Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2006/Mar: Difference between revisions
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{{WikiProject Mathematics archive list}} |
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{{talkarchive}} |
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== recategorizing recreational mathematics == |
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== ''n''-th versus ''n''th == |
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I've been being WP:BOLD with the subcategories of [[:Category:Recreational mathematics]]. In particular I've emptied its rather ill-defined subcategory [[:Category:Mathematical recreations and puzzles]]; a lot of its articles have found much better homes, but those that really did want to be somewhere under both [[:Category:Recreational mathematics]] and [[:Category:Puzzles]] I've put in one of a few joint subcategories such as [[:Category:Mechanical puzzles]]. (Putting "puzzles" as a subcat of "recreational mathematics", as suggested on one talk page, isn't really an option: there are a ''lot'' of puzzles there that really aren't mathematical.) |
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There are quite a few articles that use "n-th", "''n''-th", and/or "''n''th" (similarly for "''i''th", etc). All of the literature I checked uses "''n''th" (and occasionally "''n''<sup>th</sup>"). The only justification for "-th" that I can see today is if you don't have italics available, such as in a newsgroup. Based on the articles I've seen, I think that "''n''th" is more common in Wikipedia than "''n''-th" and "n-th", but I didn't do a formal count. |
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While I was at it I also emptied [[:Category:Puzzle games]], which had an identity crisis as some people thought it was [[:Category:Puzzle computer and video games]] while others couldn't tell it from [[:Category:Puzzles]]. |
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I think the standard style should be "''n''th". [[User:Bubba73|Bubba73]] 22:14, July 28, 2005 (UTC) |
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Anyway, I expect I've offended innumerable people one way or another. If I've put your favourite article somewhere you don't think it belongs, please don't hesitate to move it (hopefully not into the categories I've carefully emptied). If you dislike the entire new categorization, please don't hesitate to argue with me about it. Though I can't imagine I've made things worse, since everything was categorized more or less at random to begin with. —[[User:Blotwell|Blotwell]] 14:35, 1 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I prefer ''n''th; but I could understand an editor deciding that it was unclear. A standard, but not a mandatory one? |
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==Category:Mathematicians by religion== |
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But then, I spent today watching the anti-Communist revert wars '''and''' the &^$%&$ AD/CE revert wars, so I'm a little more ''laissez-faire'' than usual. [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] 22:40, 28 July 2005 (UTC) |
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: I prefer ''n''-th. I guess it was my edits which brought [[User:Bubba73|Bubba73]] in here. If many people say they like ''n''th, I will obey. :) [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 23:07, 28 July 2005 (UTC) |
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[[:Category:Mathematicians by religion]] has a single subcategory, [[:Category:Jewish mathematicians]]. I would think that being Jewish does not necessarily mean being religious. And do we actually need to categorize mathematicians on whether they were relegious, and if yes, what relegion they were practicing? [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 23:48, 1 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:''n''th IS CLEARLY THE ONLY SOLUTION AND I WILL not TOLERATE THIS POV CULTURAL IMPERIALISM CHRISTIANITY-HATING U.S.-BIASED FASCIST CONSPIRACY!!1! - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]]!!!11!! 23:18, July 28, 2005 (UTC)!1!!! |
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:Being a jew does not, of course, make one religious, any more than being a christian makes one religious. So the categories' names do not imply that the mathematicians in question are religious - They just state to which religion they belong. And I think such categories are useful, in the same way that categories of mathematicians by nationality are useful. But obviously, additional categories for other religions, not just judaism, are in order for it to be meaningful. -- [[User:Meni Rosenfeld|Meni Rosenfeld]] ([[User Talk:Meni Rosenfeld|talk]]) 07:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I note that [[:Category:Christians in science]] is applied both to [[Blaise Pascal]], a Christian writer, and [[Bernhard Riemann]], where as far as I can see it does little. I didn't much like like classifying mathematicians by nationality, when it came in; but it was inevitable with the growth, and the issue of several nationalities has the solution of including all of them. There are problems with all such classifications, and I'm not keen on them. [[User:Charles Matthews|Charles Matthews]] 09:05, 2 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:Should be ''n''<sup>th</sup>. Bit of a pain to type, but if you have to use it in a lot of places, copy and paste (or write nth and do a global change). --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 14:36, 29 July 2005 (UTC) |
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:Hmm, I wonder if [[Voltaire]] belongs in the [[:Category:Christians in science]], as, like me, his parents were Christian? I don't like this kind of categorization either; I think its basically some subtle political POV-pushing. May I suggest one possible cure: IF the person preached a religion (other than math) at one point in thier life, or published articles on faith (in newspapers, as letters to the editor, etc), THEN they may be classified by faith. However, if they had the bad luck of having Christian, or Jewish parents, that alone is not a reason to classify. I would insist on proof of religious activity before allowing classification. [[User:Linas|linas]] 14:49, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::Would be nice if we had a wiki shortcut for super and subscripts. I've been using T_{E}X (=T<sub>E</sub>X) markup in my greasemonkey scripts, although that might be confusing when alongside the same thing inside math tags? |
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::Also things like 220+-5% becomes 220±5%, ==> becomes ⇒, 100degC becomes 100°C, and so on. - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 16:11, July 29, 2005 (UTC) |
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== french spelling == |
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:: My personal preference is for ''n''<sup>th</sup> too, and that is sometimes used in the literature. However, ''n''th is much more common in the literature. |
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Um, I don't actually know french, but I thought only the first "e" in "etale" had an acute accent. So is [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sheaf_%28mathematics%29&curid=245466&diff=41844824&oldid=40837909 this edit] incorrect? [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 03:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::Another argument in favor of ''n''th is that TeX has a function "\nth{<number>}", which makes 1st, 2nd, ''n''th, etc, although it isn't implemented in WP. Furthermore, TeX interprets "n-th" as "n - th". Since math formulas are rendered in TeX, I think we should use ''n''th to be consistent. [[User:Bubba73|Bubba73]] 16:08, July 29, 2005 (UTC) |
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: I think in this context, it's correct: the term in Hartshorne is "éspace étalé". [[User:Ryan Reich|Ryan Reich]] 03:30, 2 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I think ''n''-th is marginally easier to read. I think ''i''-th, for example, is definitely easier to read than ''i''th. I think (''n'' − 1)<sup>th</sup> is not a sensible piece of notation, for example; and the sort of thing that shows we should mostly aim to be clear and readable. [[User:Charles Matthews|Charles Matthews]] 16:34, 29 July 2005 (UTC) |
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:: So how do you know when it's étale and when it's étalé? [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 03:36, 2 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:Well, (''n'' − 1)<sup>th</sup> is just jarring to my ear; I prefer (''n'' − 1)<sup>st</sup>. I can see the point that maybe it should be (''n'' − 1)st or (''n'' − 1)-st, to keep people from trying to evaluate it as an exponentiation (although the latter two choices could be, respectively, multiplication or subtraction). --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 16:39, 29 July 2005 (UTC) |
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::: As far as I can tell, it's étalé here, and étale for morphisms. "éspace étalé" means roughly "slackened space", or "stretched-out space", which is reasonable given what it is, while an "étale morphism" is simply a "slack morphism". The metaphor is roughly the same, in that the slackness refers to a space constructed from layers laid out flat, and the grammatical difference distinguishes the "slackened space" constructed from something which was not, of itself, slack, from the "slack morphism", which is inherently so. Of course, "éspace étalé" is not used much anyway. [[User:Ryan Reich|Ryan Reich]] 03:56, 2 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::That's a good argument against ''n''<sup>th</sup>. ''n''th and (''n'' − 1)th look the best to me, so far, though it seems there's a better solution for n-1 out there somewhere. - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 16:46, July 29, 2005 (UTC) |
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:It is certainly ''espace'' (not ''*éspace'') ''étalé'' in French, but this leaves open the question of what the English translation of this expression is. I had been under the impression that it was called the ''étale space'' nevertheless, but Google seems to support both usages. —[[User:Blotwell|Blotwell]] 05:12, 2 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::But in my experience nobody (or almost nobody) actually ''says'' "en minus oneth". We say "en minus first". Conflict between euphony and logic, perhaps--in this situation I vote for euphony. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 16:50, 29 July 2005 (UTC) |
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''Étaler'' being a verb, ''étalé'' is the past participle (has been spread out, roughly). My MicroRobert says ''étale'', adjective, can be applied to the sea as 'calm', when the tide is about to turn. We have been using [[sheaf space]] for ''espace étalé'', which is not so common in English. HTH. [[User:Charles Matthews|Charles Matthews]] 09:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC) |
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: Quoting Charles, "I think ''n''-th is marginally easier to read. I think ''i''-th, for example, is definitely easier to read than ''i''th" (ditto for ''i''). Readability is the reason I prefer ''n''<sup>th</sup> over ''n''th. But ''n''th seems to be almost universal in the literature and I haven't found ''n''-th in the literature. My feeling is that WP should be more like the literature in style than that of newsgroups and email. [[User:Bubba73|Bubba73]] 17:50, July 30, 2005 (UTC) |
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*Please continue with ''sheaf space''. [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] 21:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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After a check in the "Annales de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure", the good term |
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is "espace étalé". --[[User:Taxipom|pom]] 11:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC) |
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== Location of "elementary function" article == |
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== vfd == |
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I think [[Elementary function (differential algebra)]] should be moved to [[Elementary function]], currently a disambiguation page with little value. Despite the title, said article covers the concept of elementary functions in the general sense. [[User:Fredrik|Fredrik Johansson]] 23:50, 2 March 2006 (UTC) |
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[[Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Log/2005_July_29#Arc_Sine]] --[[User:R.Koot|R.Koot]] 14:24, 29 July 2005 (UTC) |
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: I think it would simplify a few links and a line could be added to the article pointing to the list of common functions. When [[Elementary function (differential algebra)]] was created what is currently [[List of mathematical functions]] was in an article called ''Elementary functions'', so I had to create something else. [[User:XaosBits|XaosBits]] 02:10, 3 March 2006 (UTC) |
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== Law of information == |
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:Could someone execute the move? [[User:Fredrik|Fredrik Johansson]] 04:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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Is this article salvagable; does it even make sense? [[Law of information]] --[[User:R.Koot|R.Koot]] 15:18, 31 July 2005 (UTC) |
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== Definition of General Linear Group == |
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:I couldn't make any sense out of it. When I searched the internet I found a [http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Talk:There_is_a_law_of_conservation_of_information discussion] on a wiki about evolution. [[User:Markus Schmaus|Markus Schmaus]] 17:11, 31 July 2005 (UTC) |
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[[User:Charles Matthews|Charles Matthews]] and I are having a discussion about the correct definition of [[general linear group]]. It might be useful to have more input. The question is whether it should be defined initially in terms of rings or fields. [[Talk:General_linear_group]] [[User:A5|A5]] 22:19, 4 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:I put it on VFD [[Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Law of information|here]]. [[User:Samohyl Jan|Samohyl Jan]] 17:15, 31 July 2005 (UTC) |
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== LaTeX == |
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== Other_names_of_large_numbers == |
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I have created a [[Template:LaTeX|template]] to tag articles in need of [[LaTeX]] formatting. My concern is that it uses the LaTeX logo, which may or may not be a problem. The image was created using LaTeX, and using LaTeX to create images like <math>\frac{q}{2}</math> doesn't seem to be a problem; yet, the image is still a logo with questionable copyright status. I was wondering what everyone else thought? [[User:Isopropyl|Isopropyl]] 00:04, 5 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I find [[Other_names_of_large_numbers]] a rather dubious article. Google will only find a lot of the names here inside this article. --[[User:R.Koot|R.Koot]] 00:02, 1 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: I would like to note that per the [[math style manual]] html formulas are perfectly acceptable (unless they look awful, like Σ<sub>i=1</sub><sup>n</sup>). It is also advised that one not modify somebody else's formulas by converting them from HTML to LaTeX or viceversa. |
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:hmm, it does seem pretty arbitrary --[[User:MarSch|MarSch]] 17:57, 14 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:I concur -- [[User:Arthur Rubin|Arthur Rubin]] 22:13, 16 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: In fact, formulas which become PNG images may actually be preferrable in HTML, as then they show up as text, and look better on the page, also per the [[math style manual]]. |
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== meta: help formulae == |
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: All in all, I don't see any pressing need for putting the {{tl|LaTeX}} template on articles which are properly formatted, but only in HTML. Of course, one may use this template for articles which have no formatting whatsoever, like people writiting x_2 or x2 without bothering to use proper markup or math tags. That's what I would think.[[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 23:37, 5 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::Thanks for your input! I'll keep it in mind in the future. What is your opinion on the logo used in the tag? [[User:Isopropyl|Isopropyl]] 23:42, 5 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::Should a page use a combination of LaTeX and HTML formatting, or should its use be consistent throughout an entire article? I have tagged sections with {{t1|LaTeX}} when the section in question deviated from the precendent set by the rest of the article. [[User:Isopropyl|Isopropyl]] 23:45, 5 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I don't quite know, and for myself I would be fine with a mix. But if you find it stylistically ugly to have html mixed with LaTeX, then a better solution would be maybe to just convert the html to LaTeX right away, rather than put a "work needed" template on it and hoping that a kind soul would do it some time. There is a huge amount of articles needing serious work, as listed at [[Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics]], and I think that labeling an article as needing work because of TeX/HTML inconsistency would be probably not good. Cheers, [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 23:57, 5 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:You might have noticed that I moved it to the talk page. The suggestions contain a lot of tweak factors, which are probably very specific to the browser and configuration. They are totally out of place at [[meta:Help:Formula]] and to be honest, if he can't be bothered to put them in the right place, neither can I. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] ([[User talk:Jitse Niesen|talk]]) 17:00, 4 August 2005 (UTC) |
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I agree with Oleg. [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 01:48, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::I agree that they don't belong there at all. I think that was the point, though. Wanted them to be seen. Who's in charge of TeX markup, anyway? - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 17:05, August 4, 2005 (UTC) |
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==Most linked to and least linked to maths articles== |
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:The [[m:Developers]] are in charge of the software and hence also of the TeX markup (no surprise here). As far as I can see, there has been very little work done on it in the past two years, so I guess nobody is taking responsibility for the TeX markup specifically. That's why I'm pretty confident that just putting some comment on [[m:Help:Formula]] will anger people but not yield any improvements. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] ([[User talk:Jitse Niesen|talk]]) 17:22, 4 August 2005 (UTC) |
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I've been playing around with the database dumps and extracted the [[User:Salix alba/maths|most links and least linked]] mathematics articles. |
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::So no one in particular? Just kind of this thing that's there but no one ever touches or has anything to do with? - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 17:55, August 4, 2005 (UTC) |
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*[[User:Salix alba/maths/top linked maths articles|top linked maths articles]] |
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*[[User:Salix alba/maths/orphaned maths articles|orphaned maths articles]] |
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*[[User:Salix alba/maths/maths redirect frequency|maths redirect frequency]] |
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The top linked articles might be useful for directing our efforts as these are probably most visited pages. The orphaned articles and redirects could help with some housekeeping. For example there is [[Squircle]] which seems quite dubious, and there are several highly linked redirects which indicate a need for some topics to be expanded. --[[User:Salix alba|Salix alba]] ([[User talk:Salix alba|talk]]) 13:54, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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: Heh. [[Pi]] has 314 links... [[User:Ryan Reich|Ryan Reich]] 14:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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== [[E (mathematical constant)]] moved to [[Euler's number]] == |
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:: No way.... [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 14:33, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] has moved [[E (mathematical constant)]] to [[Euler's number]]. Is everyone ok with that? I have no strong feelings either way, but the move has created a lot redirects which should be fixed (especially the double redirects). I don't know as yet if Ed intends to to do that. I'd be willing to help with the redirects, but i want to be assured that we have a consensus for the name change first. Please respond on [[Talk:Euler's number]]. Thanks, [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 19:55, August 2, 2005 (UTC) |
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: |
:::And it holds slot 77 which is almost pi/4. [[User:Linas|linas]] 15:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:I wonder about the correctness of these lists. I was browsing the "orphaned" list and I was very surprised to see [[Stone–Weierstrass theorem]], which of course is linked to from many articles. [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 17:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:No, I'm not happy with the move. It is rarely called Euler's number, I think. [[User:Bubba73|Bubba73]] 20:06, August 2, 2005 (UTC) |
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::It is quite a tricky job, especially where redirects are concerned. For [[Stone–Weierstrass theorem]] the only pages which link directly to it are 6 redirect pages [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Stone%E2%80%93Weierstrass_theorem]. For some technical reason, I've not included redirects in the count of articles. So these lists are the bests my little scripts can produce at the moment. If people feel the need, I'll try to update them to get closer to a real number. In the case of Stone–Weierstrass, I'd actually say the appearence in the list is a good thing. Looking closely, the hyphen in the article name is an odd unicode character (0xE28093) rather than a regular ascii hyphen (0x2D). I'd say this would be a good case for the article to be moved to the name with the ascii hyphen. --[[User:Salix alba|Salix alba]] ([[User talk:Salix alba|talk]]) 18:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::Ok I see. Yes I noticed the odd name. I think I will move the article. [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 19:51, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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* JA: I thought we were standardizing the use of ndashes, not hyphens, for conjoining names of distinct people, as distinguished from hyphenated names of one person. [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 20:04, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:Good move. Leave it at [[Euler's number]]. - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 20:56, August 2, 2005 (UTC) |
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:Were we? I missed that. Why would we want to do that? [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 20:12, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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* JA: I'm sure I was directed to do that by some WikiPundit or other -- I just assumed it was to mark an obvious logical distinction for the sake of better hyper-indexing or sumting. [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 20:25, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I think it would be best if everyone responded at [[Talk:Euler's number]]. Thanks [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 21:08, August 2, 2005 (UTC) |
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**Somebody likes m-dashes and n-dashes, hardcoded by use of — and – and goes through substituting them. I'm not sure why; portability, maybe? [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] 21:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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***I think I would strongly oppose that policy, on ground of human nature. Most editors will use the ascii hyphen, never get to see the policy on ndashes, leading to the same redirecting problems we have seen on Stone–Weierstrass. --[[User:Salix alba|Salix alba]] ([[User talk:Salix alba|talk]]) 21:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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****Well, I haven't seen these improvements in article names; only in text. But there does seem to be a tendency to avoid hyphenated article titles: [[loan word]] not [[loan-word]]. [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] 23:26, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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* JA: YARTIW (yet another reason to ignore wikipundits). [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 21:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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== blahtex version 0.2 released == |
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* dear reader, for a more complete view of the status of the discussion, please do have a look at [[User_talk:Jon_Awbrey#En-Dash_Protocol_Reigning_Over_Polynominal_Titles_.28EDPROPT.29]] |
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==Endashes== |
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I knew we'd have to discuss this one eventually. The arguments for the A-endash-B theorem if A and B are two people are (a) it parses uniquely if you don't happen to be able to recognise double-barrelled names, and (b) it is a more professional piece of format. I would, however, always recommend creating <nowiki>[[A-hyphen-B]]''</nowiki> first, as a precaution, so as to pick up any hungry red links; and only then move to the endash version. [[User:Charles Matthews|Charles Matthews]] 21:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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Blahtex is a new [[LaTeX]] to [[MathML]] converter designed specifically for [[MediaWiki]]. |
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:Yeah, I didn't like it at first, but after thinking about it (and looking at typeset documents) I have to agree. Not so much for the unique parsing, which is a good argument in principle but not so much in practice (you can't reliably conclude that Burali-Forti is a single person just because the article is at [[Burali-Forti paradox]], even assuming you ''do'' notice the difference in the length of the dash/hyphen, which I wouldn't have if it hadn't been pointed out). But the endashes really do make the title look more like typeset documents and less like Usenet. |
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More information is available at [[m:Blahtex]]. |
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:Maybe someone could send a bot around to look for article names that are duplicates except for the hyphen-endash distinction (these should always redirect to the same place), and for articles with endashes with no corresponding hyphen redirects (redirects should be provided). --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 22:24, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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: Agreed. Some folks care as much about typographical niceties as mathematicians care about proof validity, or musicians care about pitch correctness. Lack of personal interest or awareness of these subtleties is no good excuse for hostility toward the interests of those who do care. Accents and quotation marks are another common battleground. With redirection, there is no need to fight. The hypen-redirects-to-dash idea seems like a reasonable compromise. --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]<sup>[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]</sup> 22:26, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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At the [http://abel.math.harvard.edu/~dmharvey/blahtex blahtex download page] may be found an interactive demo, samples of equations from Wikipedia, and the source code. |
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* dear reader, for a more complete view of the status of the discussion, please do have a look at [[User_talk:Jon_Awbrey#En-Dash_Protocol_Reigning_Over_Polynominal_Titles_.28EDPROPT.29]] |
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==[[Three forms of mathematical induction]]== |
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I invite everyone to participate in the discussion on [[m:Blahtex/How to make MathML work in MediaWiki|how on earth to make MathML work in MediaWiki]]. |
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This article was intended to be comprehensible to '''all mathematicians'''. |
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This message will be cross-posted on [[Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)]] and on the Wikitech-l mailing list (as soon as I figure out how it works). |
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It was '''not''' intended to teach mathematical induction. It was '''not''' intended to explain what mathematical induction is, nor how to use it. |
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Cheers [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 13:37, 3 August 2005 (UTC) |
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It was nominated for deletion by those who did not understand it. To some extent, they did not understand it because it was a stub and failed to explain what audience it was intended for and what its purpose was. |
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== Deletion of VfD == |
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A bunch of (mostly) non-mathematicians looking at the stub form in which the article appeared when it was nominated from deletion saw that |
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This isn't strictly an issue for this project, but I thought it was about such a fundamental part of Wikipedia that it should be widely publicized. It concerns the Vfd process (and as it turns out this page has been involved in several VfDs recently). There has been considerable recent discussion about possibly eliminating VfD see: |
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*An RFC about the recent deletion of the VfD page (since undeleted): [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Deletion of VFD]]. |
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*A vote and discussion on the deletion of the VfD page: [[Wikipedia:Requests for deletion]]. |
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[[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 15:19, August 3, 2005 (UTC) |
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* '''It was not comprehensible''' to ordinary non-mathematicians who know what mathematical induction is, and |
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:Ongoing discussion at [[Wikipedia:Deletion reform]] and its subpages; my proposal is on [[Wikipedia:Deletion reform/Proposals/Speedy redirect]] [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] 01:29, 24 August 2005 (UTC) |
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* The article titled [[mathematical induction]] '''is''' comprehensible to ordinary non-mathematicians, even those who know --- say --- secondary-school algebra, but have never heard of mathematical induction, |
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== Inline PNG formulas - a poll requested == |
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...and voted to delete. |
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There was a discussion right above about PNG-fied TeX vs HTML. It looks to me that the arguments for inline PNGs there were the same as in [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive4(TeX)]], but that the consensus nevertheless seemed to be that HTML is preferred to PNG. |
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'''And so I have now expanded the article far beyond the stub stage,''' including |
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However, the issue does not seem to die out, with some kind of silly revert war going on at [[cardinal number]]. I would like to see an informal poll to figure out what people think and if there is some consensus about it; and whether the issue is that important at all. I for one prefer HTML formulas inline if the TeX formulas become PNG images, unless HTML is unable to render the formulas correctly. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 15:27, 3 August 2005 (UTC) |
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* Substantial expansion and organization of the introductory section. |
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:I've gone both ways on this. At first I put equations in as HTML if they were simple enough and used TeX for the more complicated stuff. However, it didn't look good to me to have some equations in one and some in the other, since they look so different. Secondly, in some fonts at least (including the one I use) the HTML Greek letters are not very close to the way I'm used to seeing them. Therefore, if ''some'' of the equations on a page were in TeX I want to do ''all'' of them in TeX. A drawback if TeX is that the characters are thin and not of uniform thickness, at least on my system. [[User:Bubba73|Bubba73]] 15:45, August 3, 2005 (UTC) |
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* Two examples of part of the article that is probably hardest to understand to those who haven't seen these ideas. |
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:: *sigh* — if only MathML was working, we could leave this debate behind.... (hint hint see above :-) [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 15:52, 3 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::: Yes we know that MathML will cure all the ills. :) But it is at least 5 years away I would say. What is your position on inline PNGs in the meantime? [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 15:35, 4 August 2005 (UTC) |
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* An prefatory statement right at the top, saying that this article is '''NOT''' the appropriate place to try to learn what mathematical induction is or how to use it, with a link to the appropriate article for that. It explains that you need to know mathematical induction '''before''' you can read this article. |
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:Haven't we been through this? |
