Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics

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WikiScience

Everybody here please have a look at my MetaWiki proposition for the creation of wikiscience, a technical wiki-based encyclopedia that will allow for ORIGINAL contributions from users plus the most up-to-date research from professionals (as well as being a math and science encyclopedia). Wikipedia as it stands is far from this, as well as other sites such as "Mathworld". Math and science is simply to technical and evolving of a subject to be thrown about with the rest of wikipedia articles. Math and science, given its special nature of presentation and subject, needs to be part of the wikipedia whole, yet seperate and organized (I think we all agree). I believe that the wikimedia foundation has the momentum and the user base to make this extroadinary contribution to the math and science community, but I need supporters before wikimedia makes this happen.

If you are interested in making this happen please visit the link and show your support. Also, if you want more detail of my idea, or have any suggestions or criticisms please visit WikiScience Details! Thanks! --B21.12.52.123 12:55, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm thinking along the lines of "arxiv.org", but with wikilinks and author-controlled pages. Among other things, it would put an end to l'Affaire Hewitt ici, and allow a flourish of edits there. As such, I strongly support and recommend further development. I also support because I want to experiment with keeping my personal research notes/diary in media-wiki style. linas 21:12, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm against it. I think it will divide the efforts of editors, with the most technically inclided editors eschewing wikipedia general. I don't think there should be a limit on how technical articles in wikipedia get (Wikipedia wants to be the sum total of human knowledge). To the critics who complain when they come to an article that's too technical, well, we can make each article as approachable as possible, but in many cases that will still be entirely incomprehensible to most people. C'est la vie. -lethe ^talk 22:03, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is a good point. Should non-technical, simple summeries of math and science concepts still be in wikipedia? Or should all of math and science move to WikiScience? I am leaning toward the first one, that is, wikipedia (like any other encyclopedia) should still have relatively simply worded and accessable concepts in math and science, but for more in-depth and up-to-date modern (and original research from users) research, plus more in depth on the "simple" concepts, wikiscience would be the home. Does this divide contributers? Not if the technicality of the articles on wikipedia is kept to a minimum (like other paperbased encyclopedias). In fact, I would say that what is one wikipedia right now suffices for this pupose, so no extra work would need to be done in wikipedia.--B21.12.52.123 22:47, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to know more specifics on how you propose to decide who is allowed to edit a page. Dmharvey 22:10, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'll post some ideas soon...--B21.12.52.123 22:47, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bad idea, as far as I'm concerned. We have a perfectly adequate framework for mathematical exposition here (modulo the troubles with symbols). Integrating mathematics with history, geography and intellectual trends goes on here in a way sadly missing in most texts. Our mathematics here is a clear advance on both PlanetMath and MathWorld, and the main current difficulty seems mostly to get enough people working on bringing the coverage up to date. We have the quality of people tp do that, so it's a matter of time, really. Charles Matthews 22:51, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I am leery of anything that might result in duplication of effort. Wikiscience should not be an encyclopedia, since we already have that here. Since that is how it has been defined above, I am against it. - Gauge 05:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by: "Math and science is simply to technical and evolving of a subject to be thrown about with the rest of wikipedia articles. Math and science, given its special nature of presentation and subject, needs to be … separate …". Are you saying that the math and science content should be moved from Wikipedia to Wikiscience? Paul August ☎ 22:54, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

All this Wikiscience business makes me weary. Serious posts by anonymous contributors also (make an account, buddy).

As Lethe said, there should be no limit to how technical or complicated articles on Wikipedia can get. Yes, one should strive to make things approachable, but within limit of common sense.

Some people might indeed be happy contributing to a project like Wikiscience (Linas is an example). But talking about moving (not copying, but moving) technical content from Wikipedia to there is not serious. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:53, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

OK, here's the rub: if WikiScience is offered as a competitor to WP, then I agree with Charles and Oleg: heavy-duty, in-depth science articles belong on WP. Furthermore, the creation of wikiscience will not "cure" any purported problem about lack of depth in WP articles. On the other hand, if Wikiscience is offered as a companion to WP, that's different. The "companion" properties I'd like to see are (1) encouragement of publication of original research and (2) total control of articles by primary authors. I envision the ideal companion to be an "arxiv.org with wikilinks and social infrastructure".

Set up as a companion in this way, it won't dilute resources: for example, I still do original research, and my doing that should not be construed a "dilution". Another example: WP editors who are in constant clashes may find life to be more acceptable over there, since they'll always get thier way. Would thier departure be much of a loss to WP? Probably not.

The one thing I want to do, that WP won't let me do, is for me to keep a set of pages of my original reaserch, that I totally control. While I can do this on external websites, its not ideal. On my personal website, I'm missing a collaborative environment and a place to discuss. At planetmath, I'm missing the mediawiki interfaces I've grown accustomed to here. And its not "integrated" with WP: cross-linking is hard, visual presentation is different. On arxiv.org, I've got publication, and a stable, long-term document repository; but I'm missing collaboration, etc. What I would very much like to see in the WikiScience proposal is a solution to these problems. linas 00:58, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia does not yet have an adequate solution to becoming a reputable encyclopedia. That issue must be addressed across all articles, not just science and mathematics. Incorporation of original research is a separate question, though quality control mechanisms may overlap. A reader is looking for coverage, correctness, and clarity. (Can I find what I want, including recent work? Can I believe what I read? Can I understand it?) A writer is looking for exposure, helpful feedback, and a vetting process that is expert and fair. (Also, perhaps, scholarly credit and article stability.)

The WikiScience proposal might provide a venue for original research, but it does not address the Wikipedia-wide issues, and it does not provide the vital details of how readers and writers are to be satisfied. Note that Wikipedia, with no technical changes, could choose to flag some articles as "advanced". --KSmrq^T 02:56, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

--B21.12.52.123 11:02, 14 December 2005 (UTC)===Wikipedia vs Wikiscience===[reply]

First off, I am not an annonymous user. I chose this name arbitrarily when I was just starting to contribute to wikipedia articles. If this name bothers any of you I guess I can change to a "normal" name. My name is Parker W. and I am an ex-math major from the University of Oklahoma. I am a real person lol...later on if this gets more support I will start a mailing group so people can contact me personally.

Charles Matthews: Wikipedia as it stands is FAR from any serious math resource. The trial of Michael Jackson is like 10 times longer and more complex than the article on E. Given E is one of the most beautiful and important numbers in math, this is a travesty or at least an embarrasment to wikipedia's scope in math.

Show me where else on the Web you can find a page like Enriques-Kodaira classification. Charles Matthews 09:43, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Great article, but this is simply out of place here. No one will look at it here; this is akin to sticking this article in Encyclopedia Brittanica...its just awkward here. Wouldnt you rather it be at a place it can be respected and used? People DONT come here for serious math and science research/enrichment/collaborations and those of you who think so are in denial: you are wasting your time here with these advanced articles! They need a proper HOME; such as wikiscience.--B21.12.52.123 09:59, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That is nonsense, and annoying nonsense at that. Charles Matthews 10:06, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. It is nonsense. As wikipedia grows in coverage, every math grad student in the world will know to come here. This article will certainly see use. Who cares how it compares to Michael Jackson? -lethe ^talk 10:16, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at said article here just a couple of days ago. I am a PhD student, and I found it fascinating and useful. - Gauge 05:48, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The comparison with the MJ article was used by me as an example of the focus of the general user base of wikipedia. Wikipedia, by its nature, is constantly regressing to the mean, that is, the interests of the "average" person. This is completely fine in most cases when you need information on popular topics but is completely disabling to the promotion of advanced non-popular topics. I did a little walkthrough of wikipedias science as math articles and about 20% of the time the article said "this article needs the attention of an expert". Gee, thats a real affirmation of wikipedias strength in math and science; and this isnt in the beggining stages, this is after 4 YEARS of wikipedia.

