Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:40, 23 March 2007

Latest revision as of 18:22, 31 August 2025

Line 1:

{{WikiProject mathematics tabs}}

{{shortcut|[[WT:WPM]]}}

{{end tab}}

{{archives|width=100px}}

{{Talk header|sc1=WT:WPM|sc2=WT:WPMATH}}

{{FAQ}}

{{Bots|deny=Cewbot}}

{{WikiProject Mathematics}}

{{Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/archivelist}}

{{User:MiszaBot/config

|algo = old(15d)

|archiveheader = {{WikiProject Mathematics archive list}}

|archive = Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/%(year)d/%(monthnameshort)s

}}

== Is there a term for a number that can only be calculated by the multiplication of two other specific numbers? ==

== [[Inductive symbol]] ==

For example, the number 15 is 5 x 3, but there are no other positive whole numbers that can be multiplied to get 15, as compared to, say, 45, which could be 15 x 3 or 5 x 9 or 3 x 3 x 5. Also, is it correct that the product of any two primes will only be calculable by the multiplication of those primes (such as 64,507 only being reducible to 251 x 257)? [[User:BD2412|<span style="background:gold">'''''BD2412'''''</span>]] [[User talk:BD2412|'''T''']] 17:04, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Has anyone ever heard of this? Or should we put it up for deletion as un-notable? [[User:JRSpriggs|JRSpriggs]] 06:18, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

: [[semiprime]] [[User:Tito Omburo|Tito Omburo]] ([[User talk:Tito Omburo|talk]]) 17:12, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

: I'm from Australia and I've never come across it. [[User:Darkliight|darkliight]]^{[[User_talk:Darkliight|[&pi;alk]]]} 06:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

:: Interesting. Thanks. It seems that all the number articles on numbers with this characteristic note this as well. [[User:BD2412|<span style="background:gold">'''''BD2412'''''</span>]] [[User talk:BD2412|'''T''']] 02:10, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

{{ping|BD2412}} Note that in Wikipedia articles one should write 5&nbsp;×&nbsp;3 rather than 5&nbsp;x&nbsp;3. [[User:Michael Hardy|Michael Hardy]] ([[User talk:Michael Hardy|talk]]) 20:14, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

:And if you cannot make &times; conveniently, it's &&shy;times&shy;;. [[User:Tamfang|—Tamfang]] ([[User talk:Tamfang|talk]]) 03:43, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

: We also find in the article:

:* Spoke 4: The portion of the number system for which the proof holds, e.g. n=J⁺ (positive integers)

: Universal notation for integers is '''Z''', not J. The creator [[Special:Contributions/Pboulus|contributions]] consist solely of this article, this image, and a new section about it added to [[mathematical induction]] (since removed). The image should die as well. --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]^{[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]} 09:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

==Michael Aschbacher==

::{{user|Spacepotato}} un-PRODed [[inductive symbol]] without any explanation or substantive change. [[User:JRSpriggs|JRSpriggs]] 08:35, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Would another editor or editors please take a look at the section "Classification of finite simple groups" in the [[Michael Aschbacher]] article? It has three paragraphs that paraphrase a significant chunk of an article in ''Social Studies of Science''. I suspect that probably a briefer summary of the SSS article is appropriate, but that the amount paraphrased there is probably [[WP:UNDUE]]. It also tends to single Aschbacher out for criticism, which may raise [[WP:BLP]] issues. I feel too close to finite group theory (and have met Aschbacher once or twice), and do not want to be the one who picks out what is due/undue here. [[User:Russ Woodroofe|Russ Woodroofe]] ([[User talk:Russ Woodroofe|talk]]) 11:47, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

:::Well, you can do that -- prod is supposed to be for noncontroversial deletions, so anyone who objects can remove it. Just means you have to go the long way around, unless there's a speedy criterion that fits. At a three-second glance the article looks like a goner, but I haven't put any more effort into it than that, so who knows. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 08:40, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

: I've read the paper, and thus seems like a fair summary. That paper references a lot of more primary literature, such as Gorenstein's personal reflections, and the few paragraphs in the article might benefit from better attribrution. [[User:Tito Omburo|Tito Omburo]] ([[User talk:Tito Omburo|talk]]) 12:25, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

::::Not that it matters much, but [[User:Spacepotato|Spacepotato]] is apparently part of a crew that goes around un-PRODing everything that's proposed for deletion. Why, I'm not sure. [[User:DavidCBryant|DavidCBryant]] 01:16, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

::I agree that it's a fair summary. My concern was about [[WP:DUE]] criticism of a living person sourced to the journal literature in social studies of mathematics. For one thing, the criticism "researchers no longer read papers as independent documents, but rather ones that required the context of its author" seems like one that applies to the entire Classification of Finite Simple Groups, not just to Aschbacher's contributions (and indeed more widely in modern mathematics, i.e. to projects like the Four Color Theorem). Looking again, perhaps the second and third paragraphs should be combined and streamlined? On the other hand, should some related material also be in the [[Classification of finite simple groups]] article? [[User:Russ Woodroofe|Russ Woodroofe]] ([[User talk:Russ Woodroofe|talk]]) 09:23, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

::: That last point seems like a pretty strong one. [[User:Tito Omburo|Tito Omburo]] ([[User talk:Tito Omburo|talk]]) 21:07, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

:::It does read a little odd for what's supposed to be a biographical page about Aschbacher. [[User:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction]] ([[User talk:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|talk]]) 03:46, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

:::: Everyone satisfied with [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Aschbacher&diff=prev&oldid=1305912082 this]? [[User:Tito Omburo|Tito Omburo]] ([[User talk:Tito Omburo|talk]]) 20:41, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

:::::I think that's an improvement; thanks. I do wonder a little about calling his papers "very difficult to read", which kind of sounds like turning a judgment call into an absolute fact. There's a difference between having a reputation for impenetrability and being truly, objectively impenetrable. [[User:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction]] ([[User talk:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|talk]]) 21:48, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

:::::: I mean, it is well-supported by the source. (It's nice to see this validated by well-researched summaries of secondary sources, rather than painful memories of graduate school.) [[User:Tito Omburo|Tito Omburo]] ([[User talk:Tito Omburo|talk]]) 22:04, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

:::::: Perhaps a synonym like "challenging", "demanding", or "formidable" would seem less judgmental. –[[user:jacobolus|jacobolus]] [[user_talk:jacobolus|(t)]] 22:11, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

:::::::I think a phrasing tweak of that nature could make the passage less judgmental and more informative. [[User:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction]] ([[User talk:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|talk]]) 00:01, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

{{od}}

I like the change in general, but agree with the spirit of some of the comments. I tried to rework the first sentence, but found it easier to rework the entire paragraph. What do y'all think about the following? {{tq|While Aschbacher's ideas were held in esteem by the group theory community, his writing style drew complaints. Some commented that his proofs lacked explanations of very sophisticated counting arguments. The difficulty in reading his papers became more pronounced as the papers became longer, with even some of his coauthors finding their joint papers hard to read. The challenge in understanding Aschbacher's proofs was attributed not to a lack of ability, but rather to the complexity of the ideas he was able to produce. This was part of a general trend where researchers working on the Classification of Finite Simple Groups began to view papers as requiring the context of their authors, rather than as independent documents. As a result, responsibility of finding errors in the classification problem was up to the entire community of researchers rather than just peer-reviewers alone.}} The one substantive change is to identify the move towards attention to the authors of a paper as a broader trend, which the source also does (the Aschbacher paragraph is in the midst of a section talking about similar trends with Gorenstein and others). [[User:Russ Woodroofe|Russ Woodroofe]] ([[User talk:Russ Woodroofe|talk]]) 10:06, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

:I'm not sure what "requiring the context of their authors" is intended to mean here. —[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] ([[User talk:David Eppstein|talk]]) 11:48, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Oh, a propos of nothing much, I do recall the "J" notation for the integers, from high school. I think the [[Houghton–Mifflin]] series of books use it. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 08:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

:: Thank you! Perhaps better phrasing would replace {{tq| view papers as requiring the context of their authors, rather than as independent documents}} with {{tq | view papers as being reliable because of the reputation of their authors and their previous work, rather than as self-contained documents}}? [[User:Russ Woodroofe|Russ Woodroofe]] ([[User talk:Russ Woodroofe|talk]]) 12:01, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

:::That is much clearer, thanks! —[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] ([[User talk:David Eppstein|talk]]) 12:33, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I went ahead and put my suggested paragraph (with modification after comment of David Eppstein) in the article. If I have misread the opinions here, then please feel free to modify or revert. [[User:Russ Woodroofe|Russ Woodroofe]] ([[User talk:Russ Woodroofe|talk]]) 12:18, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

:I tried to put it up for deletion at [[WP:AFD]] (which I have never done before), but I think that I messed the process up somehow. Can someone fix it, please? [[User:JRSpriggs|JRSpriggs]] 09:58, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

== Examples in [[Bayes' theorem]] ==

::The AfD process seems to be in order. I would suggest an effort to clean up [[mathematical induction]] which is not much better than the this one. The intro has too many advanced topics. The informal statement should state induction for the positive integers, not infinite sequences. The worked out example unnecessarily introduces the confusing notion of an empty sum (just start with n=1), and the rest of the article is an unorganized jumble of ideas.--[[User:ArnoldReinhold|agr]] 00:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The [[Bayes' theorem]] article has a lengthy section of "Examples" that includes no sources and is written in a rather [[WP:NOTTEXTBOOK|textbook-style]] manner. Contrast it with [[Pythagorean theorem]], for instance, which doesn't do anything one would call an "example" until the passage about Pythagorean triples. It's not exactly the same situation, of course, since the cornucopia of different proofs is a much bigger deal for the Pythagorean theorem, but even so, in that article we don't have a whole section where a ladder is leaned against a wall, a jogger crosses a field diagonally, etc. This seems like a situation that needs some work. [[User:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction]] ([[User talk:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|talk]]) 05:14, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

