Talk:Stevo Todorčević

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 * Talk:Stevo Todorčević/Archive 1

Deja vu
,, , does this feel familiar to anyone other than me? --JBL (talk) 03:26, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I was looking in the other direction and now I've lost track. Are these the same "honors" we saw before. EEng 03:29, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Compare this edit. (Particularly, phrasing in the lead, choice of sources, phrasing of awards section and what to include.) --JBL (talk) 03:31, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Each time this comes through it becomes harder for me to believe that anyone but Todorčević himself is behind these self-serving edits. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:37, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's kind of gross. --JBL (talk) 03:40, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually, in such cases I've always assumed it was someone intent on embarrassing the subject. EEng 03:46, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Someone very persistent, then. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:48, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm too tired to start an SPI tonight, I leave it to someone else. Or maybe I'll get around to it over the weekend.  --JBL (talk) 03:45, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

My edits
First of all, I've fixed wrong statement claiming He is also the author of a more introductory textbook, Topics in Topology (1997).[TT] found it the Research section.

Then I wrote biographies of two Todorcevic's most notable PhD students, I. Farah and J. Moore and linked Todorcevic's bio to these new two.

Then I fixed the Awards and honors section by adding the three very notable positions he held in the past: Miller Research fellow, IAS member, and Tarski lecturer

Then I fixed the bio lead pointing at his leading role in set theory and math logic and adding valid references supporting the fix.

What remains to be done?

The whole Research section shall be rewritten based on the J. Larson's book, appraisals of the Dr. Todorcevic's works given by people from Fields Institute, University of Toronto, and Royal Society of Canada, and reviews of his books and articles. The main point is to put some order (logical, temporal) in the section text. Here is just one example: Dr. Todorcevic gave a new proof of the Countryman line existence where he developed his walks on ordinals method. His work on the strongest possible negative partition relation + his walks on ordinals led him to the rho functions discovery.

The Selected works section makes no sense to me. An algebraist, a topologian, a set theorist for sure would have different selections of his works and, for a reader having a basic knowledge of mathematics, any selection of his works could have hardly any sense. I propose complete removal of this section keeping only sources supporting the rest of the (rewritten) bio.--BTZorbas (talk) 16:58, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 December 2018
I want to update Todorcevic's biography (by) using this reference: Stevo Todorčević, Mathematician: Life for the spark of discovery--79.101.198.114 (talk) 20:26, 30 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Please set out 'I propose changing "X" to read "Y. EEng 20:35, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The claim above makes no sense to me. Update is not just a change and Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, isn't it?--79.101.198.114 (talk) 21:01, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Danski454 (talk) 21:31, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Heavily censored and inaccurate

 * Early life and edication - Todorcevic attended Kurepa's advanced classes, not just classes; this fact is confirmed in his latest interview References supporting earlier version of this section removed and misinterpreted.
 * Private life related information (family) visible in this reference removed.
 * The two most recent appraisals of Todorcevic's work written by top Canadian mathematicians, affiliated with University of Toronto and with the Fields Institute are ignored. These two appraisals are fully online readable and freely accessible.
 * Extensive and professionally written overview of Todorcevic's research in set theory and mathematical logic by J. Larson given in Sets and extensions in the twentieth century, Handbook of the History of Logic mainly ignored. His master's thesis result is just the first one and not most representative. The new mathematical object, rho functions, devised by Todorecevic incompletely and inaccurately explained. Other famous methods like Minimal walks removed from an earlier biography version
 * The statement "He is also the author of a more introductory textbook, Topics in Topology (1997)" is utmost ignorance. To see the truth about this book, see which is just summary of the book review given by I. Farah in Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, Volume 8, Number 4 (2002), pages 526-528. Todorcevic never wrote a single textbok.
 * Removed paragraph about Todorcevic's research career (positions with Princeton's IAS, for example) and his advisory work (list of his PhD students and main achievements).
 * Selected publications section - arbitrarily made by someone wo apparently does not have a comprehensive understanding of set theory and math. logic.--79.101.198.114 (talk) 11:11, 31 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Again, please propose specific text changes, bearing in mind that interviews are not independent of the subject and therefore have limited usability as sources. EEng 12:59, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
 * As it's clear from my comment above, the interview (only one) is just a small part of the sources mentioned. Also, the same article is not completely an interview rather a biographical insight into Todorcevic's career.--79.101.198.114 (talk) 21:00, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Please propose specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. –JBL (talk) 21:37, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Maybe they'll get it if we try asking for "A to B" instead? <b style="color: red;">E</b><b style="color: blue;">Eng</b> 00:04, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Proposed changes

