Talk:Elementary arithmetic

Bijection
I really want to add "See also bijection," in the counting section but am not sure how best to do this.

mikeliuk 05:05, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * This is related to elementary arithmetics in any way?
 * This seems like a Pre-Algebra/Algebra function. Angerxiety (talk) 03:14, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
 * This may not seem like a elementary operation, but in essence, bijection is basically counting.
 * You can just mention bijection in the section, you do not need to add the See also. Angerxiety (talk) 16:04, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

What is a "stick" and how does it relate to arithmetic???
The article's first mention of "stick" occurs in its description of the digits:

"0, zero, represents absence of objects to be counted.

1, one. This is one stick: I

2, two. This is two sticks: I I

3, three. This is three sticks: I I I

4, four. This is four sticks: I I I I

5, five. This is five sticks: I I I I I

6, six. This is six sticks: I I I I I I

7, seven. This is seven sticks: I I I I I I  I

8, eight. This is eight sticks: I I I I I I  I I

9, nine. This is nine sticks: I I I I I I  I I I"

The use of the term "stick" here is profoundly misleading.

There is nothing wrong with using vertical markings to explain the meaning of the digits. But to state that 1 "is one stick", that 2 "is two sticks", etc., is more confusing than it is helpful.

It is difficult to think of any meaning of the word "is" for which the statement "6 is six sticks" makes sense.Daqu (talk) 18:09, 28 March 2008 (UTC).


 * But it doesn't say "1 is one stick", it says "This (image to the right) is one stick: |". It is technically poor English ("this" is an adjective and thus should have a noun for it to modify), but I don't see how anyone would be confused by this.
 * DragoonWraith (talk) 17:50, 21 January 2011 (UTC)


 * More issues in this section: "stick" grouping to 3 is arbitrary and may be confusing, but would be appropriate if it was about division by 3; semantically wrong usage of "digit" instead of "number" —Mykhal (talk) 09:51, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Changed lead section: what is elementary arithmetic?
The previous version of the lead used a definition of Elementary arithmetic as if it were a clearly distinct branch of mathematics. In my opinion, this viewpoint isn't completely accurate, because the scope of this article partly depends on the education field, since whether or not a part of arithmetic is considered elementary depends on the curriculum.

The current lead of the general Mathematics article defines the subject as the study of "quantity, structure, space, and change." In terms of this outline, I think it is better to define the current arithmetic article as including the entire branch of mathematics related to the study of quantity, while this article is distinguished by the specific areas within that branch which are taught as an introduction. I've changed the lead based on this definition of the subject.

StephenMacmanus (talk) 08:12, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Additional changes to the lead section for a more universal encylopedic description
 * 1) The previous version only discussed natural numbers in terms of Arabic numerals, ignoring the existence of other systems (some still used) and also neglecting the different symbols used outside of European/Western cultures.
 * 2) The mention of addition and multiplication tables was inconsistent. One sentence implied memorizing these tables is the only method for performing these operations with any pairs of digits, when it's really only part of the process in most cases. Some other methods, like the abacus, don't require any memorization (at least, not for addition). Also, the link to the algorithm article isn't relevant here.
 * 3) The section assumed a sequence of topics ("moves on to fractions") which doesn't necessarily apply in all cases.
 * 4) Changed the old vulgar fraction link to access the current merged article called Fraction (mathematics).
 * 5) Moved the reference to the abacus adjacent to the mentions of electronic mechanisms.
 * 6) The discussion of methods included slide rules for trigonometry and logarithms and other areas which are not elementary operations, so this information belongs in the more general Arithmetic article.

StephenMacmanus (talk) 04:42, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Equations
An international standard, whose name escapes me at the moment; demands equations be written horizontally, NOT vertically. You do your work on a seperate page (carry the one, subtract six, etc.), but your equation shows the change, one PEMDAS at a time, per horizontal line. e.g. 2x = 4 x = 2 Just because you were taught to do it vertically, for years, does not mean it is the correct way of doing it. 76.90.226.211 (talk) 03:05, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You can propose a change to Wikipedia's standards for writing mathematics articles at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (mathematics) - but I think you will need to track down that "international standard" if you want anyone to take such a proposal seriously. Gandalf61 (talk) 08:16, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Schools and their influence on this article
Many parts of this article currently reflects the views expressed by StephenMacmanus in the section "Changed lead section: what is elementary arithmetic?", specifically:

..."scope of this article partly depends on the education field, since whether or not a part of arithmetic is considered elementary depends on the curriculum"... ..."distinguished by the specific areas within that branch which are taught as an introduction"...

I am going to remove those parts, because the title of this article is "Elementary arithmetic", not "Arithmetic in basic education in western countries"! If you disagree, then have this article renamed to clearly reflect that it is about the subject of how elementary arithmetic is taught in some specific schools. As it stands, this article purports to be about the elementary part of arithmetic itself, and I will strip some things that are irrelevant to this article with its current name as long as it has that name. (Not because I care about this article at all, but because the current state is both a mismatch between article title and content, weasel-wordly, US-centric, AND ageist, all in one.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.167.94.175 (talk) 06:04, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I've reverted your deletions. The material is supported by the Rose reference and documents a wide-spread method. If there are other methods used then we should think of including them.--Salix (talk): 07:15, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Multiplication
The article has, at the time of writing:

< the first factor indicates how many times the second factor should be added onto itself; >

On this basis, 1x6 is 12.