Face it; it is a vicious cycle. You are surrounded by people who don't care about any of this stuff and never will. The articles (or lack therof) show it. What we need is a different framework and community of more like-minded people, similar to PlanetMath, but much much better, parterned with wikipedia. Don't throw your pearls amoung the swine!--B21.12.52.123 11:00, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Charles; Wikipedia's mathematics coverage is one of its high points. -- The Anome 10:10, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Of course you do. Your POV is that of a mathlover (or I assume you wouldnt be here).--B21.12.52.123 11:03, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Paul August and Oleg: As I said before "...that is, wikipedia (like any other encyclopedia) should still have relatively simply worded and accessable concepts in math and science, but for more in-depth and up-to-date modern (and original research from users) research, plus more in depth on the "simple" concepts, wikiscience would be the home. Does this divide contributers? Not if the technicality of the articles on wikipedia is kept to a minimum (like other paperbased encyclopedias). In fact, I would say that what is one wikipedia right now suffices for this pupose, so no extra work would need to be done in wikipedia"

That is, WikiScience is in my mind a companion to Wikipedia. As any encyclopedia, Wikipedia will have entries on math and science, moving them or getting rid of all the math and science articles in wikipedia would be absurd. However, for the lastest "peer-reviewed" (at least compared to wikipedia) research, both amateur and professional, for indepth technical articles suitable to those in the math and science fields, and for proper organization and stucture that is helpful to those seeking mathematical and scientific information, WikiScience will serve that function.

C'est la vie remarked that "wikipedia wants to be the sum total of human knowledge". This is not correct. Wikipedia, however revolutionary and huge it my be, is still an encyclopedia and has many guidelines as to what shouldn't be in the encyclopedia such as definitions of words, news stories and the like. This is why wikitionary, wikinews were created, respectively. The content matter of these sister projects is just to different to be mixed in with what is suppost to be an encyclopedia.

First of all, my username is Lethe, not C'est la vie. Second of all, Jimbo himself said:

"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." -Jimmy Wales, July 2004

Therefore, I believe all math knowledge that has been vetted by the publication process should be here. Thus WikiScience will only be appropriate as a place for pet projects and crackpots. Once something is published, it needs to be here, as soon as someone is ready and able to put it. We are not bound to keep things down to high school knowledge here, and I think that suggestions to limit the amount or extent of knowledge to go here will be rabidly opposed. -lethe ^talk 10:20, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, folks, don't bite. And B21.12.52.123, you might want to spend a little more time acquainting yourself with Wikipedia's culture, values, processes, and content before you try to reform it. (It's hard to get people to follow you if you're stepping on their toes.) --KSmrq^T 11:43, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As is with what I proposed to be put in wikiscience. But just because wikinews and wiktionary were created, doesnt mean that all articles defining words and all articles reffering to current events were removed! These articles in math and science which are "different" are what I call technical articles.

"Techical vs "non-technical" math and science articles

Technical articles and qualitatively and quantitively different from non-technical articles, as I shall dub them, which are currently in wikipedia.

The key difference is rigor. Going back to my example of the Michael Jackson trial (no offence to MJ:)), a minor detail such as, Mr. Mesereau's shows were black at the trial would have no effect on the overall information of the article. If that were in-fact, not true, than the article would not be compromised.

With a techical article it WOULD be compromised if a small detail was wrong, unfounded, or erronious. The ENTIRE article would be compromised in the eyes of any serious student/enthusiast or researcher. This is why we have CRC handbooks, Mathematical encyclopedias, or resources such as the arxiv. Now this does not mean that any of the articles in math and science here are "wrong" or "unfounded" or inadequate, it just means that they serve a different purpose from technical articals. This is that of exposition. Technical articles are not generally expository (all though than can be), are more in-depth, and contain more "sensitive" topics (topics that the reader my require a corresponding source or cite, as well as a cite of proof). One is not "better" than the other, they are just serving different needs. Wikipedia currenty does not meet the latter's needs.

What is the crucial difference then that wikipedia can't facilitate? This is that of critical review. Critical review is the lifeblood of technical articles. I will wait and give my list of possible implementations of critical review just in case you guys want to respond to anything I said of have criticisms or concerns of what I just posted.

--B21.12.52.123 05:04, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

IN SUMMERY: WikiScience is to Wikipedia as The CRC Handbook plus Mathword plus summeries of discoveries in the latest math and science journals, plus orginal contributions from users and professionals is to Encyclopedia Brittanica. Neither one is "better" they are just different. Wikipedia will still have math and science articles just as Brittanica does.

There might be a place for a wiki which allowed original research in mathematics. However in my opinion Wikipedia is currently the best single resource for mathematics. And I expect it to remain so for a long time to come. I can see no good reason to restrict Wikipedia to only a certain level of mathematical sophistication. Paul August ☎ 05:11, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is already restricted in mathematical sophistication...visit the article on E like I mentioned. It is WikiScience that would be unrestricted. You are not going to find a technical article on E even in the greatest paper based encyclopedias because thats not what they are there for, wikipedia is no different.--B21.12.52.123 05:25, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Time to up the sophistication level of the e article, then. -- The Anome 10:12, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of the current quality of math wikipedia, we aim to subsume EB, CRC Handbook (isn't that just a table of data? That actually, we will not subsume), mathworld, EDM2, Soviet encyclopedia, and others. -lethe ^talk 10:50, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"We" aim? You and who else? Are you implying that a small group of people could assimilate that much information into wikipedia? Its going to take an army of nerds to do it. That is the key. We need to create an accomadating environment that attracts NERDS and specialists. This environment would include proper peer-review that specialists desire, collaboration possibilities, original research inclusion, everything that a math and sci specialist or enthusiast WANTS and needs. Well guess what? That isnt wikipedia. So whats happening? A lone band of nerds (I use that term in the utmost respect) is trying to assimilate huge bodies of knowledge into a place that isnt meant for them. We need a NERD ARMY my friend, and that army won't assemble at wikipedia.

--Hypergeometric2F1[a,b,c,x] 11:29, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

We had this once. It was called Nupedia. Larry Sanger has been lamenting its demise for years, and making calls to arms to restore an expert-based, limited-editing pedia for just as long. It's not a terrible idea, but just so you know, it's been tried already, and people aren't to keen to give it another go here at wikipedia. -lethe ^talk 11:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like I missed this conversation overnight. I'd just like to say I sympathise with the points expressed by Charles, Lethe, Paul, etc, and not so sympathetic to B21.12.52.123. Dmharvey 12:55, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have joined the Wikipedia:Project Mathematics and have introduced myself on the participants page. I will keep campaigning for this idea, but in the meantime I will contribute what I can and see what happens. --B21.12.52.123 06:58, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have also created a new nickname to assuade confusion --Hypergeometric2F1[a,b,c,x] 11:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to the project B21/Hypergeometric. Yes it will take a lot of people and considerable time to create all the content we envision, but fortunately we have many qualified mathematics editors and all the time in the world. Are you familiar with all the content that this small "army of nerds" and others have already created (see List of mathematical topics and List of lists of mathematical topics)? I think your idea of joining the Mathematics Project to gain some experience in how Wikipedia works (or doesn't as the case may be) is a good one. You are correct in saying that original research, being non-encyclopedic, has no place on Wikipedia, and as I said above a separate wiki that allowed that might be a good idea. But for encyclopedic content I think it will be very hard to do better than Wikipedia. Again welcome. Paul August ☎ 15:07, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Debunking a claim

Above, Hypergeometric2F1[a,b,c,x] wrote that

I did a little walkthrough of wikipedias science as math articles and about 20% of the time the article said "this article needs the attention of an expert".

