Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2018

Jan 2018

name of a polyhedron

Hi! I am revising the files uploaded for Wiki Science Competition 2017 and I have noticedthis one. Such picture of the interior of a small domen will never be a finalist of course, but I am trying to improve its categorization and description like I did with other ones. It has a shape of a some regular solid, it could be the sort of image it is used in a school text book to show how geometry appears in real life, for example.

So, if you had to put a specific category related to a polyhedric shape, which one would it be in your opinion? thank you in advance.--Alexmar983 (talk) 12:07, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

It is an example of a Geodesic dome. I've added the corresponding category. --Salix alba (talk): 12:33, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

RfC about the significance of properties of an integer

A Request-for-Comment has been opened at Talk:209 (number) which may be of interest to the community here. XOR'easter (talk) 20:52, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Improving "Prime number" article towards Good Article criteria

Comments and concerns are welcome. Please join in the discussion here. Derek M (talk) 23:05, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Stereotype space?

I just ran across this article. Is that a thing? I can't seem to find much in google or google scholar that isn't authored by the user, who apparently admits COI, or isn't simply copied wiki content or print-on-demand of wiki content. There was also a discussion in the nLab forum inquiring about the notability of the topic. Is this too OR for our taste? It doesn't seem like more than one or two people have written about it. Rschwieb (talk) 14:36, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Spread in intuitionism (draft)

Could someone cast a glance over Draft:Spread(Intuitionism) and see at what level of readiness for mainspace it is. Many thanks! – Uanfala (talk) 00:36, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

The concept of a spread in the intuitionistic approach to mathematics is a real thing, see for instance the EOM entry Spread_(in_intuitionistic_logic). I am not an expert, but the prose seems reasonable. This is a somewhat esoteric concept in the foundations of mathematics and is a challenge to explain well in a lede to a lay audience. Except for some cleanup, like deleting Author's notes, etc., it looks like this could be an article upon which other editors could build. --Mark viking (talk) 01:31, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I can't really say on its readiness directly (other than obvious things, like removing notes as mentioned), but if someone's going to try to clean it up, I think it should probably be renamed with (mathematics) as the disambiguator (lower case, and with a space). –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 02:36, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

That will be ambiguous: there's apparently another set-theoretic topic of the same name [1] (is it related?), and there's also Rational trigonometry#Spread and then all the uses in statistics.... – Uanfala (talk) 02:46, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

In discrete geometry a spread is a certain family of curves (an infinite system of pseudolines in the plane together with a continuous function from the unit disk to the pseudolines); see Grünbaum's book Arrangements and spreads. I agree that a more specific disambigator is needed. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:02, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This has got me thinking about disambig issues in general and I'm even asking about a similar one at WT:DAB. I think the rational trig article should be deleted, but that's a separate issue that I've just kinda made my peace with. In any case, this would probably take primary topic over that anyway, so a hatnote could be used. As far as stats, our regular Spread disambig page just points to Statistical dispersion where "spread" is listed as a synonym. This would be the primary topic itself, but that's just an alternate name, so again, maybe just a hatnote again is sufficient. We don't even have a Spread (statistics) redirect (should we? and if we do, would that necessitate using (intuitionism) here?). The more I think about the subtleties of disambiguation and article titling, the less clear it seems to be. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 03:11, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Never mind then, I guess I just don't really have a good enough handle on article naming. I guess I'm wondering if there should be a more specific disambiguator if the other article(s) don't actually exist, or if it should be changed if and when they do. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 03:14, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Provided there aren't reasons to see it as ambiguoius or misleading, Spread (statistics) should be a useful redirect (of the type: {{R from other disambiguation}}). It will likely appear in the search box drop-down suggestions when a user types "spread"; it will affect the ordering of search results, pushing its target up in the list of results for vaguer queries like "spread statistics"; and it should help in linking (particularly when using the pipe trick). – Uanfala (talk) 23:21, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Derivative of limit

Strangely, I did not find any result of the form "derivative of the limit is equal to the limit of derivatives whenever...". Neither in real analysis nor in complex analysis. Are they really not there on Wikipedia, or did I look for them in the wrong places? (I do not mean termwise differentiation of a power series, this is too special.) Boris Tsirelson (talk) 18:42, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

I find Interchange of limiting operations and Iterated limit, neither of which is in good shape. --JBL (talk) 20:10, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's a case of the interchange of limit operations, with a specific result given under uniform convergence#To differentiability. Obviously we'd like a better result than that, but I've heard that differentiability is not as well-behaved as integration due to the lack of an analogue of $\int _{a}^{b}f(x)dx\leq (b-a)\sup _{x\in [a,b]}f(x)$.--Jasper Deng (talk) 20:11, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

The only articles that link to the two I mentioned are Symmetry of second derivatives and Leibniz integral rule. --JBL (talk) 20:14, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, uniform convergence#To differentiability is just the result I wanted to see in real analysis; thanks to J.D. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 20:18, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

In complex analysis I want to see this: proofwiki. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 20:20, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Uniform convergence#To analyticity is the closest we have, and may be a good location to add that (I think that result is weaker than the one you want, since in the real case, harmonicness is preserved under taking a uniform limit but even if so, one can't necessarily use termwise diferentiation).--Jasper Deng (talk) 20:24, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

I see. But, as far as I understand, for a harmonic function, not only the value at the center of a ball (or another point inside), but also a derivative at the center is equal to some integral over the sphere, which does the job (similarly to the complex case), that is, one can use termwise differentiation. Thus, by the way, the complex result follows from the harmonic result (since every holomorphic function is harmonic). Boris Tsirelson (talk) 21:20, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

I was thinking of Harmonic function#Remarks (specifically the last paragraph), but now see that that actually considers the case when the sequence of derivatives is not uniformly convergent.--Jasper Deng (talk) 22:43, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Ah, yes, a good example. And still, in the locally uniform convergence the differentiation operator is continuous (on harmonic functions, I mean), which probably is not claimed there. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 05:23, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

By the way, the same proof works for the pointwise (or even almost everywhere) locally bounded (or even dominated by a locally integrable function) convergence (of harmonic functions). But ultimately this convergence is equivalent to the locally uniform convergence (on harmonic functions, or even solutions of an elliptic PDE). Boris Tsirelson (talk) 06:09, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Topological geometry

The new article titled Topological geometry, if indeed it ought to exist, could certainly use some work. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:55, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Esotericism at Chaos theory

The IP 73.46.49.164 insists to link Interconnectedness, an article, certainly not covered by mathematical ideas, within the article Chaos theory, which has an explicit hat note, guiding to alternatives to mathematical treatment via a disambiguation page, and is of interest for WikiProject Mathematics. For to me not obvious reasons the article is also tagged with being of interest for WikiProject Religion, but I am unsure, if this should be discussed at all, and if yes, where.

I did discuss this linking already at the TP, but the IP started to insert this link again, without discussing, just claiming it were correct. Within this second effort I already reverted twice and asked for discussion again, but now I want to bring the situation there to the awareness of the project. Purgy (talk) 08:11, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

• Hmm. Looks like the IP has stopped edit warring. And the interconnectedness article is both extremely terrible and up for deletion at AfD. So I don't think this will be an ongoing problem beyond this week. Reyk _YO! 11:17, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

  The pages interconnectivity and interdependence look pretty bad too. XOR'easter (talk) 18:50, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Request a Review of Draft:Multivariate quadratic random number generator

Will someone please review Draft:Multivariate quadratic random number generator and advise whether it should be accepted as an article? Please remember that the acceptance criterion is not whether the draft is a Good Article, but only whether it is mathematically sound, and whether it is worth keeping as an article. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:23, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Wiki markup ce tag

In several articles, including Exact sequence, Cokernel, Snake lemma, and others, user Cedar101 has replaced, for exact sequences, the standard markup <math> by <ce> (or some variants of it), which is a markup with a uncommon syntax that he has implemented. The resulting rendering is correct, but the resulting source code in no more latex but a language that is unreadable for most of us. I have reverted him once, but, for avoiding edit warring, a consensus is needed about the use of this markup in mathematics. My opinion is that the use of <ce> is WP:disruptive editing, as it makes very time consuming to modify the involved exact sequences. But this is only my opinion, and a consensus is needed in favor or against the following assertion

The use in mathematics of <ce>, or of any of its variants is disruptive editing.

D.Lazard (talk) 10:54, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

I think using <ce> for things which are not chemical equations is semantically incorrect, and should be replaced by the proper <math> syntax. Helder 11:17, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

I agree that these changes make the code harder to read without making the result any nicer too look at. Reyk _YO! 12:38, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, this is a bad idea. I'm reverting the changes and asking him to look for consensus here before continuing. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:21, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

And I might add that this is exactly how the WP:BRD process among good-faith and well meaning editors is supposed to go. Gold stars for everyone! Reyk _YO! 15:21, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Article talk page participation sought

I invite any interested editors to join this discussion about the page Linear differential equation. Loraof (talk) 17:13, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Good article nomination: Prime number

David Eppstein has recently nominated Prime number for a Good Article. I will begin reviewing the article in the next few days, but more reviewers are more than welcome! Leave your review at Talk:Prime_number/GA1. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 14:47, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Multivariable/Vector Calculus expert needed

I have for a long time thought that wikipedia's article on stokes' theorem was inadequate. The first equation of the article is completely incomprehensible to me in terms of applying it to an example. If you know anything about multivariable calculus or vector calculus please help! Brian Everlasting (talk) 20:56, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Is your complaint that the article is too far away from elementary calculus or too far away from applications? What about the hat note telling you to look at the Kelvin-Stokes theorem? What about the second equation in the introduction, which is the Kelvin-Stokes theorem? What about the "Special cases" section, which includes applications to electromagnetism? And how do you feel about the applicability of the article Kelvin-Stokes theorem? Mgnbar (talk) 01:45, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

To be fair, the latter article is unreadable to the average calculus student, who will not know the bra-ket notation used in the proof section.--Jasper Deng (talk) 01:49, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Also to be fair, the hatnote is useless to someone trying to learn this material, because the Kelvin-Stokes' theorem is simply called Stokes' theorem in many elementary vector calculus and physics books. The lede should mention this practice and talk about the more common Kelvin-Stokes theorem first and leave more advanced, generalized theorem for later in the lede. The rest of the article should probably follow suit. --Mark viking (talk) 04:50, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Here on Wikipedia we'd better outline shortly several proofs and arguments. It is rather typical that intuitively convincing arguments are hard to convert into rigorous proofs, and rigorous proofs fail to be intuitively convincing. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 06:00, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Geometry specialist needed

Please help to review Draft:Binary Tiling a very brief draft at AFC. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:57, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

@Dodger67: I'm not a geometer, so maybe someone else can say more, and I'm also not sure how the review process works, but in my opinion, this doesn't seem to meet notability requirements to have its own article. It's sourced to a single paper and to the article creator's own an answer on MO (Edit: I'm not sure why I thought the article creator here was the same as the author of the MO answer; I probably just mis-saw something) (I couldn't find much else, but maybe there is). I wonder if this information could be added to an existing article instead, like Uniform tilings in hyperbolic plane and/or Pentagonal tiling#Regular pentagonal tilings in non-Euclidean geometry. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 18:07, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it is a tiling in the sense of those articles. Three of the five boundaries are horocycles rather than lines. Also it is not regular. So a merge/redirect to an existing article would not be appropriate in my opinion. Perhaps there is a more general sense of "tiling" to which this example belongs? Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:15, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

There must be more sources than the ones shown, which are not enough by themselves for notability. I know I've seen this before and may have even used it myself sometime, I don't remember. But it's in a weird limbo between periodic and aperiodic (tiles can be labeled by infinite binary sequences describing which way the tiles above them are placed and you can only map a tile to another with the same sequence), which may account for its obscurity. Also like the Penrose tiling it's not a single tiling but a class of tilings (there are uncountable binary sequences only countably many of which can label the tiles in a single tiling). If nothing else, it could be mentioned at quadtree. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:16, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

It seems like a pretty harmless stub, at least until someone find a place for it. Then again, WP:ILIKEIT. Sławomir Biały (talk) 20:45, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

I expanded it from sources given by the sources already listed. After expansion, it looks sufficiently notable for a standalong article, so I moved it to mainspace as binary tiling. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:10, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

I've added the maths project tag on the talk page (usually done semi-automagically by the AFC process) but an article class assessment and various other parameters need to be added too. It may also be possible to improve the categorisation. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:25, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

We might need to be careful about the name there are other things called binary tilings. For example the Tiling Encyclopedia binary tiling which is connected to Penrose tilings.--Salix alba (talk): 00:09, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Salix alba I came across this issue last night while trying to de-orphan the article, perhaps it should be moved to hyperbolic binary tiling to disambiguate it from other binary tilings. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:53, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Focus on women mathematicians in February

		Welcome to Women in Red's February 2018 worldwide online editathons. New: "Black women" New: "Mathematicians and statisticians" New: "Geofocus: Island women" Continuing: #1day1woman Global Initiative
		(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list)

--Ipigott (talk) 14:28, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Feb 2018

Links to DAB pages

A hundred or more pages on maths-related topics link to, and have been tagged as linking to, DAB pages. Such links are of no use to anyone, especially our readers. They also get picked up by User:DPL bot for violating WP:INTDAB. I gave up maths when they started writing circles on the integral signs - which means that I know enough not to know the answer, and also enough not to guess. Can any expert help with the {{disambiguation needed}} tags on these pages, please, for starters?

• Generalized Riemann hypothesis  Done D.Lazard (talk) 10:01, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
• Zariski's connectedness theorem  Done D.Lazard (talk) 10:20, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
• NASU Institute of Mathematics  Done D.Lazard (talk) 10:20, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
• Sergey Stechkin  Done D.Lazard (talk) 10:20, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

If you do help solve one of those issues: take off the {{dn}} tag in the article, and add a {{done}} tick on this page. As I said, there are a hundred-plus others – I have seen them before, I will see them again on my routine trawls though Disambiguation pages with links, and I can post them in this WikiProject. You will likely get no thanks unless another WP:DPL member notices – but, in the end, all that matters is getting this encyclopaedia right. Narky Blert (talk) 03:06, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

A thread by WikiProject Disambiguation triggered me to help with resolving links to DAB-links. The linked script now shows "7 points" (there were more than 50!), including the first entry on your list, and 6 others. To my taste, I have done enough damb-ing lately, to not search any further, why there are which links listed in what list connected with DAB. I did not dare to touch those remaining, but seeing ones that tickle my interest, I might d'amb them. How to access the list containing the hundred or more entries? Purgy (talk) 08:32, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

I have disambiguated the 4 pages. The two first ones was linked to "function field", which is really an ambiguous term (the correct link is different for these two pages. The two other pages were linked to "theory of functions", which is a phrase without any common meaning in math. In one case, I have unlinked it, as it was the name of a department. In the second case, I have restricted the link to the single word of "function". D.Lazard (talk) 10:20, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! Unlinking can sometimes be as good as making the correct link; whatever serves the readers best.

There is no list devoted to maths-related DAB problems; but there is a list of all DAB problems. It currently has about 11,000 entries, down from over 40,000 two years ago. I'm working my way through it for the third time (new bad links arrive in it at 400-500 per day). Now that it's getting down towards manageable size, I thought it might be worthwhile asking for help on some of these tougher nuts. You don't need to search for them; I'm doing that, and can post them here in small batches. Narky Blert (talk) 12:36, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, the link provided in my above enquiry does produce a list, strangely entitled "Maths rating", which to my measures is definitely related to math. It still contains the damb'd article, but the included FIXer shows that there is no {{dn}}-template left. To my experience, tomorrow this entry will be gone from that list. I think I'll never search for such links, but I can imagine to casually search through a list of say 100 math articles, whether some topic makes me curious. Purgy (talk) 13:25, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

The next batch of problems which I hope that experts in this WikiProject may be able to solve. As before, search for "disam" in the text as displayed; and if you make a fix, remove the {{dn}} tag and add {{done}} here:

• Selberg's identity  Done D.Lazard (talk) 22:43, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
• Maximally informative dimensions  Done XOR'easter (talk) 22:41, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
• Peccei–Quinn theory  Done XOR'easter (talk) 22:41, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
• Functional additive models  Done XOR'easter (talk) 22:36, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
• Riesz space  Done D.Lazard (talk) 22:43, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
• Van der Corput inequality  Done D.Lazard (talk) 22:43, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
• Timeline of manifolds  Done XOR'easter (talk) 22:34, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks in advance, Narky Blert (talk) 22:21, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

There are other links to disambiguate in

• Functional additive models
• Timeline of manifolds

D.Lazard (talk) 22:56, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Sorry I missed them — I think everything is  Done now. XOR'easter (talk) 01:04, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

• Here is a pickle that needs fixing: The link to nearest neighbor in Tridiagonal matrix algorithm. bd2412 T 01:49, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Besides

• Tridiagonal matrix algorithm linking to nearest neighbor there are
• Arakelov_theory linking to Green function  Done -- Taku (talk) 21:11, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
• Metric connection linking to Curvature tensor
• Numeral (linguistics) linking to Culina language
  

I know nothing about Arakelov, there are too many names of almost equal classes of connections around for my knowledge, and the linguistics might be simply off track. Just FYI. Purgy (talk) 08:08, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

I think we need a new article, something like nearest-neighbor interaction, for the tridiagonal matrix algorithm to point to. XOR'easter (talk) 15:25, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Should nearest neighbor be a disambiguation page at all? Is there a common concept underscoring these terms that an article could be written about? bd2412 T 21:13, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Maybe, we should not have any page Nearest neighbor. In fat, is all page that are linked to in the dab page, "nearest neighbor" has to be understood as the dictionary meaning (this is quite rare in mathematics). The technical difference between the linked page lies in the way of using this relationship, and the context of this use (metric). Specifically, in the case of Tridiagonal matrix algorithm, it is not "nearest neighbor" which should be linked, but the page about "nearest neighbor effects models", whichever is the meaning of this phrase. As this page seems to not exist, and the other link of the sentence toes not contain the word "tridiagonal, I'll simply remove the sentence as unsourced. D.Lazard (talk) 22:17, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

We should certainly have a page "nearest neighbor". The nearest neighbor problem is an important topic in computational geometry, and our link, nearest neighbor search, would not be obvious to find without a dab at nearest neighbor. Similarly, nearest neighbor interpolation is very important in machine learning, and again the link would not be obvious. Other topics such as nearest neighbor graphs make the list of topics to be disambiguated long enough to need a separate disambiguation page rather than hatlinks. And there is no clear primary topic that nearest neighbor could redirect to. Whether the page is a disambiguation page (listing everything that could plausibly be linked from the shortened phrase "nearest neighbor") or a set index article (listing every topic related to finding nearest points to other points) is something we could debate, but the idea of not having any page with this title is ridiculous. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:46, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

We definitely need a "nearest neighbor" navigational aid of some sort, as this is a commonly used broad concept describing models (in statistical physics), distributions (in stochastic geometry) and all the examples David mentioned. A set index article may be a better fit than a dab page, but there needs to be some way for the reader to navigate all these similarly named topics and figure out which one they are looking for. --Mark viking (talk) 00:25, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

My impression of the tridiagonal matrix article was that it was talking about nearest-neighbor models in statistical physics, like an Ising model on a line where each spin couples to the two immediately adjacent. That sense of the term wasn't covered in any of the articles linked from the dab page. XOR'easter (talk) 15:16, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

I am delighted that my requests for help from this WikiProject seem to have opened up such a can of worms solved some long-standing DAB problems and got a useful discussion going. I estimate that in 6-8 weeks, I will have posted all the known maths-related DAB problems here, and that you guys will have solved them. Narky Blert (talk) 01:13, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

My next batch of articles which contain {{disambiguation needed}} tags needing expert attention:

• Fokas method  Done (2 links) D.Lazard (talk) 10:07, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
• Grassmann graph  Done XOR'easter (talk) 06:06, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
• Brooks–Iyengar algorithm  Done (two of the three links of the dab page were already linked. I have added the third one) – D.Lazard (talk) 09:46, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
• Ramsey RESET test  Done (unlinked) – D.Lazard (talk) 09:52, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
• Comparametric equation  Done –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 04:13, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

As usual: thanks in advance, and mark any problem which I have listed here and which you have solved as {{done}}. Narky Blert (talk) 02:57, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Graph of empirical distribution function

If anyone's interested, there's a discussion at User talk:Loraof#Empirical distribution function about the graph used in Empirical distribution function. nagualdesign 14:26, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

I see, that discussion succeeds; no need in more participants. :-) Boris Tsirelson (talk) 05:52, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough. How about this one. nagualdesign 11:27, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Field parameter in math rating

I have added the {{math rating}} banner to the new article Fiber product of schemes, and I have a problem with the parameter "field": is this "algebra" or "geometry"? As this problem occurs for many articles, it would be better to add the possibility of "field = algebraic geometry". Could someone do that? D.Lazard (talk) 10:07, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I agree articles like this fit in both categories (I would put it in "geometry"). However, if we refine the scheme by including algebraic geometry, we might end up creating more subcategories for articles on the border between the other areas as well. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 11:17, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Algebraic geometry is under Geometry; Schemes are under Geometry; Fiber product is under Foundations (via category theory). So I would say that foundations gives way to geometry. Put it under Geometry. JRSpriggs (talk) 11:23, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

In Wikipedia, category:algebraic geometry has categories category:abstract algebra and category:geometry (IMO "abstract" should be removed, but this is not the question here). Thus, in WP, algebraic geometry is under both algebra and geometry. So, there is no "administrative" reason for placing algebraic geometry in algebra or geometry. If the assertions of the preceding post are not of administrative nature (categorization), they must be sourced.

From a scientific point of view: algebraic geometry started with the seminal theorem Hilbert's Nullstellensatz, which established that a point (a purely geometrical object) is essentially the same thing as a maximal ideal (a purely algebraic object). Since them, every result or method of algebraic geometry (including scheme theory) has a geometrical aspect and an algebraic aspect, and these aspects have a similar importance. It results that the attribution in {{math rating}} of parameters "field = algebra" or "field = geometry" to articles of algebraic geometry and scheme theory is arbitrary and totally incoherent. This would suffices to justifies the possibility of allowing "field = algebraic geometry".

From a practical point of view: the categorization in {{math rating}} is aimed to help editors. I appears that most experts in algebra or geometry are totally incompetent in algebraic geometry, and even are unable to understand the lead of most articles of algebraic geometry. So allowing "field = algebraic geometry" would help editors for quickly selecting the articles they may be interested in. D.Lazard (talk) 15:16, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I agree with D.Lazard and I have run into this difficulty for articles in other areas. I also clearly see Jackob's concern about a slippery slope here. Let me jump a light-year ahead of this discussion and make a surely unpopular suggestion. Acknowledging that the current setup is inadequate and trying to avoid all the squabbling about how to improve it, I suggest that we adopt the two-digit AMS classification of areas for this parameter. I realize that this classification is not perfect and that there may be some implementation concerns, but this is only a guide for our editors and it should satisfy our needs for the foreseeable future. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 19:07, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm sure this is old ground, but the AMS classification is aimed at current mathematics research rather than at an encyclopedic coverage of mathematics at all levels. Because of that, it has bad coverage of topics that are taught at lower levels but are no longer research topics. We have a lot of articles on basic arithmetic, for instance; are we supposed to call them number theory or field theory? Where do high-school algebra (solving systems of equations) or trigonometry go? Where do recreational topics, the mathematics of puzzles and games, go? Etc. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:39, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Good points and I'm also pretty sure that I've seen this conversation (including my suggestion) before. As the current scheme doesn't address these problems you've raised either, I was hoping for a counter proposal that might be more useful for us. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 18:30, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Since this is just a parameter to help editors organize rather than an official WP category, I would recommend a pragmatic approach of adding algebraic geometry as a field parameter choice and not worrying about a slippery slope of ever finer classifications until that actually becomes a problem. --Mark viking (talk) 19:26, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

I agree, as it is exactly that I had asked for. D.Lazard (talk) 21:22, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

No objection from me. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:53, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

(unindent) What about the articles which (clearly) belong to algebraic geometry, will they stay in geometry or algebra or will someone move them systematically to this new category? Maybe someone could also consult Geometry guy who once invested a lot of work into the grading scheme and categorization of the articles; he might have some suggestions based on his experience with this work. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 22:45, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Experts in logic, to your attention

Talk:Integer sequence#Definable sequences. --Boris Tsirelson (talk) 09:55, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Need graph for Bring radical

Could someone with graphing skills please convert this table into a graph? The graph can be seen here (put there by another editor). Thanks. Loraof (talk) 20:47, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Bivariant theory

There is a deletion discussion that can use the inputs from a third party, at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Bivariant theory -- Taku (talk) 03:12, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Real number#In physics

What about the "slow motion edit warring" at Real number#In physics? "This approach removes the real number system from its foundational role in physics", really? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 19:11, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

The paragraph should be rewritten rather than removed. I agree that particular claim is highly dubious. Just because real numbers cannot be represented with exact physical precision does not make them less foundational. A real number is an idealization used for modelling physical phenomena, not something that actually exists in the universe (any more than, say, a "triangle" or "circle" exists). Sławomir Biały (talk) 19:34, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Proposal at village pump on inline math

Note: There's some weird parsing error that showed up when I added <math> tags in a discussion below. Please go to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy) and search for "Rfc: Change default <math> to be inline". --Trovatore (talk) 02:11, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on the proposal. Thank you for your attention.--Debenben (talk) 23:03, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Controversy at Draft:Walks on ordinals, input sought

I know zero about math academic stuff, so would like to draw the attention of this WP to a draft under review: Draft:Walks on ordinals.

There are allegations that the submitter is attempting to popularize a fringe mathematical theory, which the submitter denies. Could someone more expert take a look at the draft? You can post and sign comments at the top of the draft page itself rather than its Talk, for ease of reading. MatthewVanitas (talk) 22:30, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

The notation used in the draft for sets is non-standard and incoherent. Thus it is virtually impossible to understand what the writer is getting at. JRSpriggs (talk) 01:48, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

It is definitely not a "fringe theory", but JR is correct that it's hard to understand from the draft exactly what is being discussed. I think there's a typo in this bit:

[...] we'll create a sequence $C_{\alpha }=\{c_{\alpha }(n):\alpha <\omega \}\subseteq \alpha$ [...]

which should read

[...] we'll create a sequence $C_{\alpha }=\{c_{\alpha }(n):n<\omega \}\subseteq \alpha$ [...]

If you understand "ladder systems" (which I really ought to, having spent a year in Toronto, but unfortunately I never really sat down and did the work to figure them out), then I think you might be able to make sense of the text, after fixing the typo. I am not sure what the curvy arrows are about, but again, they might make sense to people who know ladder systems. --Trovatore (talk) 02:07, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

For reference: ladder systems are defined (among other places) in Section 3 of this paper. --Trovatore (talk) 02:17, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Distributional calculus

Here is another deletion discussion: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Distributional calculus. -- Taku (talk) 20:42, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Category:Pseudoconvex minimization has been nominated for discussion

Category:Pseudoconvex minimization and 2 related categories, all of which are within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:51, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Links to DAB pages, Part II

I'm opening this new section so as not to get in the way of archiving #Links to DAB pages. As before, (1) search for "disam" in the article, (2) mark any problems you have solved as {{done}}, and (3) thanks in advance.

• Zilch (electromagnetism)  Done
• Arthur Hobbs (mathematician)  Done
• Carlo Somigliana  Done
• Lie point symmetry  Done
• Alexey Ivakhnenko - DAB remains best option as a page needs to be written (will delink  Done)
• Horndeski's theory  Done
• Calibrated geometry  Done
• Tomio Kubota  Done

I hope that within a month I will have found and posted here every maths article which links to a DAB page – and, more importantly, that you experts will have solved those problems for the benefit of our readers. I find 'em, you fix 'em – this is going well. Yrs, Narky Blert (talk) 22:17, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

@Narky Blert: About Arthur Hobbs: the link in the article is to finite mathematics, a disambig page with two entries. The second entry does not link to an article called "finite mathematics," it links to a collection of articles that might correspond to the material in a lower-level college math class called Finite Mathematics. This is exactly the sense in which the link in the Hobbs article is meant. No reasonable disambiguation is possible here. --JBL (talk) 22:57, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Almost agree. Given the other courses listed I would say that while the course may even be titled finite mathematics, it is most likely a discrete mathematics course and I have changed the link accordingly. To be sure about this we would have to look at the syllabus for the course, but it would be very surprising to list a finite math course as described on the DAB page together with these other discrete math courses.--Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 23:07, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Looked a little more carefully at TAMU offerings. They offer both a Finite Math and a Discrete Math course. While Hobbs did teach an honors section of Finite Math in his first semester there, he was a mainstay of the Discrete Math course, teaching many sections every year. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 23:26, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

@Joel B. Lewis and Wcherowi: direct links to DAB pages are errors per WP:INTDAB. User:DPL bot picks them up, and they need to be fixed somehow rather than left hanging. Narky Blert (talk) 23:14, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

@Wcherowi: "DAB remains best option as a page needs to be written." No it is not, it is a WP:INTDAB error. When I joined WP:DPL, there were something like 38,000 bad links to DAB pages. Determined efforts by that team over the last two years have brought the number down to under 9,000. In 2014, the number was 65,600. Write the goddam article rather than messing us about. Narky Blert (talk) 23:25, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

You could write the "goddam article" yourself, of course, if the problem of DAB links is a high priority to you personally. Overall, there is no deadline for fixing these sorts of things, and WIkipedia is a volunteer project in which each editor is free to work on the things that they care about. Links to DAB pages may not be a very high priority for all editors. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:40, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Strongly agree: WP:IAR is policy, INTDAB is guideline. For some pages, links to disambig pages are going to be the best option at a given moment in time, and being rude about that is completely ridiculous. --JBL (talk) 23:53, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't think anyone here is saying that the problem should never be fixed, of course. Just that, as a matter of priorities, it may not be an emergency that requires urgent action. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:00, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

"DAB remains best option as a page needs to be written." I didn't write an article, because I know nothing whatsoever about the topic, and I learnt nothing from the DAB page. Your move. Narky Blert (talk) 00:20, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Don't be an ass. Your move. --JBL (talk) 00:30, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Freeze, don't move! would be a legal move to me (besides an apology to the highly cooperative community), undoing a move is simply no option. Furthermore, while I consider eliminating obvious ambiguities a highly laudable task, I think that having even marginally relevant inspirations at hand is useful to a casual, curious, rummaging reader. So reducing DABs: yes, total eradication: no. (I feel legitimated by having done quite a few of damb'ings). Purgy (talk) 07:58, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

(←) Seems to me that information criterion could be redirected to Model selection#Criteria (as each of the kinds of information criteria almost always immediately define themselves in terms of model selection, in our articles at least), and each of the summaries of each of the items at the current disambiguation page would make for a nice start to prosifying the section. These are also only partial title matches, another thing which leans me to removing the disambiguation page entirely. (If you need a hatnote regarding the non-mathematical article at Information Criteria, you can add it. That's a WP:DIFFCAPS though... from what I can tell that might actually be the only real ambiguous object, which is the concept in information technology. Maybe there should be a disambig page, one linking to information criterion (statistics), which itself should be a redirect to the model selection article, and one information criteria (information technology), with the content of Information Criteria.) --Izno (talk) 03:20, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

In fact, I've just done the latter. Should improve the articles. --Izno (talk) 03:42, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Several MfD discussions

Here are some new MfD discussions that might interest the members of the project.

• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Main theorem of elimination theory
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Cyclic algebra
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Discrepancy (algebraic geometry)
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Ring with the approximation property
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Bredon cohomology

— Taku (talk) 09:12, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

One more

• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Ringed topos

— Taku (talk) 07:52, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Unproductive discussion

@Taku, assuming these all are based on the same mindset of list-keepers (Hasteur), Wiki-lawyers (Legacypac), and other pillar-masons, and especially, considering all that advertorial stuff (Tabor rotation) and other plain rubbish in WP, I just want to tell you that I personally share your stance that your interest in these drafts (and be they unedited for even a good while) outweigh their interest to have cleared lists and legalesely fulfilled policies and guidelines. However, given my level of expertise in these topics, my experience with the massive, networked reaction (leaving threats and impertinent insinuations (involved admin!) on my TP, and even canvassing a native German speaker to "explain" things to me) of the opponents, and the total amount of my informal obligation to WP, I sadly will not involve myself once more in this unlucky bureaucratic vendetta. In parts I have been nudged to the above by the cavalier reply "Write the goddam article rather than messing us about." by Narky Blert in response to extensive cooperativeness with his agenda. Purgy (talk) 09:24, 19 February 2018 (UTC) And all of this would be gone if Taku would "Write the goddam article rather than messing about" as you curtly put it. As long as the page is being improved I'm more than happy to give Taku his space, but that requires improvement more frequently than 6 months, or giving the drafts to the community at large and accepting the community's decision on it by putting the drafts in mainspace. I'm fine either way, but letting these partial ideas languish in the shared draft space without improvement is a complete non-starter and a fundamental misuse of the community's resources. Hasteur (talk) 16:05, 19 February 2018 (UTC) (For clarification, I’m not permitted to respond to this (especially “requires improvement ... 6 months”) without risking a ban. — Taku (talk) 18:46, 19 February 2018 (UTC)) Not good enough Taku, and you know that Hasteur (talk) 19:09, 19 February 2018 (UTC) Hasteur, you of all editors should know that according to the wording of G13 it's any edit to a page (minus bots/tagging) that resets the 6-month clock. Taku is under no obligation to "significantly" alter the page to keep it out from under the Sword of Damocles. Primefac (talk) 19:18, 19 February 2018 (UTC) @Primefac: And if we see that users are consistently changing one byte alone the page bets brought to MFD on the same grounds as the nominating statement. So try again. Hasteur (talk) 23:10, 19 February 2018 (UTC) If you're going to call out people for their assumptions of bad faith, you could try avoiding such assumptions yourself. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:30, 19 February 2018 (UTC) Not to give a false impression, I don’t mind MfD nominations that much but I do mind the misinformation. In order not to be explicit, I would say this reminds me of a charge that there were a wide spread voting fraud, that millions of votes were cast illegally in the last presidential election from some guy in Washington D.C. If there were/was/is such a wide spread voting fraud, that would be of a great concern..., indeed. — Taku (talk) 20:01, 19 February 2018 (UTC) If you're going to make a Donald Trump inspired Godwin's Law invocation it's clear you're unwilling to debate in good faith. Every single one of your objections has bee disproven with fact, our objections are sustained by policy and community consensus. Every side always presents it's best argument and conveniently leaves out items that don't help it's case. Hasteur (talk) 23:14, 19 February 2018 (UTC) Well, I don't think we are debating anything; rather you're taking advantages of my restrictions on the policy discussions to spread false information (which unfortunately some un-clued users take face-values). So my analogy is spot-on, I think. Wikipedia unfortunately lacks a good mechanism of removing false information on policies; I guess that would be my argument and you're proving my point. -- Taku (talk) 23:44, 19 February 2018 (UTC) Glad to see Trump-ism's mantra of "Fake News" has spread overseas as well. Just because you disagree with it doesn't make it fake news so drop it unless you want me to file a new discsussion seeking to expand your restrictions to a full siteban. Hasteur (talk) 00:08, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

One more:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Popescu's theorem. XOR'easter (talk) 17:12, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Proposed move

FYI

 – See Talk:Net (mathematics)#Move proposal.

–Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 18:36, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Short descriptions

I don't know how many people here use the mobile app, but it turns out that it puts helpful little snippets of text along with article titles. These are currently hosted on Wikidata. This is problematic, in part because changes to Wikidata don't show up on Wikipedians' watchlists.

For this and other reasons, the WMF has decided to add "short descriptions" to Wikipedia articles, which will be embedded in the source of the article itself. As I understand it, the plan is that every single article will be expected to have a short description. The description is allowed to be blank, though I'm not sure why you'd want it to be.

See Wikipedia:Short description and Wikipedia:WikiProject Short descriptions for more detailed information.

The descriptions are really intended to be short. Making a long speech about a subject is not very useful in this context. The suggested limit is 40 characters, though it's a "soft limit" — if we can't get anything useful in 40 characters, we're allowed to go over.

Some thoughts:

• It seems to me that the most important function of the descriptions, especially in the context of math articles, is to establish broad context. For example, someone who sees Atomic formula come up on their phone should have some indication that it's not about chemistry.
• There are several different sorts of mathematical articles, and they seem to invite different "grammar" in short descriptions.
  • (Kinds of) objects (e.g. real number, group (mathematics)).
  • Properties of mathematical objects/structures (e.g. connectedness).
  • Fields of study (e.g. topology).
  • Propositions:
    • Axioms.
    • Theorems.
    • Other (e.g. continuum hypothesis).
  • Proofs.
  • Mathematicians.
• I feel the urge to prepend "kind of" to the descriptions in the "object" category. For example, if the short description of "real number" starts with "number", then it might sound as though it's a particular number, which is obviously not what we want. However, "kind of" uses valuable space, and it's space right up front where we want to put the most-disambiguating information, so maybe this urge should be resisted.
• I found myself calling a lot of things "concepts". I think that's fairly flexible and works pretty well for many of the above categories, remembering that we're mainly trying to establish the broad context and not be too picky. However I couldn't really bring myself to write "concept" for, say, axioms, though I'm not sure why. "Concept" works best for the "properties" category, but it's probably fine for the "object" category as well.
• I found myself calling fields of study "subfields" of this and that. Is that a good word?
• I think we should avoid prepending mathematician descriptions with a nationality. "Mathematician" by itself is fine. I probably wouldn't even narrow it down to a subfield in most cases — the app viewer mostly needs to see that the article is about a mathematician. Further details are in the article itself.

OK, I've yammered on long enough here. --Trovatore (talk) 22:34, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Additional thought for possibly including

• length (in bytes) and "quality" (stub — featured). Purgy (talk) 08:36, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
  • These are mainly used to help mobile users quickly navigate among search results to determine which of the results are what they're actually searching for. Length and quality do nothing for that goal. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:48, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Well, I am attracted like moths by light by a "Good Article", and discard shorties and stubs. Different goals? Purgy (talk) 10:08, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't think the SD mechanism is working correctly. For real number, you all have come up with the SD number representing a continuous quantity, but when I search with the WP app on my iPad, I get quantity along a continuous line. Real line shows the SD Redirected from: Real number line instead of an appropriate SD for the target article. Perhaps these aren't ready for prime time. --Mark viking (talk) 11:17, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Correct. They aren't "live" yet. The app still displays the description taken from Wikidata. More information at the links I gave at the top of this section, and at Wikipedia talk:Wikidata/2018 State of affairs#Short descriptions. --Trovatore (talk) 11:39, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

I should also say that the approach using {{short description}} is being called "experimental". I suppose there is no guarantee that the effort will come to anything. However no alternative proposal really has any traction. These are just my vague impressions; I'm not an expert on the subject. --Trovatore (talk) 23:30, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Mar 2018

Talk:Cyclic number

I've just added a ninth section to Talk:Cyclic number, I wouldn't normally post such a thing so quickly at a Wikiproject, but that talkpage has an unusual number of open and ancient queries which hopefully will be of interest here. ϢereSpielChequers 14:58, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Wow, that whole article's in pretty bad shape . –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:33, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Wow, that is some serious cruft right there. I would not have thought mathematics articles were prone to the same enthusiastic ramblings and obsessive listing of trivial examples as other areas of the encyclopedia, but I guess nowhere is safe. Reyk _YO! 15:46, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Elementary number theory attracts all sorts. The number of people who want to add the remainders of any particular sequence you might care about with respect to all moduli up to 16 (or whatever) is remarkably large. --JBL (talk) 16:06, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Computational complexity

I have recently created (it existed as a dab page) Computational complexity. I need the help of the community on two points.

1. Many math. articles use "computational complexity" without link or as a link of the form [[xxx | computational complexity]], where "xxx" may be time complexity, analysis of algorithms or computational complexity theory. None of these piped articles are convenient for readers interested in a specific problem. Other articles such as Euclidean algorithm or (until recently) Matrix multiplication use the terms "efficiency" or "running time", which are improper as normally referring to specific implementations. There is thus a problem of updating links in a lot of mathematical articles.
2. The rating of the article is presently "class = C". IMHO, it could be rated "class = B" (maybe this would require reference improvement). As the author of the article, I cannot change the rating myself. Being recent, the article has few watchers, and this is a reason for asking to a larger community.

D.Lazard (talk) 09:54, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Definitely a good article. It just needs some "inlining" of the references. Let me know if I can help.Limit-theorem (talk) 17:21, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Math Drafts

Excellent list created by Taku here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/List of math draft pages Thank-you. Legacypac (talk) 18:49, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Some MfD discussions

Here are some MfD discussions that might interest the members of the project.

• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Tropical compactification
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Sphere bundle
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Specialization (algebraic geometry)
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Projective hypersurface
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Obstruction cycle
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Microfunction
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Macaulay representation of an integer (2nd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Lie's formula (2nd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Join (algebraic geometry)
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Gluing schemes
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Glossary of symplectic geometry
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Differential graded module
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Contraction morphism
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Compact object
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Coherency (homotopy theory)

— Taku (talk) 11:16, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Why weren't these just created in mainspace to begin with? It feels like a waste of effort to have to comment on MFD discussions because they were started as drafts. It takes very little effort to create a stub with a couple references that would not be a candidate for deletion. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:11, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Well, because some drafts are not in a good shape (e.g., Draft:Glossary of symplectic geometry) and I prefer to put something more complete in the mainspace. There is also an issue of accuracy; sometimes I write off the top of my head and want to be sure of the accuracy before putting it in the mainspace where the content can become accessible from a Google search. Some simply lack a reference (since I need to do a trip to a library, say). I mostly start artciles in the mainspace or move drafts to the mainspace within hours. Those that require more care (by me or the others) are in the draftspace. —- Taku (talk) 17:59, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Also, I prefer to put those drafts in the draftspace rather than in my userpage since that would allow collaboration (I use my userpage for my personal notes I don’t want the other editors to edit). — Taku (talk) 18:20, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Somehow related, I do have a proposal: can this project maintain the list of all math-related pages in the draftspace? One of the problems is that the draftspace is somehow invisible to the members of this project (and one of the reasons for the above MfDs is, ostensibly, to bring some attention to those drafts). Having such a list helps address this concern. — Taku (talk) 19:22, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

I think it would be better to just start stub-quality articles in mainspace, saving effort for everyone. The standards for a stub are very low - just a couple sentences and a couple sources - so there's really no reason I can see to bother with drafts. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:29, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

In practice, the list will be maintained mostly by me and also the list includes some math drafts started by anonymous users as well. (Right now, they receive very little attention.) I think some people also simply like to edit pages and the list helps them find such pages; the list would help content development. Also, some editors like me do prefer to start an article as a draft (for the reasons I mentioned above); it’s just the mode of content creation, I think. —- Taku (talk) 19:31, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Carl. Although in theory other users might see and edit an article in draftspace, in practice they don't. So I think, most such article ought to be started in mainspace. Those which are thought to be not yet acceptable for mainspace, should be in userspace. Paul August ☎ 19:49, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

(Mosf of my stubs are started in the mainspace.) Yes that invisibility is precisely why having a list of drafts (which can also include userpage drafts) can address it. Is there any serious objection to the list? — Taku (talk) 20:08, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

A list would be useless to anyone but regular editors. If regular editors wanted to do something with these permadrafts, they would have by now. The point of a stub is that it's visible to the world, not kept in some Wikiproject or User list which is not indexed by search engines. If anyone is going to beef these up, they will be from outside Wikipedia most likely. Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:11, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

And the list will be useful for regular editors who are looking for pages to work with. I get that stubs in the mainspace are preferable. There are materials that are useful to regular editors but not are not meant for the general public yet: the list collects links to such materials. -- Taku (talk) 21:19, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

But regular editors, yourself included, are not working on many of these drafts, and no one has expressed an interest in doing so. For one thing, regular editors just don't work that way. They just don't work on other peoples' drafts. Secondly, your drafts are of extremely narrow interest even in mathematics. If the hope is that typical mathematical Wikipedia editors are going to be able to assist much, that is simply empirically not true. The only way to attract the required motivated interest is by having something that graduate student specialists in these fields can see, make additions to, etc. Regular editors are not the ones you should be targeting at all. Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:54, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't feel you are really against having the convenient link list for the editors per se. By regular, I don't mean ordinary. No I don't expect every ordinary math editor is going to work on the drafts if there is the list. Recent activities show there are at least few editors who are interested in finishing up the drafts. That's all I'm expecting. Effectively there is already a list of drafts (through MfD nominations). What is a problem with having a more official list of drafts at all? -- Taku (talk) 23:22, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

But why is there reluctance to accept what seems to be the reasonable suggestion of making stubs? Do you need help doing that? Sławomir Biały (talk) 23:44, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

I didn't disagree to create stubs: in fact, I usually start articles in mainspace. But from time to time, there are drafts that I'm not comfortable putting mainspace right away for the reasons of completeness, accuracy, etc. Since I don't think there is an actual objection to the draft list, I'm going to create one. -- Taku (talk) 23:55, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Before you get too far into that, it might be more productive and globally useful to get on the article alerts coders to add draft listing functionality to the alerts tables (i.e. User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Custom/Mathematics-Overall). I'm not quite sure even where to begin with that, though. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:34, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Yeah.... I think I understand this idea but isn't a bit overkill. There is a possibility that in coming few months, the list will contain only a dozen as many get finished and move to the mainspace; the message I'm getting here is even if I were to use the draftspace, I should use it sparingly. As it turned out, having more than a dozen draft is a bad idea. If the number of the math drafts is low, hopefully that helps reduce the sentiment that there is an issue if there were. But I will do the research. Thanks for the input. -- Taku (talk) 03:40, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

I can't see how a list would hurt. I've put work into several of these drafts when my attention was called to them, and I've seen at least one other editor do the same. Several drafts have been promoted to main space as a result. And if we had the full list, we could get a better sense of how many are three-word fragments that might as well be deleted, how many only need a little work to become decent main-space stubs, how many could be merged into existing articles, etc. At worst, a list would be one more thing for people who don't care to ignore. XOR'easter (talk) 16:00, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Also I'm still not seeing any strong objection (and I cannot understand having the list at all is considered as a disruptive edit; e.g., abuse of Wikipedia as webhost, seriously???) So here is the list Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/List of math draft pages (I have not completed it yet) (the list should now contain all drafts started by me). -- Taku (talk) 04:00, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

I've added a bunch by checking the what links here to Mathematics and Mathematician. Some of them look clearly notable. One Draft:Peter Eccles (Mathematician) I dearly like to see make it to mainspace as he was my MSc advisor, but academic criteria seem pretty strict.--Salix alba (talk): 09:42, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

I have used “algebra” as a search key word to find a couple more. There are few like Draft:Supermanifold Hypothesis in Deep Learning, which I didn’t think is in the scope of this project. — Taku (talk) 10:02, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

I must say if Draft:Viktor Ginzburg is not considered notable, most others will have little hope. —- Taku (talk) 10:24, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

As a general note, I'm not sure that everyone who evaluates AfC submissions for academics does so with WP:PROF in mind. XOR'easter (talk) 18:21, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

If the subject meets WP:PROF or some other appropriate guideline feel free to promote it. Any editor can move it out of Draft space. Just strip the AfC comments when you do. Legacypac (talk) 18:44, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

I've promoted Viktor Ginzburg (I hope its the right person as there is another Russian-American mathematician Victor Ginzburg). The article does not really have any third party sources to show his notability so any assistance in that would be good. In particular an article on the red link Conley Conjecture would be helpful.--Salix alba (talk): 20:30, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

About my early comment: sorry, I mistook him for more famous Victor (didn’t remember that was Victor with c) since the areas both Ginzburg work overlap, retracting my early comment. But Viktor with k does seem to have some fame (i.e., he is more than your average math professor.) —- Taku (talk) 20:38, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Discussions about surfaces

There is a move request at Talk:Surface (mathematics) and a WP:MfD at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Surface‎‎. Both may interest members of this project. D.Lazard (talk) 20:57, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Help needed with GA nomination of Hidden Markov model

The article Hidden Markov model has been nominated for GA, and is now the second oldest unreviewed article there; it was nominated in June 2017, over eight months ago. I have been doing GA reviewing recently, including some maths articles, but would like to get someone with deeper mathematical knowledge to review this -- my maths degree is now nearly thirty years old, and this is not a topic I know anything about. Would someone here be willing to help out by reviewing the article? If someone is interested but not knowledgeable about GA reviewing I'd be glad to help out with that side of things. Thanks for any help. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:20, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Locally nilpotent derivation

(I didn't start this draft). Is this notable? -- Taku (talk) 23:35, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it gets hundreds of scholar hits published in top quality math journals. Sławomir Biały (talk) 23:44, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Ok. I think I will ping @Legacypac: to promote it to mainspace. -- Taku (talk) 23:49, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Done. Feel free to fix anything of course. One more draft off the list :) Legacypac (talk) 23:58, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

The later sections (starting with "Slice theorem") need some pretty heavy copy editing. XOR'easter (talk) 00:33, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I think that’s true, and the sentiment of the project from the above is that such further editing can happen more when the page in mainspace, because of increased visibility. So the question is notability (since there is no much point to put the stuff that cannot survive AfDs.) —- Taku (talk) 17:46, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

It easily passes, and by allowing more eyes to see it, it will improve over time. Sławomir Biały (talk) 22:15, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Uh in the phrase: if $X$ admits plenty of such actions, or equivalently, if its coordinate ring $\mathbb {C} [X]$ has a lot of locally nilpotent derivations" what do "plenty" and "a lot" mean? Paul August ☎ 19:39, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

These are the reason why the sentence starts with “roughly speaking”, I think (the ref https://arxiv.org/pdf/1011.5375.pdf gives more precise meanings) I don’t know flexible variety is notable enough (so I will unlink it.) —- Taku (talk) 21:00, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Level structure

This is a wrong redirect. The draft was/is about a level structure in algebraic geometry. Can someone correct it? (I can't do it myself without risking getting an indefinite ban from Wikipedia.) -- Taku (talk)

If so, what is the proper TARGET? All you had to do was change it to the right main space redirect, but no, you decided you wanted to go on a revert spree instead of fixing the problem. You don't unilaterially undo something that's been standing for 6 months. You should know better Hasteur (talk) 00:46, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

None, I think. (I didn't think correcting the wrong redirect triggers too much dramas, and apparently do.) -- Taku (talk) 00:48, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Ok, so you see a problem, but you don't have a solution for it. Oh and by the way, this thread is WP:CANVAS/WP:MEATPUPPET violations and you should know better. Hasteur (talk) 00:55, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

In fact, it seems I will be indef-ban after all. See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Indefinite_community_ban_for_TakuyaMurata. (I know I'm not completely blameless but still.) -- Taku (talk) 01:18, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

• I have just finished Draft:Level structure. (The quality is ... bad. Who cares right?) -- Taku (talk) 03:27, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
  • If it's bad quality, how about you continue fixing it before a real New Page Patroller starts ripping it apart and puts it on the path to deletion. BTW: You removed the maintenance templates without fixing all the issues. Hasteur (talk) 03:40, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

This discussion is difficult to understand. Apparently, Draft:Level structure is a draft created in June 2015 by Taku. It has be wrongly redirected by Hasteur in August 2017. It is only yesterday that Taku reverted this wrong redirect. This started an edit war between Taku and Hasteur, until Taku moved the draft to the main space with the name Level structure (algebraic geometry). The edit war continued about maintenance tags, this time, because Hasteur insisted to put tags about issues that are common with almost all stubs (otherwise, these would not be stubs) and thus duplicate the stub tag. After having clarified the history, I see two remaining issues:

• It was an error to leave a redirect when moving the draft (possibly, Taku did not has the rights for not leaving a redirect).
• Hasteur's edits in the draft/article and here are undoubtful WP:Harassment. Moreover, above Hasteur's posts contain personal attacks (accusation of canvassing and meat-puppetry) not only against Taku, but also, implicitly, about all members of this project. D.Lazard (talk) 14:19, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Having looked over the article Level structure (algebraic geometry), I think I can say that it has attained that level of "incomprehensible to the uninitiated, possibly useful for advanced students who need pointers into the literature" that characterizes so much of Wikipedia's mathematics articles. In other words, it's fine, though of course further work could always improve it. XOR'easter (talk) 17:04, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: Yes, I think I understand what you mean: at least currently the article doesn't make much sense! (unless you already know the stuff.) This is a type of a math article that is very hard to write because it depends heavily on the context; some math article involves more than copying facts from the sources.

I will be adding the def of Drinfeld level structure soon, which is also cryptic, unfortunately. -- Taku (talk) 03:32, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for that veiled personal attack Lazard. By the way your edit summary removing the maintenance tags is in violation of WP:SUMMARYNO. The article is now up to the level that the tags are no longer needed, though I really wish that the removal of the tags would have been left alone to someone who can neutrally evaluate or myself as I don't think Lazard's removal was impartial. Hasteur (talk) 17:38, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

My "violation of WP:SUMMARYNO" consists of omitting of mentioning in an edit summary the involuntary removing of a blank line before a section heading. I leave the member of this project appreciating what is a personal attack. D.Lazard (talk) 18:54, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Intrinsic flat distance

This article was at one time a draft, which was copied into mainspace several years ago but has never been assessed. It seems to me that it needs more independent references, and may have been a neologism at the time it was created. Can someone with a math background and access to academic journals fix it up and/or tag it appropriately? Thanks.—Anne Delong (talk) 10:03, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I am not a specialist of this area. However, this is clearly WP:COI and WP:OR, as the username of the creator of this article is the name of the author of all published references. Looking, on Scholar Google, at papers citing the main reference, it appears that most are self-references. However, Michael Gromov cite this reference as a possible step toward the solution of a problem (one line comment). IMO, the main reference on which the article is based is an interesting paper, but not interesting (notable) enough for having its own WP article. I suggest its deletion, but I'll not prod it myself, as not sufficiently competent. D.Lazard (talk) 11:03, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I have not looked at the article yet. But my understanding of "OR" is that it is research first published in Wikipedia. If it appears in a refereed journal first, then it's not OR when written about in Wikipedia. Michael Hardy (talk) 06:16, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

I am not a specialist as well; googling a bit I see an article in GAFA Journal 2017 and Section 3.3 in a book (Springer 2012). In addition, arXiv eprint 2014. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 11:09, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

The editor who created the article has sent me two indignant e-mails about the inappropriateness of a mere musician questioning the notability of the original draft. My reply is HERE.—Anne Delong (talk) 11:22, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Article reads as heavily promotional (at least for a math article). Whatever the decision is on notability (at a glance, dubious based on current sourcing), that will need to be fixed. --JBL (talk) 12:05, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

It is bizarrely promotional for a mathematics article—making a big deal, for example, out of a brief mention in a blog post. Given the comparative recency of it, and the low-but-not-vanishing citation figures, it's possible that giving due weight to this might mean just writing a succinct summary of it in another article (e.g., flat convergence). I lean in this direction due to Gromov's remark that the intrinsic flat distance is "A preliminary step toward the construction" of a metric in the space of $n$-manifolds with certain properties [2]. (Elsewhere and similarly, Gromov says it is a distance that suggests possibilities [3].) XOR'easter (talk) 17:00, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I was just writing to point out the connected article Flat convergence, but XOR'easter has covered that better.—Anne Delong (talk) 17:07, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I did a quick de-promotionalization of the article, so at least we won't have the advertorial tone as a distraction while we figure out what to do with it. I note that the book chapter found by Tsirel was written by Sormani, so it is not an independent source. XOR'easter (talk) 17:10, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Wow, written by Sormani, indeed; regretfully I did not note this fact. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 21:03, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

On a related note, what about the article Christina Sormani? It has been prodded twice but survives. Is the topic notable? Mgnbar (talk) 00:12, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes. As a Fellow of the AMS she clearly passes WP:PROF#C3. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:18, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, David. I didn't really know the prestige carried by that fellowship. Mgnbar (talk) 00:23, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

On "scheme theory"

I've seen the phrase "scheme theory" used on wikipedia several times (e.g. in the current version of the article Main theorem of the elimination theory), and while the meaning of this term is clear, I don't think it's a conventional phrase. As more or less an algebraic geometer, I find it very quaint and nonstandard. Only the adjective "scheme-theoretic" seems to be commonly used. To support the feeling let me remark that, unlike group theory, representation theory, number theory and others, books introducing schemes are (almost?) never titled "scheme theory". Here are some popular books covering schemes ([4]):

• Hartshorne's "Algebraic geometry"
• Vakil's "Foundations of Algebraic Geometry"
• Mumford's "Red book of varieties and schemes"
• Eisenbud-Harris "The geometry of schemes"
• Liu's "Algebraic Geometry and Arithmetic Curves"
• Görtz-Wedhorn "Algebraic Geometry I, Schemes with Examples and Exercises"

To follow the usage in the literature, I would replace "scheme theory" by "modern algebraic geometry", but I think D.Lazard objects to this choice, so maybe "the language of schemes" is an OK replacement. Dpirozhkov (talk) 16:31, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

I am strongly against the "modern algebraic theory" for several reasons. Firstly most readers, even those that have heard of schemes, do not know that this phrase should mean either "language of schemes" or "scheme theory". Secondly, identifying modern algebraic theory to scheme theory excludes from modern algebraic theory many parts of algebraic theory, where the language of schemes is not or rarely used, for example, singularity theory, real algebraic geometry, computational algebraic geometry, invariant theory, numerical algebraic geometry, analytic geometry (several of these areas have been identified as subareas of algebraic geometry after the introduction of schemes by Grothendieck. "Language of schemes" may be a good formulation in some case, but this hides the fact that scheme theory is not a reformulation, but a generalization of algebraic geometry.

For modern popular books that talk of algebraic geometry, without using schemes, see Algebraic geometry#Further reading. D.Lazard (talk) 17:57, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree with your mathematical points, though my main concern is the specific phrase. It seems to me that people who work with schemes professionally avoid the phrase "scheme theory" in various ways, instead saying "the language of schemes", "the geometry of schemes", "algebraic geometry using schemes", "properties of schemes", etc. The list of the titles above was to support this point, not about popularity or a lack of it for schemes. To me, "scheme theory" sounds like a mistake, almost like saying "a module on a ring" instead of "a module over a ring". I only see this phrase on Wikipedia and this bothers me, since Wikipedia should follow the standard usage. Though maybe it's a case of professional slang, and mathematicians who don't usually work with schemes say "scheme theory" all the times. Is that your impression? Dpirozhkov (talk) 19:14, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

I have searched Scholar Google for "geometry of schemes", "language of schemes", "scheme theory" and "theory of schemes", all between quotes and associated with "algebraic" and "geometry" (for avoiding other meanings of schemes). The highest number of hits is got for "theory of schemes", followed by "scheme theory". Also, the first words of the introduction of Eisenbud's book "The Geometry of schemes" are "The theory of schemes ...". In the same introduction, I have found "scheme-theoretic methods". This shows that it is wrong that people who work with schemes professionally avoid the phrases "scheme theory" and "theory of schemes". Their majority use these phrases. However, it is true that "theory of schemes" is more common than "scheme theory". Personally I do not see a significant difference between these two phrases. D.Lazard (talk) 23:02, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

(I'm late to the party but here is my take).

• It is usually hard to determine the standard usage because it heavily depends on a field, a subfield or a context. Google search can help but can be misleading since Google can give only an overall number and, for example, in some subfield, there is really no distinction between "algebraic geometry" and "scheme theory" (how can Google search detect this?). So, the question is what is the context behind the "main theorem" and that's very unclear to me.
• "Modern X" is generally a bad term just as "modern analysis", "modern algebra", "modern geometry", etc. are not good terms to use (because of time ambiguity). For example, scheme theory constitutes the classical case from the point of view of derived algebraic geometry. (Maybe derived algebraic geometry is post-modern algebraic geometry??). Oh, and in this context, "scheme theory" is the natural term to use, I think.