 * Info box Add Todorcevic's wife and son's names - Vesna and Marko, based on this reference

Replace the current text: "Stevo Todorčević FRSC is a Canadian-French-Serbian mathematician specializing ... Paris" by Stevo Todorčevićis a Canadian-French-Serbian mathematician, one of the world’s leading logicians and set teorists . He is a Canada Research Chair professor in mathematics at the University of Toronto, and a director of research position at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in Paris.
 * Introduction
 * Reason: The current introduction section is not referenced at all. The proposed one is fully referenced. In addition, Todorcevic is not specializing in anything which is clearly visible from the RSC Fellowsip citation: "he has made striking contributions to topology and analysis." I've noticed that the strongest academic references the RSC Fellowsip citation and appraisal and the CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize were arbitrarily removed

- Replace the current text "Todorčević was born in Ubovića Brdo. ... with Kurepa as his advisor." by Todorčević was born at Ubovića Brdo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1962. his family moved to Banatsko Novo Selo where he finished primary school. He finished "Uroš Predić" grammar school in Pančevo where he demonstrated his talent and affinity toward mathematics in the school third and forth years. He finished his undergraduate studies in pure mathematics at Faculty of Science, Belgrade University. As undergraduate student he attended Đuro Kurepa's advanced mathematical classes. Kurepa became his graduate studies mentor which he finished in 1978. Todorčević's master thesis was validated by Kurepa good enough to be accepted as a doctoral thesis. Regardless, Todorčević wrote his doctoral thesis in 1979 with Kurepa as his advisory.
 * Comments
 * Early life and education

Kurepa, in his introductory speech of the oral defense of the PhD thesis session, mentioned he was not able to find external readers of the Stevo's thesis in Yugoslavia, capable of fully understanding and evaluating the thesis; therefore Kurepa turned to two university professors from England, one of which was Keith Devlin. Kurepa regarded Todorcevic's talent as a miracle, and pointed that Todorcevic was the most talented out of the 40 PhD students he advised in the past.


 * Reason: The proposed text was based on an earlier version of the section which was baselessly shortened (i.e. censored), some of references removed, inaccuracy introduced (Todorcevic attended Kurepa's advanced classes attended by the college most talented students, not just any classes). In addition, the proposed text is strengthened by a new, English language written reference.
 * Comments:
 * I am somewhat concerned that the proposed section does not mention that Todocevic was conceived in a visit from the Holy Spirit, nor his birth, springing forth fully formed from Zeus's forehead. --JBL (talk) 21:17, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Left to do
The Research section is too short, inaccurate, and unnecessary burdened by three titles of his books. This section shall be based strictly on Todorcevic's research appraisals and on the extensive review of Todorcevic's contributions to set theory written by J. Larson. This section demands work of someone who is set theorist and a man who fully understand Todorcevic's research work. The Awards and honours section shall be updated, Selected publications are based on ignorance and not necessary here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.101.198.114 (talk) 20:03, 1 January 2019 (UTC)


 * "A man". Why is maleness relevant? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:08, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Isn't this IP just Vujkovica brdo? Who else is obsessive about praising Todorčević? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:21, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course — the proposals are identical to what previous socks have attempted. —JBL (talk) 00:00, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Defamation and Disrespect of BLP
Three years ago I tried to make this biography worth of reading. At the same time I was accused for "puppeteering" and being sycophant. (According to the Cambridge dictionary meaning of this sycophant word, the accusation suggests that Todorcevic is a powerful or a rich person).