:::As you can see at [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Inductive symbol]], it was deleted. And now, its associated image is also up for deletion as an orphan image. See [[Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion#Image:Inductive.gif]] (see old discussions for March 4). [[User:JRSpriggs|JRSpriggs]] 04:56, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

:If including examples about how to plug numbers into the formula is a good idea here (and maybe it is), we should probably go to standard statistics books and use theirs. The current ones read rather like an enthusiastic Wikipedian made them up 20 years ago based on the general themes of the examples they remembered seeing in class. We can do better, I think. [[User:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction]] ([[User talk:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|talk]]) 05:29, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

::::The image itself was deleted[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=%3AImage%3AInductive.gif], although somehow the [[:Image:Inductive.gif|image page]] still exists. &nbsp;--[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small>^Talk</small>]] 09:51, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

::The introduction to the article includes an example which is not discussed in the article and thus not sourced. I suggest concentrating on one good sourced example in the body of the article and summarizing it in the intro. [[User:Johnjbarton|Johnjbarton]] ([[User talk:Johnjbarton|talk]]) 14:33, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

:::I like that idea. [[User:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction]] ([[User talk:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|talk]]) 21:05, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

:And another thing: is [https://www.cuemath.com/data/bayes-theorem/ CueMath] (currently reference 25) a reliable source? It looks to be yet another [[EdTech]] company website, and the writing is not all that clear throughout. Maybe not the most objectionable page, but it does have the feel of a source plugged in because it was the first to come up in a Google search. [[User:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction]] ([[User talk:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|talk]]) 05:35, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

::I think tag these sections. There is no shortage of "real-world" illustrations in well-known textbooks (e.g. Berger). [[User:Tito Omburo|Tito Omburo]] ([[User talk:Tito Omburo|talk]]) 21:29, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

:::I've tagged the completely unreferenced section and marked several other passages more specifically. If anyone is fresh from teaching a semester of probability theory, those {{tl|cn}} tags are good candidates to pick off. [[User:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction]] ([[User talk:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|talk]]) 23:10, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

:::: This is doing psychic damage to anyone you have just described. But fair. [[User:Tito Omburo|Tito Omburo]] ([[User talk:Tito Omburo|talk]]) 23:13, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

== Second pair of eyes on [[List of polyhedral stellations]] ==

:::I have to agree with [[User:ArnoldReinhold|agr]] that the [[mathematical induction]] needs cleaning up. The current mess is a disgrace! It should focus on the simple case of induction on the natural numbers, possibly also including structural induction, but all talk of transfinite induction needs to be moved to the [[transfinite induction]] page. Which also could use some cleaning up, but that is a topic for [[talk:transfinite induction]] perhaps. I admit I am hesitant to dive in and do something here; afraid of sticking my hand in a wasps' nest. [[User:Hanche|Hanche]] 17:54, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Can somebody (with better access to these sources) check to see if this massive 25k byte expansion to the article is actually sourced properly. [[User:Allan Nonymous|Allan Nonymous]] ([[User talk:Allan Nonymous|talk]]) 01:29, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

== LaTeX to Wikicode translation ==

== [[Lattice point]] ==

A raw version of a translator is [http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~jmandel/latex2wiki/ available], by joint effort of [[User:Oleg Alexandrov]] and myself. [[User:Jmath666|Jmath666]] 06:57, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

: "Joint work" here means that I did the original hack of several lines and then Jmath666 took the effort to make this actually output something usable. This is an interesting way to create articles, surely much faster and more efficient than using the textbox and the "Preview" button. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 07:08, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Since 2004 (when it was created by {{ping|Charles Matthews}}), [[Lattice point]] has been a redirect to [[Lattice (group)]]. In my experience, it is frequently the case that the term "lattice point" specifically means a point of the [[integer lattice]] {{tmath|\Z^n}} in {{tmath|\R^n}}, rather than a point in some other (or a generic) lattice. My instinct was partially validated by looking at the incoming links to [[Lattice point]]; some of them (like from [[Gaussian integer]], [[Equation]], and [[Pi]]) clearly are about the specific lattice, but at least some others (e.g., from [[Unit cell]]) mean something more generic. Since this redirect has been there for more than 20 years, I thought I would get other opinions before boldly changing the target. --[[User:JayBeeEll|JBL]] ([[User_talk:JayBeeEll|talk]]) 21:02, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

If you insist on getting inline [[TeX]] out of this thing, can you at least use \scriptstyle when it's inline? [[User:Michael Hardy|Michael Hardy]] 03:15, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

:I think "lattice point" just refers to any point in a lattice, no? If one type of lattice is more commonly discussed than others, it might be a good idea to call it out specifically near the beginning of [[Lattice (group)]]. More generally, [[Lattice (group)]] would in my opinion benefit from some amount of copyediting/rewriting with the goal of making it more accessible, following [[Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable]]. –[[user:jacobolus|jacobolus]] [[user_talk:jacobolus|(t)]] 21:28, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

: Please explain. [[User:Jmath666|Jmath666]] 22:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

::'''Comment''': "lattice point" is a term commonly used in crystallography - see for example [[Bravais lattice]]. There it is not always talking about something equivalent to the integer lattice: crystals are not always (from the point of view of their Euclidean geometry) of that type, but may be based on other three-dimensional lattices. The [[Eisenstein integer]]s form an example from pure mathematics. So I would say the current redirection is the useful one. [[User:Charles Matthews|Charles Matthews]] ([[User talk:Charles Matthews|talk]]) 05:52, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

::How about the reverse - Wikicode to LaTeX? [[User:Tompw|Tom<small>pw</small>]] ([[User talk:Tompw|talk]]) 16:25, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

:::I agree that the phrase "lattice point" is a perfectly good and used phrase for "element of a lattice". It is also a perfectly good and used term for specifically an element of the integer lattice Z^n. My concern is that the second usage is (I think) more common, and specifically that the usage of the redirect on Wikipedia is more strongly attached to the (more elementary) second use, whereas the target is the first use. This is perhaps complicated by the fact that sometimes a statement about meaning 2 is also valid for meaning 1. Here's a more systematic analysis of the 14 articles at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Lattice_point:

:::* [[Dislocation creep]], [[Minkowski–Hlawka theorem]], [[Unit cell]]: definitely meaning 1

:::* [[Reeve tetrahedra]], [[Proofs of quadratic reciprocity]], [[Continued fraction]], [[Gaussian integer]], [[Pi]], [[Equation]]: definitely meaning 2

:::* [[Kemnitz's conjecture]], [[Vojtěch Jarník]], [[Diophantine geometry]]: IMO meaning 2 is clearly intended although possibly these are situations where a statement about Z^2 generalized to all planar lattices

:::* [[Thomas Zaslavsky]]: ambiguous in context but I think more likely meaning 2 than meaning 1

:::* [[List of mathematical properties of points]]: who knows?

:::This (which I admit is partly subjective) reinforces my prior expectation that an editor who adds a WL to the phrase "lattice point" is probably expecting it to go to an article about points in Euclidean space with integer coordinates, not to an article about general lattices. I propose to change the target to [[Integer lattice]] and to adjust the text/link at the three articles where the redirect is being used with its current meaning. (FWIW I have also just created a redirect [[Integer lattice point]].)

:::I also agree that the article [[Lattice (group)]] is way more technical, especially at the beginning, than it needs to be. --[[User:JayBeeEll|JBL]] ([[User_talk:JayBeeEll|talk]]) 20:19, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

::::I think having [[lattice point]] go to [[integer lattice]] seems unjustifiably specific. There are many sources (e.g. ''[[Sphere Packings, Lattices and Groups]]'') which use the name "lattice point" to refer to points in all sorts of lattices. As a concrete data point, there are some 17k results on Google scholar for «"lattice point" hexagonal». If you want to go through every example of {{code|[[lattice point]]}} and change it to {{code|[[integer lattice point|lattice point]]}} where that seems the most relevant, I don't think anyone would complain though. –[[user:jacobolus|jacobolus]] [[user_talk:jacobolus|(t)]] 07:22, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

:::::Ok I am not ecstatically happy about that solution but since no one else seems to be jumping up to agree with me, I have done it (at will leave [[Lattice point]] as a redirect at its current target). --[[User:JayBeeEll|JBL]] ([[User_talk:JayBeeEll|talk]]) 17:52, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

== Asking for review of [[Bernoulli's method]] ==

:::The basic stuff (sections, equations, <nowiki><ref></ref></nowiki> to \bibitem, but no pictures or links) would not be so hard either. I wanted LaTeX to Wikicode translator for myself, because over time I wrote some introductory material in LaTeX that may be useful. And citations are so much easier if I can just pull them from existing BibTeX databases. [[User:Jmath666|Jmath666]] 22:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

:::Not even speaking of the convenience of a wysiwyg editor instead of hacking the source. [[User:Jmath666|Jmath666]] 01:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

As the main contributor to [[Bernoulli's method]], it seemed improper for me to assign rankings, so I asked for help with importance in the article's [[Talk:Bernoulli's method|talk]] page last May, but got no response. Thought I should try and highlight it here. Appreciate any help. [[User:Basilelp|Basilelp]] ([[User talk:Basilelp|talk]]) 21:13, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

By the way, is there some permanent place to make a link on Wikipedia to such tools? [[User:Jmath666|Jmath666]] 22:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

:One objective way to ''rate'' articles is to use the [[User:Evad37/rater|Rater]] which I applied. It compares the structure of the content to other articles and works well for Start/C/B. It doesn't say anything about the quality of the content itself and it does not address ranking which seems to be subjective. [[User:Johnjbarton|Johnjbarton]] ([[User talk:Johnjbarton|talk]]) 23:09, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