-- Taku (talk) 00:59, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Multivariate quadratic random number generator

Could someone that understands this let us know if this AfC draft is any good? Legacypac (talk) 07:40, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

It seems that this is pure WP:OR: A Scholar Google search on "Multivariate Quadratic Random Number Generator" and on the variants given at the end of the lead does not provides any hit. It is asserted that this is variant of another algorithm called QUAD, but nobody is credited for the design of the variant. Therefore, the subject of this article is not sourced, not even by a primary source. D.Lazard (talk) 09:07, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

The page has been nominated for deletion. Please join in the conversation there. Primefac (talk) 12:22, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Category:Unary operations has been nominated for discussion

Category:Unary operations has been nominated for possible deletion. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Marcocapelle (talk) 07:55, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Data-driven control systems

There is a lot of math in Draft:Data-driven control systems. Is this page ok for mainspace? Legacypac (talk) 00:46, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

I've just done a bunch of copy-editing on it to bring it closer to the norms of WP:MOS and WP:MOSMATH, and I may do some more. Then I'll think about whether it's ready to move to the article space. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:54, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Shinichi Mochizuki

There is a discussion at the conflict of interest noticeboard which could benefit from input from editors with mathematics knowledge. Please see the discussion for details. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 12:44, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Stephens' constant

The new article titled Stephens' constant is something of mess. It doesn't have a proper introductory section nor a proper opening sentence, nor does does it say enough to make it clear why the topic is notable. And it could use copy-editing of a number of different sorts. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:39, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure if cleanup would be easier than rewriting from scratch. - CRGreathouse (t | c) 05:57, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

I cut out a whole lot of stuff and reworked the references. I think that now it looks like a decent stub, though I wonder if it would be better off merged into something else. My general feeling is that to a first approximation, if MathWorld has an article on it, we ought to cover it somewhere, but not necessarily as its own article. XOR'easter (talk) 16:27, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

abc and "Inter-universal Teichmüller theory"

I recently had a look at the page on Shinichi Mochizuki's Inter-universal Teichmüller theory and found it to have several problems. First it is far from having a neutral point of view (the most flagrant example of this being the complete omission of the fact that very few mathematicians accept Mochizuki's idea to say the least, as illustrated for example by this blog post: https://galoisrepresentations.wordpress.com/2017/12/17/the-abc-conjecture-has-still-not-been-proved/ and the discussion following it). Second (perhaps this point is more my personal impression) it has no discernable mathematical content and is basically useless as an introduction to the theory as far as I am concerned.

I think that the page as it stands should not exist on Wikipedia. On the other hand it seems to me that mentioning IUT on Wikipedia is important, and I'd like to suggest the following to take care of this in what I believe is a better way:

• that we change this page to a redirect to S. Mochizuki's wikipedia page, where a lot of its contents already resides.
• that the page on abc conjecture be edited to reflect the fact that Mochizuki's claimed proof is at present, as far as the mathematical community as a whole is concerned, not an accepted proof. I can do this but I am no expert in number theory and I think it would be better that such a person undertakes this (I edited the lede of the article regarding this point but in the main text there should include more detail which I am not able to produce without substantial effort).

I think this is a rather touchy subject (witness some discussions on blog comments, eg. here: https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=9871) and this is why a discussion here might be needed. jraimbau (talk) 15:59, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Indeed the article needs work. A lot of it has been written by SPAs Precisely34 (talk · contribs), Elseford (talk · contribs), Mordell382 (talk · contribs), Ergodic89 (talk · contribs), Hodge37 (talk · contribs), Transpor (talk · contribs), Per1sistence (talk · contribs), Lichtmueller (talk · contribs), Rarelythere (talk · contribs), Polymorphism44 (talk · contribs), Maznderfi (talk · contribs), Precisely34 (talk · contribs). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:c7f:da17:900:d97e:efa:1f30:9375 (talk • contribs)

Thank you for this list! This seems to provide further proof that something is rotten in the coverage of IUT on wikipedia. In all these edits I noticed a pattern of removing sources touching the unacceptance by the community of Mochizuki's claimed proof under cover of minor revisions, e.g.:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shinichi_Mochizuki&diff=prev&oldid=821426951
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shinichi_Mochizuki&diff=prev&oldid=675115425
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Inter-universal_Teichm%C3%BCller_theory&diff=prev&oldid=770262632

jraimbau (talk) 17:03, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

By the way, the talk page Talk:Shinichi_Mochizuki contains similar criticisms (in particular by Will_Orrick (talk · contribs)) but I think that as the issue concerns a set of pages it is better discussed here. jraimbau (talk) 17:10, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree there are a lot of problems with the current page. Unfortunately, one of my current life goals is to not spend the time to understand IUT, so I'm no help improving the page. It's sufficiently notable that the page needs to exist, but it's possible there's only about 2 paragraphs worth of material that can be covered in an encyclopedic fashion. power~enwiki (π, ν) 18:07, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I do agree there is a serious notability question, and I tend to think the page does actually fail the notability (in the sense of Wikipedia) and, accordingly, that page needs to be deleted or partially merged into the Mochizuki article. The notability of math topics mainly comes from the fact that they are part of mainstream established literature (textbooks, monographs, frequently cited papers, etc.) The IUT is clearly not notable in this manner. If the article exists, it might have to exist outside the scope of this math project. In this project, we simply don't cover original works outside the mainstream, rightly I think (although I cannot say ITU is a fringe theory.) Some years from now, the status of the theory may change of course and we can revisit the matter in such a scenario. -- Taku (talk) 22:58, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Has anyone tried to send that list of WP:SPAs to WP:SPI? In some sense it's not worth it (they all only edit for one day) but it's pretty obvious that many (if not all) of them are actually the same person. Maybe a friendly admin could be convinced to put some semiprotection on or something. --JBL (talk) 23:26, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

The biography is the same; in addition to the accounts mentioned by the IP, there are Jacob2341 (talk · contribs), Conjecture75 (talk · contribs), Sharing54 (talk · contribs), Algrot (talk · contribs), Theta4983s (talk · contribs), Jeremyraves4 (talk · contribs), Roberts594 (talk · contribs), R9ui43 (talk · contribs), Robertstromberg8 (talk · contribs), S87hir (talk · contribs), Lesstechnical (talk · contribs), PadicHodge (talk · contribs), Monoanbelian (talk · contribs), and who knows how many others. (I did not look back in the article history before 2017, but clearly this has been going on for years.) --JBL (talk) 23:37, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

User:Primefac perhaps some page protection is in order, like 30/500 to weekld out all the SPAs noted. Legacypac (talk) 00:17, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

If there's a history of abuse then I can see this being an effective method of combating the problem, but if it doesn't meet the notability criteria there's not much point. If there's evidence they're not just SPAs (and actually linked) then an SPI would be the first step, then RFPP (assuming the page is worth keeping). Primefac (talk) 01:36, 14 March 2018 (UTC) (please ping on reply)

Ok, I will file an SPI tomorrow morning (say, 10 hours from now) if no one else does first. --JBL (talk) 03:12, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Filed. --JBL (talk) 12:10, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Two updates:

1. Most of the material on Inter-universal Teichmüller Theory was removed from Shinichi Mochizuki as unsuitable for a biography page. This followed an editing dispute that is apparently only tangentially related to the issues discussed here. The similar material at Inter-universal Teichmüller theory is still there.
2. I reordered and expanded the list at the SPI. This resulted in a message that the case has moved to this page, which does not, at present, appear to exist.

Will Orrick (talk) 14:35, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Will Orrick. I have moved the page to the new title. (It is unclear to me if this will result in a tsk-tsking from some admin, but whatever. [Update: tsk tsk. That was quick!] I also don't understand what "stale" means in this context.) --JBL (talk) 15:33, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

The various one-day-only editors have been confirmed as sock-puppets. This process also incidentally identified the article Ivan Fesenko as a target. Per Primefac's suggestion, I have filed a request for page protection at WP:RFPP. --JBL (talk) 22:58, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

I have edited the page on abc to better reflect the fact that Mochizuki's work is currently not accepted as providing a proof of the conjecture. The main reference is the Persiflage blog post, including comments by Brian Conrad, which is maybe not ideal but I think this is the best quality source on the topic. I will try to revise the IUT page soon (after thinking a bit more it seems not to be the better idea to include it into S.M.'s page). jraimbau (talk) 13:59, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

I've given Shinichi Mochizuki, Inter-universal Teichmüller theory and Ivan Fesenko, extended confirmed protection. That should hopeful make the sock puppetry much harder. --Salix alba (talk): 23:51, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Salix alba. Maybe abc conjecture should also be added to the list, per 1 2 3? --JBL (talk) 00:49, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

I gave it 6 months in light of its history. - CRGreathouse (t | c) 06:02, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jean_Raimbault/sandbox/temp is a revised version of the page on IUT. I kept to the old version where it merely describes the contents of the theory. Please suggest and/or make edits. Barring opposition from members of the project I will update the page in mainspace in 24 or so hours. jraimbau (talk) 16:20, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

I have made some superficial edits; overall, that version reads nicely. (I will admit to not carefully comparing with the existing version to see if you left out any improvements there.) One obvious thing that still needs fixing is "2005 (??)". --JBL (talk) 16:37, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

The new version has been put in place. I didn't remove the tags for COI and factuality, I'll start a discussion at [[5]] before doing that, please contribute there if you have comments on anything related to the above. jraimbau (talk) 17:36, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Odometer (ergodic theory)

Should there be a page titled Odometer (ergodic theory)?

There is now a page titled Markov odometer, which could probably use some work. Michael Hardy (talk) 13:01, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Subtle trolling?

Chadyoung (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been adding ridiculous "analogies" to mathematics and physics articles. Some of these are vaguely relevant, but rather useless (e.g., this). Others are clearly absurd (e.g., this and this). And others still seem to be purely vandalism (e.g., this). I'm not sure if this is subtle trolling, or just very poor judgement. Sławomir Biały (talk) 17:24, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

These are needed in my community college neighborhood where people can't even do simple algebra. Chadyoung (talk) 18:00, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Then try simple English wikipedia. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 18:18, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Please also see WP:OR. Paul August ☎ 21:02, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Robert Langlands

Robert Langlands is the 2018 winner of the prestigious Abel Prize and his article is nominated to be displayed on the main page. Please could someone more experienced with mathematics articles take a look to fix "Research section" in his article or his Langlands program which also needs attentions. Suggestion is also welcomed in the talkpage. –Ammarpad (talk) 04:35, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Question about articles on funtions and equations at the Teahouse

Please see WP:Teahouse#Separate language sets where the OP has asked whether the Wikidata interlanguage links for articles about cubic/quartic functions and equations respectively should be merged, are they separate topics or not? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:30, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

@Dodger67: the Teahouse-link does not work for me, it just leads me to the bottom. The addressed thread is the #61-thread (of currently 67), and will be archived, probably, to archive #741. I do not understand the intentions of the Polish cross-language mergers. Teahouse was nice to me, I would like to help. Purgy (talk) 15:05, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Split off some sections of Hodge theory

I have made a proposal for splitting-off the complex-algebraic-geometry-related section of Hodge theory to a separate article at Talk:Hodge theory#Split off Hodge theory for complex projective varieties. Opinions from the editors who might have opinions on the matter are needed. -- Taku (talk) 23:02, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Unjustified deletions in Foias constant and Mandelbrot set

Michael Hardy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Reddwarf2956 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) just deleted 3 recursive definition formulas for very nontrivially defined constants conjectured to be transcendent irrational. Also in other articles about such hard to understand numbers like Feigenbaum constants explicit definition terms could clarify much furtherly and help classifying them. E.g. also in substance articles multiple chemical structure representations are often available so if they can be directly derived from a given defining explanation then why not specifying them explicitly? --LKreissig (talk) 19:07, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Your additions are completely incomprehensible. --JBL (talk) 19:42, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Also, although it's okay to post here to bring issues to a wider audience, you should generally discuss things like this at the talk page(s) of the article(s) in question. But since we're here, I'll just briefly mention that the expressions you've added don't make much sense out of context (the Mandelbrot set one just appears to be a restatement in terms of the integral of its characteristic function, which isn't useful to include). Also, your use of English at the Foias constant article was unintelligible. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 19:47, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

@Deacon Vorbis (talk · contribs): Is my added Mandelbrot set area formula true or false? In Foias constant I mentioned a "complexity rank", of course the transcendent irrational numbers can be ordered by their amounts of recurrences, limits, integrals, ... necessary to define them. The higher these amounts the higher the ranks of their complexity tend to be. That is not unintelligible. --LKreissig (talk) 21:24, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

What you wrote in Foias constant is completely incomprehensible, any reasonable person who came across it would have reverted it. There is no sense in talking further about these questions if you fail to understand this. --JBL (talk) 21:41, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Agree. Had I come across it first I would have reverted it for not even being a good approximation to English. Also, Wikipedia is not just a collection of statements, there must be a reason to insert something beyond its just being a true statement. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 21:50, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Under SEE ALSO mathworld.wolfram.com only references to each other between Foias and Grossman's constant due to their definition similarities so comparing these both is absolutely justified and also there my additions are righteous. If there are language mistakes tell them concretely and focused! --LKreissig (talk) 22:04, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Here is the language mistake: what you wrote is completely incomprehensible. Not like "you made a typo" or "there are grammar errors characteristic of a non-native speaker"; it is literally not possible to make sense of what you wrote. --JBL (talk) 22:10, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

@LKreissig: At this point you really need to explain in some comprehensible way what the things you added mean. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:27, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

The problem is beyond comprehensible or incomprehensible (though it is incomprehensible); the problem is use of original research, WP:OR. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a paper submission board. Limit-theorem (talk) 16:59, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

(It is obvously no WP:OR because only the explanation of formulas are brought into their explicit form so that the sources are still reflected meaningfully.) For example look to article nandrolone. It gives its structure 1. in a picture, 2. in its full structure describing IUPAC name and 3. in its SMILES notation. WP:NOT PAPERS is not reproached here because dealing with that complex chemical structure is difficult and the article helps. So for example can also the article Foias constant include ${\frac {1}{\alpha }}=\lim _{n\to \infty }{\frac {1}{a_{2}{\text{ from }}(a_{n}=2,\,a_{n-1}={\sqrt[{-n}]{\left\vert a_{n}\right\vert }}-1)}}-1$ (α is defined in that article) if it is true according to the recursive definition given in the section COMMENTS of its source OEIS: A085848? --LKreissig (talk) 15:07, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

This is not only your English that is incomprehensible, it is also your formulas. Specifically, your use of from in the above formula in not defined in any standard textbook and cannot be understood, even by professional mathematicians. Also, the whole formula is original research, as nothing like it appears in your source, which is not a reliable source, because the section "comment" has not been validated by anybody but its author (the approval of the sequence is not an approval of the whole content of the page). There are so many reasons for reverting your edits that, if I were the first one to see them, I would have reverted them immediately with the edit summary "pure nonsense". D.Lazard (talk) 16:12, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Aha! It's all so clear to me now: $a_{n}=2$, so $1/\alpha =\lim _{n\to \infty }(1/a_{2})-1$, so $\alpha =-2$. What's not to get? XOR'easter (talk) 17:21, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Of course a₂ ≠ a_→∞! The OEIS source comprehensibly concludes: “With this we have a surprising representation of the Foias constant: x_1 = 1/(-1 + 1/(-1 + exp(-1/2*log(abs(-1 + exp(-1/3*log(abs(-1 + exp(-1/4*log(abs(-1 + exp(-1/5*...” which is (here with separate k for the limit and n): ${\frac {1}{\alpha }}=\lim _{k\to \infty }{\frac {1}{a_{1}{\text{ from }}(a_{k}=2,\,a_{n-1}={\sqrt[{-n}]{\left\vert a_{n}\right\vert }}-1)}}-1$ with α = x_1? --LKreissig (talk) 18:37, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

There is no point in continuing this conversation so long as you fail to understand that what you've written is incomprehensible. (Your recent posts are no better in this respect than the deleted material.) --JBL (talk) 19:21, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Centre for Studies in Discrete Mathematics

Is this a notable topic? Legacypac (talk) 19:32, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Some research centers (e.g., Institute for Advanced Study) are obviously notable. I don’t think this one is; my quick Google search didn’t yield anything showing the notability. So, no. —- Taku (talk) 21:31, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Apr 2018

Mathcurve

Hello, I visit en.wp very seldom, so I leave you discuss this between yourselves : are external links to (specifically related subpages of) mathcurve appropriate in pages about curves, or not ? (I tried to convince one of you they are, but he disagrees). Anne Bauval (talk) 18:43, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

When Robert Ferreol first started putting these external links into articles I reverted them per WP:ELNO and WP:COI, but he wore me out and I eventually stopped doing this. This does not mean that the problems with these additions had gone away. The main problem in my mind has to do with Mr. Ferreol. For these links to be acceptable, he would have to be a recognized authority on curves. The award for his website in 2008 does not confer this type of recognition. I fully support Deacon Vorbis's continued removal of these links. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 19:58, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Personally, I don't have a problem including these as external links. They seem to be a useful reference, supported by lots of images and animations. I don't see any explicit ELNO violations. WP:EL has an advisory that links that do not meet WP:RS may be considered for inclusion, but there is certainly no ban on them, and we regularly include links to sources that do not meet RS. Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:56, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Well if Robert Ferreol is adding the site systematically to curve articles, then arguing WP:COI probably has some merit. However imho the site as such can be appropriate as an external link for various curves and passes WP:EL. So if other editors want to add it to articles they write or maintain, then I see nothing wrong with that.--Kmhkmh (talk) 17:06, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Gabriele Vezzosi

Does not obvioisly meet PROF unless his work is notable. Reads a little spam like to me. Comments to the Draft talk page please Legacypac (talk) 23:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

His works (e.g., those on derived algebraic geometry are notable; even a non-specialist like me can recognize his name. I can’t see why it is a spam. (I will copy this comment to the talkpage) —- Taku (talk) 20:09, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Template:Unsolved at TfD

Discussion here. --JBL (talk) 02:27, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

(And kept. --JBL (talk) 01:58, 11 April 2018 (UTC))

Please fix incorrect nesting of sub/sup tags on pages as identified by Linter

We plan to complete replacing Tidy with a different tool on all wikis by end-June. As part of this, we have identified pages that need some markup fixed. This is exposed by the Linter extension via the Special:LintErrors page. Only linter issues in the high-priority categories need to be addressed. It is sufficient to prioritize articles for now.

One of the linter categories is the mw:Help:Extension:Linter/html5-misnesting category. You can see the list of linter issues in the Article namespace here. Of those, there are a subset of issues that primarily affect math and other pages that use math. The effects can be particularly important here as this example demonstrates. The rendering on the left is what you see on the wiki right now. The rendering on the right is what it will change to when Tidy is replaced. Notice how r k_n = k_{n + 1} has changed to r k_n = k_n + 1. This is because the quotes are improperly nested in the <sub> tag and needs to be fixed to reflect the intended rendering.

The edit links in this listing of article namespace html5-misnesting errors shows you the exact malformed wikitext. My recommendation is to fix pages where the <sub> and <sup tags are shown as being misnested. I am also happy to give you a separate list of pages where sub and sup tags are misnested (about ~300 in all). Let me know if you have any questions.

SSastry (WMF) (talk) 21:22, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

@SSastry (WMF): having just glanced quickly at the first few pages of the list you attached, the cases of sub and sup seem very sparse, so I think a separate list of just those would be very helpful. --JBL (talk) 22:19, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

@Joel B. Lewis:, list of pages with misnested sub tags, list of pages with misnested sup tags SSastry (WMF) (talk) 03:43, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, SSastry (WMF), that's helpful. It looks like this later list is not dynamic (?) -- that is, I just fixed a few and they're still listed there. Is that right? --JBL (talk) 12:37, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Joel B. Lewis, yes, it is not a dynamic list, but I will resubmit the query and refresh it periodically. SSastry (WMF) (talk) 14:19, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@SSastry (WMF): great, thanks. (I have done a dozen or two so far, will keep plugging away in my spare time.) --JBL (talk) 15:28, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Problems seem to be with mixing italics and <sub>/<sup>. ''x_''i'''' creates an error, better placement requires ''x''_''i''. Fixed on Utility maximization problem.--Salix alba (talk): 22:58, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

That's the predominant reason. The other alternative would be ''x<sub>i</sub>''. Though, in this case, it might be better to use {{var}}. --Izno (talk) 00:19, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

No, I don't think that's throwing errors; it's just when the parenthesization on italics doesn't nest with the parenthesization on sup and sub tags. --JBL (talk) 12:36, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

The other alternative to fix the issue. --Izno (talk) 14:10, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@Izno: Sorry, I think we've had a miscommunication: when you wrote "the other alternative", did you mean the other *working* alternative or the other *problematic* alternative? (I first read it as the latter, hence my reply, but if you meant the former then I agree entirely.) --JBL (talk) 15:05, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

The former, hence the attempted clarification. --Izno (talk) 15:48, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I found a few more, Rook polynomial, Rotation group SO(3), and Group (mathematics). But I probably missed some as my eyes quickly scanned over a ton of non-math articles. By the way, could someone look near the change I made at the group article, and see what's up with that <cite> tag? I've never seen that before and I don't know what it's supposed to be doing. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 00:57, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

It appears that <cite> is supposed to surround the titles of cited references. Its use there does not fit that description, and it does not appear to make a visible difference in the article. I think it can safely be removed. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:27, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

The W3C allows cite around any cited material; the WHATWG allows it only around titles. Anyway, it is being used wrongly here. --Izno (talk) 01:58, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@SSastry (WMF): Well, I just noticed the example you gave hadn't actually been fixed, so I did so, and now the example doesn't really work to point out what's going on. I'm not sure if you want to leave it in place to use as an example, so just revert the change if so, I guess. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 01:21, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@Deacon Vorbis:, I edited the url and added the oldid to it so it continues to be a useful example. SSastry (WMF) (talk) 03:46, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Some of these seem not directly fixable; for example, in Elias M. Stein, the problem is the following: {{Infobox scientist| ... | thesis_title = Linear Operators on L<sup>''p''</sup> Spaces | ... }} Presumably, what's going on is that the template slaps '' ... '' around the title of the thesis. (And indeed the effect in the infobox there is funny: the p is not italicized.) But it is not clear to me what the "right" way to deal with this is. (There are also examples like Georgia Benkart, where the problem is the title field in the cite book template.) --JBL (talk) 20:25, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Presumably it would work (at least in terms of getting unsurprising italicization, if not necessarily optimal appearance) to replace the html math formatting with <math>. Similar issues occur within the {{unsolved}} template, which also italicizes its argument (e.g.). —David Eppstein (talk) 20:43, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

In this case thesis_title = Linear Operators on L''<sup>p</sup>'' Spaces seems to work. The first '' end the italics, before the ^{and the second '' starts it again after the} meaning the start and end of italics are not either side of a tag. You can check the new render behaviour by adding action=parsermigration-edit to the url. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Elias_M._Stein&action=parsermigration-edit --Salix alba (talk): 00:08, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Just a gentle ping. I noticed that the sub-tag affected pages has not moved in over a week and is at 57 entries. Same with sup-tag affected pages that is at 161 entries. Another burst of fixing might bring the former to zero. SSastry (WMF) (talk) 17:29, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

@SSastry (WMF): real life intervened :-/. I have made a bit more progress on sub tags, but I don't forsee a lot more in the next few days. --JBL (talk) 01:44, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

@Joel B. Lewis: No worries. You all have till end of June to get to them. I was mostly making sure this was on your radar with a little nudge. SSastry (WMF) (talk) 03:55, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

@SSastry (WMF): I think that I have fixed every instance that does not involve incomprehensible template interactions. But there are a lot in the latter category for the sup tags. At least one of them was brand new! --JBL (talk) 20:28, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@Joel B. Lewis: Thanks, looks good. The sup category has 86 entries (but not 86 pages). There are probably only a handful of math pages in there if you want to only focus on math pages. But, whatever you can do is helpful. Ya, till we actually replace Tidy, new entries might show up as editors introduce newer erroneous markup on pages. After that, preview will give them immediate feedback where it is broken. SSastry (WMF) (talk) 01:20, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

@SSastry (WMF): A bunch of the ones in the sup list do not appear to have any sup tags in them at all, hence my remark about "incomprehensible template interactions." For example, this appears to be true of Scientology_and_the_Internet, HMS_Ark_Royal_(R07), Hero's_journey, Chris_Harris_(Texas_politician), Kim_Brimer, NBA_Live_99, Samuel_Ealy_Johnson_Jr., and New_York's_9th_congressional_district. (This is not meant to be comprehensive, they're just all among the top entries on the current version of the list.) --JBL (talk) 02:12, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

The one in Hero's_journey is because of {{ref|;}} and its interaction with https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T14974. That entity is the ";" char and it introduces a newline and breaks a sup tag generated by the the ref template. Anyway, it is okay if you cannot fix them all. Not sure why that template is using ; and other chars for ref ids. SSastry (WMF) (talk) 03:39, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

@SSastry (WMF): I think I've now reached the point that I've fixed everything that is broken for reasons I can understand. (For example, not Hero's journey.) --JBL (talk) 16:41, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

@Joel B. Lewis: Thanks very much! This is good for now. Just after Tidy is replaced on enwiki, I'll update those lists so any new entries introduced in the interim can be fixed. But, once Tidy is replaced, these errors won't make it through since editors using preview / verifying their edits will see the brokenness right away. SSastry (WMF) (talk) 21:30, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Ending the system of portals

Hello, there's a proposal to delete all Wikipedia portals. Please see the discussion here. --NaBUru38 (talk) 14:00, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Algebraic Geometry (journal)

Algebraic Geometry (journal) has been proposed for deletion by Randykitty, one of the regular editors on articles about academic journals. It looks to me like a legitimate new journal, but possibly one that is too new to pass WP:NJournals. Anyway, if you disagree with this proposal (and especially if you can find third-party publications about this journal that might increase its apparent notability) please feel free to unprod. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:46, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I was unable to find sufficient sourcing for notability, but there is sourcing in catalogs for basic facts about the journal. I suggest we redirect to European_Mathematical_Society#Publications, where it is mentioned. It could be turned back into an article if it gains an impact factor or other signs of notability. --Mark viking (talk) 20:55, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I was not impressed with the deletion rationale. The in-practice standards for academic journals seem to be basically 0, and this one is fully indexed in both the selective MathSciNet and Zentralblatt databases (which contradicts the deletion rationale). For personal reasons I am not going to remove the prod, but I would like to encourage others to do so. (I mean, there's a case to be made for nuking a large portion of the academic journals in Wikipedia, but as they go this one is less deserving of nuking than any of dozens or hundreds of others.) --JBL (talk) 20:58, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Mark viking's suggestion is reasonable, too. (Although you should look at what allegedly passes for sourcing and notability in this corner of WP: e.g. Current_Opinion_(Current_Drugs).) --JBL (talk) 21:08, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I de-prod'ed the page since it looks like the question of what to do with it needs a little more discussion, and for a topic like this we don't really need to hurry. Redirecting to European_Mathematical_Society#Publications and carrying over the AMS and Zentralblatt citations to provide sources for basic facts sounds like a reasonable idea to me. XOR'easter (talk) 16:42, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Why is EMS the right redirect target, if it is to be redirected? It looks to me that they are merely the printers, not the actual owners of the journal, which are the same people who run Compositio Mathematica. Maybe that would be a better target? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:56, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

You raise a good point and I think redirecting to the owners would be fine, except that we have no article for Foundation Compositio Mathematica at present. EMS seemed a reasonable runner up target. --Mark viking (talk) 20:13, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Hmmm, yes. Perhaps we should move Compositio Mathematica to Foundation Compositio Mathematica, make the current text a section, and then merge and redirect Algebraic Geometry there as well? XOR'easter (talk) 21:07, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Requested move of Symmetric graph to Arc-transitive graph

A move request is ongoing at Talk:Symmetric graph#Requested move 8 April 2018, but it has little participation. Input would be appreciated. Dekimasuよ! 12:42, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Pseudomathematics

The article Pseudomathematics has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

This uncited article is, so far as it goes, largely a piece of original research. The term "pseudomathematics" rarely crops up, and when it does it's used as a short hand way of saying that conventional mathematical techniques have been misused or misapplied. An example would be the backtest overfitting of financial data modelling, where the prefix "pseudo" has the same general meaning as it does in "pseudo-democracy". In other words, there is no field of endeavour called "pseudomathematics".

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Eric Corbett 01:24, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Now at AfD instead. --JBL (talk) 01:57, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Pseudomathematics has been kept, with the closing comment, "Consensus is that this is a notable topic. Consensus also indicates there are considerable OR issues to address." I'm not so sure about the latter half; my read of the overall opinion was that the article quality was poor, but OR wasn't among the reasons why. XOR'easter (talk) 14:48, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Are you intending to do anything about improving the article quality to at least an acceptable standard? Eric Corbett 17:02, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Proportion

Hi all. There is a dispute at Talk:Proportion that can use attention from the members of the project. —- Taku (talk) 21:54, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

RfD

FYI, I've added a listing at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2018 April 26#Modern Mathematics. Further comments are welcome. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 03:09, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Excluded middle

About "Schröder–Bernstein theorem", [6], [7], [8], I wonder, how do we feel about excluded middle? Should its use be noticed always, or sometimes, or never, or what? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 11:20, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Since intuitionists are a very small minority of mathematicians, I would not mention the use of excluded middle unless the article in which it occurs is primarily of interest to intuitionists, i.e. very rarely. Or if the article is about something in logic which is equivalent to the law of excluded middle, such as Peirce's law. JRSpriggs (talk) 01:06, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree that intuitionism is of few interest for most mathematicians. But this is not the case for intuitionistic logics, which are the logics used by the most powerful proof assistants, such as Coq. This means that a proof using Schröder–Bernstein theorem cannot be easily formalized (that is checked by a computer), with the present state of the art. This may interest many mathematicians, and therefore deserves to be noticed in the article. Thus, the sentence disputed in the above diffs must be kept, but requires clarification. D.Lazard (talk) 08:46, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I guess my feeling is that it depends on the result. It would strike me as pretty silly to point out that some deep result in set theory or functional analysis depends on excluded middle, since you really can't develop the underlying theory without excluded middle. But Schröder–Berstein is such a basic result about the structure of cardinalities that it may be worth pointing out.

As for the dispute over the meaning of the word "constructive", I'm not going to go there. If that's the problem, then just reword to avoid that term. --Trovatore (talk) 08:59, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Trovatore. Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:20, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Me, too. --JBL (talk) 13:53, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

About proof assistants: really? As far as I know, the Jordan curve theorem is formalized successfully. Without excluded middle?! Boris Tsirelson (talk) 10:53, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Lévy–Steinitz theorem

I have created a short new article titled Lévy–Steinitz theorem. The theorem states this:

The set of all sums of rearrangments of a given series of vectors in a finite-dimensional real Euclidean space is either the empty set or a translate of a subspace (i.e., a set of the form v + M, where v is a given vector and M is a linear subspace).