Well, I counted all the mathematics and mathematician articles which have either a {{attention}} or {{cleanup}} or {{expert}} template either in the article or on its talk page. I found 98 of those. Jitse's tool states that there are 33 more at Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics (and thre could be an overlap with the first 98). All in all, we get 131 pages needing attention of a total of 11000-11713 articles, which is 1.19%, a far cry from 20%. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:14, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

EDS told me that the "Nature" magazine is actually quite positive about Wikipedia: "Researchers should read Wikipedia cautiously and amend it enthusiastically." [1]. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:09, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

For the last time I am not dissing wikipedia, I like wikipedia I just think that as a pluralistic encyclopedia it will be constantly regressing toward the mean interests of the populace which excludes higher math. Wikipedia lacks the sophistication, community, and peer-review that is required for serious content that can be relied upon by people in research communities.

Never the less, I am ending this argument for now, as I have just realized I am a big IDIOT for coming in here and saying that wikipedia lacks something to people that are still here working to better it after all this time. Honestly, I want you guys to succeed and I will add various things to wikipedia myself (I'm currently practicing my LaTeX), however I don't think it will really take off. In the meantime, I am thinking of ways to implement a math original research wiki so we'll see how that goes.--Hypergeometric2F1[a,b,c,x] 05:29, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The point of this subsection is that you have been overblowing things out of proportion. Now, the math on wikipedia project took off a long time ago, and is actually sucessful. As far as your original research wiki, we shall see. Good luck practising LaTeX and the new research wiki. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:51, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You came in boldly wanting to make things better, and your attempt was awkward. Sounds like a typical new Wikipedian to me. Welcome. --KSmrq^T 22:07, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Strange Reflections of Wikipedia

If you use Yahoo to find references to superlogarithm you will discover some interesting clones of Wikipedia pages. The term superlogarithm appeared on a past version of the tetration page, but now appears almost nowhere else on the net. Now the term superlogarithm appears on both the Free WebCam Tetration and Sex Pictures Logarithm pages of a rather unusual Wikipedia clone at newpenisenlargement.com. Daniel Geisler

Haven't you heard? newpenisenlargement.com is the number one mathematics resource on the net! - Gauge 02:58, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Integer group names

I would dearly love to rewrite the following:

The finite group can be Z/2Z, Z/2Z+Z/2Z, Z/3Z, Z/3Z+Z/3Z, Z/4Z, Z/4Z+Z/2Z, or Z/6Z, giving 7 families of such surfaces.

I find it almost unreadable, because of the insistence on quotient notation. I would prefer subscripts:

The finite group can be Z₂, Z₂+Z₂, Z₃, Z₃+Z₃, Z₄, Z₄+Z₂, or Z₆, giving 7 families of such surfaces.

From my background, this is merely a matter of different conventions. Yet I get the feeling that some people feel uncomfortable with the subscript notation and habitually use quotient notation. What's up with that? --KSmrq^T 11:54, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think the subscript is preferred for p-adic numbers, and the quotient notation is preferred for modular groups to avoid confusion. I think it should be OK to use the subscript as long as you clarify that you are talking about the quotient groups. -lethe ^talk 12:05, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Conventions for where we are on this. Charles Matthews 12:42, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the replies. From my reading of the conventions talk page, it appears that Z_n has three possible interpretations: (1) the additive group of integers modulo n, (2) the ring of integers modulo n, and (3) the p-adic numbers with p = n. I take it that for n prime, we would use a different notation if we mean the Galois field. Are there any other ambiguities I should be aware of? And do the interpretations differ more by area of mathematics, or area of the globe?

One reason I ask is because the article with the opaque quotient notation was talking about algebraic topology groups (no cohomology rings), where only interpretation (1) would make sense (so far as I know), yet quotients were used anyway. (Furthermore, the sentence itself tells us we're talking about groups.) So I'm trying to get a better understanding, not of just what people do, but why.

I understand it can be hard to explain choices; for example, I know for me there are contexts in which I would always use C_n, and others in which I would never do so, but use Z_n instead. Still, any further insights would be appreciated. --KSmrq^T 02:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what article or context we're talking about, but in my experience, the cyclic group Z_n is written multiplicatively while the cyclic group Z/nZ is written additively. So, it's a little strange to see "Z₂+Z₂". On the other hand, it's far easier to read, so I'd prefer it. Melchoir 04:38, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Curious. Compare your expectations against our conventions. (The original context is not so important, it merely provoked my question; but it was a page mentioned here in another thread, Enriques-Kodaira_classification.) --KSmrq^T 08:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Huh. Well, I guess conventions wouldn't be any fun if we didn't have lots of them. Melchoir 08:57, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

templates revisited

Today I happened across an old conversaion I had with Oleg a few months ago on Talk:Transcendental number about templates in the math project (the discussion also arrived here; see archive). We all pretty easily voted to delete them: Template:change, Template:structure, Template:space, and Template:quantity. I'm a mild inclusionist and was a little nervous about so much deletion, but I was assuaged when I saw Template:Mathematics-footer. My main concern was lack of consistency across other technical subjects (confer Template:Natural sciences-footer and Template:Physics-footer, for example), and this one addresses that fine. Today, upon tripping on the old discussion, I noticed that while we do have this template, it's pretty much unused.

So how do we feel about these templates these days? Are they useful as a navigational tool? Is it worth having this one for the sake of consistency? I'm somewhat inclined to add the footer to all the articles mentioned within. Here it is, for reference. -lethe ^talk 16:12, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, whom are you calling a deletionist? :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:23, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed renaming

There has been some discussion about renaming the pages linked to from the following template:

The current proposal is as follows:

Current name	Proposed name
List of mathematical topics	List of mathematics articles
List of mathematical topics (A)	List of mathematics articles (A)
List of mathematical topics (B)	List of mathematics articles (B)
etc.
List of lists of mathematical topics	List of mathematics lists

Older discussion on this topic may be found at Talk:List of lists of mathematical topics#Renaming this page.

Comments? Objections? If you agree, please state so. -- Fropuff 03:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I agree with this proposal. -- Fropuff 03:21, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The List of mathematical topics (A) has no topics in it, all are articles. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:27, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The new names describe the content of the articles far better than the old names. —the preceding Tompw 18:12, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support. This all seems good. Paul August ☎ 22:45, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sopport. Lot of renaming this involves! --- Charles Stewart 18:26, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Now is the time to go edit your watchlist and remove from there all the redirects this move created. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:36, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for doing the grunt work on this Oleg. I wasn't looking forward to it. -- Fropuff 04:49, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Organizing the math pages needing attention

See Wikipedia talk:Pages needing attention/Mathematics#Listing the pages needing attention for some discussion. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:30, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

External peer review by Nature

I turn your attention to this article by Nature and Wikipedia's response. Karol 06:04, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I just wanted to say I enjoy this resource and find it useful. I am not a mathematician or a statistician, although I use both a fair bit in my work. I learned a great deal from this very forum over a few days just last month. Wikipedia will only improve with time. Comparing Wikipedia with Encyclopedia Britannica at this point hardly seems fair. Wikipedia has been around for, what, 5 years. Encyclopedia Britannica has been around “forever”. If Wikipedia compares favorably with Encyclopedia Britannica already in at least some regards imagine what Wikipedia might be like 20 years from now.