The article current content is quite a bit defamatory and inaccurate.

Serbian-born - more accurate Bosnian-born Serb and Serbian mathematician for being educated in Serbia, being a member of the Serbian Academy of Science and Art, affiliated with the Academy Mathematical Institute, married to a Serbian woman and a Belgrade resident for the last six or seven years.

Mathematician specializing in ...- no way. No one is a RSC fellow for just specializing in something. RFC fellows are world-renown scientists and artists; so my "world leading ... and leader in set theory" is more appropriate and accurate just for being supported by two highly academic appraisals (Fields Institute and RSC) of his work.

Attending lectures by Djuro Kurepa - more precise, advanced classes by Djuro, according to the introductory speech given by his student J. Moore before Todorcevic's CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize presentation lecture.

Research - poorly, inadequately, and wrongly described. Out of his vast amount of research results, the first selected one is the minor one found in his M.Sc. thesis. The second one is about the rho functions and its applications incompletely and wrongly presented. This way a full overview of Todorcevic's research in pure mathematics remains intentionally misinterpreted and incomplete for removal of a previous description based on the above mentioned appraisals and extensive review of the Todorcevic's research - as given in the Sets and Extensions in Twentieth Century.

More introductory textbook, Topics in Topology - completely wrong. The book is a monograph about some interactions between set theory and topology, reviewed by his former student I. Farah. In addition, Todorcevic never wrote a single textbook of any kind.

Selected publications - nonsensical list of Todorcevic's papers and books given by someone who apparently does not have full and qualified understanding Todorcevic's contributions to pure mathematics.

Todorcevic's PhD students list, referencing the same Math Genealogy Project list, was removed pointlessly. That way a reader cannot see that Todorcevic belongs to the Frechet -Kurepa-Todorcevic-Moore,Farah tree of famous mathematicians of 20eth an 21st century and a list of his 23 PhD students, up to now

Any attempt to represent his career by counting and describing the world most prestigious research positions (Berkeley, Princeton, Mittag-Lefevr, Barcelona) he held was trimmed and suppressed. Editors willing to improve this biography by adding more stuff and by fixing inaccuracies and defamation were chased away.

Wikipedia BLP rule - disregarded completely. NPOV, V, NOR -ignored: advanced classes replaced by lectures, instead respecting Farah's Topics in Topology book review - given personal and completely wrong review, removal and disregard valid academic references for marking them baselessly as unreliable, exaggerating, inaccurate --A. Perun (talk) 18:42, 16 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Oh lord, this again? --JBL (talk) 18:51, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Assaf Rinot review, Serbian Wikipedia, Kids Encyclopedia
Here https://blog.assafrinot.com/?p=2271 Israeli A. Rinot gave a review-appraisal of the minimal walks on ordinals. This method was discovered in the early 1980’s by Todorcevic. In Sets and Extensions in the Twentieth Century p. 303 rho functions, a new fifth object in pure mathematics discovered by Todorcevic is fully elaborated and linked to the minimal walks. Strangely nothing of it is visible here. Rinot wrote that Moore surveyed Todorcevic’s professional biography, and then continued with remarks about his work. Moore mentioned Todorcevic’s 1998 ICM lecture has served as an inspiration for some of his own work, and invited anyone with background in analysis to read Todorcevic’s 1999 paper on compact subsets of the first Baire class, where set-theoretic forcing was applied to this field in an unconventional way (in this paper, theorems, rather than consistency results, concerning compact sets of Baire class-one functions are obtained by analyzing the corresponding objects in forcing extensions of the universe).