I found that in the List of permutation topics there was no section on rearrangements of series, and I created one, titled Mathematical analysis, which now lists, among other things, this theorem.

I have added links to the new article from the following articles:

• Paul Lévy (mathematician)
• Conditional convergence
• Riemann series theorem
• List of permutation topics
• Ernst Steinitz
• Rearrangement
• Steinitz's theorem (In this article the link is in a hatnote.)

I have also created the following redirect pages:

• Levy–Steinitz theorem
• Levy-Steinitz theorem
• Lévy-Steinitz theorem
• Lévy Steinitz theorem
• Levy Steinitz theorem

(I haven't yet created redirects with a capital "T"; probably I'll do that soon if no one else does it first.)

So now:

• The article could be expanded.
• More links from other articles could be created.
• Possibly other improvements can be done.

Michael Hardy (talk) 18:10, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

May 2018

Our article on Householder's method is inadequate

While we have good articles on Newton's method and Halley's method, our article on the more general Householder's methods is inadequate. In particular, there is no justification given for the claim that the higher order Householder's methods have higher order convergence to a simple root. Without that, I cannot determine what value of K is appropriate and thus how good or bad the method is in particular applications. JRSpriggs (talk) 05:33, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Weyl Sequence

Please could I have an opinion on Draft:Weyl Sequence which I am reviewing at AfC? Should it be moved to mainspace, or is it a duplication of any of these? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 12:32, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

• It appears to already be covered at Equidistributed_sequence#Equidistribution_modulo_1. Reyk _YO! 12:48, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Although, I do think the content there plus what's in the draft could be spun out into a credible new article. Reyk _YO! 12:54, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

HTML errors in math articles

The wikitext parser is going to change in June, and any page with an error may display strangely. I'm going through Special:LintErrors, and I've found some high-priority errors in articles tagged by this WikiProject.

What's needed right now is for someone to click these links and compare the side-by-side preview of the two parsers. If the "New" page looks okay, then something's maybe technically wrong with the HTML, but there's no immediate worry. If that column looks wrong, then it should be fixed.

This list is all "misnested tags". See mw:Help:Extension:Linter/html5-misnesting for more information. Taking the first link as an example, there is highlighting in the wikitext that shows where the lint error is; it's in the {{cot}} template. My first guess is that this template adds span tags, which don't work over multiple paragraphs. The second column shows some additional information about the error (please let me know if that's useful additional information).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphism?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=83561193	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=87630999	{"name":"cite","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_space?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=89781937	{"name":"cite"}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjugacy_class?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=45688989	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_inequality?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=47827125	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"name":"Template:About"}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampersand?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=80068708	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"name":"Template:Infobox_grapheme"}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skewes's_number?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=88355187	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank–nullity_theorem?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=68455718	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incidence_structure?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=75276042	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apéry's_constant?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=92507466	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homography?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=46804131	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuette–Nesbitt_formula?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=45593631	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"name":"Template:NumBlk"}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_cosines?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=75766991	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_complexity?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=47682793	{"name":"span"}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanford_L._Segal?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=46514210	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"name":"Template:Infobox_scientist"}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_of_the_exponential_map?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=74204860	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superparabola?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=50122874	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superparabola?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=50122875	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superparabola?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=50122876	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superparabola?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=50122877	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superparabola?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=50122878	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superparabola?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=50122879	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superparabola?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=50122880	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superparabola?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=50122881	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianfranco_Cimmino?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=92300744	{"name":"span","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}

Note that the highlighting from the lintid code won't work reliably after the article has been edited, so for pages with multiple errors, it's best to try to fix them all at once. For more help, you can ask questions at Wikipedia talk:Linter. Good luck, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:53, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Looking at Apéry's constant, the entire citation section is highlighted. This is unhelpful in finding a problem. Is it the {{math}} templates in article titles? There is no good reason why that shouldn't continue to work. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:35, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

It appears that the problem is in {{Citation | title = The Apéry's constant: {{math|ζ''(3)''}} }}. It looks like the problem goes away if you remove the italics from math template, which is inside an already-italicized title field. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:22, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

This is more a problem of the cite templates than it is a problem with the page sources here. I need to get around to poking Help talk:CS1 about it. --Izno (talk) 19:55, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Ok, the problem is a general one with the {{math}} template series: it doesn't work when the surrounding context is already italicized (because then the sense of what should be italicized or not inside the template is wrong). In fact, it was always wrong but the new html verification actually catches the error, which is an improvement. And it's not really related to cite templates; the same thing happens if you try to use {{math}} inside {{unsolved}}. One fix is to use <math> instead in such contexts, as one of the Apéry references already does. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:59, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Duodecimal

I'm trying to figure out what is going on, what that IP editor from Taiwan has been doing the last few months (also on the talk page). Thanks, Drmies (talk) 21:48, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

It's a mix of trivia and numerology. There are lots of numbers, and if you do math in the right ways, they sometimes have mildly amusing patterns in the results. power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:49, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Core-Sérsic profile

I wonder if somebody would be kind enough to have a look at the above draft, which is currently sitting at Articles for creation. My question is whether it has sufficient Notability/content to warrant its own article, or whether the content could/should be merged in to the existing article, Sersic profile? Any comments gratefully received. If anybody who looks at it happens to be an Afc reviewer, they can, of course, Accept it as an article should it be warranted. Best regards. KJP1 (talk) 05:40, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

This list is too short

The article List of mathematical identities is suspiciously short. May anyone help expanding it? --MaoGo (talk) 23:53, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

"External links" there lead to much longer lists. How many of these do you like to see here? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 05:43, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Cleanup of G-structure on a manifold

I'd like to clean up the article G-structure on a manifold. Is the proposal here Talk:G-structure_on_a_manifold#Merge_cleanup_proposal ok? --TurionTzukosson (talk) 10:51, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Standard for Math abbreviation?

Over the past few months, I've added support for both Bluebook abbreviations (in law), and MEDLINE abbreviations (in medicine) to {{Infobox journal}} and to the WP:JCW compilation. What's the standard, so to speak, for abbreviations in mathematics? MathSciNet? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:00, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Gonna @David Eppstein: here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:00, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

The standard for how to abbreviate journal names, you mean? That would be however MathSciNet abbreviates them, I think. (Or maybe Zentralblatt MATH, if that ever differs from MathSciNet). —David Eppstein (talk) 00:15, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Is there a list (preferably public) of such abbreviations? Or a per-journal information page e.g. [9]? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:20, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

There are per-journal information pages e.g. Ann. of Math. but I suspect you need a subscription to find them and/or access them. (I'm currently editing on a machine with subscription access so I can't tell.) Under "free tools" they list current journals which will give you a list of the journals from which they have recently added publications, but that's not going to be the complete list of all journals indexed. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:46, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, it's paywalled. I think I have access at work, but I'm not sure (I'll check tomorrow). The point would be convenience links for verification, so a paywall links beats nothing in that it be useful to some people, even if it's nowhere near ideal. I wonder if anyone here has any clout within the AMS to convince them to open up some of the database at least. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:58, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Are you looking for Abbreviations of Names of Serials? It is a PDF, but might be a start. --Mark viking (talk) 03:09, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

@Mark viking: That's a fantastic ressource, albeit in a crappy format. However, I could probably convert this to a bot-friendly format, and would definitely make a better link than a paywall. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:19, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

The reason for abbreviating names of journals does not apply to Wikipedia, but it has been used out of habit. I prefer not to abbreviate them. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:01, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

We may still need the list to reverse the abbreviations and get the full name of the journal. JRSpriggs (talk) 00:56, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and it's also useful to mention the abbreviations in the articles about the journal (or in the infobox of the article). —David Eppstein (talk) 01:24, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Alright, {{Infobox journal}} now supports |mathscinet= for when the abbreviations differ from the ISO 4 one. See Annals of Mathematics. The infobox will prompt you to create redirects when you add the relevant abbreviation, just like it does for the ISO 4 one. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:19, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Template talk:Infobox journal#RFC on abbreviation usage

Please comment above. This concerns the usage of MathSciNet abbreviations in {{infobox journal}}. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:25, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Non-manifold topology needs review

Could somebody take a look at Draft:Non-manifold topology and give a review. It's a technical article that really requires a SME to evaluate. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:09, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

This is terribly written but apparently it is about a legitimate topic, though more pertinent to computer science/engineering that mathematics. As far as I can tell a "non-manifold topology" as described there is just and embedded 2-complex in Euclidean space and the article describes ways to implement and compute with these things. In this state I think the article should probably not be allowed in main space (quite unintelligible, too many imprecisions and badly organised and formatted) but I guess minor rewrites and re-organising it would make it acceptable. I'm not familiar enough with this kind of applications to do it myself, perhaps asking for a reviewer at WikiProject Computer science would make sense. jraimbau (talk) 11:59, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

I've done some edits to make it conform to some basic Wikipedia conventions, but I haven't addressed the actual content. It contains this sentence:

Non-manifold is a geometric topology term that means 'to allow any combination of vertices, edges, surfaces and volumes to exist in a single logical body'.

So an adjective is defined as a verb? Obviously someone isn't all that great at writing complete sentences. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:42, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

He seems to be talking about something similar to what we would call a Simplicial complex. JRSpriggs (talk) 02:02, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, but the pieces need not be simplices. My understanding is that this term is used e.g. in finite element simulation to describe models (such as, say, the mechanical behavior of a car body) that are lower-dimensional than the ambient space but do not form manifolds in that space. In mathematics, you would just say a cell complex, but in these other areas the assumption that a 2d model has to be a manifold is stronger, so you have to qualify the things that aren't. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:47, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Visualisation of functions, infobox

I think about making two kinds of related edits to some standard functions. I prefer to ask your opinion in order to be sure not to lose my time. Those edits are related to the presentations of some of the standard mathematical functions. Complex one and real ones.

Firstly, I think that Category:Visualization_(graphic) should have a subcategory «mathematical function representation». Indeed, when I look at a page such as Heat map and want to learn more about visualization of functions, I do expect to find pages like Domain coloring. But I do not expect to find IEEE Visualization. Both of those pages have category "Visualization_(graphic)". I guess this means that heat map and domain coloring should have a more precise category. This category would also include surface plot e.g.

By the way. Do anyone know if there is a «surface plot» somewhere on wikipedia. One which consider representing a function by plotting its surface. Becase currently, surface plot consider only radar related plot. And so, Heat map link to surface plot is probably wrong, however I do not know how to correct this link. I would create the page if you tell me that it does not exists yet.

Which lead me to my second point. What do you think about having a infobox for standard functions. This v would, as far as possible, contains the representation of the function using as many visualization technic as possible. (It would not be hard to generate them using some mathematical library. So there are no copyright problem to have them). I guess that the infobox should also contain standard information, such as the domain of definition (or the more standard one, e.g. for square root and log, where many domain can be chosen), its derivative (or jacobian), its antirderivative, the domain on which it is continuous, differentiable, etc...

Of course, some of those informations are already in the page of the functions. But I do believe that having a more standard presentation would help me. Since I guess I'm not alone, I assume it would also help other readers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arthur MILCHIOR (talk • contribs)

^{(Slightly off-topic comment)} Make sure to use sentence case when wikilinking to existing articles. When we refer to an article by its name (such as Domain coloring), we use upper case, but when we talk about domain coloring, we must use sentence case—see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Wikilinks. Also, we should avoid using first-person pronouns in articles—see MOS:WE. I made a slight change to your edit: [10]. Cheers. - DVdm (talk) 22:31, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

First, have you seen the statistics pages on distributions such as the normal distribution? Each one has an infobox with graphs of the PDF and CDF and summaries of the most basic facts. You want to do something similar for "all" functions on Wikipedia? Actually, we already have similar infoboxes for some mathematical functions, such as sine. How does that infobox compare to what you want?

Indeed, statistic infobox gave me the idea. No, I don't intend to do it myself for every single function. I did intend to do it for the most common one, the one from which the informations are easy to find. Furthermore, I wouldn't intend to draw representation if they are hard to compute. I did look at pages such as trigonometric functions, where I didn't see any infobox. I didn't see the page sine existed. In fact, I always wrote sin, and din't even know that «sin» existed. I guess that, what I want is to add more parameters to this infobox, in order to put the information I mentionned above. There is no reason to have two distinct infobox. (Note that it means that we would need to draw both the sine function as a real function, and as a complex funciton.) Arthur MILCHIOR (talk)

I agree that we should strive for one infobox on a page, not two. How do you intend to visualize sin : C -> C? The graph is four-dimensional. Show how a grid on the domain appears deformed in the codomain? Plot the real and imaginary parts using colors or contours? There are many options. Mgnbar (talk) 15:47, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

I fear I had not been clear, because I thought I already answered this. There are a few standard way to represents C->C functions. Two of them are mentionned above: domain coloring and heat map. There are also integral curve and vector field. I imagine there are other representations I do not know. Of course, each such visualization represents exactly the same thing. But in a different way. I do not have any data allowing me to know which representation is more intuitive/is easier to understand for someone reading this page. So I kind of assume that having all of them available, and letting the reader look at the one they prefer is the best option.

I saw you told me below to be bold. I know this rule. I usually follow it, at least when I create/edit pages about graduate-level subject I do know. However, since I'm considering a dozen page, some of them which are mathematically really important, I thought that trying to obtain a consensus beforehand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arthur MILCHIOR (talk • contribs) 18:25, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Second, you mention that surface plot is about radar. But have you seen graph of a function?

No, I didn't see it. Thank you. I guess the first page should have a disambiguation to the second one. Arthur MILCHIOR (talk)

It sounds good to me. Wikipedia:Be bold. Mgnbar (talk) 15:47, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Third, there are many functions in mathematics. You seem to be focused on functions R -> R and R^2 -> R (where R is the real numbers). Is that right? Mgnbar (talk) 13:18, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Partly right. Concerning the question of drawing those functions, you are almost right (Assuming that C = R^2). In my example, I would want to represent sin as a function from C to C. Functions from higher dimension would be harder to draw, I don't really know standard way to do it. However, I also wrote about Jacobians. So I assume that this part would still be relevant for a R^n-> R^m function.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. Arthur MILCHIOR (talk)

That's what I was getting at. Visualization is possible only for the lowest dimensions, and even low dimensions require tricks or suffer from imperfections. And that fact might make it harder for you to build consensus for a standardized way to treat all functions. But it's worth discussing. (By the way, visualizing a function by how it deforms a grid in its domain is a good way to visualize the Jacobian.) Mgnbar (talk) 15:47, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Just to report a strong impression I got here at WP: The acceptance of infoboxes at the valuable real estate at the header of an article might be equivocally. Purgy (talk) 18:53, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

I must admit, Purgy Purgatorio, that I do not understand the last message. English is not my mother tongue. I can guess that you mean that some people does not like infoboxes. That sometime, they should be avoided. Anyway, if you have a link, with a place where this subject was discussed, it would help me understand the pro and the con of my idea. Regards. Arthur MILCHIOR (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:33, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

^{(Another meta-comment)} Please sign all your talk page messages with four tildes (~~~~)—see Help:Using talk pages.

Also, please do not write your comments inside other's comments. I.o.w., always go to the bottom—see WP:THREAD. Thanks. DVdm (talk) 18:53, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

You guessed about right. I am uninvolved in these debates, but admit being skeptic wrt general application of infoboxes. Just by chance (me being torn before WP:AN(/I)) I noticed a ferocious discussion. You might search there and will find some quarrels about "infobox", like this about "ownership", and also later ones. Purgy (talk) 06:41, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Merging proposal

A proposal has been submitted to merge Category:Probability journals into Category:Statistics journals. Please add relevant arguments to the discussion. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:29, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Probability and statistics are often taught in different departments; the first always in the mathematics area and the other either as a standalone field or part of applied math or sciences, sometimes even in economics. That should give us an idea of the demarcation. Limit-theorem (talk) 08:34, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Should John von Neumann be categorized as a combustion scientist?

See Talk:John von Neumann#Should_von_Neumann_be_categorized_as_a_combustion_scientist? Paul August ☎ 10:31, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

No more than Einstein as a nuclear scientist. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 10:55, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Boris, would you please add your remark to the discussion at Talk:John von Neumann? Paul August ☎ 11:21, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Please add further discussion to the discussion at Talk:John von Neumann. Thanks. Paul August ☎ 11:23, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Category:Jewish mathematicians

Kyuko has recently created Category:Jewish mathematicians and added several hundred articles to it (and going strong; the only interruption has been this edit). I do not have any principled opinion about whether this is good or bad, but possibly other editors might. --JBL (talk) 13:38, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

As long every targetted article subject is described as Jewish, with a proper source. The first (and only) example I checked is Georg Cantor. The article says that "Cantor was sometimes called Jewish in his lifetime." (with a source). That is definitely not sufficient to categorize Cantor as a Jewish mathematician. So I have reverted that one. I suspect that there are dozens—if not hundreds—of similar examples, but I have no time to check more articles. I'd support removal of the category. - DVdm (talk) 14:16, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Note, I also just checked Hermann Minkowski. The article says that he was of Jewish descent, which i.m.o. is again not sufficient. No time for more at this point. This might need a stop and an administrative mass revert. - DVdm (talk) 14:31, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I've dropped a line on Kyuko's talk page in case they didn't get the ping. Reyk _YO! 14:36, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Reyk. DVdm, I see someone else has reverted on Deborah Tepper Haimo (twice!), where the article makes no mention of either religion or ethnicity. --JBL (talk) 14:40, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

With respect to Cantor article, it writes that "In a letter written by Georg Cantor to Paul Tannery in 1896 (Paul Tannery, Memoires Scientifique 13 Correspondence, Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 1934, p. 306), Cantor states that his paternal grandparents were members of the Sephardic Jewish community of Copenhagen" (with a reference). The Minkowski article likewise provides a source. --Kyuko (talk) 14:45, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

As for the category itself, there are already a number of categories for mathematicians of various ethnicities / nationalities, I see no reason why this would be any less valuable to Wikipedia. --Kyuko (talk) 14:47, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

It's also worth mentioning that there's already an extensive Category:Jewish physicists. --Kyuko (talk) 14:50, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

There's a Category:Mathematicians by ethnicity with an odd assortment of 'ethnicities' in it which this is a subcategory of. And a larger one of Category:People by ethnicity and occupation. The criterion for them as best I can make out is that be at least a few entries but not too many, they strike me as a bit strange. Dmcq (talk) 14:48, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

A category called "Jewish mathematicians" must be reserved for those who have explicitly declared their own adherence to Judaism, while a category called "Mathematicians of Jewish descent" can include all those for whom reliable sources indicate Jewish ancestry. See WP:BLPCAT and WP:CAT/R. XOR'easter (talk) 15:16, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd certainly be open to changing the name of the category. At the risk of going into a discussion on who is a Jew, though, discounting as Jews all those who have not publicly "declared their own adherence to Judaism" is absurd; "Jewish" is an ethnic designation as much as it is a religious one (see e.g. List of contemporary ethnic groups) and so WP:BLPCAT is not relevant here. There is, moreover, precedent for such categories (see e.g. Category:Jewish physicists, Category:Jewish chess players, Category:Jewish philosophers, Category:Jewish American musicians, etc. etc.). --Kyuko (talk) 16:27, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I am in complete agreement with XOR'easter. WP:BLPCAT is very explicit that we can only categorize someone as having a particular religion when that person explicitly and publicly declares it to be their religion. Past violations by others are no excuse for your own massive violations of this rule. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:30, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Again, the category is meant in reference to a particular ethnic group (as indicated by its inclusion in Category:Mathematicians by ethnicity). I am open to changing the name to reflect this, but mass-deleting instances of the category is unhelpful. --Kyuko (talk) 16:34, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Easy way to handle this issue, change the category to Category:Jewish mathematicians and mathematicians of Jewish descent. It would be reasonable to modify the above mentioned categories for physicists and the like in the same way. JoshuaZ (talk) 17:04, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Great idea - done! --Kyuko (talk) 17:32, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Even for the mathematicians of Jewish descent, we cannot include people in that category without published reliable sources about their Jewish ancestry. So this change reduces the size of the problem created by Kyuko's edits but does not eliminate it. By the way, I'm sure many Palestinian Israeli citizens would be surprised to learn that, according to Kyuko, they are all now Jews. This illustrates the danger of uncareful categorization. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:45, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

That edit was a mistake - mea culpa. But this is clearly something personal and political for you, seeing as it's not your first time going through Wikipedia deciding who is and isn't a Jew by your criteria. In any case, are you even checking the pages to see if there are sources given before mass-deleting all instances of the category? There's no world in which e.g. Paul Cohen or Alexander Grothendieck aren't of Jewish descent. --Kyuko (talk) 17:56, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I mass-rollbacked the changes I saw because you are clearly being indiscriminate in who you are adding and it is a waste of my time to be the one to check the edits carefully when you are not doing it yourself. Your most recent edits to Tamar Ziegler are very illustrative — edit-warring to violate WP:BLP like this has as its most likely outcome you getting blocked. And your comment here comes perilously close to being a personal attack; please be more careful in that as well. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:08, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

[edit conflict] 1. It is an extremely poor idea to go around accusing others users of bias. 2. It is silly for a person in your position, just having made a huge number of edits without checking whether they are individually supportable, to complain about others reverting your edits without checking each one individually. 3. The criterion here ("supported by reliable sources") is a standard one on WP; if you don't understand it, maybe you shouldn't be editing here. --JBL (talk) 18:11, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm going through each article individually now and adding back the category to those which provide support (or adding sources where possible) -- my intention is not to edit-war. Regarding the articles, nearly all were compiled from previously-existing lists on Wikipedia (e.g. List of British Jewish scientists, List of Jewish American mathematicians, List of Jewish mathematicians, List of German Jews, List of Jews born in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, etc.). In retrospect I should have fact-checked each one (I now plan on doing so), but in any case I was not being indiscriminate in who I added. --Kyuko (talk) 18:26, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Is this a re-creation? I'm pretty sure there used to be a "Jewish mathematicians" category, which means that if it was recently created, then at some point it must have been deleted. Paging User:BrownHairedGirl, who should know how to look this up.

If it was previously deleted, that's not necessarily an absolute bar to re-creation, but at least the previous decision should be understood and the points addressed. --Trovatore (talk) 18:31, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

• 'Speedy deleted. WP:G4 per WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 May 14#Category:Jewish_mathematicians. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:08, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I removed the last 15 stray entries. - DVdm (talk) 19:19, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

The renamed category is not the same category, and so shouldn't be subject to speedy deletion by itself. JoshuaZ (talk) 23:45, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree with JoshuaZ. Also, the previous discussion was a decade ago, it is totally possible consensus would be different now. --JBL (talk) 12:08, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

I think the second point is the key one. Clearly if the new category had been created on May 21, 2007, it would have been seen as a threadbare attempt to get around the deletion decision and speedily deleted.

According to current theory and practice, I think the remedy for deletions you don't agree with is supposed to be DRV, but this seems not quite adequate, because DRV is supposed to overturn decisions that were procedurally flawed in some way, or where the closer misjudged consensus. But I don't think we really want to say that a procedurally impeccable deletion is final for all time. This seems like an issue that needs a more general solution; I don't know what it is.

As to this category, I do kind of hope that it stays deleted, because if I never have to read another argument about whether Cantor was Jewish, it will be too soon. --Trovatore (talk) 18:00, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   07:47, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Join (sigma algebra)

Could someone with five minutes of free time and nothing better to do take a look at the history of Join (sigma algebra) and see if the massive trimming down was legitimate? – Uanfala (talk) 21:10, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

The trim seems not unreasonable given the talk page discussion, as a WP:TNT approach to a flawed discussion. Bringing the prose back and fixing it would an improvement. --Mark viking (talk) 21:18, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

So the question is, how much is there to say about joins of sigma-algebras? Right now the article is a DICDEF. If there's nothing more to say than the definition, then the article should probably be merged into a glossary somewhere. --Trovatore (talk) 22:53, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Note that Join is actually explained in the Sigma-algebra page. Therefore, I went bold, and used a redirect from the join page to the section in which this notion is introduced — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arthur MILCHIOR (talk • contribs) 14:12, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Jun 2018

"Good Article" nomination of Cantor's first set theory article. Review is needed.

This review page is for review of the nomination of Cantor's first set theory article for the status of a Good article. For instructions for reviewing the article, follow this link.

At this page one sees that this is currently one of four mathematics articles currently nominated for "Good article" status. Writing a review of any of them would be a contribution. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:03, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Langley’s Adventitious Angles

Langley’s Adventitious Angles could use some more eyes. There's a new editor edit-warring to insert what looks like original research to me, but I'd welcome the opinion of other experienced editors. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:55, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. The first line of their argument is obviously wrong — the logic doesn't follow, and just looking at the figure, it can't even be close to right. It's like they're trying to apply the converse of the isosceles triangle theorem to a trapezoid. XOR'easter (talk) 01:53, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Truncated Normal Hurdle Model

Should this be moved to mainspace? (or deleted?) Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:16, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

At first glance, the topic looks notable, appearing the different econometric and economic textbooks over the years. The draft is fairly rough with no lede or much context. But with sources already in the article and some technical content already in place, this could be a stub that others build on. I recommend it better to be put it in mainspace than outright deletion. --Mark viking (talk) 00:33, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Okay. I moved this to mainspace. It needs categories, which I am wholly unqualified to supply. Calliopejen1 (talk) 05:29, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

I added cats and the start of a lede. --Mark viking (talk) 06:10, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Expert advice on notability of a journal requested

Draft:Journal_of_Commutative_Algebra describes a real, but niche journal, it's difficult for me outside of JCS access etc. to assess notability. Ping me if anyone has any thoughts about notability here. Thanks in advance, --joe decker^talk 21:34, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

You might also ask at the academic journals wikiproject: WT:AJ. --JBL (talk) 23:40, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Missing biography of Michael Rathjen

We do not appear to have a biography of Michael Rathjen who appears to be an important person in mathematical logic. Please see [11]. JRSpriggs (talk) 12:47, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

You spelled his first name one way in the section heading above and another way in the link. Putting the "e" before the "a" is rare. 2601:445:437F:FE66:E44E:27D1:2A2E:2EBF (talk) 19:06, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I fixed it. JRSpriggs (talk) 03:26, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

M22 graph

M22 graph, currently a redirect to Mathieu group M22, has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2018 June 2#M22 graph because it cause Draft:M22 graph to be declined. Editors who understand these topics are invited to contribute to the linked discussion where their input is likely to be significantly helpful. Thryduulf (talk) 23:51, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

I went ahead and moved the draft to M22 graph, over the redirect. I think this episode is a good illustration of the uselessness of Wikipedia drafts — most regular editors of draft space view the whole idea of drafts as a trap to keep the spammers busy and away from actual articles, rather than a useful pathway for new content to be included in the encyclopedia. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:01, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't know if I will be perm-banned from Wikipedia by saying this but here is another example: Draft:fundamental groupoid (which was simply deleted with no discussion/review and it's not the one started by me). Basically these are the instances that Wikipedia has slowly been taken over by editors who are interested in other than building an encyclopedia. It is just not possible for them to distinguish between building an encyclopedia and disrupting Wikipedia, their playground. -- Taku (talk) 00:11, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

One could make the argument that this draft simply reproduces content from the fundamental groupoid section of the fundamental group article. Personally, I feel that a separate article is warranted, but the way content is forked off of an existing article is not usually done through draft space. See WP:SPLITTING for the standard process. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:13, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

(Just so there is no misunderstanding I didn’t start the draft.) The issue I have is drafts like these are somehow invisible to the wider community and usually get deleted quietly. Another example is Castelnuovo's contraction theorem, which also got quietly deleted without a proper review. Forking a section of an existing article is allowed and the draftspace is a place to work that out. —- Taku (talk) 19:33, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I’m on this, I should mention User:R.e.b. stopped contributing presumably because, like me, he felt content development is no longer valued. —- Taku (talk) 20:10, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

The only way for an anonymous user to start an article is through the draftspace and that’s already the reason enough the community (math or otherwise) need to embrace the draftspace. (That’s actually a part of the reason I don’t want to just stay away from the draftspce, since that space need to be integrated to the Wikipedia proper and I can be a conduit.) —- Taku (talk) 20:29, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Exceptional curve

The redirect Exceptional curve, which currently targets Exceptional divisor, has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2018 June 8#Exceptional curve. Input from editors who understand the topic would be of significant benefit - please comment there to keep discussion in one place. Thryduulf (talk) 22:55, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Immanant

FYI, I started a requested move discussion at Talk:Immanant of a matrix. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 14:26, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Draft pages moved to mainspace

The following are pages moved from the draftspace to mainspace by me:

• Archives of American Mathematics
• European Study Groups with Industry
• M P Chaudhary
• Arul Shankar
• Garnik A. Karapetyan
• The Story Collider
• Alan Gaius Ramsay McIntosh
• Erika Tatiana Camacho
• Hendrik Wolter Broer
• Erdős–Tenenbaum–Ford constant
• Tropical cryptography
• Spread (intuitionism)
• Ludwig Danzer
• Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award
• Stochastic Thermodynamics (sorry this was not math)
• Abundance conjecture
• Beatty Memorial Lectures

Since I only skimmed the pages, it is possible that some may not be notable and in that case, they need to be nominated for deletion. (To repeat the above thread, these pages would have been deleted quietly; unfortunately, in current practice (not policy), that pages need some more work means deletion.) —- Taku (talk) 08:58, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Do we have an opinion about using the first person?

I find that mathematics is often written in first person in a way that other subjects are not. It's something I like / have gotten used to (or at least is professional in a mathematical context), but I sometimes get told that it creates an inappropriate tone or violates neutral point of view policies.