There is now a [[User:Jmath666/latex2wiki|separate user page]] for the translation. [[User:Jmath666|Jmath666]] 00:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

:I don't think that the article rankings are that important. You can pick whatever feels right to you, and if someone cares enough to be upset over that, they can change it. [[User:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction]] ([[User talk:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|talk]]) 02:47, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

::It is definitely allowed and acceptable to assign the ratings stub/start/C/B to articles you wrote yourself. Same for importance rankings. If anyone disagrees, they can change them, and as noted above ratings in general are not that important. But for the more advanced ratings (GA and FA) there are other procedures you have to go through. —[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] ([[User talk:David Eppstein|talk]]) 06:21, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

:Personally, I prefer to rate C, for lack of sources. Hopefully, I'm allowed to give some tags. [[User:Dedhert.Jr|Dedhert.Jr]] ([[User talk:Dedhert.Jr|talk]]) 09:59, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

::I tend to agree. It's close to B but entire unsourced sections drop it down to C. —[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] ([[User talk:David Eppstein|talk]]) 18:22, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

:You should feel free to apply any rating from "Start" through "B" to articles you wrote yourself, trying to give your best fair assessment. If someone disagrees they can change it or start a discussion. After skimming through, I would rate article as a "B".... but the rating is pretty arbitrary and doesn't matter much. The main use I have for these ratings is that the set of articles with high view count and/or "priority" rating but low "quality" rating are an excellent place to look for high-impact articles to improve. If you want to get a little green badge or gold star, you have to do a bit more work to tick items off their respective checklists, but even those ratings are quite variable in practice and should not be taken to mean more than that one editor has listed an article for badging and another editor has reviewed it against the checklist (with a highly variable level of rigor). –[[user:jacobolus|jacobolus]] [[user_talk:jacobolus|(t)]] 00:22, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

::Appreciate the feedback @[[User:Johnjbarton|Johnjbarton]], @[[User:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction]], @[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]], @[[User:Dedhert.Jr|Dedhert.Jr]], and @[[User:Jacobolus|Jacobolus]]. I have only ever written one article for Wikipedia and I wanted to make sure that I was trying to follow the guidelines and check all the boxes. Hadn't realized I could add importance/ranking myself and I was unaware of Rater. My apologies for my ignorance.

::@[[User:Dedhert.Jr|Dedhert.Jr]] I'm not sure what you mean being being allowed to give tags. Have you been blocked from making edits? Also, @[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] for the sections that don't have sources like Example and Code, do they need to have sources? I just did the math, made the graphs, and wrote the code so should I to cite myself? Maybe I'm missing something. Perhaps this is something that can be followed-up on the [[Talk:Bernoulli's method]] page. [[User:Basilelp|Basilelp]] ([[User talk:Basilelp|talk]]) 19:02, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

:::No the example doesn’t need a source (though if you can find a similar published example it doesn’t hurt to link one). Personally I’d skip the long docstring and consider writing pseudocode; the point of wikipedia articles isn’t to provide production-ready code snippets, and I try to minimize extraneous/distracting components where possible. YMMV. –[[user:jacobolus|jacobolus]] [[user_talk:jacobolus|(t)]] 19:20, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

:::"Have you been blocked from making edits?" No. Otherwise, I cou&mdash; [[User:Dedhert.Jr|Dedhert.Jr]] ([[User talk:Dedhert.Jr|talk]]) 03:14, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

::::{{small|I remember when such a gag would end with NO CARRIER&nbsp;! [[User:Tamfang|—Tamfang]] ([[User talk:Tamfang|talk]]) 04:52, 29 August 2025 (UTC)}}

== A-classCitation review proposalspam ==

After noticing that a very recent journal article without any citation add been added the the [[Poisson distribution]] article by the recently created account @DoctorThere, I investigated a bit a so that this article has recently been spammed across various wikis by legitimate-looking accounts with similar names (e.g, CarlosSantana'''95''' and MadameButterfly'''96'''). To me that (strongly) suggests citation spam. Should I be bold and just remove any mention of Guerriero and Tallini's article from all wikis? [[User:Malparti|Malparti]] ([[User talk:Malparti|talk]]) 13:05, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

As several editors have expressed an interest in it, I have created a [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/A-class review proposal|proposal]] for an A-class review process for this project. If you are interested, please discuss it at the associated talk page. [[User:CMummert|CMummert]] · <small>[[User talk:CMummert|talk]]</small> 00:36, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

:We now have the first article for review [[Addition]] see [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/A-class rating/Addition]]. --[[User:Salix alba|Salix alba]] ([[User talk:Salix alba|talk]]) 10:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

:It could be that the citations are common because a newer paper reference it and so several experts in multiple wikis are adding it because of recently see it. Or there may be some other reason. Just because two people in a group of users have two numbers at the end of their username does not mean the whole group or even two people in the group are the same person. I think it is a bit of an overreaction, but if the cited material in the other wikis do not add to the respective wikis then the editors of those wikis will probably remove it. I do admit that adding a citation of an article that is over 10 years old to an introductory topic article is a bit suspicious. [[User:EulerianTrail|EulerianTrail]] ([[User talk:EulerianTrail|talk]]) 16:45, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

I have moved the proposal to [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/A-class rating]]. Please feel free to nominate articles! [[User:CMummert|CMummert]] · <small>[[User talk:CMummert|talk]]</small> 13:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

::@[[User:EulerianTrail|EulerianTrail]] I don't think we're talking about the same article. I am talking about https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0259215, which was published less than three month ago. The article in question was published in a "respectable-but-not-outstanding" journal (Q1 in physics and astronomy; Q2 in every other discipline). As far I as ''I'' am concerned, I really can't see the point of this article, but that's of course subjective (please feel free to read the article). What's not subjective, however, is that there does not seem to have been any significant news coverage for this article. In fact, I cannot find any relevant mention of it anywhere except on Wikipedia (that is, excluding automated listings from libraries).

::I have a hard time believing that this type of article can get 18 independent citations on Wikipedia within such a short time-window. [[User:Malparti|Malparti]] ([[User talk:Malparti|talk]]) 18:57, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

:::In general, additions of newly published uncited papers to multiple articles by single-purpose accounts are usually [[WP:REFSPAM]] and should be removed. This is especially true for articles on topics that have a huge literature ("About 1,340,000 results" on Google Scholar for "Poisson distribution") for which new publications are unlikely to stand out above the rest and for which textbook sources are usually preferable. This looks superficially like a typical case. —[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] ([[User talk:David Eppstein|talk]]) 19:02, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

::::Google Scholar reports 0 citations of this article. So the references could also be removed under [[WP:TOOSOON]]. If you are willing and able, please delete these citations. —[[User:Quantling|<span class="texhtml"><i>Q</i></span>uantling]]&nbsp;([[User talk:Quantling|talk]]&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;[[Special:Contributions/Quantling|contribs]]) 19:05, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

:::@[[User:EulerianTrail|EulerianTrail]], some concrete data. I'm going to go through every article on every wiki, because that would eat up my whole evening, but feel free to complete the list:

:::* [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Poisson_distribution&diff=prev&oldid=1306761981 Poisson distribution] — added by [[Special:Contributions/DoctorThere|DoctorThere]] (account created on 7 July 2025)

:::* [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Power_law&diff=prev&oldid=1301440309 Power law] — added by [[Special:Contributions/Onion%26bacon1980|Onion&bacon1980]] (account created on 4 July 2025), with the blessing of [[Special:Contributions/MadameButterfly96|MadameButterfly96]] (account created on 5 July)

:::* [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fat-tailed_distribution&diff=prev&oldid=1303676401 Fat-tailed distribution] — added by [[Special:Contributions/Pan%26Puparuol81|Pan&Puparuol81]] (account created on 1 August), again with MadameButterfly96 lurking.

:::* [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pareto_principle&diff=prev&oldid=1295137564 Pareto principle] — added by [[Special:Contributions/Aftershock1981|Aftershock1981]] (account created on 11 June).

:::* ...

:::I am going to request a checkuser and ask for all these accounts to be banned + make sure that this article is removed from all wikis. I also saw that one of these authors has other unremarkable articles that are cited on Wikipedia. [[User:Malparti|Malparti]] ([[User talk:Malparti|talk]]) 19:18, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

:::PS: thanks @[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] and @[[User:Quantling|Quantling]] for your input, I saw it as I was typing this message. [[User:Malparti|Malparti]] ([[User talk:Malparti|talk]]) 19:18, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

::::I have started a sockpuppet investigation: [[Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Aftershock81]]. Please add to it if you think I missed some socks. —[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] ([[User talk:David Eppstein|talk]]) 19:38, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

:::::Thanks a ton. I'll try to take some to see if I can find any other one before going to bed. [[User:Malparti|Malparti]] ([[User talk:Malparti|talk]]) 20:40, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

::::The material in the Poisson distribution article is textbook stuff (the [[confidence interval]] for the mean of a Poisson random variable). Citing a recent journal article for that would be odd in any circumstance. (The other source in that paragraph literally ''is'' a textbook.) This does look and smell like [[WP:REFSPAM]]. [[User:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction]] ([[User talk:Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction|talk]]) 19:54, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

:::I thought you were referring to a different article that I saw DoctorThree cite. But it now seems a lot more likely that the actions by the user(s) was inappropriate. I also highly doubt this broad number of citations in wiki articles without there being scholarly publications and I do not think it is even being widely discussed outside of Wikipedia. I strongly suspect this to be a violation of [[:WP:OR]]. [[User:EulerianTrail|EulerianTrail]] ([[User talk:EulerianTrail|talk]]) 20:32, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

::::No worries, I thought you were thinking about the wrong article — by the way, what is that article? Anything cited by DoctorThere is kinda suspicious now. Also, this is a violation of [[WP:CITESPAM]] and [[WP:SOCK]]; not [[WP:OR]]. Cheers, [[User:Malparti|Malparti]] ([[User talk:Malparti|talk]]) 20:50, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

:::::It was this one: [https://revstat.ine.pt/index.php/REVSTAT/article/view/117 Comparison of Confidence Intervals for the Poisson Mean: Some New Aspects | REVSTAT-Statistical Journal]

:::::Looking at the universities of the article authors, there are probably better sources to use. It is very suspicious to use such an obscure paper from such a low-ranking university.