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:I can see both. Ideally we would use math tags for everything, and the inline PNGs and HTML and mathML generated from that code would look good no matter what. See [[m:Help_talk:Formula#Maynard_Handley.27s_suggestions]] for more about inline TeX tweaks, including appropriately-sized PNGs that resize along with text, etc. - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 15:41, August 4, 2005 (UTC) |
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Therefore, I have invited those who voted to delete '''before''' I did these recent de-stubbing edits, to reconsider their votes in light of the '''current''' form of the article. |
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:: Oleg, you're much more pragmatic than me :-) My position is: both inline PNGs and HTML look awful, but I am forced to concede that inline PNGs are worse. Therefore, in the current software environment, I think inline PNGs should be forbidden under all circumstances. As displayed equations, they are fine (if a little rough around the edges). I also think that inline HTML should be avoided if at all practical. Such equations should be made displayed if at all possible. In other words, I really don't like any of the options currently available for inline equations. |
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:: In response to some other points: (1) I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to when you saying that MathML is five years away. There are browsers out there that do a half-decent job. (Perhaps not decent, but half-decent anyway.) Besides, there are moves afoot. For example, the [http://www.stixfonts.org/ Stix fonts project] is supposed to reach a major milestone later this year. (2) I'm concerned about the portability of Maynard Handley's ideas. I would like to see them up and running on a test wiki, so that I can try them out in a few browsers. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 16:10, 4 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::: In response to (1) and (2). What matters is when Microsoft's Internet Explorer will have default and goood MathML support. And I doubt that will happen soon. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 22:13, 4 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:::: I agree that IE won't have default MathML support soon (if ever). That's a shame. I also agree that the current plugin support (i.e. MathPlayer) leaves a lot to be desired. However, I don't think requiring a plugin is necessarily a bad thing in itself. For example, lots of people view PDFs in their browser, even though browsers generally don't have default support. (Correct me if I'm wrong about this.) There is some mechanism that lets the browser inform you when you need an appropriate plugin for something. |
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:::::: Yes you are right. :) So let us hope MathPlayer will work soon, and work not only for IE. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 23:47, 5 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::::May I add that my position on inline PNG would change drastically if Wikipedia had MathML support enabled. If MathML was there and working, I would *encourage* people to do inline equations in <nowiki><math></nowiki> tags, and hope that this encourages people viewing those pages to switch to a better (!) browser. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 22:32, 4 August 2005 (UTC) |
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I also ask others here to vote on it by clicking [[Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Three_forms_of_mathematical_induction|here]]. |
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Separated from other text, I think TeX looks a lot better than HTML. However it's use inline is problematic. I usually try to avoid inline TeX, and I think there has been a consensus for this view. But to me it is also problematic to mix inline HTML with non-inline TeX, so sometimes when I want to use non-inline TeX, I also sometimes use inline TeX (for example for variable names, see [[absolute value]]). I would hate to see a hard and fast "rule" about this. [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 16:39, August 4, 2005 (UTC) |
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: Agree about not wanting a hard and fast rule about it. But why would one use as in [[cardinal number]] the PNG <math>\{1,2,3,\dots\}</math> instead of simply the html {1, 2, 3, ...}? [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 22:13, 4 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::I agree that doesn't make a lot of sense. [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 02:51, August 5, 2005 (UTC) |
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(Nothing like nomination for deletion to get you to work on a long-neglected stub article!) [[User:Michael Hardy|Michael Hardy]] 23:42, 6 March 2006 (UTC) |
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Please see my comments on this issue at: [[Wikipedia_talk:How_to_write_a_Wikipedia_article_on_Mathematics#Too_much_HTML.3F]]. - [[User:Gauge|Gauge]] 03:48, 21 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== WAREL == |
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The blind, with screen reading software and with some kinds of HTML enabled software, have some hope of making sense of the page if HTML us used. Unless appropriate "alt=" attributes are required, they have no hope with PNG. [[User:Nahaj|Nahaj]] 02:35:26, 2005-09-08 (UTC) |
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: If you would have checked yourself, the TeX in math tags <i>is</i> in the alt text. [[User:Dysprosia|Dysprosia]] 02:41, 8 September 2005 (UTC) |
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:: The section is PNG formulas, and I understood the question to be HTML or PNG. Since my browser doesn't speak TeX, I'll guess you are referring to a PNG produced from the math tags? And I give, how is it that you expected me to tell PNG from a PNG produced from the tags so that I would have noticed this? [[User:Nahaj|Nahaj]] 02:51:08, 2005-09-08 (UTC) |
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::: I think you are misunderstanding how PNG formulae are generated. The formulae images are ''not'' manually created, users do ''not'' upload regular images of formulae. Formulas are written in the [[TeX]] language and are placed inside <nowiki><math></nowiki> tags. If the formula is very simple, the TeX representation of the formula is converted into HTML and displayed. Otherwise, if it is complicated, the TeX representation of the formula is converted into a PNG image and is displayed. The alt text of the PNG image is the TeX representation of the formula. For example, the PNG formula <math>S_{\mathbf{p}}(\mathbf{a})=\alpha\mathbf{v}_1+\beta\mathbf{v}_2</math> will have "S_{\mathbf{p}}(\mathbf{a})=\alpha\mathbf{v}_1+\beta\mathbf{v}_2" as the alt text. So the issue of 'appropriate "alt=" tags' is responded to, and thus some provisions at least are made for accessibility. |
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::: If you would have investigated this issue yourself, by either playing around in the sandbox, or having a look how some mathematics articles are typeset, and viewing the alt text of PNG formulae, you would have found out all this yourself.[[User:Dysprosia|Dysprosia]] 10:40, 8 September 2005 (UTC) |
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My assumption of good faith in [[User:WAREL]] (formerly [[User:DYLAN LENNON]]) is being sorely tested. I know I'm not the only one who has wasted a lot of time over the past few weeks dealing with him/her. I'm wondering whether anyone else here has any thoughts about how to deal with WAREL, short of deploying an automatic WAREL-edit-reverting-bot. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 18:00, 7 March 2006 (UTC) |
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== Ten thousand articles waiting to be written ... == |
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: For context, see the following article histories [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Decimal_representation&action=history Decimal representation], [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Real_number&action=history Real number], [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Twin_prime_conjecture&curid=51415&action=history Twin prime conjecture], as well as [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WAREL&oldid=42666595 User talk:WAREL] (Link to today's version, as WAREL likes to delete things he does not like. See especially the bottom section.) [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 19:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I left a comment at [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=43505341#Disruptive_contributor_to_mathematics_articles Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive_contributor to_mathematics articles]. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 05:47, 9 March 2006 (UTC) |
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Looking for something to do? [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles|WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles]] has made a list of [[Wikipedia:Missing science topics|missing science topics]], containing articles on Weisstein's MathWorld that have no corresponding Wikipedia article. There are more than ten thousand entries (but a considerable number is due to different capitalization conventions), including the intriguing [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/AlgebraofChineseCharacters.html Algebra of Chinese Characters] (unfortunately, it is just an empty article on MathWorld). On a side note, remember that there is also the [[WP:PMEX|PlanetMath exchange]]. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] ([[User talk:Jitse Niesen|talk]]) 22:39, 3 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== |
== [[al-Khwarizmi]] == |
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This isn't about mathematics, but it is about a mathematician. Anybody who has spare time and is willing to read a long talk page is kindly request to comment on the dispute regarding al-Khwarizmi's etnicity at [[Talk:al-Khwarizmi]]. Cheers, —''[[User:R._Koot|Ruud]]'' 14:49, 9 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I've created a template you can use for [[CiteSeer]] citations. If they ever change the [[URL]] again, only the template needs to be updated. |
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:How about showing the whole lot of them the way to [[Wikinfo]], which wants editors like that? ;-> [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] 19:24, 9 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:: Somehow I doubt that most persons involved are interested in updating his biography beyond the first two sentences. —''[[User:R._Koot|Ruud]]'' 19:30, 9 March 2006 (UTC) |
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==Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project== |
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<nowiki>{{citeseer|View-based and modular Eigenspaces for face recognition|pentland94viewbased}}</nowiki> |
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''Discussion moved to [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/Wikipedia_1.0]]'' [[User:Tompw|Tompw]] 16:40, 13 April 2006 (UTC) |
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== [[Wikipedia talk:Scientific peer review]] == |
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{{citeseer|View-based and modular Eigenspaces for face recognition|pentland94viewbased}} |
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''Notice: interested contributors may wish to participate in the [[Wikipedia talk:Scientific peer review]]s by working scientists.'' |
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--[[User:R.Koot|R.Koot]] 22:28, 4 August 2005 (UTC) |
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--[[User:Ancheta Wis|Ancheta Wis]] 17:10, 11 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:I've also created one for links to [[MathWorld]] |
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== Can you guys have a look == |
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<nowiki>{{mathworld|Register machines|RegisterMachine}}</nowiki> |
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[[Gallagher Index]] is a [[Political Science]] article and subject. But currently it could probably do with a mathematicans eye (alongside a few more things as well). Essentially, is there a neater or nicer way of doing the table at the bottom as an example of how the index is generated? Cheers, --[[User:Midnighttonight|Midnighttonight]] 08:47, 13 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:{{mathworld|Register machines|RegisterMachine}} |
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==Categorizing articles== |
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--[[User:R.Koot|R.Koot]] 03:33, 5 August 2005 (UTC) |
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On my suggestion, Salix alba made a list of Wikipedia articles which are not categorized, but which are linked from a math article. That list has a bunch of false positives, but also articles which are math and are not categorized. I suggest we start a cat wiki-pet (short for a Categorizing Wikiproject), going through those articles and categorizing them. |
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:The second one duplicates [[Template:MathWorld]] - [[User:Fredrik|Fredrik]] | [[User talk:Fredrik|talk]] 19:09, 6 August 2005 (UTC) |
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I split the list into 47 sections of 50 articles each. One may choose a section to work on, and sign at the bottom when done. I did the first three, and found roughly 3-5 articles out of 50 which may need categorizing. See the list at [[User:Salix alba/maths/uncategorised maths]]. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 20:14, 14 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:: Did I say [[:Template:Mathworld]]? I meant [[:Template:ScienceWorld]] ofcourse. ;) --[[User:R.Koot|R.Koot]] 19:29, 6 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: I don't know much about the category system, but if I just tag relevant articles with [[:Category:Mathematics]], is that enough to get them on the radar? (i.e. should I mark a section as "done" if I do this?) [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 03:03, 15 March 2006 (UTC) |
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== minus or negative infinity? == |
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::I'd shoot for at least one level more specific than [[:Category:Mathematics]]. The names of the big categories are pretty intuitive: [[:Category:Algebra]], [[:Category:Mathematical analysis]], [[:Category:Mathematical logic]], [[:Category:Geometry]], [[:Category:Topology]], [[:Category:Number theory]]. Just make sure to remember the "mathematical" before "analysis" or "logic". --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 03:16, 15 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:: Sometimes one can pick the right category by looking at the articles going from the current one. But yes, putting them in [[:Category:Mathematics]] is a good first option. Then my [[User:mathbot|bot]] will list them to the [[list of mathematics articles]], so more people will see them and may refine the categorization further. So yes, marking a section as done if the articles there are listed in some category is good, thanks. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 03:18, 15 March 2006 (UTC) |
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"linearly towards minus infinity" or "linearly towards negative infinity" or "linearly towards −∞"? - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 22:35, August 4, 2005 (UTC) |
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:: Negative infinity sounds right to my non-native speaker ear. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 00:41, 5 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::: ok guys thanks [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 03:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::: I think either of the first two are ok. The second sounds slightly more formal, but I once had a professor who couldn't stand people even saying "negative three", it was only "minus three" for him. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 00:56, 5 August 2005 (UTC) |
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I made the sections be 20 items rather than 50, as those were too big I think. To continue with the note at the top of this section, the person who does most work will get a cat as a wiki-pet (the Wikipet which anybody can touch (and edit)). [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 05:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC) |
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: I use minus infinity in speech, which sounds better, but that may only be so because it's closer to what it is in Dutch. I think I prefer negative infinity in writing, however. --[[User:R.Koot|R.Koot]] 01:02, 5 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: |
: Oleg, you are SO going to award it to yourself. That is, like, so totally not fair. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 19:48, 15 March 2006 (UTC) |
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Not all is lost, the race is still fully open! By the way, if you look at [[User:Mathbot/Changes mathlist|my bot's changes page]], you will see a good harvest of math articles for March 15. Awesome work! [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 03:37, 16 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:: To me, "negative three" sounds like the script of a Holywood B-grade. I'm a "minus 3" type of person. --[[User:Zero0000|Zero]] 13:43, 11 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: Now, I eager to get the wiki-pet, reviewed a section, categorized around 10 of the 20 there, felt good of myself, and when I got to editing the section to say "done", I see the section was ''done'' already! Dmharvey, now ''that's'' unfair. :) [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 04:55, 16 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::: IMO, they are different. minus infinity is a number, negative infinity is a place. -- [[User:SGBailey|SGBailey]] 22:04:53, 2005-09-08 (UTC) |
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: Perhaps people should mark their territory -- in a nice way -- at the top of the score of items when they start work on it? [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 05:00, 16 March 2006 (UTC) |
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==Jitse's math news page== |
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:: I doubt it is worth it; I meant it to be a silly joke rather than a complaint. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 05:01, 16 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I don't know if you noticed, but [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] made a bot to output the following page each day: [[User:Jitse_Niesen/goim]]. Here, listed are new math articles in the [[list of mathematical topics]] and [[list of mathematicians]], new requests for math articles, fulfilled requests for math articles, articles in need of attention/on vfd, etc. |
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::: <math>''\!</math> [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 05:32, 16 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I believe this page should be a very useful resource for math articles editors (that is, us). I would suggest adopting this page to the project, that is, renaming it to [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/recent changes]] or something, but I can't come up with a good name. |
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::::Cheaters!!!! Hey, I noticed that some of the "finished" sections are still contain uncategorized articles. Even if the article is not about math, please do make an effort to put it into some category, somewhere!!! [[User:Linas|linas]] 01:08, 18 March 2006 (UTC) |
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Any ideas of what else such a page can contain or what other things itchy bot writers like Jitse and me could do to improve the math wikiproject? [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 00:41, 5 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::::: Be my guest, my friend. :) [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 02:10, 24 March 2006 (UTC) |
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==[[History of human knowledge about pi]]== |
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: how about [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity]]? |
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This is the new title of [[History of pi]]. Even I think this is pædantry, so it may be over the top. Can we discuss this here, away from the [[Pi day]] crowds? [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] 00:48, 15 March 2006 (UTC) |
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: I've sometimes wondered whether it would be possible to write a "non-reciprocated link finder" script. If A links to B then in many cases B should link to A. Would be nice to find these more easily. But I can think of lots of reasons that it wouldn't really work. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 01:00, 5 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:: I could write such a script, and generate a list of pairs of math articles which have links going on only in one direction. Is that what you want? [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 23:47, 5 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::: I guess I would be interested to see that. My only reservation is that I expect there to be a very large number of links that we discover only really make sense in one direction, and that the links we are really interested in are actually hard to spot within such a list, and therefore that you'd be spending a lot of time writing a script that turns out not to be useful. So if your best guess is that it wouldn't be worth the effort, then don't bother. Otherwise, please go right ahead! (by the way, where is some information on how to write such robots? I might be interested in trying my hand one of these days.) [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 23:51, 5 August 2005 (UTC) |
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To write the script would be very easy. It will not be a bot, rather a [[perl]] script analyzing all the math articles which I have stored locally on my machine (and I have all of the articles in the [[list of mathematical topics]], updated daily). But I am not myself sure how helpful that would be. The total number of pairs would be in the tens of thousands. Maybe we should sleep on this idea for a while, and wonder if anything useful will come up. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 00:05, 6 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: I agree. Leave it for now. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 00:34, 6 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:"History of pi" deserves an article. To think that a table of the history of numerical computation of pi is the same thing as a history of pi is very silly. I've moved the table to another article, and labeled this article a stub. [[User:Michael Hardy|Michael Hardy]] 01:40, 16 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::::I moved [[User:Jitse_Niesen/goim]] to [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity]]. Did you know that 2451 of the 8979 articles are (marked as) stubs? Rather depressing, really. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] ([[User talk:Jitse Niesen|talk]]) 01:48, 6 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::::: How did you find 8979 articles? I count 8227. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 02:06, 6 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::::My first guess is that I include [[List of mathematicians]] and you do not. This gives me 746 links, and 8227 + 746 = 8973, which is close enough. I can send you the complete list if you want. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] ([[User talk:Jitse Niesen|talk]]) 13:00, 6 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::Agree w/Michael. I remember reading, as a young student, of plenty of interesting snippets about Egyptians knotting strings, silly legislation in kansas about pi=3, and what not. It deserves an article. [[User:Linas|linas]] 22:26, 17 March 2006 (UTC) |
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== other languages == |
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::: LOL... I remember adding that to (what is now called) [[Chronology of computation of pi]] (see under 1897), except the reference I have is for Indiana not Kansas. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 22:34, 17 March 2006 (UTC) |
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hi I'm just wondering if there are math(s) project pages like this in other languages? It sounds like a lot of people who hang around here actually are quite multilingual. I speak only English (and a pathetic amount of mandarin chinese). [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 01:28, 5 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: I could not find anything in Romanian or Russian. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 02:22, 5 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== MathWorld == |
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:Dutch: no mathematics project. |
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:German: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Portal_Mathematik. |
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:French: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussion_Wikip%C3%A9dia:Projet%2C_Math%C3%A9matiques and http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussion_Wikip%C3%A9dia:Projet%2C_math%C3%A9matiques_%C3%A9l%C3%A9mentaires (both not very active.) --[[User:R.Koot|R.Koot]] 02:40, 5 August 2005 (UTC) |
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Hi guys, |
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:Italian: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Progetto_Matematica |
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:Spanish: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProyecto_Matemáticas |
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:Swedish: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipediadiskussion:Projekt_matematik |
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:Japanese: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ウィキプロジェクト_数学 |
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I was wondering why I can find so many maths-related articles here that do not reference relevant pages from [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ MathWorld]. I'm not sure what their license model is, but I can only assume that this is the reason why it's not popular around here? Please let me know if you think including their articles as references is a desirable thing. I'm watching this page, so do reply here. - [[User:Samsara|{{{2|Samsara}}}]] ([[User talk:Samsara|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Samsara|contribs]]) 13:18, 15 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:Some are, inevitably, more active than others. And some of them were already linked together, I would never have been able to find the Japanese one myself. —[[User:Blotwell|Blotwell]] 13:08, 7 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:Obviously, we can't ''include'' relevant sections of MathWorld articles, as that would be a copyright violation. The reason for not ''referencing'' MathWorld articles is probably the uneven quality (yes, even by our standards) and the presence of clear errors (possible [[copyright trap]]s) and probable [[neologism]]s. (I don't think the neologism being published as part of [[Mathematica]] makes it any less a neologism.) — [[User:Arthur Rubin|Arthur Rubin]] | [[User_talk:Arthur_Rubin|(talk)]] 13:56, 15 March 2006 (UTC) |
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== request == |
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::I agree with Arthur and the reasons he provides. A policy of providing links to mathworld just doesn't make sense for us. However, if you come across a ''particular'' article where they have a much stronger version, then certainly linking to theirs would be useful (even better: bring ours up to snuff). -[[User:Lethe/sig|lethe]] <sup>[[User talk:Lethe/sig|talk]] [{{fullurl:User talk:Lethe|action=edit§ion=new}} +]</sup> 15:30, 15 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::: Yeah, making it a policy to link to mathworld does not make sense, but I would think we should be encouraged in making external links to mathwolrd on case-by-case basis when those links are relevant (not necessarily much stronger than ours :) [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 16:11, 15 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::Just to clear up a possible misunderstanding: I was referring to the license model because Planet Math is more frequently linked to. Is quality really so divergent between the two? I'm not trained as a mathematician, so I admit my judgement is poor. - [[User:Samsara|{{{2|Samsara}}}]] ([[User talk:Samsara|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Samsara|contribs]]) 16:17, 15 March 2006 (UTC) |
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Could an admin exchange [[Random Access Machine]] and [[Random access machine]] for me, please? Thanks, --[[User:R.Koot|R.Koot]] 02:40, 5 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::: We actually ''copy'' planetmath articles, see [[WP:PMEX]], that's why we must refer to the original versions, per their site license. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 16:21, 15 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:Done [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 03:00, August 5, 2005 (UTC) |
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::I second Arthur's comments. Just in the past month or so, I've had to remove several external links to MathWorld because when I checked them out, I found out they contained major errors. Sometimes these MathWorld articles can be good, but other times, it looks like a real hack job. So it's definitely not good to just unilaterally add the MathWorld links. I think it best for editors working on particular articles in their area of knowledge to add the links they actually found the most useful. --[[User:C S|C S]][[User talk:C S| (Talk)]] 10:20, 10 April 2006 (UTC) |
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Another one: [[Mathematical reviews]] should go to [[Mathematical Reviews]] as it is the title of a journal, see [[Talk:Mathematical reviews]]. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] ([[User talk:Jitse Niesen|talk]]) 12:25, 7 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:Done [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 23:58, August 8, 2005 (UTC) |
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==Please vote on this proposed deletion== |
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EXTRAPOLATION METHOD |
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I would be grateful if the mathenaticians would be kind enough to look at my extrapolation method on |
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www.AIDSCJDUK.info to determine whether it is suitable for a link from Wikipedia. Copy of earlier E-mails with Wiki. are below. Edward G. Collier MBCS CITP |
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at [[Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Proof_that_22_over_7_exceeds_%CF%80#.5B.5BProof_that_22_over_7_exceeds_.CF.80.5D.5D]]. |
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Unfortunately, it seems that one cannot paste E-mails into this area. My method was devised in 1987 and wasexplained in detail at a Royal Statistical Society special meeting on AIDS forecasting that year. It was briefly written up in the Jornal of that Society Vol 151 Part 1 1988 |
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Although the professors, statisticians and epidemiologists present also explained their proposed methods, my simple (but not simplistic) mathod was the only one that ever produced any viable forecasts and is still being used today as can be seen from the web site. |
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I also have used the method for several years in forecasting variant CJD in the UK. The SEAC sub-committee with responsibility for overseeing the progress of vCJD asked me to get the method published. However, the various mathematical bodies and journals that I approached declined to publish it as I had no references. As a retired engineer and not an academic, I had no way of finding appropriate references and in any case I had not referred to any as the idea came into my own head. I am sure that there are many people who could make use of the method - even in control engineering- if you can publicise it in the excellent Wikipedia. |
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Thank you, Edward G. Collier [email protected] |
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The delete votes seem to be from non-mathematicians who erroneously think they understand the article. The main idea is this: |
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:Peer review is not a perfect process, but Wikipedia is explicitly ''not'' supposed to be a way around it. See [[WP:NOR]]. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 20:06, 13 September 2005 (UTC) |
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:<math>0<\int_0^1\frac{x^4(1-x)^4}{1+x^2}\,dx=\frac{22}{7}-\pi.</math> |
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== Project subpages == |
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Therefore 22/7 > π. |
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As some of you have noticed, partly in honor of Jitse's great new [[/Current activity|Current activity]] page — way to go Jitse! — I have created a new section on the project page to list and describe the various project subpages. I know they are all mentioned somewhere else on the page, but I thought it would be good to also list them together. At any rate that got me to thinking about these pages: |
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* [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (theorems)]] |
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* [[Wikipedia:How to write a Wikipedia article on Mathematics]] (proposed) |
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* <s>[[Wikipedia:Algorithms on Wikipedia]] (proposed) </s> |
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Should these also be subpages of this project? I could see some benefit to bringing these all under one banner so to speak. [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 17:38, August 6, 2005 (UTC) |
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{| style="float:right; background:transparent" |
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|- |
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{{Style}} |
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|} |
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But the article also includes exposition, discussion, and mention of the appearance of this problem in the [[Putnam Competition]]. |