Do we have a consensus on what I would assume is something that's been discussed here before? I would like to nominate Group testing for featured article (eventually), so I want to clear up any potential issues. –♫CheChe♫ talk 11:07, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an opinion about it: MOS:FIRSTPERSON: "Often rephrasing using the passive voice is preferable." That article clearly needs some work . - DVdm (talk) 11:22, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

There have been many discussion here, arguing against the editorial or noble "we". Paul August ☎ 12:02, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I used to occasionally come across notices at the top of articles on mathematics saying the article is written like a personal reflection or essay, and I wondered why, since I didn't see anything in the article that looked like that. Ultimately I found out that it was because of things like this:

We define the Teichmüller space as blah blah blah blah

The word "we" was being construed literally by unthinking people who labeled article as essay-like for that reason alone and nothing else. You can't get much more inattentive than to do that. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:40, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I think first-person should be vetoed in mathematics articles within regular prose. It starkly contrasts with the tone of the rest of the STEM articles around Wikipedia -- Wikipedia is not an academic journal or a conference, but an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias, even from other settings, do not use the first-person. By pronouncing "we," you also create an implied (but mostly superficial) personal tone to Wikipedia that I think is inappropriate for the setting. Stylistically, it just seems off -- not because first-person is used in a personal sense, but because it's connotation "smells" of personal sense. Atasato (talk) 22:57, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree. While it sounds fine to me in a mathematics paper, it definitely sounds wrong in an encyclopedia article. And it does not surprise me that these different venues should have different tones. Paul August ☎ 23:07, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd say not using "we" is in doubt preferred due to sounding more "encylopedic" and matching the language use in most math encylopedias or lexicons. However if some editor uses it, it certainly isn't NPOV violation or big oroblem, but rather marginal style issue that other editors are free to fix if they feel strongly about it.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:05, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Like Michael Hardy, I object to using silly {{Essay-like}} cleanup templates if a mathematics article uses "we". I personally think it is generally preferable to rephrase the first person if possible. However, the first-person is a widespread stylistic convention in how reliable sources write about mathematics. So I think it is a valid stylistic choice. Sławomir Biały (talk) 01:14, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

May I recap a bit? (Sorry, I've recently been introduced to this symbol) Maybe there never was a time when using 1.pers.sing. was widely accepted (is heureka of this form?). "I, Gauß, princeps mathematicorum, declare herewith" some fundamental theorem, sounds a bit unacceptable. Majestic preponderance seduced to (let) invent the "pluralis majestatis" (We, by God's authority, declare blabla to be true). More equality-oriented publicists made this the "pluralis modestiae", and the Eds detected how embracing a socializing "we" might sound (we all now understand blabla), setting aside all the vulnerability of the Aspies, who were the only ones able to follow their lines of abstraction, and now feel pocketed by this subsuming. Consider also the hostile "WE have this and that Capitalized Acronyms after a colon ...", prominently used to rebuff values not along some imaginative guidelines of the ruling class (WE are the non-harassing, civil ones).

Thanks. I support the efforts of getting non-personal, and try to use the given methods. Purgy (talk) 09:49, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd rather argue that "we" shouldn't pester WP authors too much with rather marginal stuff.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:00, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Something else occurred to me, after reading Purgy's comment. Apart from issues with the first person plural that some readers find problematic, mathematics is largely written in an imperative mood, such as: "Assume that X is a compact space." This seems unavoidable (and it's not clear that it should be avoided, even if someone devises a way to eliminate all imperative verbs). But I've seen editors seriously insist that this imperative mood is inconsistent with encyclopedic writing, and call mathematics articles "essay-like" for this reason alone. It may be worth pointing out somewhere that mathematics largely must be written in this way, and that the use of first person plural is compatible with that mood. Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:08, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

IMO, the imperative mood is unavoidable only in proofs. Otherwise, it may generally avoided, and this provides often a better style (that is easier to understand). In the above example, if the sentence that follows is the statement of a property, the phrase may be changed into ""If X is a compact space, then ...". D.Lazard (talk) 11:32, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with this. There are situations in mathematics writing where entire paragraph could begin with a sentence like "Let X be a compact space." That's true regardless of whether the paragraph is part of a proof, a theorem, or just a paragraph discussing specific results. But the real question is, even if imperative constructions could be avoided in principle, are they actually avoided in standard mathematical writing? That seems more important in dictating our practices here than whether it is possible to develop novel writing styles. Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:44, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

The question here is not really about "standard mathematical writing", but rather standard encyclopedic writing, which is a different thing. Paul August ☎ 15:57, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes but in that context math comes first and (preferred) encyclopedic style second.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:04, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps so. I guess the question then should really be about standard mathematical encyclopedic writing ;-) The style appropriate for mathematical journal articles, and mathematical textbook writing, for example, (the kind which I presume most of us here are most familiar), should not necessarily be our guide here. Paul August ☎ 16:20, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I think too much is made over the distinction between "encyclopedic mathematical writing" and "mathematical writing". I disagree that writing in shorter simple, declarative sentences in an imperative mood is at all incompatible incompatible with writing mathematics in an encyclopedia. Every encyclopedia I'm aware of uses the imperative mood freely to simplify the ecposition, just like a mathematics paper or textbook would. And, unless there is some specific style guide about writing mathematics encyclopedias that makes recommendations contrary to popular writing styles, our default position really ought to be to follow standard norms. Sławomir Biały (talk) 16:47, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Something is worse than the use of the first person, and is, nevertheless, widely used in Wikipedia. It is the use "must" with a mathematical object as a subject. For example, so "q must be one of the r's" instead of "so q is one of the r's". This example comes from Fundamental theorem of arithmetic#Proof, which contains several other examples. This use of "must" is so common in articles about elementary mathematics, that I had to look on only two articles for finding an example. D.Lazard (talk) 18:07, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

This is the logical "must", not the normative "must". "John must understand the Riemann zera function, or he couldn't have written about it so clearly." That doesn't mean John has an obligation or need to acquire knowledge of the Riemann zeta function; rather it means there can be no doubt that he has such knowledge. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:49, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

What is bad about that usage? It emphasizes that the claim is a necessary truth, something that follows logically from previous assumptions, rather than merely being a contingent truth about some specific example that might have been chosen. Although this distinction between "is" and "must" is used in this context merely for emphasis, it is also a standard part of modal logic. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:30, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

And given that those articles are read by pupils, students or people with limited mathematical background, I don't see any issue with emphasizing here, on the contrary it might be helpful.--Kmhkmh (talk) 18:40, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I have to agree with David Eppstein here -- I think "must", although perhaps a little bit out of tone, is grounded in the sense that usage of the words can often have a 1:1 correspondence with the logical "implication" operator: (→). -Atasato (talk) 21:10, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Integrable system

I recently encountered the article named by the above heading. Before long, I found my way to this Project and saw the FAQ, which quite well reflects several of my concerns about WP articles on technical subjects and mathematics. I am college-educated, but majored in English, not math or science. I placed tags on the Integrable article to call attention to the difficulty I believe all readers except those with math degrees will have understanding it. As I mentioned in my comment on the article Talk page, I can accept the highly technical nature of the text in the article body, but I firmly believe that the first sentence (or two) of the article can and should be written in plain English, so that even readers with nothing more than high school math (not including calculus) can understand what the article is about, even if they understand almost none of the details. I would like to invite any member of this Project to have a go at revising the article lead (lede)--even just the first sentence--in order to give the general reader a clear idea of the meaning of "integrable" as it is intended in the article. With such an improvement, I would be glad to remove the unpleasant 'incomprehensible' tag, which I added. Of course, anyone can remove it at any time, but I hope that will happen only after the first sentence is translated into a form of English that requires no specialized knowledge or prerequisites. DonFB (talk)

I agree. Moreover, the definition is based on a foliation, and the target article uses integrability for defining a foliation. So the definition seems to be circular. Although not a specialist of this subject, I'll add an intuitive definition in the first sentence. Not absolutely sure that is formally correct, but it will certainly better than the present lead. D.Lazard (talk) 11:10, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your effort to improve the lede. I did a little more research. Most internet searches led me back to various Wikipedia articles, but also a couple of Britannica articles. Using that information, I have revised the lede to provide a very brief opening explanation that I hope is technically correct. I'll likely hear about it if it's not. DonFB (talk) 21:17, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

I don’t mean to be mean but the new lead doesn’t seem to be precise enough to me; I think it’s much better to have a link to Integrability conditions for differential systems. Saying Paris is city in Europe is true but not mentioning France at all is a serious omission, even when France is highly technical term. (I’m not an expert so it’s better if some experts can jump in). —- Taku (talk) 21:53, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

TakuyaMurata, please see my comment on the article Talk page regarding your edit. DonFB (talk) 22:39, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

If France is a highly technical term then "Paris is a city in Europe" is probably a better first sentence than "Paris is a city in France." Lead sections of articles consist of sometimes even several paragraphs; there is plenty of possibility to mention France some time after the first sentence. I don't think DonFB's attempt was perfect (it went from very accessible to heavily technical but skipped over a stage that might be appropriate for, say, an undergraduate math major), but the accessibility was a positive feature that we need more of in mathematics articles. --JBL (talk) 22:43, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

(I will continue the discussion on the wording of the new opening sentences in the article talkpage). Here is a more general comment: I think this is a matter of the target audience. The article is intended for the audience who knows integration and differential equations; thus, there is no much value making the opening sentences accessible to those who do not have such a background. The accessibility is important but it is important to know "accessible" to who. -- Taku (talk) 23:01, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

In other words, "even readers with nothing more than high school math (not including calculus) can understand what the article is about". I disagree that every math article needs to meet this standard; Wikipedia is after all meant as a resource from which the readers can learn the topic quickly but with some depth, among the others (Wikipedia articles are also meant to be useful to those who know the subject already). -- Taku (talk) 23:28, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

(ec) I agree about the right location for the more specific conversation. About the general point: there is no reason that an article whose details cannot be understood without a background in differential equations should not contain three sentences that are understandable by anyone. (Very many math articles on Wikipedia could be improved this way) --JBL (talk) 23:30, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

After edit conflict: I do not think it should be impermissible for mathematics articles to include content for specialists. But I also do not think it should be impermissible for mathematics articles to include content for non-specialists. It is the second thing that is relevant here (but then we are back to the specifics). --JBL (talk) 23:33, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Specifics need to be worked out in the article talkpage. But, generally speaking, "I am" (the others might not) against the inclusion of general info peripheral to the topic itself; because the real estate in the lede is expensive and a better approach is to having links to background materials. -- Taku (talk) 23:39, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, at least my prognostication skills are fully functioning. --JBL (talk) 02:15, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree "accessibility" is a real problem; if not, why do we constantly get this type of complaints? I (and the others) just don't agree with the solutions proposed thus far; e.g., the insertion of info amounts to defining France in the Paris article. A problem can exist without a solution (and we call ourselves mathematicians!) -- Taku (talk) 02:42, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Haha, JBL, they are indeed. I plan to return to the issue, here and elsewhere. (Attack of the English majors!) DonFB (talk) 03:56, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Recurrence relations integration function

Would someone mind giving Draft:Recurrence relations integration function a lookover. It is being deleted at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Recurrence relations integration function. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:47, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Kronecker graph

Graph theory-savvy editors may wish to look at Kronecker graph, an article that has been expanded by a few SPAs (who may be operating together) with mostly copyright-infringing content. I've been chopping out the text that's directly copied from http://people.ee.duke.edu/~lcarin/Kronecker_Graphs.pdf for a few days now, but as a result the article has ended up looking very fragmented and written in shaky English. It's certainly an article that could use some improvement if anyone is interested. /wiae /tlk 15:30, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

WikiJournal of Sciences

A somewhat better version of our article "Space (mathematics)" is now refereed and published in WikiJournal of Sciences (and probably will be copied hereto). A precedent? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 17:35, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Congratulations on getting this accepted in the inaugural issue of the WikiJournal. Its good to see a math article among the science articles there. I could see this as a useful alternative or adjunct to a GA run, with a little academic credit for your effort. How did you find the peer review process? --Mark viking (talk) 00:44, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. The peer review process was excellent. Surely it was difficult to get refereed such article. Mathematicians are experienced to referee articles intended for mathematicians, not like this. However, Gaëtan Borot did it very good. His referee report is publicly available: v:Talk:WikiJournal of Science/Spaces in mathematics#Third review (and some more reports are also there). The three advanced sections by Ozob are written in response to reports of referees and the editor Sylvain Ribault. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 04:08, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Also a printer friendly version (pdf file) is now available. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 06:48, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Now copied from WJS to Wikipedia. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 20:47, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Redirects to Central limit theorem

I just created these four redirect pages:

• Lindeberg–Levy Central Limit Theorem
• Lindeberg–Levy central limit theorem
• Lindeberg–Lévy central limit theorem
• Lindeberg–Lévy Central Limit Theorem

It seems surprising that they didn't already exist. Is more such work in order? Michael Hardy (talk) 21:47, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

"Countering systemic bias/Mathematics" at Miscellany for Deletion

See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Mathematics. XOR'easter (talk) 18:36, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

There are two meaning of monotonic matrix

First definition is as same as wikipedia article of monotone matrix. The other definition is here

This monotonic matrix is a integer rectangular matrix. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:2D8:E35D:2645:0:0:BA08:6E01 (talk) 14:43, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

I created monotonic matrix Done --Sharouser (talk) 15:29, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

H-matrix about iterative method

H-matrix is a matrix with its comparison matrix is M-matrix. It is useful in iterative method. We need an article about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:2D8:E35D:2645:0:0:BA08:6E01 (talk) 14:25, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

[12][13] See these articles. H-matrix is an important subject. --2001:2D8:E35D:2645:0:0:BA08:6E01 (talk) 14:28, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

We need an article about comparison matrix too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:2D8:E35D:2645:0:0:BA08:6E01 (talk) 14:30, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

As you are talking of iterative methods, I guess that you are talking of Hurwitz's stable matrix (H being an abbreviation of Hurwitz), and not of Hadamard matrix that has also been called H-matrix. If it is not the case, you are welcome for writing a lacking article. D.Lazard (talk) 15:19, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Comparison matrix and H-matrix are created by me. --Sharouser (talk) 15:29, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

In its present state, the article titled Comparison matrix is only a definition. If there's not more to say about it, then there's no reason for the article to exist. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:26, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Migration away from old texvc <math> engine

There is now a project to migrate away from the texvc renderer for <math> expressions. This was the default a few years ago which produces PNG images, now we have a hybrid solution with uses MathJax in the backend to produce svg images and sometimes xml. There is still some legacy from texvc as it is used in the frist parsing step of the current engine. This means there are some idiosyncrasies in the syntax which differ from standard LaTex:

Current syntax	Suggested replacement	Comment
$	\$	redefinition would involve changing the character code
%	\%	redefinition would involve changing the character code
\and	\land	causes normal align environment to fail
\or	\lor	see [14]; causes teubner to fail
\part	\partial	acceptable if the document doesn't use sectioning with \part.
\ang	\angle	this only conflicts with siunitx package.
\C	\Complex	conflicts with puenc.def e.g. from hyperref package
\H	\mathbb{H}	conflicts with text command \H{0} which is ő.
\bold	\mathbf
\Bbb	\mathbb
\pagecolor	remove	not needed and not working anymore, done on en-wiki mainspace
<ce>...</ce>	<chem>...</chem>	Chemistry environment, done on en-wiki mainspace

The first step in the project will involve deprecating the old syntax and running a bot or semi-automated edits to change the syntax. These should not result in any visible change to the pages. The bot doing the work is User:Texvc2LaTeXBot which is currently seeking approval. Changes will also be made to the Visual Editor to produce the new syntax.

Subsequent stages in the project are discussed at mw:Extension:Math/Roadmap, these involve some more complex problems with the <chem> syntax. Eventually the texvc part will be removed completely and there may be some slight change to the rendered output. The main discussion of the project happens at T195861 and your input is welcome.--Salix alba (talk): 15:53, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Postnomial on Erdos

I invite other editors' opinions on this edit. (The user in question has been unilaterally making this change over dozens if not hundreds of articles on scientists, and is very abrasive about it. It seems deeply wrongheaded to me to put the postnomial in the lead sentence of the article, and moderately wrongheaded to put it into the infobox, but more discussion is needed than just two of us reverting each other.) --JBL (talk) 02:57, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree, both generally and very specifically in this case. Paul received many honors throughout his lifetime and it appeared to me that he didn't revel in any of them. To stick this postnomial in the lead seems to be saying much more about the Royal Academy than it does about Paul. I could see it in an infobox, listed under honors, but not immediately under his name as if this is the most important thing about him. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 03:45, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

This was my feeling exactly -- says much more about RS than about the recipients. Several other users (DVdm, Attic Salt) seem to agree as well and have undone some of the mess. Probably someone will have to go through systematically at some point to fully clean up. --JBL (talk) 11:38, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree as well, in fact i dislike that template in general. If there is an important honour, that needs to be in the lead for some reason, then it should be written explicitly in regular text, instead of cryptic abbreviation in a special font. Moreover common practice is to handle such honours with templates & categories at the end of the article or in the infobox.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:03, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

There's great lot of similar edits. I don't have the time to fix them all, so I asked user Bueller 007 (talk · contribs) to stop adding it, and to help undoing. - DVdm (talk) 12:41, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I probably have removed most of them now (based on his recent edit history). However apparently there is at least one similar template for Canadian science society. So I'm wondering for what purpose those templates were created in the first place other then sticking them in the lead. If the lead was the only reason for their creation, they probably should get deleted.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:44, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Now there seems to be a new account created just in order to edit-war over this (!!?). --JBL (talk) 14:31, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Bueller 007. - DVdm (talk) 14:39, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Ha, looks like you are a bit quicker than I am :). --JBL (talk) 14:40, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

The "signature" section already gives all the postnomial letters that are necessary. :-) XOR'easter (talk) 14:50, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Belatedly, I wanted to record the fact that the sock-puppet situation involved a disruptive troll, and in particular Bueller 007 was cleared. --JBL (talk) 18:47, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Redirect for discussion

See Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2018 June 25#Acoptic polygon. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:12, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Category:Bplus-Class mathematics articles has been nominated for discussion

Category:Bplus-Class mathematics articles, which is within the scope of this wikiproject, has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:30, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Jul 2018

Emma Lemma

Here's a proposed deletion up for discussion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Emma Lemma. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:24, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Proposed deletion

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Normally distributed and uncorrelated does not imply independent

Here's another deletion discussion.

It appears to me that the nominator has misunderstood with astonishing completeness what the article is about.

Click on the linked page and post your opinion. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:55, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

MR/Project Euclid bot?

Did anyone ever think about running a bot on Wikipedia to improve mathematical citations based on math databases? Specifically an MR bot/Project Euclid bot of sorts?

For instance, searching PE by DOI reveals that is an entry for it. This is a closed access link, but it does lists doi:10.3150/17-BEJ959, MR3788173, Zbl 06869876 as identifiers. The bot could add MR3788173, Zbl 06869876to citations with doi:10.3150/17-BEJ959 in them. Likewise, instance MR0334798 lists [15] which is listed as "Full-text: Open access" and there is also Zbl 1125.83309 listed as an identifier. The bot could add |url=https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.cmp/1103858973 and |zbl=1125.83309 to citations with MR0334798 in them.

There are other links than PE in the MR database, but the general idea would be the same. Query various math databases by various identifiers, give the other identifiers when found, and open access links when found.

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:08, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Going to @JohnBlackburne and CBM: on this since I know they ran bots/ have programming experience / have a background in math. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:10, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Not something I know anything about – my programming experience does not extend to bots, and the times when I’ve wanted to investigate it I’ve been stopped by AWB being Windows only.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 20:51, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

AWB wouldn't work for this anyway. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:01, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't have time for a project like this at the moment, unfortunately. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:08, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

@CBM: in a few weeks/months maybe? I could make a general WP:BOTREQ, but I'd rather have math people on this since they would know which database to look into and how they are structured. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:06, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Here's a related story about another bibliographic database, INSPIRE, setting up automatic links to MathSciNet (I presume through DOI matching). —David Eppstein (talk) 01:11, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Recent edits at Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem

I'd like to hear the community's opinion about these changes. For my own part, I think "famously" is quite applicable, and in academic writing, full names aren't necessary (and can even sound overly familiar). Thoughts? XOR'easter (talk) 14:52, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

There's some long-term problematic editor obsessed with words like "famous" -- could this be them? I agree with you about it (it even had its own supporting citation!). About full names, this encyclopedia is not academic writing -- I think the editor has a point (although they are making it in an obnoxious way). --JBL (talk) 15:04, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm largely indifferent, though I suspect that if I had written that paragraph, I would have left the first names off. The complaint about "award-winning" was also a bit odd, since the citation identified what the award was. XOR'easter (talk) 15:07, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Glancing at edit history, I'd agree with JBL. The editor seems mostly deal with style and format issues and possibly in often or at least occasional questionable manner.

The "Who" tags are partially nonsense. Using last names at least for repeated use is common standard (in encylopedic writing). Faltings for instance was just mentioned with full name and linked a few lines above. Names occuring for the first time and which can't be linked, should however be given as full names.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:16, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

That's a good point about repeated use; thank you. XOR'easter (talk) 15:18, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes this is a good point. --JBL (talk) 15:29, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I have undone the edits. The word famous is explicitly present ("Fermat's famous marginal comment") in the cited source. This user Reedsrecap (talk · contribs)'s ^{(hereby pinged)} edits amount to unwarranted removal of properly sourced content. - DVdm (talk) 16:21, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

1. I find it very rude that someone started a discussion about my edits in a community that I am not a part of, without bothering to notify me, or discuss anything with me first.
2. This seems representative of a general hostility. People are throwing out terms like "problematic", "obnoxious" and "nonsense" when you haven't even bothered to talk to me.
3. As for the edits, undoing them in their entirety was obviously not productive. Text like "One might want to first read an email Ken Ribet sent in 1993" is obviously not encyclopaedic, and the edit summary did not remotely justify the removal of cleanup tags or the restoration of speculation and advice; see WP:REVEXP for why you should do better if you really want to undo in its entirety an edit that someone (in this case me) obviously put time and thought into.
4. Given the insults already thrown at me, I'm not interested in any further interaction here. I'll say only this: the appearance of a word in a source has no relevance to what words should appear in a Wikipedia article. Wikipedia articles must be written in the author's own words. And if something’s famous, you don’t need to tell people; if you need to tell people something’s famous, it isn’t. Reedsrecap (talk) 21:44, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Re 1: I notified you here.

Re 3: Indeed. That part was put straight by XOR'easter after my revert here.

Re 4: The source's "Fermat's famous marginal comment" appears in the article as someone's own words as "Fermat famously claimed...". The source was put there two years ago, when you repeatedly tried to remove the word as 2001:4C50:19F:9C00:1D8:EEEE:CA1E:EB63 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). And see also 2001:4C50:19F:9C00:4157:429C:9508:5045 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), 2 days later, with this.

- DVdm (talk) 06:43, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Re 1: I apologize for not pinging you when I first opened the discussion here. I didn't have any definite plans (or even strong feelings, really), so I got careless. Most of the notifying I do is posting to WikiProjects and noticeboards, so posting messages to user talk pages can slip my mind. I can also fall too easily into the habit of thinking, "Why would anyone who is not a math person bother with editing a math page?" and then "Don't all the math people around here follow the WikiProject talk page?".

Re 3: I thought you had a good point about the tone of some passages ("one might..."), so I edited them for encyclopedic style.

Re 4: I don't think the Guardian style guide applies. (And even they don't forbid the word in practice [16][17][18]. It's a style guide, not a commandment.) The function of an encyclopedia is not the same as that of a newspaper; for example, we cover people who were famed in their day for activities largely forgotten now. Few mathematical assertions have had the notoriety of Fermat's, and it is appropriate for us to recognize that. XOR'easter (talk) 15:06, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Just so's you all know. XOR'easter (talk) 15:26, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Ditto. - DVdm (talk) 16:00, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

FYI: Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Best known for IP blocked. - DVdm (talk) 21:47, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

An old CfD

FYI, see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 May 4#Graphs by vertex and edge count, an old nomination which seems to have not been closed and just recently got attention again. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:29, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

@Deacon Vorbis:, thanks for the notice; I've just visited and spent my two cents. yoyo (talk) 17:34, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

"Things to do" leads to an "inactive" page

This WikiProject's § Things to do section contains a table of suggested activities, with columns What and Where. Wanting to notify project members that a certain page – Monoidal t-norm logic – is too technical, I followed the first entry in the table, which links to Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics/Lists. Imagine my surprise to read there – at the top of the page – that "This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference" and a suggestion to "seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump". Yet the page contains a score of sections, each listing many items needing attention for various reasons. One of those sections and reasons is the Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics/Lists § Articles that are too technical. So I've dropped an entry in that list, and used the {{technical}} template in a section of the subject page, viz. Monoidal t-norm logic § Motivation, but thought that perhaps this talk page might be a more appropriate "forum".

Please tell me where WikiProject Mathematics contributors go to request action or chew the fat with each other, if not on the pages pointed to by the Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics page??? Wherever the preferred hangout is, that's where the WikiProject should point people – not to an "inactive" page. yoyo (talk) 15:48, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

"Please tell me where ..." you seem to have found it, so what's the problem? --2601:142:3:F83A:716E:8F86:6A20:1BE3 (talk) 12:53, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

I've edited the list to try and make it a little more useful. XOR'easter (talk) 14:47, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Simon problems

I'd like to draw your attention to a Simon's problems draft article. The reviewing process appears to have been done by individuals with little or no science knowledge. I know the subject is notable and even German wikipedia has beaten us to it (see article here). Any help pls? Thankx! Ema--or (talk) 01:05, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

I've put some work into tidying and expanding it. I don't have time today to add the full list of problems, but maybe someone else can get there first. XOR'easter (talk) 15:39, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

It still needs expansion, but it looks good enough to promote to main space now. Anyone disagree? XOR'easter (talk) 18:55, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

With all the good work put into referencing and tightening up the prose by you and others, this looks like a well-referenced stub that described the essence of the problem list and its impact. Definitely ready for mainspace. The German version of the article has a lot of good detail and refs that might be used for further dev of this article. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 19:05, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and promoted it. XOR'easter (talk) 19:16, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Lindelöf hypothesis discussion

Can some editors from the project look into and help resolve the discussion at the Lindelöf hypothesis article's talkpage? Thanks. Abecedare (talk) 04:15, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

The substantive discussion there has ended (the only party arguing a particular position has retired), but the talk-page is now getting attention from a pair of SPA sock-puppets who for some reason want to write hundreds of words about a couple two-line blog comments. Apparently IP editors cannot initiate sock-puppet investigations, but maybe someone else has a few free minutes to spare. The relevant contributions are this and this. --2601:142:3:F83A:4D45:1B2F:4D9E:543D (talk) 14:51, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Kempner function

Can anyone solve the edit war over there? RandNetter96 (Talk) (Contributions) 20:50, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Oy vey. Well, something is better than nothing. Here is some actual useful information: I removed a bunch of content from the article, because it was poorly sourced (the name Smarandache is involved) and not replaceable with something decent. You can read my original edit summaries here: [19] [20]. This has been repeatedly reverted because I am an IP editor and the people doing the reverting think that is more important than evaluating the actual statements that I made. It would be nice if one or two other mathematicians could provide their opinions about the sourcing and encyclopedic value of the content I removed. Thanks. --2601:142:3:F83A:2836:5723:BC35:E4C6 (talk) 21:17, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm not a mathematician, but I can suggest you make an account if that might help. Dicklyon (talk) 06:01, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Having an account does not make people more agreeable to others. Being an IPv6 may even be advantageous in avoiding being hustled. Purgy (talk) 09:03, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Having an account might have prevented the very first revert of my edit; but that revert (while annoying) was not the problem. IPv6 certainly has its advantages, as Purgy notes (though, maybe "hassled"?). In any case, I don't see any reason to keep discussing the non-content aspects of the situation, which have been resolved. --2601:142:3:F83A:B17C:769:4F2D:175C (talk) 11:18, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Unsourced mathematician biography

Just stumbled across Krassimir Atanassov, a biography of a mathematician. The only thing resembling a source is an external link to his website. The multiple mentions of Smarandache caught my attention. Should it be an article? --2601:142:3:F83A:F5C6:4523:71E3:A4A7 (talk) 16:14, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

I have prodded this article. D.Lazard (talk) 16:33, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

He has lots of publications... Alas the ResearchGate mentions only 9 (link). --CiaPan (talk) 16:42, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

The problem is the lack of WP:secondary sources for establishing his notability. D.Lazard (talk) 17:00, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

The PROD has been declined, and a bunch of sources have been added. I have not tried to carefully evaluate them, but it seems like very few are the kind of coverage we usually expect for biographies: most are lists of members of editorial boards or similar. --2601:142:3:F83A:4D45:1B2F:4D9E:543D (talk) 14:43, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

The keyword "fuzzy" is kind of a red flag, but his membership in the BAS is probably enough for WP:PROF. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:33, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, ok. Maybe today I will find some time to trim it down to what is actually supported by its sources. --2601:142:3:F83A:B17C:769:4F2D:175C (talk) 11:19, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

abc conjecture implies Fermat-Catalan conjecture?

Per a question at the ref desk: is the implication correct? Both articles formerly claimed it was, but an editor has removed the claim from Fermat-Catalan conjecture. -2601:142:3:F83A:9D73:4BE:2A07:E50A (talk) 15:02, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, according to M. Waldschmidt, "Lecture on the abc Conjecture and Some of Its Consequences", Mathematics in the 21st Century, 2015, Springer, http://www.imj-prg.fr/~michel.waldschmidt/articles/pdf/abcLahoreProceedings.pdf. — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Eppstein (talk • contribs)

Belatedly, thanks. (And for the corresponding improvements to the article.) --2601:142:3:F83A:B17C:769:4F2D:175C (talk) 11:20, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Article about the square root of 4

We seem to have this new article: Square root of 4.