:::::I stated [[WP:OR]] because I suspect that DoctorThere is citing his or her own papers. Yes, I agree with [[WP:CITESPAM]] and [[WP:SOCK]]. [[User:EulerianTrail|EulerianTrail]] ([[User talk:EulerianTrail|talk]]) 01:05, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

::::::@[[User:EulerianTrail|EulerianTrail]] I see that despite having many contributions, you are relatively new on Wikipedia (since your account was created less than three months ago). Hence my insistence — because I think it is important that people who contribute a lot have a good understanding of the policies. I hope I won't sound patronizing.

::::::Of course, I also think that DoctorThere is citing their own paper. I even have my thought as to their precise identity. However, that does ''not'' make it [[WP:OR]]: ''"On Wikipedia, original research means material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published source exists"''; the problem here is not that DoctorThere has been adding statements for which not reliable source exist. The problem is that they have [presumably] been (1) spamming their own work by citing it where it's not needed and/or where better sources exist; and (2) using multiple accounts.

::::::Also, don't judge the quality of a work mainly by the affiliation of its author(s). Sure, that's often a good proxy; but in that case the ranking of the journal where the work got published and who is citing the work are much better ones. [[User:Malparti|Malparti]] ([[User talk:Malparti|talk]]) 06:42, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

:::::::@[[User:Malparti|Malparti]] thank you for clarifying the difference. I agree that the ranking of the journal is often a better measure. [[User:EulerianTrail|EulerianTrail]] ([[User talk:EulerianTrail|talk]]) 13:16, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

:I have a slightly off-topic aside: has anyone ever engaged a would-be citation spammer with a polite message and ended up converting them to make neutral non-promotional contributions? If so, is there any recommended strategy for doing that? –[[user:jacobolus|jacobolus]] [[user_talk:jacobolus|(t)]] 02:41, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

::In most cases of citation spamming that ''I'' came across, I found the quality of the articles being spammed low enough to make me not want the authors to contribute to Wikipedia... Would you want Gagniuc to be out there writing math articles? ;) [[User:Malparti|Malparti]] ([[User talk:Malparti|talk]]) 06:14, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

:::Well for example, [[special:diff/1307815130]] just added a 2024 paper to [[Arctangent series]] (a.k.a. Gregory's series). My speculation is that the new account adding this is one of the authors of the paper, and in any event it is probably undue weight to include here, but it's plausible that the person knows enough about this or related topics to add material summarizing previous secondary sources. –[[user:jacobolus|jacobolus]] [[user_talk:jacobolus|(t)]] 07:04, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

::::''"it's plausible that the person knows enough about this or related topics to add material summarizing previous secondary sources."'' → Yes, I agree. But in that case the spam is not obvious: it is different to add a new result that you've found to Wikipedia — and therefore cite yourself — versus to add several citations to your work to support basic statements. In the former case, I would talk about bad judgment and undue weight, and would think that their might be hope that the person is driven by good motives and able to become a good contributor. In the latter, I wouldn't waste my time... [[User:Malparti|Malparti]] ([[User talk:Malparti|talk]]) 08:35, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

== [[S and L spaces]] ==

==Back to manual archiving==

I removed the Werdnabot invocation. I have been following Werdnabot closely; and it just has too many bugs that manifest themselves in unexpected ways. Like on Tuesday, it did not put any edit summaries into its edits for no apparent reason. Thus we go back to manual archiving. [[User:JRSpriggs|JRSpriggs]] 08:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

To me, it seems that the topic of S and L spaces likely satisfies GNG. There are several well-known survey articles about S and L and the two existence problems were worked on by many mathematicians for decades. Apparently, there was an article about it at one time, and from what I can tell by searching it was troubled by behavioral issues. I can't find a deletion discussion but maybe I am missing an obvious way of locating one. Can anyone point me to it or let me know what went on there? [[User:ByVarying|<span style="color:#96A">ByVarying</span>]] &#124; [[User talk:ByVarying|<span style="color:#630">talk</span>]] 18:50, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

:By the way, {{user|Werdnabot}} has been down (blocked) and appears likely to stay that way. However, there appears to be another bot that we might use for archiving &mdash; {{user|MiszaBot II}}. Has anyone had experience with MiszaBot? [[User:JRSpriggs|JRSpriggs]] 09:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

:It seems that there was such an article created by [[User:Vujkovica brdo]], who was banned for using several sockpuppet accounts (you can read more at [[Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Vujkovica brdo/Archive]]. There was no deletion discussion. You should feel free to make a new article at that title. –[[user:jacobolus|jacobolus]] [[user_talk:jacobolus|(t)]] 19:05, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

::I looked into it a little yesterday because it looks promising. The code is still under development, and the bot was speedily approved when WerdnaBot was discontinued. The talk page [[User talk:Misza13]] shows one or two bugs in the last two days. So maybe we should wait a couple of weeks until the kinks are worked out. [[User:CMummert|CMummert]] · <small>[[User talk:CMummert|talk]]</small> 11:43, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

::Although it was not the reason for deletion, the deleted version was also unduly focused on Todorčević (typically for Vb's socks). Everyone else's contributions are mentioned in the passive voice and third person, until we get to a paragraph that names and links Todorčević three times. The remainder of the article continues to credit Todorčević for Moore's resolution of the question. So I don't think this would be a good starting point for a new article; we need something more neutral in its coverage. —[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] ([[User talk:David Eppstein|talk]]) 20:01, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

:Aside: it seems likely that Vb, whose changes to [[Stevo Todorčević]] were reverted here at English Wikipedia for seeming promotional ("Stevo's talent was a miracle", etc.), has managed (as an IP editor) to insert them at [[simple:Stevo Todorčević]], where they seem even less appropriate. I don't know if anyone from WPM here pays attention to the content on [[Simple English Wikipedia]]. –[[user:jacobolus|jacobolus]] [[user_talk:jacobolus|(t)]] 19:15, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

== Lead sentence of Beck's monadicity theorem ==

:::OK. And thanks for doing the manual archiving here. [[User:JRSpriggs|JRSpriggs]] 07:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I would like to change the reference in the lead sentence of [[Beck's monadicity theorem]] from Beck (2003) to Beck (2025). However, here is the reference that supports the change: [https://mathoverflow.net/questions/401746/jon-becks-untitled-manuscript-containing-the-tripleability-theorem-i-e-the Jon Beck's untitled manuscript containing the "tripleability theorem" (i.e. the monadicity theorem)]. I've heard that mathoverflow cannot be used as a reference, so do I need a different reference when changing the lead sentence? --[[User:Silvermatsu|SilverMatsu]] ([[User talk:Silvermatsu|talk]]) 03:24, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

== WikiProject ==

:Since the theorem does not appear in the 2003 reprint of Beck's thesis, you can remove it. Moreover, the 2025 reprint of the 1968 paper contains a preface that gives a bit of historical context (and credits Nathanael Arkorand for his work in tracking down the original paper). So in my opinion there is not problem in changing the reference. [[User:Malparti|Malparti]] ([[User talk:Malparti|talk]]) 17:34, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

I've started something called the Mathematics Construction WikiProject (not in development yet), which focuses on making sure that information on an article is verifiable and [[WP:A|attributed]] with reliable sources. If we can do something like this on this WikiProject, it'd be great! '''[[User:Sr13|Sr13]]''' '''([[User talk:Sr13|T]]'''|'''[[Special:Contributions/Sr13|C]]''') 03:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

::I agree: you don't need a MO reference to support the change, the 2025 publication is itself a reliable source. --[[User:JayBeeEll|JBL]] ([[User_talk:JayBeeEll|talk]]) 00:41, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

:::Thank you for your responses. I changed the reference. --[[User:Silvermatsu|SilverMatsu]] ([[User talk:Silvermatsu|talk]]) 01:11, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

:Um… starting a whole new WikiProject might look suspiciously like a schism. How about making it a "department" of this Project instead, something like the examples at [[:Category:WikiProject peer reviews]]? [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history]] seems to be pretty well-organized. [[User:Melchoir|Melchoir]] 04:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

:::Add: I add the 2025 publication to [[Jonathan Mock Beck]]'s article.--[[User:Silvermatsu|SilverMatsu]] ([[User talk:Silvermatsu|talk]]) 04:24, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

By the way, does the <math>\infty</math>-categorical version of Beck's monadicity theorem fall within the topic of this article? Also, this theorem is also known as the Barr-Beck theorem, so redirect the [[Barr-Beck theorem]] to Beck's monadicity theorem?