I also think that technical articles are great. Personally I would prefer that more of them have examples and references. But this forum and the math help desk have been helpful to me in climbing the learning curve on technical issues. Some things I’ve learned here I tried off-and-on unsuccessfully to learn elsewhere on the internet over the course of several years.

As for the reliability of Wikipedia, perfect reliability is, in a Popperian sense, perhaps an unattainable ideal in that all of science is constantly being revised. Although, examples and references are one way for the reader to verify factual information and the state of the art as described in Wikipedia articles. As such, examples and references act, to an extent, like peer review.

I guess my point is that people will find these articles, will use these articles, and will be glad you wrote them, regardless of how specific or technical those articles may be… …particularly if those articles contain examples and references and are aimed at people who don’t know as much as you do about the subject.

I didn’t know the most appropriate place to put my comments so I stuck them here. Sorry if these comments are out of place. Mark W. Miller 06:41, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Original research wiki

I have created a discussion page for the implementation of a wiki, Wikipolis, allowing for dynamic collaborations, original research, and some form of peer-review. I invite you all to add your ideas!--Hypergeometric2F1[a,b,c,x] 10:01, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Somer pseudoprime

Somer pseudoprime is a puzzling new page, and hard to verify through Google. Charles Matthews 22:11, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've corrected a typo, and corrected the wikilinks, but ... ALL Google entries with Somer pseudoprime but without Wikipedia [2] are copies of the wikipedia entries for 25 or 49. Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:48, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Someone should look at Somer-Lucas pseudoprime at the same time. Right now it's copyvio from MathWorld, but even if it weren't, it'd still be a bare definition without context. The MathWorld article at least has a reference,

Ribenboim, P. "Somer-Lucas Pseudoprimes." §2.X.D in The New Book of Prime Number Records, 3rd ed. New York: Springer-Verlag, pp. 131-132, 1996.

If someone has the book, maybe it'll show cause why both articles shouldn't go to AfD. --Trovatore 21:16, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, they are not mentioned in Ribenboim, The Little Book of Big Primes. This is the abridged version of The New Book of Prime Number Records, which we do not have in our library. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 15:59, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Since the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences reference is only from 2003, I see no good reason to have this hanging around. Charles Matthews 16:17, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Jitse, Charles, please clarify: Are you talking about Somer, Somer-Lucas, or both? My gut says get rid of both, at least as they stand. --Trovatore 19:56, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Both. Furthermore, I would delete them if it were up to me. But I'm hesitant to cite nonnotability as a reason for deletion. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 20:32, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My take (although I'm relatively new as a Wikipedian). Somer pseudoprime -- delete as neologism. Somer-Lucas pseudoprime -- delete as copy-vio and nonsense, because of the d. Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:43, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Math pages needing attention

Somewhere above, in the discussion about wikiscience, a claim was made that around 20% of math articles need attention of an expert. Well, the number is just a fraction of that, for the moment 1.54%, meaning 169 articles, but that's still a big number. On Fropuff's suggestion, I wrote a script which will daily add to Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics math pages having various attention templates, like {{cleanup}}, {{expert}} etc. So, I'd just like the community to be aware of that page (most of us are, I think), and visit it from time to time. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:37, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

More depressingly, about a quarter of the articles are tagged as stubs. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:13, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see that as such a big problem. Would we better off if those stub articles did not exist at all (8000 long articles without the extra 3000 stubs)? Often times an article grows only gradually, and a stub may inspire somebody to expand it, without having to start from zero. Besides, many stubs are complete enough, one just should remove the stub tag. I am more depressed when I see really badly written articles, and/or with errors. So, let the little ones come to me :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking, if an article is a stub, and probably will never be anything more than a stub, does that mean it should probably just find a home as a section in another article? I was thinking of my recent stub invariant basis number. That article might be comfortable as a section in dimension theorem for vector spaces. -lethe ^talk 21:03, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have no problem with "small" articles like this. If this is all that can be said about this, then we should just remove the stub tag. Paul August ☎ 21:31, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

(replying to Lethe after an edit conflict.) That merging idea may work in specific cases, but I would not apply it as a general principle. Often times one may want to look up a specific term, and it may not make sense to read an entire article on a bigger concept to find that term. Also, you may create that section in the bigger article containing the stub, but nobody knows for how long that material will stick around before being edited out.

And I would not be totally opposed to a concept showing up both in its own stubby article and as a section in something bigger. In short, I would argue that one should use a lot of caution when eliminating stubs by merging, and if not sure, err on the side of leaving the stubs as they are. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:38, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I agree with all of what Oleg says. I think a lot of people think that, for the sake of efficiency, content should not be "duplicated". But while that might be best for a book say, it might not make so much sense for Wikipedia. Moreover I think it is a benefit to have several articles from different points of view (not in the sense of POV). That is, an article about "invariant basis number" can address that content in a different way than "dimension theorem for vector spaces" would. Paul August ☎ 21:55, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, we may need those stubs. My feeling is that we have plenty of graduate students and other useful people editing anonymously, who currently are not able to start articles. We should aim to add 'good stubs' on many topics. Charles Matthews 22:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that the ban on anons creating new pages is an experiment. An important question to be answered is whether the imposition of creating an account substantially diminishes valuable contributions. I wonder how we would be able to decide the impact on new pages. You seem to be anticipating a visible loss; I'm inclined to think otherwise. We shall see. --KSmrq^T 06:03, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we don't know. We can't know whether the creator of Andreotti-Frankel theorem would have been happy to log in. There are issues in using institutional IT systems, and I certainly don't know what they might be. In any case my argument is not based on speculation on the possible harmful effects, which are hard to establish, but on the idea that the 'good stub', which in the past has been a big factor in developing WP, is still a good idea. What is more, as mathematicians, we should be the greatest appreciators here of the effects of exponential growth: if the red links in each article are still triggering a branching proportional to the size of the article base (say, in advanced parts of mathematics), then probably it is futile to worry too much about getting down the stubs as a proportion. That will only happen when we get closer to 'saturation' of the subject, so that the intellectual map 'closes up'. Charles Matthews 09:29, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Your original wording ties stub need to anon creation ban. But as you elaborate, stubs can stimulate growth, regardless. As I understand the history of Wikipedia and its ilk, there has long been a tension between attracting quantity and assuring quality. Apparently, it's easy to guess wrong. I'm certainly curious to know the outcome. Anyway, I'm not currently nervous about having too many stubs; sometimes a stub tag just means the editor feels insecure about her expertise, which is better than overconfidence. --KSmrq^T 10:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, attracting mathematicians is a good idea, period. They tend to have other interests and a fact-based approach, and this makes them effective contributors to WP as a whole. Charles Matthews 11:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, I did not mean to say that stubs are bad. My remark was in response to Oleg's, who said that 1.54% of the articles need attention of an expert. I wanted to say that it could be argued that stubs should be included in that number. Of course, a stub is better than no article, just like a messy article or one that is too technical is better than no article; it seems we all agree on that (on the other hand, an article riddled with errors is worse than no article, in my opinion). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:40, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So I think a stub is usually better than no article, but I'd like to propose that an exception is when an entry from "requested articles" is fulfilled with an uninformative stub. My request would be, if you don't know something substantial about the topic, please leave it for someone who does. I recall a particular case where someone requested Joe Blow in the "mathematicians" section of requested articles, and someone else immediately wrote a stub that said simply "Joe Blow is a mathematician". My intuition is that this action substantially reduced the probability that we'd have an informative article about Blow in the near future, because it took him off the requested list. --Trovatore 19:53, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No one would call that a 'good stub'. Charles Matthews 22:50, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There is such a thing as Wikipedia:Requests for expansion which is supposed to complement Wikipedia:Requested articles and deal with precisely this, but it doesn't get as much press. I can see that it has the potential to become wildly out of control like Category:Stubs, but perhaps we should encourage its use? List it on Jitse's wonderful current activity page? —Blotwell 23:25, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, all! (... with the understanding that paganism is older than Christianity, either way, cheeriest of holidays!) linas 02:41, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, why not. Dmharvey 03:13, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Why not? Now that's a great answer! :) Let me try a proper response:

Ho-ho! Merry Christmas to you all! Wish you a Happy New Year, lots of edits, less wiki-stress, and that you also spend some healthy time outside this addictive place! And whatever else you wish for yourselves or others! Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:52, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"lots of edits" and "spend some healthy time outside this addictive place" are mutually inconsistent. Unless the edits are very short. Dmharvey 04:25, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A linear functional which is not continuous

I wrote the article A linear functional which is not continuous only to immediately discover on its talk page a suggestion to move it to Non-continuous linear functional (darn, everybody should be drunk and sleeping this post-Christmas morning, not checking the recent changes). What do people think (if it matters at all)? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:36, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't there a mechanism for providing both names for the article? Both seem fine... Randall Holmes 17:40, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I've been steadily editing through this period, and it has been awfully quiet :-) Happy Hanukkah! Randall Holmes 17:41, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, still quiet. :) Yes, there is a mechanism for providing both names, it is called a redirect, see Wikipedia:Redirect. So I guess the argument is about which is the primary meaning, for all that's worth. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:31, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I like the first name. Compare with stuff like An infinitely differentiable function that is not analytic. Also, is "non-continuous" a word? Shouldn't that be "discontinuous"? -lethe ^talk 03:02, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I don't like the idea of a name for an encyclopedic article beginning with "A". Also, I think the original proposed name is too long. I'd go for Non-continuous linear functional. But maybe it's just me. --Meni Rosenfeld 12:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Meni; initial articles are okay if they are title of a book or work of art, but I don't think they belong in a general article. Even if it has to do with showing existence. Isn't there some other way to word it? Gene Nygaard 21:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there :) - the article was moved to A linear map which is not continuous - is that what people have decided on? Right now it looks like no consensus, but I thought I'd just give everyone a buzz... WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 23:28, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

How about linear map which is not continous, dropping the leading "A" which makes people uneasy. The other option seems to be discontinous linear map, based on above. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:27, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Discontinuous linear map/Discontinuous linear functional and Infinitely differentiable non-analytic function seem reasonable. We anyway don't expect people to search for and bump into these articles directly, and we are probably going to use these as examples to show that being a "linear map" doesn't imply being continuous, and smoothness doesn't imply analyticity, in main articles on linear maps and analytic functions, so I guess the title is not all that crucial. Bottomline: Unless we are missing on something important, the shorter the better. deeptrivia (talk) 00:44, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I moved the article A linear functional which is not continuous to discontinuous linear map which seems to address all concerns on this page. I made a bunch of other alternative titles redirect to it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:57, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

However, I find Infinitely differentiable non-analytic function a very clumsy name for An infinitely differentiable function that is not analytic. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:57, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Non-analytic infinitely differentiable function? Septentrionalis 06:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anon's editing of Einstein

IP, 69.22.98.162 (contributions) has been making edits to Albert Einstein, Henri Poincaré and David Hilbert, essentially questioning the originality of Einstein's theory of special relativity, giving as a source this: [3] (see Talk:Albert_Einstein#His Theory and Talk:Albert_Einstein#Nobel prise edit), all of which I think have been reverted (by me and others). I don't really know much about the history of the development of relativity, (beyond what little I've read on Wikipedia), if anyone can shed any useful light on this, your help would be welcome. Paul August ☎ 23:01, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Titles from another encyclopaedia

A001622 (AfD discussion)

Now is your chance to answer the question: Should Wikipedia have redirects for OEIS titles? ☺ Uncle G 01:58, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Domain of a partial function

Currently there's an inconsistent usage among various articles that should probably be cleared up. Partial function claims that, given a partial function f:X→Y, its domain is X. I think the more standard usage is that the domain of f is the subset of X on which f is defined; this is the usage assumed in Recursively enumerable set and Uniformization (set theory). I don't know a name for X, though, given this convention. In any case we should standardize on one convention. My strong preference is for the second; I don't think I've seen the first convention used anywhere but WP. --Trovatore 19:32, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm sure that the codomain always means Y and never f(X), which is the range. It seems to me that the logical thing would therefore be to call X the domain and f^-1(Y) the corange, so that a partial function is a function from its corange onto its range just as a module homomorphism is an isomorphism from its coimage to its image. But I don't claim any knowledge of what's standard in this field. —Blotwell 03:45, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Your suggestion has a pleasing symmetry but is definitely not standard. I am essentially certain that my convention is standard. What I don't know is a name for the X; if anyone could tell me that, it would be easier to figure out how to fix Partial function. --Trovatore 05:04, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Where I've learnt, we called Y the "range" and f(X) the "image", and for a partial function, we called X the "domain" and f^-1(Y) the "preimage". While I would be happiest if that was the convention used in Wikipedia, we could use your convention of Y-codomain, f(X)-range, while adopting X-domain and f^-1(Y)-preimage (which I think is more standard than Blotwell's corange. --Meni Rosenfeld 14:20, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with "preimage" is it makes me want to ask, "preimage of what?". ("Image" has the same problem as a substitute for "range".) I strongly urge the adoption of "domain" to mean the set where f is defined (what Paul calls the "exact domain" below); I believe this is completely standard among recursion theorists, who are the people who most naturally come upon partial functions. What we need is a name for X (or I suppose we could just leave it unnamed if there's no standard name). --Trovatore 18:31, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This site uses "domain" for X and "exact-domain" for f^-1(Y). When working In the category of sets and partial functions (often called PfN), X would be called the domain of f (at least as a morphism). Paul August ☎ 16:22, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So the morphism article mentions that an alternative name for the "domain" of a morphism is its "source" (clearly a better word when discussing abstract morphisms, which needn't be functions of any sort). Perhaps we could call X the "source" of the partial function, if that usage can be attested somewhere. That would free up "domain" for its more standard use. --Trovatore 18:37, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid "source" would be an unfortunate choice. In category theory, "domain" and "codomain" is the standard terminology, since the term "source", would be in conflict with the fundamental categorical notion of "source" (dual "sink") as defined, for example, in: Adámek, Jiří, Herrlich, Horst, & Strecker, George E.; (1990). Abstract and Concrete Categories (4.2MB PDF) (Chapter III: Sources and Sinks: 10.1, p. 169) Perhaps we can we just retain X as the domain, but note however that in many contexts (e.g. recursion theory), the domain of a partial function f can mean instead: f^-1(Y). Paul August ☎ 20:51, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I once did a course called something like "Mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics" in which we discussed unbounded linear operators. You would have a linear map T : L^2 -> L^2 (for example the "differentation" operator), but even though it was written like that, it wasn't defined on all of L^2. The part of L^2 that it was defined on (which includes, for example, the smooth functions) was called the domain of T, denoted I think dom T. Unfortunately I can't find anything on wikipedia which backs up this usage, probably because I don't actually know anything about quantum mechanics or functional analysis. Dmharvey 20:00, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