I don't think we need to be informed of the first hundred digits after the decimal point in the principal real square root of 4. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:48, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

I restored the redirect (courtesy ping, Dicklyon). I was a little curious about "restore deleted contents" from the edit summary, since none of that content was actually in the history. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 17:02, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Turns out Dicklyon pulled the same thing in 2007 and it was deleted rather than merely redirected that time. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:24, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

@Deacon Vorbis: : That content was in the edit history of the article that got deleted years ago. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:41, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

This looks like a satire of our mathematics articles. Not an appropriate thing for Wikipedia. JRSpriggs (talk) 01:48, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Yup. Just checking to see in anyone's watching after a decade. I hope someone enjoyed reading it. Dicklyon (talk) 05:57, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

YES, I really did. I even could not avoid to contribute "primality" to it, but failed for making the edit more explicitly visible (it would have required an additional separate edit; the janitorial paper-shufflers, focused on saving rubbish on pillars, will delete it anyway ...). But even though I immediately restored the status quo ante, I was shot down by a fast gun, in a manner that sadly seems to be typical for the janitor-like admins. Thanks for granting me laughs in WP. I just wonder where you had the data from ... Purgy (talk) 08:55, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm all for a bit of fun ... but please not in mainspace. Paul August ☎ 12:46, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Use of post-nominals after name in the lead of an article

I thought I was safe from this stuff here at least –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos)

It has become clear that there are a number of rather fervent mathematics-focused editors who have not actually bothered to read Wikipedia's Manual of Style, and who think that they get to determine whether or not to apply post-nominals in the lead of an article (and who are feverishly deleting these honours). These editors appear to be individuals who come from non-Commonwealth countries (e.g., the United States) who have no knowledge of how post-nominal letters are applied for various honours systems or royal societies. For the record, Wikipedia's Manual of Style says that post-nominals (e.g., OC FRSC) should be included in the lead of an article after the subject's name. See: MOS:POSTNOM Bueller 007 (talk) 16:37, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, however you could have posted that info already 2 weeks ago rather resorting to an edit war. Also please note the "... with which the subject has been closely associated"-bit in that guideline, which suggests for the Erdös case and probably most foreign members that the template in the lead is not appropriate and that the honor/membership should only be mentioned in the article's main body (and/or per category and infobox).--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:51, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Kmhkmh's statement and would go a little farther and say that the guideline clearly says that without a establishing a close association with the organization, the honour/membership should not appear in the lead. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 17:35, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree strongly with everything Kmhkmh and Bill have written here. Compare the MOS with this edit summary, which asserts that all Order of Canada members should have postnominals listed -- such a blanket position is in direct conflict with MOS. (I would be interested to see evidence of any consensus of any group of editors otherwise.) Any attempt to add these postnominals to the first sentence for Erdos or other similarly situated people would be inappropriate. --JBL (talk) 18:44, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Agree, with Kmhkmh, Wcherowi, and JBL. As has been pointed out, MOS:POSTNOM says "Post-nominal letters ... should be included in the lead section when they are issued by a country or widely recognizable organization with which the subject has been closely associated [empasis added]. Paul August ☎ 18:59, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Follow-up CFD discussion

A next discussion about graphs categories takes place here. Your comments are welcome. Marcocapelle (talk) 08:15, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

arxiv-vanity.com

MathXplore has been adding a bunch of links to references via the website arxiv-vanity.com, rather than direct links to the arXiv. I am having difficulty using the search to determine exactly how widely this site is linked from WP. Has this been discussed here before? Do people have thoughts about whether this is good/bad/not important? --JBL (talk) 18:36, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

This looks like an attempt for SEO for the arxiv-vanity site. It would be better to link directly to arxiv than a repackager like arxiv-vanity. Amusingly, the tagline of the site is "We don't want to get all Jimmy Wales on you, but if you like Arxiv Vanity, we'd really appreciate it if you chucked us a few dollars." --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 20:14, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

See this search link. Feel free to purge them all in favour of proper {{cite arxiv|arxiv=}} / {{cite journal|arxiv=}}. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:51, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Had a look and yes, links to sites like that (there are others I guess?) should be rejected, as far worse in numerous ways than direct links to arxiv.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 21:59, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I've cleaned them up. No opinion on whether or not the arxiv citations were appropriate to start with, but most were published in journals/books/conference proceedings. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:20, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Headbomb and all. --JBL (talk) 11:04, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Bott–Samelson articles?

Someone suggested that Bott–Samelson resolution and Bott–Samelson variety be merged back in July 2015. However no one made a case and it was closed last October, but then reopened by the original person who said they didn't make a case for merger because it was clear the two articles discuss the same thing. I don't really understand the merge process, could someone take a look at these and merge them if they should be merged? JustOneMore (talk) 05:25, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Vertex figure diagrams of polyhedra

Hi, there are two interlinked discussions about the graphical representation of vertex figures for polyhedra, and especially uniform polyhedra, at Talk:Vertex figure#Illustrations and Talk:Archimedean solid#Images. These diagrams are used in a large number of infoboxes and tables in polyhedron articles and so it is important to build consensus on their appearance. More contributors to the discussion/s would be helpful, as they are getting bogged down. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:26, 27 July 2018 (UTC) [updated 05:28, 28 July 2018 (UTC)]

Can someone please check the last two edits of this article?

They may be fine, but the editor is the author of fringe self-published books and busy promoting himself here. That's not an issue for the project, but I'm not sure how competent he is. Doug Weller talk 18:15, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Which article? –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 18:27, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

DOH! I'm an idiot. Stiffness matrix. Doug Weller talk 18:33, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

I reverted (better be safe) then asked for references from published material. Limit-theorem (talk) 20:30, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

One-way functions

In the one-way functions article, under the Candidates for one-way functions section there is a subsection for "Discrete exponential and logarithm" and "Elliptic curves". Now I don't know much at all about this area, but isn't it specifically the "elliptic curve discrete logarithm function" which is a candidate as a potential one-way function? If so should the elliptic curve subsection be merged with the discrete exponential and logarithm section? JustOneMore (talk) 04:57, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

In fact, the "discrete exponential and logarithm" scheme applies to any finite groups. The most common cases are the multiplicative group of the integers modulo p, and the group of an elliptic curve, but other groups have been considered, such as the group of a hyperelliptic curve or the multiplicative group of a non-prime finite field. So, it would be better to move these two sections as subsections of a section on "exponential and logarithm on a finite abelian group". D.Lazard (talk) 08:03, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

For corroborating information, see Discrete logarithm. Mgnbar (talk) 12:24, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, I have gone ahead and merged the sections. I'll try and add more info about the different groups after I've done more reading so I don't say something inaccurate :P JustOneMore (talk) 00:32, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Geombinatorics

This deletion discussion for a mathematics journal may be of interest to the community here. XOR'easter (talk) 15:45, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Disambiguation links

Hi, could anyone here help fix a few links to disambiguation pages?

Bolza surface has a link to Perturbation, Finsler manifold has a link to Minkowski norm and Simplicially enriched category has a link to Simplicial category.

I don't know whether there is a good target article for the links in question, or whether the link should be removed, as my level of Mathematics is not advanced enough to understand these topics. Thanks for your help. Iffy★Chat -- 12:20, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

"Bolza surface" and "Finsler manifold" now fixed, but "Simplicially enriched category" is not. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 14:27, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

I "fixed" the last one by just removing that section; it was in pretty bad shape – bad English, questionable math, broken refs, etc. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:29, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Aug 2018

Newton–Cotes formulas mistake?

Hi would someone be able to check the 'Newton–Cotes formulas page; Closed Newton-Cote formulae' section, specifically the (3rd and 4th) rows of formulae in the table...

1) The Simpson's 3/8 rule & Boole's rule do not appear to be consistent with the Trapezoid rule and Simpsons rule in that where they have used (b-a), I feel like they should have used (b-a)/n where n is the degree. This appears to be what they have done for trap/simpsons rule. The linked Boole's rule wiki page itself does have the initial coefficient as 2*h/45 and I believe h := (b-a)/4, meaning that using the style implemented on the Newton Coates page, the first coefficient should be 1/90 (i.e. (2/45)/4), and similarly the 3/8th simpsons rule should start with 1/8. As a reference I'm comparing to the Introduction to Numerical Analysis Springer book by Stoer and Bulirsch who provide a table for comparative purposes.

2) In the book I've just mentioned (page 126 for the table), the names of the interpolation schemes are different too. That reference names the degree 4 scheme as Milne's rule, whereas the wiki page seems to refer to places where it is called Boole's rule, and yet it uses Milne's rule for a different formula further down. I feel like (at least personally) I'm getting confused by all the names. Is there any way to clear it up?

Thanks, — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a0c:5bc0:40:107c:c479:58f9:bf8b:42cf (talk)

Courtesy link: Newton–Cotes_formulas#Closed_Newton–Cotes_formulas. --JBL (talk) 13:45, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I changed the coefficients to match, but I'm not going to wade into the naming stuff. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:56, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Help with "Good Article" review of "Georg Cantor's first set theory article".

Here is the article: Georg Cantor's first set theory article

Here is the "Good Article" review page: Talk:Georg_Cantor's_first_set_theory_article/GA2

I created the page originally, but most of what's there now is the work of Robert Gray, a historian of mathematics who has published refereed scholarly articles on this topic.

Work is needed to respond to the recommendations on the review page in order for this article to be promoted. There is Robert Gray is on vacation and not aware of the current situation. Michael Hardy (talk) 15:49, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I like the article, and I think it would be a shame if the nomination fails simply because some editor is having two weeks off. Michael, maybe you could ask the reviewer to extend the on hold for a bit longer than 7 days (which anyways are a somewhat arbitrary interval in my mind)? Jakob.scholbach (talk) 21:14, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I still very seriously object to the name. My opinion is that articles about specific publications should be named after the publication — in this case On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers.

There are several considerations that lead me to this conclusion. The most important one is that descriptions are the last choice for the titles of WP articles. For articles whose title is not a simple common noun, we should strain to use proper names and terms of art before natural-language descriptive phrases.

Secondarily but still importantly, article strikes me as a bad description for this seminal paper. TIME has articles. Wikipedia has articles. Research scientists publish papers. They may also publish articles, but the articles are less important than the papers. The articles tend to be surveys and reviews rather than original contributions. --Trovatore (talk) 21:23, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't remember what this article's title was originally. I can't find it in the edit history, and I wonder if that has to do with some deletions and restorations and edit history mergers. I remember that it was changed to its current title from something else. I think it may have been something like "Cantor's first uncountability proof". Michael Hardy (talk) 17:16, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

ok, I found it. It was Cantor's first uncountability proof. I agree that the title of Cantor's paper would be better than the Wikipedia article's current title. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:19, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree with the proposal to make the title of Cantor's paper the title of this article. Here's another instance: An essay towards solving a problem in the doctrine of chances. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:15, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

comments on the review

I've put some comments here on the review page. Opinions? Michael Hardy (talk) 18:34, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Vital articles

Is it just me, or are a lot of articles getting promoted to "vital"? I don't normally pay attention to that sort of meta classification, but SSTbot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been promoting lots of articles that I wouldn't have thought should be considered "vital". For example, Bessel function is rated as "mid" importance by WikiProject Mathematics. Should it be only mid importance, but also vital? (Note: I have no strong opinions about any of this. I'm just noting that something doesn't quite jibe about it.) Sławomir Biały (talk) 20:45, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

As far as I know, the SSTbot is promoting articles in Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/5/Mathematics; for instance Bessel function is listed at Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/5/Mathematics#Calculus_(32_articles). I, too, don't have much of an opinion on what is included, but that is probably the place to discuss. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 20:54, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Quantum cohomology is a more egregious example than Bessel function (and I'm even a fan of the former). I don't understand the procedure by which Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/Mathematics is populated. Mgnbar (talk) 21:10, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

I would recommend mostly ignoring VA in general. I'm an occasional participant in level-3 discussions, but largely against my better judgment. I don't really see the point of the whole thing. It seems to be mostly a place to argue about why what's important to me is more important than what's important to you. --Trovatore (talk) 21:28, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Level 5 is a recent expansion to vital articles. Right now it's basically a WP:BOLD wildwest. Once it's got its critical mass of articles, I suspect there'll be an actual process in place. If anything egregious is missing, add it, if something completely silly is added, remove it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:55, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, a bot for tagging these articles ran today. The current "quota" is 1200 articles (total) at level-5, including 300 at level-4 (biographies excluded from that count). My mental threshold is whether the topic would be discussed in a book-length mathematics encyclopedia. That's probably anything at "mid" priority or higher; Bessel function is One of the 500 most frequently viewed mathematics articles. and is probably important enough to be listed (no opinion on Quantum cohomology). power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:53, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

If anything of "mid" importance is "vital", then we have a serious terminology mismatch. (This is not an attack on you, though. :) Mgnbar (talk) 11:43, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Maybe a better terminology would be "vital indeed" for level 1, "vital" for level 2, "half-vital" for level 3, "not quite vital" for level 4, and "not vital at all" for level 5?   :-)   Boris Tsirelson (talk) 11:16, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

My issue is not with the article Bessel function per se. But many of the other articles being promoted to vital in SSTbot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) strike me as borderline at best. I realize a case could be made that articles like Methods of detecting exoplanets or Planetary differentiation, for example, are vital articles. But, on the other hand, something doesn't quite jibe about many of the articles I see getting promoted. Many are, for lack of a better word, borderline. Often they are only rated "mid" importance, for example, in their WikiProject designations. Something doesn't feel quite right if a WikiProject designates an article as "Mid" importance, but then a bot apparently upgrades it based on some list somewhere of "vital" articles. Why is there a discrepancy in the assessment? Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:07, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

If you want to suggest a different name ("Moderately vital articles") that isn't quite as silly as that suggestion, please do so. power~enwiki (π, ν) 03:16, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

These all should be clearly more vital than articles such as Maris–McGwire–Sosa pair, Square Root Day, or Hensel's lemma. power~enwiki (π, ν) 03:20, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

One of those things (Hensel's lemma) is not like the others. It actually has some mathematical significance rather than being a piece of cultural trivia. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:02, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, Hensel's lemma is vital in this apparently non-vital sense, which apparently means "something Wikipedia should have an article on". Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:02, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree there's a (large) gap between "important to have an article, but not the top 1000 topics" and "crap that is too much work to get deleted". power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:16, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

I feel the best approach to vital articles is "If this were an encyclopedia on topic X, and we only have room for Y topics, would this make the cut?" When you have 5 articles to work with, it's pretty reasonable to exclude Calculus. But if you have ~50 articles to work with, then it can make the cut. I don't know if I'd include Bessel functions if I were limited at 300 topics, but certainly I'd talk about them if I had room for 1100 topics. At that level, I'd also leave out Maris–McGwire–Sosa pair, but there's room to talk about Recreational mathematics. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:34, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Education hiring an experienced Wikipedian

Wiki Education is hiring an experienced Wikipedian for a part-time (20 hours/week) position. The focus of this position is to help new editors (students and other academics) learn to edit Wikipedia. The main focus of the position is monitoring and tracking contributions by Wiki Education program participants, answering questions, and providing feedback. We're looking for a friendly, helpful editor who like to focus on article content, but also with a deep knowledge of policies and guidelines and the ability to explain them in simple, concise ways to new editors. They will be the third member of a team of expert Wikipedians, joining Ian (Wiki Ed) and Shalor (Wiki Ed). This is a part-time, U.S. based, remote or San Francisco based position.

We are especially interested in people with a background editing maths-related articles. See our Careers page for more information. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:07, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Schröder–Bernstein theorem: OR or not?

A nice proof is added recently to "Schröder–Bernstein theorem" by KeesDoe, see here and here, and challenged by "citation needed". It is very easy to check the proof... can it survive unsourced? can it be sourced? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 10:16, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

IMO, this is a case of WP:IAR. This situation is rather frequent in mathematics, where some proofs and some results belongs to the common knowledge of the specialists, but are not sufficiently new for being the object of a publication, or were published a long time ago and cannot be retrieved by Google search. Moreover, a content is WP:OR, only if no source exists, not if no source is provided. In this case, it is unbelievable that no sources exist, although it may be difficult to find them. I have encountered the same problem many times when editing WP. Here are two examples. When editing Quartic function, I introduced a section on the nature of the roots. At that time, I did not know any source. A source in an article of 1922 has been provided later by a reader who discussed the slight difference between the two presentations. A second example, still unsourced was motivated by a discussion at Talk:Homomorphism#Inaccuracy (remainder) on the relationship between injections and surjections on a side and monomorphisms and epimorphisms on the other side. The main fact is that, in most (but not all) common cases, the two terminologies are equivalent, but I do not know a source giving explicitly a list of these cases. I have thus added collapsed proofs to Homomorphism for replacing missing sources. These proofs are certainly not new. My point of view about this example is a personal interpretation of the first paragraph of WP:Verifiability. The main point for WP is verifiability; this results normally from reliable sources, but, in mathematics, this may also result from a proof. D.Lazard (talk) 11:06, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Rather convincing.

A kind of source: [21]. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 16:44, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

While a citation to this related result would be best, I agree with D.Lazard's point that it is difficult to source source every aside, especially if it seems routine or obvious to the experts. This could perhaps fall under the umbrella of routine derivation or common knowledge. That said, the problematic part is the language. Stating "It is easy to see that" is a challenge to the reader. This is good in a textbook where the author is a mentor encouraging readers to work it out for themselves. In WP, that sort of challenge just generates citation requests. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 18:36, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

In addition to needing an edit for math markup, the explanation could do with a little smoothing. For example, $g$ is at first the identity, but then $g$ denotes something else. XOR'easter (talk) 20:15, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

I'd agree with D.Lazard that obviously correct proofs are in doubt a case for WP:IAR. While providing reference in such cases would be better, simply deleting such correct proofs just because of missing reference is worse and disservice to readers.--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:36, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Duodecimal

An IP editor is inserting masses of what looks to me to be original research at Duodecimal and reverting without comment whenever anyone (or at least me) tries to prune it back again. More eyes on the article would be helpful. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:14, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Wow, this article is pretty bonkers even without that (it's around 150k!). The IP in question locates to Taiwan, and they've been fairly busy. I reverted some dubious additions at Unique factorization domain from the same editor, but they've edited from a number of different addresses and have been hitting some other articles as well. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 02:16, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Factorial

There has been a lot of material added to the fringier sections of this article (k-torial, superfactorial, hyperfactorial) by an IP editor over the last month or so. I've been meaning to look it over to see to what extent it is decent, but keep failing to make the time. So I am dropping this here as a reminder to myself/an invitation to anyone else who wants to take a look. --JBL (talk) 12:31, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

FYI, this appears to be the same person mentioned re: Duodecimal a couple sections up. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:16, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Now operating from 210.242.153.203 (talk · contribs) —David Eppstein (talk) 05:55, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Holor

Is the article titled Holor worth keeping? Michael Hardy (talk) 19:25, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

This article is based on a single WP:primary source, without references to any secondary source. Thus this seems WP:OR. In any case, this is a fringe theory (very few citations to the original article). Reading the WP article, it seems also that this theory consists essentially in the introduction of a lot of terminology and definitions, without any real result. I support deletion. D.Lazard (talk) 19:53, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

The article is now at AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Holor. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 19:59, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Rectangles in every day life

I just stumbled across Supergolden ratio, which attributes to the source

The Changing Shape of Geometry: Celebrating a Century of Geometry and Geometry Teaching, "4.13". Mathematical Association of America (2003). Cambridge University Press. pp. 320–326. ISBN 9780521531627.

the following paragraph, as well as a corresponding sentence in the lead:

The supergolden rectangle is common in everyday life. The ratios of the sides of rectangular household objects like Sunday newspapers and Cornflakes packets are within half of a percent of 1.46557…, the supergolden ratio. This is because the supergolden rectangle is a good balance of aesthetic (The supergolden algebraic relationship x³=x²+1 is similar to the golden algebraic relationship x²=x+1, but the supergolden geometric relationship is somewhat more complicated than the golden geometric relationship.) and practical (The supergolden rectangle's proportions are more suited for various roles than those of the golden rectangle, which is too narrow for many uses.), allowing it to become widely used in society. However, while the supergolden rectangle is the most common, other proportions are also commonly used, including √2 (paper), ρ (Weetabix box), and φ (softback book).

(A good comparison is the article golden ratio.) I do not presently have access to the complete relevant section of the source (Google books cuts off, and I am traveling) but I thought others might want to take a look. --JBL (talk) 12:28, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

The referenced source is a book chapter, but it was originally published in The Mathematical Gazette and can be read on JSTOR. The claims in supergolden ratio vastly oversell what that source actually says, when they do not contradict it; for example, Crilly says that softback books aren't even uniform in ratio. I've removed that paragraph and the corresponding lead sentence accordingly. XOR'easter (talk) 15:33, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

OK, we're now getting into a bit of back-and-forth about this. Other opinions would be much appreciated. I won't touch it again until someone else weighs in, since I don't want to go down the edit-war path. (And there are at least two noticeably different aspect ratios of cereal boxes on my pantry shelf right now....) XOR'easter (talk) 17:49, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Paging Dicklyon, who has been very helpful at keeping golden ratio under control. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:20, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I did look up the book version; it's the same as the JSTOR one, apart from pagination. XOR'easter (talk) 20:14, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

The article in no way supports the common use of this ratio. It includes an anecdotal survey of rectangles around the author's house, which include a newspaper and a cornflakes packet of numerically similar (but not identical) aspect ratios, but it does not identify the newspaper or brand of cornflakes, does not call out their numerical similarity to this ratio, and does not make any assertion that the same aspect ratio is in use for anything, let alone for other newspapers or cereals. Indeed, newspaper format lists many different aspect ratios for newspapers, none of which match. I agree that this source cannot be used to include this material. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:22, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Interesting article on a sequence and ratio that I was not aware of. Certainly we should stick close to sources, and not be making unsupported claims that this obscure ratio is in any sense "common", even if some book and paper size ratios are close to it. If there's no demonstrated intent or statistical significance, there's nothing to say about that. Dicklyon (talk) 21:03, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

It would be easy and useful to illustrate this: 'There is a supergolden rectangle that has the property that if a square is removed from one side, the remaining rectangle can be divided into two supergolden rectangles of opposite orientations." Dicklyon (talk) 21:06, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

HTML entities and Unicode characters

FYI, I'm proposing a stronger style convention for special characters which are often seen in math-related articles. The idea is to use Unicode characters like ÷ instead of HTML entities like &divide;, except in cases where characters can be confusing or there's an existing guideline to do something else (like with fractions and superscripts). If you'd like to read and/or comment, the latest version is at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style § Fourth draft. Thanks! -- Beland (talk) 06:50, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

For heaven's sake, please, prevent any activists from adding more tabulated bureaucracy to the already enriched WP:MOS (e.g.: idiosyncratic "spacing of dashes"!). All the already stated precautions do apply fully to the draft, imho. Let's not have more of "I am an expert in the guidelines, which you constantly disrupt." and "I don't care a sh*t about you toiling to restore meaning, which is against (my) guidelines."

Why is it necessary to have so much canvassed into one go? Replacing hex-codes is a fine thing to do. I do not feel sufficiently prepared to comment directly on the MOS-TP. unintended copy on the science-project site Purgy (talk) 07:39, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

To Beland: Please let us have a complete list of the unicode characters which you propose that we should use in the source. How are we supposed to generate them? Anyone can easily type in "&" followed by "divide;", but how do I make the unicode divide character? What is the point of wasting our time doing this anyway? JRSpriggs (talk) 04:01, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

@Beland: Nope. I can type characters like right arrow (→), degree (°) or times (×) with Alt+0nnn on numeric pad of my Windows keyboard — but that's virtually all. Oh, yes, I can also type a dash (—). But for most mathematical symbols (including, but not limited to floor/ceil operators, radical, divide or even pi, delta and epsilon!) I need a Character table applet to pick and copy+paste one. So it's much easier and much faster to simply type the HTML entity code and let the HTTP server + HTML client do the work for me.
Let alone (rare) editing from an Android phone, where I need additional two or three clicks to get to appropriate symbols page in a touch-screen 'keyboard' and then back to alphanumerics. To make things worse, many special symbols simply do not even exist in that keyboard and there's no such thing like Alt+0nnn on it. (Or at least I do not know how to activate it.)
TL;DR
No, I'm not going to waste my time on learning codes and typing them just because someone considers &amp; code ugly. It is standard and it works, so I stick to it. --CiaPan (talk) 09:33, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Oh hi everyone, I hadn't noticed more discussion was happening here.

• @Purgy Purgatorio: Well, I didn't think asking a question about HTML entities in general was particularly overwhelming. We seem to have been able to brainstorm what characters are worth keeping as named entities for clarity or because opinions differ as to which is best. I don't think people should be fighting over this sort of thing; this is a pretty clear binary choice, and if there's a good reason not to convert in a particular sort of situation, that should be reflected in the guideline.
• @JRSpriggs: There are over 137,000 defined Unicode characters for which it is possible to write a numerical code, so providing a complete list of those would not be helpful. There's a complete list of all the ones for which named HTML entities exist linked from the proposal; that list is at [22]. (Not all of those are necessarily supported in all browsers.) The general recommendation would be to use the Unicode character unless it's found on one of the two short tables in the proposal at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style § Fourth draft. Over time we may find we want to add more exceptions, for example if there's a new whitespace character we discover a good use for, which would otherwise be invisible.
• @JRSpriggs: and @CiaPan: If you edit any Wikipedia page, you'll see immediately below the main text entry area a way to add Unicode characters to articles. When editing from a desktop browser, there's a pull-down menu (initially it says "Insert") which gives you access to a lot of common characters. For math articles, I think most of what you're looking for (including the divide symbol) are accessible from "Math and logic" on the pulldown or "Greek". I'm sure there are more obscure characters not listed here, but obscure characters don't have named HTML entities either, so we'd be using a complicated input method in any case (a special character picker, entering Unicode number by keyboard, or copy-and-paste from another wiki or web page or local document). The mobile experience is not so nice for direct character input for mathematics, but I sometimes have to change my Android browser to desktop mode to edit Wikipedia anyway, if I'm doing certain things the mobile interface doesn't support. (Or maybe there's a widget you can activate in your preferences or that could be improved by the Mediawiki developers.)
• Everyone: I think there are three reasons to do this:
  • Search results - for example, if you include ‰ in your search, that won't find articles that use &permil;.
  • WYSIWYG editing - Seeing the actual mathematical symbol in the wikitext is just easier to read, understand, and change, even if you are familiar with the entity names. It looks more like math looks on a blackboard or printed page, and there's no possibility of accidentally breaking the markup by dropping a semicolon (which I've been correcting a lot of lately).
  • New editors - I'm impressed at how well editors who have been dealing with these things have picked up the HTML entities and keyboard codes and whatnot. For editors who are new to Wikipedia or who only occasionally deal with topics that require special characters, the vast majority don't know HTML or about HTML entities, so seeing them is confusing. If they want to enter characters that way, it's basically a secret code they need to learn and remember or write down or bookmark or something. This seems to me like a barrier to entry, and I'm afraid seeing a bunch of &s and ;s on certain articles is causing some fraction of potential contributors to just turn and run. We do at least support TeX markup with <math> for academics and folks familiar with that, so that's something. But being able to tell someone to just scroll down and use the pull-down to stick in the characters they need is a bit lower-friction.
• I don't see any reason why experienced editors who are used to writing &divide; and whatnot shouldn't to continue to do so. In general, we're expected to welcome all contributions, whether or not they are in the preferred style. I have a program that scans the entire encyclopedia for HTML entities (among many other things) twice a month, so what I would expect to happen is that a volunteer would quietly change that &divide; to ÷ for the reasons listed above. I think that will result in easier reading and cut-and-paste work even for the editor who originally added it. For characters where both styles are accepted (like for dashes) nothing would happen. If pointers to the guideline helps inform more editors about direct character input method and they like it better or find it easier, that would both save volunteer time and be a win for editors, but no one should go around punishing people for not using the preferred system up front. In my experience this is how the style guidelines generally work, so I can leave this as an implicit thing, or I can add language to the proposal explicitly saying editors can use whatever format they're most familiar with as long as they don't mind if someone else changes it to the preferred format (if there is one) for them later? -- Beland (talk) 15:19, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

@Beland: no additional textwall will wipe out your above threat ... that a volunteer would quietly change..., and the Danaans' present "No one should go around punishing people for not using the preferred system up front." looks like shafts of satire. May I point you to my writing above: "I am an expert in the guidelines, which you constantly disrupt." and "I don't care a sh*t about you toiling to restore meaning, which is against (my) guidelines."??? Being welcome in this specific mode is bluntly deterrent. I oppose to establishing this revised WP:MOS with all my negligible might. BTW, I looked at the discussion with D. Eppstein et al., too. Purgy (talk) 14:10, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, "we can't have a guideline because someone might complain that I'm violating it" is an argument against having a Manual of Style at all, which we clearly can't do. In the larger picture, style manuals reduce conflicts, because they are mostly documenting arbitrary choices made after discussion and some form of consensus. Without one we'd be having the same discussions or arguments over and over again. It sounds like you may also have had trouble in situations where there are multiple conflicting goals, and there's some disagreement over which is most important. That's a natural thing to have discussions about; without a style guide, we'd just be having the same discussions but without the benefit of having parts of those disagreements already settled. If people are condescending or mean or pushy in such discussions, that's just something we'll have to deal with as part of modern culture or as a violation of WP:CIVIL. -- Beland (talk) 16:39, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

@Purgy Purgatorio: Actually, in cases where there is only one recommended choice, would you prefer if the changes were made by a bot rather than a human? We could program it not to have angry feelings. -- Beland (talk) 22:44, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Comment on draft

Your comments on Draft:Residual intersection are welcomed. Please use either Yet Another Articles for Creation Helper Script by enabling Preferences → Gadgets → Editing → Yet Another AFC Helper Script, or use {{afc comment|Your comment here. ~~~~}} directly in the draft. Thank you. Sam Sailor 08:24, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Nonsense

As far as I understand, an anon is inserting a nonsensical "Vector Nuclear of Photon Released" to many articles. He is pushing his "theory" presented here, here and here (signed by Bilal Mohamed). His IP numbers: 196.224.17.232, 197.28.160.228, 197.28.165.239. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 13:45, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

For easier reference:

• 196.224.17.232 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 197.28.160.228 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 197.28.165.239 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

When undoing his edits, please put {{uw-unsourced}} warning templates on their talk pages. - DVdm (talk) 14:14, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Do you mean, to create talk page for IP and put this template there? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 14:26, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes. If this is a new user, this makes it easier for them to learn that we disapprove of their edits. And if this is a user repeating bad edits, it makes it easier for admins to notice the problem and block them. —David Eppstein (talk) 14:30, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

OK, I do. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 14:34, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

And of course, a sequence of {{uw-unsourced1}}, {{uw-unsourced2}}, {{uw-unsourced3}}, {{uw-unsourced4}} can make things easier. - DVdm (talk) 14:38, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Sure. But probably I should "escalate" it after some time allowing that editor to read the previous... And really, I am far not sure that he/she visits his/her talk page at all... Boris Tsirelson (talk) 14:43, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

They are supposed to read their talk page messages. They get a notice about such messages. Upon persistence after a level 4 warning a simple report message at wp:AIV is usually sufficient to get them blocked for vandalism. - DVdm (talk) 15:09, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Still, a problem. Now they act as 196.224.0.104. Is 196.224.0.104 supposed to read the talk page of 196.224.17.232? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 18:16, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Another link that may help: search WP for Vector Nuclear of Photon Released. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 14:51, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