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: I think we should not make them subpages, as these pages are not just about our project. So, our style manual, [[Wikipedia:How to write a Wikipedia article on Mathematics]], might be better off standing on its own rather than |
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::[[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/How to write a Wikipedia article on Mathematics]]. |
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One "delete"-voter says this is no more significant than, for example, a proof that π > 3.14159 or the like. The fact that 22/7 is a convergent in the [[continued fraction]] expansion of π seems to mean nothing to that person or to escape his notice altogether. The fact that this particular integral is so simple and has a neat pattern also seems to escape them. Another shows signs of thinking that all articles on π-related topics should get merged into one article (see [[list of topics related to pi]]). [[User:Michael Hardy|Michael Hardy]] 02:22, 16 March 2006 (UTC) |
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: I agree though that it is better to list some of those pages together, as there is quite a bit of duplication now on the project page, with things listed multiple times. |
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== arXiv == |
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: On a more general note, I would think the project page needs a bit of overhaul. Wonder what people think. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 19:35, 6 August 2005 (UTC) |
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So what's the deal with linking to the arxiv? This has come up quite a number of times in the last little while. Someone has gone trigger-happy recently on some papers there by [[Diego Saá]], and it took a lot of convincing to get [[User:WAREL]] to stop linking there. (Or maybe he/she is still at it.) I would think generally such papers do not qualify for linking from Wikipedia, unless there are very good reasons to the contrary. Somehow a link to the arXiv has an air of respectability that you don't get from your home page on geocities etc, but it's not deserved, and we shouldn't be misleading people into thinking that the arXiv is a reliable resource. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 02:16, 17 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::: YES. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 12:29, 7 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: I agree. One should only use references to books and peer-reviewed journals. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 02:54, 17 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::That's not how it works in mathematics research, and I see no reason why Wikipedia should adopt stricter rules for citations in its mathematics articles than most of the mathematics community itself. Wikipedia would only be shooting itself in the foot. --[[User:C S|C S]][[User talk:C S| (Talk)]] 05:08, 25 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::Well, we should ''prefer'' refereed references. Of course for journal references that are also on the arxiv, we should provide an arxiv link (not everyone has access to an academic library). Furthermore, there are worthwhile things on the arxiv which don't get published in journals. A lot of times, Witten, for example, publishes a lot of his papers ''only'' through the arxiv, he doesn't feel that journal referees are qualified to vet his papers. And there are précis on the arxiv which are very good resources but not original work, and therefore not appropriate for journals. But of course, there is also crackpottism on the arxiv, so care is certainly required. -[[User:Lethe/sig|lethe]] <sup>[[User talk:Lethe/sig|talk]] [{{fullurl:User talk:Lethe|action=edit§ion=new}} +]</sup> 04:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:: |
::: You definitely need a lot of care when citing papers by a guy who "doesn't feel that journal referees are qualified to vet his papers". :) [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 15:49, 17 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::: That is a dangerous attitude; but in the case of [[Edward Witten|Witten]] I suspect many of the referees would agree, and are probably relieved that they do not have to try to keep up! --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]<sup>[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]</sup> 16:17, 17 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::Actually, I think it could well be a subpage, like [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/style]]. Or rename it to [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics)]]. Anyway, please do something, as I rarely type the title correctly at the first attempt. The other two pages should not become subpages: [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (theorems)]] falls into the [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (...)]] series and [[Wikipedia:Algorithms on Wikipedia]] is more computer science than mathematics. I also agree with Dmharvey above. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] ([[User talk:Jitse Niesen|talk]]) 12:49, 7 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::::: The shorter the better. :) I hope more opinions will come in as how to rename it, since it is an important document. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 23:24, 7 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::: I agree that [[Wikipedia:Algorithms on Wikipedia]] should not be a project subpage. I hadn't really looked at it, just copied it from the project page —now I'm wondering if it belongs there either? Also I like either of the page titles Jitse suggested for the "How to …" page. [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 17:23, August 7, 2005 (UTC) |
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: What about just [[Wikipedia:Mathematical writing]] or [[Wikipedia:Writing mathematics]] [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 19:36, 8 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::I think if we do not want to make it a subpage of this project, then it should probably be called [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics)]] (per Jitse) since that would be consistent with other "Supplementary Manuals of Style" listed on [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style]] (see table to right.) |
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:::::Off-topic: but [[Alexander Grothendieck]] stopped publishing in journals as well. [[User:Linas|linas]] 23:32, 17 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I agree with Paul and Jitse about naming it [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics)]]. By the way, I truly hope that the fat style template to the right will not make its way in our manual of style, it is just so long, and not so helpful (for example, why would we need in our manual of style a link to how to write China-related articles). |
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The arXiv is mostly reliable, except for the general mathematics (GM) section which is where the crank articles seem to get listed. I removed all the links to [[Diego Saá]]'s papers that I could find; they were added by [[User:Diegueins]], who claims to be his son. [[User:R.e.b.|R.e.b.]] 05:57, 17 March 2006 (UTC) |
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Oh, and we can make the shortcut [[WP:MSM]] point to the new location, to save some typing when referring to it. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 20:30, 8 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:In the last six months, I have found there a paper proving P=NP and another proving P<math>\neq</math>NP. No comments... [[User:Taxipom|pom]] 16:18, 18 March 2006 (UTC) |
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: Agree that [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics)]] is good. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 01:51, 9 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== Please sign up on the participants list! == |
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Moved. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 20:37, 9 August 2005 (UTC) |
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If you have this talk page on your watchlist, then you should add your name, field(s) of expertise and interests to the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Participants]] page! I know there are some newcomers who haven't yet signed up, and I suspect there are some old-timers as well. [[User:Linas|linas]] 22:15, 17 March 2006 (UTC) |
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== blahtex: now compiles on linux == |
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:I meant to sign up at some point, but I glanced over the list and, frankly, many of you guys seem to be so good that it's kind of scary (I'm only an undergrad student) :-) - only half joking. But now, if you say so... [[User:AdamSmithee|AdamSmithee]] 00:20, 18 March 2006 (UTC) And after signing up, I see that my nick and the alphabetical ordering puts me on top of the list :-D [[User:AdamSmithee|AdamSmithee]] 00:28, 18 March 2006 (UTC) |
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Blahtex 0.2.1 has been released. It now compiles and runs on Linux thanks to [[User:Jitse_Niesen|Jitse Niesen]]. |
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:I would join but you see, I'm on vacation. Good luck to you all. -- <i>'''[[User:127|<span style="color:blue;">127</span>]].[[User_talk:127|<span style="color:orange;">*</span>]].[[Special:Contributions/127|<span style="color:green;">*</span>]].[[Main_Page|<span style="color:red;">1</span>]]'''</i> 01:17, 18 March 2006 (UTC) |
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Jitse has had some initial success with integrating blahtex into mediawiki: [[m:Blahtex/How_to_make_MathML_work_in_MediaWiki|check it out]]. |
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::Let me also add, feel free not to add yourself to that list or any others, for any reason. I myself don't see what purpose the list serves, and don't like adding myself to lists like that, though I did so eventually. -[[User:Lethe/sig|lethe]] <sup>[[User talk:Lethe/sig|talk]] [{{fullurl:User talk:Lethe|action=edit§ion=new}} +]</sup> 03:41, 18 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::Obviously the list doesn't have any kind of official status, but it does create a kind of community, as well as crystallizing one's own role in the Mathematics project in one's own mind. Mostly it seems sort of like the ritual of everyone gathering in a circle and placing hands one above another to seal a pact. And I'd encourage AdamSmithee to put his name on the list simply ''because'' he feels out of place; doing so will put him correctly in place :) [[User:Ryan Reich|Ryan Reich]] 06:18, 18 March 2006 (UTC) |
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Source code, online demo and samples [http://abel.math.harvard.edu/~dmharvey/blahtex/index.php here]. |
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::::Actually, I got into a discussion recently about how many particle physicists there are working in WP; looking at the participants list help put a lower bound on the number. This is a lot like any department directory or phonebook or census: rarely looked at, but terribly useful when its really needed. That, and indeed, the community feeling of the historical "I was here" thing. In 20 years, the list may be interesting to review: "I remember old so-n-so." [[User:Linas|linas]] 02:58, 19 March 2006 (UTC) |
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More info and bug reports at [[m:Blahtex]]. |
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== Statistics on [[User:WAREL]] == |
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[[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 01:53, 9 August 2005 (UTC) |
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I submit the following statistics as an argument to block WAREL for, I suppose, a few days. |
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== Style: *-algebras == |
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[[User:WAREL]] was born 17th Feb 2006. He/she has a total of 242 edits since then. The following survey includes 99 of those edits (41%), plus a few of [[User:DYLAN LENNON]]'s edits (WAREL is a reincarnation of DYLAN LENNON). |
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I was editing the [[*-algebra]], [[B*-algebra]], [[C*-algebra]] etc. pages for consistency of style and I noticed some pages had <nowiki><sup></nowiki> tags around the * in these expressions, thus giving (e.g.) C<sup>*</sup> rather than C*. This looks horrible (and increases [[leading]]) on my browser (Netscrape 7) and the majority of pages didn't have it, so I took out those I found. But I assume someone had a reason for putting them in: is there any browser for which this looks better? Our proposed style guide should address this one way or the other. (This is different from the superscripting issues discussed at [[Wikipedia:How to write a Wikipedia article on Mathematics]] already because it relies on the * character appearing superscripted by default.) |
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* [[Perfect number]]: 23 edits. At least 13 immediately reverted. Many prior edits by DYLAN LENNON going back to July 2005 -- generally not reverted |
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And while I'm here: our preferred spelling seems to be [[C*-algebra]] (not ''C* algebra'', ''C-star algebra'', ''C star algebra'', etc.) The exception is that our page on *-algebras is currently at [[star-algebra]]. Is there any reason for this, for example, is it usually spelled this way in the literature? —[[User:Blotwell|Blotwell]] 04:58, 9 August 2005 (UTC) |
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* [[Twin prime conjecture]]: 17 edits, all reverted |
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* [[Real number]]: 12 edits, 11 reverted (As DYLAN LENNON: 14 edits, 10 reverted) |
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* [[Decimal representation]]: 11 edits. 10 reverted. |
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* [[Zeta constants]]: 6 edits, 3 reverted |
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* [[Finite field]]: 6 edits, 3 reverted, the other 3 self-reverted |
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* [[Proof that 0.999... equals 1]]: 5 edits, all reverted |
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* [[Decidability (logic)]]: 5 edits, all reverted |
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* [[Riemann hypothesis]]: 5 edits, 1 reverted |
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* [[Chen prime]]: 4 edits, 2 reverted |
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* [[Decimal]]: 3 edits, all reverted |
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* [[Halting problem]]: 2 edits, both reverted. |
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* [[Fermat's last theorem]]: 1 edit, reverted |
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* [[Soliton]]: 2 edits, both reverted |
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* [[Wiener's tauberian theorem]]: 1 edit, reverted |
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* [[Cousin prime]]: 1 edit, reverted |
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* [[List of real analysis topics]]: 1 edit, reverted |
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Of these 113 edits, there are at least 88 reversions, which is 78% of the edits listed above, or '''36% of all edits logged'''. |
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== mentions of categorical considerations == |
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He/she was even reverted twice on his/her ''own talk page''. |
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I wrote the section on morphisms in the article on [[projective space]]s, and it occurred to me that while using the language of category theory to describe maps between projective spaces is extremely convenient, it might be off-putting for the undergrad who's never studied any category theory, and just wants to know about projective spaces. -[[User:Lethe|Lethe]] | [[User talk:Lethe|Talk]] 07:13, August 9, 2005 (UTC) |
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WAREL has been reverted by at least 17 distinct editors: [[User:Jitse Niesen]], [[User:JoshuaZ]], [[User:Dmharvey]], [[User:EJ]], [[User:Schildt.a]], [[User:Arthur Rubin]], [[User:ANTI-WAREL]], [[User:Oleg Alexandrov]], [[User:Elroch]], [[User:Mfc]], [[User:Trovatore]], [[User:Zundark]], [[User:Fropuff]], [[User:Fredrik]], [[User:Paul August]], [[User:KSmrq]], [[User:Melchoir]], many of whom you will recognise as being respected contributors to mathematics articles. |
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: I agree. I don't think you can assume that the person reading about projective spaces knows about category theory. However, that doesn't mean you should throw out what you've done. I think the article needs both versions. (The baby one first.) [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 11:03, 9 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:: I agree with Dmharvey, we can have our category theory and eat it too! (of course this come from someone who was a categorical topologist in a past life ;-) [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 19:55, August 9, 2005 (UTC) |
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On the other hand, I note that WAREL has also made several nontrivial, non-reverted contributions to several mathematics articles: [[Riemann hypothesis]], [[Perfect number]], [[Hilbert's fifth problem]], [[Perfect power]], [[Proof that the sum of the reciprocals of the primes diverges]]. He/she also makes plenty of edits to articles in which I am not competent, especially relating to Japanese mathematicians and musicians. Therefore, in my opinion, a permanent block is not (yet) warranted, even given the fact that he/she was permanently blocked on the Japanese wikipedia. |
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But the thing is, for the example I'm thinking of, there aren't "two versions". I just say "in the category of ____ the morphisms are ____". there really isn't any category theory there that can be separated out. just some terminology that can be used or not used. -[[User:Lethe|Lethe]] | [[User talk:Lethe|Talk]] 22:07, August 9, 2005 (UTC) |
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[[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 01:23, 20 March 2006 (UTC) |
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: Hmmm. A question: what title would you give the section if you chose to write it without categorical language? Would you still call it "morphisms"? Or something like "Projective linear transformations"? Are you worried that without the categorical language, it is difficult to motivate why these particular types of maps between projective spaces are important? [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 22:16, 9 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: I wrote a note on his talk page a few days ago about his revertions at [[decimal representation]], and Jitse wrote one today about [[perfect number]] (see [[User talk:WAREL]]). |
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::It seems like only someone with category theory in mind would, immediately after describing a new mathematical construction, then describe maps between such constructions. I imagine that if I didn't have that language available, I also wouldn't have the mindset to take time out to describe the maps. So I guess it's probably OK this way? -[[User:Lethe|Lethe]] | [[User talk:Lethe|Talk]] 22:59, August 9, 2005 (UTC) |
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: I have a silly suggestion. How about writing a petition on his user talk page, telling him that if he engages in any disruptive activity again, at any article, he will be blocked for 12 hours? Then we could all sign it, and then, should he disrupt again, any of us administrators would be able to block him with a clear heart. Wonder what you think. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 06:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::: I'm not convinced. I think that for a reader interested in learning about projective spaces, but without the category theory background, it is still useful for them to hear the fact that the "right" kind of maps between such spaces are the projective linear ones, even if they don't quite have the context to understand what "right" means. Anyway, why is this the right category? What about algebraic maps between projective spaces? [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 14:33, 10 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:: Your suggestion is not silly. I think it would be important to emphasise in this petition that although some of his/her contributions have been appreciated, his/her almost complete disregard for other editors' opinions is not. I've spent enough time on this now; if someone else writes it, I will sign it. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 13:11, 20 March 2006 (UTC) |
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== Sub and super markup feature request == |
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== <math> rendering bug == |
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I've requested that markup be added to simplify entering sub and superscript at [http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3080 Bug 3080]. It's just TeX markup with mandatory brackets. I think it will clean up the markup and be a lot easier to type than HTML. |
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Just noticed at [[perfect number]] (at the bottom of the section on [[perfect number#odd perfect numbers|odd perfect numbers]]), this math tag: |
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Examples: |
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<nowiki><math>2^{4^{n}}</math></nowiki> |
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is getting rendered as this html: |
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<nowiki><span class="texhtml">2<sup>4</sup><i>n</i></span></nowiki> |
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to appear as: |
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<span class="texhtml">2<sup>4</sup><i>n</i></span> |
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.. which is clearly wrong. |
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I wasted some time tracking down the paper to check the clearly wrong result before realising that it was the rendering rather than the text that was at fault. I don't know if this is a well known bug, but a brief search on Mediazilla didn't throw up any candidates. I have reported it to the [[m:Mailing list#Technical issues mailing lists|Wikitech-l mailing list]] mailing list. [[User:Hv|Hv]] 16:12, 20 March 2006 (UTC) |
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*<code>x^{3}</code> → x<sup>3</sup> (powers) |
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*<code>CO_{2}</code> → CO<sub>2</sub> (carbon dioxide symbol) |
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*<code>1^{st}</code> → 1<sup>st</sup> (ordinals) |
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*<code>^{2}H_{2}O</code> → <sup>2</sup>H<sub>2</sub>O (isotopes) |
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: I've noticed this before. It's actually ''not'' a bug in the LaTeX => HTML converter. It has to do with HTML tidy, which is a program that processes the HTML after the converter is done with it. The correct translation would be something like <nowiki>2<sup>4<sup>n</sup></sup></nowiki>. I think what happens is that HTML tidy sees the second <nowiki><sup></nowiki> and assumes that the author forgot the slash. So it inserts an extra slash producing <nowiki>2<sup>4</sup>n</sup></sup></nowiki>. Then it sees the next <nowiki></sup></nowiki> and can't find a matching <nowiki><sup></nowiki> so it kills that one too. Finally the last <nowiki></sup></nowiki> dies. This is just a theory, but I'm pretty sure that texvc gets the conversion right in the first place. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 18:30, 20 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I can't think of anything this would conflict with, can you? [http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/votes.cgi?action=show_user&bug_id=3080 Vote for it] if you like it. Suggest a different syntax if you don't. [http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1894 Other syntaxes were suggested], which I really don't like. - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 19:39, August 9, 2005 (UTC) |
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:: See for example http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=108. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 18:35, 20 March 2006 (UTC) |
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: I am not really happy with new notation. You can just use math tags to do the same thing. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 20:25, 9 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:::Thanks for the pointer. Is this [[HTML Tidy]] we're talking about? Because if so I'm surprised there's no mention there that it is being used on WP. (I also had a quick browse of the [[HTML Tidy]] bugs database, and saw no related item there.) If not, can you point me at some details of the HTML tidy you mean? I'd like to track this problem further ... [[User:Hv|Hv]] 19:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::There are lots of uses for super and subscripts that aren't math, like <math>CO_2\,\!</math> or "<math>1^{st}\,\!</math> place". There's really no need to type 17 characters to output 3. My markup is 6 characters; shorter and quicker and easier than both math and HTML markup. Math markup isn't appropriate for everything, and there's a lot of contention about whether it should be used inline with text at all. |
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::And regardless of whether math markup is the way things ''should'' be done, HTML markup is the way things ''are'' done, in most cases (as in these featured mathematics articles: [[Trigonometric function#History|1]], [[Ackermann function#History|2]]). |
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::This could save time and effort for those reading and writing the markup this way. - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 21:25, August 9, 2005 (UTC) |
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:::I agree that for things like CO2 and 1st it would be nice to have simpler markup. I disagree in the case of x^3, since this should have the semantics of a mathematical expression, but let's not go there, because that always seems to open up a can of worms :-). ''However'', I'm quite uneasy about adding your modifications to the wiki markup. How are you going to handle the fact that there are probably quite a few ^ and _ and { and } characters hanging around in existing articles? [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 22:25, 9 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::::It doesn't matter if there are ^, _, {, or } characters hanging around in the markup. It only matters if there are ^{ ... } or _{ ... } hanging around outside of math tags. If there are, I doubt there are many. The only article I can imagine having them is [[m:Help:Formula]]. There aren't even any in the [[TeX]], [[ASCII art]], or [[obfuscated code]] articles. (I checked!) I'm sure whoever would implement this also has the capability to search for the few that might be out there and surround them with nowiki tags first (or math tags, since they're probably mistakes). - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 23:46, August 9, 2005 (UTC) |
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::::Yes, that's the Tidy I mean. There is a flag $wgUseTidy in the mediawiki source which enables use of HTML Tidy. I'm pretty sure they use it on WP itself. You could try asking [[User:Jitse Niesen]], I know he's at least one person who's been thinking about Tidy recently :-) [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 20:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC) |
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FWIW, I like it, seems like a good idea. As to the stray-markup issue, what about articles that contain sample source code? I thought I saw an article that showed how to compute factorials in 18 different programming languages. [[User:Linas|linas]] 00:00, 10 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:::::Indeed, I do know about it. This is fixed in the current version of HTML Tidy, but that is not yet installed on the MediaWiki servers. Details are in [[mediazilla:599]]. I haven't yet seen your post to the mailing list (perhaps it's help up in a queue), but the solution is to upgrade HTML Tidy. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] ([[User talk:Jitse Niesen|talk]]) 23:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC) |
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: I have to admit it's starting to sound tempting. Have you suggested this to the people who work on chemistry articles? [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 00:30, 10 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::::::Cool, I even managed to find the changelog that fixed it ([http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/tidy/tidy/src/parser.c?r1=1.145&r2=1.146]) but I guess that's redundant now. (I also followed up with a "never mind" to my wikitech mail, so it may never get through to the list.) I look forward to the new version. [[User:Hv|Hv]] 23:23, 20 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::Yeah, I suggested it at [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry]]. :-) |
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::As for stray markup, just track it down and put <nowiki> tags around it before implementing the markup filters. I'm not sure how that works for preformatted text, though: |
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== [[Decimal representation]] or [[decimal expansion]]? == |
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Testing testing 1<sup>2</sup> <nowiki>3<sup>4</sup></nowiki> 5^{6} <nowiki>7^{8}</nowiki> |
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There is a discussion on which name is more appropriate at [[talk:decimal representation]]. Comments welcome. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 03:39, 21 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::Looks like it works for those, too. - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 02:47, August 10, 2005 (UTC) |
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==Problem at [[transfinite number]]== |
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== [[AKS primality test]] cleanup == |
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There is an editor, [[User:Jagged 85]], whom you may recognize as being interested in the contribution of Indian mathematicians. At [[transfinite number]] he has been making edits that attribute the concept to certain ancient Jaina mathematicians/philosophers. The evidence presented is, in my estimation, of the sort that would be accepted only by someone who either has an agenda, or who does not really understand the contemporary concept. I'd appreciate it if some interested folks would drop by and take a look. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 21:46, 22 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:I fully agree with your assessment. In fact, I'll go further: this is obvious crackpotism. Various ancient philosophers have made dubious or meaningless claims about infinity (I had found a quote by Aristotle stating that the number of grains of sands on a beach was "infinite"), but none of them corresponds to what we now view as transfinite numbers; and Indian mathematicians were so proud of their invention of the decimal system that they had fun writing very large numbers as cosmic cycles, and sometimes they confused them with infinity, but obviously this has nothing to do with the modern concept. I support any move toward removing the incriminated section. --[[User:Gro-Tsen|Gro-Tsen]] 22:04, 22 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I've expanded the article with information about the algorithm itself, and some detail about the proof. I'm not happy with the look of the <math> sections though - this is my first attempt at a significant amount of mathematical markup - so some help in cleanup would be appreciated. |
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::It is no more (and no less) nonsense than Galileo's work on infinite numbers, in which he found that the natural numbers were equinumerous with a subset (the set of squares) and recoiled in horror. It is not the transfinites. [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] 22:41, 22 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::Well, if it could be documented that the Jaina had the notion of equinumerosity (as witnessed by one-one matching), that would already be a step in the right direction, though I still don't think it would be enough to use the word "transfinite". As I understand it the historical context is that Cantor didn't want to use the word "infinite" because he was talking about things that were not absolutely infinite. They were ''trans''-finite, ''beyond'' a limit, but not ''in''-finite, ''without'' limit. That last sentence may be a bit of retrospective etymology on my part, but I think it really is the basic idea, whether or not Cantor had that specific etymological reasoning in mind. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 22:46, 22 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::::A section reviewing the general history of eastern and western ideas about infinity, including Aristotle's ideas, as well as Gaileo's shock, would not be out of place somwhere on WP. We do, after all, have [[:Category:History of mathematics]] and the topic of infinity, just like the question "what is four dimensions", was a legit intellectual excercise over the millenia. No doubt [[Immanuel Kant]] had some pronouncemnts as well. [[User:Linas|linas]] 00:54, 25 March 2006 (UTC) |
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Eventually this article should probably include the full algorithm in programming terms (rather than only in mathematical terms), and describe the complete proof. But I need to learn a bit more about finite fields and group theory before I can hope to do that myself. |
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As far as I can see, the only markup forcing things to PNG are the use of ''\sqrt(r)'' and ''\equiv''. [[User:Hv|Hv]] 13:39, 10 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::::Never mind. That article exists, its called [[infinity]], and the Indian stuff should be moved there. [[User:Linas|linas]] 01:02, 25 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:Thanks. It's an important algorithm, which caused quite a stir when it appeared. I cleaned it up a bit. In particular, you should use \log for logarithms in <math> mode, and \ge instead of >= (incidentally, \ge and \le are other commands that force PNG, which is rather strange as they can be rendered rather easily in HTML). Look at my changes for details. Oh yes, if you reference articles like ''Lenstra 2002,'' they should also be put in the references. Cheers, [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] ([[User talk:Jitse Niesen|talk]]) 15:05, 10 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== Another tedious orthography question == |