See the article Closed operator, which treats this topic. The convention I've seen is to call T in your example an operator on L², and use domain of T to denote the subset of L² on which T is actually defined. Brian Tvedt 18:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, IMHO, X is not used outside of category theory and related morphism topics. Domain is used for the range of f^-1 (seems better terminology than trying to say f^-1(Y)) in almost all other contexts. I'm not attempting to back this up with Wikipedia usage, just with common mathematical terminology. -- Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:08, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I agree with Arthur; we don't usually need a name for the X (it would just be convenient to have a name for it in the Partial function article). The set of values for which f is defined is a more useful concept, and more standardly called the domain of f (though the article should mention the other usage, which does seem to show up on a few websites). I'll make the appropriate edits if no one objects (could be a little while; I've got to get on a plane back to the Great White North very early tomorrow morning). --Trovatore 01:54, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My preference is that in any context where it is necessary to distinguish between X and the preimage of f, use the category-theory terminology: call X the domain. To even speak of f as a partial function, it must be the case that the domain and preimage are different. Unfortunately, the mathematics community has never standardized terms across all fields, so issues like this will continue to appear. The category-theory usage was adopted because it works better in general; but if it is not a convention that is familiar and comfortable in a narrower context, best practice would be to alert readers to the conflict and to state clearly the convention to be used in the article in question.

Incidentally, the Unicode character U+0290D, "⤍", is better notation than "→" but requires a font like Code2000 to display. --KSmrq^T 07:04, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with "preimage of f" is that it isn't standard (standard terminology would be "the preimage of Y under f", which is too long-winded). OTOH the terminology "the domain of f" for the set of all points where f is defined is clearly the majority usage. --Trovatore 07:16, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Again, these "standards" vary with context. I'm more familiar today with usage where the definition of a mapping includes its source and target, so that "the preimage of f" is perfectly well-defined, as is "the preimage of S⊂Y under f". Yet in my (distant) youth, the convention was exclusively that the domain of f was as you say. The conflict is real; we can't wish it away. Best practice remains clarity of definition and full disclosure of potential conflicts. --KSmrq^T 08:58, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, in accordance with the above discussion, I've edited Partial function and Domain (function) to indicate the existence of both usages. I've edited Recursively enumerable set and Uniformization (set theory) to specify which sense of the term is in use. But there are bunches more articles that link to Partial function and/or Domain (function); I'm not likely to get around to checking them individually any time soon. --Trovatore 23:37, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

JA: Seems like "domain" is standard for the designated set, after all, what if it's just a relation L c X x Y ? And I think that "domain of definition" is used for the other thing by many folks in computing contexts, for example, Arbib et al. Jon Awbrey 07:40, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Help with Simple harmonic motion

A newbie, Itzchinoboi, rewrote Simple harmonic motion. The new article is more elementary, which is good. To me both the original version looks good, and the rewritten version looks good, although the latter is full of newbie mistakes. See the diff. Anybody knowledgeble willing to spend some time understanding the changes and see how to deal with all this matter? Note that a plain revert is not an option, it seems that the user spent half a day on that article. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Scalar (mathematics)

This newly created page is an abomination. Please help. Michael Hardy 02:41, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've had a go. Dysprosia 04:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nice one, D. This seems to be rather an uphill battle. It would be good to get the thoughts of others regarding the article introduction - see this bit of the talk page. Thanks! — merge 04:14, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tensor wars

We may be in for more of the traditional troubles at Tensor. Category:Tensors now has 70 articles. I really think the main tensor article should reflect that (at least - some of the more algebraic pages are in Category:Multilinear algebra or elsewhere).

There is a sub-issue, rank of a tensor, which might be tractable on the basis of some sourced research.

Charles Matthews 17:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Articles listed at Articles for deletion

Set descriptions in colloquial English (AfD discussion)

Uncle G 01:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia talk:Stable versions#Certification gang

would you like to create certified articles in mathematics? -- Zondor 03:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm ... I have major issues with this idea. How do you decide who can join your gang ? You wouldn't want to let just anyone in, would you ? They might start doing stuff that you disagreed with. It sounds awfully like a self-elected technocracy. I would be more worried if I didn't think that the chances of reaching critical mass on this idea are really, really small. Gandalf61 09:46, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It will start out as a gang but eventually to something professional like a league. -- Zondor 13:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Certification is an interesting idea, but its not yet completely fleshed out. Its primary utility is to handle articles where there have been significant edits wars, or get a lot of inappropriate edits from newbies, or even regular vandalism. This is maybe less than 1% of all math articles. The goal is to certify one particular version of the article, and then let anon hack on it. If one comes back in a month or two and its a horrid mess ... well, so what, at least the certified version is good. This is much better than the battle fatigue of having to defend an article on a daily basis. linas 15:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But if you don't defend an article on a daily basis, then it will get messed up, and after a month or two you won't be able to sort out any good edits from the rubbish, so the only way forward will be to roll back to the "certified" version. In effect, you have frozen the article - no one will bother to make any serious contributions because they will all be lost in the next purge. Gandalf61 16:23, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Our energy can be spent better in places other than in certifying articles. If you come back to an article months later and it's "messed up", you should take the time to go through the diff and find out what went wrong, and then either revert there or fix it by hand. Reverting to an outdated "stable" version is too crude a tool.

Meekohi 19:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The energy is well spent if creating a Wikipedia:WikiReader project for Mathematics. -- Zondor 15:10, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, well, these points should be argued there, not here. My take is that I've seen too many good editors get wiki-fatigue and wikistress and have some of them leave, because they were unable to defend thousands of articles on a daily basis. If you can do this, great. Like many other "old-timers" (ok, I've been here a year), I now spend more time watching articles, trying to ward off decay, than I do on actually writing. That is wrong. It should not be a herculean effort to stave off wikirot. (See above, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Help with Simple harmonic motion for a real-life example. Oleg watches a lot of these kinds articles, and can't keep up with the changes. The old version should have been declared "stable", and stay that way till the new one is done.) linas 21:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is getting offtopic, but I gave up watching articles by the thousands. After going under 1000 I actually found time to write new stuff every now and then. :) Yes, open acces is the biggest asset but also the biggest disadvantage of Wikipedia. But seems to work so far. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The single most important thing for stable versions is to have a guarantee of accuracy and reliability otherwise it is no different to the system we already have. So at any given time, we can demand a print edition of Wikipedia 1.0. Whereas, the wiki version serves as the playground for boldness, experimentation and to be cutting edge. Once you have made the published version, you can forget about it and concentrate on the wiki version. Eventually, it becomes better than the previous stable version, you then supplant it after it has been certified for accuracy. -- Zondor 01:02, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Math Collaboration of the Week

I hope nobody is too opposed to the requets for nominations at the top of the page. I think we need it if we're going to get MCoW up and running again. Meekohi 20:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind, apparently the big man minds. ;) Meekohi 20:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Uhh, I've never really seen Oleg, but I would bet he's not really that big. Nevertheless as Fropuff suggested below it will get more attention here anyway. Paul August ☎ 03:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What units do you want it in, feet, meters, edits per second? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:59, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's alright, many people watch the discussion on this page. For those of you who don't know User:Meekohi is trying to get the Mathematics Collaboration of the Week going again (it has been dead for about four months now). If you are interested in participating please list nominations on that page. -- Fropuff 20:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps that page should scale back to a less ambitious "Math Collaboration of the Month". Paul August ☎ 17:58, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, is it flogging a dead horse? The discussions have always seemed to show up the way people here have rather disparate interests, within mathematics. We could have Algebra COTM, Geometry COTM etc., running in parallel.Charles Matthews 18:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly I feel it should be the Fortnightly collaboration since that is about how long it takes to get an article up to par, but it wouldn't fit in with all the other Weekly Collaborations we have in other subjects. Meekohi 15:45, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A new project idea

