Talk:Sylvain Cappell

Biographical details
Someone recently changed the birth year for this person, and I looked for a source to confirm. All I found was contradictory information. In particular, a "reliable source" (the new york times) indicates this person is female. I suspect this source is wrong since a conference abstract gives a brief bio of this person using masculine pronouns (but that same conference abstract listed the year as 20001, so apparently accuracy is not highly valued in several of this person's communities). In any case, it would be good to get a source for the biographical details. JackSchmidt (talk) 19:05, 11 January 2009 (UTC)


 * A quick web search shows 1946 as the only attested-to date. I'm not sure what you're referring to about the NYT. Searching the NYT shows them clearly referring to him as male ("Mr. Cappell", "him" ). As did Ron Howard in Time magazine. Sylvain is a French male name. Perhaps you found some article I couldn't turn up where some copyeditor confused the name with the female name "Sylvia" more common in the U.S. -- Undomelin (talk) 16:38, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Status of circle problem
I have added to the claim that the paper of Cappell and Shaneson on the circle problem is being vetted by experts. I know of no expert who is currently vetting the paper. The experts with whom I have discussed the paper have never taken it seriously.
 * Even it the experts were actually vetting anything, the Wikipedia ban on using a crystal ball would be applicable.
 * The experts have been at work since 2008. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.248.205 (talk) 11:55, 15 December 2014 (UTC)