@Tsirel: Possibly even better links: Special:Search/Vector Nuclear "Photon Released" or Special:Search/"Vector Nuclear of Photon Released" (with parts in double quotes). --CiaPan (talk) 15:59, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, your better link was just used effectively, it has found

• 196.224.0.104 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Boris Tsirelson (talk) 18:36, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

@Boris Tsirelson: Glad to help :) CiaPan (talk) 05:48, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Now also 196.224.27.85 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Boris Tsirelson (talk) 19:21, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Integers and prime numbers

I see that Category:Prime numbers doesn't have any articles about specific prime numbers within it, aside from the subcategories for 2, 3, and 7, and a few very large prime numbers, e.g. Belphegor's prime. Meanwhile, there are plenty of specific prime numbers in Category:Integers. Is this by design? Seems to me that "Prime numbers" could be a subcategory of "Integers", with all the prime numbers moved down from Integers to Prime numbers, but maybe that's not normal in the mathematics part of Wikipedia. Nyttend (talk) 01:38, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

It would be very unintuitive not to have all the articles on integers appear sequentially in Category:Integers. I would strongly oppose that. Having articles on individual primes appear in Category:Prime numbers would seem to make sense, but on the talk page for that category a post says "Category:Prime numbers is not for individual small numbers which happen to be prime. If a large number is only notable and has an article because it's a prime number then it may belong here." At the least, it appears that this issue has been considered before.--Srleffler (talk) 02:51, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Journal of Combinatorial Algebra

Is this a notable journal (in the sense it can belong to mainspace)? -- Taku (talk) 23:31, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Did you read the reason the draft was declined? The only real notability guideline for journals is WP:GNG (we also have WP:NJournals but that's just an essay). GNG requires in-depth coverage of the subject in multiple reliable published sources that are independent of the subject. For instance maybe someone wrote a section about the journal in a biography of one of its founders, and published it in another journal. Do you have sources like that? If so, add them to the article, and notability should become clear. If not, it is most likely not notable. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:14, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

No I didn't and I simply asked because I'm not familiar with the notability guidelines for the journals and so I was hoping the other members of the project to take a look at it. The question was not meant to be rhetorical here. -- Taku (talk) 00:23, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

I am regularly shocked by the low standards in practice for articles about journals. Like, here is an AfD I started about an article with 0 citations, and the only two votes so far are "keep". Anyhow, I asked about this journal here a year ago, you can see the feedback I got then. --JBL (talk) 01:16, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Stop stealth canvassing. As for this journal, merge the first paragraph to European Mathematical Society and call it a day. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:33, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

I have simply redirected the page to European Mathematical Society (so the content is still accessible). I have no strong opinion on the notability and if the other editors find the topic to be notable, please feel free to revert the redirect. —- Taku (talk) 10:43, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Erdos-Bacon number removals

Domdeparis has recently been going around removing mentions of Erdos-Bacon numbers in various articles, citing this RFC about Natalie Portman. At least one of these removals (Daniel Kleitman) is clearly inappropriate, another (Danica McKellar, where it was supported by a USA Today article) seems dubious, and I have not checked the rest. (By contrast, removing it from Portman's article is obviously reasonable.) Since this is taking place over several articles, I thought broader discussion would be good. --JBL (talk) 15:21, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

As i have just explained on the article talk page if you look carefully at the !votes, of the 14 that voted against its inclusion 12 either did not mention the sourcing or said that regardless of the sourcing they would oppose its inclusion for "pure trivia", "silly", "indiscriminante" "Nonsensical fancruft". The oppose !votes came mostly from very experienced editors including a couple of admins. Dom from Paris (talk) 15:37, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

I would also say that there is a fundamental problem as you can see by my bolding, with this trivia because it states on the Erdos-Bacon number that it is a number which measures the "collaborative distance" in authoring academic papers between that person and Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős—and one's Bacon number—which represents the number of links, through roles in films, by which the individual is separated from American actor Kevin Bacon. whereas in reality the Erdős number describes the "collaborative distance" between mathematician Paul Erdős and another person, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers.. If you take some time to search the people who are supposed to have this number most of them did not author mathematical papers at all and some were simply named as collaborators. This kind of thing IMHO should not be in an encyclopedia. If one want to point out that an actor has also an academic background then this can be done in prose without resorting to a meme and the same for an academic with experience in the movie business. Dom from Paris (talk) 15:49, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

I have just opened an RFC on the above subject here Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biography#Rfc_on_the_inclusion_of_the_Erdős–Bacon_number_in_biographies.. Feel free to participate. --Dom from Paris (talk) 16:55, 24 August 2018 (UTC) trivia

The problem is here that while you probably can argue that usually adding Erdös-Bacon numbers is undesired, that isn't necessarily true for every individual article (although strictly speaking that rfc only deals with Portmann anyhow). I. e. there can be exceptions, where the mentioning of the Erdös-Bacon numbers is justified. Note, that in doubt reliable and reputable external sources do overrule taste preferences or personal assessments of WP editors.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:24, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Induction-induction

Will someone please review this draft with regard to whether it should be accepted as an article? In particular, does it appear to be academically sound? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:09, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Paraconsistent mathematics needs help

The creator, Schiszm seems to be a competent academic writer and my gut says this surely should be a notable subject, but the draft needs to be substantially reworked to fit in WP, particularly in terms of the style and tone. Please advise and assist the original contributor. Thanks Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:20, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Please... Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:22, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

What does Draft:Paralogic do that Paraconsistent logic does not already do? Should we really help with an article which talks about a "supernatural process"?

In any case, I see no value in paraconsistent logic or fuzzy logic or anything based on such illogical "logics". The purpose of logic is to make clear distinctions. If you cannot even distinguish between truth and falsehood, then what can you distinguish? JRSpriggs (talk) 20:53, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Speaking as a complete novice, how about merging it with paraconsistent logic? I don’t think the question whether we need this type of “logic” or math based on it is relevant here; only the notability. —- Taku (talk) 21:37, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I think the merge makes sense, but the problem still remains that someone would need to do it, and it's not clear whether we have anyone with both the competence and the desire. I do not understand the material well enough to do it, and I don't have enough desire to go acquire that competence. It's possible that someone here does, but no one has stepped forward so far. --Trovatore (talk) 22:09, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Just want to point out the draft that needs help is Draft:Paraconsistent mathematics, and not Draft:Paralogic. Sorry I can't help with the issue, I'm just an AFC reviewer, not a topic specialist. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 22:32, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I do not understand the material well enough, too. But I note that most of the draft is not quite about paraconsistent mathematics. (Why discuss in detail numerous non-mathematical "definitions" of continuity in dictionaries? (Here) Mathematical definitions are conventional, explicit, sharp in all kinds of math, except maybe for recreational math, but including paraconsistent math.) Looking at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy I see more about mathematics, but still, not a lot; and often the relevant math is mentioned rather than explained. Basically, there I see the following (quoted).

• A number of people including da Costa (1974), Brady (1971, 1989), Priest, Routley, & Norman (1989, pp. 152, 498), considered it preferable to retain the full power of the natural comprehension principle (every predicate determines a set), and tolerate a degree of inconsistency in set theory. Brady, in particular, has extended, streamlined and simplified these results on naive set theory in his book (2006); for a clear account see also Restall’s review (2007).

• If the Russell Contradiction does not spread, then there is no obvious reason why one should not take the view that naive set theory provides an adequate foundation for mathematics, and that naive set theory is deducible from logic via the naive comprehension schema.

• Weber, in related papers (2010), (2012), has taken the inconsistency to be a positive virtue, since it enables us to settle several questions that were left open by Cantor, namely, that the well-ordering theorem and the axiom of choice are provable, and that the Continuum Hypothesis is false (2012, 284).

• Cantor’s Theorem continues to hold; that is, it does not depend on overly-strong logical principles which are contested by paraconsistentists.

• Hilbert’s program was the project of rigorously formalising mathematics and proving its consistency by simple finitary/inductive procedures. It was widely held to have been seriously damaged by Gödel’s Second Incompleteness Theorem, according to which the consistency of arithmetic was unprovable within arithmetic itself. But a consequence of Meyer’s construction was that within his arithmetic R# it was demonstrable by finitary means that whatever contradictions there might happen to be, they could not adversely affect any numerical calculations. Hence Hilbert’s goal of conclusively demonstrating that mathematics is trouble-free proves largely achievable as long as inconsistency-tolerant logics are used.

• Robinson’s (1974) non-standard analysis was based on infinitesimals, quantities smaller than any real number, as well as their reciprocals, the infinite numbers. This has an inconsistent version, which has some advantages for calculation in being able to discard higher-order infinitesimals. Interestingly, the theory of differentiation turned out to have these advantages, while the theory of integration did not.

I guess, for now this is (roughly) all the paraconsistent mathematics available. If so, then the draft should be short, accordingly, and more specific, explaining these points (in particular: which paraconsistent logic is used? several are in use), and not overlapping too much the "paraconsistent logic" article. If indeed the creator is a competent (in this matter) academic writer, he/she should be able to do it. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 17:01, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

While there are many versions of paraconsistent logic (which might itself be an obstacle to developing paraconsistent mathematics), I feel that most of them derive from an attempt to avoid making a choice when confronted with a contradiction. If one fails to accept disjunctive syllogism, then one will fail to commit oneself to a particular development of the 'correct' alternative. The article on paraconsistent logic recognizes that most of them are weaker than classical logic. The result of this is that one's development of mathematics will be crippled. JRSpriggs (talk) 01:57, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't really see what that has to do with the matter at hand. Even if paraconsistent mathematics is indeed inferior, that inferiority is not in itself an impediment to writing a good article about it.

But we still have the problem we started with, as far as I can tell. We don't have any single person who has clear competence in both the subject matter and in WP-style encyclopedic writing. Not necessarily a fatal flaw, as Schiszm could learn how to write WP articles, or some experienced WP writer could learn the subject matter, or Schiszm could work collaboratively with an experienced WP writer. All of these, however, do require some extra effort on someone's part. --Trovatore (talk) 02:27, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

I suspect that the problem with Schiszm is not his/her lack of WP experience, but his/her grossly exaggerated impression of paraconsistent mathematics. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 05:04, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

"The superstitious dread and veneration by mathematicians in the face of contradiction" (Wittgenstein "Remarks on the foundation of mathematics" Cambrigde 1978, see page 122).   :-)   Boris Tsirelson (talk) 05:30, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Somewhat to my surprise, I added a section Paraconsistent logic#An ideal three-valued paraconsistent logic. Telling myself that I was trying to find the best version so that I could shoot it all down at once. Comments and questions would be welcome. JRSpriggs (talk) 06:37, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Sep 2018

Wikipedia requiescat in pace.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#It's_time_to_euthanize_Wikipedia. Michael Hardy (talk) 05:08, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Does this have anything to do with mathematics? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:43, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps as an example of adding 2 and 2 and making 5... —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 13:12, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

OP blocked two days for personal attacks. -Roxy, the dog. barcus 14:15, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

OP=?--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:12, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

"Original poster", opener of the thread. Usenet jargon from the old days . - DVdm (talk) 15:15, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

If someone here is curious, some links may be relevant: Ancestral health; its discussion on WikiProject Medicine; AfD; AN; User:Michael Hardy/libel. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 20:46, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

(I have just un-archived the thread; if the premature archiving is not bullying, I don’t know what it is.) —- Taku (talk) 08:08, 29 August 2018 (UTC) For me, the attempt like suppressing this thread [23] already amply proves Michael Hardy‘s point. —- Taku (talk) 09:05, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree. I do not support "Ancestral health". But the nervous reaction of these two wikipedians that edited this page being not members of this wikiproject bothers me. Have they something to fear? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 13:02, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Archiving a discussion that has nothing to do with Wikipedia's mathematics articles is not "bullying". This page is for discussing Wikipedia's mathematics coverage and how to improve it. It isn't the place for general site-wide concerns. XOR'easter (talk) 15:22, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

True. However, I watch this page ten years, and I do not remember such case (not even once), that a non-member (of WPM) bothers that we are (sometimes) off-topic here. So I wonder, what really happens now? What is their motivation to urgently archive this section? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 15:29, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Speculation about other editors' motivations appears to be exactly what got MH blocked. Really. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:10, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

If Michael Hardy does retire, that's relevant to this WikiProject, as he has edited a lot of Mathematics articles. power~enwiki (π, ν) 15:30, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Hear, hear! Boris Tsirelson (talk) 15:49, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I continue. "...the reason why it (Wikipedia) is banned in countries that want to maintain strict control of their populations..." (quoted from the Jimbo Wales talk page linked above). Nice. But what is the motivation to maintain strict control of WPM talk page? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 15:36, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

To keep an unfolding drama focused in the places most appropriate for it, rather than letting it sprawl across the backrooms of Wikipedia? Or, to exact some petty revenge using the letter of policy as a shield? Who can say — and in a vacuum of evidence, I find little use in speculating.

It seems a rare event that anyone from the outside cares about this WikiProject at all; perhaps today is a day to celebrate. :-) XOR'easter (talk) 15:42, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Wow! Nicely put. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 15:46, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

To keep an unfolding drama focused in the places most appropriate for it, rather than letting it sprawl across the backrooms of Wikipedia? yeah pretty much Galobtter (pingó mió) 15:48, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

The "personal attacks" to which "Roxy" refers consist of my declining to recant an accusation. When I'm the target, it's an "accusation"; when "Roxy" is the target, it's a "personal attack" regardless of whether it's a factual statement. Michael Hardy (talk) 21:08, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Boris Tsirelson. While it is certainly not appropriate to "spread drama" over various project pages, shadowing users to censor their drama on those various project pages doesn't strike me as particularly appropiate either. The regular users/project members of those projects pages can decide for themselves whether they want to close/cut short/archive a discussion or not.--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:30, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Michael Hardy

Whatever the issues are concerning Michael Hardy and his behavior elsewhere (see above section "Wikipedia requiescat in pace") I want to point out that Michael, in his 16 years here, and with over 200,000 edits, has made an enormous contribution to Wikipedia's mathematics content and in addition has been an extremely valuable member of this project. In my 14 years as a member of this project, I can personally attest to the significant positive impact Michael has made here. It would be a shame if that were to come to an end. Paul August ☎ 23:48, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

I would add that if there is anything any of us can do to help insure Michael's continued contributions here, we should do it. Paul August ☎ 23:53, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

-4 (number) and -999 (number)

Redirects -4 (number) and -999 (number), which presently target 4 (number) and 999 (number) respectively, have been nominated for deletion at RfD. You are invited to the discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2018 September 3#-4 (number). Thryduulf (talk) 10:38, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

WENO and Weno

I think that WENO methods are notable and important. We should change one of them (WENO and Weno) to a disambig page.--Sharouser (talk) 15:14, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Before renaming existing articles, you must say what are Weno methods, and provide sources attesting that they are notable and important. D.Lazard (talk) 15:24, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

WENO means weighted essentially non-oscillatory. WENO methods are used in finite difference method and finite volume method --Sharouser (talk) 04:21, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

There is a brief mention of these methods at High-resolution scheme --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 04:51, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Plane normal form

Could somebody take a look at Draft:Plane normal form and leave review comments on the draft. It requires a SME to review properly. Thanks. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:22, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Please note the draft was started om Sep 9, 2018, so the review seems a bit premature (unless , of course, Wikipedia is now a competitive sporting game where people compete for time. Kids nowadays...) —- Taku (talk) 11:05, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

You should take that up with the author of the draft, since that’s the person who requested it be reviewed. —JBL (talk) 12:45, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I missed the submission template (which was mistakenly placed at the bottom of the page). Still the "submission" is was premature since, for one thing, the lede is was missing (the issue is probably that the author doesn't enough clue about the AfC process.) In fact, since the draft is not an AfC draft, the AfC submission template is not applicable/should not be placed. (stroke since it is not math-related). -- Taku (talk) 23:15, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

What a relief!

This rant refers to the partly closed content in the Sept-archive, generated before the timestamp below.

Finally, at last, all remnants of disagreement by an highly meritorious math editor vanished to oblivion for any casual passers by. What a satisfaction for a certain gang.

I myself bemoan mostly that also the despicable efforts to completely eradicate, and when this did not work, to brutally silence any utterance of empathy.

I hope this is ignored, but I expect it to be deleted, because talking about silencing math editors is off-topic for the WikiProject Mathematics. In any case I can do no other. Purgy (talk) 08:06, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

• I suppose Purgy is referring to the blocking of Michael Hardy. This is certainly a remarkable development and I have commented myself. Andrew D. (talk)

... not immediately, see my primary target in the added hatnote above. Purgy (talk) 10:16, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

That archiving was done in the normal way by User:Lowercase sigmabot III, the bot that archives all discussions on this page after they have not had a new comment for two weeks or so. If you have nothing to say here that is related to the question of editing math articles on wikipedia, this thread should also be hatted and archived. --JBL (talk) 11:23, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

I never claimed any exceptional archiving for the last time, but I remind you all that the thread, to which I refer, has been exceptionally archived and hatted and closed, before it was archived the normal way. Obviously, you (?)almost(?) can't wait to do the same with this reminder. Isn't the standard archiving procedure fast enough to sooth your angst?

Silencing math editors your way IS related to the question of editing math articles on wikipedia. Purgy (talk) 13:17, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

If you want to whine about some user's conduct, go do it on their talk page or on some drama board -- that is not what this page is for. Everyone who watches this page is aware of the issue. (I will not comment here further, and I do not object to having my comments removed or hatted along with the rest of the thread.) --JBL (talk) 22:37, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

This is not a quote! If you want to whine about some user's conduct, go do it on their talk page or on some drama board -- that is not what this page is for. Everyone who watches this page is aware of the issue. I will not comment here further.

I strongly object to having any comments removed or hatted along with the rest of the thread or instantaneously archived in a pre-schedule, as long as they are fully de rigeur. This pertains especially, for repeatedly given reasons, to this. Purgy (talk) 12:14, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Mathematical practice

Mathematical practice, an old (2004) but still-unsourced and short article, has been proposed for deletion. Anyone want to try rescuing it? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:34, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Honestly I don't see any reason to. Do you think there ought to be an article at that title, or with the general subject matter of the current article? --Trovatore (talk) 00:41, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

If I was sure it should be rescued, I would have already done so myself. I am merely mentioning it here in case others are more positive. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:45, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

One possibility is to redirect to Common_Core_State_Standards_Initiative#Mathematical_practice as a common use of the term. But that may violate the principle of least surprise for readers searching for the more general concept. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 02:07, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Seems too specific. Really I can't think of anything that should appear in Wikipedia under that title, nor do I think the current content really belongs anywhere. "How to practice the discipline of mathematics" isn't really what you go to an encyclopedia for. --Trovatore (talk) 03:42, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

By the way, another aspect of mathematical practice appears here: Equivalent definitions of mathematical structures#Mathematical practice. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 04:39, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Another possibly relevant content: User:Tsirel#Oddities of mathematical terminology. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 04:56, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

I've read Section "Historical tradition" (of "Mathematical practice" article) with some interest. I guess, it can be sourced to some books on the history of math (or biographies). Boris Tsirelson (talk) 05:02, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm not saying there's nothing of value in the current content. It's an essay. The essay may or may not raise valuable points; those points may or may not be sourceable. But it's still an essay, which WP articles are not supposed to be.

To keep the title, there would have to be a "notable" notion of "mathematical practice", called and discussed by that name in multiple independent reliable sources. I doubt there is, or rather, I suspect that you could find such sources discussing a thing of that name, but probably not as a term of art where it would be clear that different sources discussing it were talking about the same, specifically named, thing, as opposed to just a natural-language description.

Some of the content might fit somewhere, but it would be a pain because we don't want to leave a redirect (see WP:XY; you yourself made the case above why this is an XY), and if we don't leave a redirect, then someone has to do a history merge to preserve attribution. I doubt it's worth it. --Trovatore (talk) 05:59, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

I see. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 06:25, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

At best I'd say maybe it could be a disambiguation page. Dmcq (talk) 08:42, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Heartfelt thanks for asking whether someone in the community wants to rescue this article. I think that there is much I'd expect to read in an encyclopedia about practices in math research and math education, be these considered best or unfair, enhancing or dumbing down. While I consider the didactic part as -at least nominally- covered in Mathematics education, the habits of research that possibly calmed from, murdering to bragging (Aristotle), taunting, hiding, shopping (de l'Hospital), and more "recently" to posting "Millennium Problems" or "archiving" crackpottery, deserve, imho, a thorough treatment in WP, taking also about challenges and their winners (Bernoullis, Lagrange, ...). I'd like to have such an article ... Purgy (talk) 09:12, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia have an article on the sociology/psychology/culture of math? That's what I was expecting, when I clicked on Mathematical practice. Something along the lines of The Mathematical Experience? I see Sociology of science but not Sociology of math. Mgnbar (talk) 10:56, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Wow: Sociology of scientific knowledge#The sociology of mathematical knowledge has a link to Mathematical practice! Boris Tsirelson (talk) 13:20, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

What jumps to my mind is the current of "philosophy of mathematical practice". They have published several books (for instance Paolo Mancosu (ed.), Philosophy of Mathematical Practice, Oxford UP, 2008), organized regular conferences and they have even an association [24] where the topic is more less defined. --Cgolds (talk) 23:12, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Quite interesting. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 04:52, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

The prod has been removed without comment by Andrew Davidson. --JBL (talk) 23:19, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

And nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mathematical practice (by me). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:35, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

My comment in the edit summary for removal of the prod was "remove prod". That is my standard practice because the prod process is not structured as a discussion. I have commented at greater length in Rubin's AfD. My point here is to note that the prod was presumably placed because the page had no sources. There is a category articles lacking sources and this is patrolled by deletionists looking for articles to nominate. The mathematics project seems especially vulnerable to this because our mathematics articles often disdain sources, preferring to work things out from first principles or simply assert some mathematical truth. Such pages are usually protected by their abstruse and difficult nature but a prose article, like this one, will be attacked. The project should address this as a general issue to avoid wasting effort. Simply ensuring that every project article has at least one source will ensure that it doesn't appear in that category and so avoid unwanted attention. Andrew D. (talk) 06:59, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

The AfD has been speedily closed per snow. In the course of this, I consulted Charles Matthews who made an excellent addition to the lead. This is interesting in that it refers to a somewhat mathematical approach to the topic. Maths editors who are not comfortable with prose may prefer this. Andrew D. (talk) 09:06, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

So, many of the older mathematical articles are not well referenced (indeed may be unreferenced), because (a) they are old, and WP:V was not the first content policy, and (b) there was a view, which I would articulate in this way, "full inline referencing does not help to see the wood from the trees in understanding advanced mathematics". I deprecate the by-passing of WP:BEFORE in nominations for deletion. In the case of older articles, I would like to underline the point that if they predate Google Books, the facile step of searching Google Books should be carried out. Come on guys, the Web is not static, and new potential sources are posted online all the time. Nominating some article started in 2004 for deletion should not be done without the due diligence specified in the guideline. I'm quite happy to beat anyone over the head with it if they think it is kind of OK to use AfD as a cleanup area.

Which brings us to whether mathematical practice is an encyclopedic topic. Well, it is. It is quite hard to explain what "mixed mathematics" as mentioned in Mathematical Tripos actually was without the concept. And so to explain why my alma mater has DPMMS and DAMTP, and why both Hawking and fluid dynamicists had offices in the latter. That is, it may not be the kind of concept an "internal" view of mathematics in the 21st century relies on, but it has a great deal of traction in placing mathematics socially and historically. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:37, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Confusion with Beltrami equation page

Update on September 22: To resolve the confusion described in the following paragraphs, I have now installed my rewrite of Section 2 of the page for Beltrami equation, my new version being a cookbook of Gauss's technique. For more details, see Talk:Beltrami equation. Unless someone else finds themself confused, the issue can now probably be considered resolved.

LyleRamshaw (talk) 17:42, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

The page for Beltrami equation underwent a significant rewrite in mid-2012. User:Mathsci added Section 2, which discusses Gauss's technique for constructing isothermal coordinates on a Riemannian 2-manifold whose metric is real-analytic. I am quite interested in that technique, but I can't follow the argument presented in Section 2. I described my confusion in a posting on Talk:Beltrami equation back in June, with no response so far. I recently posted a query to User talk:Mathsci as well. They haven't responded; but that isn't surprising, since they were recently hospitalized.

An Australian grad student named Yi Huang referred to Section 2 in a 2013 posting of his to MathOverflow: [25]. Huang's posting suggests that some of the equations in Section 2 may have their variables somehow scrambled. Huang also apparently interprets Section 2 as approximating the isothermal coordinates by computing successive terms of their power series. That's a reasonable approach, but I didn't have that approach in mind when I tried to read Section 2.

User:Mathsci references Volume IV of Spivak (pages 314-317 in the third edition, pages 455-460 in the second edition) as their source. I have read the argument in Spivak, and I now understand that argument well enough that I have successfully used Mathematica to numerically approximate isothermal coordinates in a simple but nontrivial test case. I have posted a possible new version of Section 2 to Talk:Beltrami equation, explaining Gauss's technique as I now understand it. Unfortunately, I still don't understand what is going on in the current version of Section 2.

Does some Wikipedia math editor know enough differential geometry to help me out with the current Section 2, or to comment on my proposed new version?

LyleRamshaw (talk) 17:11, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

List of polygons

Does the list of polygons have any value or is it just Listcruft that ought to go for AfD? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:49, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree to go to AfD, but for another reason. The first section is not about polynomial, but about linguistic of numbers. The main section, that is the second one is entirely based on WP:Primary sources, which are not reliable, being either forum posts or teacher exercise. There is no indication that most of these name are commonly use in mathematics. It is thus WP:OR. D.Lazard (talk) 19:52, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

See also List_of_polygons,_polyhedra_and_polytopes and List_of_convex_regular-faced_polyhedra. (List of geodesic polyhedra and Goldberg polyhedra at least seems to have one reference.) --JBL (talk) 19:55, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Oct 2018

Links to DAB pages

I have collected several articles which contain links to DAB pages on math maths mathematics-related topics where expert attention is needed. If you solve one of these puzzles, remove the {{disambiguation needed}} tag from the article, and post {{done}} below.

already  Done

Asymmetric cointegration  Done by removing link to the word "multivariate" that in context just meant "involving many variables" Victor Buchstaber  Done XOR'easter (talk) 23:35, 20 September 2018 (UTC) Lie point symmetry  Done (removed ambiguous link as unnecessary as the notion is detailed in the same article) jraimbau (talk) 11:07, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Acylindrically hyperbolic group  Done jraimbau (talk) 10:41, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Polygamma function  Done –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 03:26, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Convex measure  Done –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 03:29, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Marcinkiewicz interpolation theorem  Done (removed ambiguous link as unnecessary as the notion is detailed in the same article) Boris Tsirelson (talk) 19:08, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Mathematics, Form and Function  Done XOR'easter (talk) 20:53, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Scholia  Done –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 03:43, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Multiplier ideal  Done Ozob (talk) 15:26, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Glossary of representation theory  Done –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 03:47, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Schur's property  Done XOR'easter (talk) 20:58, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Virtual manipulatives for mathematics  Done XOR'easter (talk) 20:43, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Worldwide Online Olympiad Training Done Motions in the time-frequency distribution  Done XOR'easter (talk) 20:19, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Relative effective Cartier divisor  Done Ozob (talk) 15:26, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Mathematical sociology  Done Purgy (talk) 15:48, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Philip Ehrlich  Done (and also WP:PRODded, though maybe it is rescuable) List of algorithms Seems to have been  Done in this edit last month Amel Ben Abda  Done XOR'easter (talk) 20:33, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Annie Leuch-Reineck  Done XOR'easter (talk) 20:23, 19 September 2018 (UTC) GNSS positioning calculation  Done XOR'easter (talk) 20:46, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Lorenz energy cycle  Done Purgy (talk) 16:20, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Hahn series  Done Purgy (talk) 16:29, 19 September 2018 (UTC) Tsit Yuen Lam  Done jraimbau (talk) 11:20, 20 September 2018 (UTC) Albert Baernstein II Inhibition theory (last 2 dealt with by Michael Hardy) jraimbau (talk) 11:58, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks in advance, Narky Blert (talk) 03:21, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

@Narky Blert: all done now. Purgy (talk) 12:52, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Great work, all!. I'll probably be back with more in the future. Mathematics is one of those topic areas which collect ambiguous links. Narky Blert (talk) 13:00, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Take a look at a draft?

Hi! I was wondering if anyone would be willing to look at this draft: Draft:Schwarzschild's equation for radiative transfer. One of the people involved in our Fellows program accidentally submitted it to AfC and I was wondering if anyone would be willing to look at it and if it's ready, accept it through AfC. I can't do it myself since it's a conflict of interest and I would also prefer that someone more familiar with mathematics look over it to make sure that there isn't anything major to be resolved. Thanks! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:29, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't have an appropriate background to evaluate this (a favorite phrase of a scientist), but isn't this article about a topic in physics? Meaning you might have a better luck asking a question elsewhere. -- Taku (talk) 23:10, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Massive redirect creation

An apparently new editor has created an enormous number of redirects and relatively worthless articles. Examples include:

• 1-ary through 16-ary (and a few more), which I've nominated for deletion
• Hyper-n, Hypern, n-ation, n-logarithm, n-root (not to be confused with nth root) for n up to 4–6, depending on the type of redirect. I've nominated the the 6s, as they point to a redirect, and the redirection target would be misleading.
• Base n and several others, including some with names instead of numbers. In my opinion, those which do not have actual text about the subject should be deleted.
• n-gon and several others, including some with names instead of number. In my opinion, the ones redirecting to polygon (not subsections) should be deleted
• 180-gon and a few others as articles. Here, notability is in question.
• 1210 (number) as a redirect (which I had nominated for deletion, with result "keep" those which have an actual entry in 1000 (number)) (more of interest to Wikipedia:WikiProject Numbers than to this project.)