I have an idea for a new math project that provides a somewhat concrete way of evaluating progress. I call it the "Let's Beat Mathworld" project; its goal is for every topic listed on Mathworld, to write a better article on the same topic. We've already done so for many of them, but I bet we can cover them all. We can make a project page listing all the topics in the Mathworld hierarchy with links. We have to watch out for copyvio, but I think it's a great source of useful topics that we may be failing to touch on or that may currently be stubs. Deco 04:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For all that's worth, the mathworld articles already are listed at Wikipedia:Missing science topics (Math1 through Math7). Whoever did that seems to to have avoided copyvio by shuffling things and possibly mixing with entries from other places. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:47, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was unaware of those lists. I've now added a link to them in the "Things to do" table on the main project page. (By the way Oleg, just how big are you?) Paul August ☎ 05:06, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

~~If you are asking how I got to know about that project, then the answer is that there was an announcement on this page a while ago, and actually Linas and Rick Norwood got there long before me. :)~~

Answered above. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:17, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, there is also a User:Mathbot/List of mathematical redlinks, which I made at Fropuff's suggestion, containing 11,000 redlinks found in existing math articles. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 07:38, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, 11k links. I wonder if it would be helpful to somehow categorize those missing links/ topics. I mean missing theorems, lemmas, formulas, problems, scientists... (Igny 14:45, 6 January 2006 (UTC))[reply]

A good chuck of those are nonmathematical. You would need artificial intelligence to sort out theorems from problems and from scientists. Yeah, I don't know how helpful that list is, but it exists. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:01, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Many of those 11K links are now blue. Oleg, do you plan on updating this list anytime? I don't know about other people, but I find it useful. Thanks again for doing it. -- Fropuff 15:26, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I updated them now, and will do every couple of weeks or so. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:17, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I asked permission to used those list a few months ago, but received this reply

Rudy,
Thank you for your mail. We appreciate your effort to secure proper permission before using our material.
Our lists *do* represent original works of authorship and, as such, enjoy copyright protection. Further, the value of our editorial work is evidenced by your desire to incorporate the material into your project.
We understand your need for such a list, and we would very much like to support Wikipedia -- as I am sure you would like to support the continued development of MathWorld. It is worth noting the relative dearth of links to Mathworld from Wikipedia.
Regardless, it isn't obvious how reproducing MathWorld (which already offers unfettered, free access) furthers the goals of Wikipedia.
Are there other areas of mathematics/science that are in greater need of free web-based exposure that we could help Wikipedia develop?
Benson Dastrup Wolfram Research, Inc.

—Ruud 10:02, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I really think we can set our own agenda now. Why not lead rather than follow? This is more likely to attract active research workers. Charles Matthews 15:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I second Charles' opinion. MathWorld should be asking for our lists. If you see an article on MathWorld that doesn't have good coverage here, just post a request on Wikipedia:Requested articles/Mathematics. -- Fropuff 15:29, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's if it's actually worth covering here. MathWorld's topic selection can be, to put it kindly, quirky (cf the Somer-Lucas pseudoprime article, which along with Somer pseudoprime probably ought to be deleted). --Trovatore 15:49, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Trovatore, I don't understand you at all. Why would any article with substantiated content be deleted? Why would any topic not be worth covering? As for beating Mathworld, I do believe we already did, but in any case I think it will be much more efficient if every Math Wikipedian will, once in a while (or multiple times in a while), go to "random entry" in Mathworld, and make sure that Wikipedia has a better coverage of the encountered topic. If not, improve it or put a request for it. While this could create a little duplicate effort, it will solve many of the aforementioned problems (copyright issues, alleged statement that we are not as good as Mathworld, manageability of large lists of topics) as well as guarantee that changes to Mathworld will not be overlooked. --Meni Rosenfeld 17:01, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, perhaps those articles aren't as substantiated as I thought at first. Stil, I think the direction should be attempting to substantiate such articles, rather than delete them. --Meni Rosenfeld 19:50, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed that while in many cases, we have better articles than mathworld, their articles will have a much larger section of raw often obscure formulas and identities. Those can detract from the quality of an article, as they're not very readable, but they're still important and useful, for any reference work. And remember, we're a reference, not a textbook. -lethe ^talk 04:25, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

The emphasis on formulas at MathWorld is surely to do with the Wolfram connection in the site's origins. Anyway I like classical formulae myself, but a more wordy style is indeed better for WP. Charles Matthews 08:01, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It would probably be best to include such formulae, perhaps placing the less important ones near the end of the article so as not to be a distraction. --Meni Rosenfeld 15:09, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

While on one hand I agree that attempting to merely reproduce Mathworld's extensive quality entries might seem silly, on the other hand as the above e-mail demonstrates, their articles are not libre: we need to make the same information available to everyone to use, and update, in any way they please. Also, for the sake of our reputation, it would be neat to say that we unequivocably have even better coverage than a site as well-known as Mathworld. Deco 06:56, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mathematics Portal

I've been doing some work on the Mathematics Portal recently. It has been in fairly poor shape for most of the last year as very few people have bothered to maintain it. If you have any suggestions for improvement please mention them on Portal talk:Mathematics. I do need suggestions for future featured content. You can list these at Portal:Mathematics/Suggestions. Thanks. -- Fropuff 17:32, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the new portal looks great. Paul August ☎ 17:45, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Multivariable calculus help

If someone who remains div, grad, curl better than me would have a look at the van Hove singularity article I've just written, I'd be pleased. I can't recall the name of the series expansion $\mathrm {f(x)=f(0)+f'(0)x+1/2f''(0)x^{2}+\ldots }$ . Probably there's a math article on this expansion that I could point to. Also, I have a feeling that the change of variable I'm doing where I go from a volume integral over k to a surface integral over E is the result of one of those fundamental theorems, (Gauss? Stokes? Green?) but I'm not sure which one. Perhaps in addition I have made an egregious notational faux pas. Thanks for any suggestions you have. Alison Chaiken 18:58, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The series expansion you mentioned is the Taylor series. Unfortunately I don't remember multivariable calculus well enough to offer any additional help. --Meni Rosenfeld 19:28, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The change of variable may have a more specific name, but "generalized Stokes theorem" would suffice. --KSmrq^T 20:31, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, looks to me like this is about pushing forward a measure/density, and the only difficulty indeed would be at a critical point (mathematics). Not that that page is a great help. The thing about the square-root singularity comes out of the Morse lemma, and so is only generically true (true in practice ...)? That anyway is why you only get cases like the quadratic form cases to worry about. (Sorry Alison, this is hardly helpful, talking amongst ourselves here.) Charles Matthews 20:46, 8 January 2006 (UTC)]][reply]

Thanks Charles for your editing. I added a link in the van Hove singularity article to critical point (mathematics) in the hope that it will improve eventually. I'm contemplating a link to the Morse lemma or Stokes theorem articles but need to think about it more. Alison Chaiken 03:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The above expansion is, to be more specific, the Maclaurin series (the Taylor series about zero). Same article though. Deco 06:57, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Formal calculation