109.145.107.149 (talk) 05:31, 6 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Since the sentence mentions repeated addition, you could have instead:




 * using more technical terms (addend, summand) as necessary. Dhtwiki (talk) 11:43, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Good observation and good suggestion; I changed it accordingly. &mdash; Sebastian 14:09, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Adding two natural numbers, Example sections
The Adding two natural numbers section is written like math homework. "Suppose you have..." (Actually no it is not, this lead section may be somewhat okay.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Angerxiety (talk • contribs) 12:59, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

This lead section is actually not OK due to the MOS of writing style in mathematics that I read just a few hours earlier. Angerxiety (talk) 05:16, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

The Example sections is written like a guide. "To find the sum of the numbers 653 and 274, write the second number under the first one." I just realized there are many more "Example" sections with the exact same problem.

I'm not an experienced editor, so I don't know how to improve these places. Maybe instead of explaining where to write and how to solve, just solve it? Like:

" Starting with the ones digit, the sum of 3 and 4 is 7.


 * Going to reply to myself, in the Adding two natural numbers section, there is a part where it says "Some pairs of digits add up to two-digit numbers, with the tens-digit always being a 1." What does this mean? Does it mean that every time you get two digits while adding numbers, the tens-digit will always be 10 no matter? Angerxiety (talk) 13:09, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
 * most likely Angerxiety (talk) 16:36, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Multiplication of many digits algorithm and it's example section
I removed the Multiplication of many digits algorithm or whatever it's called section because it's literally a guidebook section. WP:NOTGUIDE The example section is also literally another guidebook section. Seriously guys, where are all of you? Angerxiety (talk) 13:53, 21 September 2022 (UTC)


 * In fact, I might have to remove every single section with the word Algorithm in it. Angerxiety (talk) 13:12, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I haven't done this, but I think it's a good idea. The examples are duplicated with existing articles that are better suited to them (e.g. long division, long multiplication, etc) Danielittlewood (talk) 21:04, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Subtraction and Division sections with no "Example" section
Only the Adding and Multiplication section gets examples, while subtraction and division don't get any makes me think that the person who last edited this has a bias against removing numbers from a number. To anyone on this article and is looking but not responding Please read wikipedia's help guide on writing your first article and use the information from there. I see you Veerchheda! Angerxiety (talk) 01:32, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you are talking about, since just before you wrote this message, the last person who edited the article was you. Now 2 days later, I removed the example on the subtraction, not because I don't like subtraction but because you made a mistake writing: 792 - 308 = 494. Any calculator will tell you 792 - 308 = 484, not 494. So feel free to put it back, after you fix it. Dhrm77 (talk) 16:35, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I was joking on most of this, but I fixed these errors now. Angerxiety (talk) 16:37, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, this was a terrible thing for me to comment. I'm sorry. If I read on no personal attacks I would have said something sensible, like a sensible person. But since I'm not a sensible person, I've just attacked the contributor, not the content which was a very ediot thing I've done. Angerxiety (talk) 20:57, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Regarding the Counting section
The entire counting section seems to be written in a guidebook way, but I have no other idea how to change it so that it inundates the "Written like a guidebook" issue. Maybe this section can be excused, but I do not see that happening. Angerxiety (talk) 05:13, 24 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Can you say more about what you mean by guidebook way? But I think I agree with you. It sounds much more like a description of the cardinality of a set, than the act of counting in elementary arithmetic (which are very different things).
 * I think rather than removing it, it could be improved by saying more about the different ways people learn counting, counting systems in different cultures, tallying systems and place value, and so on. I think there's a lot that could be described in this article that's currently hidden by advanced jargon. Danielittlewood (talk) 21:03, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

"Suppose"
Every time I removed the "suppose", it's put back? I know it's for tone but on the manual of style for mathematics, it says that "sentences should not begin with a symbol" and the first example starts with "Suppose" and then becomes simplified to "A" Angerxiety  the ediot  (chat? ⋅ contribs to society ) 22:45, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

What is the point of this article?
Reading through this article, I found myself confused, since this lead claims "elementary arithmetic" to be a branch of mathematics, but the article rather than the mathematics, seems concerned with pedagogy. This also seems to be the case in the French article, if to a lesser extent. The pedagogical concerns seem best left to a different location, or perhaps parsed into a single section, "pedagogy" like the "reception" section of literature articles. Either way, this page is marked as needing light-copyediting, but it seems to need more than that. υγινητε Wyrdwritere (talk) 04:21, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Seems very overcomplicated?
This article reads to me like somebody tried to cram as much advanced mathematics as they possibly could. Examples of the sort of things I mean:


 * References to the well-ordering of the naturals
 * The commutative property of addition
 * The successor function
 * Multiple citations to textbooks on abstract algebra
 * Detailed explanation of algorithms (there are other articles already with lots of examples)

Surely the article should just explain the operations involved at a high level, and defer to the more detailed articles for more explanation. Danielittlewood (talk) 20:44, 31 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I do agree about the paragraph on ordering of the naturals. It isn't really needed unless you really want to point out the differences between branches of math relying on certain number sets, which sounds obvious and pedantic. Dodolazza (talk) 10:37, 1 June 2024 (UTC)