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::Thanks; I didn't know about \log, but I've noticed that I tend to miss the < and > operators; the references to more recent papers are not mine (though among my next tasks is to track those down and try to read them). |
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[[Vladimir Arnold]] or Arnol'd? [[Vladimir Drinfel'd]] or Drinfeld? We should be consistent: and preferably across all references to them in WP. (In both cases we currently use the apostrophe sometimes, but far from consistently.) —[[User:Blotwell|Blotwell]] 06:46, 24 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::I'm not convinced I like the mix of <math> and inline HTML, but I accept there is no ideal solution at the moment - Bubba73's comments in the [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Inline PNG formulas - a poll requested|Inline PNG formulas]] discussion above resonated strongly with me. [[User:Hv|Hv]] 16:59, 10 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: For Арнольд, we may as well defer to the way it appears on his books and [http://www.pdmi.ras.ru/~arnsem/Arnold/ web page], "Arnold". --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]<sup>[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]</sup> 02:02, 25 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::As I say in that discussion, I usually don't change PNG to HTML (though I do make the change sometimes when I don't think enough), but since you made the request, I thought it would be okay. Anyway, I changed it back. I hope you don't mind my changing the \forall in text. Sorry about assuming that you put the references in there; I should have checked that. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] ([[User talk:Jitse Niesen|talk]]) 17:20, 10 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: Transliteration of the [[soft sign]] ("ь")—which does not so much represent a sound as a modification—is problematic, and conventions vary. But for [[Romanization of Russian#Conventional transcription of Russian names|names]], it appears that in a context like this, appearing before a consonant, it would typically be omitted. Wikipedia allows us to choose that one as primary, for the article name, and use redirects for the variants. --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]<sup>[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]</sup> 18:35, 25 March 2006 (UTC) |
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== Springer Encyclopaedia of Mathematics == |
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::::Apologies if my lack of clarity here caused you to waste time. I can claim only ignorance and foolishness; I'm trying to catch up with the options and arguments on formatting, but I haven't located consensus yet on anything beyond ''no current solution is ideal'', and ''wouldn't it be nice if MathML were here already'', and ''it's a mess''. |
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I just stumbled across the [http://eom.springer.de/default.htm Springer Online Encyclopaedia of Mathematics] it claims to be |
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::::In summary, I don't know what is best for that page, and don't trust that what's best for me (my browser, my OS, my installed fonts) would be best for the majority, so I can only hope for and defer to someone better able to judge. [[User:Hv|Hv]] 18:10, 10 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:''the most up-to-date and comprehensive English-language graduate-level reference work in the field of mathematics today. This online edition comprises more than 8,000 entries and illuminates nearly 50,000 notions in mathematics'' |
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and seems to live up to its description. It seems like this could be a useful resouces for many articles. --[[User:Salix alba|Salix alba]] ([[User talk:Salix alba|talk]]) 00:14, 25 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:Yes, and its pretty good too, at least for the 3-4 articles I looked at. I created a template fr this, which may be usd as the following (for example:) <nowiki>{{springer|id=f/f041440|title=Fredholm kernel|author=B.V. Khvedelidze, G.L. Litvinov}} </nowiki> which results in |
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== Move of [[Inclusion (mathematics)]] to [[Inclusion map]] == |
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::{{springer|id=f/f041440|title=Fredholm kernel|author=B.V. Khvedelidze, G.L. Litvinov}} |
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I am proposing moving [[Inclusion (mathematics)]] to [[Inclusion map]]. For my reasons and how I plan to go about it see [[Talk:Inclusion (mathematics)]]. If you have any thoughts on this move please comment on that talk page. Thanks. [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 18:42, August 10, 2005 (UTC) |
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: [[User:Linas|linas]] 00:47, 25 March 2006 (UTC) |
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== I found this on VfD == |
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Would be a good idea to add those entries to [[Wikipedia:Missing science topics]]. I will try to look into that these days. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 06:45, 25 March 2006 (UTC) |
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* [[Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Hyper_generalized_orthogonal_Lie_algebra]] --[[User:R.Koot|R.Koot]] 03:45, 11 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== Mathematics and space == |
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First article I hit was the [[normal distribution]] [http://eom.springer.de/N/n067460.htm] I was quite disappointed in that it doesn't have a ''single'' graph of it. That said, it'd be worth copying the index into a new article or added to the missing science topics. [[User:Cburnett|Cburnett]] 06:56, 25 March 2006 (UTC) |
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Over at the [[Talk:Space#On arranging stuff in this article]] page there's a discussion about whether the section on Mathematics and space could be rewritten to contain a brief summary of how space works in maths, as at the moment it is pretty much a list of links. Could someone take a look at [[Space]], which it is hoped will be a big picture article taking in the various uses of the concept of space, and see if work can be done on the [[Space#Mathematics and space|Mathematics and space]] section. Thanks for any help or thoughts. [[User:Steve block|Steve block]] [[User talk:steve block|talk]] 07:58, 11 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:No, you can't do that; this came up before with MathWorld. It's a copyright violation. |
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:The Springer encyclopedia seems pretty weak in set theory. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 07:29, 25 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:: Also compare the article on [[Self-adjoint operator]] in WP to the one in Springer. Tell me which one is better.--[[User:CSTAR|CSTAR]] 14:45, 25 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::: Ours is definitely more self-adjoint: |
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:::: [[User:CSTAR|C<sup>*</sup>]]=C. |
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::: [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 19:30, 25 March 2006 (UTC) |
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Is it worth an article [[SpringerLink Online Encyclopaedia of Mathematics]]? --[[User:Salix alba|Salix alba]] ([[User talk:Salix alba|talk]]) 20:21, 25 March 2006 (UTC) |
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== VfD for [[Mathematics and God]] == |
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:I would think it's probably worth an article (I never heard of it before this discussion, but we're not talking about something put up by some random hobbyist; this is Springer). The issue is how to write a neutral review that's not original research. That's a problem to which I have not thought of any good answer (it's why I slapped my own article on Kunen's book, [[Set Theory: An Introduction to Independence Proofs]], with an OR tag). --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 20:53, 25 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::See what reviews it has in the scholarly press. Scholar.google.com should have something (this should solve the ''Set Theory'' problem, anyway.) If that fails, it can be put in WP space, as a resource. [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] 21:26, 25 March 2006 (UTC) |
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They have a lot of great articles. They're beating us in a lot of areas, and already kick the crap out of mathworld (soon it'll be time to put mathworld out of its misery). However, have you seen their diagrams? Complete garbage! -[[User:Lethe/sig|lethe]] <sup>[[User talk:Lethe/sig|talk]] [{{fullurl:User talk:Lethe|action=edit§ion=new}} +]</sup> 17:23, 26 March 2006 (UTC) |
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: I have merged their lists of entries into the [[Wikipedia:Missing science topics]]. I highly doubt that this is a copyright violation in any way, as while their lists may be copyrighted (the order of entries I guess :), individual items in the list are not, and after merging together the mathworld links and the springer links and removing the bluelinks, little if any resemblance is left to their orginal lists. |
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The article [[Mathematics and God]] is up for deletion. I voted to keep, here's the VfD page: [[Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Mathematics and God]]. — [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 19:36, August 11, 2005 (UTC) |
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: By the way, I brought some order in that [[Wikipedia:Missing science topics]] by completing incomplete entries (mathworld had those), putting things in lowercase, regularly removing the bluelinks, and providing links to google search and google books for each entry. Those lists can be rather good at suggesting new redirects, new articles, or judging where we are lacking. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 21:28, 26 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:Of course, anybody watching [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity]] would have discovered this a few days ago (sorry for the shameless plug, but Paul gave me a perfect opportunity). I moved the section "Articles on VfD" up to make it more prominent. By the way, it quite worries me that the article got a dozen ''delete'' votes and none of them bothered to comment on the reasoning brought up subsequently — I understand Ed Poor's frustration better now. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] ([[User talk:Jitse Niesen|talk]]) 11:37, 12 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:: Actually, I will send Springer an email asking if they mind using their list as a resource for our redlinks list. Just to be safe. :) [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 00:19, 27 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::Yes that's how I discovered it by checking up on [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity]] (I had forgotten to put it in my watchlist) And I agree about the comment on VfD. [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 16:50, August 12, 2005 (UTC) |
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I've looked things up in the library's copy one or two times; good to see I don't have to go all the way there now... :-) Anyone know if the online edition differs significantly from the one in print? [[User:Fredrik|Fredrik Johansson]] 00:32, 27 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::BTW, its not showing up on [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity]] any more ... maybe the time limits should be increased to more than a week? When I'm not in wiki-holic mode, more than a week can pass before I look at stuff. [[User:Linas|linas]] 23:58, 16 August 2005 (UTC) |
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none of the springer links seems to work. how does one get to it from the springer website? thanks. [[User:Mct mht|Mct mht]] 07:15, 5 April 2006 (UTC) |
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::::The idea is that VfD discussions are supposed to last only seven days, so I thought it wouldn't be useful to list it longer. However, as you noticed, some discussions are not closed after that period, so now VfD pages are kept for ten days. I'm still trying to find the right balance on how long to keep the material. Of course, you can always look in the history of the page. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] ([[User talk:Jitse Niesen|talk]]) 17:33, 17 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: The Springer server is down every now and then. Will come back eventually. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 02:36, 6 April 2006 (UTC) |
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:::::The VfD is closed. Keep won, though I'd hardly call it a concensus. The NPOV tag remains in the article itself (correctly, in my view). China, India, and the Arabic world have produced more notable mathematicians than just [[Ramanujan]]; those who voted to keep might help by finding quotations from other non-Western voices. Mathematicians like [[Bertrand Russell|Russell]] and [[William Kingdon Clifford|Clifford]] are well-known for their writings on God; I have added their remarks, and would invite others to add more of the kind. Especially nice would be more fun contributions like [[Paul Erdős|Erdős]] and (my addition) [[G. H. Hardy|Hardy]]. --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]] 20:01, 2005 August 19 (UTC) |
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== blahtex 0.4.4 released == |
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== Category:Mathematician Wikipedians == |
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Major changes since 0.4.3 are: |
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I created [[:Category:Mathematician Wikipedians]] as a subcategory in [[:Category:Wikipedians by profession]] and categorized myself in there. Company is welcome. :) [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 23:28, 11 August 2005 (UTC) |
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* support for Japanese and Cyrillic in PNGs |
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* much faster PNG output, because we're using dvipng rather than dvips/imagemagick |
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Useful links: |
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: What about [[:Category:Wikipedian mathematicians]]? --[[User:R.Koot|R.Koot]] 23:56, 11 August 2005 (UTC) |
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* test wiki at http://wiki.blahtex.org (recently got attacked by spammers :-)) |
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* page illustrating blahtex's [http://wiki.blahtex.org/go/Blahtex_features features] |
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* blahtex [http://blahtex.org home page] |
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* updated [http://blahtex.org/errors.html error list] (currently 337 errors) |
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[[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 14:10, 26 March 2006 (UTC) |
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Will people list themselves there or can anyone list them there? If the former, the list may be so incomplete as to be useless. [[User:Michael Hardy|Michael Hardy]] 21:28, 18 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: If anybody is willing to go through mathematicians user's pages and add them to one or the other category, I will not mind. :) [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 01:28, 19 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:: Do you think that the others would? I think a directory is a great idea but perhaps the listing should be voluntary. Or maybe you could just leave someone a note on their talk page when you have added them (to give them the option to be unlisted). What do you think? --[[User:Kooky|Kooky]] | [[User talk:Kooky|Talk]] 19:13, 19 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::: To rephrase myself, if anybody is willing to go through mathematicians talk pages and mention to them about one or the other category, I will not mind. :) [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 19:56, 19 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:The dx in <tt>\int f(x) dx</tt> doesn't look right in the MathML output (it's rendered "d x"). [[User:Fredrik|Fredrik Johansson]] 14:45, 26 March 2006 (UTC) |
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[[Highlander|There must be only one]]. If we do not merge these now, someone will do it later and more clumsily, and with much more work. There seems to be no standard, and [[:Category:Wikipedian mathematicians]] is more idiomatic to my ear, so I propose we use that one. [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] 14:01, 19 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::Which browser+version are you using? This was a known problem with earlier versions of Firefox. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 14:48, 26 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:[[:Category:Wikipedian mathematicians]] also fits better with [[:Category:Wikipedians by profession]]. My vote is with Septentrionalis. I've added Wikipedian mathematicians to [[:Category:Wikipedians by profession]], so at least it is now obvious there are two conflicting page titles. --[[User:Stochata|stochata]] 20:05, 19 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:::Firefox 1.5.0.1. [[User:Fredrik|Fredrik Johansson]] 14:58, 26 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::Don't know about you folks, but my profession seems to change every few years. (Three years ago, I was a "businessman". Now I'm an "engineer".) Classification by areas of interest, past and/or present, might be more accurate than whatever (non-)career is one is fated to, given the caprecious winds of the economy and slipperiness of the rungs of the social climbing ladder. [[User:Linas|linas]] 21:31, 19 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::::Hmmm... does the same thing happen at all font sizes? [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 20:54, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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According to [[What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information|this]], WP is not a directory. However, many categories for Wikipedians already exist. Since all the listings appear to be voluntary ones, I have no further comment on the subject. Oleg: Sorry about the misinterpretation. =) --[[User:Kooky|Kooky]] | [[User talk:Kooky|Talk]] 22:32, 19 August 2005 (UTC) |
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[[Image:Blahtex dx.png|thumb|Normal, no style, enlarged.]] |
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OK, I moved myself to [[:Category:Wikipedian mathematicians]]. If more people feel to prefer this one, we will need to nominate [[:Category:Mathematician Wikipedians]] for deletion and move the other people in there to [[:Category:Wikipedian mathematicians]]. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 05:48, 20 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:::::Essentially. Increasing the text size a few times doesn't change the absolute width (it stays at 3 pixels); it looks normal if I use an obscenely large font. By the way, the space gets one pixel narrower if I disable the page CSS style (but still looks too wide, though this could be in my imagination). See image. [[User:Fredrik|Fredrik Johansson]] 21:28, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I've now nominated [[:Category:Mathematician Wikipedians]] for deletion. Note that the yokels don't seem too happy about the other page either (as per Koooky's comment above). --[[User:Stochata|stochata]] 15:34, 26 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::::::That's a bummer. Thanks for pointing this out. I looks like Firefox is interpreting the "d" and "x" as belonging in separate "frames" and doesn't want to overlap them; therefore because the "d" is italicised and tall, it pushes the "x" to the right. I'm not totally sure about this, especially since there's a one pixel overlap in your second example, but that could just be some rendering thing that happens after the frames have been positioned. I will put it on my list of bugs to pursue; it's probably something that the Firefox folks will need to deal with. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] 03:39, 2 April 2006 (UTC) |
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: [[User:Stochata|stochata]], thanks. It seems there is a likelyhood both categories will be deleted, so you could go vote on that. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 16:08, 27 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== |
== [[gradient]] issues == |
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There is some disagreement on what to include in the [[gradient]] article. It is argued by some parties that it should be a disambig. Comments welcome at [[talk:gradient#Should gradient be a disambigutation page?]] [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 17:20, 26 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I would like to announce that I have nominated Jitse for adminship, and I am here shamelessly encouraging everyone to vote (in support I hope ;-). To vote or comment go here: [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jitse Niesen]]. — [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 16:58, August 12, 2005 (UTC) |
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== Programs for linear algebra illustrations == |
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:Paul's nomination was successful, so I have now access to the admin tools. Thanks to everybody for voting. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] ([[User talk:Jitse Niesen|talk]]) 12:28, 20 August 2005 (UTC) |
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What programs would people around here recommend for making images to illustrate geometry and linear algebra concepts (and the like)? I'd like to manually input coordinates for vector arrows, line segments, points, etc., choose colors and line styles, and output the result to SVG. Eukleides looks good, but it doesn't do 3D and I need that. [[User:Fredrik|Fredrik Johansson]] 23:45, 26 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::Jitse, shouldn't you update your blurb in the participants list to reflect your newly elevated status? ---[[User:Hillman|CH ]] [[User_talk:Hillman|(talk)]] 00:04, 24 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: Matlab gives you complete control, 3D, and output to color EPS. Here is a (free) program which it seems outputs to svg [http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/loadFile.do?objectId=7401&objectType=FILE]. May be more. Of course, Matlab costs money, but should be available at any university, if you are in academia. Here are some [[User:Oleg Alexandrov/pictures|pictures]] I made with it. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 00:16, 27 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::Yeah, I have access to Matlab, but not at home (not conveniently, anyway). [[User:Fredrik|Fredrik Johansson]] 00:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC) |
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: You could learn a scripting language and roll your own tool. It shouldn't be that difficult. [[User:Dysprosia|Dysprosia]] 02:41, 27 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:: Next thing you build your own rocket in your backyard, and could as well write your own encyclopedia. :) [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 04:03, 27 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::Been there done that [http://www.singsurf.org/ SingSurf], good for algebraic surfaces. It relies on [http://www.javaview.de/ JavaView] which is quite good for 3D maths and is free as in beer but not speach. Also see [[Interactive geometry software]] for others. --[[User:Salix alba|Salix alba]] ([[User talk:Salix alba|talk]]) 12:04, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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== |
== IE compatibility == |
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I wonder what people think of a policy of changing unicode html tokens to tex tags in order to ensure compatibility with Internet explorer browsers which apparently have problems with some unicode symbols. I guess compatibility with IE takes precedence over our own MoS guidelines, right? What do you folks say? -[[User:Lethe/sig|lethe]] <sup>[[User talk:Lethe/sig|talk]] [{{fullurl:User talk:Lethe|action=edit§ion=new}} +]</sup> 11:53, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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Maynard Handley has put up a wiki demonstrating some improvements he has made to the LaTeX => PNG rendering process. |
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: We shouldn't use Unicode gratuitously in articles anyway. Unicode is far from being a ubiquitous standard, and when someone tries to edit in something that isn't Unicode capable, it screws up the entire article. That's not good behaviour. [[User:Dysprosia|Dysprosia]] 11:57, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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With his permission I offer you the URL: http://name99.org/wiki99/. '''It will disappear within about a week''' so check it out soon. |
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:: When I work on my Windows laptop I don't see some Unicode characters on Wikipedia, even though I use Firefox and not IE. I guess it is a problem of missing fonts more than browser. |
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:: Changing unicode to LaTeX may be a huge amount of work, and may yield expressions which are a mix of both html and TeX. It would be fine I think if people do it on a case by case basis, but I would not be sure about making that a policy. |
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:: To comment on Dysprosia's comment, Unicode is a fact of life on Wikipedia given interlanguage links and foreign names/words. Luckily not that many browsers screw Unicode anymore, maybe just Lynx or really old browsers. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 18:52, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::: Well, I happen to use Lynx some times when I don't have access to a graphical browser, or (less often for me), when I use other operating systems I may use a browser that may not support Unicode. I'm not saying that Unicode should be completely removed from articles, it just shouldn't be used when there are other more portable equivalents out there that won't be mangled if someone edits with something that's not Unicode compatible. For example, one shouldn't just use a Unicode alpha when an α will be just as suitable. [[User:Dysprosia|Dysprosia]] 22:55, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::: I don't understand your example. Isn't that a unicode alpha that you've displayed? We shouldn't use unicode when unicode will suffice? -[[User:Lethe/sig|lethe]] <sup>[[User talk:Lethe/sig|talk]] [{{fullurl:User talk:Lethe|action=edit§ion=new}} +]</sup> 23:04, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::::: No, it's a HTML entity, edit the section and have a look: α renders as α. [[User:Dysprosia|Dysprosia]] 23:08, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::::::Oh, I see. But uh, don't the web browsers render the HTML tokens with unicode? I thought they did, and so therefore HTML tokens and UTF-8 text are equivalent (for viewing purposes). Or am I mistaken? -[[User:Lethe/sig|lethe]] <sup>[[User talk:Lethe/sig|talk]] [{{fullurl:User talk:Lethe|action=edit§ion=new}} +]</sup> 23:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::::::: The difference is that the Unicode alpha is just another character in the text, like "t", or "q". The HTML entity is the string "α". ''All'' good computer systems should support ASCII, and the HTML entity consists of only ASCII characters, so no matter if you use a computer that supports Unicode or if you don't, the string will be unchanged. However, some browsers that don't support Unicode simply ignore the Unicode characters, so if someone edits with one of those browsers, it will look like all the Unicode characters in the article have suddenly disappeared. If the browser chooses to render "α" with a Unicode character, that's fine, but it doesn't mean that that Unicode character is somehow equivalent to the HTML entity -- they aren't. Hope that explains things a bit better... [[User:Dysprosia|Dysprosia]] 23:16, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::::::::Yes, I understand now. UTF-8 text will get lost in the edit box by some browsers, even though it renders the same. Thank you for explaining. -[[User:Lethe/sig|lethe]] <sup>[[User talk:Lethe/sig|talk]] [{{fullurl:User talk:Lethe|action=edit§ion=new}} +]</sup> 06:58, 29 March 2006 (UTC) |
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: Replacing Unicode would be bad policy. This question was already decided when the wiki software switched over to [[UTF-8]] as a standard. The world has gone Unicode, and that includes even standards-flouting Microsoft. To the best of my knowledge, all contemporary browsers can display Unicode characters if configured with adequate fonts. Usually [[Code 2000]] will suffice. --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]<sup>[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]</sup> 21:29, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::I brought this up because some user went on a crusade to replace all instances of ℵ with <math>\aleph</math> inline and display mode alike. I didn't like it, but apparently IE doesn't display ℵ correctly even if you have a font for it (which we learned because it displays if he changes web browser). -[[User:Lethe/sig|lethe]] <sup>[[User talk:Lethe/sig|talk]] [{{fullurl:User talk:Lethe|action=edit§ion=new}} +]</sup> 23:08, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::: PNG shouldn't be used inline. [[User:Dysprosia|Dysprosia]] 23:10, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::::That is also my opinion, but do we not have an obligation to lower our standards to support IE? Some might say we do. -[[User:Lethe/sig|lethe]] <sup>[[User talk:Lethe/sig|talk]] [{{fullurl:User talk:Lethe|action=edit§ion=new}} +]</sup> 23:16, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::::: The HTML entity ℵ looks like it works... [[User:Dysprosia|Dysprosia]] 23:25, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::::::Are you saying that ℵ displays differently from ℵ in IE? Septentrionalis told me once that he couldn't see ℵ correctly (I don't know for sure what setup he was using). --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 23:33, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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In my opinion, some of the improvements are great (Wikipedia should definitely use them), some are so-so, and some are, let's say, ambitious. |
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:::::::Doesn't work for me, either. I certainly prefer ℵ, regardless, as it's difficult to distinguish ℵ from the Hebrew letter by inspection if they were in Unicode, and those may display differently on different browsers. — [[User:Arthur Rubin|Arthur Rubin]] | [[User_talk:Arthur_Rubin|(talk)]] 23:36, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::::: I'm saying that ℵ should work on IE, that is, it should actually display. It shouldn't matter that much that it "looks different". I don't have IE so I can't check this. [[User:Dysprosia|Dysprosia]] 23:56, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::::::I do not see the point of distinguishing ℵ from the Hebrew letter. Next we will be wanting an α different from alpha. I'm using a computer in the same cluster; both ℵ and ℵ now ''display'' well (and almost identically) in this IE set-up, but the second is a little square box in the edit window. [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] 00:08, 29 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::::::::alefsym definitely looks better alongside roman text than a Hewbrew aleph. The Hebrew aleph is too big. Do you not also find it so? -[[User:Lethe/sig|lethe]] <sup>[[User talk:Lethe/sig|talk]] [{{fullurl:User talk:Lethe|action=edit§ion=new}} +]</sup> 07:05, 29 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::::::: I don't understand what you're talking about. If you want an aleph, you have ℵ, which actually does work. [[User:Dysprosia|Dysprosia]] 00:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I'd like to hear some opinions. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 21:39, 12 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:::::::::OK, when I reboot into Windows to look at this in IE, I just see a square for the ℵ character. This is in IE 6.0.2900.someothernumbers, SP2, WinXP Home Edition, Version 2002, SP2. I suppose to really figure out what's going on I should say what fonts I have installed, but there are too many to conveniently list. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 00:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::::::::::It's probably not a font issue, since if you try another browser on the same system, it will display. It's an IE issue. Now the question is, do we want to replace inline HTML token/UTF-8 with tex to support IE? -[[User:Lethe/sig|lethe]] <sup>[[User talk:Lethe/sig|talk]] [{{fullurl:User talk:Lethe|action=edit§ion=new}} +]</sup> 07:05, 29 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I am the "user [who] went on a crusade to replace all instances of ℵ with <math>\aleph</math>". I was just replacing characters which I could not read with IE in those articles which I was trying to clean up for other reasons. alefsym causes the same problem as "ℵ" in IE. Also there is an element symbol which does not display correctly; and a proves symbol. Although these are rare. Oddly, I think that the actual Hebrew letter aleph works (at least I see the Hebrew letters OK in Google when I switch languages). [[User:JRSpriggs|JRSpriggs]] 05:24, 29 March 2006 (UTC) |
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: The rendering looks worse to me. [[User:Dysprosia|Dysprosia]] 03:21, 13 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: Why do novices constantly "fix" things that obviously are not broken for most people? If the Unicode characters are in the article, there is nothing wrong with the characters for the author, and presumably for most readers. Adjust your own browser, your fonts, your configuration. Common sense and common courtesy suggest you at least ''ask'' before launching an ill-conceived massive alteration campaign—''especially'' if you haven't been editing long enough to create a User page! |
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::Those are all terrible on my system (Firefox on KDE/linux with 1024x768 res) -[[User:Lethe|Lethe]] | [[User talk:Lethe|Talk]] 03:35, August 13, 2005 (UTC) |