I may have missed a few categories of questionable (in my opinion) articles. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:02, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

This is also tangentially related to the section List of polygons above. -JBL (talk) 13:08, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Tangentially, yes. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:06, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

@Xayahrainie43: has also created 271 (number) (which is fine) and a truly enormous number of ASCII-related redirects (which I'm less convinced are OK; ASCII 61 is just useless, while I am likely to request deletion of all those redirects similar to '!' or \54 as actively harmful). power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:17, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

He is still going. He keeps creating redirects without any particular logic. Limit-theorem (talk) 11:11, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

The only logic I could find is that if someone googles something obscure, they hope to redirect to a wikipedia page. Limit-theorem (talk) 11:31, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Please report here any discussions, even if not entirely mathematics-related: Mine are at WP:Redirects for discussion/Log/2018 October 1#n-ary redirects, 9-ary, 3-ary, 2-ary, and 1-ary. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:05, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Notability (numbers)

Has there been any consensus for this change which reduced the accepted range for integers which should have individual pages to 170? It looks like an undiscussed arbitrary change to me. At least, not rationale was offered in the edit summary. SpinningSpark 12:09, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

• @Xayahrainie43:- let's see what the person who made the change has to say about it. Reyk _YO! 12:12, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

This same user has been the source of several concerned threads here in the past few days. They seem mostly unresponsive. --JBL (talk) 13:05, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I have left a long message for the user on their talk-page, encouraging them to engage in discussions. Hopefully it will help. --JBL (talk) 13:30, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Also, I can't help but notice that before September 4, it read "numbers from 1 to 101" -- the same user changed it first to 260, then to 170. I am going to restore the previous-previous version. --JBL (talk) 13:33, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

On a related note, there was a fairly major change by them to the scoring system (from one fairly arbitrary scale to another) described in WP:1729, but that's just an essay, and I'm not sure how many people really follow it. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:41, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

The same editor has added the template {{Hyperoperations}} to articles on elementary operations, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, division (mathematics), exponentiation, logarithm, successor function). This seems confusing, or, at least too WP:TECHNICAL. Should we revert these additions? Should we take some action against this editor? D.Lazard (talk) 11:00, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

WP:COMPETENCE springs to mind as a reason to block if he can't be persuaded to stop. Even if he is a competent mathematician, he is an incompetent encyclopaedia writer. SpinningSpark 12:00, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

If someone reverts the hyperoperation addition to elementary articles and leaves a(nother) message on their talk page, including words like "disruptive", "consensus", "discussion", and "block", and the behavior continues without any use of talk pages, then I think it would be appropriate to escalate to WP:ANI, requesting a short block. --JBL (talk) 12:21, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Off-topic, flame bait

In the light of this archived, prematurely closed thread, and disregarding all expectable rebuffing for reminding of possibly righteous obituaries for WP, I express my cordial thanks for these questions getting asked − at last. WP seems barely alive outside of walled gardens. Comparing the chance of getting some ridiculous variant (e.g. formatting a sequence of digits for mnemonic reasons) not reverted to the chance of establishing a ridiculous variant of an essay, establishing premises for new articles, leaves me clueless. More recently, I could point, e.g., to some offensive deprecation for stating the opinion of Hyperphysics not to be deleted. The worm obviously ended with the fish, the fishermen, ... I don't care. Repent! Purgy (talk) 13:06, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Imho, if my impression that this editor Xayahrainie43 refuses to discuss his intentions (I just saw some announcements) is factual, I propose to roll back all of this editor's changes, even when I am neutral to adding Hyperoperations as an See also to articles about arithmetic operations. Purgy (talk) 12:21, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Spinningspark, this edit suggests that competence as a mathematician is dubious, too. (Not totally shocking given the foci of their mathematical editing.) --JBL (talk) 12:34, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Commutative algebra vs abstract algebra

Just wondering (cf. [26]): in the first sentence of a math article, to establish context, is "commutative algebra" considered understandable to the non-math readers? I myself tend to avoid the term, which seems a bit jargon-y and favor ones like "algebra" or "abstract algebra". Similarly, I avoid "functional analysis", which may not be understandable to readers who, gasp, don't know Hilbert spaces. I don't know a good alternative for "algebraic geometry", so I tend to use that one in the first sentence. -- Taku (talk) 23:05, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

About the first point, you can always split the difference and say something like "In commutative algebra, a branch of abstract algebra, ...", or something to that effect. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 23:36, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I would go one step further: "...a branch of mathematics, ...". Because what fraction of Wikipedia's readership knows what abstract algebra is? Mgnbar (talk) 00:30, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, true, probably better to just go with "mathematics", at which point someone can always click through to see more about what commutative algebra is if they want. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 00:40, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

I am the author of the edit that motivates this thread [27]. In this specific case, the beginning was "In abstract algebra and algebraic geometry, the spectrum of a commutative ring R, ...". In my opinion, the words "algebra" and "geometry" suffices for everybody to know that it is about mathematics. For people who know mathematics a little, I think that commutative algebra is much more informative, as there are many textbooks that having this phrase in their title and introducing the concept of the spectrum of a ring. On the other hand, no textbook of "abstract algebra", if any, introduces the concept. My edit being reverted, I have replaced "abstract algebra" by "algebra".

Discussing this particular edit should be in the talk page of this article. However, behind this case, there is a general question that deserves to be discussed here. Many article begin with In abstract algebra. This supposes implicitly that everybody understand the difference between "algebra" and "abstract algebra". My personal opinion is that "abstract algebra" is an old-fashioned term that is no more used in mathematics, except in teaching or (and this is essentially the same thing) for the study of algebraic structures for themselves, independently of their use in other branches of mathematics. For this reason, my opinion is that, in almost all cases, "In abstract algebra" should be replaced by "In algebra". D.Lazard (talk) 10:11, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

What about "in modern algebra"? --JBL (talk) 12:38, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Exactly for "abstract algebra" being used "(except) in teaching" lets me assume that there are many readers, who associate with the term "algebra" a generalized application of arithmetic, just hiding decimals behind "indeterminates", whereas "abstract algebra" lets them think about groups, fields, and possibly even rings. The term "commutative algebra" is, imho, one step above, requiring perhaps K-algebra, C*-algebra, Lie-algebra, ... to embed it in. Addendum: "Modern" is similar to "New", it automatically gets "retro". Recall "New math"? 2cents, Purgy (talk) 12:58, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Should I recall that van der Waerden's Moderne Algebra has been renamed Algebra in latest editions (German as well as English ones)? This is a reliable source for saying that "modern algebra" is old-fashioned in mathematics. Unfortunately I do not have an equivalent source for supporting the fact that mathematicians do not use "abstract algebra" anymore. D.Lazard (talk) 14:31, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

In my experience (USA-centric, perhaps not representative of the world, not a reliable source, etc.), the phrase "abstract algebra" is very common. For example, I just looked at the math course listings for three universities, and they all had courses with that title. Perhaps you are specifically excluding this fact with your phrase "except in teaching"? If so, then I don't understand why. Mathematicians choose their course titles. Those titles reflect (and subsequently influence) the culture. Mgnbar (talk) 18:28, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with this. --JBL (talk) 18:49, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

(Thank you all for the responses.) Like before, the issue seems to be the tension between serving readers with some math background and those without it. "commutative algebra" is certainly more precise and thus informative than say "algebra". And, as Lazard said (and I'm in agreement), "abstract algebra" is not the common term used by specialists (for example, I don't really use it). But this seems to be similar to the case of a mathematical analysis; it is not the term commonly used by specialists; since other terms like functional analysis or harmonic analysis are more specific (thus informative) and "mathematical" is redundant among math people. Maybe "abstract" serves the similar role? My view is that the first sentence is mainly for establishing the context, especially for math articles (even that means not telling what it is when that depends the readers having an appropriate background). And so, again, "in commutative algebra" sounds problematic for this purpose. (Incidentally, Japanese people, both in teaching and research, almost never use "abstract algebra" and so the matter is heavily language/region/culture-dependent.) -- Taku (talk) 21:48, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Fields of mathematics continually evolve (as do their names), interbreed, intertwine …. The specific "fields" of maths impacted by a particular topic are neither a fixed collection, nor known uniformly by universally-agreed names. Note, too, that even a mathematical category on WP has multiple inheritance. E.g. cat "Polyhedra" belongs to these four cats: "Euclidean solid geometry", "Convex geometry", "Linear programming", "Polytopes" — each of which reflects an orientation, a mathematical point of view, which may well motivate the study of polyhedra by mathematicians with different sets of concerns and questions. I've recently been puzzling about what "field" to assess some maths articles as; the assessment advice or instructions given by the venerable WP:Wikipedia 1.0 project — seemingly the latest version of any consensus — remain mute, and thus useless, on how one should choose a "field". I conclude, provisionally, that such divisions of maths are arbitrary, academic — even scholastic! — and of interest only to specialists, i.e. mathematicians.

So, to answer Taku's question, I think that the general reader is probably best informed by reading "In mathematics, …". The rest of us (as specialists) can, if we deem them informative to other specialists, add (specialty) categories such as "algebraic geometry", "complex analysis", "topology", "category theory", "quasiregular polyhedra" etc. We can mention those specialties, when appropriate, to introduce particular sections of an article. (But please, if we do, let's also add the name of that specialty as a WP Category!) yoyo (talk) 14:40, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

I happen to be reading this paper and Remark 2.1.2. uses the term "abstract algebra". Maybe the author felt "commutative algebra" too restricting?

Anyway to respond to yoyo, the question is "when appropriate", really. Being too broad is a disservice to the readers looking for specific info and being too be specific can be a disservice to the general readers (we receive the constant complains that they can't tell what an article is about). While I don't think there is a simple answer to such a question, I tend to think "in mathematics" is problematic, except in disambigution situations; it's too broad and the readers can be trusted to know algebra and geometry are subjects in mathematics (in the same way we assume the reades speak English). -- Taku (talk) 23:22, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

We must use WP:LEAST. When a concept is used everywhere in mathematics without further explanation, We must start with "In mathematics", as a user which does not know the specific area of the concept, and is not interested by this area, may come to the article because he has encountered the word somewhere and need details. An example is Open set, that I have just edited. As this term is generally not defined, even when used, say, in algebra, a reader that has encountered the term and find an article beginning by "In topology" may think that it is not for him. On the other hand, when a concept is generally known (without the need of further explanation) in some part of mathematics only, a more specific beginning may be useful. In our case of the spectrum of a ring, the words "algebra", "algebraic" and "geometry" suffices to say to the layman that it is mathematics. As the concept requires explanation in a text whose readership is not supposed to know of commutative algebra or algebraic geometry, the beginning "In commutative algebra and algebraic geometry" seems the least astonishing, as a reader that has had courses called "abstract algebra", or even "advanced algebra" may wonder to have never heard of the concept of spectrum. D.Lazard (talk) 06:59, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

New biography Ailsa Land

Hello to all, I have just created a new bio for the above person who is an Emeritus professor of Operational Research at the LSE. She co-defined the branch and bound algorithm in 1960 which from what I can gather was a big deal as it helped process the Travelling salesman problem. I'm trying to find some more biographical information basic or otherwise but I am coming up short. If anyone has any sources or wishes to contribute I'd be very grateful. cheers. --Dom from Paris (talk) 15:50, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Trace inequalities → Trace inequality ?

• The article about giraffes is titled Giraffe, not Giraffes. That is standard Wikipedia usage.
• The article about Maxwell's equations is plural because it's not about a particular kind of equation, each one of which is an instance of Maxwell's equations, but about a particular set of equations. That is also standard Wikipedia usage.

• Accordingly I was about to move Trace inequalities to Trace inequality, since it's like Giraffe. But I hesitated because I thought the singular title might be construed as meaning the article is about one inequality conventionally called "the trace inequality", the word "the" implying uniqueness. Do my grounds for hesitation have any merit?

Michael Hardy (talk) 17:53, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

I think WP:SINGULAR holds sway here. The very first sentence of the article indicates that there are many of this type of inequality, so I don't think there will be any lasting confusion on the part of the readers. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 18:04, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

n-ary

As a separate issue, n-ary probably should be a disambiguation page, including at least

• The entries in Special:PrefixIndex/n-ary (and possibly Special:PrefixIndex/k-ary), and
• List of numeral systems#Standard positional numeral systems (or some similar article)

But I would need help setting it up. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:24, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Let's start with User:Arthur Rubin/N-ary. I'll work on it, as I have time, but help would be appreciated. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:44, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Moved to n-ary. Additions and improved descriptions are welcome. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:55, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Links to the disambiguation resolved; most to arity, but some to variadic function. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:33, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Mild confusion about Young tableau and Schur functors

If I understand correctly I think that the pages Schur_functor#Examples and Young_tableau#Applications_in_representation_theory clash in the way they talk about Young diagrams classifying irreducible representations.

The Young tableau page explains it nicely if I understand correctly, GL(n) has irreducible representations indexed by weights and if all the weights are positive then we get a young diagram, conversely if we have a young diagram with at most n rows then we get a weight. If you then look at the Schur functor page it says that given a young diagram with each row having length at most n, then the Schur module corresponding to that diagram is the representation with highest weight λ.

I'm pretty sure that in fact the highest weight should be λ^t. (I.e. if you have have a weight λ then create the young diagram associated to λ and then take its transpose, then the schur module associated to this diagram is then the wanted representation)

I'm not sure if this is the right place to mention this possible issue/mistake, let me know if it is not.

--144.82.8.225 (talk) 17:25, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

You are correct, the notation is inconsistent. There are multiple incompatible conventions in the literature. Amusingly, even though I'm the person who created the "Examples" section in Schur functor, my personal choice of notation has changed since and now agrees with the Young_tableau#Applications_in_representation_theory. So I would support transposing all Young diagrams in the Schur functor page. Dpirozhkov (talk) 03:04, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

X, E, duodecimal

Can anyone make sense of these two edits? (They adjust how numbers are displayed in articles about languages that use base-12 number systems.)

More broadly, Xayahrainie43 has been drawing a lot of attention here recently, and for those who are interested in the drama boards, I started a thread at ANI about them. --JBL (talk) 14:15, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

I would assume it's just an alternate base-12 notation as mentioned at the duodecimal article. Probably not a huge deal, but if both are in use, it might be a MOS:RETAIN issue. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:31, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

FWIW, Xayahrainie43 has now been blocked after not responding to the ANI thread. --JBL (talk) 21:49, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

And now they're coming back as an IP editor. I just blocked 49.214.196.80 (talk · contribs); we'll see if more surface. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:16, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Ugh :(. --JBL (talk) 12:06, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Display of \oint

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T207535

${\begin{aligned}&\iint _{D}\left({\frac {\partial (\varphi f)}{\partial x}}+{\frac {\partial (\varphi g)}{\partial y}}\right)\,dx\,dy=\oint _{C}\left(-\varphi g\,dx+\varphi f\,dy\right)\\[6pt]={}&\oint _{C}\varphi \left(-{\dot {y}}\,dx+{\dot {x}}\,dy\right).\end{aligned}}$

On the browser on which I'm viewing this page, the display above renders \oint in an absurd way. It makes the integral sign with the circle a lot fatter than all other integral signs, and the subscript C is far too far to its right. I put the same code into an actual LaTeX document and got perfectly reasonable results, not like those I see here. Do others see the same thing? Can this problem somehow get corrected? Michael Hardy (talk) 17:35, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

I see the same thing; it's rendered to an SVG on the server so it should be the same for everyone. This probably needs to be reported in Phabricator to get fixed. power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:39, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm sure I saw something on phab about it when it was changed, but I can't find it now, and I don't really remember why. Maybe Physikerwelt knows something about this? –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 18:38, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

I don't see it, this looks fine to me. I'm using Chrome with the MathJax plugin. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 18:51, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Amend that, I saw it briefly before the MathJax fix kicked in as I saved that last message.--Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 18:54, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

@Deacon Vorbis: What do you mean by "when it was changed"? Michael Hardy (talk) 00:24, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

I've added a bug report at T207535. This rendering differs from what you get using MathJax outside of the wikipedia system. --Salix alba (talk): 10:58, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

@Michael Hardy: Sorry for the delay – I've been (and sort of still am) on a break here. I wish I could remember more, but I just distinctly remember that I saw some activity on phab (maybe a year ago or so?) when this was implemented, but I don't remember what the specific issue was (it might have just been that \oint didn't work at all), and I've been unable to find it again. I was hoping the texvc experts would know more. Thanks for reporting, Salix alba; would it be worth mentioning the placement of the integral limits as well? –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 14:19, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Periodic table of topological invariants

Periodic table of topological invariants (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Even after checking all three references, I'm unsure if this is supposed to be a concept in mathematics or in physics. I'm also unsure that it meets notability guidelines or that everything in this article is in the references (and is not WP:OR). power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:11, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

The article is about topological insulators, which are a topic of physics. I don't say that to insult the content. The content is probably quite lovely. But I expected the article to be some magical organizing principle for homotopy, homology, and cohomology theories, characteristic classes, Gromov-Witten invariants, etc. It is not. Mgnbar (talk) 02:35, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Nothing jumped out at me as OR. I tried to do a bit of cleanup, but it's a subject I only ever studied out of curiosity, not one I really worked on. XOR'easter (talk) 15:45, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Peano kernel

Hi, I came across this draft while reviewing the WP:AFC queue; I'm not sure if theorems are considered notable for Wikipedia, or whether this falls under WP:NOTMANUAL. If a project member could advise, that would be great. (I'm not watching this page, so please ping me in case of any reply). --K.e.coffman (talk) 18:12, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

@K.e.coffman: there's certainly no general prohibition on articles on individual theorems; we have quite a few. See category:mathematical theorems, which is unlikely to be complete. There's obviously a judgment call to be made case-by-case and I don't know which side this one would come down on, but I don't think "not a manual" is really relevant. --Trovatore (talk) 19:43, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Dixon Algebra

Will someone please review and assess this draft? My first thought was that it was too technical for someone (myself) who has forgotten a lot of higher mathematics in fifty years. (I have forgotten all of the math that I learned in college. I still remember the intermediate algebra, trigonometry, and first-year calculus that I learned in high school.) On further reading, it appears to be largely original research by Dixon seeking to publish his own research in Wikipedia. So one of my questions is whether this work has already been published in mathematical journals.

Should it be declined as consisting of original research, or should it be declined as needing to be revised to be less difficult to understand, or should it be declined as not being sufficiently notable among mathematicians, or should it be accepted? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:04, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

There is a corner of research that aims to shake the Standard Model out of the octonions in some manner. Different people have tried in various ways, all of them related at least a bit. I could be convinced that the topic deserves an article (Quanta Magazine thought so [28], and John C. Baez wrote about it [29]), but I don't think the "Dixon algebra" should be the main focus of it. My inclination is to decline Draft:Dixon Algebra for needing clarification and for lacking notability. It is, at most, one piece of a puzzle — one mathematical construction among several studied in that niche.

Looking over our page on octonions, it could be expanded, both with the attempts to apply them to physics, and with their successful application in group theory, per Wilson's textbook The Finite Simple Groups (2009), for example. XOR'easter (talk) 21:56, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. I see that it has to do with mathematics that I haven't forgotten because I never learned it in college. To answer the implied question of User:Michael Hardy, the Dixon algebra does appear to be by someone named Dixon, and doesn't say this. I did read about one of the attempts to apply octonions to the Standard Model. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:26, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I cut the draft down to size and made a decent-looking stub of it. I still don't think the Dixon algebra itself rises to the level of wiki-notability (it's just one idea in a niche field), but maybe that draft could be merged into something more substantial. XOR'easter (talk) 15:02, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Geoffrey Dixon

After brief research, I am still not sure that an article on Dixon algebra passes notability. It definitely won't be understandable by anyone but mathematicians and mathematical physicists. That doesn't in itself mean that there shouldn't be an article. The references are nearly all either by Geoffrey Dixon of the University of New Hampshire, or by Cohl Furey, whose research is largely about octonions. What I think that we need is an article on Geoffrey Dixon, who has made interesting contributions in math and outside math and appears to satisfy academic notability. Dixon appears to be trying to use Wikipedia to publicize his research rather than to publicize himself, which may have to do with being a mathematician. I think that I will decline the draft, but if I am asked to review Draft:Geoffrey Dixon, I think that I will accept it. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:20, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Nov 2018

Draft:Modos is now in mainspace

I have moved the draft in the tittle to Modos. I don't have an expertise to properly review it (i.e., can't make sense of it) and thus it can benefit from the attentions from the other editors. Regards. -- Taku (talk) 23:29, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

And now PRODded. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 23:55, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

PROD declined; that was fast. Now at AfD. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 00:10, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Near Square Primes

I came across this in the WP:AFC queue. I'm not sure if this subject qualifies for inclusion. If a member of the project could let me know, that would be great. (Please ping me as I'm not watching this page). --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:52, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

To editor K.e.coffman: The topic deserves to be in the main space, but is already present at Landau's problems#Near-square primes. As this article section and the draft have essentially the same content, and both articles are very short, I suggest to merge the draft into Landau's problems, and to create a redirect Near-square primes linking to this article section. D.Lazard (talk) 09:25, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Content merged, redirect created. XOR'easter (talk) 13:46, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Featured quality source review RFC

Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. --Izno (talk) 21:31, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Duodecimal

Discussions regarding some unusual editing occurred at X, E, duodecimal (and in several other places on that page). Does any information at User:Xayahrainie43/duodecimal have an encyclopedic purpose? Please offer opinions at the deletion discussion. Johnuniq (talk) 04:39, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Math extension at wishlist survey

A wishlist item may interest people here: meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Reading#Functional and beautiful math for everyone. Johnuniq (talk) 06:56, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Paul Erdős

A question both deep and profound,
Is whether a circle is round:
In a paper by Erdős,
Published in Kurdish,
A counter-example is found.

Author unknown (not me, although I could hazard a guess). I'll be back later with more mathematics-related links to DAB pages which require expert attention, I'm collecting another new bunch. Narky Blert (talk) 22:19, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Cute. Except it doesn't actually rhyme. But oh well. --Trovatore (talk) 22:29, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

There are two different versions of this in

• Singmaster, David; Souppouris, D. J. (1978), "A constrained isoperimetric problem", Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 83 (1): 73–82, doi:10.1017/S030500410005430X, MR 0470577
• Alexanderson, G. L. (September 1981), "An Interview with Paul Erdős", The Two-Year College Mathematics Journal, 12 (4): 249, doi:10.2307/3027072

I have no idea whether either of them is the original source. There's another mathematical limerick attributed to John Milnor here. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:02, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

I read the limerick in a book I can't recall (I suspect it was by Ronald Graham but I don't see anything likely). At any rate, the author used the limerick to show how "Erdős" should be pronounced—Erdős rhymes with Kurdish. Johnuniq (talk) 02:33, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

No, it doesn't rhyme with Kurdish. The second syllable is OK, but it's unstressed. In that case, the first syllable should rhyme too, and it doesn't. --Trovatore (talk) 03:22, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Well, better than it rhymes with overdose or acuerdos, anyway. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:36, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

It might rhyme with lairdish, if there is such a word. --Trovatore (talk) 03:56, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

How about But a brief note by Erdős/Writ on a spare dish? Nah, you're right, probably not. But at least it rhymes. --Trovatore (talk) 05:23, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

It wouldn't have occurred to me that anyone would think "Erdős" rhymes with "Kurdish" if I hadn't seen this. I pronounce the "Er" in "Erdős" like "air", rhyming with "chair" and the "ur" in "Kurdish" like the "r" in "ring", and the vowel in the second syllable of "Erdős" like the German "ö", and I make the second syllable of "Erdős" rhyme with "fish". I have no idea what degree of correctness there may be in my pronunciation of the second syllable of "Erdős". Maybe approximate rhymes work better when you hear them that when you read them (maybe except the ones that are standard and expected). Michael Hardy (talk) 18:05, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

So now I tried Google Translate and it agreed with my pronunciation of "Erdős". Michael Hardy (talk) 18:12, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Just as a voice from the Hungarian neighbourhood: I believe the vowel in the second syllable of "Erdős" sounds in Hungary like the vowel part in the first syllable of "Gershwin" I just noticed you could also curse Purgy for the same vowels (cutting off beginning at the r-part) in America, or, better, the first part of the merging of "deux" and "chevaux" in France (cutting off after the sh-sound; 2CV(apeur) is a famous vintage car there). Purgy (talk) 18:59, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, there aren't going to be any perfect rhymes in English, probably. But English has a tendency to treat vowels in unstressed syllables less distinctively than the ones in stressed syllables, so the -ish part doesn't have to be perfect to sound like a rhyme. --Trovatore (talk) 19:32, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

The approximate rhyme between "-dős" and "-dish" seems similar to the sort used by German poets. In the Ode to Joy, Friedrich Schiller wrote:

Deine Zauber binden wieder
Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder
Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

Michael Hardy (talk) 18:05, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Last comment on rhyming: Ach n"eige", Du schmerzensr"eiche", Dein Antlitz gnäd"ig" meiner Not ... Gretchen's prayer, noticing to be pregnant; in Faust, J.W.v.Goethe. The quoted parts are taken to rhyme, because the sounds belonging in German to "ei" and "i" are quite neighbored, as are the pronunciations of "g" and "ch" in several regional dialects. I could not call into my awareness any word from the English language that ends in a sound, reminding me directly of how "Erdős" does. Thank you! Purgy (talk) 15:02, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

I was aware that Erdős and Kurdish aren't true rhymes; but, hey! it's a limerick, and anything goes.

As for part-rhymes in English, here are a few examples from Byron's Don Juan: laureate, Tory at, ye at; good, food, hood; try, posterity; tongues, wrongs, songs; arise, prophecies, eyes; more, hoar, poor; miscreant, pant, want; vile, smile, toil – and that's just from the first 13 stanzas of a book-length poem. Narky Blert (talk) 10:10, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I think "try" and "posterity" might have rhymed perfectly in Shakespeare's time, as might some of the others. Michael Hardy (talk) 21:43, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Symmetry

Anyone want to participate in a silly discussion about symmetry? At Fountain (Duchamp), a long-term editor of that article is edit-warring to include sourced material claiming that the piece was rotated 90 degrees around "its axis of symmetry" from its normal position, despite the clear evidence of a photo showing that it has no axis of symmetry and that the change from its normal position is a 180 degree rotation. See also Talk:Fountain (Duchamp)#HOW many degrees?. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:41, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

I feel like we should either go all out and write the spatial transformation in terms of quaternions, or we should say the guy laid it on its back so the surface facing the viewer is the one that normally collects piss. XOR'easter (talk) 01:22, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Class (set theory)

Hi. I've been going through some set theory books lately. I have the habit of going through Wikipedia articles about specific topics in things I'm reading in order to chase some references or get just a bit more of information. So I saw the class article is deficient in some aspects (feels more like my own class notes than an encyclopedic, referenced entry). Since I don't want to come and mess up and then have someone revert my good faith first edits, I want to ask some clarification:

• Are books such as Pinter's A Book of Set Theory (ISBN 978-0486497082) or Suppes's Axiomatic Set Theory (ISBN 978-0486616308) or Smullyan's and Fitting's Set Theory and the Continuum Problem (ISBN 978-0486474847) acceptable as citations? As in: can I take these books, first published by reputable companies, as proper sources? There are a few things I've already come across that could clarify, expand, or improve things in the class article, including some things talked about in the talk page.
• Some people in the talk page have already mentioned how some definitions or explanations or implications of some aspects of what a class is kind of 'depend on' what theory one takes as a basis, or which context. How does one proceed from here? Do you write something akin to "according to Reputable Author in A Book About the Subject, a class is X in Y"? (with the proper reference).
• How and when is it acceptable to completely rewrite an article, or to propose it? The article does not exactly follow the recommended guidelines for math articles: after the lead (already problematic and without a single in-line or in-text citation), there's just a section with a handful of 'examples,' and then by the end there's a more formal definition in set-theoretic terms.

Broadly, these are my concerns about editing. These concerns reflect the ways in which I believe I can improve this article. The reason I'm asking here instead of the talk page for the article is that I feel more people watch this than that other one. Thanks a lot to whoever reads and responds. --Paper wobbling sound (talk) 01:35, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

In this area, I think it's better to group different variations by the general theory that they follow (as our existing article does in its "Classes in formal set theories" section, rather than by which book you read it in. That said, those books all sound reliable enough as general-purpose sources on set theory to me, as long as you're careful to determine which brand of set theory they follow. For specific issues involving the treatment of classes in specific theories, more specialized monographs might be appropriate. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:40, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

"How many degrees?" they ask...

at Talk:Fountain (Duchamp)#HOW many degrees?. Editors here may like to lurk, as I've been doing, or jump into the fray, on what has turned into one of the most interesting WP:MINUTIA discussions I've seen (the wrong word, as my reference isn't to Chionanthus but to very tiny points being discussed at length - I just don't know how to spell it). My obvious reason for alerting those here is not to facilitate any kind of resolution (which seems to have been partly met with a new edit on the page which doesn't answer, but wordsmithily sidetracks, the question: "How many degrees?") but is solely because I am enjoying the spectacle of it and want the discussion to continue. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:59, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

See "Symmetry" section, above. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:55, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, that's a great addition to the topic. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:09, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

The semi-resolution referred to above has just been reverted. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:05, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm keeping out of the formal discussion for lurking purposes, but wouldn't the answer be that it was first rotated 180 degrees and then stood up 90 degrees? Randy Kryn (talk) 22:15, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

That is a valid solution. There are even published sources that give that solution. It's more complicated than the single-rotation solution, though. And which 180-degree rotation: the one where you spin it on its base or the one where you turn it upside down while keeping it facing you (both work)? —David Eppstein (talk) 23:05, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Maybe the artwork is just the way it was facing when Duchamp (or whoever) first saw and bought it. So it was never rotated at all, just seen, bought, signed, and displayed, making the question, in that scenario, moot. Saying on the page that it was rotated at all could be speculation. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:14, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I like the idea of some long-forgotten warehouse worker leaving it on its back because it looked like it would tip over. I was also a bit charmed by the very scholarly book that gave a description which just can't be right, and then provided a metaphorical reading for it... which a different choice of axis would make true! XOR'easter (talk) 01:16, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Wishlist

m:Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Reading/Functional and beautiful math for everyone and m:Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Editing/Make the math tag support non-Latin languages appear to be the only math-related proposals on the Community Wishlist. Voting (straight up approval voting; editors can support as many or as few wishes as they want) ends in about four days. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:19, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Division by infinity

A new student editor created Division by infinity, which could I think be a good counterpart to our existing page Division by zero, but it just wasn't ready yet (WP:OR-ful, WP:ESSAY-ish, etc.). I have therefore moved it into Draft space. This seemed a less hostile approach than dumping them into AfD, which seemed a likely eventuality otherwise. (I wouldn't have moved it unilaterally if anyone else had edited it other than its creator.) XOR'easter (talk) 16:52, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

FYI, I just WP:R2 tagged the leftover redirect per Wikipedia:Drafts#Tools for moving articles to draft space. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 17:35, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Dec 2018

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2018/Dec