::Sure, that would be a great idea! '''[[User:Sr13|Sr13]]''' '''([[User talk:Sr13|T]]'''|'''[[Special:Contributions/Sr13|C]]''') 09:34, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Ref:{{cite web|last1=Lurie |first1=Jacob |title=Higher Algebra (Theorem 4.7.3.5) |url=https://www.math.ias.edu/~lurie/papers/HA.pdf}};{{cite journal |last1=Riehl |first1=Emily |last2=Verity |first2=Dominic |title=Homotopy coherent adjunctions and the formal theory of monads |journal=Advances in Mathematics |date=2016 |volume=286 |pages=802–888 |doi=10.1016/j.aim.2015.09.011 |arxiv=1310.8279 }}

: ''Not'' a good idea, unless you are looking for political trouble. Instead, focus on making sure the information in each article is correct and complete, with references that follow our guideline. ''That'' is what we really want, while what you propose is a controversial Wikipedia methodology that pretends to be equivalent. Empirical studies have shown that the more inline citations an article contains, the less likely it is that anyone will actually verify everything. <small>(OK, so I'm not aware of any actual studies; but I feel confident that's what they would find.)</small> We must also guard against the [[bystander effect]]. I find it telling, and troubling, that you did not propose that articles ''actually be verified''. This is [[cargo cult]] behavior. --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]^{[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]} 12:39, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

--[[User:Silvermatsu|SilverMatsu]] ([[User talk:Silvermatsu|talk]]) 10:05, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

::Making sure that an article is correct and complete is surely the most important consideration when deciding how to reference an article, but it is not the only thing that "we" really want. Articles should also be written to be robust against the introduction of error by future editors, to simplify accuracy disputes on talk pages, and to aid our readers in their own research. These goals are the responsibility of an interactive encyclopedia, and they aren't met just by producing a version of a given article that is true.

::Given that we don't have empirical studies yet, why prejudge Sr13's idea? The worst that could happen is that the department is ineffective and gets shut down. [[User:Melchoir|Melchoir]] 00:10, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

== [[Draft:Spectral Deferred Correction Method]] ==

:::I see...so what you are saying is that verifying should not be a specific group's commitment, but rather each Wikipedian's obligation, and this is what makes an interactive encyclopedia. '''[[User:Sr13|Sr13]]''' '''([[User talk:Sr13|T]]'''|'''[[Special:Contributions/Sr13|C]]''') 08:45, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I would appreciate another set of eyes on this draft, preferably belonging to someone who still knows higher mathematics. (There are two reasons why someone might not know higher mathematics. They may not have learned it in college, the larger group, or they may have learned it and forgotten it. I belong to the latter group.) It appears to me that this draft should be declined because it doesn't refer to third parties who have discussed the method, or the papers by the authors about the method. [[User:Robert McClenon|Robert McClenon]] ([[User talk:Robert McClenon|talk]]) 21:15, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

::::I think Melchior is actually supporting your idea. KSmrq is concerned that your project will result in a lot of articles being given the appearance of having passed through a sort of verification process when in fact they may simply have had some minimal references slapped on (or, so as not to impugn your efforts, it may be that they are properly referenced, but then later dramatically expanded, and no one adds references because "they are already there" but in fact inadequate). I, however, also think it may be a good idea to do what you propose, and for a reason KSmrq already gave: the bystander effect. I for one know that I almost never go out of my way to add references to an article with none. However, I just went on an improvement binge at [[triangulated category]] because I thought the references section was poorly written, which resulted in my adding several references in addition to reformatting the existing ones. If people all look at an unsourced article they will all think that someone else should do it, but if we have even badly sourced ones, then the inevitable tendency of people to boost themselves by correcting mistakes will lead more of them to add references. Plus, we'd have at least some references, and even if they barely support any of the claims of the article, they are at least useful for people who come to a page hoping that, if it doesn't say anything useful, it will at least give them another place to look. Which most of our articles don't really do now. [[User:Ryan Reich|Ryan Reich]] 21:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

: I would decline. It reads like it was written by AI, and doesn't offer much clarity on the method. I think it's notable, and wouldn't object to an article on general grounds, but this doesn't seem to be fleshed out enough. [[User:Tito Omburo|Tito Omburo]] ([[User talk:Tito Omburo|talk]]) 21:33, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

:::::KSmrq's [[cargo cult]] idea lit up my imagination: just like a coconut radio carved by a primitive tribe might start working if only its only carved realistically enough... "if we can only add enough ref's, then surely any article can become become factually correct..." .. this thought made me smile. Not understanding that high-tech is important for creating a functional transistor radio is like not understanding that meticulous research is needed for factual accuracy in an article. Just adding references is not enough to make it true.

::I will decline it. Is there any specific evidence that it was written by [[artificial intelligence]], or is that your general assessment (knowing that mathematicians always have logical reasons, since mathematics is based on logic)? [[User:Robert McClenon|Robert McClenon]] ([[User talk:Robert McClenon|talk]]) 00:51, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

:::When one reads a lot of AI generated prose, one gets a feeling for these things. In this case (in addition to the "feeling") it's pretty obvious: correct grammar throughout, and good ascii formatting, but not properly rendered into Wiki syntax. Ironically, I suggested this to GPT 5, and it gave a ''better'' summary than this stub, suggesting that perhaps the problem isn't the use of AI per se, but the ''inferior'' use of AI. [[User:Tito Omburo|Tito Omburo]] ([[User talk:Tito Omburo|talk]]) 01:02, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

::::I don't think this is ''necessarily'' AI generated, but it is poorly formatted as a Wikipedia article. –[[user:jacobolus|jacobolus]] [[user_talk:jacobolus|(t)]] 04:46, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

:::::Besides the formatting errors, the excessive use of lists is a clear characteristic of AI output. [[User:Tercer|Tercer]] ([[User talk:Tercer|talk]]) 18:22, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

== Continued fractions ==

:::::It took me a bit to understand the [[bystander effect]]: just as a mob of bystanders will fail to help a victim in need of help, so an article that is obviously in failing health and factually incorrect might not be helped because it already has so many references and footnotes "standing by"... . [[User:Linas|linas]] 00:35, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey, could someone assist me in distinguishing the difference between [[continued fractions]] and [[series expansions]]? <span style="color:#CD0000">[[User:Waddie96|waddie96]] ★ ([[User talk:Waddie96|talk]])</span> 12:02, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

::::::It depends on how you interpret the crime in this case how you can apply the bystander effect. KSmrq and you both seem to agree that having so many references "standing by" will cause people to neglect their duty to do some real research on the article. It is certainly the case that in order to take a generic math article and elevate it to something that even Brittanica would be proud to publish will take a lot of work, and that adding piecemeal references will not contribute to this. Most of our articles are not near this state, however, and in fact have no referneces at all. Even adding standard citations (you know, putting Hartshorne chapter and verse in every basic algebraic geometry article) will at least improve them to the point that they are ''useful'' as references. At least they will tell you where you might go. It will also provide a basis for further improvement, which brings me to the other interpretation of the bystander effect: I claim that in this case, the crime is indifference and that we are all bystanders, no one making even a first attempt to do something useful in the way of references. Even your and KSmrq's objections to this project (something like "people should improve articles deliberately") reflect a bystander effect: you want editors to self-select to be the one to "save" the article. But it seems to me that the philosophy of Wikipedia is that multiple incremental improvements will lead to a high-quality product, not that an article is not worth being written if it is not going to be written perfectly. I think we should not stand in the way of someone hoping to industrialize the process of making initial increments in citation. [[User:Ryan Reich|Ryan Reich]] 03:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

:Both are limits of sequences. A continued fraction is a limit of a sequence of fractions and a series is a limit of a sequence of partial sums. -- [[User:Chatul|Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul]] ([[User talk:Chatul|talk]]) 12:11, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

:::::::I have pretty much every math logic article on my watchlist; many of them are in a bad state. I can say from experience that bystanders '''do''' make edits to correct errors in these articles; many errors are corrected by anonymous IP editors or by newly registered users with very few edits.

::Thanks! <span style="color:#CD0000">[[User:Waddie96|waddie96]] ★ ([[User talk:Waddie96|talk]])</span> 18:00, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

:::::::You might be interested in [[User:CMummert/Unreferenced|this list]] of unreferenced math articles. I think it is unreasonable to go through and add references I have never looked at to articles whose content I am not completely familiar with. But I think it would be very appropriate, for example, for someone with a background in algebraic geometry to go through those articles. I would add the crucial caveat that '''the topic of the article should actually be discussed in some depth by the references added.''' [[User:CMummert|CMummert]] · <small>[[User talk:CMummert|talk]]</small> 18:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

::::::::Even if you're not familiar enough with an article to verify it against a reference, you could always add potential sources under a "Further reading" section. [[User:Melchoir|Melchoir]] 19:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

:::::::::Yes, I didn't think about that. The key distinction I make is whether the editor has actually seen the reference or not (at least an online version); I feel very bad adding references to books whose existence and content I am taking on faith. [[User:CMummert|CMummert]] · <small>[[User talk:CMummert|talk]]</small> 13:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

:::::::::: ''Potential'' sources? I can just see it: thousands of Wikipedia articles chock-full of ''potential'' facts "[[WP:V|verified]]" by citing the entire contents of the [[Library of Congress]] as ''potential'' sources.

:::::::::: Standard rules in academia say if you haven't personally used the original source, even if it is just a reprinting (and especially if it is a translation), you should acknowledge the source you ''did'' use; otherwise we risk a game of "[[Chinese whispers|Rumors]]". This proposal goes far beyond that nuance, into total madness. "Potential sources" is a potential disaster. Kill it now. --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]^{[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]} 05:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

== Silly pictures ==

2 or 3 years ago, before Wikipedia was as popular/well known/... as now, I looked at the Mathematics and Computer Science articles and was extremely impressed. I remember noting a correction of a fault in a Taylor/MacLaurin series. It was no more than minor proof reading but within a day somebody had replied "True, why didn't you correct it yourself?"

A couple of years on it all seems to be going seriously downhill. Hard to believe but it just might be better to divide the subject into "Mathematics" and "Popular Mathematics". In the Mathematics section there are NO links to JAVA/COBOL/IGNORANT animations - that sort of nonsense can be viewed in "Popular Mathematics".

2 more possible rules -

* No pictures unless it is Euclidean Geometry.

* No links to Tom, Dick or Harry's website.