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: Suggestion: Look at [[User:KSmrq/Chars|this page]] and adjust the things under ''your'' control so you see as few missing characters as possible. (Note: For me, none are missing. Again, I highly recommend [[Code 2000]].) This is a page in my personal user space; ''do not'' edit it! --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]<sup>[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]</sup> 07:07, 29 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::I have been editing here for about two months. I did not create a user page because I have no interest in talking about myself for the public. I have a User-talk page to communicate about our shared work here. You are wrong to say that these characters are "obviously are not broken for most people". Most people use Internet Explorer 6.02 or earlier. So most of our readers will not be able to read the characters in question. And remember, this is an encyclopedia for the general public, not a private domain for you and the other authors to glory in their own words. Do not worry, I will not edit your user pages. [[User:JRSpriggs|JRSpriggs]] 07:33, 29 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::Correct link to the zip-file: [http://name99.org/wiki99.zip wiki99.zip] |
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:::Don't get defensive. KSmrq has a good point. We have a community here with established conventions. You can do whatever you like, make whatever decisions you want, decide what's the best format to use in articles, but we have the same rights, and in order to keep from devolving into continual revert wars, we try to respect consensus and community guidelines. When you've been here a while, you get a stronger feeling for that. Now, obviously you feel that wikipedia has to conform to IE's capabilities. Maybe you should try to win people over to your view instead of fighting with them. At the moment, I'm on the fence, but about to fall on the other side. -[[User:Lethe/sig|lethe]] <sup>[[User talk:Lethe/sig|talk]] [{{fullurl:User talk:Lethe|action=edit§ion=new}} +]</sup> 07:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::: Several distinct issues are at play. One is the recurring integration of novices into the community, with the usual exuberant misstep and jaded correction. A second is the display of the rich panoply of Unicode characters, whether mathematical or otherwise, in articles as viewed with a diversity of browers and fonts. Almost always the problem is with the fonts and browser settings. The Unicode characters are here to stay, especially when BlahTeX generates MathML for Wikipedia. A third issue is what appears in edit windows. The wiki software could be conservative and convert non-ASCII characters to named or numeric entities, but a browser that can display a page with Unicode characters can probably edit them as well. |
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:There is a particular, uncomfortably large, font size at which the rendering is readable (although still worse), otherwise the rendering is unreadable (Firefox 1.0.4 and IE 6 SP2 on Win XP HE SP2, LCD screen 1680x1050). I think the way it scales with font size is cool though. --[[User:Noosfractal|nosfractal]] 04:21, 13 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:::: But my point is none of these. I'm genuinely puzzled by the [[hubris]] of editors who assume that the ''article'' is broken because their ''view'' of it shows missing characters, especially when the same character appears in many articles. Do they think everyone else is stupid or blind? I don't know the statistics for Wikipedia readers, but one [http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp browser watch site] shows slightly over 50% IE6 users, so it would seem reasonable to assume that many people had viewed any given Wikipedia article in IE6 without complaint. Yet these editors inexplicably fail to draw that conclusion. |
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:::: Which leads to a design question: Is there anything we can do to head off these edits before they occur? The insert menu already shows a large assortment of non-ASCII characters, but obviously that's not enough of a hint to some editors. Should ''every'' article page have a prominent link to help with missing characters? --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]<sup>[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]</sup> 09:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::The auto-scaling feature is indeed interesting, but the actual rendering, as noted above, does resemble an atrophied 16th century manuscript. (I'm using Konqueror.) [[User:Linas|linas]] 22:42, 16 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::::: I know what we need. Here pages that use indic fonts include a template which indicates that they're being used and that if you want to view the page, you have to make sure your system is ready. If we want to use stuff in a math article which doesn't have widespread support, we could have a template like that one. That would probably keep new editors from changing font stuff, right? -[[User:Lethe/sig|lethe]] <sup>[[User talk:Lethe/sig|talk]] [{{fullurl:User talk:Lethe|action=edit§ion=new}} +]</sup> 12:26, 29 March 2006 (UTC)<div class="infobox" style="width: 293px; padding: 0.2em; margins: 0em;"> |
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{| width="293px" align="right" class="expansion" style="background: #f7f8ff; border-collapse: collapse; padding: 0em; margins: 0em; font-size: smaller; line-height:1.2;" | |
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::: Having a stronger TeX->HTML conversion would make autoscaling irrelevant, however. A good first step has been taken in ensuring that the HTML text is the same font as the rest of the document, but the conversion is still so weak as to render less than signs in PNG and not use HTML (iirc). [[User:Dysprosia|Dysprosia]] 22:52, 16 August 2005 (UTC) |
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| style="vertical-align:middle;" | [[Image:Example.of.complex.text.rendering.svg]] |
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| style="vertical-align:middle;" | '''This page contains [[Brahmic family|Indic text]].''' Without rendering support, you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. [[Wikipedia:Enabling complex text support for Indic scripts|More...]] |
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:::: Actually, in my browser (Safari 2.0, also with Firefox 1.0.4 for mac), <math>xyz</math> is rendered (via HTML) in a ''different'' font to ''xyz''. Am I doing something wrong? [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 23:18, 16 August 2005 (UTC) |
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|} |
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</div> |
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::::: Dave, go to [[User:Dmharvey/monobook.css]] and add |
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::::::span.texhtml { font-family: sans-serif; } |
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::::: See [[User:Jitse Niesen/monobook.css]] for an example. Unless anybody disagrees that this is a good idea, I will try to get this in the site-wide stylesheet. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] ([[User talk:Jitse Niesen|talk]]) 10:24, 17 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:::: Looks like your skin. It looks quite nice and consistent in Cologne Blue, where math is in the same font as italics. [[User:Dysprosia|Dysprosia]] 11:45, 17 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:::::Not for me, if I switch to Cologne Blue, then <math>xyz</math> (<nowiki><math>xyz</math></nowiki>) is rendered in a different font than ''xyz'' (<nowiki>''xyz''</nowiki>). Perhaps a browser thing, or something to do with the browser settings? More research needed. -- [[User:Jitse Niesen|Jitse Niesen]] ([[User talk:Jitse Niesen|talk]]) 11:59, 17 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:::::: That's quite bizarre. The fonts ''should'' be the same, anyway. [[User:Dysprosia|Dysprosia]] 12:15, 17 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:: Hmmm. I've applied Jitse's suggestions (about [[User:Dmharvey/monobook.css]]). Now I get matching fonts in Firefox, but not in Safari. I've tried clearing caches and restarting the browser, and as far as I can tell Safari isn't trying to apply its own style sheets, so I have no idea what's going on. Ah well, no big deal. Incidentally, I don't often use Firefox, but now I'm looking at it, the italics in normal text look ''awful''. The spacing ''after'' a ''word'' in ''italics'' is ''much'' too ''small''. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 12:32, 17 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== Number articles up for deletion == |
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* [[1984 (number)]] ([[Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/1984 (number)|discussion]]) |
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The aforementioned article is up for deletion. [[User:Uncle G|Uncle G]] 15:42:27, 2005-08-16 (UTC) |
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:I've voted to delete this article. I agree with the sentiments expressed here: [[User:Uncle G/Wikipedia is not infinite]]. [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 16:59, August 16, 2005 (UTC) |
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== New section: "Mathematics featured articles", comments? == |
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I've added a new section: "Mathematics featured articles" to the project page. I might expand it a bit with some information on "Featured articles" and the FAC process. It might also be nice to track down and add the date when each article became an FA. Comments? [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 18:48, August 16, 2005 (UTC) |
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Ok I've made some changes to the "featured articles" section. In particular I: |
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# added a list of "former features articles" |
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# added the date when each article was "featured" and "de-featured" |
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# linked the date to the "featured" or "de-featured" discussion (for those I could find, older articles don't have nicely organized and archived discussions) |
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# used a tabular format rather than a list format. |
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# changed the section title to reflect the addition of "former" articles. |
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[[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 20:28, August 18, 2005 (UTC) |
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== Mathematical notation in articles == |
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I'm new here, and I'd like clarification about use of mathematical notation, specifically in set theory and mathematical logic. For example, my new stub of [[Transitive set]] uses the ∈ (∈) symbol, which the guidelines suggest should be replaced by the text "is in". [[User:Arthur Rubin|Arthur Rubin]] 00:29, 17 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: Generally speaking, you would want to follow the guidelines. However, my opinion in your case is that using ∈ is fine, essentially because the audience for that article would be expected to be familiar with standard set-theoretic notations already. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 03:23, 17 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: Two distinct concerns apply, both of which argue for "is in". The first is whether a reader can properly view the character in their browser. This would not be a problem for a PNG image, but that's ugly inline. The second concern is audience comprehension. For this brief article there is little to be gained by technical notation; "is in" may invite more readers. |
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: The implications of these two concerns vary among articles. We can only hope that the character set problem will go away soon, but meanwhile the list of "Insert" characters below the edit window is considered safe. In the case of a long, technical article like [[Kripke semantics]], proper notation is essential, so use it — though as little as possible in the lead paragraphs, and in <nowiki><math></nomath></nowiki> brackets elsewhere. --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]] 04:46, 2005 August 17 (UTC) |
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:: Good points by Dmharvey and KSmrq. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 15:16, 17 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== more about improving inline PNGs == |
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I've been trying to improve on what Maynard Handley did with the PNGs. |
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There are still severe problems (mostly relating to Windows), and it's not good enough for deployment, but I think it's starting to get somewhere, and I'd appreciate some opinions. |
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Check out [[User:Dmharvey/Inline_PNG_discussion]]. |
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[[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 17:15, 17 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== Requested move == |
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Could an admin move [[Menelaus theorem]] to [[Menelaus' theorem]]? Note that the page's principal author [[User:Tokek]] has left a note on [[talk:Menelaus theorem]] regarding the choice of title, but as I read it it doesn't seem that Tokek would find this change objectionable. —[[User:Blotwell|Blotwell]] 06:57, 20 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: I did it. Now [[Menelaus theorem]] is a redirect to [[Menelaus' theorem]]. Hope that was a correct move. --[[User:Zero0000|Zero]] 08:28, 20 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== Framed box around formulas == |
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Yesterday I removed with my bot framed boxes around formulas wherever I could find them. I mean, boxes of the form: |
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<blockquote style="padding: 1em; border: 2px dotted black;"> |
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This is a theorem, or a formula. |
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</blockquote> |
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I based my reasoning on the discussions at [[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/Archive10#Dotted_framebox_around_formulas]] and [[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/Archive6#A_little_note_on_using_purple_dotted_boxes]] but [[User:Paul August|Paul]] rightly pointed out that a preliminary discusion would have been good. So, belately, I wonder, what do people think of these boxes? Thanks. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 18:46, 20 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: I don't feel strongly one way or the other, but I never use the boxes. I think they should probably be left out unless something really needs to be emphasized. [[User:Bubba73|Bubba73]] 19:28, August 20, 2005 (UTC) |
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:I don't much like them. I think it would be good to remove them, at least in the cases I've seen. Perhaps there might be a use for some more visually pleasing way (''not'' purple dotted lines) to set off certain text. But it would be best to use such devices sparingly, if at all. [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 19:36, August 20, 2005 (UTC) |
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:I think the borders are gaudy and obtrusive, but I'm not going to bend anyone's arm either way. --[[User:Kooky|Kooky]] | [[User talk:Kooky|Talk]] 20:28, 20 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: Can we have hot pink with circulating neons? --[[User:Zero0000|Zero]] 02:44, 21 August 2005 (UTC) |
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==Characterizing Notability of Mathematicians== |
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Hi all, I am a non-member dropping by to alert you all to an ongoing VfD discussion. |
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The issue is: which mathematicians should have biographies in the Wikipedia? I think a simple and common sense rule of thumb (the title is a joke; of course I don't expect a mathematically precise criterion) should be: |
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:a wikibiography of mathematician M, which claims no non-mathematical notability for M, should explain or at least describe ''at least one clearly notable mathematical achievement'' of M. |
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I am no doubt hardly the first to point out that with thousands of person obtaining a Ph.D. in math every year, and gadzillions of math professors around the world, and tens of thousands of members of SIAM, AMS, MAA, and other mathematical societies around the world, simply earning a Ph.D. or publishing some research papers probably shouldn't qualify one for a biography. |
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Here is a more bizarre possibility: suppose the article claims that M is notable because he won the Y Prize, it should link to the formal English language Y prize citation for M. If that doesn't exist (in English), at the Y Foundation website, and if there is no other grounds for M's alleged notability, I question whether M should have an entry in the English language Wikipedia. |
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No, I didn't make that up. This is exactly the argument some nonmathematician made in a VfD. (Quick now: has anyone here ever heard of the [[Zois Prize]]? ''Before'' reading the preceding sentence?) |
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Yesterday, I happened across several biographies listed in [[:Category:Algebraic graph theory]] which I think violate my simple rule: |
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#[[Aleksander Malnic]] |
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#[[Dragan Marusic]] |
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#[[Tomaz Pisanski]] |
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I have nominated them for deletion as non-notable. I think the first two are clear cases, the third maybe a bit less clear. Just to be clear, in each case, I would be equally happy with either of the following outcomes: |
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# the article is deleted on the stated grounds, |
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# someone comes up with a useful description of a truly notable mathematical achievement of the subject. |
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I hope many of you will drop by those pages and vote one way or the other, but I'd also like to see any comments on the bigger issue raised in the subject line: how can one characterize which mathematicians are notable? |
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In retrospect, I probably should have considered trying to contact authors/editors of these articles ''before'' making my VfD nominations. Has anyone had some good experiences along these lines to share? Or advice on how to proceed if a similar situation arises in the future? |
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Someone raised another issue: these three men all happen to appear on a [[List of Slovenian mathematicians]], so there might be some, er, patriotic rationale for creating these biographies. I don't want to get involved in Balkan politics, so I'd just say that I ''did'' recognize one name on that list, [[Josef Stefan]], and I would certainly agree that Stefan ''is'' notable and ''should'' have a biography here. I'd like to see the others include an explanation of some clearly notable mathematical accomplishment, or else I think they should probably go.---[[User:Hillman|CH ]] [[User_talk:Hillman|(talk)]] 21:50, 22 August 2005 (UTC) |
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Oh dear: to forestall misunderstanding, of course I did not mean to imply that whether or not ''I'' recognize a name is an adequate criterion for mathematical notability. But if ''none'' of the members of this project know anything about mathematician M, and the biography doesn't help, I would say that biography should probably go. |
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Another thing: I overlooked another name I recognize: [[Josip Plemelj]]. Ironic I missed that, because I am gearing up to write about something he was involved with.---[[User:Hillman|CH ]] [[User_talk:Hillman|(talk)]] 22:04, 22 August 2005 (UTC) |
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P.S. Someone commented in the VfD to the effect that the fact that some towering figure doesn't yet have a biography, while some lesser figures already have ones, is not by itself grounds for deleting anything. I agree; clearly, Wikipedia's growth is haphazard so this will be a not infrequent occurrence. The balance issue raised in these three cases goes far beyond that, I think, but all I am really trying to say is that, IMO, the average reader of a biography on Wikipedia should not be left with serious doubt that the subject is indeed notable, as I was after reading these three biographies. Again, I'd be happy if someone who knows more than I do about them can convince me I am wrong by telling us all (by expanding the biographies) about some clearly notable accomplishment. But some prize I have never heard of? Doesn't help me. Some very rough analogies (not very serious): |
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* earned a Ph.D.: made the local Little League baseball team |
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* serves on the math faculty at some uni: plays ''minor league'' professional baseball |
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* won tenure or an obscure award: got a pat on the back from the team after a big game |
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* made a major contribution to mathematics: set a significant ''major league'' baseball record |
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* won an internationally known mathematics award: won the MVP award |
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* won the Field's Medal: entered the Hall of Fame |
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(I should confess that I don't know much at all about baseball, I'm just trying to, er, play along with a favoriate analogy among Wikipedians.)---[[User:Hillman|CH ]] [[User_talk:Hillman|(talk)]] 23:58, 22 August 2005 (UTC) |
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JYolkowski has suggested several times (if I understand him correctly) that the ''mere verifiability of stated facts'' in an biography is sufficient grounds for keeping it (see my talk page). This doesn't make sense to me: name person X, birthdate, and birthplace, and someone can probably verify that information. Does that alone qualify X for inclusion? I think it should be rather the ''notable substance of stated facts'' (or lack thereof) which qualifies X (or not) for having a biography here. |
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I seem to be trying to summarize, er, notable comments recieved elsewhere. I have to take the blame for this. Due to the accidental way I got into this (and my inexperience in Wiki discussions of this kind), various useful (or bizarre) comments are now scattered over the talk pages of the three articles, my user talk page, and the vfd pages. Sorry for the confusion!---[[User:Hillman|CH ]] [[User_talk:Hillman|(talk)]] 00:35, 23 August 2005 (UTC) |
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Jitse actually found the citation (in Slovenian, I guess) of some obscure award to Marusic :-) So I did the obvious thing and awarded the very first [[User:Hillman/Biographical Barnstar|Biographical Barnstar for Brain-numbingly Obscure Web Research]] to Jitse Niesen. Congrajulations, Jitse! This is such an obscure award that until a few minutes ago it didn't even come with a bronze plated pewter star. ''But you can verify that Jitse won it!''-- just look [[User:Jitse Niesen|here]]! Anyway, if some kind person can translate this well enough, maybe I will change my own vote. Even better, said kind person can add a description (in English) of Marusic's notable achievement in the original article.---[[User:Hillman|CH ]] [[User_talk:Hillman|(talk)]] 01:02, 23 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:Hi CH, by posting here, you are now officially a member. You might be interested in considering the positions of the [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Inclusionist_Wikipedians Association of Inclusionist Wikipedians] as well as the [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Deletionist_Wikipedians Association of Deletionist Wikipedians]. There are some serious philosophical battles on these issues. Amazingly, WP is filled with oodles of non-encyclopedic, non-notable material, e.g articles on ancient soviet submarines, underwater electrical cables, television shows, Pokemon characters, and rock-n-roll bands. [[User:Linas|linas]] 04:57, 23 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:Hi CH, to add to what Linas said above, the issue of notability on Wikipedia is unsettled, see: [[Wikipedia:Notability]], [[Wikipedia:Importance]], and [[Wikipedia talk:Fame and importance]]. Since [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not paper|Wikipedia is not paper]], I lean toward the inclusionist idea that [[Wikipedia:verifiability|"verifiability"]] is the more important concept, since it is a necessary condition to be encyclopedic, and being that it also implies a certain minimal amount of notability, is arguably sufficient. (For what it is worth, I believe this is the view held by [[Jimbo Wales]]). [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 16:11, August 23, 2005 (UTC) |
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OK, some anon has translated the now notorious Zois prize citation of Marusic, which led me to guess that if he is internationally recognized, some papers by him would appear in a review paper I happened to have at hand. This turned out to be the case, so I changed my own vote in the VfD to a lukewarm keep. |
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I'd like to try to summarize a few more valuable points which came up: |
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*if someone knows of a mathematician who rarely if ever publishes in English but has done extraordinary work (every mathematician can think of examples), of course we all agree that this person should have a biography in the English language Wikipedia, because such a person has clearly made a notable contribution to the body of human knowledge. |
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*exhaustive lists of Lusitanian mathematicians might be appropriate in the Lusitanian language Wikipedia, but should be discouraged in the English language Wikipedia, which clearly has a special responsibilty to students all over the world because English currently plays the role of the scholarly lingua franca. |
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*''the problem with exhaustive lists'' is that ''they impede navigation by the generic reader'', who wants to find and absorb information on a specific topic; particuarly in a ''deeply and confusingly interconnected subject'' like mathematics, ''eliminating cruft is essential'' if these pages are to become (remain?) a valuable resource for students and the general public all over the world, which I take it is our goal in the EN language Wikipedia. |
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*the sports metaphor breaks down here, because reading about mathematics is far more challenging and daunting than reading the sports pages, and we have a special responsibility to ''help people find useful and intriguing information'' about mathematics, which inevitably means taking them places they didn't expect in other parts of the math pages. We must avoid disorienting them or landing them in a huge and amorphous category. So if exhaustive lists "for the sake of keeping exhausting lists" must be kept out, or at least in special categories. |
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*how ironic (if unsurprising) that the mindless drones are not the mathematicians--- who were alleged in the popular culture of the first part of the last century to spend their time poring over long lists of meaningless numbers--- but the ''sports fans''! The mere fact that no non-mathematicians expressed surprise at our concern for organization, sanity, good judgement and balance, might suggest that the general public now knows better, or has a new set of misconceptions about us, but probably it only means that the non-mathematicans who dropped by weren't in a contemplative mood. |
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*a prize citation by itself means little; mention in a review paper by an international authority is a much more reliable indication that person X, working in some field in which one is not oneself expert, is a major player. |
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Paul August: up above I think I expressed my take on inclusion; fine by me ''as long as it doesn't intrude upon the learning experience of the generic user''. My concern is to keep that from happening. A mixture of discouraging cruft (hopefully by the art of gentle persuasion) and segregating it is probably the best answer. |
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:Two points, first, "providing a learning experience" for our readers is a noble goal, but strictly speaking, that is not the mission of an encyclopedia, and second, If we are sufficiently creative, having subjects with low notability, should not "intrude" upon such a goal anyway. [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 23:02, August 23, 2005 (UTC) |
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Linas: OK, I'm adding back my name, but I need to focus on the GR WikiProject at least for the rest of this year, because I promised to get some serious work done on that. Yes, I'm talking to you, and all is forgiven, but Linas, I ''really hope'' that in the future, you in particular will pay attention to clues that you might be getting on my nerves (or keep an eye on the wikistress meter on my user page), OK? If that happens, I'm sure I'll try to tell you, so if you just remember to be a good listener when interacting with me all should be fine.---[[User:Hillman|CH ]] [[User_talk:Hillman|(talk)]] 22:27, 23 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== Can more people help me out? == |
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I have a question/problem/something-I-don't-understand that has been bugging me for years. I have posted it at the bottom of [[Talk:Infinity]]. Thank you already to [[User:Paul August|Paul August]]. --[[User:Lord Voldemort|Lord Voldemort]] <sup><font color="#3D9140">[[User talk:Lord Voldemort|(Dark Mark)]]</font></sup> 17:20, 23 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== weird vandalism == |
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There have been some rather strange edits to [[Galois theory]] in the last few weeks, all emanating from IP address 64.136.26.235, just deletions of large random chunks of text. What is especially odd is that this IP address appears to be making genuine edits to other articles. Any ideas? [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 18:49, 25 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: This is the IP address of a cache server fom United Online, so is most likely used by a lot of different users. --[[User:R.Koot|R.Koot]] 18:58, 25 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== "Tav (number)" article == |
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Take a look at [[Tav (number)]]. Is this valid? Salvageable? The original article is credited to an IP (which has no other math-related edits), and subsequent edits by others have left the basic text unchanged. Obviously, this article needs either a rewrite or deletion. — [[User:Nowhither|Nowhither]] 13:50, 26 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: It has a valid basis but is so poorly written as to be incomprehensible. See the footnote on page 3 of [http://www.u.arizona.edu/~miller/finalreport/finalreport.ps this Postscript document]. Here is Tav: ת --[[User:Zero0000|Zero]] 14:11, 26 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== [[Talk:Sigma-algebra]] == |
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The notations used by the cluster of articles close to [[sigma-algebra]] are inconsistent with one-another; I'd like to fix this, but only after some agreement on a unified notation. Please see [[Talk:Sigma-algebra]] for details. [[User:Linas|linas]] 13:58, 26 August 2005 (UTC) |
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==[[Sheaf]]== |
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Almost a million (well, nearly) pages still point to [[sheaf]] rather than to the moved [[sheaf (mathematics)]]. There were good reasons not to move it. [[User:Charles Matthews|Charles Matthews]] 20:33, 26 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:There's an entry for it on the disambiguation page. What's wrong with that? --[[User:Kooky|Kooky]] | [[User talk:Kooky|Talk]] 20:53, 26 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::Well first, the article at "sheaf" should be about the mathematical kind if that is the "primary" meaning of the word (see: [[Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Page naming|Primary topic disambiguation]]). Of course that the mathematical meaning is the "primary" one is debatable, but the great number of links to it vs. the others is suggestive that it is (at least for the here and now). But if it is decided that it should stay at "sheaf (mathematics)", then the links to "sheaf" which want "sheaf (mathematics)" need to be changed. [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 21:17, August 26, 2005 (UTC) |
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:::Actually, there are 109 articles listed on the "what links here", of which TWO are not mathematics-related. I vote to change it back. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 21:25, 26 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:::<i>to Paul August:</i> I see. That makes sense. I'd be willing to work through all the mathematical articles that point to [[sheaf]] and redirect them to [[sheaf (mathematics)]]. If it were decided later on that the mathematical definition were no longer the "primary" definition, wouldn't it have to be done anyhow? --[[User:Kooky|Kooky]] | [[User talk:Kooky|Talk]] 22:18, 26 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::::If you can make a good case that the primary definition of "sheaf" is moving away from the mathematical one, then I might be persuaded to change my mind. However, the overwhelming proportion of wikipedia articles are presently pointing to the mathematical meaning of [[Sheaf]], and this seems to be evidence pointing the other way. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 22:42, 26 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:::::[[User:Gauge|Gauge]], who moved it, contributes to mathematics articles, and I see no discussion anywhere calling for a move. So I can't imagine there will be an outcry if we just quietly move it back, or whatever administrators do. --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]<sup>[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]</sup> 22:58, 2005 August 26 (UTC) |
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::::The meaning to which the most links point should perhaps not always be considered primary. For example, the word ''sheaf'' was probably chosen for use in mathematics to be suggestive, precisely ''because'' the word has another, non-mathematical meaning. The effectiveness of the mathematical usage to some extent depends on that other meaning. [[User:Michael Hardy|Michael Hardy]] 22:51, 26 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:::Almost no one outside of math actually uses the word [[sheaf]]; what, pastoral literature? Move it back. [[User:Linas|linas]] 00:37, 27 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:::::Change it or leave it, it's all the same to me. --[[User:Kooky|Kooky]] | [[User talk:Kooky|Talk]] 01:12, 27 August 2005 (UTC) |
