believed, but is that in fact sourced somewhere? In the course of thinking about that, I decided to look for the article titled mathematical research or mathematics research. Michael Hardy ( talk) 19:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
In general I'm opposed to "misconceptions" language in WP articles. We're a reference work, not a pedagogical one. Let's just give the facts, and let the reader figure out what's a misconception. --
Trovatore (
talk)
03:30, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
The claim "mathematics in now inactive" is trivially wrong, but here is a more problematic claim: "now mathematics produces only results that a non-mathematician cannot understand and therefore cannot use; mathematicians pretend to be still useful, but they are not". Boris Tsirelson ( talk) 07:15, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Math is very seldom in the news; occasionally you see an article "new prime number discovered", and Andrew Wiles was in People magazine, but that's about it. - Virginia-American ( talk) 09:07, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
I don't understand and cannot use a whole lot that physicists or medical researchers come up with, but I still think they're useful. Rschwieb ( talk) 15:11, 28 September 2012 (UTC)