Colin M Davidson [[User:62.251.121.16|62.251.121.16]] 20:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

:I do tend to agree about the animations. While they do add value in explaining some points, they can also be very distracting and constantly draws the attention. The other day I removed an animation [[:Image:Vortex-street-animation.gif]] from [[spiral]] only to find that it was actually a featured picture. I've been thinking about ways to present the animations without them being distraction, posibly with a sub-page or with a show/hide box. Animations also gobble up bandwidth. --[[User:Salix alba|Salix alba]] ([[User talk:Salix alba|talk]]) 21:53, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

::Its not just pictures or animations. Popular math articles tend to accrete a varity of unhelpful, cloudy, useless statements, formulas, and templates, and not just bad pictures or websites. This is particularly true for any subject that is "hard" and has a [[cachet]], such as Einstein's theories about spacetime, or quantum mechanics. It seems that novices wish to demonstrate thier ability and intelligence by "improving" these articls in dubious ways, garnering bragging rights by having "written" the WP article on general relativity. (Careful: this is exactly the same thing that the experts do; only that experts get fuzzy at a higher, more abstract level).

::I think the Essjay/Jimbo Wales accreditation issue feeds into this. The difference is that I think the only viable mechanism is to have "stable versions": allow this wikiproject to mark a particular version of an article as "acceptable", whereas other version are [[caveat emptor]]. [[User:Linas|linas]] 00:55, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

:"No pictures unless it is Euclidean Geometry" - are you serious ? Would you really remove the images from [[bifurcation diagram]], [[elliptic curve]], [[blancmange curve]], [[catastrophe theory]], [[topology]], [[braid group]], [[pretzel knot]], [[crosscap]], [[Möbius strip]], [[Klein bottle]] etc. etc. ? I think these articles would be much poorer as a result. [[User:Gandalf61|Gandalf61]] 13:57, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

::What about this: ''An essentially technical article should only have illustrations that help to understand the material presented in the text.'' As always, such a rule should not be applied rigidly, but the tendency to add images just because it looks good, however tenuous the connection, should be countered. &nbsp;--[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small>^Talk</small>]] 14:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

:::I have no idea what the original poster meant by "no pictures unless..." as that is clearly ludicrous (and also casts doubt on the rest of his statements). What you say is more reasonable, but I would be averse to such a rule at all. Is the adding of images really a problem? It seems to me there really is a lack of images, especially ones that "look good". Many math animations I've seen, such as at [[dunce hat (topology)]], have added considerably to the article. Perhaps this is all in reference to some problem I've not come across, like people adding a picture of [[Britney Spears]] holding a [[doughnut]] to [[solid torus]]. --[[User:Chan-Ho Suh|Chan-Ho]][[User talk:Chan-Ho Suh| (Talk)]] 15:33, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

:::I should add that my favorite example of an image whose inclusion has seemed ludicrous to more than a few but in my opinion is actually instructive is the cartoon in [[Bring radical]]. Perhaps this is more along the lines of what the OP thought was taking Wikipedia downhill. --[[User:Chan-Ho Suh|Chan-Ho]][[User talk:Chan-Ho Suh| (Talk)]] 15:40, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

=== 2nd and last attempt to remove silly pictures. ===

Klein's bottle (or surface) is historically important. There should be some reference in any self respecting body of knowledge. - More so if it has lead to an interesting branch of mathematics. I am very disturbed by the "silly picture". The picture is 2nd rate (JAVA/COBOL?) and very misleading. We can only be grateful for the writer's text - something along the lines of "But don't try to do this in 3 dimensions."

Restricting pictures to Euclidean geometry is clearly extreme but it seems a better starting point than accepting anything that Tom, Dick or Harry throws into the mill.

Colin M Davidson

[[User:62.251.121.16|62.251.121.16]] 20:42, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

:Which image specifically in the [[Klein bottle]] article do you find "silly"? I take it you don't mean the still frame from Futurama since your objection is to a computer-generated image. (How does one use [[COBOL]] to generate an image, btw?)

:And what about the images is "very misleading"? That the images in the article depict [[Immersion (mathematics)|immersions]] of a Klein bottle? The use of immersions is made rather explicit in the text and in the caption to the first image. [[User:Lunch|Lunch]] 21:37, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

When you put quotation marks around the words "silly picture", that means either that someone called it that or that someone ''would'' call it that but you wouldn't. Yet your words make it appear that that's not what you meant. [[User:Michael Hardy|Michael Hardy]] 23:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

: I'd also find it easier to understand if Colin M. Davidson would say WHICH picture he has in mind. [[User:Michael Hardy|Michael Hardy]] 23:56, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't tell which picture Colin M. Davidson is talking about since they all look good to me. The top one is the standard image of this particular surface, looks like it was done with Mathematica, illustrates exactly the key feature of this immersion. Aside from the two other Mathematica pictures, we have a square-folding diagram, a photograph of a "real" Klein bottle, and the Futurama comic. I find the other two Mathematica pictures quite useful, though the one illustrating dissection of the Klein bottle into two M&ouml;bius strips could, I suppose, use a better angle; in particular it's nice to have alternative embeddings shown in the article since, as it is impossible to depict the surface accurately in three, let alone two dimensions, and only one picture. Really, the pictures may be the best part of the article, especially for someone interested just in an overview of the surface. [[User:Ryan Reich|Ryan Reich]] 00:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

:The figure-eight one is really a little hard to follow. I can't see where the self-intersection is supposed to be. To me it just looks like a torus where someone grabbed a bit of it and turned it 180 degrees. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 00:56, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

::You might find it helpful to start with a cylinder with a figure eight base: 8 x [0, 1]. Now glue the top to the bottom but with a half-twist so that opposite parts of the eight get glued together. Also helpful to see this last part is to orient the top and bottom 8's in opposite directions. The twist makes sure the orientations match in the gluing. --[[User:Chan-Ho Suh|Chan-Ho]][[User talk:Chan-Ho Suh| (Talk)]] 01:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

:::OK, I can see it now. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 01:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

From Colin M Davidson's other edits and remarks (e.g., at [[Talk:Dijkstra's algorithm#EWD would have cried]]) I deduce that he might be referring to the 'external links' of the [[Klein bottle]] article. (Indeed, they lead to one animation and one home page.) Colin, if this is correct, you could have said so from the beginning... The natural thing was to look for pictures in the article itself, since this is what your text seemed to indicate. [[User:JoergenB|JoergenB]] 20:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

== Formatting of categories ==

Is there any consensus how to format [[category (mathematics)|categories]]? Sometime one sees <math>\mathbf A</math> (mathbf) or '''A''', sometimes <math>\mathcal A</math> (mathcal). [[User:Jakob.scholbach|Jakob.scholbach]] 22:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

: And worst of all, in some articles (e.g. [[monoidal category]]) one sees <math>\mathbb{C}</math>. [[User:Ryan Reich|Ryan Reich]] 04:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

: To add to my comment. <math>\mathbb{C}</math> is clearly wrong because it conflicts with well-established notation (my personal opinion is that blackboard bold should be reserved for well-established notation, which is essentially exclusive to the various number sets <math>\mathbb{N}, \mathbb{R}, \mathbb{C}, \mathbb{A}</math> (the latter is the [[adele ring]]), and so on). There is a reasonable case that '''A''' is preferable to <math>\mathbf{A}</math> on account of typesetting aesthetics (and an equally reasonable case that the opposite is true on account of the fact that the latter reflects a semantic distinction, namely "math variables", whereas the former is merely formatting), whereas <math>\mathcal{A}</math> can be said to be preferable on account of being unlikely to conflict with anything at all (calligraphic characters are, as far as I know, not standard notation for anything, whereas bold characters are not infrequently stand-ins for the equivalent blackboard-bold character). I would endorse either '''A''' or <math>\mathcal{A}</math> without preference (though of course consistently in an article) given that the overlarge PNGs we get from TeX markup are actually quite distracting. [[User:Ryan Reich|Ryan Reich]] 05:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

:: My preference to denote categories is sans-serif boldface, '''Cat'''.

:: Please note that we do not have enough alphabet and style variations to give every type of entity in every specialty its own unique look. My choice, for example, conflicts with the recommended substitution of bold for blackboard bold inline, as in '''R''' instead of <math>\reals\,\!</math> for the [[real number]]s. We try to write each article as clearly as possible, adapting notation where we must, and trusting our stalwart readers to compensate for our inadequacies. --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]^{[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]} 05:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

::Yes, this is my preference, too. \mathcal is problematic with categories like '''Ab''' and for things like the reals the \mathbb seems to be much more often used than \mathbf. Should a recommendation be part of the style-guideline of math-papers? Perhaps it is also possible to introduce a tag like \cat{...}, at least in the Latex code. (If I write a paper in good old-fashioned offline Latex, this would be the first I would do. If I later need to change the layout, this is done by changing one line of code). [[User:Jakob.scholbach|Jakob.scholbach]] 16:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

== Symbols in non-latex code ==

Is there a page depicting all commonly used symbols like ℤ or ∪ (not in the < math >... < / math> environment) -- and also how to type them? It always takes me an eternity to find them on other pages like [[union (set theory)]] etc. Thanks. [[User:Jakob.scholbach|Jakob.scholbach]] 16:13, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

:Try [[User:KSmrq/Chars]]. —[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] 16:35, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

::Some are also in the edit characters below the edit box. —<span style="color: red;">[[User:Mets501|M<small>ETS</small>501]] ([[User talk:Mets501|talk]])</span> 20:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

:::Yeah, but wouldn't it be better to use the < math >... < / math> environment, and let the mathml convert these to the proper symbols? That way, at least one gets a uniform look-n-feel. [[User:Linas|linas]] 23:34, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't always be better. If we were using TeX in the ''normal'' way, it ''would'' be better. But often on Wikipedia when TeX is inline, it gets misaligned or is far too big with comical effect. [[User:Michael Hardy|Michael Hardy]] 23:48, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

:Agreed, for Wikipedia in the present state. But hopefully the rendering of math formulas will be fixed in due time and hopefully Wikipedia will be around for a long time. So it might be better to do the right thing and expect it will look good eventually even if it looks bad right now. In other words, the problem is incorrect rendering of math formulas in the web environment; ad-hoc fixes will only make it worse in the long run. [[User:Jmath666|Jmath666]] 03:02, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

::J.M.Keynes said, "In the long run, we are all dead." I think we ought to make the pages look as good as possible right now. If the graphics engine ever gets fixed, the in-line HTML will still look OK, and it will be relatively simple to cut everything over to TeX. So we can either (a) make it look OK now, and better eventually, or (b) make it look bad now, and better eventually. Which makes more sense? Think of the readers! [[User:DavidCBryant|DavidCBryant]] 17:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

== CMummert for admin ==

I nominated one of us, [[User:CMummert|CMummert]], for admin. If you are familiar with his work, you can comment/vote at [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/CMummert]]. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 03:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

== Uniformization of notation at Cyclic group ==

New user [[User:Greg Kuperberg|Greg Kuperberg]] is giving [[User:Grubber|Grubber]] a hard time at [[Talk:Cyclic group]], arguing about the best notation to use in the article. It seems Greg Kuperberg wants to push for a certain notation because he uses it and it is used in some current research papers.