During my studies, I have encountered the concept of a "formal calculation", in the sense of, roughly, a calculation for which the steps are not completely substantiated, and yet the result can give us insight about the true answer to the problem in question. I want to write an article about that concept, but I haven't found any references to it on the web, so I'm not sure how widely it is used and whether I understand the concept properly. Any ideas? --Meni Rosenfeld 18:34, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary, I think of a "formal calculation" specifically as a calculation in which every step is very clear and verifiable. I'm not sure I know a name for what you're referring to. Meekohi 20:43, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think I know roughly what Meni is trying to say. I would have thought you might find it at heuristic or heuristic argument or something similar, but they seem to be run by philosophers. Dmharvey 20:47, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A formal argument is when you just follow what the syntax seems to suggest your reasoning, without proving the reasoning is sound. Like when you prove that, in a ring, if (1+ab) is invertible, then so is (1+ba) by using power series. Power series don't exist in a ring, but but you can still make formal arguments using them. -lethe ^talk 21:58, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Lethe's example is what I would call a heuristic inference. It seems very strange to me to call this "formal": it's good because of informal gut feeling experience, not in virtue of the formal structure of the problem. --- Charles Stewart 22:02, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lethe's reply coincides with my experience. I suspect that it may be hard to find good references, but I remember reading about it recently. Bear with me … -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 22:05, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here we are. Stuart S. Antman, Nonlinear Problems of Elasticity, Applied Mathematical Sciences vol. 107, Springer-Verlag, 1995. Page 1 contains the paragraph: "I follow the somewhat ambiguous mathematical usage of the adjective formal, which here means systematic, but without rigorous justification. A common exception to this usage is formal proof, which is not employed in this book because it smacks of redundancy." (his emphasis). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 22:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the term systematic calculation would be far more fitting nomenclature, but that doesn't really carry the connotation of being subtly incorrect that we're looking for. Meekohi 02:02, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't call it incorrect: it is, after all, an excellent heuristic. I'd rather say it was non-well-founded. --- Charles Stewart 02:13, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are all in favor of creating a stub, bearing the title "Formal calculation", based on the definition Jitse found, and beating it around until we reach something we can agree upon? --Meni Rosenfeld 13:40, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, personally I'm fairly opposed. To me the term Formal Calculation distinctly implies that it is rigorously correct. The reference Jitse gave doesn't really give much support in my mind, seeing as he points out this is ambigous usage. If we are going to make an article on it, I think the main article should describe what it means to be rigorous/systematic, and then there should be a short section pointing out that it is possible to be apparently systematic, but still incorrect. Meekohi 14:05, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I know that "formal calculation" seems to imply a rigorous one, and actually that did confuse me the first times I encountered the concept. But I got the impression that, while perhaps ambiguous, it is usually used in the sense I described - Much like in the probably more common term formal power series. In this sense, "formal" actually means of form, namely, the form of the objects matter and not their underlying meaning - making the calculation perhaps systematic, but not really rigorous because we are using properties without any justification to why these properties should hold. We could always delete the article later if we can't seem to rich any consensus. --Meni Rosenfeld 14:59, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Formal power series are just sequences over a ring with convolution as multiplication. Since all sums involved are finite, this is a rigerous mathematical topic. Convergent power series is a different topic requiring the ring to be a Banach algebra. In france there is a state wide research association called "Calcul formel", which would probably translate as symbolic calculus or even symbolic algebra. The research and design of computer algebra systems is part of that.--LutzL 15:09, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Of course formal power series are ultimately defined in a rigorous way, but the inspiration for this definition comes from a non-rigorous application of properties of convergent power series to arbitary power series. That's where the term "formal" comes from. --Meni Rosenfeld 15:12, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the originally-proposed topic is a 'derivation', universal in (say) theoretical physics. It's not a particularly good topic for an article, though. Charles Matthews 16:20, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that this is a good topic for an article, and it may well prove useful for my planned article on Boole's algebraic logic (to be carefully distinguished from Boolean algebra, since Boole's system allows terms that do not have set-valued denotations). They can be seen to be similar to the status of polynomials prior to the discovery of complex numbers: onbe can know the sum and product of the roots of a quadratic and know furthermore that those roots don't exist. If we are to resort to neologism, why not optimistic calculation? --- Charles Stewart^(talk) 16:29, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think "formal" in "formal calculation" has the same meaning as in "formal power series". In my experience, it is often used in the following context (for instance, in a talk on Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser theory which I just attended): We want to prove that a function f_epsilon with a certain property exists for epsilon sufficiently small. We know f_0, so we expand f_epsilon in a power series in epsilon. If this is possible (i.e., if we can find all the coefficients in the power series), we have a "formal solution". To prove that this is actually a solution, we have to show that the power series has a positive radius of convergence.

So, formal is not just optimistic. And I don't think "formal" in this meaning is a neologism either, as Meni, Lethe and I have all heard of "formal" in this meaning. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 18:08, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another example: formal group law. Dmharvey 21:16, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that the phrase is used in the proposed sense. It also appears to be understood in other ways, and it appears that some folks feel that the proposed sense is not a good sense. For an inclusionist (not necessarily me), Wikipedia should have an article. The article should note the opposition and provide disambiguation. However, a major unresolved question is: What is the primary meaning of "formal calculation"? The answer to that I do not know, but I'm inclined to think it's the "rigorous" sense, not the proposed sense. --KSmrq^T 01:23, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the phrase is commonly used in physics in the sense of "we know this can't possibly be right, but by shoving symbols around on a page, here's what you can come up with". For example, "formally", one has 1+2+3+...=-1/12, which is clearly both "right" and "wrong" in various deep ways. That is, its ambiguous without further clarification about how in the world this could possibly be a valid manipulation; but in physics, further clarification is often too hard to provide. A formal calculation is one step up from handwaving. linas 06:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Red links

Is there a handy way, given a red link, to figure out what articles link to it? Some of the red links we have seem like they just need to be reworded to link to something more appropriate. Meekohi 15:41, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To find all articles linking to Magnus series, for instance, follow the red link and then click on "What links here". -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 15:59, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ha ha, hiding from me in the toolbox all this time. Thanks! Meekohi 18:29, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

70.22.128.220

Could an admin keep an eye on this IP? I've reverted two of their edits. They obviously know a little about the material they are editing, but are still make some pretty serious false claims and mistakes. I've put the details up on the Talk page. Meekohi 16:10, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you'd better explain your concern some more. Apart from the deletion of one reference, which is not explained, this looks like a technically proficient editor. Charles Matthews 16:16, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For Scale-free networks he deleted the entire formal definition from the page, and for Complex networks he made claims that preferential attachment was the first generative model for power-law distribution graphs, which is false (and was stated as false in the article already). I'm not saying he's not technically proficient, but he's altering articles for the worst. Meekohi 16:35, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The more you can document these points on the Talk pages of the articles, the easier it is for others to follow the changes, and contribute to the discussion. Charles Matthews 17:14, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Math Will Rock Your World

Seems that math made it as the cover image at businessweek.com. See article. Admittedly this is not a Wikipedia related post, however, I found it interesting. The article ends with "Yes, it's a magnificent time to know math.". Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:05, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That head is some kind of scary ;) Meekohi 20:22, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History of Science WikiProject being formed

ragesoss is trying to start up a History of Science Wikiproject; add your name here and help him get started. linas 05:50, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

proof of impossibility

Someone's just started proof of impossibility, which seems like it could end up being quite nice. I've created a redirect from impossibility proof, which I think is a more common term. Perhaps we should move the original? Dmharvey 02:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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