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Agree to move it back to [[sheaf]]. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 16:03, 27 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:Sorry, I don't know how I missed the remaining links. I will contribute to fixing them or moving them back, based on what we all decide here. Regarding the move, I was thinking that "sheaf" is a common enough word that it could have many possible current (and future!) meanings. Personally, I don't see any harm in having a more specific link to the mathematical definition (so long as the remaining links are fixed). However, if you'd like to go back to the old link, that's fine with me too. - [[User:Gauge|Gauge]] 16:58, 28 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::I have fixed the remaining old mathematical links to point to the new location. Apparently at least a couple of articles have already referred to sheaves in the agricultural sense. - [[User:Gauge|Gauge]] 04:40, 2 September 2005 (UTC) |
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==Aged requests== |
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Some of you may remember that in August 2003 a user began adding a huge number of missing math topics to [[Wikipedia:Requested articles|Requested articles]]. There were well over a thousand requests added, but through the labour of our math people all but seven of them have now been filled. These last few requests are now listed on [[Wikipedia:Articles requested for more than two years|Articles requested for more than two years]]. Since they have taken so long to be filled they are probably very obscure and difficult to write about, and certainly need some expert knowledge. It would be great if some math people could take a look at [[Wikipedia:Articles requested for more than two years|Articles requested for more than two years]] and try to clear these final relics. - [[User:SimonP|SimonP]] 23:28, August 26, 2005 (UTC) |
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== Math Babel == |
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I've just made a comment on the category deletion pages for [[:Category:Mathematician Wikipedians]] about a Math version of the [[Wikipedia:Babel|Babel]] project. Then I realised it's actually only an extension of the Babel project. Below are some sample categories for discussion, and we could make up a pretty box template like the babblers: |
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* ''Math'' native speaker of math. This person works as a math professor or similar role in industry. |
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* ''Math-N'' near-native speaker of math. This person is either engaged in a math doctorate, or works where a very high level of math is required e.g. as a physicist, etc. |
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* ''Math-3'' very high level of math. Works where a high level of math is involved (e.g., actuary, computer science, etc), or is engaged in a higher level degree in math, physics or other math related subject. |
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* ''Math-2'' has taken or is taking an undergraduate degree, in math, physics or other math related subject. |
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* ''Math-1'' basic mathematical ability and literacy. Typically working in an environment where an understanding of math or logic is desirable, such as an accountant. |
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If we preferred it could be a proper equivalent of Babel, where statisticians, applied mathematicians and pure mathematicians have their own boxes, and people like me can be Pure Math-1! --[[User:Stochata|stochata]] 11:12, 27 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: Not sure I like this fine level classification. OK, if one wishes to do that, one could. But those Babel thing are ugly and take a lot of room on the page. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 16:10, 27 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::The only problem I have with that classification is that it doesn't distinguish different types of math-nativeness. For example, I might be classified as "native" myself, but when it comes to articles on algebraic topology, numerical analysis, several complex variables, or any number of other topics, my understanding is really probably somewhere between Math-3 and Math-N at most. In other words, a lot of the time, the level would depend on the particular subject itself. [[User:Revolver|Revolver]] 21:52, 2 September 2005 (UTC) |
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:::I think those categories are setting the bar too high. After all, we don't make up separate categories for "native speaker of english", "native speaker, additionally is studying english literature at PhD level", and "native speaker, additionally teaches english literature and phonics at university level". I think what you have as "Math-3" is the highest level I would be willing to categorise on babel. After that there are just too many problems with specialised areas, as Revolver notes. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 22:10, 2 September 2005 (UTC) |
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:I did wonder about the height of the bar, especially as compared with "native speaker of English" (which covers perhaps 300 million+ people), as opposed to perhaps a few thousand math professors in higher education. However, sometimes I feel it is worth knowing that X is actually a math professor, rather than a doctoral student. I also agree that specialised subdomains complicate thing. I would also be ''Math-3'' (alternatively, ''Graph Theory-N'', ''Number Theory-1'', ''Statistics-2'') under this classification, but then I do feel that others are better qualified than me, and would appreciate knowing who is who (and would also like other editors to know that my math isn't always 100%, and needs checking). --[[User:Stochata|stochata]] 12:33, 4 September 2005 (UTC) |
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::A math(s) professor may advertise themselves as such on their user page without a babel notice, if they so choose. Perhaps what you really want is a "Mathematical Wikipedians, classified by area of specialisation" page. The difficulty is that often people categorise themselves too high because they don't know any better. For example, there would be a fair few high school students who would describe themselves as accomplished in "geometry and algebra", despite not knowing the first thing about what real mathematicians in these areas actually do. [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 12:54, 4 September 2005 (UTC) |
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== Merge [[sigma additivity]] into [[measure (mathematics)]]? == |
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The article [[sigma additivity]] used to be a redirect to [[measure (mathematics)]]. As part of the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/PlanetMath Exchange|PlanetMath Exchange project]] I copied over the article [http://planetmath.org/?op=getobj&from=objects&id=3400 "additive"] to [[sigma additivity]], replacing the redirect. [[User:Blotwell]] is now suggesting that [[sigma additivity]] be merged into [[measure (mathematics)]]. I feel like the topic is deserving of its own article, but this is not my area of expertise, (not that I have one ;-) and I would appreciate if other knowledgeable editors could help decide what the best thing to do is. Please comment [[talk:sigma additivity|here]]. Thanks — [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 19:21, August 27, 2005 (UTC) |
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== New math categories == |
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As part of working on categorizing articles copied from [[PlanetMath]] — the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/PlanetMath Exchange|PlanetMath Exchange]] project, I noticed that there might be a need for more math categories from subjects listed in the [http://www.ams.org/msc/ Mathematics Subject Classification (2000 edition)]. Here's the categories I have in mind: |
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# [[:Category:associative rings and algebras]] as subcategory in [[:Category:Abstract algebra]], as per MSC 16-xx, Associative rings and algebras |
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# [[:Category:nonassociative rings and algebras]] as subcategory in [[:Category:Abstract algebra]], as per MSC 17-xx, Nonassociative rings and algebras |
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# [[:Category:Difference equations]] and [[:Category:functional equations]] as subcategories in [[:Category:Equations]], as per MSC 39-xx, Difference and functional equations |
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# [[:Category:Global analysis]] and [[:Category:analysis on manifolds]], subcategories in ???, as per MSC 58-xx, Global analysis, analysis on manifolds |
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# [[:Category:Sequences]], subcategory in [[:Category:Mathematics]], as per MSC 40-xx, Sequences, series, summability |
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# [[:Category:Mathematical biology]] as subcategory in both [[:Category:Mathematics]] and in [[:Category:Biology]], as per MSC 92-xx, Biology and other natural sciences |
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I am aware that the Mathematics Subject Classification is not directly applicable to Wikipedia math articles, still, probably it can give some inspiration. I am most uneasy about the global analysis and analysis on manifolds thing. Any suggestions and discussion of the above are very welcome. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 22:57, 27 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:[[:Category:Nonassociative algebra]] would be good. Nobody can remember categories A&B, so let's not have any more. [[:Category:Global analysis]] was 'big in the 1960s' but I think should probably not be used here - cover by means of other ones (possibly one on infinite-dimensional manifolds, one day). [[:Category:associative rings and algebras]] is really just ring theory, which we have. [[User:Charles Matthews|Charles Matthews]] 09:45, 28 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:: Charles, should it be [[:Category:Nonassociative algebras]], meaning plural? [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 15:36, 28 August 2005 (UTC) |
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(I changed the list to a numbered one, to make referring to it easier). I think (1) and (2) should be under ring theory, as I find it hard to see there being enough articles to justify addiational catergories. Similarly for (3) - I don't think there's enough articles to justify additional catergories. For (4), it seems the seqeunce catergory is broadly equivilant to the catergory you suggest putting it under. On the other hand, I definately agree with doing (5) as you suggested. It is important to remember that the MSC classification is designed to classify maths ''papers'', not maths itself. [[User:Tompw|Tompw]] 11:50, 28 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: So: [[:Category:associative rings and algebras]] can be just replaced with [[:Category:Ring theory]], and probably [[:Category:Difference equations]] and [[:Category:functional equations]] are premature, with [[:Category:Equations]] being enough. However, I would argue though for creating [[:Category:Sequences]]. It could contain as subcategories [[:Category:integer sequences]] and [[:Category:mathematical series]]. Any comments on this? [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 01:54, 30 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== Fibonacci numbers subscript style == |
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I raised this question on [[Talk:Fibonacci number]] a while back, but didn't get any comments, and since this also concerns other articles, I'll bring it up here. The [[Fibonacci number]] article uses the notation F(n), but my impression is that F<sub>n</sub> is far more common in other works (both versions are used more or less randomly around Wikipedia). Which one should it be? Consistency would be desirable. [[User:Fredrik|Fredrik]] | [[User talk:Fredrik|talk]] 18:56, 28 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:I think I prefer F<sub>n</sub>, both PlanetMAth and MathWorld use that notation. And [[Fibonacci number]] uses both! I would vote to change it to F<sub>n</sub> everywhere for consistency. [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 20:15, August 28, 2005 (UTC) |
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:: Agree with F<sub>n</sub> as the preferred notation. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 20:46, 28 August 2005 (UTC) |
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::I agree too. I think subscripts are preferred when you have them available. some literature uses ''f'' instead of ''F''. [[User:Bubba73|Bubba73]] 22:54, August 28, 2005 (UTC) |
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Both notations are common and should be defined. F(n) notation is better for complex expressions such as F(n-3) or worse I think. For simple expressions I prefer F_n though.--[[User:MarSch|MarSch]] 16:01, 30 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== Game theory wikiproject == |
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Hello all - In the interest of standardizing and growing wikipedia's coverage of [[game theory]], I have started a [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Game theory|WikiProject on game theory]]. We could use some mathematicians help over there. (For instance, we could use an article on the [[Kakutani fixed point theorem]] which is used in the proof of the existence of Nash equilibria.) I hope that some folks will come join in! --best, kevin <font color="#BBBBBB">·</font><font color="#666666">·</font>·<small>[[User:Kzollman|Kzollman]] | [[User Talk:Kzollman|Talk]]</small>·<font color="#666666">·</font><font color="#BBBBBB">·</font> 02:22, August 30, 2005 (UTC) |
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== featured math articles template == |
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I've templatized the math FAs, although thanks to Paul it doesn't add much :) Any ideas about this? --[[User:MarSch|MarSch]] 15:41, 30 August 2005 (UTC) |
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: I have objected on [[Wikipedia talk:Featured articles]]. --[[User:RobertG|RobertG]] ♬ [[User talk:RobertG|talk]] 15:41, 30 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:: I doubt how much use a template is. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 15:59, 30 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:At the time I created the FA section on our project page, I thought about suggesting this at the FA talk page, and decided not to, since I thought it would be easy enough to maintain our list separately (at least for the foreseeable future). I also figured (correctly as it turns out) Raul wouldn't much like it ;-) [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 19:54, August 30, 2005 (UTC) |
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== Math equations to plain english == |
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There is an interesting thread at [[Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Math equations to plain english]]. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 19:02, 30 August 2005 (UTC) |
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== Map between AMS math articles classfication and Wikipedia categories == |
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Based on the feedback [[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics#New_math_categories|above]], I created a table listing how Wikipedia categories are in correspondence with the [[American Mathematical Society|AMS]] [http://www.ams.org/msc/ Mathematics Subject Classification]. Again, this is needed for automatic categorization of articles [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/PlanetMath Exchange|imported from PlanetMath]] but would be a curious thing to look at in general. See link at [[User:Mathbot/Wikipedia categories and AMS MSC classification]]. Any feedback welcome. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 23:22, 30 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:Are you not aware of [[areas of mathematics]]? My only complaint is that it links to articles, when I think it should link to categories. The other complain is a lack of the next level of detail: at one point, I attempted to also add a list of categories corresponding to subcats of MSC 11, but was rebuffed. [[User:Linas|linas]] 04:12, 1 September 2005 (UTC) |
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:: I am aware of that list, and it was very helpful in compiling my list of categories. No, I would not think that page should link to categories — linking to the article is more informative, and from there the link to category is one click away. But maybe a wider discussion is needed on this. [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] 04:56, 1 September 2005 (UTC) |
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== Rewrite of [[Boolean algebra]], or new article? == |
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There is a discussion going at [[Talk:Boolean algebra]] about rewriting it, or perhaps writing a new article. Several people think the article is too technical and difficult to understand, and [[User:Plugwash]] (who says he doesn't understand the current article at all) has made an attempt at rewriting it & mdash; that has been reverted (by me!). Please join in the discussion ;-) [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 17:12, August 31, 2005 (UTC) |
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:I've concluded that the article for mathematicians (the current one) needs to be separated from the article for non-mathematicians, which I wrote and placed under [[Boolean logic]]. It may need to be moved again, though, as I am getting considerable complaints from PhDs over it's placement there. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:45, 18 September 2005 (UTC) |
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== the state of "product/sum" articles == |
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It is my personal belief that all of the "product" articles collectively are in a confusing and sorry shape. Some things are misnamed, some articles have no apparent reason for their content organisation, other things aren't clarified enough, etc. At the heart of the matter seems to be a failure to organise, name, and clarify topics by keeping in mind their category theory meaning. This doesn't mean you have to ''know'' category theory to understand anything, but category theory does point a clear direction of how things should be organised, and it's not the direction we're going. |
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There are 4 major ideas going on in all these articles, based on 2 criteria with 2 options each: first, product or coproduct/sum; second, external or internal. That makes |
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#(External) product |
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#Internal product |
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#(External) coproduct/sum |
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#Internal coproduct/sum |
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A lot of things are named "sum" that are really products, and a few things that are "internal" aren't clearly identified that way (so could be confused with the "default" external case). For example, [[direct sum of groups]] is not about the (external) direct sum, or free product, it's actually about the internal weak direct products of groups. Also, in many cases, you can form the product/sum like you do the sum/product, as ''objects'', but it's not a universal object. Similarly, you can take the "abelian" sum of arbitrary groups, but it's not universal. This is sometimes called the "weak direct product" or "restricted direct product". This distinction between what is an object and what actually is universal is missing in many places. You don't have to mention it directly, but it seems it should guide the presentation. [[User:Revolver|Revolver]] 21:01, 31 August 2005 (UTC) |
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:The universal and unconditional applicability of category theory is a PoV. I believe the definition complained of is Jacobson's, but I will check. [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] 01:33, 1 September 2005 (UTC) |
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What about the difference between <tt><nowiki>''x''&sup2;</nowiki></tt> ''x''² and <tt><nowiki>''x''<sup>2</sup></nowiki></tt> ''x''<sup>2</sup>? I'd say the latter looks better on my screen. --[[User:Salix alba|Salix alba]] ([[User talk:Salix alba|talk]]) 23:39, 29 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::After looking around some places, the point is taken. There seems to be a conflict in terminology between researchers in pure group theory and others. Even people writing general algebra books (Jacobson is a bit old to guide current usage, it seems to me), the tendency seems to shy away from "direct sum". But a number of people seem to use it, and for those that use it often, I can imagine how the longer name would get old after a while. |
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: Only a few superscript characters have Unicode points, so consistency weighs in favor of the <sup> tags. For example, look at ''x''²''x''³ = ''x''<sup>5</sup> versus ''x''<sup>2</sup>''x''<sup>3</sup> = ''x''<sup>5</sup>. Similarly, a few special fractions have Unicode points, while most do not. For example, compare ¾ (entity '''frac34''') to <sup>3</sup>⁄<sub>7</sub> (using entity '''frasl''', and tags <sup> and <sub>). --[[User:KSmrq|KSmrq]]<sup>[[User talk:KSmrq|T]]</sup> 01:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::Just to put my comment in context, my first immediate reactions upon reading the term "direct sum of groups" were (honestly) |
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== Move of "Ruler-and-compass constructions" to "compass and straightedge" == |
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::#I've never heard of that before. |
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::#There shouldn't be such a thing. |
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[[User:John Reid|John Reid]] moved the article "Ruler-and-compass constructions" to "Compass and straightedge". As the article currently stands, I think there are problems with the new name. I intended to move the article back to its original name, until we can reach a consensus, but I inadvertently left out the hyphens and moved it instead to [[Ruler and compass constructions]]. Please share your views on any of this at [[Talk:Ruler and compass constructions]]. I will volunteer to make any necessary changes after we arrive at a consensus about what to do. Thanks — [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|☎]] 17:58, 28 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::But apparently, the term is used fairly commonly among group theorists. I had no idea about this. For the reasons I said above, I think it may seem counterintuitive or contradictory to many people. Perhaps a strong statement expressing that although the term "direct sum" is commonly used when discussing decomposable groups and so on, it should not be confused with the "direct sum" concept of abelian groups, modules, Banach spaces, abelian varities, representations, etc. which most people are more familiar with. [[User:Revolver|Revolver]] 05:00, 1 September 2005 (UTC) |
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== Poll on "ruler" vs "straightedge" == |
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:::Besides [[direct sum of groups]] (which does indeed sound crazy at first blush), can you wikilink the other articles you are talking about? Its quite an undertaking to make all the various articles more category-like and at the same time point out the various colloquial flavours in each. A uniformity of style would be better achieved by one person combing over all of these articles, which is no small task. [[User:Linas|linas]] 05:12, 1 September 2005 (UTC) |
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Some of us can't agree on how to properly call the article [[Ruler and compass constructions]], with the other option being [[Compass and straightedge]]. "Votes" at [[Talk:Ruler and compass constructions]] are solicited. :) [[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] ([[User talk:Oleg Alexandrov|talk]]) 21:49, 29 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::::One of the ''used'' to be [[direct sum]], which was mostly about direct sums of modules, but also had other stuff. The case of groups was cited as a special case of modules, which isn't true, so I changed it to abelian groups, renamed the article [[direct sum of modules]], and added some other remarks. [[Direct product]] seems redundant to me, and could probably be used as a disambiguation page, moving most of the material to separate articles for the cases of groups, vector spaces, and topologies. The only thing distinguishing why these are collected together here vs. others which are not is that they are ''called'' "direct product", that's why I think a disambig is good. Beyond this, just a clear distinction between internal/external products in some of the cases, comments on alternative terminology (e.g. I had always heard "weak/restricted direct product", etc.), and checking to see that statements made for the finite case really hold for the infinite case (I already corrected one of these at [[direct sum of groups]].) [[User:Revolver|Revolver]] 16:46, 1 September 2005 (UTC) |
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== [[Neusis]] == |
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::::I'm not so much interested in "making them more category-like" then I am about making alternative terminology clear and making the non-category vs. category discussions more clear-cut. For example, in the case of a finite collection of abelian groups, the direct sum and direct product are the same as objects, so in the first discussions of what these terms mean (as ''objects''), there's no need to qualify the statement. But, when moving to the category discussion, it should be pointed out that these are not the same thing, even though the objects are the same. The distinction between objects/limits doesn't belong in the primary discussion, but it should belong somewhere. [[User:Revolver|Revolver]] 16:53, 1 September 2005 (UTC) |
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Please see [http://www.jimloy.com/geometry/trisect.htm#tools Jim Loy's angle trisection page]. He shows a few methods using forbidden tools; I call your attention to the so-called [[tomahawk]] and to the movable, marked carpenter's square. Is the use of these tools not equivalent to neusis? [[User:John Reid|John Reid]] 18:33, 31 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:::::Revolver, I think all of what you are saying is eminently sensible. A lot of work though! :-) [[User:Dmharvey|Dmharvey]] [[Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png]] [[User talk:Dmharvey|Talk]] 17:29, 1 September 2005 (UTC) |
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Please! Neusis? Yes? No? [[User:John Reid|John Reid]] 19:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC) |
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::::::Yes, and being the one who mentioned it, I feel I should try to do something. That's the thing about complaining — it carries responsibility! [[User:Revolver|Revolver]] 21:52, 2 September 2005 (UTC) |
Latest revision as of 05:39, 3 October 2021
recategorizing recreational mathematics
[edit]I've been being WP:BOLD with the subcategories of Category:Recreational mathematics. In particular I've emptied its rather ill-defined subcategory Category:Mathematical recreations and puzzles; a lot of its articles have found much better homes, but those that really did want to be somewhere under both Category:Recreational mathematics and Category:Puzzles I've put in one of a few joint subcategories such as Category:Mechanical puzzles. (Putting "puzzles" as a subcat of "recreational mathematics", as suggested on one talk page, isn't really an option: there are a lot of puzzles there that really aren't mathematical.)
While I was at it I also emptied Category:Puzzle games, which had an identity crisis as some people thought it was Category:Puzzle computer and video games while others couldn't tell it from Category:Puzzles.
Anyway, I expect I've offended innumerable people one way or another. If I've put your favourite article somewhere you don't think it belongs, please don't hesitate to move it (hopefully not into the categories I've carefully emptied). If you dislike the entire new categorization, please don't hesitate to argue with me about it. Though I can't imagine I've made things worse, since everything was categorized more or less at random to begin with. —Blotwell 14:35, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Category:Mathematicians by religion
[edit]Category:Mathematicians by religion has a single subcategory, Category:Jewish mathematicians. I would think that being Jewish does not necessarily mean being religious. And do we actually need to categorize mathematicians on whether they were relegious, and if yes, what relegion they were practicing? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
- Being a jew does not, of course, make one religious, any more than being a christian makes one religious. So the categories' names do not imply that the mathematicians in question are religious - They just state to which religion they belong. And I think such categories are useful, in the same way that categories of mathematicians by nationality are useful. But obviously, additional categories for other religions, not just judaism, are in order for it to be meaningful. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 07:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
I note that Category:Christians in science is applied both to Blaise Pascal, a Christian writer, and Bernhard Riemann, where as far as I can see it does little. I didn't much like like classifying mathematicians by nationality, when it came in; but it was inevitable with the growth, and the issue of several nationalities has the solution of including all of them. There are problems with all such classifications, and I'm not keen on them. Charles Matthews 09:05, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
- Hmm, I wonder if Voltaire belongs in the Category:Christians in science, as, like me, his parents were Christian? I don't like this kind of categorization either; I think its basically some subtle political POV-pushing. May I suggest one possible cure: IF the person preached a religion (other than math) at one point in thier life, or published articles on faith (in newspapers, as letters to the editor, etc), THEN they may be classified by faith. However, if they had the bad luck of having Christian, or Jewish parents, that alone is not a reason to classify. I would insist on proof of religious activity before allowing classification. linas 14:49, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
french spelling
[edit]Um, I don't actually know french, but I thought only the first "e" in "etale" had an acute accent. So is this edit incorrect? Dmharvey 03:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
- I think in this context, it's correct: the term in Hartshorne is "éspace étalé". Ryan Reich 03:30, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
- So how do you know when it's étale and when it's étalé? Dmharvey 03:36, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
- As far as I can tell, it's étalé here, and étale for morphisms. "éspace étalé" means roughly "slackened space", or "stretched-out space", which is reasonable given what it is, while an "étale morphism" is simply a "slack morphism". The metaphor is roughly the same, in that the slackness refers to a space constructed from layers laid out flat, and the grammatical difference distinguishes the "slackened space" constructed from something which was not, of itself, slack, from the "slack morphism", which is inherently so. Of course, "éspace étalé" is not used much anyway. Ryan Reich 03:56, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
- It is certainly espace (not *éspace) étalé in French, but this leaves open the question of what the English translation of this expression is. I had been under the impression that it was called the étale space nevertheless, but Google seems to support both usages. —Blotwell 05:12, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
Étaler being a verb, étalé is the past participle (has been spread out, roughly). My MicroRobert says étale, adjective, can be applied to the sea as 'calm', when the tide is about to turn. We have been using sheaf space for espace étalé, which is not so common in English. HTH. Charles Matthews 09:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
- Please continue with sheaf space. Septentrionalis 21:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
After a check in the "Annales de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure", the good term is "espace étalé". --pom 11:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
Location of "elementary function" article
[edit]I think Elementary function (differential algebra) should be moved to Elementary function, currently a disambiguation page with little value. Despite the title, said article covers the concept of elementary functions in the general sense. Fredrik Johansson 23:50, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
- I think it would simplify a few links and a line could be added to the article pointing to the list of common functions. When Elementary function (differential algebra) was created what is currently List of mathematical functions was in an article called Elementary functions, so I had to create something else. XaosBits 02:10, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
- Could someone execute the move? Fredrik Johansson 04:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Definition of General Linear Group
[edit]Charles Matthews and I are having a discussion about the correct definition of general linear group. It might be useful to have more input. The question is whether it should be defined initially in terms of rings or fields. Talk:General_linear_group A5 22:19, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
LaTeX
[edit]I have created a template to tag articles in need of LaTeX formatting. My concern is that it uses the LaTeX logo, which may or may not be a problem. The image was created using LaTeX, and using LaTeX to create images like doesn't seem to be a problem; yet, the image is still a logo with questionable copyright status. I was wondering what everyone else thought? Isopropyl 00:04, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
- I would like to note that per the math style manual html formulas are perfectly acceptable (unless they look awful, like Σi=1n). It is also advised that one not modify somebody else's formulas by converting them from HTML to LaTeX or viceversa.