My understanding of wikipedia policy is that we always use the most common notation. We copy standards, we do not create them. For articles in mathematics, the most common notation is the notation used in authoritative textbooks on the subject. Perhaps someone can point me to a relevant wikipedia policy or provide some backup for Grubber. [[User:MathMartin|MathMartin]] 16:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

:There isn't an explicit policy on math notation (but see [[WP:MSM]]). You are correct that we describe the "real world" rather than recreating it here. So if there are multiple common notations in the real world, we should just describe them, pick one to use, and get on with things. Discussion on the "best" notation tends to go around in circles. In this case, it looks like both involved parties agree that '''Z'''/''n'''''Z''' is acceptable. [[User:CMummert|CMummert]] · <small>[[User talk:CMummert|talk]]</small> 18:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

:Uh, Kuperberg has been editing here under that name since 2004, judging by the history of his talk page. He's hardly a new user. —[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] 05:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

:: Yes, he is not a new user. I should have checked more thoroughly. [[User:MathMartin|MathMartin]] 13:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

:: Hmm. There is a Greg Kuperberg who claims to have coauthored a paper with you, "[http://eprintweb.org/S/authors/All/ep/Eppstein/37 Fat 4-polytopes and fatter 3-spheres]". On the down side, he claims to have a doctorate in mathematics from [[U.C. Berkeley]], which may have brutalized his sanity; and [[U.C. Davis]] has a well-known [[enology]] program, which may also have had adverse effects. Any comments on his sanity or sobriety from your experience? <tt>;-)</tt> --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]^{[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]} 06:44, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

:::I don't recall that I've met him in person, just corresponded electronically on that paper and other matters. I have no reason for thinking him any less sane or sober than the typical mathematician. —[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] 06:49, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

== Welcome template for mathematics ==

The recent welcoming of a new mathematics editor led me to wonder, what would be most helpful to tell a newbie to our mathematics community? Information could go in a new mathematics-welcome template, or on the project page, or both. So, aside from the usual Wikipedia welcome, what might we say?

In particular, what did ''you'' find most helpful? Most difficult to discover? What do you find yourself wishing most new editors would do or avoid doing with regard to mathematics articles (that we can teach)? Other comments?

To lead off:

* In the difficult discovery category, I would hate to go back to life without [[Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups|popups]] (with popupRevertSummaryPrompt=true); the ability to hover over a linked technical term and see its lead paragraph is an incredible timesaver.

* The [[Help:Formula]] page is essential, showing the parts of TeX supported by the MediaWiki [[texvc]] software. I also found it handy to have my own [[User:KSmrq/Chars|page of characters]]; but newbies need help configuring their system to ''display'' them all.

* We should continue to expand the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Resources|reference resources]] page; I'd love to see a wiki version of a [[BibTeX]]-style database across mathematics articles (perhaps [[bot]]-assisted).

* Newbies often need illustration assistance; we could be more helpful than [[Wikipedia:How to create graphs for Wikipedia articles]]. (A recurring example: [[commutative diagram]]s.)

* Beyond [[WP:MSM]], I have suggested [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive 18#English composition|some writing tips]] that I wish were more widely followed.

Our target audience will include a gamut from professional mathematicians to young students; each needs to be told different things (for the former, Wikipedia is ''not'' a technical journal; for the latter, there is more to mathematics than you have seen). A good orientation could bring rich rewards. --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]^{[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]} 06:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

:This sounds a great idea. --[[User:Salix alba|Salix alba]] ([[User talk:Salix alba|talk]]) 09:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

:I am in complete agreement. If I had to choose a list of resources that took me a while to find, those that would have been helpful from the start, I would have listed exactly the resouces KSmrq has proposed above. [[User:VectorPosse|VectorPosse]] 10:02, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

:One more quick note. I might recommend that the math welcome be constructed in such a way that it supplement the normal welcome template instead of replacing it. (Actually, this is probably what KSmrq already has in mind.) It is likely that the math-specific editors we're targeting will have already received the standard welcome. Besides, the regular welcome has important general Wikipedia info that is indispensable. [[User:VectorPosse|VectorPosse]] 10:08, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

::I would suggest making a subpage of [[WP:WPM]] with resources for new editors, and then making the talk page message a welcome with a pointer to the subpage. Then we could also link to the subpage from [[WP:WPM]] and refer to it ourselves as a resource. [[User:CMummert|CMummert]] · <small>[[User talk:CMummert|talk]]</small> 18:28, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

:::I'd call it something like "Editor resources for mathematics articles", without the word "new", since they are also useful to seasoned editors. As far as I'm concerned KSmrq's [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive 18#English composition|buried essay]], with a bit more structuring and emphasis on an editor's problems when writing a mathematics article, can be made into one of these resources. &nbsp;--[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small>^Talk</small>]] 19:56, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

:::: So anybody actually willing to create it? :) [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 03:37, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

::::: Yes, I will begin soon if no one beats me to it.

::::: Some questions:

:::::# Are we agreed to accumulate the resources on a subpage of the project, and to make our template a minimal augmentation of the standard welcome template?

:::::# Any other must-have items?

:::::# Perhaps we should use the "Resources" subpage for this, moving its current contents to "Reference resources".

:::::# Apropos of which, can our bot-master whip up something to go through the mathematics pages and collect all the references, so that we can begin to massage them into a coherent database? Lazily, I envision beginning with a simple accumulation of exactly what appears in each article, then sorting like entries together, then eliminating duplicates and converting each entry to a standard form, then filling in missing information like ISBN-13, then checking each entry and marking it as confirmed correct (with respect to the data in the entry, without regard to the ''use'' of the citation), then taking over the world. This is obviously a naive strategy that may be overwhelmed by size, but it is otherwise easy and incremental. Or perhaps something better already exists of which I am unaware? Or is the consensus that this is a crazy idea that only a fool would undertake?

::::: Continuing suggestions still welcome, of course! --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]^{[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]} 09:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

:::::I will start a thread below on the fourth bullet; it wouldn't fit here. [[User:CMummert|CMummert]] · <small>[[User talk:CMummert|talk]]</small> 12:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

:One thing to point to is [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Participants]]. Not everyone finds their way there. For example CMummert &mdash; unaware or just shy? [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|&#9742;]] 05:21, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

One was created a couple months ago: [[User:Chan-Ho Suh/welcome]]. I didn't like it much though, which is why I haven't really used it. Perhaps having something concrete to critique will help. --[[User:Chan-Ho Suh|Chan-Ho]][[User talk:Chan-Ho Suh| (Talk)]] 05:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

:I put something online at [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Editor resources]]. Everyone should feel free to add or remove things or criticize what is there. [[User:CMummert|CMummert]] · <small>[[User talk:CMummert|talk]]</small> 13:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

=== Extracting references from articles ===

Extracting references from articles is not trivial. It would be relatively easy to get a list of all the instances of {{tl|cite book}} and friends. It would be much harder to automatically deal with hand-formatted references. I could get the contents of every "References" section (there are about 4500 of them), but it would take a lot of massaging. I'm not sure what [[Gnomes (South Park episode)#The gnomes|plan]] you have in mind for the information. But anyway, I started the program to update my cache of math articles, which is going to take about 12 hours. I can extract whatever data is requested. [[User:CMummert|CMummert]] · <small>[[User talk:CMummert|talk]]</small> 12:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

== Rating importance calibration ==

We've been having a discussion on calibration of the mathematical importance rating system over on [[Talk:Penrose tiling]] that might be of more general interest to the participants here. —[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] 18:40, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

:Using the criteria set forth there, I am tempted to say that [[Limit (mathematics)]] has top or high importance, not the mere mid importance it has been dealt. &nbsp;--[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small>^Talk</small>]] 20:11, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

::I agree, as one of the foundations of calculus and many other uses, high seems to be the appropriate value. I've changed the template accordingly. --[[User:Salix alba|Salix alba]] ([[User talk:Salix alba|talk]]) 22:04, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

David: Your proposed criteria at [[Talk:Penrose tiling]] seem excellent at first, but I am worried about them. It seems to me that the principal criterion you have offered for judging the importance of an article is whether you would be embarassed to find that the article was not in the encyclopedia. This seems initially like a reasonable idea, particularly since your examples all elicit about the same level of embarrassment for me as you say they would for you. But I worry that not everyone will be similarly embarrassed by the same things.

