User:Point-set topologist

I am a mathematician; see my entry on this page (the 8th entry under "Active Participants P-Z") for more information about my interests. I am certain that one day all mathematicians will read Wikipedia, both for inheriting knowledge and research, and I will be proud to have participated in the project. I myself use Wikipedia for inheriting knowledge (the phrase "you learn something new each day" is justified in this respect). At the moment, most articles are inadequate for research purposes but I am sure that Wikipedia will improve in this respect.

My contributions here mainly consist of improving the opening paragraphs of Wikipedia articles, and answering questions at the reference desk, and in particular Reference desk/Mathematics. In Wikipedia, the opening paragraphs of articles are often somewhat dry and fail to adequately describe the concept in question. My goal, when I come across an article, is to rewrite its opening paragraph. I enjoy doing this, but rarely (if at all) will my opening paragraph be sufficient. I attempt merely to introduce the concept to a reader interested in knowing the concept's place in mathematics, and often it is the case that I do not sufficiently describe this. I am certain, however, that someone will eventually write a perfect opening paragraph, and at least this will give me the satisfaction that a part of what I have written was used in constructing such perfection.

As enjoyable as it is, writing opening paragraphs is not easy for me and requires an almost perfect understanding of the concept's place in its field, and in mathematics. Rarely will I have this undestanding. Therefore, I perhaps spend more time answering questions at the reference desk. Although 90% of questions at the reference desk require knowledge no more than undergraduate level to answer, there are often difficult questions asked there. The best part of finding a difficult question at the reference desk, lies in the fact that you are to expect, with certainty, an answer of the finest quality following it. This is perhaps the most enjoyable part of answering questions at the reference desk; reading the answers that follow.

Unfortunately, however, I do sometimes run into conflicts at the reference desk, in particular. I try as best I can to learn from these conflicts if I am to blame, or to approach them with minimal bias when I feel that I am not to blame, but of course I am not perfect. If you wish to note a conflict with which I have been involved, please do so on my talk page. Note, however, that more often than not, my primary purpose at the reference desk is to help other people; thus, if you think a comment of mine was inappropriate, please attempt to see its primary motive first.

I sign my posts as " PS T " when contributing to Reference desk/Mathematics, and when making comments on talk pages in general.

I am also a Rollbacker; one of 4,849 rollbackers on the English Wikipedia, as of November 2009.

List of articles
The following is a list of articles in algebra and topology to which I have (significantly) contributed (or at least the list of articles to which I can remember contributing). The purpose of this list is to ensure that I keep track of improvements to the articles (my watchlist does not allow me to do so because it is convoluted with many other articles from other disciplines).

Analysis

 * Baire set

Algebra

 * Ring (mathematics)
 * Quasiregular element
 * Jacobson radical
 * Nakayama's lemma
 * Jacobson density theorem
 * Simple module
 * Nil ideal
 * Nilpotent ideal
 * Levitzky's theorem
 * Sylow theorems
 * Three subgroups lemma (and a redirect, Hall-Witt identity)
 * Perfect group (in particular, the section on Grün's lemma)
 * Separable extension

Topology

 * Open set
 * Compact space
 * Net (mathematics)

Number theory

 * Fundamental theorem of arithmetic

Articles to get to FA

 * Ring (mathematics)


 * Covering space


 * Fundamental group


 * Manifold


 * Differentiable manifold


 * Homology


 * As of January, 2009 there is a featured article nomination for Vector space. Feel free to participate there. There is also a featured article nomination for Mayer-Vietoris sequence.