It s interesting to see that Moore used Serbian Wikipedia Todorcevic biogrpahy, not the one we see here. In addition Kids Encyclopedia has a more serious biography written at https://kids.kiddle.co/Stevo_Todor%C4%8Devi%C4%87 than this one — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.221.166.216 (talk) 05:06, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll bet 10-year-olds really enjoy reading about how Todorčević proved a startling square bracket partition result for the uncountable and introduced new technology whose ramifications are still unfolding, and proved a stepping up lemma for negative square bracket partition relations. This guy must be somethin' else in person. <b style="color: red;">E</b><b style="color: blue;">Eng</b> 09:20, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Lead
, 1) There is no "Yugoslavian", it should be Yugoslav. 2) The country is dead and gone, while the Todorcevic is alive and well and should not be called Yugoslav only; it's not really an improvement. 3) Serbian-Canadian is not ethnicity (only). 4) His Serbian ethnicity is notable as he is one of the youngest people to join Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (at the age of 36) and he is also one of the most notable Serb mathematicians of all times. Per MOS:ETHNICITY those are all notable and valid points.  Sadkσ  (talk is cheap)  19:17, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Todorčević is notable for his mathematical accomplishments, not for being an ethnic Serb. Membership in a particular national academy, whose membership criteria involve nationality not ethnicity, is not evidence for his ethnicity being important. So the condition of MOS:ETHNICITY for mentioning the ethnicity in the lead is not met. Beyond which, the lead should summarize the rest of the article and the rest of the article does not mention or source his supposed Serbian ethnicity. If he is actually a bearer of a Serbian or Canadian passport (I assume it must be one of the two else how could he travel?), and we can find a reliable published source for that citizenship, we can put Serbian or Canadian in place of Yugoslav as his nationality. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:25, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
 * For a while he was French also and I suppose that's a third possibility for nationality. --JBL (talk) 19:50, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

You are wasting your time. The whole biography is usurped and vandalised by a bunch of American idiots. The "Yugoslavian" is not the only idiocy here. Todorcevic is not notable for "specialising" rather for leading and being a world leader in pure mathematics (see https://web.archive.org/web/20161203170449/https://rsc-src.ca/sites/default/files/candidates/TODORCEVIC%2C%20Stevo.pdf), [1] is not a reference, and he did not attend Kurepa's lectures rather advanced lectures.

In addition this sentence "Todorčević's work involves mathematical logic, set theory, and their applications to pure mathematics. " is pure idiocy - math logic and set theory are the pure mathematics - "their applications to pure mathematics" only demonstrates ignorance of these two you pinged!

The next idiocy, in the current text (the Research section), reads, "In Todorčević's 1978 master’s thesis, he constructed a model of MA + ¬wKH in a way to allow him to make the continuum any regular cardinal, and so derived a variety of topological consequences.". Topological consequences of what? In order to understand what exactly J. Larson wrote, here is the full citation of the relevant statement: '' In his 1978 Master’s Thesis, Stevo Todorcevic used techniques of [Mitchell, 1972] and [Devlin, 1978]  to construct a model of MA+¬wKH and did so in a way that allowed him to make the continuum any regular cardinal (see [Todorcevic, 1981c]). Todorcevic went on to derive a variety of topological consequences of MA+¬wKH''. This is a sound proof that did not understand the quoted J. Larson's text! The next sentence in Research is incomplete interpretation of the J Larson's statement about Todorcevic's and Abraham's work at the Settop summer school, Toronto Jul-August 1980.

When writing about the books Todorcevic authored, we need the book reviews, not the basic bibliographical data we can see at the MatSciNet. So we need reviews coming from I. Farah (Topics in topology), J. Larson, J. Moore (Walks on ordinals and their characteristics), A. Dow (Partition problems in topology), etc.

Then, how to justify removal of the Todorcevic's list of PhD students from The Mathematical Genealogy Project, his research positions at IAS and Berkeley, his family status (married, one child)? Or removal of the section describing his advisory work?