If personal embarrassment is used as a criterion, and if there is a consensus about the degree to which individuals would be embarrassed by the hypothetical ommission of articles, then all is well. But I fear that using embarrassment as a criterion will only turn the vague and subjective arguments about "importance" that we have now into equally vague and subjective arguments about personal embarrassment. Nothing will have been gained, and perhaps it will be even worse, since the terms of the discussion will encourage participants to rant and flame about about their personal emotions. Consider how much worse it would be to describe the importance of an article in terms of the rage and fury you would feel if the article were omitted---it should be clear that this way of framing the issue would be unlikely to promote respectful, rational discussions. Using embarrassment as the measure, rather than of rage, would ameliorate the potential problem here, but not eliminate it, I think.

I do not have a useful alternative to offer, but I am concerned that bringing embarrassment into the official guidlines is a step in the wrong direction, and could turn out to be a grave mistake. I hope that the WP:M community can come up with something less likely to promote flame wars. -- [[User:Dominus|Dominus]] 13:50, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

:I would be happy to have a less subjective scale. But the crucial thing for me is that it should not quantify importance only with respect to current mathematics research or pedagogy, but rather importance as a part of an encyclopedia, taking a broader view of connections to nonmathematical topics as part of that quantification. —[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] 15:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

::The biography importance characteristics do attempt for something more objective bassed around the importance of the topic cross discipines, top is something like big influance over a wide range of topics, high influence on topics outside of the ___domain (i.e outside of mathematics), mid influence across a number of fields within the ___domain, and low being of interest primarially within the field. (or something to that effect) see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Assessment#Priority_scale]. I find a certain appeal to adapting this to suit maths articles. --[[User:Salix alba|Salix alba]] ([[User talk:Salix alba|talk]]) 20:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

== Proposed deletion of "list of cycles" ==

See [[list of cycles]] and [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of cycles]]. [[User:Michael Hardy|Michael Hardy]] 22:24, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

== E8 ==

The [[E8 (mathematics)]] lie group hit the news today, which coverage of a full enumeration on the BBC and slashdot, see talk page for links. The article is very technical and could do with some attept to describe it in laymans terms, especially the meaning of the new result. --[[User:Salix alba|Salix alba]] ([[User talk:Salix alba|talk]]) 20:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

: This could make a better movie than ''[[A Beautiful Mind]]''; read [[David Vogan]]'s [http://atlas.math.umd.edu/kle8.narrative.html narrative] of the project. [http://atlas.math.umd.edu/ This site] is a good starting point for other info. --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]^{[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]} 22:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

:: Here's a press-release: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/e8.html. Note that Jeffrey Adams, who, as said in that release, is the project leader, has made a Wikipedia account, at [[User:Jeffreyadams]]. Nice. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 03:41, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

:::Hmmm, compsci heroics. But we need to have more on the mathematics of it. [[User:Charles Matthews|Charles Matthews]] 10:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

== Attention: Probability Theory ==

I was browsing through the list of [[Wikipedia:Vital articles|vital articles]], and found out to my dismay that most (almost all) content has been removed from [[Probability theory]]. I have already left some comments at its [[Talk:Probability theory|talk page]], but I would like additionally to alert as wide a circle of mathematics editors as possible. [[User:Arcfrk|Arcfrk]] 03:25, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Serious work has started on [[Probability theory]]. However, we need experts in probability theory and/or statistics to map out the article ('''urgent''') and contribute high quality content (as the time permits). [[User:Arcfrk|Arcfrk]] 04:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

== Sobolev space ==

I would like to attempt to rewrite [[Sobolev space]]. This article, which is quite important, is written in a messy manner (in my opinion). Some points which I would like to stress are described in [[User:Igny/Sobolev space]] (they are somewhat mentioned in the article, but like I said it is a mess). In particular I would like to stress the connection to the [[Fourier transform]] of [[distribution (mathematics)|distributions]], which, by the way, deserves a separate article in my opinion. I will appreciate any input from other editors, in particular a blessing to proceed. ([[User:Igny|Igny]] 19:17, 21 March 2007 (UTC))

: Yes, the article could be better. If you undertake such project, could you please allow for multiple definitions of Sobolev spaces? Perhaps you could structure it as section "Definition of Sobolev spaces", with subsection(s) for definitions, so that more definitions can be added in future. Because:

:* different definitions do not always give equivalent spaces

:* simple definitions though maybe not as satisfactory have an important place in teaching and are very suitable for encyclopedic purposes. In order of accessibility:

:* definition by completion of a space of smooth function (requires only the concept of completion of metric space)

:* definition by <math>L^p</math> weak derivative (requires [[Lebesgue integral]] but neither [[Fourier transform]] nor [[distributions]])

:* the distributions/Fourier transform way goes the whole mile but is the least accessible

:* the definition by Fourier series on an interval is a good example for teaching and sometimes a nice trick to know

:And yes, distributions should have their own article. So should [[interpolation of spaces]].

:Also, it would be good to have at the top of the article something simple yet specific even if maybe not 100% accurate so that people without much background get the correct idea what the topic is (i.e. without knowing what <math>L^p</math> and multiindex are and so on). Many math article are done this way. Maybe something like this: '''Sobolev space''' is a normed space of functions. The norm on Sobolev space of order n involves the value of the function as well as its derivatives of order up to n. The Lebesque spaces ... are a special case of Sobolev spaces of order zero. Negative order Sobolev spaces are defined as dual spaces to spaces of positive order, and Sobolev spaces of non-integer order are defined by interpolation of normed spaces (which is not the same as interpolation of function). The importance of Sobolev spaces lies in the fact that the smoothness of a function is measured by in which Sobolev space it is, and solutions of PDEs fall naturally in Sobolev spaces." Then the example of the most common space, <math>H^1=W^{2,2}</math>, in 2D, with all partials written out, and saying that the derivatives are suitably generalized for this whole thing to work, then the TOC and then the messy technical stuff. Thanks for taking this up! [[User:Jmath666|Jmath666]] 01:12, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I would have to say that the draft article is not written in a very friendly style. We are constantyly asked to have ''more explanation'' for the ''general reader''. There is also a constant pressure from experts to remove verbal explanations, replacing them by 'precise' statements and formulae. The difficulty is that articles then lose all chance of access by non-experts. It is fairly typical that an explanatory comment

:''The Sobolev spaces are the modern replacement for the space C1 of solutions of partial differential equations. In these spaces, we can estimate the size of the butterfly effect or, if it cannot be estimated, we can often prove that the butterfly effect is too strong to be controlled.''

was removed by someone in January 2006 claiming it was 'original research'.

[[User:Charles Matthews|Charles Matthews]] 08:02, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

: This is not a draft per se, it is a collection of elements of the future draft. I was just writing things, which the current article lacks or states poorly (again in my opinion). In anyway, I will continue working on my version (make it friendly and so on), which I hope at some moment will be good enough to replace the current version. I just want other editors know about this effort, and contribute with advice if possible. ([[User:Igny|Igny]] 13:22, 22 March 2007 (UTC))

::Are you sure the desired improvement cannot be attained by a sequence of piecemeal edits – in general a more desirable approach? &nbsp;--[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small>^Talk</small>]] 14:24, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes explanatory statements for non-experts are needed but the butterfly was a bad one no matter how catchy it sounds; please see the [[Talk:Sobolev_space#Text_removed_from_introduction|discussion]] why it was removed. And indeed it was missing [[Wikipedia:Attribution|references]]. The reason why Sobolev spaces exist is simply that solutions of PDEs are in general not in the classical <math>C^n</math> spaces. For example, in 2D and 3D linear elasticity, there are functions with finite deformation energy (=solutions of the elasticity equations; Nature settles to the lowest energy state) that are not bounded and so not even in <math>C^0</math>. One can construct such function as a special kind of spike (this makes a nice picture for the non-specialist), which also shows why point constraints make no sense in >1D, even if engineers merrily keep putting point constraints in their [[Finite element]] models all the time. [[User:Jmath666|Jmath666]] 15:21, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

:Well, I know why it was removed. I don't care about the butterfly. I do care about the general principle of making things comprehensible. And citing OR about helpful heuristics, which are clearly just that and not assertions, is too much on the silly side for me. Everyone knows that some heuristics are 'folklore'. [[User:Charles Matthews|Charles Matthews]] 18:00, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It is very important to make things comprehensible. I do not think the butterfly statement was helpful heuristics, though. More like an attempt to push the right buttons than to give a clue about the subject. And for me at least it sounds so specialized I would have liked a reference. [[User:Jmath666|Jmath666]] 18:25, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't have time to write anything just now, but I think th first chapter of Susanne C. Brenner and L. Ridgeway Scott, "Mathematical Theory of Finite Element Methods", Springer-Verlag, 1994 (ISBN 0-387-94193-2) is a particularly nice introduction to Sobolev spaces. It ought to be accessible to anyone having had a first course in analysis at the level of, say, Rudin or Hewett and Stromberg.

[[User:GregWoodhouse|Greg Woodhouse]] 18:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

== Upright d in math notation ==

An anon has been going through articles replacing italic d with upright d in math articles, for example

: <math>\frac{d f}{d x}</math>

to

: <math>\frac{{\mathrm d} f}{{\mathrm d} x}.</math>

There is a small discussion about this at [[talk:Derivative]].

As pointed out by [[User:Geometry guy|Geometry guy]], the previous discussion about this at [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive 4#straight or italic d?]] did not achieve consensus on what to use.

However, I would argue that while people should be allowed to use whatever notation they choose, I believe it is not a good idea to do mass changes to articles which used one type of notation for a long time.

That is to say, the vast majority of Wikipedia articles (all articles that I am aware of) use italic d notation. I vote to revert the anon conversions and to go back to status quo italic d notation at [[derivative]] and [[differential form]]. And if somebody starts a new article, and want to use roman d, they should be allowed. Comments? [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 15:00, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

:I agree. [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|&#9742;]] 15:40, 23 March 2007 (UTC)