- In fact, formulas which become PNG images may actually be preferrable in HTML, as then they show up as text, and look better on the page, also per the math style manual.
- All in all, I don't see any pressing need for putting the {{LaTeX}} template on articles which are properly formatted, but only in HTML. Of course, one may use this template for articles which have no formatting whatsoever, like people writiting x_2 or x2 without bothering to use proper markup or math tags. That's what I would think.Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:37, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks for your input! I'll keep it in mind in the future. What is your opinion on the logo used in the tag? Isopropyl 23:42, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
- Should a page use a combination of LaTeX and HTML formatting, or should its use be consistent throughout an entire article? I have tagged sections with {{LaTeX}} when the section in question deviated from the precendent set by the rest of the article. Isopropyl 23:45, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't quite know, and for myself I would be fine with a mix. But if you find it stylistically ugly to have html mixed with LaTeX, then a better solution would be maybe to just convert the html to LaTeX right away, rather than put a "work needed" template on it and hoping that a kind soul would do it some time. There is a huge amount of articles needing serious work, as listed at Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics, and I think that labeling an article as needing work because of TeX/HTML inconsistency would be probably not good. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:57, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Oleg. Paul August ☎ 01:48, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Most linked to and least linked to maths articles
[edit]I've been playing around with the database dumps and extracted the most links and least linked mathematics articles.
The top linked articles might be useful for directing our efforts as these are probably most visited pages. The orphaned articles and redirects could help with some housekeeping. For example there is Squircle which seems quite dubious, and there are several highly linked redirects which indicate a need for some topics to be expanded. --Salix alba (talk) 13:54, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- Heh. Pi has 314 links... Ryan Reich 14:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- No way.... Dmharvey 14:33, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- And it holds slot 77 which is almost pi/4. linas 15:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- I wonder about the correctness of these lists. I was browsing the "orphaned" list and I was very surprised to see Stone–Weierstrass theorem, which of course is linked to from many articles. Paul August ☎ 17:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- It is quite a tricky job, especially where redirects are concerned. For Stone–Weierstrass theorem the only pages which link directly to it are 6 redirect pages [1]. For some technical reason, I've not included redirects in the count of articles. So these lists are the bests my little scripts can produce at the moment. If people feel the need, I'll try to update them to get closer to a real number. In the case of Stone–Weierstrass, I'd actually say the appearence in the list is a good thing. Looking closely, the hyphen in the article name is an odd unicode character (0xE28093) rather than a regular ascii hyphen (0x2D). I'd say this would be a good case for the article to be moved to the name with the ascii hyphen. --Salix alba (talk) 18:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- Ok I see. Yes I noticed the odd name. I think I will move the article. Paul August ☎ 19:51, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- It is quite a tricky job, especially where redirects are concerned. For Stone–Weierstrass theorem the only pages which link directly to it are 6 redirect pages [1]. For some technical reason, I've not included redirects in the count of articles. So these lists are the bests my little scripts can produce at the moment. If people feel the need, I'll try to update them to get closer to a real number. In the case of Stone–Weierstrass, I'd actually say the appearence in the list is a good thing. Looking closely, the hyphen in the article name is an odd unicode character (0xE28093) rather than a regular ascii hyphen (0x2D). I'd say this would be a good case for the article to be moved to the name with the ascii hyphen. --Salix alba (talk) 18:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- JA: I thought we were standardizing the use of ndashes, not hyphens, for conjoining names of distinct people, as distinguished from hyphenated names of one person. Jon Awbrey 20:04, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- Were we? I missed that. Why would we want to do that? Paul August ☎ 20:12, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- JA: I'm sure I was directed to do that by some WikiPundit or other -- I just assumed it was to mark an obvious logical distinction for the sake of better hyper-indexing or sumting. Jon Awbrey 20:25, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- Somebody likes m-dashes and n-dashes, hardcoded by use of — and – and goes through substituting them. I'm not sure why; portability, maybe? Septentrionalis 21:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- I think I would strongly oppose that policy, on ground of human nature. Most editors will use the ascii hyphen, never get to see the policy on ndashes, leading to the same redirecting problems we have seen on Stone–Weierstrass. --Salix alba (talk) 21:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- Well, I haven't seen these improvements in article names; only in text. But there does seem to be a tendency to avoid hyphenated article titles: loan word not loan-word. Septentrionalis 23:26, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- I think I would strongly oppose that policy, on ground of human nature. Most editors will use the ascii hyphen, never get to see the policy on ndashes, leading to the same redirecting problems we have seen on Stone–Weierstrass. --Salix alba (talk) 21:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- Somebody likes m-dashes and n-dashes, hardcoded by use of — and – and goes through substituting them. I'm not sure why; portability, maybe? Septentrionalis 21:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- JA: YARTIW (yet another reason to ignore wikipundits). Jon Awbrey 21:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- dear reader, for a more complete view of the status of the discussion, please do have a look at User_talk:Jon_Awbrey#En-Dash_Protocol_Reigning_Over_Polynominal_Titles_.28EDPROPT.29
Endashes
[edit]I knew we'd have to discuss this one eventually. The arguments for the A-endash-B theorem if A and B are two people are (a) it parses uniquely if you don't happen to be able to recognise double-barrelled names, and (b) it is a more professional piece of format. I would, however, always recommend creating [[A-hyphen-B]]'' first, as a precaution, so as to pick up any hungry red links; and only then move to the endash version. Charles Matthews 21:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- Yeah, I didn't like it at first, but after thinking about it (and looking at typeset documents) I have to agree. Not so much for the unique parsing, which is a good argument in principle but not so much in practice (you can't reliably conclude that Burali-Forti is a single person just because the article is at Burali-Forti paradox, even assuming you do notice the difference in the length of the dash/hyphen, which I wouldn't have if it hadn't been pointed out). But the endashes really do make the title look more like typeset documents and less like Usenet.
- Maybe someone could send a bot around to look for article names that are duplicates except for the hyphen-endash distinction (these should always redirect to the same place), and for articles with endashes with no corresponding hyphen redirects (redirects should be provided). --Trovatore 22:24, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- Agreed. Some folks care as much about typographical niceties as mathematicians care about proof validity, or musicians care about pitch correctness. Lack of personal interest or awareness of these subtleties is no good excuse for hostility toward the interests of those who do care. Accents and quotation marks are another common battleground. With redirection, there is no need to fight. The hypen-redirects-to-dash idea seems like a reasonable compromise. --KSmrqT 22:26, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- dear reader, for a more complete view of the status of the discussion, please do have a look at User_talk:Jon_Awbrey#En-Dash_Protocol_Reigning_Over_Polynominal_Titles_.28EDPROPT.29
This article was intended to be comprehensible to all mathematicians.
It was not intended to teach mathematical induction. It was not intended to explain what mathematical induction is, nor how to use it.
It was nominated for deletion by those who did not understand it. To some extent, they did not understand it because it was a stub and failed to explain what audience it was intended for and what its purpose was.
A bunch of (mostly) non-mathematicians looking at the stub form in which the article appeared when it was nominated from deletion saw that
- It was not comprehensible to ordinary non-mathematicians who know what mathematical induction is, and
- The article titled mathematical induction is comprehensible to ordinary non-mathematicians, even those who know --- say --- secondary-school algebra, but have never heard of mathematical induction,
...and voted to delete.
And so I have now expanded the article far beyond the stub stage, including
- Substantial expansion and organization of the introductory section.
- Two examples of part of the article that is probably hardest to understand to those who haven't seen these ideas.
- An prefatory statement right at the top, saying that this article is NOT the appropriate place to try to learn what mathematical induction is or how to use it, with a link to the appropriate article for that. It explains that you need to know mathematical induction before you can read this article.
Therefore, I have invited those who voted to delete before I did these recent de-stubbing edits, to reconsider their votes in light of the current form of the article.
I also ask others here to vote on it by clicking here.
(Nothing like nomination for deletion to get you to work on a long-neglected stub article!) Michael Hardy 23:42, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
WAREL
[edit]My assumption of good faith in User:WAREL (formerly User:DYLAN LENNON) is being sorely tested. I know I'm not the only one who has wasted a lot of time over the past few weeks dealing with him/her. I'm wondering whether anyone else here has any thoughts about how to deal with WAREL, short of deploying an automatic WAREL-edit-reverting-bot. Dmharvey 18:00, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
- For context, see the following article histories Decimal representation, Real number, Twin prime conjecture, as well as User talk:WAREL (Link to today's version, as WAREL likes to delete things he does not like. See especially the bottom section.) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I left a comment at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive_contributor to_mathematics articles. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:47, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
This isn't about mathematics, but it is about a mathematician. Anybody who has spare time and is willing to read a long talk page is kindly request to comment on the dispute regarding al-Khwarizmi's etnicity at Talk:al-Khwarizmi. Cheers, —Ruud 14:49, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
- How about showing the whole lot of them the way to Wikinfo, which wants editors like that? ;-> Septentrionalis 19:24, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
- Somehow I doubt that most persons involved are interested in updating his biography beyond the first two sentences. —Ruud 19:30, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project
[edit]Discussion moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/Wikipedia_1.0 Tompw 16:40, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Notice: interested contributors may wish to participate in the Wikipedia talk:Scientific peer reviews by working scientists.
--Ancheta Wis 17:10, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
Can you guys have a look
[edit]Gallagher Index is a Political Science article and subject. But currently it could probably do with a mathematicans eye (alongside a few more things as well). Essentially, is there a neater or nicer way of doing the table at the bottom as an example of how the index is generated? Cheers, --Midnighttonight 08:47, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
Categorizing articles
[edit]On my suggestion, Salix alba made a list of Wikipedia articles which are not categorized, but which are linked from a math article. That list has a bunch of false positives, but also articles which are math and are not categorized. I suggest we start a cat wiki-pet (short for a Categorizing Wikiproject), going through those articles and categorizing them.
I split the list into 47 sections of 50 articles each. One may choose a section to work on, and sign at the bottom when done. I did the first three, and found roughly 3-5 articles out of 50 which may need categorizing. See the list at User:Salix alba/maths/uncategorised maths. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:14, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
- I don't know much about the category system, but if I just tag relevant articles with Category:Mathematics, is that enough to get them on the radar? (i.e. should I mark a section as "done" if I do this?) Dmharvey 03:03, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
- I'd shoot for at least one level more specific than Category:Mathematics. The names of the big categories are pretty intuitive: Category:Algebra, Category:Mathematical analysis, Category:Mathematical logic, Category:Geometry, Category:Topology, Category:Number theory. Just make sure to remember the "mathematical" before "analysis" or "logic". --Trovatore 03:16, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
- Sometimes one can pick the right category by looking at the articles going from the current one. But yes, putting them in Category:Mathematics is a good first option. Then my bot will list them to the list of mathematics articles, so more people will see them and may refine the categorization further. So yes, marking a section as done if the articles there are listed in some category is good, thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:18, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
- ok guys thanks Dmharvey 03:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I made the sections be 20 items rather than 50, as those were too big I think. To continue with the note at the top of this section, the person who does most work will get a cat as a wiki-pet (the Wikipet which anybody can touch (and edit)). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
- Oleg, you are SO going to award it to yourself. That is, like, so totally not fair. Dmharvey 19:48, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Not all is lost, the race is still fully open! By the way, if you look at my bot's changes page, you will see a good harvest of math articles for March 15. Awesome work! Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:37, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
- Now, I eager to get the wiki-pet, reviewed a section, categorized around 10 of the 20 there, felt good of myself, and when I got to editing the section to say "done", I see the section was done already! Dmharvey, now that's unfair. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:55, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
- Perhaps people should mark their territory -- in a nice way -- at the top of the score of items when they start work on it? Jon Awbrey 05:00, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
- I doubt it is worth it; I meant it to be a silly joke rather than a complaint. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:01, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
- Cheaters!!!! Hey, I noticed that some of the "finished" sections are still contain uncategorized articles. Even if the article is not about math, please do make an effort to put it into some category, somewhere!!! linas 01:08, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
- Be my guest, my friend. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:10, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
- Cheaters!!!! Hey, I noticed that some of the "finished" sections are still contain uncategorized articles. Even if the article is not about math, please do make an effort to put it into some category, somewhere!!! linas 01:08, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
This is the new title of History of pi. Even I think this is pædantry, so it may be over the top. Can we discuss this here, away from the Pi day crowds? Septentrionalis 00:48, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
- "History of pi" deserves an article. To think that a table of the history of numerical computation of pi is the same thing as a history of pi is very silly. I've moved the table to another article, and labeled this article a stub. Michael Hardy 01:40, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
- Agree w/Michael. I remember reading, as a young student, of plenty of interesting snippets about Egyptians knotting strings, silly legislation in kansas about pi=3, and what not. It deserves an article. linas 22:26, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- LOL... I remember adding that to (what is now called) Chronology of computation of pi (see under 1897), except the reference I have is for Indiana not Kansas. Dmharvey 22:34, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
MathWorld
[edit]Hi guys,
I was wondering why I can find so many maths-related articles here that do not reference relevant pages from MathWorld. I'm not sure what their license model is, but I can only assume that this is the reason why it's not popular around here? Please let me know if you think including their articles as references is a desirable thing. I'm watching this page, so do reply here. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:18, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
- Obviously, we can't include relevant sections of MathWorld articles, as that would be a copyright violation. The reason for not referencing MathWorld articles is probably the uneven quality (yes, even by our standards) and the presence of clear errors (possible copyright traps) and probable neologisms. (I don't think the neologism being published as part of Mathematica makes it any less a neologism.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 13:56, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
- I agree with Arthur and the reasons he provides. A policy of providing links to mathworld just doesn't make sense for us. However, if you come across a particular article where they have a much stronger version, then certainly linking to theirs would be useful (even better: bring ours up to snuff). -lethe talk + 15:30, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
- Yeah, making it a policy to link to mathworld does not make sense, but I would think we should be encouraged in making external links to mathwolrd on case-by-case basis when those links are relevant (not necessarily much stronger than ours :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:11, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
- I agree with Arthur and the reasons he provides. A policy of providing links to mathworld just doesn't make sense for us. However, if you come across a particular article where they have a much stronger version, then certainly linking to theirs would be useful (even better: bring ours up to snuff). -lethe talk + 15:30, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
- Just to clear up a possible misunderstanding: I was referring to the license model because Planet Math is more frequently linked to. Is quality really so divergent between the two? I'm not trained as a mathematician, so I admit my judgement is poor. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:17, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
- We actually copy planetmath articles, see WP:PMEX, that's why we must refer to the original versions, per their site license. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:21, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
- Just to clear up a possible misunderstanding: I was referring to the license model because Planet Math is more frequently linked to. Is quality really so divergent between the two? I'm not trained as a mathematician, so I admit my judgement is poor. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:17, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
- I second Arthur's comments. Just in the past month or so, I've had to remove several external links to MathWorld because when I checked them out, I found out they contained major errors. Sometimes these MathWorld articles can be good, but other times, it looks like a real hack job. So it's definitely not good to just unilaterally add the MathWorld links. I think it best for editors working on particular articles in their area of knowledge to add the links they actually found the most useful. --C S (Talk) 10:20, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Please vote on this proposed deletion
[edit]The delete votes seem to be from non-mathematicians who erroneously think they understand the article. The main idea is this:
Therefore 22/7 > π.
But the article also includes exposition, discussion, and mention of the appearance of this problem in the Putnam Competition.
One "delete"-voter says this is no more significant than, for example, a proof that π > 3.14159 or the like. The fact that 22/7 is a convergent in the continued fraction expansion of π seems to mean nothing to that person or to escape his notice altogether. The fact that this particular integral is so simple and has a neat pattern also seems to escape them. Another shows signs of thinking that all articles on π-related topics should get merged into one article (see list of topics related to pi). Michael Hardy 02:22, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
arXiv
[edit]So what's the deal with linking to the arxiv? This has come up quite a number of times in the last little while. Someone has gone trigger-happy recently on some papers there by Diego Saá, and it took a lot of convincing to get User:WAREL to stop linking there. (Or maybe he/she is still at it.) I would think generally such papers do not qualify for linking from Wikipedia, unless there are very good reasons to the contrary. Somehow a link to the arXiv has an air of respectability that you don't get from your home page on geocities etc, but it's not deserved, and we shouldn't be misleading people into thinking that the arXiv is a reliable resource. Dmharvey 02:16, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- I agree. One should only use references to books and peer-reviewed journals. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:54, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- That's not how it works in mathematics research, and I see no reason why Wikipedia should adopt stricter rules for citations in its mathematics articles than most of the mathematics community itself. Wikipedia would only be shooting itself in the foot. --C S (Talk) 05:08, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
- Well, we should prefer refereed references. Of course for journal references that are also on the arxiv, we should provide an arxiv link (not everyone has access to an academic library). Furthermore, there are worthwhile things on the arxiv which don't get published in journals. A lot of times, Witten, for example, publishes a lot of his papers only through the arxiv, he doesn't feel that journal referees are qualified to vet his papers. And there are précis on the arxiv which are very good resources but not original work, and therefore not appropriate for journals. But of course, there is also crackpottism on the arxiv, so care is certainly required. -lethe talk + 04:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- You definitely need a lot of care when citing papers by a guy who "doesn't feel that journal referees are qualified to vet his papers". :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:49, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- That is a dangerous attitude; but in the case of Witten I suspect many of the referees would agree, and are probably relieved that they do not have to try to keep up! --KSmrqT 16:17, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- Off-topic: but Alexander Grothendieck stopped publishing in journals as well. linas 23:32, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
The arXiv is mostly reliable, except for the general mathematics (GM) section which is where the crank articles seem to get listed. I removed all the links to Diego Saá's papers that I could find; they were added by User:Diegueins, who claims to be his son. R.e.b. 05:57, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- In the last six months, I have found there a paper proving P=NP and another proving PNP. No comments... pom 16:18, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Please sign up on the participants list!
[edit]If you have this talk page on your watchlist, then you should add your name, field(s) of expertise and interests to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Participants page! I know there are some newcomers who haven't yet signed up, and I suspect there are some old-timers as well. linas 22:15, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- I meant to sign up at some point, but I glanced over the list and, frankly, many of you guys seem to be so good that it's kind of scary (I'm only an undergrad student) :-) - only half joking. But now, if you say so... AdamSmithee 00:20, 18 March 2006 (UTC) And after signing up, I see that my nick and the alphabetical ordering puts me on top of the list :-D AdamSmithee 00:28, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
- I would join but you see, I'm on vacation. Good luck to you all. -- 127.*.*.1 01:17, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
- Let me also add, feel free not to add yourself to that list or any others, for any reason. I myself don't see what purpose the list serves, and don't like adding myself to lists like that, though I did so eventually. -lethe talk + 03:41, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
- Obviously the list doesn't have any kind of official status, but it does create a kind of community, as well as crystallizing one's own role in the Mathematics project in one's own mind. Mostly it seems sort of like the ritual of everyone gathering in a circle and placing hands one above another to seal a pact. And I'd encourage AdamSmithee to put his name on the list simply because he feels out of place; doing so will put him correctly in place :) Ryan Reich 06:18, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
- Actually, I got into a discussion recently about how many particle physicists there are working in WP; looking at the participants list help put a lower bound on the number. This is a lot like any department directory or phonebook or census: rarely looked at, but terribly useful when its really needed. That, and indeed, the community feeling of the historical "I was here" thing. In 20 years, the list may be interesting to review: "I remember old so-n-so." linas 02:58, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Statistics on User:WAREL
[edit]I submit the following statistics as an argument to block WAREL for, I suppose, a few days.
User:WAREL was born 17th Feb 2006. He/she has a total of 242 edits since then. The following survey includes 99 of those edits (41%), plus a few of User:DYLAN LENNON's edits (WAREL is a reincarnation of DYLAN LENNON).
- Perfect number: 23 edits. At least 13 immediately reverted. Many prior edits by DYLAN LENNON going back to July 2005 -- generally not reverted
- Twin prime conjecture: 17 edits, all reverted
- Real number: 12 edits, 11 reverted (As DYLAN LENNON: 14 edits, 10 reverted)
- Decimal representation: 11 edits. 10 reverted.
- Zeta constants: 6 edits, 3 reverted
- Finite field: 6 edits, 3 reverted, the other 3 self-reverted
- Proof that 0.999... equals 1: 5 edits, all reverted
- Decidability (logic): 5 edits, all reverted
- Riemann hypothesis: 5 edits, 1 reverted
- Chen prime: 4 edits, 2 reverted
- Decimal: 3 edits, all reverted
- Halting problem: 2 edits, both reverted.
- Fermat's last theorem: 1 edit, reverted
- Soliton: 2 edits, both reverted
- Wiener's tauberian theorem: 1 edit, reverted
- Cousin prime: 1 edit, reverted
- List of real analysis topics: 1 edit, reverted
Of these 113 edits, there are at least 88 reversions, which is 78% of the edits listed above, or 36% of all edits logged.
He/she was even reverted twice on his/her own talk page.
WAREL has been reverted by at least 17 distinct editors: User:Jitse Niesen, User:JoshuaZ, User:Dmharvey, User:EJ, User:Schildt.a, User:Arthur Rubin, User:ANTI-WAREL, User:Oleg Alexandrov, User:Elroch, User:Mfc, User:Trovatore, User:Zundark, User:Fropuff, User:Fredrik, User:Paul August, User:KSmrq, User:Melchoir, many of whom you will recognise as being respected contributors to mathematics articles.
On the other hand, I note that WAREL has also made several nontrivial, non-reverted contributions to several mathematics articles: Riemann hypothesis, Perfect number, Hilbert's fifth problem, Perfect power, Proof that the sum of the reciprocals of the primes diverges. He/she also makes plenty of edits to articles in which I am not competent, especially relating to Japanese mathematicians and musicians. Therefore, in my opinion, a permanent block is not (yet) warranted, even given the fact that he/she was permanently blocked on the Japanese wikipedia.
Dmharvey 01:23, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- I wrote a note on his talk page a few days ago about his revertions at decimal representation, and Jitse wrote one today about perfect number (see User talk:WAREL).
- I have a silly suggestion. How about writing a petition on his user talk page, telling him that if he engages in any disruptive activity again, at any article, he will be blocked for 12 hours? Then we could all sign it, and then, should he disrupt again, any of us administrators would be able to block him with a clear heart. Wonder what you think. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- Your suggestion is not silly. I think it would be important to emphasise in this petition that although some of his/her contributions have been appreciated, his/her almost complete disregard for other editors' opinions is not. I've spent enough time on this now; if someone else writes it, I will sign it. Dmharvey 13:11, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
<math> rendering bug
[edit]Just noticed at perfect number (at the bottom of the section on odd perfect numbers), this math tag:
<math>2^{4^{n}}</math>
is getting rendered as this html:
<span class="texhtml">2<sup>4</sup><i>n</i></span>
to appear as:
24n
.. which is clearly wrong.