For more details, see the whole discussion on this talk page and the history of the biography changes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.221.131.57 (talk • contribs) 10:10, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
 * If you're trying to embarrass the subject you're going a really good job. <b style="color: red;">E</b><b style="color: blue;">Eng</b> 11:45, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Interview with Todorcevic
https://www.ekspres.net/vesti/intervju-stevo-todorcevic-obrazovanje-cveta-u-svakoj-kulturi-koja-ga-ceni. Very interesting. Are those American idiots who vandalised Todorcevic's biografy still hanging around?--178.221.148.77 (talk) 17:14, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Definitely. <b style="color:red;">E</b><b style="color:blue;">Eng</b> 17:45, 6 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Yet another interesting article about this man: https://cordmagazine.com/sr/zivotna-prica/stevo-todorcevic-ziveti-za-bljesak-otkrica/--178.221.148.77 (talk) 17:21, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

What use of this article?
Current content

Todorcevic is well and alive and Yugoslavia is dead for 30 years. Todorcevic moved to Canada, became naturalized, and as a Canadian joined the Royal Society of Canada as a fellow. He is still a Yugoslavian mathematician? Then we have a meaningless phrase "mathematician specializing in mathematical logic and set theory". How it might be wise to say: M. Jordan was an American athlete specialising in basketball? [1] is a wrong link.

Then we have the Early life and education. He studied pure mathematics attending lectures by ..? At the college level, he got major in math that cannot be classified as a 'pure mathematics" study, Kurepa's lectures were advanced studies in pure mathematics attended by a selected small number of students (among them me, a Türkiye  citizen then (1985) and now). Later, at the graduate and PhD level Todorcevic dedicated himself to pure mathematics.

Research. Looks like Todorcevic's research ended in 1980 in making the continuum any regular cardinal and in proving the existence of rigid Aronszajn trees ...??

Books. There is a number listed. Are these books related to any greatness, success, recognition, awards? What use of MR numbers?

Honors: "the greatest Serbian mathematician" ? RSC detailed appraisal, at its end, says, "Dr. Todorcevic has been a brilliantly creative and productive mathematician for almost forty years, and is now clearly a world leader in set theory and its applications to pure mathematics."

Discussion. I see there is a number of people trying to utilise here the RSC detailed appraisal of Todorcevic's research and more than 30 page long review/appraisal of the same research in the Sets and extensions in the twentieth century. All their attempts were destroyed and the editors dumped. Personal opinion, as the ones claiming that rho functions were not a new object, then use of "uncountable" induced subgraphs when "explaining" edge-coloring of infinite complete graphs does not deserve any additional comment. In short, do not waste your time on editing the article or arguing about wrongs and rights here.

The solution is Mathworld: this is a true online encyclopedia dedicated to mathematics where we won't write a good biography of this great mathematician of the XX and XXI centuries, but we can write a number of articles representing his research and explaining its importance. Join me there. 88.239.23.78 (talk) 11:01, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Totally agree you should go write someone on Mathworld. <b style="color:red;">E</b><b style="color:blue;">Eng</b> 21:37, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @EEng What a "wise" comment! I bet, even Eppstein and Rubin together couldn't make it better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FEA8:7D59:FB00:892E:B397:B43A:272C (talk) 23:44, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm sure that's true. <b style="color:red;">E</b><b style="color:blue;">Eng</b> 08:26, 8 January 2023 (UTC)


 * @IP 88.239.24.78 Yeah, many editors here were dumped! The dumping ground was created by infamous Bbb23 checkuser. This checkuser account was cancelled by the ArbCom, but the same ArbCom did not undo the damage here and elsewhere that Bbb23 has done. A. Perun (talk) 21:57, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Bbb23, EEng and likes are here just to play their stupid games.
 * A new source of his bio data:Distinguished Lecture Series: Stevo Todorčević March 15 - 17, 2023, The Fields Institute
 * Funny thing is - the Field Institute announcement of the Stevo's Distinguished Lecture links their biographical note to this article: Please read more about Prof. Stevo Todorcevic here. I've asked them to link the note to the far better https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevo_Todor%C4%8Devi%C4%87 instead.--79.101.205.204 (talk) 14:23, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
 * One, a pretty good, idea was given here--79.101.205.204 (talk) 14:36, 25 May 2023 (UTC)