Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Euclidean algorithm/archive1: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:44, 3 May 2009

Revision as of 09:59, 4 May 2009

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* '''Comments''' from '''[[User:Cryptic C62|Cryptic C62]] · [[User talk: Cryptic C62|Talk]]'''

**The lead does not adequately summarize all of the main sections of the article. Unless I am misreading, it appears that ''Other number systems'' is not represented in the lead.

:::Apparently you missed the sentence "In the 19th century, the algorithm was generalized to other types of numbers, which led to modern [[abstract algebra]]ic notions such as [[Euclidean ___domain]]s." in the lead. But you're right, that's too terse, so I expanded it to "The original algorithm was described only for natural numbers and geometric lengths (real numbers), but the algorithm was generalized in the 19th century to other types of numbers, such as [[Gaussian integer]]s and [[polynomial]]s of one variable. This led to modern [[abstract algebra]]ic notions such as [[Euclidean ___domain]]s." [[User:Proteins|Proteins]] ([[User talk:Proteins|talk]]) 09:59, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

**Caption: "The greatest common divisor of ''a'' and ''b'' is the largest square tile that covers an ''a''-by-''b'' rectangle exactly. Here, a 24-by-60 rectangle is covered with 12-by-12 square tiles." In the first sentence, it needs to be made clear that it is not one single square tile that covers the rectangle, but multiple iterations of that square tile. "exactly" is somewhat ambiguous, consider expanding. It would also be helpful to say "ten 12-by-12 square tiles". Addendum: upon reading the relevant paragraph, it might be helpful to make this into an animation which demonstrates the various ways in which a 60-by-24 rectangle can be divided.

:::Reworded caption, thanks. The animation might be helpful, but that would require someone to create and position precisely 1440 1-by-1 squares. It's possible — are you volunteering, by any chance? [[User:Proteins|Proteins]] ([[User talk:Proteins|talk]]) 09:59, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

**"The greatest common divisor is often written as GCD(a, b) or, more simply, as (a, b)." Yes, the second version is simpler, but that notation is also used for ''lots'' of other things in mathematics. What (a, b) represents depends on the context of the problem, and I think it would be wise to mention this so as not to mislead our less mathematically-inclined readers.

**"neither 6 = 2×3 nor 35 = 5×7 is a prime number, since they both have two prime factors" I think it may be a tad confusing to include the prime factorization at first; perhaps this should be added later: "neither 6 nor 35 is a prime number, since they both have two prime factors: 6 = 2x3 and 35 = 5x7." or something like that. Also, shouldn't it be "neither 6 nor 35 '''are''' prime number'''s'''" ?

:::Excellent suggestion for the rewording. [[User:Proteins|Proteins]] ([[User talk:Proteins|talk]]) 09:59, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

***[http://www.bartleby.com/68/47/4047.html Neither/nor] - it depends if you think 6 and 35 are singular or plural. Are they singular because they are individual numerals or are they plural because they abstractly represent "more than one"? Tricky. [[User:Awadewit|Awadewit]] ([[User talk:Awadewit|talk]]) 20:05, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

****Hrm. Well, I'm not particularly sure about it myself, so use your best judgment. I just wanted to bring it to your attention. --'''[[User:Cryptic C62|Cryptic C62]] · [[User talk: Cryptic C62|Talk]]''' 22:23, 3 May 2009 (UTC)