I wasted some time tracking down the paper to check the clearly wrong result before realising that it was the rendering rather than the text that was at fault. I don't know if this is a well known bug, but a brief search on Mediazilla didn't throw up any candidates. I have reported it to the Wikitech-l mailing list mailing list. Hv 16:12, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- I've noticed this before. It's actually not a bug in the LaTeX => HTML converter. It has to do with HTML tidy, which is a program that processes the HTML after the converter is done with it. The correct translation would be something like 2<sup>4<sup>n</sup></sup>. I think what happens is that HTML tidy sees the second <sup> and assumes that the author forgot the slash. So it inserts an extra slash producing 2<sup>4</sup>n</sup></sup>. Then it sees the next </sup> and can't find a matching <sup> so it kills that one too. Finally the last </sup> dies. This is just a theory, but I'm pretty sure that texvc gets the conversion right in the first place. Dmharvey 18:30, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks for the pointer. Is this HTML Tidy we're talking about? Because if so I'm surprised there's no mention there that it is being used on WP. (I also had a quick browse of the HTML Tidy bugs database, and saw no related item there.) If not, can you point me at some details of the HTML tidy you mean? I'd like to track this problem further ... Hv 19:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, that's the Tidy I mean. There is a flag $wgUseTidy in the mediawiki source which enables use of HTML Tidy. I'm pretty sure they use it on WP itself. You could try asking User:Jitse Niesen, I know he's at least one person who's been thinking about Tidy recently :-) Dmharvey 20:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- Indeed, I do know about it. This is fixed in the current version of HTML Tidy, but that is not yet installed on the MediaWiki servers. Details are in mediazilla:599. I haven't yet seen your post to the mailing list (perhaps it's help up in a queue), but the solution is to upgrade HTML Tidy. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- Cool, I even managed to find the changelog that fixed it ([2]) but I guess that's redundant now. (I also followed up with a "never mind" to my wikitech mail, so it may never get through to the list.) I look forward to the new version. Hv 23:23, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
There is a discussion on which name is more appropriate at talk:decimal representation. Comments welcome. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:39, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Problem at transfinite number
[edit]There is an editor, User:Jagged 85, whom you may recognize as being interested in the contribution of Indian mathematicians. At transfinite number he has been making edits that attribute the concept to certain ancient Jaina mathematicians/philosophers. The evidence presented is, in my estimation, of the sort that would be accepted only by someone who either has an agenda, or who does not really understand the contemporary concept. I'd appreciate it if some interested folks would drop by and take a look. --Trovatore 21:46, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
- I fully agree with your assessment. In fact, I'll go further: this is obvious crackpotism. Various ancient philosophers have made dubious or meaningless claims about infinity (I had found a quote by Aristotle stating that the number of grains of sands on a beach was "infinite"), but none of them corresponds to what we now view as transfinite numbers; and Indian mathematicians were so proud of their invention of the decimal system that they had fun writing very large numbers as cosmic cycles, and sometimes they confused them with infinity, but obviously this has nothing to do with the modern concept. I support any move toward removing the incriminated section. --Gro-Tsen 22:04, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
- It is no more (and no less) nonsense than Galileo's work on infinite numbers, in which he found that the natural numbers were equinumerous with a subset (the set of squares) and recoiled in horror. It is not the transfinites. Septentrionalis 22:41, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
- Well, if it could be documented that the Jaina had the notion of equinumerosity (as witnessed by one-one matching), that would already be a step in the right direction, though I still don't think it would be enough to use the word "transfinite". As I understand it the historical context is that Cantor didn't want to use the word "infinite" because he was talking about things that were not absolutely infinite. They were trans-finite, beyond a limit, but not in-finite, without limit. That last sentence may be a bit of retrospective etymology on my part, but I think it really is the basic idea, whether or not Cantor had that specific etymological reasoning in mind. --Trovatore 22:46, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
- It is no more (and no less) nonsense than Galileo's work on infinite numbers, in which he found that the natural numbers were equinumerous with a subset (the set of squares) and recoiled in horror. It is not the transfinites. Septentrionalis 22:41, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
- A section reviewing the general history of eastern and western ideas about infinity, including Aristotle's ideas, as well as Gaileo's shock, would not be out of place somwhere on WP. We do, after all, have Category:History of mathematics and the topic of infinity, just like the question "what is four dimensions", was a legit intellectual excercise over the millenia. No doubt Immanuel Kant had some pronouncemnts as well. linas 00:54, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
- Never mind. That article exists, its called infinity, and the Indian stuff should be moved there. linas 01:02, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Another tedious orthography question
[edit]Vladimir Arnold or Arnol'd? Vladimir Drinfel'd or Drinfeld? We should be consistent: and preferably across all references to them in WP. (In both cases we currently use the apostrophe sometimes, but far from consistently.) —Blotwell 06:46, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
- For Арнольд, we may as well defer to the way it appears on his books and web page, "Arnold". --KSmrqT 02:02, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
- Transliteration of the soft sign ("ь")—which does not so much represent a sound as a modification—is problematic, and conventions vary. But for names, it appears that in a context like this, appearing before a consonant, it would typically be omitted. Wikipedia allows us to choose that one as primary, for the article name, and use redirects for the variants. --KSmrqT 18:35, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Springer Encyclopaedia of Mathematics
[edit]I just stumbled across the Springer Online Encyclopaedia of Mathematics it claims to be
- the most up-to-date and comprehensive English-language graduate-level reference work in the field of mathematics today. This online edition comprises more than 8,000 entries and illuminates nearly 50,000 notions in mathematics
and seems to live up to its description. It seems like this could be a useful resouces for many articles. --Salix alba (talk) 00:14, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, and its pretty good too, at least for the 3-4 articles I looked at. I created a template fr this, which may be usd as the following (for example:) {{springer|id=f/f041440|title=Fredholm kernel|author=B.V. Khvedelidze, G.L. Litvinov}} which results in
- B.V. Khvedelidze, G.L. Litvinov (2001) [1994], "Fredholm kernel", Encyclopedia of Mathematics, EMS Press
Would be a good idea to add those entries to Wikipedia:Missing science topics. I will try to look into that these days. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:45, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
First article I hit was the normal distribution [3] I was quite disappointed in that it doesn't have a single graph of it. That said, it'd be worth copying the index into a new article or added to the missing science topics. Cburnett 06:56, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
- No, you can't do that; this came up before with MathWorld. It's a copyright violation.
- The Springer encyclopedia seems pretty weak in set theory. --Trovatore 07:29, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
- Also compare the article on Self-adjoint operator in WP to the one in Springer. Tell me which one is better.--CSTAR 14:45, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
- Ours is definitely more self-adjoint:
- C*=C.
- Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:30, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
- Ours is definitely more self-adjoint:
- Also compare the article on Self-adjoint operator in WP to the one in Springer. Tell me which one is better.--CSTAR 14:45, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Is it worth an article SpringerLink Online Encyclopaedia of Mathematics? --Salix alba (talk) 20:21, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
- I would think it's probably worth an article (I never heard of it before this discussion, but we're not talking about something put up by some random hobbyist; this is Springer). The issue is how to write a neutral review that's not original research. That's a problem to which I have not thought of any good answer (it's why I slapped my own article on Kunen's book, Set Theory: An Introduction to Independence Proofs, with an OR tag). --Trovatore 20:53, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
- See what reviews it has in the scholarly press. Scholar.google.com should have something (this should solve the Set Theory problem, anyway.) If that fails, it can be put in WP space, as a resource. Septentrionalis 21:26, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
They have a lot of great articles. They're beating us in a lot of areas, and already kick the crap out of mathworld (soon it'll be time to put mathworld out of its misery). However, have you seen their diagrams? Complete garbage! -lethe talk + 17:23, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
- I have merged their lists of entries into the Wikipedia:Missing science topics. I highly doubt that this is a copyright violation in any way, as while their lists may be copyrighted (the order of entries I guess :), individual items in the list are not, and after merging together the mathworld links and the springer links and removing the bluelinks, little if any resemblance is left to their orginal lists.
- By the way, I brought some order in that Wikipedia:Missing science topics by completing incomplete entries (mathworld had those), putting things in lowercase, regularly removing the bluelinks, and providing links to google search and google books for each entry. Those lists can be rather good at suggesting new redirects, new articles, or judging where we are lacking. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:28, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
- Actually, I will send Springer an email asking if they mind using their list as a resource for our redlinks list. Just to be safe. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:19, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
I've looked things up in the library's copy one or two times; good to see I don't have to go all the way there now... :-) Anyone know if the online edition differs significantly from the one in print? Fredrik Johansson 00:32, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
none of the springer links seems to work. how does one get to it from the springer website? thanks. Mct mht 07:15, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
- The Springer server is down every now and then. Will come back eventually. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:36, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
blahtex 0.4.4 released
[edit]Major changes since 0.4.3 are:
- support for Japanese and Cyrillic in PNGs
- much faster PNG output, because we're using dvipng rather than dvips/imagemagick
Useful links:
- test wiki at http://wiki.blahtex.org (recently got attacked by spammers :-))
- page illustrating blahtex's features
- blahtex home page
- updated error list (currently 337 errors)
Dmharvey 14:10, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
- The dx in \int f(x) dx doesn't look right in the MathML output (it's rendered "d x"). Fredrik Johansson 14:45, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
- Which browser+version are you using? This was a known problem with earlier versions of Firefox. Dmharvey 14:48, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
- Firefox 1.5.0.1. Fredrik Johansson 14:58, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
- Hmmm... does the same thing happen at all font sizes? Dmharvey 20:54, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Blahtex_dx.png)
- Essentially. Increasing the text size a few times doesn't change the absolute width (it stays at 3 pixels); it looks normal if I use an obscenely large font. By the way, the space gets one pixel narrower if I disable the page CSS style (but still looks too wide, though this could be in my imagination). See image. Fredrik Johansson 21:28, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- That's a bummer. Thanks for pointing this out. I looks like Firefox is interpreting the "d" and "x" as belonging in separate "frames" and doesn't want to overlap them; therefore because the "d" is italicised and tall, it pushes the "x" to the right. I'm not totally sure about this, especially since there's a one pixel overlap in your second example, but that could just be some rendering thing that happens after the frames have been positioned. I will put it on my list of bugs to pursue; it's probably something that the Firefox folks will need to deal with. Dmharvey 03:39, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
There is some disagreement on what to include in the gradient article. It is argued by some parties that it should be a disambig. Comments welcome at talk:gradient#Should gradient be a disambigutation page? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:20, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Programs for linear algebra illustrations
[edit]What programs would people around here recommend for making images to illustrate geometry and linear algebra concepts (and the like)? I'd like to manually input coordinates for vector arrows, line segments, points, etc., choose colors and line styles, and output the result to SVG. Eukleides looks good, but it doesn't do 3D and I need that. Fredrik Johansson 23:45, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
- Matlab gives you complete control, 3D, and output to color EPS. Here is a (free) program which it seems outputs to svg [4]. May be more. Of course, Matlab costs money, but should be available at any university, if you are in academia. Here are some pictures I made with it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:16, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
- Yeah, I have access to Matlab, but not at home (not conveniently, anyway). Fredrik Johansson 00:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
- You could learn a scripting language and roll your own tool. It shouldn't be that difficult. Dysprosia 02:41, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
- Next thing you build your own rocket in your backyard, and could as well write your own encyclopedia. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:03, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
- Been there done that SingSurf, good for algebraic surfaces. It relies on JavaView which is quite good for 3D maths and is free as in beer but not speach. Also see Interactive geometry software for others. --Salix alba (talk) 12:04, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- Next thing you build your own rocket in your backyard, and could as well write your own encyclopedia. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:03, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
IE compatibility
[edit]I wonder what people think of a policy of changing unicode html tokens to tex tags in order to ensure compatibility with Internet explorer browsers which apparently have problems with some unicode symbols. I guess compatibility with IE takes precedence over our own MoS guidelines, right? What do you folks say? -lethe talk + 11:53, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- We shouldn't use Unicode gratuitously in articles anyway. Unicode is far from being a ubiquitous standard, and when someone tries to edit in something that isn't Unicode capable, it screws up the entire article. That's not good behaviour. Dysprosia 11:57, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- When I work on my Windows laptop I don't see some Unicode characters on Wikipedia, even though I use Firefox and not IE. I guess it is a problem of missing fonts more than browser.
- Changing unicode to LaTeX may be a huge amount of work, and may yield expressions which are a mix of both html and TeX. It would be fine I think if people do it on a case by case basis, but I would not be sure about making that a policy.
- To comment on Dysprosia's comment, Unicode is a fact of life on Wikipedia given interlanguage links and foreign names/words. Luckily not that many browsers screw Unicode anymore, maybe just Lynx or really old browsers. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:52, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- Well, I happen to use Lynx some times when I don't have access to a graphical browser, or (less often for me), when I use other operating systems I may use a browser that may not support Unicode. I'm not saying that Unicode should be completely removed from articles, it just shouldn't be used when there are other more portable equivalents out there that won't be mangled if someone edits with something that's not Unicode compatible. For example, one shouldn't just use a Unicode alpha when an α will be just as suitable. Dysprosia 22:55, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- I don't understand your example. Isn't that a unicode alpha that you've displayed? We shouldn't use unicode when unicode will suffice? -lethe talk + 23:04, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- No, it's a HTML entity, edit the section and have a look: α renders as α. Dysprosia 23:08, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- Oh, I see. But uh, don't the web browsers render the HTML tokens with unicode? I thought they did, and so therefore HTML tokens and UTF-8 text are equivalent (for viewing purposes). Or am I mistaken? -lethe talk + 23:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- The difference is that the Unicode alpha is just another character in the text, like "t", or "q". The HTML entity is the string "α". Alle good computer systems should support ASCII, and the HTML entity consists of only ASCII characters, so no matter if you use a computer that supports Unicode or if you don't, the string will be unchanged. However, some browsers that don't support Unicode simply ignore the Unicode characters, so if someone edits with one of those browsers, it will look like all the Unicode characters in the article have suddenly disappeared. If the browser chooses to render "α" with a Unicode character, that's fine, but it doesn't mean that that Unicode character is somehow equivalent to the HTML entity -- they aren't. Hope that explains things a bit better... Dysprosia 23:16, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, I understand now. UTF-8 text will get lost in the edit box by some browsers, even though it renders the same. Thank you for explaining. -lethe talk + 06:58, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- The difference is that the Unicode alpha is just another character in the text, like "t", or "q". The HTML entity is the string "α". Alle good computer systems should support ASCII, and the HTML entity consists of only ASCII characters, so no matter if you use a computer that supports Unicode or if you don't, the string will be unchanged. However, some browsers that don't support Unicode simply ignore the Unicode characters, so if someone edits with one of those browsers, it will look like all the Unicode characters in the article have suddenly disappeared. If the browser chooses to render "α" with a Unicode character, that's fine, but it doesn't mean that that Unicode character is somehow equivalent to the HTML entity -- they aren't. Hope that explains things a bit better... Dysprosia 23:16, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- Oh, I see. But uh, don't the web browsers render the HTML tokens with unicode? I thought they did, and so therefore HTML tokens and UTF-8 text are equivalent (for viewing purposes). Or am I mistaken? -lethe talk + 23:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- No, it's a HTML entity, edit the section and have a look: α renders as α. Dysprosia 23:08, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- I don't understand your example. Isn't that a unicode alpha that you've displayed? We shouldn't use unicode when unicode will suffice? -lethe talk + 23:04, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- Well, I happen to use Lynx some times when I don't have access to a graphical browser, or (less often for me), when I use other operating systems I may use a browser that may not support Unicode. I'm not saying that Unicode should be completely removed from articles, it just shouldn't be used when there are other more portable equivalents out there that won't be mangled if someone edits with something that's not Unicode compatible. For example, one shouldn't just use a Unicode alpha when an α will be just as suitable. Dysprosia 22:55, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- Replacing Unicode would be bad policy. This question was already decided when the wiki software switched over to UTF-8 as a standard. The world has gone Unicode, and that includes even standards-flouting Microsoft. To the best of my knowledge, all contemporary browsers can display Unicode characters if configured with adequate fonts. Usually Code 2000 will suffice. --KSmrqT 21:29, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- I brought this up because some user went on a crusade to replace all instances of ℵ with inline and display mode alike. I didn't like it, but apparently IE doesn't display ℵ correctly even if you have a font for it (which we learned because it displays if he changes web browser). -lethe talk + 23:08, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- PNG shouldn't be used inline. Dysprosia 23:10, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- That is also my opinion, but do we not have an obligation to lower our standards to support IE? Some might say we do. -lethe talk + 23:16, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- The HTML entity ℵ looks like it works... Dysprosia 23:25, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- That is also my opinion, but do we not have an obligation to lower our standards to support IE? Some might say we do. -lethe talk + 23:16, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- PNG shouldn't be used inline. Dysprosia 23:10, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- I brought this up because some user went on a crusade to replace all instances of ℵ with inline and display mode alike. I didn't like it, but apparently IE doesn't display ℵ correctly even if you have a font for it (which we learned because it displays if he changes web browser). -lethe talk + 23:08, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- Are you saying that ℵ displays differently from ℵ in IE? Septentrionalis told me once that he couldn't see ℵ correctly (I don't know for sure what setup he was using). --Trovatore 23:33, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- Doesn't work for me, either. I certainly prefer ℵ, regardless, as it's difficult to distinguish ℵ from the Hebrew letter by inspection if they were in Unicode, and those may display differently on different browsers. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:36, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- I'm saying that ℵ should work on IE, that is, it should actually display. It shouldn't matter that much that it "looks different". I don't have IE so I can't check this. Dysprosia 23:56, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- I do not see the point of distinguishing ℵ from the Hebrew letter. Next we will be wanting an α different from alpha. I'm using a computer in the same cluster; both ℵ and ℵ now display well (and almost identically) in this IE set-up, but the second is a little square box in the edit window. Septentrionalis 00:08, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- alefsym definitely looks better alongside roman text than a Hewbrew aleph. The Hebrew aleph is too big. Do you not also find it so? -lethe talk + 07:05, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- I do not see the point of distinguishing ℵ from the Hebrew letter. Next we will be wanting an α different from alpha. I'm using a computer in the same cluster; both ℵ and ℵ now display well (and almost identically) in this IE set-up, but the second is a little square box in the edit window. Septentrionalis 00:08, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- Are you saying that ℵ displays differently from ℵ in IE? Septentrionalis told me once that he couldn't see ℵ correctly (I don't know for sure what setup he was using). --Trovatore 23:33, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- I don't understand what you're talking about. If you want an aleph, you have ℵ, which actually does work. Dysprosia 00:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- OK, when I reboot into Windows to look at this in IE, I just see a square for the ℵ character. This is in IE 6.0.2900.someothernumbers, SP2, WinXP Home Edition, Version 2002, SP2. I suppose to really figure out what's going on I should say what fonts I have installed, but there are too many to conveniently list. --Trovatore 00:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- It's probably not a font issue, since if you try another browser on the same system, it will display. It's an IE issue. Now the question is, do we want to replace inline HTML token/UTF-8 with tex to support IE? -lethe talk + 07:05, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- OK, when I reboot into Windows to look at this in IE, I just see a square for the ℵ character. This is in IE 6.0.2900.someothernumbers, SP2, WinXP Home Edition, Version 2002, SP2. I suppose to really figure out what's going on I should say what fonts I have installed, but there are too many to conveniently list. --Trovatore 00:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- I don't understand what you're talking about. If you want an aleph, you have ℵ, which actually does work. Dysprosia 00:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
I am the "user [who] went on a crusade to replace all instances of ℵ with ". I was just replacing characters which I could not read with IE in those articles which I was trying to clean up for other reasons. alefsym causes the same problem as "ℵ" in IE. Also there is an element symbol which does not display correctly; and a proves symbol. Although these are rare. Oddly, I think that the actual Hebrew letter aleph works (at least I see the Hebrew letters OK in Google when I switch languages). JRSpriggs 05:24, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- Why do novices constantly "fix" things that obviously are not broken for most people? If the Unicode characters are in the article, there is nothing wrong with the characters for the author, and presumably for most readers. Adjust your own browser, your fonts, your configuration. Common sense and common courtesy suggest you at least ask before launching an ill-conceived massive alteration campaign—especially if you haven't been editing long enough to create a User page!
- Suggestion: Look at this page and adjust the things under your control so you see as few missing characters as possible. (Note: For me, none are missing. Again, I highly recommend Code 2000.) This is a page in my personal user space; do not edit it! --KSmrqT 07:07, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- I have been editing here for about two months. I did not create a user page because I have no interest in talking about myself for the public. I have a User-talk page to communicate about our shared work here. You are wrong to say that these characters are "obviously are not broken for most people". Most people use Internet Explorer 6.02 or earlier. So most of our readers will not be able to read the characters in question. And remember, this is an encyclopedia for the general public, not a private domain for you and the other authors to glory in their own words. Do not worry, I will not edit your user pages. JRSpriggs 07:33, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- Don't get defensive. KSmrq has a good point. We have a community here with established conventions. You can do whatever you like, make whatever decisions you want, decide what's the best format to use in articles, but we have the same rights, and in order to keep from devolving into continual revert wars, we try to respect consensus and community guidelines. When you've been here a while, you get a stronger feeling for that. Now, obviously you feel that wikipedia has to conform to IE's capabilities. Maybe you should try to win people over to your view instead of fighting with them. At the moment, I'm on the fence, but about to fall on the other side. -lethe talk + 07:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- Several distinct issues are at play. One is the recurring integration of novices into the community, with the usual exuberant misstep and jaded correction. A second is the display of the rich panoply of Unicode characters, whether mathematical or otherwise, in articles as viewed with a diversity of browers and fonts. Almost always the problem is with the fonts and browser settings. The Unicode characters are here to stay, especially when BlahTeX generates MathML for Wikipedia. A third issue is what appears in edit windows. The wiki software could be conservative and convert non-ASCII characters to named or numeric entities, but a browser that can display a page with Unicode characters can probably edit them as well.
- But my point is none of these. I'm genuinely puzzled by the hubris of editors who assume that the article is broken because their view of it shows missing characters, especially when the same character appears in many articles. Do they think everyone else is stupid or blind? I don't know the statistics for Wikipedia readers, but one browser watch site shows slightly over 50% IE6 users, so it would seem reasonable to assume that many people had viewed any given Wikipedia article in IE6 without complaint. Yet these editors inexplicably fail to draw that conclusion.
- Which leads to a design question: Is there anything we can do to head off these edits before they occur? The insert menu already shows a large assortment of non-ASCII characters, but obviously that's not enough of a hint to some editors. Should every article page have a prominent link to help with missing characters? --KSmrqT 09:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- I know what we need. Here pages that use indic fonts include a template which indicates that they're being used and that if you want to view the page, you have to make sure your system is ready. If we want to use stuff in a math article which doesn't have widespread support, we could have a template like that one. That would probably keep new editors from changing font stuff, right? -lethe talk + 12:26, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- Don't get defensive. KSmrq has a good point. We have a community here with established conventions. You can do whatever you like, make whatever decisions you want, decide what's the best format to use in articles, but we have the same rights, and in order to keep from devolving into continual revert wars, we try to respect consensus and community guidelines. When you've been here a while, you get a stronger feeling for that. Now, obviously you feel that wikipedia has to conform to IE's capabilities. Maybe you should try to win people over to your view instead of fighting with them. At the moment, I'm on the fence, but about to fall on the other side. -lethe talk + 07:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- I have been editing here for about two months. I did not create a user page because I have no interest in talking about myself for the public. I have a User-talk page to communicate about our shared work here. You are wrong to say that these characters are "obviously are not broken for most people". Most people use Internet Explorer 6.02 or earlier. So most of our readers will not be able to read the characters in question. And remember, this is an encyclopedia for the general public, not a private domain for you and the other authors to glory in their own words. Do not worry, I will not edit your user pages. JRSpriggs 07:33, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
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What about the difference between ''x''² x² and ''x''<sup>2</sup> x2? I'd say the latter looks better on my screen. --Salix alba (talk) 23:39, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- Only a few superscript characters have Unicode points, so consistency weighs in favor of the <sup> tags. For example, look at x²x³ = x5 versus x2x3 = x5. Similarly, a few special fractions have Unicode points, while most do not. For example, compare ¾ (entity frac34) to 3⁄7 (using entity frasl, and tags <sup> and <sub>). --KSmrqT 01:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Move of "Ruler-and-compass constructions" to "compass and straightedge"
[edit]John Reid moved the article "Ruler-and-compass constructions" to "Compass and straightedge". As the article currently stands, I think there are problems with the new name. I intended to move the article back to its original name, until we can reach a consensus, but I inadvertently left out the hyphens and moved it instead to Ruler and compass constructions. Please share your views on any of this at Talk:Ruler and compass constructions. I will volunteer to make any necessary changes after we arrive at a consensus about what to do. Thanks — Paul August ☎ 17:58, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Poll on "ruler" vs "straightedge"
[edit]Some of us can't agree on how to properly call the article Ruler and compass constructions, with the other option being Compass and straightedge. "Votes" at Talk:Ruler and compass constructions are solicited. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:49, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Please see Jim Loy's angle trisection page. He shows a few methods using forbidden tools; I call your attention to the so-called tomahawk and to the movable, marked carpenter's square. Is the use of these tools not equivalent to neusis? John Reid 18:33, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Please! Neusis? Yes? No? John Reid 19:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)